monster madness

so remember way back to the new year when i said that i was going to be more crafty?

well, as always, i haven't been doing a very good job with my resolution.

back then i wanted to make that monster stuffed animal right?

well in january i bought the pattern, i bought the fabric, i planned it all out , cut the fabric, pinned him together and he was basically ready to be sewn and stuffed.

but then i got scared of my new cool sewing machine and told myself i couldn't do it and that poor little monster had to sit in our office for months hoping for me to someday be a man, use my sewing machine and give him the life a little monster stuffed animal always wanted!

so...i did just that!

that's right, i finished him!

isn't he the cutest little thing you ever did see?

he's definitely not perfect but not too shabby for my first stuffed animal!

his eyes were a stroke of genius because i couldn't find just one button that i liked the best so i thought to myself "why can't i use two different ones and put them together?"

as it turns out, you can do that!

so i did.

his mouth was a last minute decision that i had to hand sew but i think it's my favoritest part about him!

go me!!

now i just need to make a little friend for him!

(ps. i just realized i'm wearing the same shirt as in my last pictures. what can i say? i really love flannel and i really love that shirt!)

back to my old self again!

once upon a time there was a girl who had super cute short hair

but she had a husband who wanted to see how her hair would look long even though she told him it was yucky

she grew her hair out a little bit to prove it to him and he agreed and wanted her short hair back

yuck yuck yuck

so they went to fix this little yucky thing on top of her head and now she is back to her normal self again!

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

THE END!

green green everywhere!

so yesterday was st. patty's day and i'm pretty sure it was the best st. patty's day i've ever had!

while matt was at work i went out to the store and bought just about all the green things i could find and anything that i could possibly turn green for dinner.

here's what we ended up with...

salad with avocados

broccoli

green garlic mashed potatoes

the most delicious chicken ever covered with green gravy

and green sprite to wash it all down

all eaten with green dishes of course!

matt said he thinks it was one of the best dinners EVER!

booyah!

then after dinner i took matt to the dollar movies and we FINALLY saw blindside!

i've been asking matt to take me to see that since it came out.

it was so good! i loved it!

i didn't cry like everyone told me i would because according to matt i'm made of stone.

(so not true)

but i thought it was a super cute movie and i'll definitely watch it again when it comes out on dvd.

we do need to remember though that the dollar movies during the week are apparently where the old people go to hang out.

our theater was like an old folks home!

but i guess that's better than having my seat kicked 500 times by some jerky teenager.

when we got home we had a lovely dessert of GREEN mint ice cream and watched some tv before falling asleep.

it was a great night!

HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY EVERYBODY!

spring breaky break

so this week is spring break and i realized that spring break loses all of its excitement when you grow up and have no money.

i really wish we could take a trip somewhere but matt and i still have to work and since both of us don't get paid to take days off we're stuck here.

sad face.

i've been trying to do something fun every day though.

i want matt to have a good spring break!

here's our week so far...

my little sis stayed the night with us on sunday and we spent half of the next day thrift storing it up! i love the thrift store!!

we actually went because i'm searching for materials for a project matt and i are doing but it kinda turned into making fun of clothes instead!

man those pants were itchy...but so sexy!

this was sari's most favorite piece of clothing!

she actually did buy this so she could wear it on a school trip she's taking next week!

that's my girl!

NIGHT SHIRT!!!

and the absolute best part of our day came just as we were driving away from a goodwill.

THE WEENIE MOBILE!

i'm sure my mom will never forget that her 21 year old daughter had to hang up on her so she could take a picture of this amazing sight!

sorry mom!!

but if we hadn't seen this giant hotdog on wheels sari would've never decided what she wants to be when she grows up.

i'm proud to announce that my little sister will one day become the weenie mobile driver!

i can't think of anything better than that!

after hitting about 4 thrift stores we were tired and needed foooooooood so sari, my mom and i went to chili's!

i always forget how much i like chili's until i go there.

the fajitas are delicious!

by the time i got home it was time for matt to get off of work.

i think he was a little bummed that he missed out on all the thrifty fun so after i finished some of my work i took him to ikea!

that always makes us happy!

we went to look for a fancy mirror for our project and, of course, ended up finding a bunch of other stuff too!

we found this amazing little tree and just had to get it! why?

it's a money tree!! i wonder when the hundred dollar bills start to bloom.

we also got a couple other random things and then went to our favoritest place in ikea...the as-is department!

and we actually found the mirror we wanted there!

duh! the as-is department never lets us down!

all the mirrors there with frames were too expensive for us so to see the perfect one for $30 cheaper was like a miracle in the as-is department!

i think i even heard angels sing when we picked it up.

