A Little Bit of Everything + The Winner Announced!

I just can't resist adding a few more of my favorite things, since I had so much fun reading all of your favorite things! Of course, I snagged the first bunch of tulips that I could find. Shocked, aren't you?

I have two new favorite bands that I just can't get enough of; The Decemberists and Mumford & Sons. Love love love new (to me!) bands.

February, at our house, is known as Love Month. The first 14 days of the month have special designations such as, We Love Breuklyn Day or We Love Our Teachers Day. Sprinkled into the mix is a day to make Valentine's Day cards and a day to make Valentine's Day Rainbow Cupcakes.

Of course this means two things. 1. I get to buy exorbitant amounts of sprinkles and not feel guilty about it. 2. Everyone wants to know who gets to be honored on February 1st. Oh, the things we worry about over here.

This year, Paiz gets the honor. She has decided to acquiesce to my ranting and raving about potty training therefore she has been awarded the February 1st honor. You can read all about my adventures over at Scrapbook.com where I am also giving away a $20.00 Scrapbook.com gift certificate.

All you need to do is leave a comment over at Scrapbook.com about something hilarious that has happened to you this month. Day Two of potty training and Paiz is losing interest fast. I need the entertainment. Desperately. Trust me.

Even though I told my kids that we might get started on Valentine's cards, I have decided that I lied. I am happily working on my own projects and they will just have to wait. I am so up for the Mean Mother of the Year award. And it's only January.

Thank you thank you thank you for all of the fun comments on my 400th post!! I am working my way through and having a blast checking out your blogs. My little troublemaker was more than happy to choose our winner.

Sara Zenger said...

WOW! Thats a wonderful pile of Scappy Goodness! =) Congrats on the 400 posts - I enjoy them so keep up coming!

Right now I am enjoying my new book "House Rules" by Jodi Picoult, Pandora on my iPhone, a new recipe for Oatmeal cookies I make tonight and a day filled with scrapbook friends this weekend!

Glad you back Estee! Thanks for the give away and I posted it on my blog www.sarazenger.blogspot.com

January 28, 2011 7:25 PM

Sara, send me an email at EsteeLynn(at)gmail(dot)com with your address and I will get your package in the mail tomorrow.

I have got lots and lots of fun Valentine's Day posts planned. There is enough sugar to get you through until September, so be sure to check back. Happy almost February!

October Things I Love

October brings two whole weeks of Fall Break, which means lots and lots of excitement with the monkeys.
Plus a few real monkeys that we got to check out at the Nashville Zoo. (Did you like that little segway? Nice, right?) I am also pondering exactly why it is that I continue taking pictures of the animals at the zoo. Why? What exactly am I planning on doing with all of the pictures? I don't even like nature.

Now here is a pictures of something I do understand. Pure bliss. I have been to Starbucks three times this week. I actually got an email from Starbucks announcing that the Pumpkin Spice Lattes were back. I don't know if I should be excited about this or mortified that I needed a notification. Jury is still out.

Breuklyn got her ears pierced when Carolyn was here, approximately 6-ish weeks ago. Breuklyn has been spending a lot of time deciding just what earrings she will be trying out once she is allowed to remove the original ones. A girl who is obsessed with earrings is definitely a kindred spirit. Plus, I love that a promised trip to Claire's will result in a clean room and a neatly made bed.

We have been to two pumpkin patches and amassed a total of 12 pumpkins that are hanging out with the mums on the front porch. A trip to the pumpkin patch is absolutely one of my favorite things about October. Brad just wants to know what I am going to do with all of the pumpkins.

Maddux is obsessed with word searches lately. He will sneak into his room with his word search book and stay happily entertained for hours. It is glorious. Plus, it reminds me of Nan. She absolutely loved word searches. Whenever she would complete one, she would write a little note at the top of the page. She would include the date, what the weather was like that day and a little note about her day. She might write, "65 degrees today, making vegetable soup for dinner." When I told Maddux this, he decided that he would include what he was wearing along with the date. "Tuesday. Batman pajamas." Nan would be proud.

