01. Something that is very near and dear to my heart is Kauai. It’s where I was born and raised, and it’s always special to go back, despite the lack of activity or hip happenings! Haha!
02. Having the video we made for Eden In Love win first place in the This is Retail video contest is good cause to celebrate .
03. The most fun I ever had was my first trip to Disneyland. I was 27, Izzy was 8 months old. It was so much fun to share that experience with her!
04. True friends are always so easy to be around. No matter how long ago our last visit was, I find it so much fun to reconnect and still feel like no time has passed.
05. Something that makes me terribly happy is watching Julian make Izzy laugh hysterically.
06. A good way to spend a sunny day is splashing around in the pool.
07. My favorite celebratory food is California Pizza Kitchen! One of my fave places to eat, and we always find ourselves there when celebrating even the teeny tiniest of occasions;) {Cali club pizza is my fave! Yum.}
Look at those chubby thighs! My girl was such a little butterball:)
It’s no mystery that we love our sweets around this here household. I love to bake. Before Isabella was big enough to get into all kinds of mischief, I used to bake all the time. My husband would come home to some of our favorites, like these black-bottom cupcakes, banana cupcakes with honey cinnamon frosting, and molten chocolate mini cakes, all the time. Then Izzy got older and started walking, and quickly thereafter, running. So my days of baking have severely slowed, only to be replaced with chasing after my munchkin and cleaning up toys strewn across my house. Now that she’s even older and loves to help Mama, especially when there are sweet perks at the end, baking has become a fun activity that we can do together. But with a toddler, baking from a box is considerably easier than baking from scratch, so sometimes that’s just what we do.
And so I bring you…the art of baking with a two-year-old:
  
Unfortunately, we didn’t snap any photos of our finished brownies, but needless to say they were yummy. Especially with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce. Here are a couple of recipes from two of my fave baking blogs that I am dying to try. Holy yum!
Chocolate dipped brownies from Sweetapolita:
S’more or less cupcakes by Bakerella:
Have a sweet day!
Thought I’d pop in for a quick post to update you all on the This Is Retail contest. Well…guess who won? YEEEEEHAAAWWW! EDEN IN LOVE! We are on cloud nine since 3 a.m. when Aunty Cille sent us a text from the mainland! And the texts and emails kept pouring in from there! Tanna traveled to Washington D.C. to attend the awards ceremony and find out about the ranking of the top 3. We’re so excited to hear all about it when they return! I can’t say enough about how excited Julian and I are to have been given this opportunity to tell EIL’s story of the amazing work they do for the community. And to have a national audience is simply mind-blowing! Check it out!
Here they are in D.C., right after the win! Yahooooooo!
More on our other blog, and here, here, and here.
I spotted a fun shoe-centric Tuesday post a while back at one of the blogs I frequent {and now totally forget which it was, boo}, and thought it was not only a cute play on words, but a super fun idea for a regular blog feature. So today, being Tuesday and all, I’ve adopted Tuesday Shoesday for my “For Izzy, For Me” blog post. We’ll see if I can come up with some fun shoe shares for ya every so often. A girl can never have too many shoes, so why not?
Here goes…I love Seychelles Footwear. I wore a pair of vintage-y cobalt blue peep-toe pumps for my bridesmaid shoe at my sister’s wedding a few years back. Then I fell in love with an ivory and gold-accented slingback heel which I wore for my own wedding. I think their footwear is just the perfect combo of old-school retro charm and fun young freshness. So I’ve always got my eye on Mise En Scene, the Seychelles blog, and their website so I’m in the know on their latest styles. Right now, I’ve got my heart set on the It Don’t Mean A Thing wedge. Check it out here, where the wedge is styled to take you through your work day looking oh so chic, then off to happy hour. So many fun ways to wear this shoe! And naturally, Izzy loves being just like Mama, especially when it comes to shoes and dress-up. She loves clip-clopping around the house in her plastic Cinderella heels, so she’s always excited when there’s a “high heel” that she can wear out and about. With its cute pattern and slight little heel, I think the tan spot wedge would be the perfect choice for my sassy little missy.
What are you sporting on your and your little’s footsies?
