Happy Birthday to my BFF!!!

I wanted to give a shout out to my very bestest friend Bailstar!!! She's turning 24 years old today... old woman! Don't worry, I'll be right there with you in 17 days :) But you knew that. You knew when my Birthday was even before me...

 Brooke and Bailey, best buds since the age of 2!

22 years of friendship really can't be beat. We've served each other well over the years. Here are some of my favorite memories with you....

Skating, '91-present. And, yes we have our own roller skates because we're that cool!

  Senior year spring break at South Padre...we had a good time.

Many summer days spent at the lake.

Helping you out in times of need.

Our first Vegas trip together!

Being with you at your UT graduation this year! Grad lunch at jardin, only the best!

and soooo many other fun times.

Bailey,
I'm so happy to have you in my life and be a part of yours. You moving in two houses down from me when we were two, was a blessing. So grateful to have grown up with you and to see how far our friendship has come. In just a few months, you'll be standing next to me at my wedding*tear*  No one is more perfect for the part. I love you sweet friend! I can't wait to celebrate with you tonight and spend many more Birthdays together!

Love,
Brooke

Giveaways are REAL! Check out our Save the Date too!

Hello and good morning friends!

I'm so happy to see some new faces :)

I finally sent out our Save The Date postcards so I wanted to show y'all how they turned out!

Sorry, it's a bit blurry. iPhone pic.

 The back reads:
"It takes a bit of fate
to find your soul mate.
To celebrate,
Please save the date!"
Scott was very proud of himself for coming up with it. I was too. He's more creative than me in a lot of things, and sometimes better with words.

Speaking of Scott, here he is singing rapping his heart out. We went out for a friends Birthday on Friday to the Highball. It's a vintage bowling alley that also has individual karaoke rooms upstairs. It was 80's dance party night too, so of course after karaoke, we went and joined the party and boogied down.

Snow cones always make things better. Probably my third love.(1st is a drumstick, 2nd is Scott) The flavor is tigers blood, only the best.

Mac being an adorable cuddle bug. He's a big baby!

 Our dinner last night that was TDF! Scott smoked a pork butt for 5 hours yesterday and kept it in the oven slowly cooking for another 3 maybe? It was soo so good...I think better than his brisket and that's saying something! We made pulled pork sandwiches and chowed down. Love a man that can use a grill.

My OOTD today. I've never done my hair like this, thought it was kinda neat. I didn't have one of those big hair clips so I used two little flower pins and it's actually holding up my hair. This hair style reminds me of a librarian. So basically I'm a librarian today.

Look what I got in the mail yesterday from Ashley at Rustic Living! This made me so happy. It was wrapped so adorably. My pillow that I ordered came out lovely! I'm very happy with it. She's really sweet and professional too. Check out her shop if you're in the market for a custom wedding gift. There's a great selection.

Don't forget, there's still a chance to enter into the group giveaway that I'm participating in. Check it out!

If you really knew me

I saw a few of my friends post this a while back and I thought it would be fun to share a little more about myself. Stuff you may or may not know about me! Especially if you're stopping by from Rustic Living's blog ;)

If you REALLY knew me, you'd know that....

I'm 23, but not for long....Sept 16th

I'm engaged.

I'm getting married on 4-20-13. BUT not for that reason y'all! It's my aunt and uncles wedding anniversary, so I'm very blessed to be sharing it with them. (It will be their 28th!) They've set a very good example for Scott and I. Oh, try to guess which dress I chose!

I'm an early riser. Like 7am on weekends early. Scott loves it.

I have a love for teaching and children but am currently not a teacher. I'm working for the state in workers comp.(Insurance for state employees). They've got great benefits :)

Even though I love children, I only want to have 1 child. Scott would say that's subject to change...

I'm very close to my family. Maw Maw is like medicine to me and my Mee Maw is the strongest woman I know. So lucky to have these women in my life.

I didn't grow up going to church every Sunday or praying or even believing. Now, I am finding my faith on my own. I use prayer, and I try to read the Bible. It's still very new and complicated though. I do like that I got to choose for myself what faith I wanted to be a part of and believe in and that it wasn't forced upon me.

I've lived in Austin my whole life. I'm actually a 5th(maybe more) generation Texan.