October brings cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. I found a Madeleine Pan at a yard sale for 50 cents and just knew that my first attempt would be Martha Stewart's Orange-Cardamom Madeleines. They were absolutely perfect with a cup of tea.

October brings lots of fun to our house. I wanted to take a picture of Paizlee's turquoise leggings, but I got distracted by her (as she calls it) "ballet hair." We have been just loving the weather, the glorious 2 weeks free of commitments and the smell of cinnamon. Life is good at our house. How about yours?

Sometimes...

Sometimes everything just.falls.apart. It just did. And I didn't know how to put it back together again. But here I am.

Hi.

Bottles Half Full

Yesterday I spent a much needed break wandering through the antique stores in Bell Buckle. For a million different reasons this past week has been tough and my attitude needed an adjustment. I found happiness in an Iced Chai Latte and dozens of vintage bottles.

After a little bath the bottles were ready to go.

I also found happiness in this antique tray that was once inside of a trunk. I am envisioning piles of vintage Christmas ornaments being displayed. I already have all of my fall decorations out, so in my mind, Christmas is just around the corner. :)

After sorting the bottles and jars into each of the sections...

I filled a few of them with water. Which Paizlee promptly drank. So I filled them with water again.

After a few added sprigs of Limonium, my creation was complete. I love the way that the glass catches the sunlight coming in through my living room window. Happiness, in the form of beams of light, is refracted across the room. This week will be better.

3 Days And Counting...

Until we leave for vacation! We haven't had a family vacation in, um, years. Years! My to do list is a million miles long and the pattern seems to be: check one thing off, add three more.

One of the things that I have been working on is Mosh Posh projects for July! I love October Afternoon, so it is easy to love this kit.

What are you up to today?

The January BLAHS and talk of teeth

Christmas is over. Sigh. I am at a loss as to what to do with myself. There really is no need to bake cookies, although that really shouldn't stop me. I don't have any gifts to wrap. No surprise outings with the kids. Sigh. I don't like January. I suffer from the post-Christmas letdown. Oh yes, it's quite serious. I am thinking about reorganizing the crawlspaces in the attic. Send help immediately.

Breuklyn, on the other hand, is loving January. She is back to school as of Monday, which makes her happy. She has also lost her 3rd tooth. Prior to the massive exodus of her teeth, she had a perfect smile. Perfect teeth, absolutely perfect. Not so much anymore. Her bottom teeth, once she lost her baby teeth, have come in crooked because there just isn't room in there for them. We are now anticipating braces. Fun times.

She is now left with the one wiggly tooth on the top. Since it has all the room in the world to just hang out, that is exactly what it is doing. It's just hanging there, diagonally, in her mouth. Taunting me with what used to be the most perfect smile ever. Oh the entertainment.

Anything exciting going on in your world? I am planning on going antique shopping tomorrow. I've got to do something to entertain myself. Anyone want to go shopping?

Maddux Says + Winners!

Overheard this evening:

Breuklyn: Maddux! We should build a super secret fort in your room. Just for kids, no grown-ups.

Maddux: Yes! And we should turn off the 'lectricity and use the dark-tricity instead because then we can use flashlights!

And...

Lal (I will convince you to love glitter!), Melissa S and Susan are the winners of the Pink Paislee Pixee Stix! YAY!!! Send me an email: EsteeLynn (at) gmail.com and I will mail them to you on Monday. (and let me know if you have a color preference!)

Have a great weekend everyone! Anything fun planned?

Season Finale of Project Runway!

I love, love, love Leanne Marshall. I think she should definitely win. Her design aesthetic is amazing and I like her as a person.

I'm counting down over here! Who do you want to win?

I {Heart} Aggravating my Husband

I am seriously considering buying this t-shirt for all three of my innocent children just to aggravate my dear, sweet husband. He hates Obama. I hate McCain. It's fun times over here. In case you need to aggravate someone that you love, I found this shirt at cafepress.com. I swear if they had this shirt in my size, I would wear it. Wouldn't my neighbors be thrilled?

