Happy birthday, Suki Su!

Yesterday was one of my very best friend's birthdays! My darling Sarah turned 29, and we celebrated in style at La Bocca Pizzeria in Tempe. I decided to drive down just for dinner, and it was really fun to surprise her! Her boyfriend Andy got all of her closest friends together for the dinner party and it was just such a fantasic time. Henry came along too of course, and he was such a good baby. I was a bit stressed bringing him, since La Bocca is one of those restaurants with a quieter ambiance at night- candles, low light, and lots of couples on dates...but he was wonderful and only cried for a short time. Other than that he was in heaven being held, and of course seeing his Auntie Suki. There was a ton of good food, and the evening was topped off with a birthday tiramisu! Everyone else went out in Tempe afterward, but my little man and I hopped back on the I-17 and headed up the mountain home to papa. It was such a fabulous night though, and it made me so, so happy to be able to spend Sarah's birthday with her. She's the kindest, most loyal, wonderful friend in the world and I love putting a smile on her face. Happy birthday to you Sar, I love you always!

Here are a few photos from the evening:

Sunday fun

Sunday is one of my favorite days of the week. I feel like it's such a great, relaxing day and it's always the one day of the week where I don't feel too guilty sleeping in! Today I woke up pretty early, around 7am, and waited for Hank to wake up so we could go to brunch at this place he's been wanting to try. Apparently they have some sort of banana-battered french toast. It's weird but I actually don't like going out to eat for breakfast. It's one of those meals that I really prefer at home, but every once and awhile I'll find a place I like. I'm picky- I typically like non-greasy, egg white omelettes and fresh fruit when I go out for this meal but it's hard to find a good omelette, especially one that isn't greasy and gross. Last time Erin, Alana and Shirl came up we went down to St. Micheal's and the omelette I got was actually REALLY good, probably the best one I've had. This new place though, who knows. So I ate breakfast early in case I couldn't eat anything there, but Hank woke up and actually didn't want to go! We've been hanging out, and we're going to head out on a walk in a bit, do some shopping, and finish some projects around the house.

Yesterday was a really great day too. I woke up super early and got my workout done, and then came up and got Hank and I tickets to see Lady Gaga in July! I haven't always been a fan of hers, but over the past few months I've gotten more and more into her music. Hank has always been a fan (seriously so funny to me), so he's really excited we'll be going. We got great seats as well and I'm looking forward to seeing all of her crazy outfits and costume changes! In the afternoon we went out to Hank's uncle's house for his 50th birthday and it was a lot of fun and Hank's Mom had made the most delicious cupcakes. Chocolate with cream cheese icing and vanilla with dark chocolate fudge icing. MMMM. Afterward we came home and vegged out, and I watched Troop Beverly Hills for the millionth time. I love this movie so, so, so much.



This week is going to be pretty low-key, and I'm looking forward to a really fun weekend with my family next weekend, including hanging out with Ms. Suki. She's had a weekend work schedule so I haven't seen her in a couple of months which makes me sad, but I can't wait for some girltalk. Also, today I got news that Autumn and the fam will be coming up for the 4th of July this year. I'm SO happy and even though it's months away I love having it to look forward to.

I'm off to get things done, but I'll leave you with some photos from this afternoon! xoxo

outfit details-
tube top: H&M
skirt: Cooperative (via Urban Outfitters)
shoes: Marc by Marc Jacobs mouse flats

how SAD does she look?! Poor little Madeline hates photos now apparently.

Oh, Suki!

This is my sweet Sarah. I post about her all of the time, so if you're a regular reader, most of you probably know her. I wanted to share the sweetest thing that she did for me.

I woke up yesterday morning and she had purchased a domain name for me, and set it all up! I was totally surprised. She is so wonderful, and I am so grateful.

What that means for you, dear readers, is that you can either continue to visit this blog via blogger or other blog-reading site, or you can go straight to...

www.sometimessweet.com !!

So awesome!

So, thank you Suki-Su, I love you. :)

Monday thoughts

Today was a good day at work, despite me waking up ONE HOUR late! Ahh! My alarm went off at 6:15am, and I promptly turned it off in my sleep and went right back to bed. I naturally woke up around 7:15 or so which was not good at all, since today was definitely a hair-washing day...and since I already go until the last possible day with doing that, today was day three and kind of pushing the envelope with inappropriately "dirty" hair. So I whipped out my favorite dry shampoo in a frenzy (read one of my blogs about the product here) and starting trying to attempt to fix the semi-greasy mess. Eventually it was to my liking, I quickly put on some makeup and got dressed, grabbed my packed lunch and a banana/oatmeal packet for breakfast...and headed to work around 7:45. Like anyone, I really hate being late in the morning and having that panicky feeling! I mean, who doesn't? But when I got to work it was a pretty good day. It went by really quickly and I found myself home and napping before I knew it!