i know it doesn't look like our taste now but just wait until our project is complete!

yesterday was certainly the lame day of spring break.

after work matt and i went to some more thrift stores and we made homemade garlic bread to go with our pasta dinner.

it was a wild night!

tonight i'm thinking of taking him somewhere cool!

i think i have to after yesterday.

guns + quads = fun saturday

my family likes to go out to the desert sometimes on saturdays to go shooting and riding their quads.

we never ever ever got to go with them because saturday was a busy day at create it so when they told us they were going this past saturday we definitely had to go!

it was so much fun!

matt and i are experts with a gun!

not really but we pretend to be!

we let my dad have all of the extra samples from our store so he can set them up and shoot at them!

it was so cool to see those pottery pieces explode!

i think this was the best i ever did at shooting because we actually had something fun to shoot, not just cans and boring stuff like that.

i got to shoot at little animal banks and christmas plates and funny mugs!

so since we're not going to be professional snipers any time soon we took a break from the guns every now and then and took the quads out for a ride!

after a rocky start driving into a cactus, matt finally got comfortable with the big monster quad and drove me around.

we followed sari and got stuck in a few places but that's the fun of the city kids on quads!

matt wasn't brave enough to ride the newer quad because its got a clutch and everything but sari and i were getting pretty good on it by the end.

i dare say we were great at it!

we can't wait to go out there again!

we told my dad next time we actually need to camp out there too.

i haven't been camping in years and i miss it!

we'll have to go soon!

the little things make me happy

i am happy to announce that my house is getting a little cleaner with each passing day!

i can fit my car in the garage again!

which is very good since our lame HOA left me a mean note on my car telling me to move it since i don't have a permit to park in the parking lot.

does this mean that my garage is now clean?

no way jose!

but since my car is so teeny tiny i was able to stack, thrown away, and rearranged everything so my car now perfectly fits.

i am amazing.

also, i am very excited because matt put up the tv that was in our store in our bedroom!

we have not had a tv in our bedroom the whole time we've lived in this house!

crazy, i know.

but now we do and we LOVE it!

actually, i love it during the day but it's really putting a damper on my already horrible sleeping habits.

oh well, i'll get over it!

we also put up some nicer curtains in our bedroom since i washed the other ones and shrunk them so they didn't fit anymore.

oops!

look how amazing everything looks!

if you're wondering what the show is on the tv wonder no more...

it is the amazing amanda bynes show what i like about you!

totally funny show that i don't think matt likes so now i watch it while he's at work!

and padme looks adorable in this picture!

look at her smiling for the camera!

and now for my favorite part of the week...

PENGUIN BAG!!!

that's right people, i found a super awesome penguin bag at walgreens and it was love at first sight!

usually matt doesn't let me get things like this but hello?! it was only $5 so he just couldn't refuse!

i love love love love love it!

i can't wait til matt and i go on a trip and i can use it as my airplane bag or something!

everyone will be so jealous!

a very important date

so its been for-e-ver since matt and i have played with our ridiculously amazing friends josue and elba and since we don't have the store anymore to keep us from them we planned a fun night out!

actually...josue and elba planned a fun night out and then spent about 2 days begging us to go.

why didn't we want to?

well they really really wanted to go to the restaurant benihana

(yup like in the office christmas episode)

and even though matt and i have wanted to go there for practically our whole lives we don't exactly have the moola to dine at a place like that.

so for 2 days we said no no no let's go somewhere cheap!

then josue somehow got into matt's head and then it was just me, all alone, fighting to be my cheap little self and eventually i gave in.

and guess what...

BENIHANA RULES!

was it expensive?

more expensive than what we would normally pay for dinner but we split a meal so it was actually not too shabby!

was it amazing?

DUH!

our little cooking man was so awesome!

he was making cute little cooking man jokes the whole time and i was cracking up!

and i don't think i've ever been so amazed by cooking!

if these guys had their own show on tv it would a cooking show you wouldn't have to force me to watch! i would watch it every day!

check me out! i can use chopsticks!

here's elba!! she's so pretty pretty pretty!

oh and there's matt. he likes to be that weird guy in the background of pictures.

we will definitely be going to benihana again!

we decided it's so worth the extra money.

after the benihana excellence we went and saw the new alice in wonderland movie.

i gotta say, i was expecting better.

i guess everyone was just saying it was going to be the most incredible thing that tim burton has ever done so i was expecting to be blown away and i wasn't.

sad.

i gotta remember that if people say a movie is going to be brilliant, it won't be.

then i won't be disappointed.

i do need to say though that johnny depp is a babe!

he can even be dressed up with kooky makeup and talking like an idiot and i still want to jump his bones.

