An addict of Pinterest. I had wondered about it and even asked all about it in this post. I found out about it and realized I should never join because I would love it waaaaay too much. So I had postponed joining for a couple months now. My friend M* from school kept getting on and tempting me to join during the WORST MOST UNORGANIZED CLASS EVER. So I seriously needed something to do while the professor rambled (and still is rambling in class now) on and remakes our assignments and syllabus. SO I...
Pinned a few things. a few in my vocabulary must mean a hundred.
Addicted.
I became addicted immediately. I just pinned, pinned, and pinned but I was afraid I would never actually do or achieve any of the ideas/things I ever pinned! So I did something I actually pinned! Now I am going to share I guess more like brag that I actually got to do something I wanted to do not had to do (school has been taking over my life with all these projects).
Relief Society Visiting Teaching Handout/Treat:
I used this cute printable of the September Visiting Teaching message (that I pinned on pinterest here) then I used a different cute tag printable here to put on the outside of my little treat for the women I visit teach.
The finished product! I used 2 of my pins for this!
Halloween Decor: There is so much Halloween decor on Pinterest, so many dang cute ideas I want to do throughout the month of October. This is my first one (and a VERY easy one).
I bought this frame at D.I. for $1. I then used scrapbook paper as the backing behind the Halloween printable (since my frame I thought was a 4x6 ended up being like a 4.5x6.5). The Halloween printable I used is pinned here.
All of these are super simple. I did all of these in literally less than an hour (and I made 3 of the Visiting Teaching little treats and 4 of the Halloween frames).
Moral of this post: Don't just pin, but go and actually do what you pin and create!
My toes are chilly in my sandals which means it is time to pull out the fall boots and clothes and put the swimsuit cover ups away. I feel more and more like soup instead of ice cream. The leaves are no longer green but yellow. I have to wear a sweater at night to keep myself from freezing. This all means it is now officially Fall.
As many of you know I have mentioned this many times before I kind of like making lists. This summer I had a list of fun activites in my phone called "Summery Fun" for Matson and I to do together. I did the same for fall but actually made it cute and I hope to check all of these things off this fall!
Feel free to print this list out and use it this Fall! I am going to print it out and post it on our fridge or maybe frame it and use a dry erase marker to check each thing off each year!
My husband is a victim of this disorder. He truly is. Need proof? OHH man do I have it (and this is only the ones on my laptop).
This was when we were dating, before we were even ever engaged.
Yeah, it was bright at the Salt Flats on a July day but honestly there are 100+ pictures of me with my eyes wide open. Why couldn't he?
This is the typical matson picture - all posed but no eyes.
Ok so not totally closed, but still not totally open!
Not quite sure if this was on purpose or not?
I told you he has it, the Closed Eyes in Photographs Disorder. AND if you didn't laugh while looking at those then something is wrong with you i am sorry but there really is something wrong with you because that is flat out h to the ous.
Even though he is the victim of the disorder, I believe that I take most of the heat. Every time I upload my camera BAM! his eyes are shut. But really it just makes me laugh.
Are you a victim of this disorder too or know someone who is?
I am so sorry that you have to suffer with it or deal with someone ruining your pictures all the time. You can vent or laugh with me (by leaving me a comment or something).
That's right a three year old's perspective. A couple weeks ago I brought the little gangsta over to my parent's house to swim. We usually swim with her older brothers and friends/cousins too, but since Elementary school had started it was just us two.
We always take pictures of her swimming or videos of her swimming by herself to send to her mom on the iPhone. This day I had my real camera and let her take for a few minutes, later that night I looked at the pictures and could not help myself from laughing.
This summer I nannied (not a word, but it is in my book) and I still am. I love it. Such a great job where you get wonderful experience in the Mommy Department along with some fun filled days and some big laughs too. Anyway...I nanny for a cute family with three children: two boys and a little girl. We do lots of things together and just this week we came up with some good nicknames for each other. Let's just say I am no longer Erica to them, but you are all now reading the writings of Ice Cube who nannies M&M (the oldest boy), Deejay (the middle boy), and little Gangsta (youngest sis). So here is a little bit of our summer through my iPhone pictures.
We went swimming almost every day this summer that I worked:
Little Gangsta (on the right) with her cute cousin (on the left).
And almost every day that we swam it ended like this:
All 3 dead asleep in the back of my car. Too cute! Why are children so cute when they are sleeping?
Funny thing is I have a picture just like the above one from one of last year's long swimming days:
Their mom went out of town for a week and they missed her so much. The day she was going home they were so excited and we decided to make her a HUGE sign in the garage (not only fun for their mom to see when she got home but for them it was a fun project that took up 2 whole hours, they were very dedicated to finishing it...You could do this with your children or future children just for when Dad comes home from work).
Little Gangsta standing by our big cool colored sign!
Little Gangsta lately has been way into singing. I thought I would share just a few of my favorite videos.
Dynamite sung by Little Gangsta. Nothing better then when she sings "AIR" at 10 seconds.
"I Love You Like A Love Song" sung by her again (and a little bit of me...she forgets the words sometimes even though it repeats over and over again so that's when I step in to help).
And nothing is better about being a nanny then turning the corner and seeing Deejay with his friend looking like this:
Star Wars friends.
We even like to spend 15+ minutes organizing our animals in to 2's like Noah and the Ark.
All in all, I love my job. It honestly is the perfect job for me, I am very grateful. The summer was fun to be with them all day and now that they are all in school (even me) it is still fun to get done with a long day of classes and come get some good laughs with them!
