I LOVE having a daughter!

I love, love, love having a daughter. I have written many times on how much I have always wanted a daughter and having Miss Mia has made all those desires and dreams come true. One of my favorite things about Mia is her love of fashion and all things beautiful. My little girl is a fashionista. I blame this on her listening to Project Runway, America's Next Top Model & Rachel Zoe Project in utero!

Like all little girls, Miss Mia loves dress up, but even her everyday clothes are being accessorized and such. For example, yesterday Miss Mia wore a Pink and Navy Ralph Lauren long sleeve dress with these brown mid-calf boots! After spending the day looking fabulous at Mother's Day Out, we went shopping to hit up some CRAZY sales. Mia helped pick out some jewelry, some for me and some for her! What is hilarious is that she picked out jewelry and wore it around the store that totally matched her outfit! Apparently Mia is very bo-ho chic..as she picked out a cute gold owl necklace and this gold charm bracelet. I need bangles a lot...and so I loaded up! (Got all this jewelry at Dillards for under $10!)
On another note, I love having a daughter because she is so sweet and photogenic. This morning, in lieu of a Dallas Cowboy victory, she wore a Cowboys shirt with a cute white skirt and reading her chicken book that her Nana made her. This is truly a picture for her Nana & Papaw!

Coupon Class Coming Soon!

Attention to my Oklahoma people.... a Coupon Class will be coming soon! I am currently in talks with some fabulous people at our church to use a room and host a coupon class. Stick around for more details to come!

Grateful Friday

Its Grateful Friday...just a few hours earlier! I am leaving tomorrow evening and thought I would write tonight! This week has been so great! We spent last weekend with Hubby's family celebrating his sister's wedding shower. We had a great trip, spent quality time with family, spent blissful hours in the pool, and even better hours at the new Fairfield Outlet Mall!

This week I am grateful for:
1) New Coach messenger bag! (OK, maybe grateful is a strong word when discussing a bag, but I LOVE it! I have been looking for a good alternative for hauling my books and laptop around that wasn't a backpack. I'm 26 and a Ph.D student, I think the backpack days are over. So I found this amazing black Coach messenger bag for 75%! Yeah, it is now in my possession!)
2) My daughter's love of shoes...while out shopping, we hit a few stores for her and found lots of cute shoes! She loves them and even changes out pairs throughout the day! She is now the proud owner of a few pairs of boots, couple of mary janes, and a pair of really cute little Sketchers!
3) My sweet West Texas mother--this week we got a few care packages in the mail..requesting a visit soon, and filled with encouraging letters for me while I study, pictures, treats for Hubby, and a home-made book for Mia. My mom made the sweetest book for Mia about chickens from old magazines that she and Dad used to buy their flocks. Mom then put Mia's pictures throughout with the sweetest captions!
4) A free weekend! Now, this has yet to happen, but I am banking on it being amazing. Our church is having the ladies retreat this weekend. We're staying at the new Embassy Suites--just the ladies. No hubbies, no kids...just the girls and Jesus! I am soo excited--more details to come later!

Grateful Friday

I haven't posted a Grateful Friday in a while...but this week I have felt overly grateful. We started the week out by FINALLY getting a new camera. After months of research and watching sales, we chose a Canon Rebel XS. Hubby is a former photographer, took classes throughout high school and even a couple in college. I had no idea how much he knew until he pulled out his old Canon and then showed me everything he needed to develop his own film. I was impressed!
So we took our new camera on a test run on the OU campus & of course used our cute Mia as our subject. Hubby can't find his edition of photoshop for the Mac so we are going through storage boxes trying to find it so that we can further edit the pictures. Precious little face!


Without further ado..for this week I am grateful for:

- My healthy, growing girl. Miss Mia is learning new words, attitudes, and sayings by the day. She is constantly climbing on everything, making up stories, learning possession of objects, asking questions & the like. My favorite moment from the week is when I was reading her a bedtime story. We were reading "Goodnight Texas," and one of the pages says, "Goodnight oil fields, country roads and pick-up trucks." Mia pointed to the pick-up and said "Pawpaw! Pawpaw's truck..." and then of course..."Chickens!!"
- A most fabulous church family..they have been so uplifting to us in the last few months. Everyday we are more and more uplifted by their presence!
- Fall weather! Bring on the 75-80 degree days...I'll take them any day! Of course with the fall weather, comes Fall football. I'm grateful for my Red Raider win!

See all the places we can strolling on a nice Fall day?

26....

Yesterday I turned 26. Although there were moments of excruciating boredom, (another blog in itself) one the whole it was a good day. Hubby and Mia made it special with sweet gifts, a nice dinner & an early turn-in and watching a movie in bed. I am not all that excited about turning 26. This has nothing to do with my thinking that I am getting old, etc. It is much more an aesthetic thing. Saying I'm 25 sounds better than 26. I believe it to be a result of slight OCD and 26 not be divisible by 5..yes I know = )
Yesterday I did find one of my "life to do lists." I wrote it at 17 when I was finishing up high school. I wrote where I would be by certain ages. Although I have a few extra people in my life that I didn't see being here yet, everything else is sort of where I thought it would be. With one minor exception, that I don't or haven't lived abroad. I'm still working on that one. Maybe that one will be before I'm thirty!
Anyhow, in lieu of my turning 26, I thought I would blog about 26 of my current favorite things.

