I'm Awesome At Shopping!

.. That's a total lie. I'm about as good at shopping as I am at basketball.

& ice hockey.

& juggling hand grenades.

& cooking any sort of red meat.

You get it.

Shopping ≠ My strong suit.
It's okay.

Anyway, today after work, I embarked on day 1 of my mission to find a "semi formal" dress for the event I'm attending next weekend. I'm not a dressy girl by nature, so that in and of itself was the first hurdle. I figured it wouldn't be hard at all to find a piece to fit the bill.

 

Either I'm insanely picky, or I just... honestly... do not know how to do this.

^ found that online somewhere, made me laugh.. totally applicable.

So to my frustration this evening at dress shopping, and to the actual idea of dressing up in the first place, I say... not now. Just. Not. Now. I'll deal with you tomorrow. For now..

Here are some things that make me happy, that share my affinity for craftiness and avoiding big stores unless absolutely necessary. I'm drafting Christmas present ideas.

1. Jewelry. I have a lot of women [& men, too] in my family who admire and appreciate fun, quirky accessories. I just.. I have this really hard time spending exorbitant amounts of money on things unless there's an appropriate occasion [not saying that Christmas is anything less than that, however]; I simply like to give a lot, to a lot, so frugality is never a bad thing. 


via Tzunuum, Etsy
fun. definitely could add my own spin on it.

adore.

no, not mine... but doable.

... and so forth.

2. Scarves! I went on a huge knitting spree two years ago - remember that? Well, at the time I found a blog that I started obsessing over; it was one of those tutorial blogs that shows you how to knit and all that jazz. I found pictures [since I'm too lazy to go find the ones I took sporadically in 2011] of each of my four favorite stitches I learned and completed. I think.... it's gonna be another knitting year!

bring on the needles & yarn! i just got excited again...


3. Foooooooood. Duh. Food. I'd be here until next Christmas if I tried telling you all my favorite goodies for the holiday season, but I think at the top of that list is something I also learned while in Illinois: Gorilla Bread. It's a curse that I have no need for recipe instruction, but that I can recall it from memory. Pretty sad. Haha. Whatever.. I will be making mini versions of this for.... all ya'll this year. Be ready. Be hungry.


drooling already.

... So maybe my failed attempt at shopping today was a good thing, after all. I just caught my second wind of inspiration to actually do some of this stuff this year.

Gears are turnin'....

xo | cmd

Clydesdales, Bald Eagles & Camels, Oh My!

It was an early start today. Well, early as could be for it being the Saturday morning after my finishing VBS and my family driving almost 8 hours the day before. Mom had it decided before we were even out of bed this morning that we were doing something, likely in St. Louis. After some review, we settled on Grant's Farm.

joe. sydni. cori | dills

Heidi & Paul had some plans to do some hiking over on the Cahokia Mounds, so Jonathan loaded up with us and we started on our exhibition to St. Louis. We didn't take off before stopping by to see our good friend Bulent in Belleville [gelato stop, duhhhh] and of course taking Mom by Peace by Piece. Oh, and remember a week or so back when I stopped in and nabbed my TOMS ballet flats.. and I'd ordered something else? At the time, I was holding out because I didn't wanna ruin the surprise.. Well....

I ordered a necklace. Sounds a little goofy, but here in Belleville, there are a plethora of locally-based artisans who I would love to see be successful. Heather, the crafty hand behind this piece, took my order herself and did the work of putting the Dills on a chain in something of a non-traditional way. I'm not big on the typical mother jewelry, but I was attracted to the simplicity of this one, along with the fact that it's the entire family. Like I said, I could've easily done this myself, but I'm happy & I love it.

Grant's Farm was the place to be today!

grant's farm!

It took us no time at all to cover the horse stables and see the beauty of the famous Budweiser clydesdales. It also afforded us some great opportunities to update some long-overdue family photos...

family :) 

daddy & syd
joe. jonathan. dad | joe. syd. mom&dad | me & jonathan!
mama & syd

There was of course the tram ride that traverses over the grounds of the farm: Naturally I wound up with three times as many pictures as necessary, but Sydni kept demanding that I capture every single animal, be it sleeping or flying. We tried. Haha. 

animals everywhere!

My favorite collaboration from the day: 

she. is. adorable. call be biased ;)

Oh yeah, and of course Nana & Pappy insisted on buying a "little something" for Sydni, so we stopped off at the gift shop and spent a good while churning through a bin of colorful rocks. Sydni picked out as many as she could fit into the little leather bag provided, and shared with us her brazen pride with her selections all the way to the car. So... stinkin' ... cute. 

pickin' out rocks with mama

Whew. We are... spent! It's time to get to grillin' - Heidi and Paul are back from their day trip and we're about to do some business with the grill :).

I LOVE.. MY FAMILY!

xo | cmd

Bridesmaid Jewelry

In the true spirit of a DIY-er, I've taken it upon myself to create my own wedding invitations [done], rsvp's [done], table cards [done], programs [in progress], and of course bridesmaid jewelry.


jewelry in progress

I'm workin' on it.
Tonight.
It will be finished... I just didn't want to forget to tell the whole audience of [none?] here.

Yeah.

xo | cmd

Base Picnic & Bible Study

Today started off with waffles. A day that starts off with waffles is rarely ever a bad day. Haha.

waffle time!

The boys headed out to meet up with Kyle, Lorne, & Nick to help one of their buddies move his things out of a storage unit. Sydni and I hung back to clean up, which we finished sooner than we thought. That meant some free time for jewelry!

Behold:

handmade fun:
dragonfly pendent for mama
simple purple droplet for sydni

Sydni & I headed to the Sandven’s and the lot of us trekked over to the Scott AFB picnic. We hadn’t been to a base picnic yet, so we weren’t sure what to expect. It was a free event, and the entire base was invited. This thing was huge, more like an outdoor festival with free food, swag, and hot, hot sun. We ate, we walked, and we played. Definitely not a bad day for a picnic. We took Eric over to the lake for some cool-down cornhole before we headed back home to get ready for Bible study.



local radio station promo inflatable | eric & joe trying out a picnic game




bengals cornhole



rick warren

Towerview has a couple’s bible study that takes place every other Friday at the pastor’s house. This was our first session; the topic series tonight was the first of three on Raising Your Kids Without Raising Your Blood Pressure. How appropriate! J Excluding us, the pastor and his wife, there were five other couples in attendance, all with at least one child. We watched a video lesson by Rick Warren on parenting, and had a group discussion following. I was thoroughly impressed with how it went, and with how warm and welcoming this group is. I have a feeling we’re going to fit in and stay here. We’ll see.

We plan on doing a little touring tomorrow! The Gateway Arch, in St. Louis is on our list, along with either the Anheuser-Busch brewery or Grant Farm. We’ll see what we fancy more when we wake up in the morning….

xo | cmd