On my prep hour, I was researching some love poems for a lesson I'm presenting on Thursday, and I got to thinking about the upcoming holiday. I love Valentine's Day! Hank and I are the type of couple that adores any chance to celebrate our love. Many people say that they "don't need specified date out of the year to do that," and I say, "why not?!" When I was little, my Dad would always have Valentine's gifts waiting for my sister and I when we woke up that morning. I specifically remember heart-shaped boxes of candy, little stuffed animals, and always, always a cute card with a sweet message inside. As I got older, the gifts and cards didn't stop, and it may sound silly, but in my teen years when I didn't have a Valentine, receiving these tokens from my father always made me feel a lot better and really special. I'll never forget the first year I was living in Prescott with Hank, my Dad sent me a card that said I would always be his Valentine, even when I already had one. So sweet. Isn't my Dad adorable? :)

This year, Hank and I will be walking down to dinner at our local, downtown (favorite) Indian restaurant, Taj Mahal. During the day I am planning on making some sweet treats for us to enjoy when we get home. I'm torn between a rasberry pie with heart cut outs, or heart-shaped brownie sandwiches. Hmmm...

Tonight Hank has been doing tons of Math homework (YUCK) and I've been getting things done around the house. I hope all of you had a great start to the week! Stay tuned for Tattoo Tuesday, which will be posting at midnight. :)

I also want to wish one of my best friends, little Miss Suki Su aka Sarah Muller, a very happy birthday at midnight (February 9th). She's the belle of my ball, and truly the sweetest little thing I know. I've written many posts about her- click here and here to visit a couple of them- and I just love her to pieces!

So, happy birthday Suki! I love love love you and I'm so happy you were born! ;)

Photos from the weekend!

This weekend was a lot of fun! I got to spend time with so many of my favorite people, do some wedding planning with my sister, and meet my little dog-niece, Cassie!



Chloe! I was in shock at how much she'd grown after not seeing her for a couple of months.


We ate dinner at Pita Jungle, so good!


Afterward we walked next door to the Gelato Spot for some dessert. Autumn is too cute here- she's 8 months pregnant and ready for Carter to arrive.


I also got to do some wedding planning with Lauren and Abe! We checked out The Antique Wedding House in Mesa, AZ and they decided to get married there. It's adorable and is going to be perfect!






Abe and his Mom, and Laur and our Mom! I love this.


Later I went over to Sar's house to meet their new babygirl Cassie! I fell in love with her and spent the entire evening holding her and loving her so much! Isn't she adorable?!


eating Jenny's hair!


sleeping...


cutest


She has sooo much extra skin, it's so cute.

Wednesday

I feel like I've been so busy lately, and I am literally counting down until the weekend! My darling Autumn and her family have finally moved home to Arizona, and I cannot even express how happy I am to have them so much closer than California. They just moved into their new home in North Scottsdale this past weekend, so I am heading down Friday to spend time with them. Autumn's daughter Chloe is my goddaughter and I'm stoked I get to be a lot more present in her life! They are expecting their second baby on Valentine's Day and I can't wait to meet the little guy. I think the rest of our gal pals will be hanging out too and I'm super excited. Then Saturday morning I'm going with my sister and the ladies in our/Abe's family to check out the wedding venue they're interested in. If you know me, you know I love love love event planning, so I am looking forward to helping out, and being the best "Matron of Honor" there ever was. The day after Laur got engaged I was already researching colors and ideas for her, and getting together bridal shower brainstorming sheets. I'm such a nerd. After we get done with wedding stuff I'll be heading over for a much needed little day with Sar when she gets off work. Dinner, hangouts...and I'm getting to meet my little "niece," Suki's new puppy! Sar and her boyfriend Andy adopted a beautiful little red-nose/staffy girl and she looks like such an angel...see?




Sarah and I had a nice long little text-talk last night about some stuff that's been going on, and as always she is the most supportive friend in the whole world. We always joke that we know each other better than we know ourselves and it's so true that it's crazy. That's what happens when you've gone through such crazy things together, for close to a decade. I love her. It's such a beautiful thing to have someone in your life who knows every single little detail about everything, seen you in every phase and every stage of life, good and bad, and loves you all the same. I was emailing with my friend Emily today, and she wrote something that really struck me (Em if you read this I hope you don't mind I throw in a little quote)- but she said "As I have gotten older, I have definitely learned to embrace the uniqueness of each and every female friendship in my life. It's like each woman I am friends with, plays such a distinct and huge role in her own way - it's pretty cool." This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've always been surrounded by awesome females. I really cherish the fact that as I've gotten older, I've been able to keep a lot of my friends from the past that have kind of grown with me, and also make some new, awesome friends that have brought so many wonderful things to my life. I have close friends at work, I have great friends from high school, I have friends that grew up in Prescott, I have my "best" friends I've known forever and ever. Each of these women are so different, and the older I get the more I realize that each person I meet does in fact play a distinct role, like my wonderful friend Emily so eloquently stated. As I move into this next phase of my life, things change a bit. In fact, I've already felt them change, just from thinking about where we want to be in the next year or two. Things that were important aren't so important anymore. My priorities and the way I spend my time has shifted. And as I change, the women in my life will also be changing. It's interesting to think of the places we will all be at in a year, and it's neat to know I have all of these amazing personalities and souls to fit into every aspect of my life. I'm grateful.

