Photo of the Day - Days 57-63

Day 57:

Starting the week off right - no pic...ugh.

Day 58:

That's right, first they were all over the blogosphere, then Pinterest, now my birthday tea party - little gold-painted plastic animals! I had all that gold paint just hanging out so I thought - why not pick up some plastic "baby animals" and make some cake toppers/table decor for my tea party? Voila! How adorable is that gold kitten? I'm lookin' at you, Kerrie.

Day 59:

So, clearly when I think tea party, I think mini cake for each person in attendance. Here are 3 (of the 9) mini cakes I whipped up the Thursday before my party. I crumb coated them and popped them back in the fridge until I had time to properly frost/decorate them the next day. And yes, those are gold foil covered cake rounds - never let it be said that a color palette is lost on me.

Day 60:

The prompt today was "whimsical" and what is happier or more full of whimsy than a bowl of peachy-pink frosting? Not much, in my book! The Friday before the tea party I finished decorating those little mini cakes with some pink tinted butter cream. I used this site to help me get just the right tint - so fun!

Day 61:

The day of the tea party! It was such a wonderful, lovely day full of tea, sweets, flowers, and lots of laughter. I am a lucky, lucky lady to have such sweet and indulgent lady friends. Definitely one of my favorite birthdays yet - and the beginning of a new tradition of tea parties (with any luck).

Day 62:

No photo today - recuperating after my party, cut me some slack.

Day 63:

I took some of the flowers from my tea party to work the following Monday - definitely jazzed up my desk that week, and I'd say increased my productivity by at least 15%.

Photo of the Day - Days 50-56

Day 50:

Happy birthday, beautiful sister! I hand delivered my tea party invites, so while this may look like a birthday present for Melissa, it's really an invitation to my birthday...oy. I'm the best sister...

Day 51:

The prompt today was "performance" and look what mother nature was showing off! The fickle Texas weather tricked our little Bradford Pear into popping out her first bloom a little early, but how pretty, right?

Day 52:

Womp womp - no picture today.

Day 53:

Another tea party craft! A few Starbucks frap bottles, and many, many layers of gold Martha Stewart craft paint later and I had 4 pretty little vases to use as centerpieces on my tea party table set up.

Day 54:

Are there any words for how incredibly adorable this child is? He's also brilliant and wonderful in every way. I'm not biased at all... (um, he's DOFFING HIS CAP...my heart is breaking from the cuteness right now)

Day 55:

More Ezra! Here he is climbing up my leg to swipe my camera. He likes to put the lens cap on again and again. Pretty sure that's his way of telling me he's done with me moonlighting as his own personal paparazzo (see above comment re: his brilliance). Side note - he looks almost identical to the baby version of my youngest brother Allan-Michael here. Also, do you see the tiny little fingerprints he's leaving on my pants? They're so teeny and precious!

Day 56:

Mah man! This was the night before we went and had the mole on his forehead removed. He's so handsome, and now he has a super hot scar - so manly!

Photo of the Day - Days 43-49

Day 43:

We were doing a little grocery shopping a few days before Valentine's Day, and those romantic fellas behind the butcher counter had shaped all the burgers like hearts! It's the little things.

Day 44:

So this year I decided to have a Lady Tea Party for my birthday - what better way to ring in the final year of my 20's right? As I was only inviting 8 lovely ladies I figured I could go a little nuts on the invites. I'll do a more detailed breakdown in another post soon, for now - here are most of the invitation ingredients. 

Day 45:

When Tom and I first started dating (and through the first few years of our marriage), my work hours were pretty intense during the first few months of every year. A pizza on the couch next to him was the most romantic thing I could imagine amidst 12-15 hour days staring at spreadsheets - and so our tradition was born. This was our 7th annual Valentine's pizza (shaped like a heart, natch).

Day 46:

Tom and I took a long weekend to go visit his grandparents while they vacation at the beach but before we left my sister texted to see if I wanted to join her at the new Jo-Ann's grand opening. They were giving away gift cards to the first 100 people - a guaranteed $10 and a chance to win up to $250. As much money as I hand over to craft stores, I figured a free $10 was worth getting out of bed a little early on my day off. Also - shopping with that little fella? Always worth it. As luck would have it, I won a $250 gift card!!! When does that happen? Needless to say - that was one of the best mornings I've had in a while.

Day 47:

My man and my pugs, hanging out on the grass in some shade while we were visiting his grandparents at the beach. 

Day 48: 

Another one of those "whoops, this is the only pic I took today..." On our way home, Tom noticed that you could see all of downtown as well as that really huge car dealership Texas flag. Clearly, I wasn't quick enough on the draw to catch that actual view...