I'm a lover of music, animals, especially this dog, traveling, here and here, candy, singing the the shower, and coffee!

I'm new to blog world (could you tell?), and I'm very anxious to meet other bloggers, and follow along their journey!


Go check out Rustic Living's blog for an amazing group giveaway that I'm participating in. Lots of great prizes!!! Also while you're there, check out the Rustic Living shop. I just purchased this adorable pillow from her! I love it.

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Thanks for stopping by.
What are somethings I would know if I really knew you?!
I can't wait to get to know you better.

How I painted a horizontal striped wall

I didn't want to say "how to" paint a horizontal striped wall because, I soon found out, there are SO many different ways you can do this! I just wanted to show you a step by step procedure on what we did and what worked for us.

We had just finished priming and painting the guest bedroom and I was really anxious to try painting a horizontal striped wall. First we decided it would be an accent wall, so just one wall would have stripes.

We chose the wall that the bed will be against, kind of like the one in this picture:

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(Just to be clear, this is sadly not my house, just an example of a striped wall.)

I also knew I wanted it to be neutral, so I went with Behr Sail Cloth and Behr Casual Khaki.

Before we began taping and painting, I measured from floor to ceiling and decided on how wide I wanted the stripes to be. I found out that our ceiling wasn't exactly level, but about 94.5 inches. We went with 8 inch stripes with the bottom one being a little more narrow.

We started measuring from top to bottom 8 inches all the way down.

We used a laser level for this project and let me tell you, it was a life saver!!! I read different reviews on how to paint a horizontal striped wall, and a lot of them suggested we not use a laser level. uhhh I'm not sure how we would have finished this project without it.

Basically you just follow the laser with the tape and put it either above or below the line, depending on where you will be painting. This part is very tedious, and trying. You must have patience.

Oh, before I painted, I used a credit card to smooth out and bubbles, or creases to prevent the paint from bleeding through. 

Now for the easy part, painting! I just simply painted about the tape first, then used a roller for the middle part. Super simple and quick! The little pieces of tape are just a reminder for me not to paint in that area.

Next, I removed tape and marked errors and a little bits of touching up. 

p.s. I changed that electrical outlet and 3 others, because I'm that handy

Lastly, the finish!

I have feeling I will be spending more time in this room.

I so wish this wall was in our bedroom, but I guess that mean we just need to repaint ours.... Two rooms with stripes? Too much? nahh!

Playing Pretend

at parenting...

Scott and I volunteered to babykidsit for some friends of ours a while back and they decided to take us up on our offer last night!

They've got two of the sweetest boys! One being nine and the other being 4 i think

It was a blast. I love seeing Scott interact with these boys. It's adorable. Buuuut he we have a lot of learning to do before we even think about having kids of our own. The best part about kid sitting is that you get them for 5 hours, then give them back! ha

To be honest, babysitting these days isn't that bad! Kids love technology and with the parents gone, time limits on the computer or playing video games goes out the window. It's pretty hard to peel their eyes off the screen, but we were hoping to get them to help out in making dinner. 

It turned out so great! 

Some of my favorite parts about the night:

-Songs made up about Chewbacca--These kids love starwars!

-Reading to the youngest before bed.

-"Can I sleep in y'alls bed?"

-reassuring the youngest that I knew how to brush teeth because I brush Mac's teeth. Then he trusted me to brush his. haha

-"Brooke and Scott I love you"

.....

AW! How sweet is that? There were a lot of sweet moments like that. Gotta love kids!

Camp Gladiator

aka

 Camp ASS KICKER!

WOW! I don't think I've ever felt so out of shape! 

Scott and I have been wanting to join a gym for a while now, because we could both use some toning up for the wedding, but mostly to get in shape and get healthy. 

Camp Gladiator was originally formed as a boot camp, and still is that, but just recently they opened up a CG arena, which is what we checked out. It's like a gym membership, based more around classes. Since I love doing classes, I thought this gym would be prefect for me. 

They have a wide range of classes, not just dance classes and your regular abs classes or spin. I'm talking High Intensity ish!

We're doing a seven day trial before we sign our contracts, so last night was our first go at it and we tried TRX FUSION...