Tonight has been a good night. Hank and I have been having little "date nights" every night this week, which makes my heart so full. Now that he is working a full schedule at work and school (thankfully this semester won't begin until the end of this month) we have to really make time for each other during the weekdays, since he gets home around 5 , and then has school and music/design stuff to do. It's insane, so every second of my time after I get off work is devoted to enjoying each other's company! I definitely miss the days of getting home from work and laying around all night without a care in the world, but this is a new phase, and although things are different, they are also so exciting! So tonight when Hank got off work we headed to the gym for a workout, and then we did dinner at home and watched Biggest Loser until he had to go to practice. I just finished up some necessary grading, and when I wrap up this post I will be reading a bit then heading to sleep as well. Tomorrow I am hanging out with my darling Amber Joy and I'm so happy! I haven't seen her for a couple of days with all the craziness of the week, and she leaves Friday, and I'm so, so glad we get one more hangout in.

I hope all of you had a great day! I'll leave you with a couple of photos from today's outfit. I added a cardigan to this dress to make it work (tattoo) appropriate. Have a wonderful night!

"Mental Health Day"

I am very happy I took tomorrow off. I consider it a "mental health day," and I will be working on my mental health via shopping all day! I have a huge Christmas list of gifts to buy and I am excited to start checking things off of my list. Then, it's bff night with Suki! We are planning on seeing "Brothers" during one of the earlier showings, and then going to dinner and hanging out all night. I am hoping frozen yogurt is in the plan. Even though we live two hours apart we manage to spend a lot of time together, and I feel very lucky about this. We've been close for a long, long time and have seen each other through just about every season of our lives, which is awesome. When I write about her, I'll go back and forth between calling her Suki and Sarah, and both mean her! It's funny but we both call each other Suki- it's a name that originated a long time ago, during one of our crazy nights, and it's stuck. Suki, Sukisu, Sukisuki...it's all the same. I love her so much and it's so awesome because her and Hank are very close too since we all spend so much time together. I just love her so much and words can't really even begin to express how I appreciate her. Besides Hank and my sister, she is one of the few, few people who know me inside and out...and I love that. She literally knows me better than I know myself most of the time. Sarah is such a great person and I feel lucky to have in her in my life forever. :)

This definitely calls for a little photo journey! I have a million and a half photos of us from so many different occasions so I will just share the first ten or so I pull up.

How funny are these old photos of us? We are maybe 20 here? I am loving my little chubby face! haha




at my first graduation (B.A. in English) from NAU in 2004



And here we are, a little more up to date over the past few years-

Last summer


country dancing!


enjoying a pretty day outdoors


hula hooping at a 4th of July party


enjoying brunch on a Sunday morning


chaperoning one of the high school's Proms with me! Don't we look proper ;)


rollerskating!



this fall






and on Halloween...she was my captain!


So, what are your weekend plans? Are any of you planning to see Brothers? I have been looking forward to it forever, and I am very very excited about it. Here's the trailer in case you haven't heard about it yet.



Have a wonderful Thursday night!

What a weekend!

Oh my, this past weekend was just so much fun! Friday night I spent a quiet night in, in preparation for an insane workout Saturday morning and friends coming into town Saturday night. Our workout Saturday AM was intense. Robyn and I spent about two hours doing a combination of plyos and cardio and although it was pretty hellish while we were doing it, I love working out so it's a love/hate kinda thing. Afterward we walked down to the coffee shop had a yummy breakfast of oatmeal and green tea and then went shopping for awhile. Later that day Suki got into town and we started getting ready for the evening, and then Crystal got up to Prescott about an hour later. Robyn brought over some yummy fruit, etc and we had a little girl's party which turned into a girl's dance party, which turned into downtown bar hopping, which turned into a Hot Skin show, which turned into one of the most fun nights ever.

Here are some photos -

10 year friendship anniversary! So fun.


I wore one of my all-time favorite skirts :)




in Hank's office








Harry Potter dance party? Okay.


me, wearing one of my WINTER COATS! yay!








Many a broken toenail...ugh. How did each of my toes get smashed?


Portland/Prescott


Suki Su!


Crystal and me




The next day we spent the afternoon downtown having lunch with Tyler and Hank, then having girltalk in bed until my gal pals went home. I was sad to see them go, but in two weeks we shall be reunited for some good times.

Good morning!


Downtown-walking