1) Chi Hair Straightener (Hot Pink) Got it for my birthday with help of some birthday cash from family and 2 coupons from Ulta in this Sunday morning's paper! You won't regret the investment
2) Tori Spelling's Jewelry Line for QVC. I am a little obsessed with vintage inspired costume jewelry, and this cocktail ring is just perfect!
3) Grey Gardens with Drew Barrymore & Jessica Lange I cannot make my brain understand that Drew is not Little Edie
4) Pandora...I love my Pandora with the fire of a thousand suns! If you have not experienced the wonder that is Pandora...go directly to this site. Its an online radio station that only plays songs based on your preferences. It Will change your life!
5) Bath Junkie lotion..I blame my Cousin B for showing me the wonder that is Bath Junkie. For my birthday, she took me there and I got the best clean smelling, beaufiully Tiffany's blue-box hued lotion. Oh how I love it. It is a good thing that Oklahoma doesn't have a Bath Junkie or I would go much too frequently.
6) Half Priced Bookstores. I believe that I have blogged before on my love for all Half Price Bookstores and how I plan all trips to Texas around them. Last week Hubby informed me that OKC has a half price Books right by my favorite mall. We went, it was heaven...I spent $4 total for 4 books..
7) This Audrey Hepburn print..I found it on Etsy and purchased it for my vanity table. It was screaming for classic Audrey. To find this print or the many others that the seller makes, you can go here.

8) Twitter--totally obsessed. Love that I can tweet from my cell phone. Any site where I can read what Anderson Cooper, Paula Deen & Elizabeth Taylor are doing..sign me up!
9) How I Met Your Mother--Hubby & I watch this show almost every night. I am sort of married to Marshall in a weird way. hehe
10) Coach Rain Boots-These are in no way frugal but I love them so much. I wanted some rain boots that would last and not make me look like one of my soreity girl students but were still cute enough that I didn't look like I was wearing my father's duck hunting boots...enter fabulous Coach Rain Boots!
11-12) Texas Tech/OU Football- Its September and that mean college football is here! I love college football more than I can express. Growing up in the Big 12 conference just intensifies my love. Although Hubby & I are Tech alums we do cheer for my current school when they aren't playing our Red Raiders. I cannot even begin to express my excitement for Miss Mia to put on her Red Raider cheerleader outfit this Saturday! Wreck 'Em Tech & Boomer Sooner! (She's going to be so confused!)
13-14) These two could easily take up more than a million of my favorite things...they were two of my first true loves- my niece and nephew. My nephew is now a teenager and my niece is approaching 11, oh, how that breaks my heart. However, here is some of their latest pictures and it proves that they are two of the cutest kids..this photo does nothing to display just how vibrant their personalities are or what fabulous kids they are!
15) Margaret & Helen's blog--My Cousin B texted me one day with the following.."OMG, we have a blog." Once I read it, I could see it was true that in forty years, she and I will have a similar blog ranting and raving, being eccentric old women, and talking politics!
16) All Nigella Lawson Cookbooks...still reading through the cookbooks and marking new recipes to try
17) Vera Wang flip flops from Kohl's. I bought some a few days ago on sale for $5 & I love them very much!
18) 75-80 degree days...thank you Lord that Fall weather is here!
19) Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds...period, enough said!
20) Elizabeth I HBO miniseries with Helen Mirren..she is just fabulous as was the lady she portrays
21) For the past few weeks, I have been studying a Kay Authur Bible study, "The Holy Spirit Unleashed In You." It is such a good study! I love her ideas for how to study the Bible. I bought mine off of www.christianbooks.com (Much cheaper than in stores and the shipping is really cheap!)
22-23) How can I not have these two? They make me cry (mostly for good reasons), they make me laugh and keep me centered..I have a sign on the wall of my study carrel that says 'For My Family' with this picture next to it. While I feel guily many nights or days for not spending those moments with them, I know that in the end, I'm doing all of this for the betterment of our little crew.
24) Tutus & Turtles is one of my new favorite blogs. I'm not even sure how I found my way there, but her pictures and ideas for kids make me smile and inspire me to try new things.
25) Williams Sonoma Home- I spend way too much time planning & redecorating future prjocects with the help of the beautiful things on this site.
26) The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo. I LOVE this show. I wish I had a live 24 hour stream to this show. It's Buh-nanas. (If you've seen the show, you will know that Bananas is one of her words for amazing, etc. I asked Miss Mia if something was Buh-nanas and she informed me that it was Buh-pawpaw..I think she's brilliant and Loves her Pawpaw..hehe)