poor neglected bloggie

hello out there - if you're still out there!  wow...it's been a month since i last blogged.  my bad.  things must've been off kilter here in the land of the parks.  well - i did just catch up on my shuttercal / P365 so there are some pics of recent events or non-events should i say.

hmmm...let's see..what has transpired that i can really think of.

-celebrated Valentine's day with the hubby.  he got up early to pick up breakfast and flowers for me.  after church we went to jamba juice and then headed to the couple's mani/pedi he made an appt for :)  afterwards for dinner we had churrasco's and it was all so good (well, except for the service but whatevs...i was just glad the food was delish)

-went car-looking again (i say looking b/c i'm not really sure of when we're buying)  i'm pretty sure i have my eyes set on the 2010 Chevy Equinox.  it's a pretty little thing with some nice bells and whistles. it'll be nice not to worry that my car will die on me in the middle of traffic...my poor honda.  she's been a trooper i tell you.

-got my first Copic markers...still trying to get used to using them.  i do love how they don't cause paper to pill for sure.  Jennifer McGuire had a great post about these the other week that i think i'll have to go back and study again.

-I made a bunch of cards...a set of bday cards...and two more set of greeting cards. good thing i was able to pick up a couple of additional stamp sets that made these last batches of cards more fun.

we've had a couple of baby showers at work...one was for Trisha and Brad who both work at our company.  this is one of the shower's that i actually didn't coordinate for work so it was nice to have a little break from my shower throwing duties ;o)  i did however make the framed card that everyone signed for them. my dear co-worker Natalie, who is like my right arm at work, made the lovely cake - it was not only so cute it was so delicious!  it was a fun shower and i can't wait to meet their baby girl!

he boss made her think she was coming into an important meeting with one of the VPs...but that clearly was not the case :)  surprise!

 the proud parents-to-be!

-celebrate Andra's 40th bday at the beginning of March.  we put together a gift basket as a group that contained all kinds of goodies (gift cards from her favorite places...starbucks, DSW, iTunes, Smoothie King, Target...two bottles of wine, and a set of Tina Park greeting cards) and then Vanessa and I picked up balloons and decorated her entire cube in a non-"over-the-hill" theme...we kept it cute and fresh with sky blue, orange, white and brown.  yes...we are good friends like that :) i think she was pretty happy with it all :)

the following day at work, we had an Finance/Accounting team outing that our CFO treated us to.  it was a beautiful day and we went to the Aquarium in downtown Houston. good times with good/goofy people...

like i said...goofy co-workers.

the next two baby showers i attended then helped with were both for Vanessa.  her mom through her one this past weekend - lots of games and i even managed to win one of the games :)  here are some pics from Saturday's baby shower...

after Vanessa's shower on Saturday...Andra and I spent the rest of the day hanging out.  we headed to Ikea for a bit and then went to see Dear John.  Oh.  it was good.  le sigh.

picture source here

then this past week Andra and I put together Vanessa's baby shower at work...me thinks V was quite happy with this shower as well - yay! (sorry in advance for the blurry pics...don't know what was wrong with my shaky hands, i guess)

okay - i think i'm pretty caught up now. looking forward to combined house church tonight :) 

happy friday to you all!

P365 - Day 7

7/365 = my bday :)

so my shuttercal account is still not working :(  but here's my Day 7 pic above...me and DH at Chuy's where we had my bday dinner.

actually my whole day was just a fabulous day!  i am so blessed by the friends that i have...everyone really made my bday special.  from all the emails, text messages, voicemails, FB messages, coming to work and finding my cube decorated, fun and beautiful bday cards (some of which i had even made), so many sweet and thoughtful treats...such as my morning Starbucks from my friend Andra, to my after lunch Godiva chocolixir (pics below), red velvet cake in the breakroom at work complete with New Moon plates and napkins (heeheehee), then after all that I left work to meet DH and some friends at my fav Tex-Mex restaurant - Chuy's.  Where I proceeded to order my usual...Chuychanga with queso and my own side of creamy jalepeno dip (pic below).  I got to spend time with my dear friends and my DH and we had another red velvet cake for after dinner dessert.  i'm clearly an easy to please kind of gal.

so now i'm writing my thank you cards and watching one of my fav movies that i borrowed from my friend Vanessa (who i took a pic with whilst laying my head on her very preggers belly :oP )