We were at my friend J*'s wedding (which I posted about here) and my cousin (whose photography blog/website is here) was her photographer. She also was my wedding photographer. We were waiting for J* and her freshly new husband to come out of the door. My cousin needed to test lighting and such, so we snapped this shot:
Although we look more like a political couple, it still looks a lot like this shot:
I think we now have a new tradition. Every year around our anniversary (this was less than a week after our 1 year anniversary), I think we will go take this shot. A little weird? Yes it is, it especially will be when we are 70 years old walking out of the temple. Am I being serious? I don't know. I guess we will see next year, won't we?
Yes, it was my best friend's wedding BUT no, her wedding did not have a love triangle like the classic movie My Best Friend's Wedding.
It was a great fun day to share with my buddy J* and her new hubs S*.
But the week of I held a shower for the bride! Here are a few pics from it:
The Food. Important part of a shower.
Homemade scones. YUM! And the little paper pom poms. This was my first time making these pom poms and super easy. I just used pink tissue paper & newspaper to go with the Grey & Pink theme.
Watermelon and Fruit Dip!
Cookie Cookies. Just made these easy little Food Labels on Word.
The Watering Hole.
The silverware/vintage plates
A cake I made. First time ever making a cake like this. Kind of bad but enough, right eh? But super easy for making a cake! And really more of a decoration and for looks because not very many people eat cakes.
Me and J* after the shower!
Saturday was the wedding day. Here are few pictures of pretty J* in her dress and all of us bridesmaids!
It was a little bit windy...
It was loads of fun to catch up with friends!
Thanks J* & S* for a fun, beautiful day! We know you will be so happy together forever!
We woke up in the morning, wished each other a Happy 1 Year of Marriage!, got our bags, and headed to the dining room for our last breakfast on the ship. It was so fun we got seated with our ush (usual) waiters, Mario and JR, and got to see them and then say goodbye to them once again! After breakfast we went up to a table on the Lido deck and played cards until our number was called to get off the ship. That was kind of a process. We got off the ship, took a taxi to the airport, then waited at the airport a while until our flight left.
We spent our ACTUAL anniversary traveling back home, but really the whole week was like an anniversary celebration! I can't believe we have been married a year (and a month now, since I am blogging about this a month late...oops).
Well friends, that is the end of the cruise posts. If you want to ask me more questions about our cruise to the Caribbean, tips, or whatever just "call me, beep me, if you wanna reach me" thank you Kim Possible...but really you can facebook me, text, comment, whatevs!
St. Maarten (or St. Martin) The smallest land mass in the world to be controlled by two different countries, the French and the Dutch.
Advice: Don't ever ask foreign-ish people to take a picture for you in front of a sign that spells something. For example, you ask them to get a picture of us all in front of the "St. Maarten" sign but they get a picture of you in front of the "St. Maart" sign.
After taking some pictures at the port, we ventured out and got ourselves a taxi to Mahi beach (or in the words, the famous beach where the airplanes literally fly RIGHT over you).
Us girls in the back of the van taxi!
We got to the "airport beach" and the guys immediately ran out and headed for the beach and set the stuff down and started waiting for planes to come in. The day started with just us at the beach and only small propeller planes coming in to the beach being almost full of tourists and huge commerical planes flying right over us. The guys were having the time of their life. It was pretty fun and it was a way nice beach with decently strong waves.
Not a good sign when there are these signs are all by the beach
The Plane Schedule at the local bar
Crazy, it seriously felt like they were going to hit you!
This video is of a plane coming in, and the next one is one of the boys standing along the airport fence and getting blown. So much sand blown in your face and hats and towels flying everywhere!
As you can tell, the guys were very into the planes (I was at first but an hour after watching them, thanks I am done...I guess I know how guys feel when they go shopping with ladies now). So much video and pictures here. I am just posting some of my favorites.
Us girls on the other hand were just chillin', keeping cool in the water, and video taping for the guys.
We were playing crack the egg when the waves came (I know, child-ish) but it was so hard to not crack! I had to crack so I wasn't stuck under the water unable to breathe.
After Mahi beach, we grabbed us some food and went to the flea market. We had fun shopping here-there was some different stuff than the other islands. We then walked back to our cruise ship and on our way stopped at this Star Wars museum/store (kinda random for being in the Caribbean but apparently the creator of Yoda lives there).
me walking down the main street of St. Maarten
Matson by the cruise ship.
We had to get another person to take our picture by the St. Maarten sign because as you all saw earlier the morning picture taker people for us did not do so well.
We got back on the cruise ship and had a fun last night of dinner and fun! Matson was very sad to go because it meant work and school and no more vacation. We also got pretty tight with our waiters so we were sad to say goodbye to them.
Our bar waiter (in other words our soda pop waiter) made Matson this cute heart on the straw. Too funny that every single night that he KNEW exactly what Matson wanted and would bring it. He had it down and he knew by the 2nd night of us saying no to alcohol that we weren't drinkers.
The guys with the bar waiter
The whole group with our waiters on the last night!
Tip for future cruisers: Carnival adds a tip to your bill per person, so be aware of that added cost. But Matson and I were very happy with our service and truly was amazed at these men leaving their families in Nicaragua and (I forget where JR was from) so anonymous country, so we tipped them some more and Matson almost let a tear out when Mario (our head waiter) was handed the money he wouldn't take it and said that we did not need to. But Matson insisted and Mario was very honored and thankful. Too cute!
Matson with Mario. Every night Mario joked with Matson and said something like, "You are my dream", as in Matson was his dream body? We think that's what he meant...haha
Matson really got along with the waiters. Too funny. Matson with JR and Mario sneaking in the back.
The rest of the night we played games, packed, hot tubbed, and went to bed kind of early-ish so that we could wake up early in the morning for our last YUMMY breakfast and get off the ship.
NEXT POST: ALL about our last day of our trip which happened to be our anniversary!
