Last weekend, my sweet Great Aunt Rita turned 90 years old.  Jason had to work, so Katherine, my mom, and I made the 300 mile trek to northeast Arkansas.

We made a brief stop at McAlister's Deli along the way because it was Free Tea Day.
A stop in Kennett led to a spin around the yard in Grandpa's golf cart.
Then it was off to Arkansas for some family time and to celebrate Aunt Rita's 90th birthday.  Katherine got to meet lots of new family members, and she seemed to enjoy herself despite being around tons of strangers.

{My mom and Aunt Rita}

{Uncle Zach and Katherine}

{Katherine and I with the birthday girl}

I'm not sure who had a better time, Katherine or Aunt Rita.  They were both pretty popular that day.  My Aunt Rita is probably the nicest. happiest, best person I've ever known.   I'm so glad she had such a great birthday.

Katherine also bonded with her Great Granny and Great Aunt Virginia.  I'm sad these women live so far away, but I'm glad Katherine got to spend some time with them.


No trip to Arkansas is complete without a meal at US Pizza.  The.  Best.  Pizza.

It was a whirlwind trip and I am so glad to be home.  Arkansas can keep the heat and the mosquitoes.  

Confession:  Pre-baby, I used to buy myself between 2-3 designer handbags a year.

There.  I said it.  Most of the time they were purchased resale (due to the business I was working in at the time) but nonetheless, buying myself a new designer handbag was something I did often and I enjoyed it.  Marc Jacobs was a drug of choice (and still is), with an occasional Tory Burch or even Kate Spade thrown in the mix.

I've always been a bag person.  Even as a kid, I would carry purses with all of my prized treasures inside.  My very first sewing project ever was a bag.  A drawstring backpack to be exact (it was the 90's).   Handbags were just something I was always drawn to.  The first thing I did when I found out I was pregnant was look online at diaper bags.  Yay I'm pregnant!  Now let's pick out a bag to carry all of my--I mean the baby's stuff in!

Fast forward to post-baby present day.  I carry a diaper bag every day, every where I go.  I tried the diaper bag and purse thing.  Did not work.  So I opted for the "smaller clutch with all of my stuff in it that goes inside the diaper bag, but can be easily removed when I'm not with the baby" idea.  If you follow me on Instagram, then you may have seen the clutch that I whipped up one afternoon.

So anyway (being a little long-winded today), I noticed a while back that I hadn't bought a new handbag in almost two years.  I was window shopping at the Kate Spade outlet store when the thought occurred to me.  I bought myself a Marc Jacobs crossbody bag for my birthday while I was pregnant.  All of a sudden, the withdraws started.

I decided to slowly save up some money to buy a new handbag.  No matter how long it took.  But which one to buy?  Go with my standard Marc?  Kate?  Tory?  Between lack of funds and my every waking thought having to go towards keeping a toddler alive, I knew it was going to be a long process.

In the midst of my designer back hunt, I stumbled upon a little unexpected gem in the corner of the Internet.  I discovered Better Life Bags, an organization that helps women in a low income area make money by making handbags.  In addition to that, they also teach women in the US and abroad how to sew, so they can potentially earn a living.  My heart melted.  I love handbags.  I love handmade.  I love non-profits.  And I love that women are learning to sew.

I decided I would rather give my money to someone who worked hard to create my bag, rather than give it to a big name designer worth billions.  This is actually something I had been struggling with lately.  While I was whining that I didn't have the money to buy a new designer bag, there are women in the world (and even this country....and in my own city) who can't afford to feed their children.

So instead of buying my designer bag, I bought a Better Life Bag.  A serious perk of this website is that you can design your own bag, down to the hardware.  I spent weeks trying to decide what I wanted.  I looked at different styles of bags, played with different fabrics, and decided whether or not I wanted inside pockets.

In the end, designing my own bag became too much (even for this design major).  I opted for a "ready to ship" bag that was almost the exact design I was looking into ordering.  Plus, with this bag I didn't have to wait 4-5 weeks for my custom order to be made.

I literally squealed with joy when I opened my mailbox a week later.  My "Cyndi" bag had arrived.  I absolutely love it. I'm already eyeing my next purchase which will probably be the Lydia DSLR camera bag.

If you read this post, then you know that we recently added some fish to our outdoor pond.  You may also know that it took over a week for me to actually be sure that the fish survived in their new home.

Aaaaaaaaaanway...

Our fish were thriving and growing....huge.  Katherine and I would go out and watch them swim every afternoon.  On Wednesday, as we were going inside, I noticed the larger of the two fish was trying to pull a "Finding Nemo" and swim into the filter.  I quickly turned the pump off, only to realize that our "little" guy was stuck head first in the filter.

I grabbed the fish net and tried to free him but couldn't, watching helplessly as his limp tail swayed in the water.  I ran and told Jason about the possible fatality, only to return to see the fish had not only freed himself, but was swimming....barely.

He was injured, but continued to swim.  We watched as his breathing slowed, and his fins barely moved.

We stood over the pond watching.  The smaller of the two fish kept swimming in circles around the injured fish.  He was worried about his buddy.  It was so sad.

I stood over the pond yelling.  "LIVE!"

"KEEP SWIMMING!" (You're welcome for the second Finding Nemo reference.)

I'm sure the neighbors thought I was crazy.  I threw some extra fish food into the pond, hoping the extra food would keep him healthy.  We eventually went back inside, and I just knew when I came back out later our fish would be dead.  I was so worried about the healthy fish that I went that afternoon and bought two more fish just in case the injured fish died.  I didn't want Healthy Fish to be alone with the "corpse."

