new pre-made templates

This template was inspired by a kate spade e-mail I received. The color of the month for kate spade is YELLOW!

$20

I know it's Spring, but we are not experiencing Spring like weather in Oklahoma. These dreary days plus my longing for green grass inspired this template.

$20


If you are interested in purchasing a pre-made template send me an e-mail: sweetsimplicityblog@gmail.com

There is no wait list for pre-made templates and they can be installed quickly.
Check them all out here.

the weekend

I left work early on Friday, due to allergies and no voice. I came home and took a great nap. Naps are always better when you sleep on the wrong end. Ty and I started the weekend off right and had dessert (hot fudge sundae from Braum's) before dinner (sushi!) We watched How to Train a Dragon Saturday evening. Such a cute movie! The rest of the weekend was spent watching basketball, running errands, working on blog designs, etc.

smiles

Sometimes life can be stressful or overwhelming, but I think it is so important to recognize the little things that make us happy. This past week or so these things have brought a smile to my face.


--Lunch dates at Target with my bff, Chesley.

--Buying cute socks for $1 at said lunch date.


--Dinner with my bloggy friends



--Coming home from work to be greeted by my two favorite boys--Ty and Nuts!

--A phone call from my mom telling me that my Dad showed Mason a picture of me on his phone and Mason got really excited to see me. Pretty much means I am the best aunt ever.


--Finding my lost social security card!

weekend recap

Ah, the weekend. They are never long enough, are they?

Friday night we headed downtown to see all the NCAA tournament excitement. We didn't have tickets, but the city had tents set up outside the arena with big televisions and food vendors. We had Brownie's Hamburgers for dinner and it was delish!

I could definitely go for one of those cheeseburgers right about now.

Saturday I took my BBBS little sister to a children's museum. The museum has a small city set up where the kids can grocery shop, run a restaurant, be a doctor, postman, hair stylist, etc.

I wish this ice cream cone in the "restaurant" would have been real!

After church on Sunday, I went to Megan's to work on our cookie skills. We have both been wanting to learn how to use royal icing on cookies and finally got around to doing it. We gave up on piping around each cookie and only flooded the cookies. I think they still turned out cute!

Ty isn't working any weekends this month for his ICU rotation and it has been great! We have had so much fun just hanging out with each other.

iPhone randoms

It is so easy to snap pictures with my phone and I hardly ever use my camera anymore. I need to break that habit, because my phone doesn't take the best pictures. It is just so convenient though. Here's to a random post of iPhone pictures!

We got our CD of pictures from our photographer in the mail!

That isn't us in the picture. I just loved the details of the CD case she uses. It's the PR and marketing in me!
I love having all the pictures on a CD to upload to my computer. I printed a 4x6 of them all at Mpix and the quality of the photos was great! Alli, our photog, recommended the site and I will definitely be using it again. The pictures were printed on thicker photo paper and had a perfect finish--not too shiny.

Ashley and I bought a great deal on living social for a mani/pedi and cashed it in a couple of weeks ago. It was oh so nice.


Megan gave the sweetest present a few weeks ago. I really wanted to watch Love Actually at Christmas time, but it was on a really long wait with Netflix. Now, I won't have to worry about that!


Breaking in my new shoes!

Super sale from the Gap + a rewards card=$3 shoes

Enjoying a cake pop from Starbucks!

I need to make cake balls asap.

Trying to decide on a mini colander color from Anthro for my SIL's birthday

This is a great colander, because it easily fits in the dishwasher. My mom and I both have one and I hope my SIL enjoys hers. It is so much easier to use this for small jobs, because it doesn't take up hardly any room in the dishwasher!

One more nephew picture! I'm sure y'all didn't see enough yesterday.

He played with those gatorade bottles for the longest time.

I have to brag on my husband for a minute. He went to the grocery store for me yesterday! I gave him a big, long list and he found every last item. He is the sweetest. Maybe I shouldn't really be bragging about this one thing, because he doesn't really mind doing things like this and I just made it seem like he never does nice things. I should probably just tell you that it was a major accomplishment on my part in releasing control and trusting someone else to do my shopping. I have major issues! ha!

weekend at home

Ty has a great schedule this month on his ICU rotation and we were able to go home this weekend to visit our families. On our way to our hometown, we got to stop at the hospital and meet sweet, little Eli and see Megan & Luke. He is the tiniest thing!