Let me give you their definition:

"Take TRX suspension training to a whole new level with TRX Fusion’s metabolic challenge! Leverage your body weight, gravity, tabata intervals and kettlebells for a workout that will take you to your edge and leave you exhilarated! TRX Fusion will test your strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular conditioning and power and get you in the zone for body transformation. Come ready to get your sweat on!" 

...Sweat we did

This is TRX suspense training if you're unfamiliar, I know I was...:

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Scott and I were just about dead when we left there. Our legs, arms and almost our lunch had left us and gone to heaven. 

I'm so excited to check out more classes. Hopefully my limbs will come back to me soon.   

Miss Peregrine Book Review

I just finished Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and I discussed it with my book club last night. I wrote up a little book review for anyone that may be interested in reading it. It was like nothing else I've read before. I also found out that it is going to be a trilogy. Any book made into a trilogy is bound to be a good one!

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So about the book....

It's narrated by Jacob, a simple boy, living a very simple life. He has no friends with the exception of his crazy grandpa. His grandpa tells him stories of orphanage "peculiar" children with special powers, like levitation, holding fire, etc.  He even shows him vintage pictures to prove it.

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When his grandfather is killed suddenly, Jacob travels to this unbelievable island his grandpa had always talked out to find out whether he's truly crazy or telling the truth. He goes through wild adventures and travels back in time to find the real Miss Peregrine and all the peculiar children for himself. He discovers untold secrets about this old house, and what his grandpa had never told him.... He finds out that he might not be so simple after all.

It's rumored that Miss P might be made into a movie signed by the one and only Tim Burton. Heck yes! Now, THAT would be awesome!

You can watch the trailer for the book right here.

This weekend...

• On Friday I checked out bridesmaid dresses with my maid of honor, Bailey. This was one of our favorites. We're going to try some other stores too, hopefully get all my bridesmaids together next time!

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• Spent way too much money and time dealing with car maintenance. $234 and five hours later, I had my tires rotated, oil changed, engine belts replaced and a car wash. It was pretty lame and I wasn't in the best mood. Scott cheered me up with a snow cone, which made things better! 

• Planned on painting our two extra bedrooms but only finished painting one room and found out it's going to take two coats. two, ugh! The other bedroom is going to need two coats as well because they are both the same dark/ugly/purple color. Can you tell I'm bitter about it? 

• After our painting fail, we decided we were going to have fun, because two bad days in a row weren't happening. So we went rock climbing

• We went swimming at our friends house.

my pool boy ;)

• We ate drunkin chicken. Have you ever made this? You stuff a can of beer up a chickens yoo hoo and grill it up. It keeps the chicken super moist and turns out delish! I highly recommend it.

What did you do this weekend? Are you as ready for Friday as I am?!?!

Our Trip in Pictures

After a week of recovery, I finally found time to share how my east coast trip went. We have been going nonstop since we got back last Monday and just now found time to update blog world. 

I had such a great time visiting Scott's family and meeting more of his relatives. Our first stop was Greenwich, CT. I knew right away that I'd fit in with the Hamiltons. His Aunts and Uncle were so welcoming, I felt right at home. I got to meet his cousins and new nieces too! I think my pictures will give you a better representation of how my trip went...

Aunt Emily's house where we stayed during our time in CT.

hydrangeas are grown everywhere there. so pretty!

 

Milo, Scott's dad, and his two sisters Helen and Emily

We ferried over to a little island off the coast of Connecticut. I attempted to swim, it was freezing!

Scott and my future FIL

Delicious dinner with the whole family!

rode the train into NYC! First timer!

My first time at Grand Central!

I met up with my friend Sam, who recently moved to NYC! So fun!

                 

Yes, this happened and it was delicious!

Brunch at the Boat House in central park! AMAZING!

My friend over at NY State of mind recommended we tour Chelsea Market. Really neat place!

...just like a kid in a candy shop... Economy Candy. Place was insane! Candy stacked to the very top of the ceiling. If you know me and candy, then you know I was in heaven haha

Sorry for the photo overload, I just couldn't help myself!

We had a great vacation. I had a lot of first timers. Like riding the subway, visiting local bars, seeing central park, riding the train, seeing grand central station and more! I have bittersweet feelings towards NYC. I don't like how it's so dirty, and can be really touristy, but there are so many other things that make it worth it. I love how diverse it is, and the energy the city gives off. I just like it in small doses :) 

I'm ready for my vacation from my vacation!