Graduations

Hey y'all! I've been MIA but I have plenty of good reasons. This spring has been super crazy! Between wedding, graduations, mother's day and all of the other celebrations, Dt and I have not had a free weekend yet! Luckily for you, this memorial day will be nice and slow which will allow me to catch up in good ole bloggy world! 

First up, both of my siblings graduated this month. What? When did those adorable babies grow up and get old enough to graduate?!?! If I no longer have any siblings in high school, does that make me old? Nahhh, forever young!!!

We went to Amy's graduation on cinco de Mayo and celebrated with some margs in true Mama G fashion. We also took a handful of photos.

Amelia and me

The graduate and fam

The "cool" siblings 

Good looking fam, Christmas picture Mom?

Since Amy is a photo whore and I'm the complete opposite, I would like to thank her for these pics. And since Tuck graduated 3 days ago, I took zero pics, and Amy has all of the ones that were taken, these pics will have to suffice.

Tuck's graduation pic, adorable!

This last photo is actually us on Mother's Day but I wore the dress to Tuck's graduation as well (no one would have noticed, it was a-ok!)

Amy has finished college and is looking for a big girl job and Tuck is on his way to the wildest four years of his life in college. Pretty crazy these kids are all grown up but I'm so proud of them and love them with all of my heart!!!

Anyone you love graduating soon?

Class of 2012!!!

Today, this little bundle of incoordination will be graduating from college!!!

We are heading to Charlotte to see this beautiful woman walk across the stage and receive her diploma. Then we're going to have a cinco de mayo fiesta at her chic apartment. Daddy's making enchiladas, Mama's bringing the margs, and I'm bringing the dip! It should be a fun day and all about Amelia! 

Since my little sister is one of my few official followers (I love each and every one of my followers ;)) I'm dedicating today to Amy. 

My dear sister, Amelia,

I'm so proud of the beautiful young woman you've become. Even though we didn't always get along growing up, you were always right by my side. All of my memories growing up have you in them and I can't wait to see what memories we make in the future. I'm so blessed to have a sister like you. You're smart, kind, funny, and a great friend. I can only imagine the great things you will do in this world and I'll be here to support you every step of the way. I love you with all of my heart!

Now, in honor of Miss Amelia Bedelia, here are some rather embarrassing, rather adorable pictures of us growing up. 

And despite our awkward moments as babies, you've grown into a beautiful woman

Beautiful even with the "whore bangs"

Congratulations Amy, we're all so proud of you!!!

So sorry!

Hello my blogging bebes! I'm so sorry I have been the worst blogger on the face of this earth! This whole, get a job, 8:30-5 thing is exhausting! Who knew?

Between working all day, trying to fit in some QT with my boyfriend and getting enough sleep so I can function, my blog has fallen by the wayside. But don't worry, I will try to do better. Promise! Here's a little review of what I have been doing with my life...

A little bit of this

Baby sister came to visit for St. Patty's. R to L, Summer, Amelia, and Jennie

Dt was there too!

Also some of this

I went home to watch Tucker's senior night lacrosse game

Giving flowers to his Mama 

Proud daddy

Going in for the shot

Score! Like a boss.

Celebrating with his teammate and partner in crime. These two are a dangerous combo!

Last one.

Fit some of this in while getting ready in the morning

And then lots and lots of this

via

Lots of work with a little bit of fun throw in there every once and while. Sounds like a pretty good life to me... Oh and I finally got paid!!!!!! Turns out being rich is not in my near future, who woulda thunk? Whatever, I'm marrying a doctor! I keed, I keed. Kinda. 

I hope my followers haven't given up on me because of my absence. I promise I will try harder to get this ish under control!!! Love!

This blogger loves her mama!

On Thursday I went to my parent's house in Spartanburg because Mom and I were going to have a girl's day on Friday. I got to spend Thurs night with both of my parents while my little bro was at lax practice and debutante ball dance lessons. Yes, my southern little brother has been asked to escort a deb. He learned the waltz which he was surprised to learn that I remembered how to do from my cotillion days. Thanks mom!

Boy does look good in a Tux. And don't worry, Amy was not his prom date! Just a proud sister.

On Friday I went to an Uptown Sertoma lunch with Mama G. It was adorable! Turns out, my mom is still a sorority girl, just 25 years older. The meeting started with a prayer, ended with a chant and a clap, they had to pay a quarter for talking during the speaker, and there are different committees to be on, many of which Mom is in charge of. I was having serious AXO chapter flashbacks and thought it was funny that we never grow out of it.