And here (courtesy of Picasa) is a photo collage of today's festivities :D

Happy Bday to me! :)

early birthday dinner

today after church and lunch at KoMart with friends, DH and I headed over to my parental-in-laws and had an early birthday dinner for me :)  MIL made LOTS of Korean food...dduk mandoo gook (dumpling and rice cake soup), pork short ribs, chap chae (stir fried glassy noodles with vegetables - aka my favorite korean dish), korean seafood pancake...I'm stuffed now.   I would've take more pictures of the food...but I was so busy eating after the first dish came out...that I didn't get any other food pics.  Here's the soup dish that we started with though :)

so yummy and warm on a very cold evening down here

and for dessert my most wonderful SIL and her hubby brought cupcakes from Crave...

They got the red velvet cupcake for me and it was YUMMY ;)

The in-laws also got a yummy cake that was very light and perfect.  A great balance to the very rich cupcake.

and here I am blowing out my birthday candle - kudos to DH for not getting too blurry of a photo :)

this was also my P365 POTD for Day 3

After dinner I took a pic of our new niece with her grandpa and grandma - so sweet!

and finally a pic with Baby M and her uncle

then we came home and i undecorated the tree and packed everything away.  now i'm just hoping the DH manages to get the tree outside for the tree pick up before it's too late.  did i mention our tree was BROWN by the time we got it out of the house last year.  sheesh...it must've been february before we took out tree down last year. lol.

back to work on Monday and I'm kind of looking forward to it.  i miss my co-worker buddies :)  hopefully i will manage to come home from at at decent hour tomorrow and then make it to the gym for a quick workout.  crazy as it sounds, i actually dropped a few pounds during my vacation time off.  i think it's more b/c i wasn't eating out for lunch every day with my co-worker buddies. :oP

anyhoo - hope you all had a lovely weekend!  ttfn!

birthdays, cupcakes, fall retreat and more...

I'm really not doing such a great job keeping up with my brand new blog if it's already been 10 days since my last post!  i'm such a slacker!  okay, i really need to try to be better about this! wish me luck peeps!  so what has happened...well, let's see...a couple of bdays, some more cards, church fall retreat, and other odds and ends...so let's start off with some pics, shall we?

well, first off...here's an overdue pic of my sweet new little niece Madison...Thanksgiving day will be the first time I'll get to see her since the first time we met...

so sweet

proud uncle and auntie

then we got to attend Z's 1st bday...

bday boy and his family :)

the following weekend was our church's fall family retreat at Trinity Pines...

shadow pic of the hubby and me

view on Saturday morning from in front of our room

the hubby and me (it's hard for him not to make a face when taking a pic with me :-P)

my BFF, Mia holding her son and her daughter in the bottom corner of the pic

speaking of my BFF...her son's 100th day celebration was this past weekend...and she asked me to make 50 cupcakes for the event...last spring, she asked me to make 100 cupcakes for her daughter's 1st bday and i'm lucky that worked out well.  here's a pic of the cupcakes i made for sarah's bday:

and here are pics of the cupcakes for joey's 100th day (a significant milestone for Korean babies that is called "paegil" i think)...

before the sprinkles i used to bling them up a bit

with sprinkles...aka cupcake bling

on display at his little shindig :)

the guest of honor himself  on his mommy's shoulder

tons of korean dishes made by Mia's MIL

my favorite korean dish - chap chae (clear noodles with vegetables and meat) YUM!

then there were my co-worker's bday...Vanessa and Tim and we celebrated at Hido's Japanese Grill where they became sushi chefs for about 5 mins each...

and then my friend Kathy's bday was also last week...

me, kathy, and jen

let's see what else...ah, yes...last friday our house church group prepared gift boxes for Operation Christmas Child...here's what hubby and I put together (one for a girl and one for a boy)...

and then today i got to see Becky at church!  yay!  she recently moved to the west coast and i've so missed her...

i also got a txt msg from Sonya who, with her hubby David, were in town for the holidays and asked to meet up for lunch...which we did.  i forgot to get a pic with them this afternoon...but here's one of us from this past August when we met up for the 2nd year in a row at the Maine Annual Lobster Fest...

I heart these new yorkers who introduced us to many wonderful east coast eateries!

okay - oh, yes, i did recently take pics of my craft room...but i'll post those tomorrow...along with some cards i made recently....hope y'all enjoyed my photo update post! LOL