jason wu for target.

Oh. my. goodness gracious.
Kill me now.

I am excited and jittery and doing that shaky-clapping my hands and squeeling thing I do when I get super ecstatic.
You know why...
Jason Wu.
For Target.

It's TO DIE FOR.
I want basically every single piece in the collection.

Oh my goodness. It's pathetic how excited I am, but I can't even type. I can't even form words to describe my feelings.

Here, lemme show you my favey-faves of all the looks.

Siiiiigh...it's beautiful right? I love it all. Socks and shoes included. (But not the hair. What the heck is the deal with girls and these dumb milkmaid braids. A little advice: you look stupid)

I used to not think I really had "a style", you know like when people see something and go, "That is SO so-and-so?" I felt like that couldn't be done with me because I was kind of all over the place.
But hello, this collection screams me.

I already have plans to get up bright and early on February 5th and head to Target before church. You may think I'm crazy, but do you remember Missoni for Target? It was insanity. And the Target website crashed. People were nutso for the stuff. And I mean, did you SEE that collection? 100x better than freaking Missoni for Target. So, I'm just insuring that I can at least get one thing from the collection. Or 15. You know, either one, but preferably the later.

(You can view the entire lookbook here) 

change. "vacation." a trillion pictures. not really.

Holy moly. I feel like every post now-a-days is like... "whoops, haven't blogged in a few weeks...and here are my excuses why..."
Sorry all 10 of my regular readers.
It's about to change.

I think New Year's resolutions are a waste of time and energy. And they make the gym packed for the first 3 weeks of January and messes with my schedule. I thought maybe that was only a college thing, but our tiny gym in our building has been PACKED lately. Not cool. Annnd back to my point...so, I don't really make resolutions. However, this year I started making little changes for the better in December.

I only added this picture to break up the monotony of all the text

 Our small group read the book "The Divine Mentor" by Wayne Cordeiro which is about why it's crucial as Christians to read your Bible daily. He goes through the "soap" method and journaling and yadda yadda...it was a good book and since then I have been almost daily reading my Bible. Our small group started with a 21-day challenge...read your Bible for 40 minutes for 21 days in a row, because "they" say it takes 21 days to form a habit. I took this challenge one step further. I made a print out sheet of the next 21 days and included work-outs and organizing a part of our apartment as a part of my challenge.

    Yep, this one too

And well, 21 days is manageable. 1 year, not so much. I did pretty good with my 21-day challenge. And now that I have reading my Bible and regular work-outs under my belt, I've made myself a new calendar for the month of January. Which includes...of course...2 blog posts a week. Not because I feel like I have to, but because I want to. I really do enjoy blogging, I do it for me (obviously, I've been blogging for years now and I literally have 10 people who read this). I don't want to not do something I love just because it takes time.


Moving on.
Ryan and I went on "vacation" slash visit-everyone-on-the-planet-trip. We were living out of suitcases for 3 weeks. I packed a suitcase 6 times in less than a month. I repeat 6 FREAKING TIMES. It was insanity, and something I never want to do again. Not to say that it wasn't fun! We did get to see almost everyone we wanted to, and even if time was short with people it's always better than nothing!

Oh, and I also was super sick for a week and practically died. So that was nice.

And here's a photo summary of our trip. Kind of.

Lunch with our dear friends at one of the many fantastic GR restaurants

Cookie decorating with sisters and nieces and nephew

All of Ryan's Grandparents. Who are so different, it cracks me up.

We had an intense game of Bocce Ball. Exact measurements were required.

I repeat: intense game.

He's adorable. Or if you speak Julie, "dadorable"

WALT DISNEY WORLD! FO' FREE!!

 Okay. So I know I always say Ryan is still a child at heart and it shines bright in most situations, but well...I looked like most of the 6-old-year girls there when I saw Cinderella's castle. Most definitely an audible gasp. C'mon though, how could I not?! It's CINDERELLA'S CASTLE.

Bug's Life 3D Show at Animal Kingdom

CINDERELLA'S CASTLE AT NIGHT! WITH FIREWORKS!

You know what else turns me into a child? Fireworks. We knew this before Disney. But oh, guess what, there's fireworks at Disney. BEHIND CINDERELLA'S CASTLE! And a freaking fairy with lit-up wings zip lines from the tippy-top of the castle across the park. WHAT?!
While at Disney I also decided that my dream job would be to be a Disney Princess. Probably Snow White, but I think you have to be kind of Asian for that job. Not because I think Snow White is Asian or because I'm in anyway racist...but because I know Disney has crazy standards for those princess roles and all of the Snow Whites I've seen are kind of Asian. But I would settle for being a stilt person in the Lion King Show. Just gotta learn how to dance and jump with stilts. Should be no problem.

As you can see, we had fun.
More importantly though, I hope you noticed I got bangs. I figured it was a logical next step for my obsession with Zooey Deschanel.

chocolate tour

A few weeks ago Ryan went on a chocolate tour of Philadelphia. A groupon/living social deal that we bought last year and waited until the very last day to use. Typical.

We walked all around Philly, learning about and sampling chocolate at various places. It was a fun day, and obviously a delicious date! We also discovered a few little treasures in the city that we never would have stumbled upon otherwise.

My favorite, the champagne truffle! Yum!

You can see the pictures of our tour here. (This post is mostly for our moms, cause I know nobody else really cares, haha)

flea market finds

I found an old frame at a flea market a few weeks ago, it was ugly. And I think Ryan and Beth and Scott thought I was nuts for wanting it.

