Halloween! {foto friday x4}

McKenna “celebrated” her 1st Halloween this year!  And by “celebrated” I mean, went to daycare and rode in the stroller during their Halloween parade.  Came home for a quick photo shoot and then quickly passed out and slept through ALL the trick-or-treaters + barking dogs barricaded upstairs.

(1) McKenna came home today with a pudding painted pumpkin from arts and crafts at daycare.  The purpose was to help her with some of her senses. Texture – pudding + pumpkin. Smell – Pudding. Taste – pumpkin. Admit it, it is cute. The pumpkin won’t make it till next year, but it is still cute.

(2) McKenna and her little buddy Madelyn during the daycare Halloween parade. M looks REAL amused! HA!

(3) McKenna and Momma in her fun Halloween outfit from her Great Auntie Jean.  She was ADORABLE in it and I am still a little annoyed (but not really) none of the daycare teachers mentioned how cute she was in it yesterday.

(4) And McKenna is her Disney princess onesie dress.  She supposed to be Ariel from the Little Mermaid, but it is kinda a stretch.  Don’t worry M, next year, we are going ALL out!!

Halloween was fun. But, we cannot wait till next year when we can see her march in the Halloween Parade dressed to the nines (yes we will take off work) and then go trick-or-treating with her. People. I am SO excited for my future.

And. I can’t wait for all you moms to start posting your Halloween posts.  So, start writing ladies!

are you ready for some football?!

It is seriously the most wonderful time of the year! :) Kyle and I live and breathe football in the fall {hence why we had a 16 some month engagement} and our weekends are forever booked until football season ends.

So very very ready for kick off the weekend! ROLL TIDE! BEAT MICHIGAN!

:: foto friday ::

ignore the mess of a bed - but these are my loves that i do not talk about nearly enough.  i feel like between their early morning wrestling matches and kennesaw's constant need for belly rubs and mulligan's love of rocks and barking at the sky i would have plenty of fun times and good stories for you ... but i slack and am a horrible puppy mom! 

but, here are the dogs i so totally love - just lounging the the bed - and i love how they are kind of sort of cuddling!  no room for me to crawl in of course!

:: foto friday :: bridezilla

Kyle thinks he is SOOOO funny.  He made me this after my "minor" flip out on our wedding planner. ;)  It is me - as bridezilla.  Truthfully: it did make me laugh out loud.

foto friday :: work shower wedding invite

This shower is not till February but the invites went out a few weeks ago  =D  It is a TRC tradition to throw ladies getting married a wedding shower and mine is scheduled and on the books.  I am so excited and my buddy Afton could not have picked more fitting shower invites.  The bride is brunette (like meee!) and it is purple (a wedding color).  I am so so so excited.  And of course, I will post pictures!

And the best part -- I already have it "attached" to a page of our wedding guest book so all the guests can sign it and give us our best wishes and it looks so so so good.  =D

foto friday :: our little super model

I just found this picture in the archives of our doggy daycare photo archives.  I mean Kennesaw hams it up for the camera.  This girl poses - what a sass face!

Foto Friday :: Wedding Picture Ideas

Thanks to Pinterest I have been stalking wedding pictures and collecting ideas for pictures I want of my own wedding.  I need to print all them out and then send them to Justin and say yeah… can you make this happen?  Please and thank you?

I love this one for so so so many reasons.  The only hard part I see is that there are 5 bridesmaids and I have 6 total in my line up of lovely ladies.  Maybe a heart on each side of the word love?  I do not know, but I do know I love this picture.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture and I feel like it would only work if it was of my Dad and me before the ceremony.  How sweet and sentimental would that be – and I do have to walk down some scary old timey stairs.

This is overdone but still so cute and amazing.  Since I am not going to see Kyle before the ceremony we can at least say hello and calm each other’s nerves through the door right?  Honestly, we probably won’t do this but it is still such a sweet sweet photo.

Our venue has an amazing balcony over the front of the house.  We will recreate this picture. No options.  I may need some flip flops if I have to go up and down those stairs over and over again!

Another pre-wedding picture of Kyle and me – or it can be done after the wedding.  ….I would have to figure out if it can even be done at our venue.  I want to say something similar can be done but don’t quote me on that.

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It is a good thing I LOVE our photographer and stalk his blog and Facebook page and melt over a lot of his wedding pictures. 

foto friday - mercedes half marathon medal.

