My mom and dad are my heroes.  I know that's cliche, but when you think about it, it's cliche for a reason.  For many people, our parents are the people we grow up idolizing and aspiring to be like.  I hope that I am as good of a parent to my son as my parents have been to me and my brother.  They are both genuinely good and generous people.  They have always been there for me and support me with everything I do.  I love them!

I really don't have a place that I go to relax in town.  I prefer to do my relaxing at home and doing activities out and about.  I know, I'm weird.  But, when I was in college, Caribou is where I would go to do my studying.  I couldn't stand to study in the quiet of our dorm room, and I couldn't focus when there were so many distractions, like my computer.  So, I would take my books and go to Caribou to get my assignments and studying done.  It is still my absolute favorite place for coffee and scones. 

I don't really have a favorite outfit right now, so I'm posting this picture of my cat, Jasper, in his pumpkin outfit.  I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen when I put this on him.  As you can see, he didn't appreciate it as much as I did.  
It doesn't fit him anymore, because he was only about six months old here.  He's probably about twice the size now.  The hat still kind of fits him, though!

I don't have a picture of a couple holding hands close up, but I have the most recent photo of my husband and I.  This is from our birthday celebration at the casino. 

Paris Skyline

So, the view from my backdoor would be the inside of my garage, and that's definitely not very exciting or interesting.  So, I am going to post pictures of what I WISH the view was from where I live.  
I have always wanted to spend an extended amount of time in both Paris and London.  I found these great pictures on google.  Believe me, I wish I had taken them myself! 

London Skyline

I have a fascination with Paris and the Eiffel Tower and have always wanted to go there and see the sights, tour the museums, eat delicious food and shop.  And, because I'm an English teacher, I have always wanted to visit England; London especially.  Well, and Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare.   I've told my husband he has to take me to both places one day, since we never really had a honeymoon.  I can't wait to go!

I don't really like the theme today, so I thought I'd post a couple pictures of Mason in the bathtub.  We realized we didn't have any recent photos of him in the tubbie.  Lately, he doesn't really sit down to take his bath, he just walks around in the tub and plays with his toys.  He sits very little, and usually it's when I need to wash something that's now submerged in the water!  He loves taking his bath, though.  He can be really crabby, but as soon as he's in the tubbie playing, he's fine and in a much better mood.

To follow the theme of alphabet today, I took a picture of a wall in my son's bedroom.  The theme is ABC's, so it was perfect for today's blog theme.  I knew right away that this was the theme I wanted to decorate our baby's room in, even before we knew he was going to be a boy.  I liked the softer primary colors and that it worked for a boy or a girl.  And the theme works with my giraffe obsession! G for Giraffe!  I have giraffes all over his room.  They're just so cute!

What a great theme for today!  I was hoping there would be a theme this picture would be right for.  Lindsay and I recently celebrated our birthdays at the casino and she brought this delicious pink champagne cake.  We blew out our candles after our husbands sang "Happy Birthday" to us.  We played adult mad labs (which were hilarious) and cards until we decided we were old and went to bed at one a.m.

I didn't really like the idea of taking a picture of my laundry, so I took a photo of the pile of books on my nightstand instead.  These are the books that I have yet to read.  I'm an English teacher, so I love to read.  I always read before I go to bed.  The book I'm currently reading is You Suck by Christopher Moore.  Next up is Bite Me.
The top five books on the pile I recently received for my birthday.  My hubby got me Chelsea Handler's book, Lindsay got me the Ann Brasheres book and my brother bought me all of the Stieg Larsson books.  They know me so well!  They know that books are always a great gift for me!

My favorite piece of furniture is our bed.  My dad made the headboard and foot-board, so it is extra special to me and it's a one-of-a-kind.  He is an amazing woodworker and I often tell him he could do it as a profession, but he says he'd rather keep it as a hobby.  I also really love it, because I was finally able to get this beautiful bedding that I'd been wanting for probably a year.  
Our bed is also my favorite piece of furniture, because it is a place where my husband and I can have our special alone time.  This is the place where we can just focus on each other, instead of everything else.  Comfort. Home. Peace.

The theme for today is architecture, so my hubby took some photos of our son playing on the cool playground he found close to where he works.  I figured it qualifies, since someone had to design it, right?  Plus, neither our house nor our neighborhood are very architecturally interesting.
They had a really cool slide there that was made up of rolling bars instead of just the standard slide.  It was so much fun!  Mason loved it!  He had the biggest smile on his face while he was going down the bumpy slide!  There was a little girl also playing on the playground that looked to be about a year older than him who was scared to go down, but Mason would go down again and again!  He climbed up all by himself and sat down at the slide and smiled all the way down! He didn't need to be caught at the end, either.  He could do it all by himself!  He's getting to be such a big boy!
 