true story.

all in all it was an incredible night!

getting used to my new life

so i'm doing the work at home thing now which i thought i'd really love but as it turns out i'm having a rough time getting into the swing of things.

i still feel the need to wake up early even though i could sleep in if i wanted.
i still feel the need to do laundry first thing in the morning even though i now have all day to do it.
i still feel the need to shower and get ready first thing in the morning even though i could really stay in my jammies all day long.
i still feel the constant need to rush rush rush with everything i do even though i now have more time than i have had since i can remember.

also, i can't seem to stop obsessing about how ridiculously messy my house is right now!
when we closed the store we took a bunch of stuff (too much stuff actually) so all those things that were spread out in our big store are now stuffed into our teeny tiny garage and all over the house.
it makes me want to punch someone!
i've tried every day to clean at least one room in the house but once i get one room clean another one gets messed up!
like when i successfully cleaned the kitchen so that the counter was visible for the first time in a week i walked upstairs and saw the gigantic mess of computer cords and cables and tools that covered the floor of our office.
it makes me exhausted just thinking about it.
this weekend matt and i are going to attack this mess and by sunday night i WILL be able to park my little car back in it's safe garage and i WILL be able to successfully walk around a room without tripping on something and i WILL be able to actually have people come over and not be afraid that they will die in the mess and i won't even know it.
this place WILL get clean this weekend!
or else.

even though i haven't quite settled into the working at home thing i know one little puppy that has certainly been loving it.


in fact, i think she believes that if she snuggles me enough i'll eventually give up on my work and play with her all day long.

she was actually sprawled across my lap and laying her head on my arm while i was typing.
(ignore the messiness in the background of this picture please!)

matt told me yesterday that he thinks padme loves me more than him now that i'm home with her all day long.
i won't tell him that i think she's loved me more all along!
what can i say? she's a little mama's girl!

anyway...
i'm going to try really hard from now on to get into a good rhythm every day.
i want to have time to do my work, exercise, make dinner and get household chores done
but still have time for the things that i want to do like sew and paint and watch oodles of csi!

amazing jakes with amazing employees!

to celebrate the ending of our store me, matt and our wonderful employees decided to party it up amazing jakes style!

that's right! it's the perfect place for young kids and 5 create it workers!

sari and marlee were the only smart ones because they brought a coupon and got to do all the fun stuff while matt, nate and i played basketball, skee ball, pool and that jackpot game all night long!

but who were the ones that got all the tickets for tootsie rolls and paper fans??

oh that's right, NOT SARI AND MARLEE!

suckers!

but the girls totally had the most fun there.

check it out...

sari making fun of marlee on the frog hopper thing.

man was i jealous i couldn't ride this!

no joke.

and apparently these two are extremely popular with the male workers.

this young amazing jakes employee wanted to jump their bones!

he even tried to let me ride the bumper cars for free to get on their good side.

sheesh!

and then this boy told them that they made his day by letting him be in this picture with them.

apparently boys throw themselves at these girls!

but who could blame them?

i would too if i was a 17 year old boy!

oolala!

the night was a total success and it ended in the most perfect way!

with matt getting completely stuck in a kids ride!

yup...perfect ending!

bye bye create it

so our store is officially gone.

we sold almost all of the furniture and equipment that we had which i never thought we'd be able to do in just 2 weeks.

and with the help of my dad and his amazing moving talents we were able to take almost everything that was left over from the store to our house last saturday.

matt and i went back on sunday to finish packing up the rest of the stuff and clean up.

and when i say we cleaned up i mean matt cleaned up while i loaded stuff into the cars!

everything looked ridiculously naked!

its hard to believe that these rooms were completely filled with pottery, kilns, paint, supplies, etc.

it was a great year and a half!

i'm sure lots of people think that we're total losers for having to close our business but i don't see it that way at all.

in fact, i see it just the opposite.

i was 20 years old when we got the store.

how many people can say that they owned a business at 20 years old?

and not only that, how many people can say that they ran a business at 20 years old and made the business more successful than the previous owners??

i'm extremely proud of what matt and i did.

it was the hardest year and a half of my life but i wouldn't change it.

i know i'm better for it.

i've had to deal with mean customers like mr. ufc who yelled at me over a little heart box not being finished.

i've had to deal with broken kilns during our busiest months

sad nikki.

i have learned to become incredibly patient and to try to solve problems when they come instead of just getting discouraged and giving up.

i know that i've done more in my short life than most people have in their entire lifetime.

i think that's something to be proud of.

so instead of feeling sad about the end of our store, i'm happy to say we did our best and we're ready for the next adventure!

bye bye Create It! Pottery Painting and More

we'll never forget you