He is in his going home outfit--so sweet.

I hadn't seen my nephew since Christmas and I was so excited to spend some time with him. He is crawling and has become very vocal. No words yet, just lots of cute sounds.

My Mom, sister and I went shopping on Saturday and wore Mason out!


We spent Saturday evening celebrating Ty's sister's birthday. I didn't snap a single picture of the birthday girl or any of the little munchkins. There is always so much activity with four little ones running around.

The weather was gorgeous all weekend, but windy as usual. Ty's parents live in a secluded valley and they don't get hardly any wind down there, so LeAnn brought Mason over to play outside. We had so much fun swinging, jumping on the trampoline and riding the golf cart.






Ty and Lillian exploring the creek.


We always have such a good time visiting with each of our families! The weekends at home always go by way too fast.

loving shellac manicures

I tried a shellac manicure about six weeks ago and LOVED it! A shellac manicure is supposed to stay shiny and chip free for two weeks. I wanted to document my experience with it, because I had so many questions before I had it done.

Ty and I had spent two weekends getting our house ready to be put on the market and my hands were so dry and my nails were awful. I was worried that it wouldn't last two weeks on my nails, because they were so weak. My nails are never really strong, so this was always going to be a concern of mine and I decided to just bite the bullet.

This is the brand the salon used.

I took pictures of my nails throughout the 3 weeks that my manicure lasted. Yes, I said 3 WEEKS! I wish I would have taken the pictures the same way each time and with my camera instead of using a mix of my camera and my iPhone to give you all more accurate pictures. Live and learn.

Day 1

Day 10

I had tiny chips at the ends of two nails and I just trimmed them down. They were very small and kinda underneath (if that makes sense) and I wanted to cut them down before it turned into a bigger chip.

Day 14, oops!

I pulled the rest of the polish off this nail and painted it a dark purple with regular nail polish. I wasn't ready to take the shellac off of the rest of the nails and this was an easy solution. It didn't look good, but it wasn't noticeable unless you really looked at it. The main thing was the color was the same, so people didn't really look twice at it.

Day 21

The picture above turned out blurry, because I was taking the picture with my left hand, but you can see my pointer finger that I painted with regular polish and how my thumb had chipped.

Day 21

My left hand looked great other than the fact that it had grown out. I didn't have any chips on these nails, probably because it isn't my dominant hand.

It is more expensive than a regular manicure. I paid $30 versus $15 for a regular manicure. BUT, it lasts so much longer than a regular manicure. Getting a manicure regularly is not in my budget, even one that lasts 3 weeks. They are definitely special treats. That being said the next time I get one I will go with the shellac.

The one downside is to get the shellac polish off you have to soak your nails in acetone. My nails weren't smooth once the polish was off, because they drill your nail bed to get it smooth before applying the polish. It did not weaken my nails. I polished them with regular polish to protect them. I think I just rambled for a whole post, but hopefully I answered some questions for someone. :)

Oh, and if you are in my area I would be happy to tell you where I went and also where my bff has gone to get hers done.

pictures

I was lucky enough to win a photography session with Allison Lee Photo a few months ago. Alli and I were in the same sorority in college and it made for a relaxed photo shoot. She did a preview for us on her blog yesterday and will be sending the rest of the photos soon. I can't believe her fast turn around!

I debated on doing urban shots downtown or in a field. I'm so glad we went with the field. I think the grass is a gorgeous color.

Part of me loves the above photo and another part just cracks up laughing. It is so serious and Ty looks like he was trying to have sexy eyes, but I promise he was just squinting. It could be pitch black outside and someone mentions taking a photo and all of a sudden his eyes hurt and it is too bright outside. :)

To see more pictures visit Alli's blog. I can't wait to get the rest of them! Thanks Alli for our beautiful photos!