Do you ChaCha?

Ok, I am flat out obsessed with ChaCha. Have you heard of this company? You can text them 24-7 with any question that you can come up and they will text you back with the answer. Just text any question to 242242 and it is like having someone do all the Googling for you!

Yesterday I used them to get directions to the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, the address and phone number of a business I was looking for, information on Joe Biden and when Brad and I saw a new hotel we texted to ask how much a room was per night. Oh, I also got a few Ohio State jokes just to aggravate Brad. Seriously, the best thing ever.

Carolyn is obsessed too, so it isn't just me. You should try it! It is a free service, you just have to pay for the text messages if your cell plan requires you to. Come on, you know you want to!

Yes, I am stalking you, thanks for asking

I have one of those nifty blog tracker things that tells me how people find my blog. (Hi, mom! I see you!) It is always intriguing to see the Google keywords that land people here. For example:

- runny cherry pie (more cornstarch?)
- ginormous doll houses (for your ginormous dolls?)
- 57 breuklyn (is that anything like Heinz 57?)
- how to unpack while your kids are in the house? (um... make husband do it? I hate unpacking)
- cheesy grins (oh yeah, I've got some of those)
- painted ohio state barn star (um, hello! Ohio State fans must go elsewhere. It's Estee's Law)
- anonymous email insults (see above comment)
- sorry estee (no worries random stranger in Paris, France)
- estee baker (ooohhhh... someone stalking down my maiden name... intriguing)

Thankfully all of the google hits that I get are pretty tame. I get lots and lots of hits from scrapbook related stuff and the most common one is "how to spell forte." Yes, that's right, I am the go to person on how to spell forte. My dad will be so proud.

What kind of random google hits do you get?

Estee 0 Garbage Can 1

Totally crashed into the garbage can while zooming down the driveway yesterday on the way to the airport. Classic Estee move.

My Mom flew back home and the kids and I are sad.

I'll be back tomorrow with an old-fashioned banana pudding recipe. Yum.

Counting down the moments until Project Runway! Yippee!!

A Little Light Reading...

I stole this from my friend Angela's blog.

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed."

I bolded the books that I have read...

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12.Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye -JDSalinger
19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - my favorite book of all time!
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - I seriously love Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Maddening Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

I have read 62 of the 100 listed here. Yikes! I need to get out more! How many have you read? I am guessing that Elizabeth will have a higher number than I do, anyone else?

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I am busy playing with the July Mosh Posh kit, but I took the time yesterday to make these super yummy lemon cupcakes for Nan's birthday party at the Alzheimer's Care Facility. Yum. Yum. Yum. I will be back with a recipe for the cupcakes and lots of new layouts! I am also in charge of the webisode this month at Mosh Posh, so there will be a video of me! Yikes! So you can all see just what a goofball I am in real life!

Scattergories Tag!

I keep getting tagged, so I guess I need to do this! :)


Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things...nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial You CAN NOT use your name for the boy/girl name question. Send it on to 3 other people for them to put it in their blogs. Tag you're it!

WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Estee
Four- (4)-LETTER words: Ever, Easy, Earn, Each
VEHICLE: Explorer
TV SHOW: Eli Stone
CITY: Erie, Pennsylvania
BOY Name: Everett
GIRL Name: Emma
OCCUPATION : Engineer
SOMETHING YOU WEAR: Eyeglasses
FOOD: Eggs
SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Eyeliner
SONG TITLE: Everlasting Love
SPORTS TEAM: Eagles

I love Scattergories. It is a family favorite!!! My favorite Scattergories moment was when the game called for a desert that started with the letter "b" and my mom said, "Boston Cream Pie" thinking that it had said dessert. Ahhh, the memories.

I've Been Tagged!

1. What is your occupation? Entertainment Committee for three young children

2. What color socks right now? No socks, just flip flops

3. What are you listening to right now? I can hear the kids singing along to the Dora the Explorer CD upstairs

4. What was the last thing that you ate? Swedish Fish

5. Can you drive a stick shift? Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! That would be a NO.

6. If you could be a color what color would you be? Teal

7. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My mom

8. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes, of course!

