Recent Randoms

Just dropping in real quick today to do a post on some recent randoms that have been happening lately.

Look at my sweet girl - I love her so much!

A few weeks ago my mom and I babysat my cousin Savannah. She's just so cute :)

She loved chewing on ice!

My family and I went bike riding a few Saturdays ago. We have never just gone and rode bikes for exercise. And we rode for 8 miles. I don't know what was wrong with us - ha! It was hot, but I definitely got in a good workout.

After a rough and rainy start to summer, we've had pretty good weather this past week. It's been hot, but rain-free.

I'm still dealing with my wisdom teeth removal. I'm getting a little better each day. I was happy that I didn't get too swollen, and the little swelling I did experience was easily covered up with a little bronzer and highlighter :) In fact, the day after I got them out my mom and I went out to Rookwood and had lunch at First Watch. I hadn't been expecting to be able to get out that soon. I got fruit crepes which were easy to chew and super delicious after a day of all liquid food.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately too. I just finished up these two books - Confessions of a Shopaholic and Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe. I really enjoyed them both since they were both based on topics I love - shopping and baking!

This has been my view for the last few days. In fact, I'm sitting in bed with Coco at my feet as I type this.

I mentioned in one of my other recent posts (here) that I bit the bullet and finally bought a bubble necklace. I had always liked them, but I never wanted to pay the money because I didn't think I would get much wear out of it. I thought that such a large statement necklace wouldn't go with a lot and that it would just sit in the back of my closet. Since I got it, I've already worn it twice though. I think it's going to be more versatile than I initially thought. When I put this top on the other day, it needed something, and the bubble was exactly what it needed!

My family and I went Friday night to visit our family friend's new baby. I babysit his sister a lot, so I can't wait to get to be friends with him too!

The last few weeks have been fun and relaxing. Getting my wisdom teeth out wasn't fun, but it gave me a lot of opportunities to chill, which I was grateful for since I haven't done a ton of that this summer. I also got to swim for the first time in Cincinnati this year. I had been swimming on both of my vacations, but not at home! I'm glad the weather is finally turning around.

I hope you all are having as good of a summer as I am!

July Craziness

July has been a fun and busy month so far. I feel like that's how I'd sum up the last few months: crazy busy but fun. And let's be real, life probably won't slow down until I'm 70 and retired. Oh well - I guess we have to live life while we can :)

But anyway, I've got a bunch of iPhone pictures from this month that haven't made the blog yet, so I figured I'd post them and show you what I've been up to. I'll be posting more about my Dominican trip probably on Saturday.

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I've been hanging out and babysitting this little girl a lot over the past few weeks. She just might be one of the sweetest girls. I always get excited when her parents text me and ask if I can watch her.

My Erin Condren Life Planner came in too! I was confused when I had two boxes waiting for me, and I found that they ended up sending me my order as well as someone else's. Oops! I emailed them, and they told me to just keep it all. So I got an extra set of their new colored pens (which I LOVE) as well as the elastics. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with Grandma Sharyn's personalized planner though - ha!

I love the way mine turned out! I know I've said it before, but I think these planners are just the absolute best. I used my one from last year every single day. I would toss it in my backpack for school, and it held up great and still looks fabulous. I will be ordering from Erin Condren for years to come!

We had two 4th of July family parties, so I (of course!) made cupcakes to take with us. I made Red Velvet cupcakes (from scratch) with cream cheese frosting and decorated them with red, white, and blue sprinkles. Now, Red Velvet is my absolute favorite cupcake flavor. If I try a new bakery, I always get their Red Velvet first. Admittedly though, this was only my second time making Red Velvet from scratch and the first time they didn't turn out that good. This Red Velvet recipe I used is definitely one I would use again. In fact I may need to make some more again sooner rather than later :)

I made a few minis with the left over batter. I don't usually make minis, but I loved these. I may have to make minis more often as well.

I think my normal cupcakes turned out pretty cute in the end though.

