this is so touching...

i came across the website days with my father . it's so moving...

alayna turns five!

i heart ewoks...

i thought the ewoks were the best thing that happened to star wars. at least for me. they were my favorite part and most memorable characters. i just wanted to hold them and squeeze them and keep them as my very own little feisty pets that i could say goodnight to before i went to sleep in my pretty lady lovelylocks canopy bed. a recent pic of my little tokyo reminded me of my favorite ewok above. tokyo's the closest version of the adorable forest living furball natives of endor that i'll ever have. money well spent for a childhood dream come true!

crafty day off...

i've mentioned that i simply adore and love peonies. they are irresistibly romantic and i would love to make them apart of the wedding centerpieces. however, these lovely flowers are in season during the summer, not february. so screw the seasons! i'm on a crafty mission. i'm going to make my own peonies. i love the picture above by kari herer. i came across it at etsy while searching for some inspiration. this particular picture struck me because it's almost exactly what i want the centerpieces to look like except my bottles are more unique and textured. at each table there will be three different sized bottles and three different size smaller jars for candles. all of these lovely textured glasses will be centered on top of a round cut wood 2 inches thick. so anyway here are my peonies in progress. i'm still working on painting darker pink accents towards the inner petals to give the illusion of more depth. i would also like to look for a thicker stem. and of course, add on some leaves. but overall, i'm pretty happy with my peonies...

so lately...

tony had an appointment with the chiropractor in castroville on saturday. some of the most adorable cottage style homes are in this little town and now that we are only 15 minutes away we've been able to pay visits here more often. the doc's office is a historical house called the house on september end...or something like that. inside is like a little house. we're in the waiting area. tony's at the bottom of the picture. i told him to play it cool.privacy smavacy...who needs it anyway. here's the view of the patient room straight from the waiting room. i should have taken the picture when tony was on the table. next time.

after, we went biking through the neighborhood and off medina river. i wish i would have taken my camera but i didn't. we found a spot near the riverbank that wasn't private property and sat for a rest. as we were about to leave i noticed a big fish right near by. as we got closer tony saw that it was caught by a hook. somebody left the string there to catch the fish. i didn't believe him and thought it was just tangled up in the string. maybe we should try to set it free. he said he was for real, he and his cousins used to do it all the time when he was younger. oh. thought i, the stunned little city girl. what a lazy way to fish. doesn't seem right. if you're gonna kill it then at least owe the poor ugly thing a good fight and effort. tony just blamed the fish. he said it was stupid. those country boys. no mercy...to nonhumans. but very sweet to their ladies.after riding we stopped by one of the antiques stores in town. i love antique stores. what history. what stories lie behind each item. only thing about this shop, the history and stories don't come cheap. a little overpriced. no bargains here.

and this little fellow i've never posted a picture of. meet tokyo. viscious guard dog and the number one annoyance and nemesis of my beloved tony.

small steps but a big leap...

i'm so excited about the wedding invitations. here's a rough draft of what i have in mind and have done so far. the first is the cover. it probably won't be so wide. the second is when the invitation in opened. the left is a pocket where the registry, reception, map, etc. info will be. i'll be using different pattern paper that meshes a lot more better than the red. but since this was the first i decided to experiment with the paper i'd least use. and i'm aware of the typo that since there are two hearts being joined heart should be PLURAL! but doesn't matter for now. i'll fix it, still so exciting!!!!

lovely day...

ms. ortiz, you have a gift waiting for you in the office. within nanoseconds all of the 20 very very curious pair of eyes fell on me. ummmm, what's today i asked. friday. february sixth they all offered at once. i looked dumbfounded and they all mirrored my expression. hmmm. it's not my birthday. valentine's next week. there must be a mistake. embarassing. i'm going to receive another teacher's gift and have to hunt them down after school. student a, go get it for me please. and off she went in a hurry and very excited to run the errand. whispers from student to student played background to my thoughts of wonder and stopped when in came wonderful student a with a smile on her face. i saw the bag and knew it was from tony. but why? well, the letter inside the gift explained it all and i felt like a selfish dud for not remembering. he wrote happy one-year-till-we-get-married anniversary. in case you want to practice. and inside was a fabric music bouquet that plays the wedding march. i melted... and left the class below as i floated on cloud nine for the rest of the day...

stop and smell the peonies...

i've been a bit obsessed with peonies lately. this picture would so be my wedding centerpieces if peonies were in season during the winter time. just a mason jar and three pink peonies. forget the jumbo and overdone brouhahas. this is beautiful, romantic, and simple. surrounded by small delicate laced candles, icing!

toot toot...

so, um, not to toot my own horn. but yeah.

in ruidoso i went into a corner store and found this lovely and sassy toothbrush holder. love it!

it's brrrrrr's turn...

tony finally got his wish for a brrrrr vacation. it was early january that set the month for tony and i's very first in-law-to-be vacation. we met my mom and dad in el paso and met up with his mom, sisters, cousin, aunt, uncle, and niece the following day. it was the first vacation for both sides of the family to take part in. the weather was so lovely now that i knew how to dress for it. i'm not a cold person one bit and cold weather is just a nightmare. but tony told me it was all about the layers. so i layered and layered and layered it on and voila! lovely weather! i just know if i lived in a colder climate i would be a scarf and vest obssessed freak. the drive from el paso to ruidoso took about two and a half hours. an half extra more because of a detour to white sands national monument. this was amazing! miles and miles and miles of white, and i mean white sand! beach sand can cause me to pout and whine but this sand was nothing like it. it rolled right off your skin, your feet, your shoes, your anything! we slid down some hills and it was so fun. the best part was seeing my dad slide down! it was crazy how you're driving along a deserted, dry, the-hills-have-eyes kind of road and then suddenly around the bend is nothing but evergreens. entering the adorable town of ruidoso with its shops and cafes, leftover snow on the sidewalks and huge mountains in the background was quite a view. tony and i shared a two bedroom two bath cabin that felt like a second home with my parents. his family shared a three bedroom cabin with the most amazing view of sierra blanco mountains. when we go back, we will definitely stay in a storybook cabin again, that's the name of the cabins by the way. it was so beautiful and the air was so clean and crisp. now i chickened out on the sleding and skiing. somehow i got a bad case of chicken fever. it hit hard and i didn't want to take the narrow winding road up the mountain twice so while tony and his family went skiing, my parents and i went shopping. it was a beautiful trip, definitely for those who appreciate nature. quite stunning for sure.