Day 49:

Here are all those Lady Tea invitations all together. Oh pink and gold, is there a more girly color palette out there?

Photo of the Day - Days 36-42

Day 36:

 

The prompt today was "nap" and look at what I found - a pile of pugs having a snooze! Or they would have been had I not been all up in their faces with my camera.

Day 37:

It's a pug-centric week here at AYAH - here is Tele, cute puggin'. She may be stinky, but she has my heart.

 

Day 38:

More pugs! This time they are about to be given a treat - look at them sit so expectantly, look at that focus.

Day 39:

Today was a Friday after a long week and I managed to swing an early departure from work. It was too beautiful of a day for early February so I took my newly arrived issue House Beautiful outside with the dogs and enjoyed a little sunshine and photos of beautifully styled homes.

Day 40:

 

We were going over to Mark and Kerrie's (my brother and sister-in-law) new house to celebrate all the February family birthdays (of the 8 of us who live in the same town, 5 of them have birthdays in February, 2 even on the same day!) and I got the urge to craft. I decided to whip up some quick coasters for sweet Kerrie in some of her fave colors. Quick polka dots and some edge painting with some Martha Stewart craft paints on some cork rounds, wrap 'em up in a piece of lace, and there they are - coasters for their new house!

Day 41:

The next morning, my other sister-in-law, Celeste, and I went to a craft workshop at Anthropologie hosted by the lovely Camille Styles. We made yarn pom pom bouquets and had such a blast! As a bonus, Celeste won the raffle for a door prize (a yummy smelling candle, courtesy of Anthro) and my big ol' bun made Camille's blog!

Day 42:

Sorry - smoochie pic. He's the love of my life though, so it'll likely happen again. Prepare yourself.

Photo of the Day - Days 29-35

A quick note about comments - the Blogger comment tool was giving me fits (i.e. just plain ol' not working) so I installed a new widget for comments, Disqus. This new widget, however, does not like older versions of Internet Explorer. If you'd like to leave a comment (yes! do this!) you'll need to use the newest version of Internet Explorer, FireFox, Chrome, or Safari. Now on with the photos of the days!


Day 29:

That would be my sweet Tele perching her precious face on my very un-pedicured foot while we watch TV. Standard night in our house.

Day 30:

The prompt today was "a faceless portrait" and these perfectly epitomize me and one of my dearest friends, Breanne. Bre gave up sweets for the entire year of 2012 (!!!), thankfully she gave herself leave to indulge during January 2013 before getting back on the no dessert bandwagon. I picked these lovelies up to be well prepared for our lunch the next day- the last day of January. They. Were. Delicious.

Day 31:

 Tom making a stir fry - me playing with weird camera angles.

Day 32:

Franklin BBQ started bottling their sauces and selling them at HEB, so clearly this warranted an impromptu photo shoot. I mean, look at those precious labels! Well executed branding totally makes me happy.

Day 33:

Tom may be in shorts, but it was still a bit too chilly to take the Scout out for a joy ride. It was not too chilly for a bit of Scout posing, however. Currently it's in the shop getting spruced up so that we can tool about town with the wind in our hair this spring.
Day 34:

Superbowl Sunday at our house! All the dudes plus two pugs were pretty glued to the game. Meanwhile the ladies enjoyed chatting about any number of non-football related things in the other room. We all came together to witness the wonder that was the Beyonce halftime show.
Day 35: 

Tom grabbed some pretty sunflowers for me at the store - having fresh flowers around the house is one of my favorite things so I love it when he indulges me a bit. Note to self: turn off the TV before taking pictures next time.

Photo of the Day - Days 22-28

Day 22:

The prompt was "frozen." Tom painted the side of the shed in our backyard early last year and it remains frozen in time, for now anyway. I think the idea is to just paint over the 2012 and just let it always be the year of the robot.

Day 23:

So this photo was taken in a moment of pure UGH. This is keeping it real - sometimes our house looks like this. Laundry baskets, piles of books, pugs everywhere, a vacuum that was pulled out in a half bit attempt at convincing ourselves to clean...oh well, I don't live in a magazine, sadly.

Day 24:
Took a few pics of Tom doing our taxes but he vetoed their posting. I respect it - if he were to try to post pics of me on the internet that I hated, I'd use my veto power as well. For the record, he was really adorable - no matter what he says.

Day 25:

Celeste and Allan-Michael picked up these little cuties while on vacay and now they add a little bit of whimsy to my otherwise pretty whimsy-less job. I love spreadsheets as much as the next gal, but these are definitely a happy little reminder of my sweet Tele and Fender. And they're teeny - so teeny. 