Coco and I were all decked out in red, white, and blue.

The Friday night after the 4th my parents had a wedding to go to, so I had the whole house to myself. I ate a left over cupcake and caught up on DC Cupcakes and my DVR full of Married to Jonas episodes I hadn't watched. It was glorious because I haven't watched TV like that in soooooo long.

I also ordered a jean jacket recently. It's the KUT from the Kloth brand from Nordstrom in the Sweet Vintage Wash. I had heard amazing things about it from the blog Pinterest Told Me To. If you're not reading that blog, you really should. I always find cute things, and I've been happy with everything I've purchased that's been mentioned on the site. I haven't had a jean jacket though in years, and I think this is so cute and goes with just about everything. It's going to look really cute with my colored jeans this fall!

I wore it over one of my dresses when my family went out to dinner Saturday night.

We met some family friends at Acapulco's (our favorite Mexican restaurant), and then had Dairy Queen afterwards. I always get the Double Fudge Cookie Dough Blizzard. So, so good. It's funny because we went on July 6th, and my mom and I were looking at our 365 pictures from last year, and saw that we went to Acapulco's and DQ with the same friends on July 6, 2012. Apparently it's a July 6 tradition now :)

I've only had the jacket a few days, and I've already worn it twice. IN THE SUMMER! I wore it to church on Sunday because apparently my church thinks that freezing everyone is the thing to do.

The only bummer part of summer so far has been the weather. I have not been swimming in Cincinnati this year so far. It's been raining like crazy, although it looks like it will be clearing up next week. Which is another bummer because I get my wisdom teeth out then. We finally get good swimming weather, and I'll be stuck inside looking like a chipmunk. It's always something, isn't it?

My Mondays have been spent volunteering at Children's Hospital, grabbing lunch there (so happy they have Busken cookies!), and then working the rest of the afternoon. I'm usually a little tired Monday night - ha!

On Tuesday we took my cousins to see Despicable Me 2. I think I may have liked it even more than they did. Normally I'm disappointed with sequels, but Despicable Me 2 may have been even better than the first one in my opinion.

That night my mom and I grabbed dinner at the Cabana, and it was so hot that a strawberry drink was a must!

I also sorted through my makeup this week and found that I apparently have a mascara problem. In my defense, I only paid for two of them, and one of those came in a bargain set. The other tubes were free or gifts. On the plus side, I guess I won't need to purchase any new mascara for a while.

I finally jumped on the bubble necklace bandwagon when I found some marked down to $8 (YES!) at Altar'd State. That is quickly becoming one of my new favorite stores. I had a gift card and went to the new one that opened up by UC on my lunch break. Such a cute and unique store!

That's enough randomness for one post. I hope you are having a good summer like I am!

College Cake Pops & Other Things I've Been Up To.....

I feel so behind on blogging. With catching up on posts about my trip and then just being super busy in general, I haven't had a whole lot of time to blog. Plus I haven't really taken that many pictures recently, so I haven't had a ton of things to share either! So this is just going to be a catch up post.......

I have been going to graduation parties like crazy recently. Last weekend I had five, and last night I went to another one. My first one last weekend was for my friend Amanda who I used to dance with. We don't get to see each other very often anymore, so it's always fun to get together.

I had a cake pop order from my friend Abby for her graduation party last weekend. It was for both her and her sister (who graduated from grade school), so I had to do both Seton and UC cake pops. I will always love doing Seton ones, and it was fun to do UC ones for the first time.

I loved the way the graduation caps turned out!

UC logo!

I tweeted a picture of my UC cake pops, and got a response from the official UC Twitter page - I already feel super welcomed at UC.

I had a few other graduation parties for friends too. I know that buying gifts for parties like that isn't required, but I couldn't bear just showing up empty handed, so I've been making little cake pop bouquets for them. These are 2 UC bouquets for my friends Laura and Erin who are going to UC next year too.

This one is a Mount St. Joe bouquet for my cousin Jessica who graduated from there. I made this to go along with our gift my family got her.