So I have decided to run the Mercedes Half Marathon in February.  It is in Birmingham so it is a REALLY quick drive from Atlanta so I can run it and then come back the same day.  AND the medal is really cool.  AND it will be a month before my wedding so this can be my forced working out to get skinny minnie for the wedding.  AND I can use this as an opportunity to see some of my favorite Alabama people ever.  AND I can go to Mugshots for a killer good hamburger since they now have one in Birmingham.  Oh, and the race entry is/was wickedly cheap. =D

foto friday–rehearsal & bridesmaid brunch dress

 

LOVE.  It is no secret – we are getting married at an uber cute southern antebellum confederate soldier’s house.  It is quaint and anthro and love.  And it is so cute and love that there are 3 (count them) 3 weddings at the venue my wedding weekend.  One Friday, ME on Saturday, and then one of Sunday.  So, our wedding rehearsal is at 2:00 PM on Friday afternoon.  Meaning it is totally not formal – sundresses, jeans with a cute top is perfectly acceptable attire.  Me.  I wanted a dress.  A white dress that was not too fancy and something that is southern and love.  (BTW: I love the word love lately).  And I found this stellar piece of a dress on The Blue Door Boutique’s website and bought it faster than you can say amazing wedding rehearsal dress.

It is lace and southern and can be paired with my cowboy boots for a casual feel and I am so excited. =D  That way I am not too dressy for our brunch and then not too dressy for the quick wam bam thank you ma’am run through of the ceremony.

But of course for the rehearsal dinner I have a fabulously amazing dress that my amazing bridesmaid Heather found and made me buy and for that, I will be forever grateful.  That dress paired with cute gold heels I will be styling and hopefully not overdressed! cough cough cough.

I think one of my favorite parts of wedding planning is the style and attire and feel and vibe I am going for.

Foto Friday :: Kennesaw’s Demon Face

Who would want to pet and love on Kennesaw when she makes faces and looks like that?  Even Mulligan is like “woahhh woahhh woahhh”

But I promise she is not really a demon, she just has the face perfected when playing with her big brother.

foto friday - hilarious

I saw this on Pinterest awhile back and I have no idea why I am just now posting it but in my world - I find this funny and probably very very true.  I mean have you seen some of my race photos? 

I hope you all have an awesome weekend and if you're racing, best of luck!

foto friday - mud babies

As a parent - you want your kids to be happy.  And I want nothing more than to have two happy and healthy dogs (our kids).  But sometimes their happiness makes me stressed.  I have always heard Moms say that when their kids are being super quiet no good is happening, well trust me when I say that statement is 100% true when it comes to dog children too. 

Last night - Kyle and I were trying to watch a movie and the dogs wanted to go outside.  That's fine - let them be dogs. Let them do whatever  dogs do outside.  And the whole time it was just quiet.  They normally bark at the neighbors house asking for the other dogs to go outside or they bark to just bark.  But nothing for like 20 minutes.  So I decided to go outside and do a "roll call" (Kenn's is an escaper so we have to check on her whereabouts) and found these two mud puppies who of course decided they wanted to come inside and then wrestle and fling mud and run upstairs and Mulligan wanted to hop on the couch.

Mulligan is a much more active digger so he got covered WAY more than Kennesaw did.  But still two muddy dogs = no fun for Momma.  Especially when they carry the mud upstairs and pretty much all over the house. 

And of course - Kyle thought it was OH SO CUTE!  However, he was not the one who had to get in the shower with Mulligan and bathe him and then get in the shower with Kennesaw and bathe her.  (By the way: Kennesaw, she got a bath Sunday night)  Kyle did however have to hold the shower door shut so no dogs would escape.  And yes - it is MUCH easier to shower with the dog than put the dog in the bath tub (in Mulligan's case)

Dogs will be dogs right?!  Gotta love them.

foto friday–beat florida

oh happy day!  it is friday! =D  tomorrow we (and by we, I mean Alabama’s football team) get to play florida.  in the swamp. not going to lie.  I am a little bit worried – but I have faith in my boys.  So Roll Tide.

Anyway.  Sunday is my 1st half marathon of the year.  Correction: would have been, but I have decided to not run the race for many reasons.  The biggest – I am just not ready and even though I am never really ready I can normally finish it out and be okay. I know I could “tough it out” … but I just don’t want to.  I don’t think it is worth it.