A quick shoe update, in case you’re interested…remember those adorable fringe sandals I spotted back in March? Well, I recently strolled through Gap Kids and found them on sale and scooped up a pair in wispy mauve. Head over there if you’ve got a fashionista in mind. You might find her size on sale! They’re on sale online here too. Yes, we are oh-so-obsessed with fringe footwear. See?
Good mornin’. {or afternoon if you’re in some other neck of the woods!} Just a quick post today to share what we did yesterday for Mama’s Day. After church, my sweet hubby took me, Izzy, and my sister {aka “second mama” haha!} and her hubby to a nice brunch buffet at Tiki’s. The thing about me and buffets…hmmm…I love them because when it comes to food, I think a variety of options right before my eyes is simply mouth-watering. But for some reason I can never get past round 1 without feeling like an overstuffed blimp! And this time it was just like that. But I did send Julian back to the french toast station for me, so I guess I made it past just one round;) Now, my brother-in-law on the other hand… {Just kidding Greg!}
Sad that my mom lives on another island but I chatted with her a bit on the phone after brunch. Excited to see her…and the rest of our clan…in a few weeks for our mini family reunion!
All in all, it was a gorgeous sunny morning under some shady umbrellas on a terrace overlooking the beach. Being a mom is so much fun when I have a silly cutie pie for a daughter, and an amazingly supportive darling of a husband. Ahhhhh!! Hope all of you mamas had a special day as well! Here are some moments with my sweeties.
     
It’s that special day of the year where we take some time to show how much we appreciate our mothers! I’m so grateful for my mom. A mother to eight, always has a spotless house, can diagnose any symptom better than any doctor I know, and is brimming with helpful advice {usually…haha! just kidding Ma}, I’d say she’s pretty amazing. Not so sure I agreed in my teenage years {haha!} but now that I’m a mother, I can truly appreciate my mom on a whole other level! Hope you have a beautiful day Mom! Miss you.
My lovely husband has got some sweet brunch plans for us this morning after church. Looking forward to it!
My mama, and my baby;)
Hello friends. I know, I know. It’s Saturday. But yesterday was a busy day: a morning of work, then off for some afternoon errands, followed up with a busy evening of cooking and hanging with Izzy and Jules before bedtime. Bedtime routines are excruciating around here lately. Chalk it up to terrible two’s, but Izzy is just headstrong when it comes to bedtime tantrums. Phew! Anyway, hope your Mother’s Day weekend is off to a be-YOO-tiful start. I hope I’m not jinxing myself into getting a cold with all of this “sick talk”. Eek!
01. On a scale from 1-10 the frequency with which I get sick is probably a 3 or 4. Vitamin C is my best friend.
02. The last time I felt sick was probably a month or so ago. Caught Izzy’s cold, but mines was a very short-lived milder version.
03. The worst part about being sick is well, just not feeling well I guess because running after a toddler, answering a zillion emails, and all the other responsibilities of life seem even crazier when you’re under the weather.
04. When I am sick I like to be taken care of by my hubby. There aren’t too many people I feel comfortable in front of while looking my worst and making baby-like demands for hot tea or chicken noodle soup.
05. Something I do to keep myself healthy is take a daily vitamin–usually vitamin C. I gotta get back into taking my multivitamins daily. I never get sick when I take those regularly.
06. A secret remedy that I use when I’m sick is you guessed it, more vitamins. I power up on Halls Vitamin C lozenges. That, and lots of water. Sometimes an Airborne.
07. One thing that always makes me feel better when I’m sick is a hubby who is sweet enough to chase after Izzy:) so I can take a nice long quiet nap.
Have a healthy weekend;)
We’ve been to the bookstore a bunch of times in the last week because Izzy’s been doing so good with potty training. Plus it’s a place that she and I can both enjoy for hours on end, and a new book is something I don’t mind spending some dinero on. For some reason, probably the catchy colorful cover, Izzy kept grabbing A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon. So after skimming through the pages, we added this one to our mini stack before heading to the cashier. It’s targeted toward a bit older reader, but Izzy really enjoys this story of Camilla Cream who learns an important lesson about being true to yourself.
Fast forward a few days, and I’ve basically got this story memorized! {Check out that grumpy impatient face while Mama snaps a pic of the book cover before we start reading! Haha!}
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Love it all!! 
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