zoo.

Paul and I decided to go to the Pittsburgh zoo this lovely august day. There was a baby elephant born a few weeks ago, her name is Angelina, and also a walk through kangaroo exhibit. So this was exciting. Oh and we were stuck in traffic for like an hour, then I put my car in neutral to save gas and i had to switch it back to 'drive' to move from a stop...andthenIputitinreverse...Oooooops. Luckily I slammed it back to drive before backing up into the car inches behind me. ugh. freaked me out.

So anyways--ZOO PICTURES :D

2 tigers..playing. They moved so gracefully- just like wittle leeloo

Me talking about how rhino's are dinosaurs (can you spot the dino?)

Oh no! a beebee!!!!!!!!

"Wooky mom! I splashin'!" states Angelina.

More playing

Crazy huge freaking silver back. He got mad at one of his homies, and grabbed its arm and threw it to the side. He was a mean master.

Kangaroo. I was literally a foot from this marsupial. and i liked it.

On the disorienting escalators.

In a secret garden (after Jamie's surprise party)

ahhh, new things.

At 10:00pm tonight I got this urge to bake...I haven't baked in a while since I haven't been craving sweets (!?!) so I got this craving to bake. Well I decided to use the white cake mix I had bought a while back and just make exciting toppings instead of worrying about making some fancy cake too. Well, after looking through the pantry I decided to make some s'mores and some colorful vanilla cakes. Here are some pics of my midnight baking excursion...

plain vanilla for the smores, COLORS! for the fun ones

Aww. flowers with purple and teal :D

S'mores. and by the way, that frosting is SLAMMIN'!

Just some oreos that I bought for everyone a few days ago.

...i have only had 2. this is weird...

aaaaand. a hair color that is here to stay. I SWEAR PEOPLE!!

Its called chocolate caramel. this is why i buy things...

Sprinkles!!

My Party People!! I made Sprinkles cupcakes today with a mix that Mr. Paul got me from the Beverly hills store on our recent venture to CA. They are awesome. I am including some shots of the actual store and cupcakes from LA so you can see the sweet, modern coolness. And for those who don't know, Sprinkles is a famous cupcakery with awesome design- and cupcakes too!!

Store front

Dark Chocolate, Coconut lemon, Red velvet (like the ones I made today!!), and Strawberry. Mmmm.

Here is my batter. When you cream butter, crumblize the mix, add eggies, and add a milk/ vinegar combo...this is what you get.

Then, I smile.

Scoops.

Puffs.

Mmmm. Nothing like cream cheese, butter and sugar BABY! oh, and a pinch of salt and splash of vanilla.

I was practicing my 'Sprinkles swirl' in the bowl.

Red velvet color coded toppings.

I only had 12 tops, but I had 15 cakes, so I dipped the others in fine chocolate sprinkles.

I DID IT!!!!!!!!!

And just for fun- a picture of a cute thing we have in the backyard.

And the most horrific, baby-carrying, furry, beast-like, tragic, disgusting, terrible, life-threatening, worst ever, thing we have in our backyard.

Yo Yo Yo!!!

I just finished embellishing a dress I bought yesterday :D

Yesterday, after work, I went to target looking for a sweater or nice cardigan to add fabric flowers (aka yo- yo's) too. I could not find anything I liked to save my life..except for this navy blue, simple tee- dress. I decided it would work.

After leaving target, I headed over to Joann fabrics to pick up some fat quarters to use as the flower fabric. I found so many combinations that I LOVED but I had to pick just one :( (While i was there there was this scary man with tattoos everywhere and he turned and i saw a big Nazi flag tattooed on his arm...like 6" x 8" and i his shirt said 'SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SKINHEAD" AHH!) anyways. back to the pretty things. So i picked up this fabulous set that had a gradation from dark blue-purple to light pink.

I also picked up some sweet buttons for the centers of the flowers...

Then I got home and sewed until but butt was numb, my back spasmed and my fingers bled. (choose only one of those descriptions...)

I called it quits around midnight so I could get ready for work in the morning...I was in love.

Now the next day (after work) I sewed my sweet littles onto the dress. This was somewhat complex. I sewed things through every wrong layer you could imagine. I had flowers sewed through 6 layers. How, you may ask. I don't know, i just did.

Well here are some final shots. This took me approx. 6 hours to create. That might seem a bit lengthy- deal with it, I'm slow.

Oh! I forgot to mention- Paul brought me a cupcake from Dozens to keep me goin'

Idn't he sweet?

Cali Pics 1

In- N- Out!!

Mmmm, fresh fast food. wow.

Double- double, Animal style. Paul enjoys.

Venice Beach!

THE CUTEST animal in the world.

A chinese chihuahua.
and he wanted to sell it to us for whatever we had in our wallets.

20 bucks??? Ill take it!

Cool signage at an organic grocer

Big houses in Malibu

Mandies neighborhood

the pool at her place

Paul made carmel chocolate lattes for me and the sis

I made funfetti cuppy truffles

We went for a hike. and it was hard.

But we made it to the TOP!

Check the view! pretty...