So instead. Tomorrow I am going to get up, head to Lucky Schoals park and run the 1.13 mile running path and I am going to run as many loops as I can until I just HAVE to stop.  I am going to run my own little mini in my mind race.  And I have to get up early and do it because there is going to be A LOT of prep for this 8:00 football game.

And… I have my fingers crossed that the weather will start cooling down again and THEN I will start running my favorite parts of the Atlanta 13.1 course because it really is a great race.

In sadder and non running related news:  Over the past few years I have begun to realize that life REALLY is so so so short.  A guy I went to high school with died I a house fire this week and if has been bittersweet to read all the messages about him on Facebook.  He will definitely be missed.  ….You shouldn’t' hesitate to tell your family or friends that you love them.

Foto Friday - What Kyle Does At Work

The dogs were at daycare on Wednesday.  Kennesaw was having her trial day, Mulligan was just being Mulligan as normal.

And this is what Kyle was doing:

He found Mulligan going to the bathroom.  Classy Kyle.

He found Kennesaw trying to escape

And he found Mulligan in the mess of the play group.

foto friday -- dog cams.

we all know mulligan is spoiled and goes to daycare - but he is there for a long weekend since we're going to help out with the tornado dogs in Tuscaloosa. and i know that he has been playing since 8 am and it is pushing 5 and a lot of the doggies may have gone home and he is having a slumber party, but it still hurts my heart to see my little love bug laying all alone with no friends. at home i lay on the floor with him. i hope he is not wondering when i am coming to get him because it may be a few days.  why am i such a dork and why can't i part with my dog for 3 days?! and before you ask me how i am sure this is my dog trust me, i am sure. those are his little brown paws and i know how my demon lays! but i miss him so!

foto friday / november wrap up.

my foto friday ties into my November wrap up perfectly.  ...i went to google. clicked on images. typed in lazy. and came up with this:

how stinking cute are those critters.  i am positive i was not that cute while lounging around the apartment being lazy.

november wrap up. you know when you have those days that you just do not want to do anything... well days turned into weeks and weeks turned into a month and i found myself doing practically nothing this past month.  i ran 5.40 miles total and went to 1 Blast class.  I think I just spent November being a person again. I had dinners and happy hours with good friends,  I saw my brother and sister in law for the first time in months, I had my engagement party, I pretty much asked my whole bridal party to share my BIG day with me, and spent quality time with Kyle.  Things that I had not been able to really do while working 40+ hours per week and training for Marine Corps.  And I just enjoyed myself!

I would lie is I said I didn't enjoy being a 26 year old with a life, but I would also be a liar if I said I didn't miss the working out and running.  December will be all about finding a balance of getting in my work out sessions.  I am super crazy excited to make Blast900 a weekly thing and even more excited to have my good friend and Team in Training love Mitzi doing it with me!  I do need to plan my 2011 race calendar... when I was home for Thanksgiving the question I was asked over and over again is "what is next" and as of right now, there is nothing on the books until June!

Hope you all have a rocking weekend and had a great November and have an awesome December! 

foto friday

i do not normally share unrelated photos with you on Fridays (actually i do not normally share photos on Fridays), but I had a client of mine send this to me on Monday when I emailed him to say congrats and that his team better beat Auburn this go round (my client is a South Carolina grad).  I thought this was super funny so I had to share! =)  Look closely at the contestants playing... have a good laugh, I did!

*I promise. At some point I will try to stop making jabs at Auburn. Can't promise that I will though*

foto friday (engagement style)

today was goooood! it's friday! hi friday! i ran to the office today and survived. no near death experiences with cars like last time and I ran about 5 miles in 55 minutes and some change, which is good since for Marine Corps I want to be doing 5 miles per hour and 5 miles in 55 minutes gives me 5 miles to spare.  Am I allowed to say that the atlanta weather is simply amazing and makes running so so so easy!

and i wanted to share some exciting things with you!! My engagement pictures!! You can see them all here and the email address = yours (she won't spam you, I promise) and the PW = ring.
**if you're in atlanta and need a great photographer, I highly recommend my friend Kristin!**

As a sneak peek, three of my faves... dun dun dun..

foto friday.

i am going to call this one: blast from the past. This was before we were even allowed to take little Mulligan home. How freaking cute is he?! We still cannot believe he was ever that small.