9. Favorite food? Italian

10. Favorite drink? Diet Pepsi

11. What is your favorite sport to watch? College Football. GO BLUE!!!

12. Have you ever dyed your hair? No. Weird, right?

13. Pets? I don't do well with pets, so, no.

14. Favorite Author? Hemingway or Tolstoy, too hard to choose just one

15. Last movie you watched? Message in a Bottle

16. Favorite Day of the year? Thanksgiving

17. What do you do to vent anger? Bake

18. What was your favorite toy as a child? My Barbies and all of the fun clothes that they had

19. What is your favorite time of year? Fall

20. Strawberry or Blueberry? Strawberry

21. Do you want your friends to participate? Yes :)

22 Who is most likely to respond? No idea

23. Who is least likely to respond? No clue

24. Living arrangements? Brad (husband) + 3 kids

25. When was the last time you cried? While watching Message in a Bottle. Don't judge!

26. Who is the friend you had the longest that you are going to tag? Patrizzia :)

27. Who is the friend you have had the shortest that you are going to tag? No idea

28. Favorite smell? Lilac

29. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? Yes. :)

30. Favorite car? Um... one that gets me where I am going?

31. Favorite Quote or motto? Optima dies... prima fugit. (The best days are the first to flee)

32. Number of keys on your key ring? 12 or 13

33. How many years at your current job? Let's see... Breuklyn is 5, so 5 years

34. Favorite day of the week? Thursday

35. How many states have you lived in? 2

36. Which political label most closely reflects your views? Um. I plead the 5th.

37. Worst injury you've ever had? Fractured arm. Yes, that's it. No broken bone for me.

38. What is your favorite book? War and Peace

39. What were you doing at 12:00 last night? Laundry, ironing and listening to the new Augustana CD on my iPod

40. Famous person, dead or alive, that you would most like to meet? Hemingway

-------------------------------------------------------

1. Three interesting/random/cool facts about you that your scrap friends probably don't know: a) I have attended session at the European Union
b) I have a tattoo
c) I hate milk, it's just gross

2. Three favorite bands/artists:
a) Sara Bareilles
b) The Fray
c) Feist

3. Three places you have never been to and wish to travel:
a) Tuscany
b) Alaska
c) Napa Valley

Well, that's it! Thanks Delaine, that was fun! :)

Tornadoes in Suffolk, Virginia

My parents' house, or what is left of it, is on CNN. Positive thoughts please.

Darby's Day Out

This is Darby. Darby Barbie. Since Breuklyn got a Barbie/Doll House for her birthday and all of the accompanying Barbies to fill the house, I have been finding Miss Darby in the most bizarre locations. Here is Darby sitting precariously on her fingertips while watching Brad remove the 4(!) wasp nests that have magically appeared in the window frame. Doesn't she look intrigued? Or maybe she's feeling a little miffed that Breuklyn didn't bring her along to the soccer/golf/t-ball pandemonium that is taking place in the backyard. Those Darby's... so tough to keep entertained. She'd better watch out though because in about 17 minutes, Maddux is going to try to bury her in a hole that he so kindly dug just for her.

I Love a Little Construction in the Morning

Ahhh... plumbing issues. You've gotta love it.

HELP! Can you name these plants?

It is kind of entertaining to enjoy spring in a new house, especially when the backyard erupts in a myriad of colors. I would like to sustain these beautiful plants and I think that the first step would be figuring what the heck they are. The above picture is from a smallish tree in my backyard. It is really pretty and makes me ridiculously happy.

This is some kind of ginormous bush/thing that is growing behind my house. It is actually taller than my house and sorta kinda intimidating.

This is one of six small bushes that are growing around the tree in the first picture. Yeah, the picture is blurry. The thing tried to bolt while I attempted to take it's picture. Camera shy.

If you can tell me some info about these, I will love you forever and ever, or at least until tomorrow afternoon.