If you aren't familiar with Sertoma, it is essentially a service group that puts together different community service projects mostly for hearing health advocacy. I really enjoyed the meeting and it opened my eyes to the different ways that I can continue to give back to my community after graduating college. Cheesy, I know, but I think it would be fun to find a group similar to this. Maybe I'll make Mom proud and finally join junior league. Anyone want to join with me?

Speaking of making mom proud, homegirl just loves to brag on her oldest baby! She stood up in the meeting to announce my new job, her friends came over to ask if I was the one in graduate school, yada yada yada. That lady talks about us a lot. I'm glad I've given her things to be proud of and to pay a dollar to announce at her community service club meetings (she talks about you too, Amy. Don't feel left out).

Because of how proud she is of me, she took me shopping after our meeting because she wanted her baby to look stylish on her first day of work. As well as her 2nd, 3rd, 4th day, etc. So we did some serious damage on Fri. Luckily, all of the president's day sales had already started so we got awesome deals!

I wish I could find pictures of what I bought online but we went to some outlets so they aren't on the current websites. Lame! Maybe I'll do some outfit of the day posts? We'll see.

We ended our shopping day at Bare Escentuals. I wear all bare minerals makeup so I love this store! I ended up getting a little makeover which was fun. I also walked out of there with some more foundation, a new set of eyeshadow, and a lot of buxom lip glosses which are my favorite. They have tons of great colors and they also plump your lips. They're amazing!

Before heading back to Columbia, Mom and I stopped by the country club to have dinner and see Dad. We had duck confit with mushroom risotto and its was soooooooo good! OMG, I'd move back to sburg just to have that on a weekly basis. Yum!

I loved getting to hang out with my mom all day Friday (and not just because she bought me things, though it was nice of her to do so). She's such a smart, beautiful, amazing person and I'm sad I don't live even closer to her. I'm lucky to have a mom who I have a lot in common with and I know how much she likes to have her daughters to hang out with. I'm one lucky girl! To honor my mama, here are some throwback pics of us...

Do me a favor and tell your mama (or dad, or grandma, whoever is important to you) that you love them!

What's happening, hot stuff?

Sorry I have been M.I.A. from this here blog for a bit. I've been working on that whole finding a job thing, silly me. I also haven't had very many exciting things happening in my life or my kitchen so I haven't been bitten by the blog bug recently. To be honest, I still don't have much to update on but here's what's been happ-a-ning!

First of all, I've been painting my nails a lot. Before you judge, remember that I'm a housegirlfriend which means many thing. First of which is the fact that I have zero moolah to pay a lovely asian to do my nails for me. Second of which is that I have an ungodly amount of nail polish most of which I've never actually used. And lastly, we all know we're jealous of those bishes on pinterest who are baller at painting their nails (which I have my suspicions may be photoshopped...)

All courtesy of Pinterest

So I've been experimenting with all of my nail polishes and have had some fabulous success. I'm getting really good at this nail painting thing (my right hand still looks a little rougher than my left but I'm seeing improvement). I wish I had documented some of the colors that I love but they don't photograph well and they aren't name brand polishes so you can't find them in most stores and they don't even have names for the colors. Weird, I know, but I'm pretty sure Mom bought those big sets of nail polishes from CVS to stuff our stockings with so it's really less sketchy than it sounds.

Yesterday I tried out a new color. I've been on the hunt for a good purple and the essie one I have looks black on my nails which gives off a gothic vibe so I tried another random purple that I found in my polish stash. I was hoping it would turn out to be a nice deep purple but this is what I got.

Not perfect but I'm getting better... (please excuse the chubby fingers, barf!)

How about that purple! Sheesh! I feel like a 13 year old girl who is playing in her mom's makeup and thinks blue eyeshadow is a good look. Who wears this color on her fingers?!?! It's an intense purple but whatever, I'm rocking it. If anyone asks, it's to support my school on national signing day because let's face it, we're looking at another top ten recruitment season. Go Tigers!

This past weekend I spent Saturday helping my little sister move into a new apartment. It was a little last minute but I think she's going to love it and enjoy the freedom not living in a sorority house will give her. Very exciting! 

Isn't she adorbz?