Mason isn't really old enough to want to dress up on his own yet, but I like to put things on him sometimes.  This picture is of him in his jammies with my scarf on.  He really didn't like it.  He started crying not long after I took this photo. 
I also included a picture of him in his Halloween costume from last year.  I saw the giraffe costume and HAD to get it for him.  He looked so gosh darn cute!

I have been wearing this beautiful ring for almost five years now.  My husband, Ross, and I were living apart when he surprised me in my apartment with this ring.  He hid in my bedroom, so I didn't know he was there when I came home from work.  I opened the bedroom door and there he was, and he scared the crap out of me.  He got down on one knee right there and told me he loved me and asked me to marry him.  Of course I said yes!
My favorite part is the pink sapphires on the sides.  That was custom made for me.  I've also included a proof from our wedding with a picture of both of our hands.  I have my wedding band on in that one.  Both rings are made of platinum.  My wedding band has little diamonds scattered on it and every other stone is a pink sapphire.  I have been wearing the rings together for almost four years now.  The time has gone by so fast!  It seems like we just got married, but already we have a son who's 20 months old.

I'm all caught up after this post!  I decided not to go with the theme of street signs today.  Instead, I'm posting this picture of Lindsay and I with our FAVORITE author, Christopher Moore.  He had a book signing in the area when his book You Suck came out, so Lindsay and I HAD to go see him and get him to sign our books.  He is an amazing and hilarious writer!  He's so original and bizarre.  If there was one writer out there that I would try to emulate if I were to attempt to write a book, it would be him.  If you ever need something to read, pick up any of his books and you won't be disappointed.  My favorites of his are: Lamb, A Dirty Job, The Stupidest Angel, and Bloodsucking Fiends with its sequels You Suck and Bite Me.

Since the theme is numbers, I thought I'd talk about my lucky number: 13.  It is often viewed as unlucky, but for me, it has special significance.  
I was born on August 13th 
at 11:13 pm
My name starts with 'M' which is the 13th letter of the alphabet.

I've had 13 pop up at different times and in various capacities throughout my life as well.  It really just seems to be my number.  
Since the 13 is just a graphic, I also included a picture of myself from the birthday celebration Lindsay and I had a couple of years ago.  Everyone dressed up in only black and white (the birthday girls wore pink accessories, our favorite color) and we went out to eat at Fogo de Chao, then had drinks at Bellanote.   It was probably our most memorable birthday celebration so far.  It was SO much fun!

For as long as I can remember, my mom has been deathly afraid of butterflies, moths, lady bugs and generally anything that flutters.  She's scared of butterflies, but I've never seen her run away from a bee or wasp; something that could actually hurt her.  It's completely irrational.  When we were at Cyprus Gardens in Florida, she managed to work up the courage to go in the butterfly house, where they fly freely around.  My dad thought it would be funny to flick the back of her hair to see what she would do.  She ran screaming out of the butterfly house!  We laughed so hard!

My favorite singer of all time is Barry Manilow.  You can blame it on my mom.  She's in love with him.  We have seen him in concert twice now.  The first time, we were in the second row.  It was AWESOME!  You could see the spit coming out of his mouth.  It was great!
These pictures are from the second time we went to see him and he was at the Xcel Center.  Can you guess what song he was performing here? Copacabana, of course!  I loved the girls' costumes!  I want to wear one of those big headdresses!  

Below is a picture of Barbie furniture that I made for our niece, Trinity, for her birthday last year.  I made it out of plastic canvas from several pattern books.  My grandma made me furniture for my Barbies when I was little and I loved it.  So, I thought that since Trinny was getting into Barbies that she would like it, too.  And she did!  I was so happy that she did.  I still have to make her a bedroom set that includes a 4-poster bed with dresser and already completed is the large wardrobe . 

Since it's photographer's choice for this post, I thought I would post some pictures of my best friend, Lindsay, and I.  We are going to be celebrating our birthdays this weekend, so I thought it a fitting subject.
 Lindsay and I have been best friends for about 9 years; since junior year of high school.  We've been each other's maids of honor.  She's the godmother of my son, Mason.  
She and I have the same sense of humor and we can amuse ourselves for hours, just by people-watching.  Oftentimes, we are the only ones laughing and usually at private jokes.  There is nothing that someone could tell me about her that would surprise me, and the same is true for her. 