Day 26:

We met some friends for dinner before a show and while we were waiting on everyone to arrive I snapped one of these lame-o couple self pics. I take them frequently so this will most assuredly not be the last one.

Day 27:

The prompt was "passion." Clearly I didn't interpret this romantically. I was having a passionate craving for sweets and my sister had just so happened to bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I asked Ezra if he would show me what he was eating and he dutifully opened his mouth to show off his half chewed up dessert. What a guy! I mean really, he's such a BOY.

Day 28:

What? You're not interested in what I had for dinner? Too bad, it was delicious and Tom pretty much nailed it. It's not super fancy, just lentil soup and grilled cheese - but those lentils were homemade and that grilled cheese was made with plugra (basically, the best butter) and havarti on really great sourdough. Also, we totally ate in front of the TV like the classy people we are.



Photo of the Day - Days 15-21

Day 15:

So this was not an attempt to actually capture something special, I was literally texting my manager a picture of traffic to better illustrate why I was running late. She didn't really care, but sometimes I like to really drive a point home. As this ended up being the only picture I took that day - here it is, the Photo of the Day! *For the record, I was not texting and driving, I was sitting at a complete standstill...and texting.

Day 16:

Dinner with Colin and Angie - yay!!! I'm not super comfortable pulling out my camera in public, but I'll do it once in a while in a "sneaky" way. This tends to capture people mid bite or mid sentence. That said, this picture is pretty indicative of our evening: good conversation with dear friends and tasty Mexican food.

 

Day 17:

 

Yup - no pics today...go figure.

 

Day 18:

Today was a Birchbox day!!! Sheer joy - love receiving fun beauty products in the mail once a month!

 

Day 19:

The prompt today was "bright." This was taken while Tom and I were out running errands - I live in a lovely city.

 

Day 20:

One of my favorite pictures so far! The prompt was "playing." I took this just after Ezra finished playing his way down the stairs with his sweet mama, my sister, Melissa.  

 

Day 21:

Ezra again! The prompt was "equal." Pretty sure this was almost the exact moment he discovered my camera and decided to come figure it out. Kind of blurry, but I love his intense focus. Also the fact that he's basically crawling up my leg to get to it cracks me up.

 

Photo Of The Day - Days 8-14

Day 8:

As a loyal, if not slightly obsessed, Young House Love follower, I was beyond stoked to attend (part of, working late - womp womp) their Austin book talk and signing with my dear friend/sister Celeste. They are some seriously down to earth, friendly, and genuinely funny people - meeting them was fantastic! Equally as fantastic was the day that YHL posted about their stop in Austin and Celeste made the blog!

Day 9:

Today's prompt was "peaceful." Here's the part where posting these pictures over 2 months later is troublesome - I can't remember exactly what Tom was watching on TV, all I remember is that he wasn't paying attention to the camera because the show made him laugh (yay, candid smile!). We spend more evenings than we probably should like this, cuddled on the couch watching TV. My sister, Melissa, crocheted that blanket for Tom for Christmas and it has been logging some serious TV watching hours with us ever since.

Day 10:

The prompt was "real life."I got this wok for Tom for Christmas - he'd been gazing longingly at woks and talking about wanting to figure that style of cooking out for months and months. I figured with both us committing to making better food choices, a wok could only expand our repertoire of healthy meals to make at home. He figured out how to season the wok and has been whipping up incredibly fast healthy stir-frys for us a couple times a week since! Turns out this was a fairly self serving gift on my part - whoops...

Day 11:

Mah man! Pretty sure I caught him playing around with various pedals making some really weird/amazing sounds come out of that guitar. We call that guitar Elton John - it's purple and sparkly with a touch of rose gold thrown in for good measure. Seems like something Sir Elton would approve of/wear.

Day 12:

Ugh. Today's prompt - "self portrait." I thought it'd be fun to play with some different lighting sources, so to the fridge I went! Also, self portraits are suuuuuper awkward when your husband is in the house asking what you're doing. Oh nothing sweetie, just taking pics of myself...from the fridge's point of view....

Day 13:

Oh hot tea...my beverage of choice, for sure. I drink hot tea like many people drink coffee, two cups a day at least, more if I'm lucky. Tom is a bit caffeine sensitive so we've gotten in the habit of enjoying a cup of low caffeine tea in the evenings. Here I was making us some green tea with jasmine - my fave low caffeine option. *Side note, that coffee maker has a spigot for hot water. Game. Changer. Love my pretty yellow tea kettle, but for one or two quick cups of tea this is my jam!

Day 14:
Almost made it a whole week of daily photo taking!!! It's a good thing I'm not totally derailed by a healthy sprinkling of failure here and there.