In other news, this weekend Dt and I will be hosting his 14 year old wrestling state champion brother. Now I ask you, what do two twenty-somethings living sin do with a 14 year old for four days? He's coming tomorrow night and staying until at least Saturday if not Sunday. We need ideas!

In addition to babysitting this weekend, Dt and I will definitely be watching the Superbowl. We aren't the biggest NFL fans (we live for college football if you couldn't tell) but we always watch for in order to get our bit of football we can and know what people are talking about when it comes to the commercials. In addition to the commercials, my family are huge Giants fans so I actually kinda care who wins this one. I'm also a Manning family fan so that's always fun to cheer for. Knowing me, you know that I will definitely be whipping up some sort of cooking storm. I haven't decided exactly what I'll be making but it will not be diet-friendly I'm sure. Hey, it's the last chance we get to eat "tailgating food" until August. I think it will be ok. 

I hope you all have a great rest of the week and weekend, go Giants!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Can y'all believe tomorrow is Christmas! Crazy! This month just flew by didn't it? Since this will probably be my last post for about a week because I'm heading to Philly to see my Grandmom after Christmas, I figured I'd leave you with a few pictures of the things that I've been up to this month and the last few days.

As I've said recently, I got an ice cream maker for Christmas (thanks to Dt sorta...) and have been experimenting with it so I thought I'd show you what I was working with!

I love it and it comes with two bowls so we don't have to wait to refreeze the main one!

I also bought some of these ingredients to make some of our first flavors

And yes, I bought a basting brush and that has nothing to do with my ice cream but it was part of the purchase so I thought it was rude to leave it out!

 I ended up using the vanilla starter, then mixed in two spoonfuls of the fudge and a couple shakes of the snow and it turned out great! It def gives Baskin Robbins' peppermint ice cream a run for its money. I also made just plain vanilla for Dt out of sugar, milk, cream, and vanilla and it turned out pretty good too. Overall, this gift was a success!

Another exciting thing that has happened this past week is that I got this lovely box in the mail!

I haven't had the chance to try any of the things yet but I'll do a review once I do!

And remember my post about the sugar scrubs I made and decorated for Dt's fam? Well this is how they turned out!

Sorry about the crappy pic, I'm not a photographer...

Pretty cute, eh? I think I made that ugly jar much better! I found the recipe on pinterest and you can find it here!

As I've been shopping for Christmas gifts over the last few days, I've also been picking up stocking stuffers for my brother and sister. Over the last few years, we've started helping my parents (or Santa) stuff our stockings and I really enjoy it because I love finding these fun little things. It also gives me the ability to give more gifts which you know I love. So this is what I've found for Tucker

Clockwise from  top left: I got him a small stuff sack which he can carry in his big bag but packs down so it's easy to carry. Then we got him this fire starter gel which will allow him to start a fire anywhere even if it's been raining. Hopefully he practices fire safety... The next thing is a really cool patagonia belt which is his actual present but accidentally fell into the stocking stuffer pic. Oh well! Then I got him a free sticker from the store where all this gear came from. Next are just some eating utensils, figured the boy could practice some manners out in the woods. Then we have some body warmers and last but definitely not least is a first aid kit, just in case!

I think he is really going to enjoy all of this stuff and worst case scenario, at least he'll be better prepared for his trips into the mountains!

Next we have Miss Amelia Bedelia and her stocking stuffers

We have a hot pink lint roller, you always need one when you don't have one! Some multi colored bobby pins, a chocolate sampler (I also got one for Tucker), two mini candles, a cupcake corer (may or may not have gotten one for me, I tried to be strong...), a new make up brush (you can never have enough), and finally a really cool eye shadow palette from e.l.f. I'm sort of hoping she doesn't want that one because I will totally take it from her!

So I think I found some fun goodies to stuff their stockings with and those kids better return the favor!

And last but not least, I gave Dt his final Christmas present (he still didn't make it until the actual day to open it...) You may or may not remember that our Tigers recently won the ACC championship and I was lucky enough to find a boy who is as obnoxiously obsessed with Clemson as I am so of course I had to buy the kid a t-shirt to document the event.

It says Another clemson championship. 14 times! How many y'all got? 

I thought it was pretty funny and a smidge obnoxious but hey, we have to represent in gamecock country. As you can see, he was pretty excited about it too...

Isn't he cute? SO excited!

So that's my recap and I hope it will keep you entertained until I get back in a week or so. Have a merry Christmas everybody!