The next morning as I let the dogs out, I hesitantly made my way to the pond to check on our fish.  I found all four fish swimming happily through the water.  Even our injured fish was swimming like nothing had happened.  I couldn't believe it.

When I told Jason the good news, his response was "I'm sure glad I didn't go out there and end his suffering like I going to."

A day later, we found one of our new fish lifeless.  Poor guy.  I was in the middle of the first verse of Amazing Grace when Jason scooped him up and flung him over the fence into the bushes.  So much for Fish's memorial service.


 

We go through watermelon pretty quickly during the summer.  Katherine absolutely loves watermelon, so I try to have a little bit of it in the house at all times.  I bought a crazy huge watermelon the other day and I wasn't sure we were going to eat it all before it went bad.  I decided to take about half of the watermelon and make Watermelon Granita.

The recipe came from my Ree Drummond cookbook, but you can also find it online here.

What you'll need:

1/2 whole Seedless Watermelon, Cut Into Chunks (rind Discarded) (about 8 Cups Of Chunks)
2 whole Limes, Juiced
1/3 cup Sugar

What you'll do:

Place half the watermelon, half the lime juice, and half the sugar in a blender. Process until smooth, then pour into a separate bowl.
Repeat with other half of ingredients. Pour into same bowl as other batch.

Transfer mixture to a 9 x 13 baking dish. Freeze for two or three hours, then begin the process of lightly scraping the top, frozen layer. Return pan to freezer with the shaved ice on top; remove a couple of hours later and continue scraping. Repeat the occasional scraping process until the entire mixture is shaved. Store, covered in plastic wrap, until serving.

 

Last week, I went cookie crazy and made about four dozen cookies.

My mom used to make Peanut Butter Snickers Cookies around the holidays.  They were always a great hit with everyone and I eventually learned to make them myself.

Jason and I were discussing how good the cookies sounded the other day and with that, the mid-week cookie fest was born.

Peanut Butter Snickers Cookies
What you'll need:
1 bag of Snickers miniatures
2 sticks of butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup sugar
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour (sifted)
2 eggs
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

What to do:
1.  Combine the butter, peanut butter, and sugars using a mixer on a medium to low speed until light and fluffy.
2.  Slowly add the eggs and vanilla until thoroughly combined.  Then mix in the flour, salt, and baking soda.
3.  Cover and chill dough for 2-3 hours.
4.  Unwrap all Snickers miniatures.
5.  Remove dough from refrigerator.  Divide into 1 tablespoon pieces and flatten.
6.  Place a Snickers piece in the center of each piece of dough.
7.  Form each piece of dough into a ball around the Snickers piece.
8.  Place on a greased (or parchment paper lined) cookie sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
9.  Let cookies cool on baking rack.   


With dozens of cookies baked, the only thing left to do was distribute them among our friends.  Or else Jason and I would have eaten all of them.  And we don't want that.  

Warning:  I'm about to overwhelm you with photos from our Fourth.

We had a great Fourth of July, full of good food and family time.  Jason had to work Friday night so I was flying solo for fireworks, which we ended up opting out of.  Katherine and I had a nice evening to ourselves and the weather couldn't have been better.

Here's a summery of our day:

{We started the day with a red, white, and blue breakfast.}

{Reading about America.}

{Later, Daddy grilled us some lunch.}

{Then we played outside.}

{Family photo time.}

{Then Daddy made Katherine wear his hat.  She wasn't a fan.}

{After Daddy went to work, we spent some time chalking outside.}

{Katherine decided to add her own touch to my drawing...}

{....by scooting her butt through it.  Good thing I found the stain remover}

{Then we thought this was a fun game.  For 10 minutes.}

{Covered in chalk.}

{We had to get in the pool to rinse the chalk off.}

{But what's some pool time without a watermelon snack?}

{Callie enjoyed the sunset, but not the popping of fireworks.}

{We had plenty of patriotic books to read before bed.}

I bought the "Our Flag" book at a vintage market back in September and I was really excited to read it to Katherine on the Fourth of July.  She actually sat still and listened as I read about our country's history.   I had forgotten that this book was published in 1960 until I got to a couple of silly references assuming the child reading it had been born in the 1950's.  I had to explain to Katherine that her grandfather was not "a boy" during World War I, and that when she was born there were in fact 50 states, not 48 like the book indicates.

I can't believe the Fourth of July has come and gone.  Now it's time for the MLB All-Star Break.  Before you know it school will be starting.  I get a little sad when the Fourth is over because it feels like summer is almost over.  I'm going to try to enjoy the last few weeks of summer before I throw myself into Halloween prep and pumpkin everything.

I've lived in Missouri all of my life, and because of my husband's job, we probably won't be moving out of state any time soon.  So when I was searching on Etsy for all things Missouri, I was pleasantly surprised at all of the Missouri options in t-shirts, jewelry, home furnishing, you name it.

I've been looking for some artwork to hang on our living room walls for a long time.  We've only lived in our house for almost three years, why not finally hang something up?

I found these awesome prints a while back and I had to have them.

What I loved about the Missouri print is that it had my hometown of Kennett listed in the bootheel of the state.  I was sold on this print after that.  We live in St. Louis, so I love the print featuring the St. Louis skyline as well.

You can find this fabulous Missouri print or any other state you love here.  You can even request to have the artist add your town or city if it's not already listed!

The St. Louis print (and other major cities) can be found here.

In keeping up with the Missouri theme, I have to share a photo of my new necklace.
I absolutely love it.  You can find state necklaces at this shop.