Every year, my husband and I host a Halloween Party at our house.  We usually try to coordinate our costumes and the year I was pregnant was, I think, our best one.  I was trying to think of something really good and funny that we could be, since I would be showing at about 7 1/2 months pregnant.  I thought of maybe a nun and a priest (oh, scandalous!), and maybe painting my belly with something.  But I didn't really like the idea of it exposed.  Then I happened to watch Juno.  I thought, perfect!  We can be Juno and Paulie Bleeker!  Ross was totally into it, as you can see.  He ordered the t-shirt Paulie wears to do his running in and he even found the yellow short shorts and sweat bands.  I just wish this shot was further back so you could get the full effect of how short the shorts were!

I am still working on catching up with my blog posts, so please bear with me!  I searched high and low for this photo, and for some reason, this still isn't the one I was thinking of.  Anyway, to go with the next theme of shoes, I found this picture of my one foot and my best friend's two feet.  It's from New Year's Eve 2007 when we got all dressed up and went out to eat at the Melting Pot.  I included a photo of all of the ladies that went out that night, so you can get the whole feel of the fancy outfits we wore! :)
I love wearing fancy shoes, because I don't get to do it very often.  I'm looking forward to this weekend, when Lindsay and I and our hubbies go to the casino for the night at get all cute for dinner.  I'm definitely going to be wearing some fabulous shoes!

I'm using water as a symbolic theme for this picture.  This is a picture of my husband and I with our new godson, Carter, after his baptism.  He is the youngest son of my cousin Gretchen and her hubby Chris.  We were so honored to be asked to be his godparents.  He's such a sweet baby!

My best friend posted this picture on her blog, too, but I thought it was such a great photo that it needed to be shared twice!  This picture is from last year when we went to 80's night at the Melting Pot.  We went for our birthdays.  Lindsay and I are exactly a week apart, so we usually so something special the Saturday in between our birthdays.  Last year we chose to go to the Melting Pot.  It was delicious!

I've been at the lake since last Sunday, so I have to catch up on the posts/days that I missed.  I'll start with the beauty theme.  This is a picture of the beautiful trees that we saw all over the place while we were in Charlotte.  They're called Crepe Myrtles.  I loved that they had pretty pink blossoms.  I wish we had them here in Minnesota. 

Ross is my best friend and soul mate.  I am so lucky to have found him and to be married to him.  He's the love of my life and together we have created the most beautiful baby boy: our son Mason.  He is the light of our lives and he keeps us constantly on our toes.  He was born on January 1, 2009; our own little Baby New Year. 

The theme today is weather and I figure the weather by the ocean is more interesting than the weather here in Minnesota.  The weather was fabulous when we went to Wrightsville beach.  It was really hot and the breeze by the ocean felt great.  The water temperature was perfect, cool enough to be refreshing, but not too cold.  The wind brought in some pretty big waves and it was fun throwing ourselves into them. 
This is a picture of one of the seagulls flying around the beach.  They were pesky little creatures.  If anyone had food, they would go right up to people and beg for it.  They would even snatch it right out of people's hands.  At least the weather was nice!

I'm actually going with the theme today.  I can't resist posting more pictures of my son.  He is the greatest joy in my life.  To me, there is nothing better than being Mason's mommy.
This is a picture of him sleeping while we were in Charlotte visiting Grandma Diane and Auntie Taylor.  I loved how he was laying width-wise in the bed instead of length-wise, and how he looked just so darn cute sleeping and sucking his thumb in his fishie jammies. I know he'll probably have to go to the orthodontist later because of it, but I love that he sucks his thumb.  He's so cute when he pops that little thumb in his mouth and rubs his top lip with the side of his finger.

This is a photo of my husband Ross and son Mason.  They were both entranced with what was on the tv and sitting on the couch so nice that I had to snap a picture.  Mason has just started to really sit and watch tv every once in awhile.  He especially loves to sit next to me and watch videos of himself on my computer.  I love how they have almost the same look on their faces in this photo. 

The first picture of 365!  My best friend started a blog like this and I thought it was a good idea, so here I am!  This picture is from our recent trip to Charlotte, NC, to visit my husband's mom and sister.  We took the four-hour drive from Charlotte to Wrightsville Beach so that we could swim in the ocean.  This is my son, Mason, after the day of swimming and in his case, eating sand.  Here, he's eating a banana, making his silly face.  We all had a great time, and Mason especially loved watching the waves coming in.