He's feelin 22!!

I'm breaking my social media fast to tell my husband Happy 22nd Birth(yester)day! 

Last night we had brownies and secret conversation with sweet friends and Sunday I threw him a camping themed surprise party! 

I've been planning his party for about a year and, let me tell you, I am NOT good at keeping secrets from my hubby. He's my best friend so when I'm excited about something he's the first person I want to tell! But I was a good sneaky sneak and mostly pulled it off at the end. He was only a little suspicious when he saw all the extra cars at my parent's house. 

Happy Birthday, Mr. Awesome. I love you always. 

Special thanks to my parents, brother, and Emily for all their help! 

sumo suits and catching up

Hello there!
Wow... its been over a year since I darkened the (virtual) door of this little blog. I didn't intend to abandon it, but life is pretty uneventful on this side of the screen. I hope this finds you well!
I spent the summer taking classes and am getting into the Teacher Education Program which keeps me pretty busy. I've found that my day-to-day goings on have been best reflected in a small journal.

But a few weeks ago my best friend told me that she missed reading my posts, so I guess I'll write one. It just so happens to be about her birthday party!

Sydney turned 21 on October 7th. She didn't know it, but we had been planning a surprise party for her for months! Honestly, on her birthday we all felt like complete jerks because we kind of blew her off and didn't offer to do anything special for her big two-one. Little did she know that we were actually the Three Best Friends That Anyone Could Have!!!

[I apologize from the crappy quality of the photos. I dropped the picture-taking ball and had to steal from instagram!]

 

You see, she mentioned that she would love to sumo wrestle a la The Office episode "Beach Day". We made it happen! And we totally wrestled in the front yard on a Monday night. Trust me, all the cool kids are doing it. 

It resulted in a lot of this:

It was super fun! And yes, she's continued to wear the suits in her daily life. One of the many, many reasons that I love her! 

Fellow party planners sandwiching the birthday girl! (At this point I was catching my plate on fire. NBD.)
I so enjoy planning parties for the people I love! It's wicked awesome!

Other than throwing sort of weird-themed ragers, we've done some pretty fun things over this past year. In March, Tom and I ran Spartan Sprint in Conyers, Georgia. I AM SPARTA! AROO!
In June, Tommy's sister joined the Mrs. club.
Oh! And we totally got to see the Backstreet Boys!! What?! Yes. It was fantastic. Fangirled big time over Nick Carter. Tommy also took me to see John Mayer, which was on my bucket list. Loved it! Except for the creepy old drunk guy who kept asking to take pictures with me. Why do creepy drunk guys have to make things so weird all the time?

I guess in the mundane-ness of my day-to-day, some pretty exciting things have happened. I should really do a better job of documenting it all. I'm going to try to get back into the swing of keeping up this little blog. However, that does not mean that I'm going to post regularly. And I'm not going to let myself feel bad about that. This semester I've had to learn to say, "no" to some things without feeling guilty and its been a hard lesson to learn. But more on that later.

Leave me a comment and let me know how you've been since we last spoke (typed)! Sending love from my glowing screen to yours!

the happiest 5K on the planet!

COLOR RUN!!!!!!! It was awesome, you guys!!!!!

Tommy, Brandon, Sydney, Mary Ann, Chandler, and I (collectively we call ourselves the Rainbow Ninjas) headed to Birmingham at 6am this morning to run our first 5K in the pouring rain that Hurricane Isaac is so sweetly dumping on us. On the way there I was being a bit of a Debbie Downer because of the general ickiness of the day, but in the end it made our color stick better and kept us cool! God knows what He's doing! Yay for rain!

Color Zones were loads of fun and we went through a couple of them twice, just to make sure we got what we came for. A Color Thrower gave me a face-full of blue so I came out looking like a scary female Braveheart/Avatar monster!

When we crossed the finish line it was time for the Color Celebration, which is exactly as much fun as the name implies! On the count of three everyone throws their paint powder into the air and creates a giant rainbow cloud! It was the most awesome and most terrible thing all at once. When everyone throws and is dancing and singing to Call Me Maybe, it a blast! But when you suck down a pound of dust because you're singing to Call Me Maybe, it's an awful coughing mess! All I could think was, "I'm going to die. At Color Run. How lame is that?!"

As you can see, none of us died due to extreme color exposure. Though we may have lost our sanity! HA!

Even in the rain, Color Run was super fun! It's coming to Tuscaloosa October 6 so get your tickets and try it out! I'm thinking of volunteering to be a Color Thrower.
How was your Labor Day?

*click here to see more of our goofy pictures

mushy-gushy loveydovey awesomeness

Hooray!!! My sweet, sweet sissy-in-law is engaged to Matt!

We are so incredible happy for you two and hope you have a wonderful engagement, beautiful wedding, and a long, happy life together! I feel so privileged to have been able to share in your special day. It was perfect! Way to go Mattman! Love you both!

Who doesn't love a good proposal video? It's a proven fact that watching them improves your day by 67% so click here to have an instantly better day! You'll have to listen carefully. His poem is sweet and my sound is stinky.

***For people who may not know, Matt moved to Mobile during the summer for work. That's why he says being away from her is confusing.

Happy America Day, y'all!

"Read somewheres that the human body is 75 percent water. Not me, y'all. I'm 75 percent sweet tea, 100 percent Merican."

Every year on the 4th of July my granny wants the whole family to dress in red, white, and blue and take a great big family photo. But every year no one knows about it until we get there so it's always a huge disaster. This year my brilliant mother came up with a great idea to raise enthusiasm and make granny happy and that wonderful idea's name is Redneck Showdown! The idea is to be as patriotic and tacky as possible! You have to wear your costume all day for flag football, tug-of-war, and eating yourself silly. At the end of the day everyone votes for someone besides themselves and the winner gets a trophy! We're all super excited! Especially Tommy and I because there's not much we love better than dressing up in costume!