Last night I went to my friend Christina's graduation party and made her Loyola of Chicago cake pops since that's where she's going next year.

When I saw that their mascot is a wolf, I knew I just had to try it out. I'm not one to shy away from something that looks complicated. It didn't turn out perfect, but I was still pretty happy with it.

When I haven't been making cake pops, I've been super busy doing other things!

I've been playing with Coco a lot.

I also went shopping last week and bought my first professional pencil skirt. I am now ready to be a businesswoman - ha! Obviously I won't be wearing it with just a cami, but I couldn't pass up this skirt - it's made really nice and was marked down to $30 at Express. Score!

I have just really been loving Express lately, which is funny because I don't usually shop there and have only a handful of items from there. But I bought this tank a few months ago and just wore it for the first time the other day. I think it is now one of my favorite tops ever, and I expect to be wearing it a lot this summer. I just love the color and fit of this peplum tank!

I think I'm going to stop there and pick up another day soon with some more catching up. Hope you all had a great weekend!

Weekend Fashion Post

While looking over my pictures from the weekend, I realized I had a whole bunch of fashion pictures because I did a lot of shopping this weekend. So I decided to turn this weekend recap into a bit of a fashion post as well.

But first, because I just like to be random around here, I'm starting off with a cute picture of Coco because well, she's cute!

On Saturday night my family and I headed out to the mall to do some shopping. I found a bunch of fun things and added some items to my "keep an eye on" list.

First off, I really wanted a pair of white capris. But my favorite trick to stretch your money a bit? Take a pair of pants, and just roll them up a little bit until they are capri length. Totally easy and it eliminates the need to ever buy capris again! It works best with skinny jeans, but the white ones I ended up getting are a little boot cut, and it still works well!

I also tried on this adorable Michael Kors top that I kind of fell in love with. That's the problem with trying on Michael Kors clothes - so easy to love them, not so easy to hand over the cash for them - ha! I'm going to keep my eye on it though and hope and it goes on sale. The white jeans are INC - my favorite jean brand ever.

I also passed on this giraffe print INC top since it wasn't on sale, but it's definitely staying on my wish list. I'm not finding it on Macy's website, but I just think it's so cute, especially with the little bow belt.

I also checked out the new Lilly Pulitzer store that just opened up in the mall. I love looking around in there, and the store is so nice. The fitting rooms were great too - I took both of these pictures in the fitting room.

When I got home I tried on my new white pants with my favorite Express peplum top and my new graduation shoes. Love how easy and cute this outfit is!

I also want to mention a super cute fashion blog I recently stumbled upon that led me to those yellow wedges (they're Callisto's Tiara Wedge Sandal in Yellow Patent). It's called Pinterest Told Me To. I think it's so fun to read - you should check it out.

I stumbled upon store that I went to the first time over the weekend - Papyrus. It's a paper store with lots of stationary, cards, and wrapping paper. I went in looking for some thank you cards. With graduation coming up, I have a lot of thank you notes to write to teachers and family. I loved all of their cards, and the quality is so great too. I will definitely be buying from them again in the future!

These are the 2 designs I ended up getting. It's hard to tell, but both of them have a little bit of glitter on them, which is always a plus in my book.

I went to Target yesterday and was really pleased with the new line of shoes they have in collaboration with Sam & Libby. Sam & Libby is a shoe brand that has the offshoot Sam Edelman, which is what I was more familiar with initially. I've liked Sam Edelman shoes for a little while, but I've never wanted to shell out the cash for them.

For example, take these shoes. Cute, right? Well, Nordstrom is selling them for $64.95. I'm just not a fan of paying that much money for a pair of sandals.

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Now look at these shoes. These are the Sam & Libby ones that I ended up buying from Target. They look almost identical to the Sam Edelman Nordstrom pair, but the Target ones? Only $24.99. I suggest you check them out at Target because all of the collection was really cute and reasonably priced. Love it!

Hope you all had a great weekend!