But jokes on them cause look at the beautifulness I turned that sucker into!

BOOYAH.
An old frame turned chalkboard! An idea I got from pinterest.

We also got that old matches holder (turned chalk and eraser holder) at a flea market. Not sure if I'm gonna leave it like it is or paint it. I like the "MATCHES" written on it, but it's kinda rusty. Ugly rusty. Not pretty rusty.

I like to write nice things on it.
Such as, "All you need is love. And food. And water. And lots of other things." or "'I love The Smiths!' -Summer, 500 Days of Summer" or "Do FRIES come with that SHAKE?" Which may or may not be on there right now. Which also may or may not have been there when our favorite maintenance man came to fix our dishwasher. Aaaaand...he may or may not have asked me, "The real question is...What kinda shake you talkin' about?!"
He's awsome.

We also got some little trinkets to put in our letterpress tray.

(Which has found a home!! More on that to come later.)

 

 

Have no fear, I totally realize that it looks disgusting. My flash brings out the nasty! I promise it doesn't look that terrible. I spent a long time cleaning it out.

date night

Ryan and I went on a long overdue date night a couple of nights ago. We went to Dave and Busters and essentially spent $20 to get some candy, but we had a blast while doing it. That's all that matters.

We also sat next to the cast of Billy Elliot, the Broadway musical that is in Philly for a few weeks. And saw the sweetest old couple playing the "Deal or No Deal" arcade game :)

Ryan learned how awesome I am at silly arcade games, due to my years of experience at Chuck E. Cheese. Years that may or may not have ended only 2 years ago, at the young age of 21.
I ROCKED at Smokin' Token and was strangely addicted to Token Roulette, haha. Which is why I don't want to go to Sugar House Casino, even though Ryan insists we wouldn't waste more than $10 there.

I also forgot my camera in the car. I said, "If we see one of those photo-booth-sketch-your-picture things, we have to do it so I can have at least one picture of tonight!" And then just my luck, we spotted one!! And just my luck, this is what our picture turned out as.

HAHAHA! Can you see us? Cause I can't!

Afterwards we headed over to Franklin Fountain, because my mouth had been watering thinking about a Mt. Vesuvius sundae all evening. And then we got there, and just my luck (a trend for the evening), I only had $4 because I had to use my $10 bill for parking. Gosh darn parking. So after digging out some spare toll-booth change from the car, we mustered up $7.00 and got a couple scoops of coconut and black raspberry ice cream to share. Ahhhhh, fantastic. It was no Vesuvius, but it was still delectable. I love Franklin Fountain. It is expensive, but SO WORTH IT!

And then I asked our night security guard to take a picture of us in the lobby, so we'd at least have 1 picture of the night :)

We're super cute, I know.

snackie

This is our favorite snack lately.

Pears (sometimes bananas too.)
Plain greek yogurt (Chobani or Fage are the best. Don't even bother with Activia or Dannon Oikos. I'll save you some time and tell you they are sick-nast.)
Honey.
Chopped pistachios.

Yum.

upitty, up, up, up.

I've taken an unintentional-turned-intentional break from blogging. I've said this before, but I really don't like blogging when I'm not inspired. And lately I've been in "a mood." And everyone and everything are getting on my nerves. And I'm sick of life and disappointments and blah-dee-blah-dee-blah. Ugh. So I stopped blogging because I knew my posts would quickly turn to something like...
"Life is stupid. And I hate Philadelphia. What are YOU doing here, reading MY thoughts?! AHHH!"
I thought a little breakski would be best for all involved :)

Anyways.
In the past 3 hours I have become obsessed with Up. Haha. Yes, the movie. Yes, 3 hours. I mean, I've always loved the movie, even though I'm guaranteed to be bawling within 15 minutes. You know what reminded me of my imense love for Up?

THIS PHOTO SHOOT!

Photo credit: the goodness and blue lily photo

(I'll give you a one-photo glimpse into the shoot, but be sure to visit the blogs linked and look at them.)

Oh. My. Goodness.
I die.
I can. not. handle the amazingness of that photoshoot.
So much so, that I'm using "amazing" to describe something...which is something I almost NEVER do (mostly because it bugs me, but this scenario is actually fitting of the word.)

First of all, I NEED THAT HOUSE. I need to own it. I need to live in it. I need to mow its little lawn and sweep its little porch and make cookies in the blue oven. I should probably also change my name to Ellie and force Ryan to go with Carl. Because it seems fitting, and that way we can keep the mailbox.

Second of all, I diiiieee. Again. Because I seriously can't get over these photos. I want to be them.
GAH!

Up next (pun totally intended, bahaha)...
THIS CHILD.

Photo taken from my modern met (although, this can be found practically everywhere)

 (Same as above, be sure to visit the link cause there is lots more of that cuteness!)

I know he's been blowing up pinterest and facebook for a while, but he is so cute I can't leave him out. Oh my goodness. He motivates me to look into kidnapping (not really.) (But maybe, kind of.)

So now that I have rediscovered my love for Up...I have also discovered that WE DON'T OWN THE MOVIE?! WHAT THE HARICOTS VERTS IS GOING ON HERE?!
(Hee hee, we had haricots verts with dinner and I've also become obsessed with saying it...haricots verts...haricots verts...haricots verts...I really like to say it in an English accent.)