This year we aren't able to fully participate because we are going to the beach with the rest of the Snows (we haven't yet mastered sharing family time) so we have to send in our photo submission. We can vote, but we can't win. Honorable mention by photo submission. But they better watch out next year! Even Jack the Dog will be bringing his A-game! I am so looking forward to sharing this new tradition every year with my family!

Momma and Poppa Snow are here now to pick us up for beach fun so I've got to run! Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe 4th of July! USA USA USA!

the big 2-0! woot woot!

Today my sweet hubby has moved into his TWENTIES!

That's right. Today Tommy has turned 20! He's a real life grown up now, you guys! How exciting! I feel so privilaged to be able to spend this milestone birthday with him and I hope that he'll let me stick around for many, many more. I think he will though because I'm the world champion of snuggling.

I had something totally rad planned but since we collectively had to spend $800 on text books (Yeah, we both bought all used and it makes me sick every time I think about it.) it fell through. So, we decided to just hang out and be lazy all weekend. That's Tommy's absolute favorite thing! If it were up to him we would be hermits and the only people who would ever visit would be food delivery guys.
I could resist getting him out for at least a little while though. We went to Cheesecake Factory Saturday for lunch and nearly bust a gut! Oh, it was so soooo good! Fried mac-in-cheese heaven. Then we came home and took the most glorious nap in the history of all naps!

For his actually birthday I got him a few little gifts. Instead of getting him another card (he had already gotten a pretty sweet Jim Halpert talking card from someone special) I made him a message in a bottle.

I bought the little bottle at Michael's, rolled the letter around a pencil, and dropped it inside! It was really hard to squeeze it in that little bottle and even harder to get it out but he loved it :)

Tommy is my best friend and I can hardly believe he chooses to spend his every day with me. I can't imagine a more thoughtful, understanding, kind, funny, snuggly, HANDSOME man than the one God blessed me with. Happy birthday, Sunshine! I love you.

birthdays make me feel awesome!

I'm Officially Nineteen!
as of last wednesday.

Thanks to Facebook you probably already know that my birthday has come and gone. And it was great! We've been so busy with school that I didn't really expect much in the way of celebration, which was fine because I feel like I've been way over blessed this year. But Wednesday when I got home from work Tommy said "Get dressed because I'm taking the birthday girl out!" Yay! Every girl likes a big fuss over her birthday, even if she says she doesn't. He took me to Bentos for dinner and I got to wear one of the super cute Forever 21 skirts that Sydney got me! When we got home he surprised me with a handmade card (made my heart melt!), chocolate covered strawberries and almonds, and a turquiose Patagonia pullover! How sweet is he?!? I have the best hubby ever!

Thursday night we ate a special dinner at my parent's house! Mom made all my favorites: garlic brussel sprouts, yellow rice, and asiago lemon chicken. Mmmmmmmmm... now my mouth is watering again! For dessert we had something new from Pintrest called the Hefty Hubby and lemme just tell you, too much of that and you will be hefty! Its a layer of cookie dough, a layer of Oreos, and a layer of brownie batter. Baked to perfection and served with ice cream. It. Was. So. Good!

Mom also made cute party decorations! A cutesy bunting banner and my totally awesome princess birthday hat! It made me feel like I was in a Disney movie! I love my family :) I know that's the most obvious statement ever, but I really do! I think they're the greatest!

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! It was so special!


**above: I'm not purposely smiling like a goober, I was in the middle of the Tangled song when mom snapped my picture!

jewelry and cupcakes

 

Sunday Sydney and I co-hosted a Stella&Dot trunk show! Our stylist, Jesse Sartain, made everything worry-free and super fun! All I had to do was clean my house (which needed to be done anyway) and prepare snacks!

I haven't known about Stella&Dot for very long, but since I have I've been in love! They have everything from flashy and fun to sweet and danity! Everyone who came found something just right for their own personal syle and we had a great time! It was so nice to see everyone and have time to chat! Jesse showed us funky and sophisticated ways to combine the pieces and get the most out of them. Syd and I ended up with a lot of hostess rewards and we cannot wait to cash them in! I'm using mine on the Ever After necklace and Petra Braided bracelet for sure and I'm still toying with a few other things. There's just so much to choose from!

I've become obsessed with everything pumkpin spice since it dropped below 80 degrees so for our party we decided to break out the fall refreshments! We had decious apple cider and easy pumpkin spice cupcakes with cheese cheese icing. Yummmmmmmy!

All you do is combine one box of Duncan Hines spice cake mix with half a 15 ounce can of pumpkin
Add five minutes to the DH suggested baking time
Top with cream cheese icing an enjoy!

Mom keeps telling me this is a Weight Watchers recipe but they're sooooooo good! I don't think I believe her.

arg! a pirate party for me matey

My pretty friend Kara has moved to Pensacola for college...

We're all really sad and we miss her so much cause she's the shizzle and it's depressing when the shizzel leaves! BUT it did give me a chance to throw my first surprise party! Since she's going to Pensacola State the theme was...drumroll please...PIRATES!!!

(because apparently you couldn't figure that out from the title)

I had a very small budget for this party and did it all for under $20!

Pensacola Pirate pennant cupcakes

Of course there had to be a photobooth!
Wonderful Meghan let me borrow her set up and it was so much fun!
Here are a few of my faves:

**speech bubble chalkboard by Playing Grown Up