Fantastic Picture

I just couldn't resist posting this amazing picture. My brother-in-law, Aaron, is an amazing photographer and he took this photo of my niece the other night.

 You can see the rest HERE.

Oh man it makes me want to have a little blonde haired girl just like her. I love this picture.  So today I ask "Did your kids turn out to have the same hair color as you or did you get some random ginger and go...hmmm where did that come from?"  I want to know.

PS. Red hair runs in my family, my dad was quite the ginger man. Scary for my future kids. My only saving grace is if Paul's gene pool is minus the ginger root.

Twins

My dearest, sweetest, bestest of friend had her twin boys this week and it has got me thinking about twins, babies, and all that cute stuff.  Although this article thankfully does not apply to my friend as her babies as doing really well, I saw it and thought, "Now this is worth sharing." 

Enjoy and happy Friday!

Ok, I saw this last night on Tralalère!

This picture is from an article called the “RESCUING HUG”

The article details the first week of life of a set of twins. Apparently each were in their respective incubators and one was not expected to live. A hospital nurse fought against the hospital rules and placed the babies in one incubator. When they were placed together, the healthier of the two, threw an arm over her sister in an endearing embrace. The smaller baby’s heart stabilized and temperature rose to normal.

Read more about the story, here. Read this to learn more about the proven benefits of skin-to-skin care for preterm infants.

A Home Birth

So my sis had a baby at her home last night (on purpose...and by the way he was almost 9 lbs...ouch!) Way to go sis.  It is her 4th baby (technically 3rd pregnancy cause the first time around was twin girls) so her body seemed to know what it was doing.  She had him in water, I am guess a small pool or portable tub of some sort.  Anyways, I found this post about a home birth using a pool awhile ago and never really had a reason for posting it until today.  Watch it--don't worry you wont see a placenta or anything else scary and gross.  It made me cry.

Leo Hart from The Panic Room Videos on Vimeo.


So I ask you readers, "Would you ever do a home birth?"  My answer is Hell to the No for several reasons regarding my health and fear of pain. What is yours?

New Motherhood Part 2

 Image Via Stephanie Rausser

Okay so I got quite a few responses from my post on being a new mother and I like it.  The most common threads from the comments:

1. Never getting to do what I want when I want to do it

2. I can't take a nap when I want

What I want to know is when did you take naps before kids?  College maybe?  I guess that is one of the drawbacks to waiting to have kids cause I haven't taken a nap in years unless I took a day sick off of work.

As requested,  now I want to know the top reasons why being a mother is so great.  You could sway me either way so you better make it good! 

I love this post on Rock Star Diaries just shared today about her baby learning her first word. Now that to me would make it worth it! Check it out.

Have a Great 4th of July Weekend

Hello Lovelies.  I hope you are doing something great for the holiday weekend.  Paul and I wanted to drive home to visit family, but thanks to Jack's fiasco that wont be happening.  Jack is doing fine by the way.  He thinks he is fine and that he didn't just have surgery and get 28 staples in his belly.  He is way too hyper for his own good and I can not wait to be able to take him to a dog park for like 2 hours and let him run until he can't any longer.

Any plans for the weekend? I want to go to the Colorado Music Festival to hear the symphony play patriotic music at Chautauqua in Boulder.

Maybe you should go see an awesome concert like I did this week. HERE
Or make a yummy citrus Stella cake. HERE
Or how about these yummy cookies pictured above by the lovely Martha Stewart. HERE 
Or try one of these 23 mouth watering burger recipes found at Sunset Magazine HERE
Or maybe do a really fun bike race HERE and HERE

Whatever you do please be safe & don't drink and drive.

I Graduate Today

Yippee! Today I will graduate with my Masters of Arts in Arts Management and a Graduate Certificate in Public Relations and Marketing.  On Thursday I was honored with the Director's Award for outstanding Leadership to help advance the Arts Management Program. I am very excited and touched to receive such an award.


Anyways, just thought I would share the good news that today at 2 pm I will official be done with Grad School! I am hoping I can make everyone call me Master Leah for at least the rest of the weekend.

PS. Paul graduates this Saturday! Oh and Charlie will be walking with me across the stage with a green graduation cap. Check out his pre photo shoot HERE.

Wonderland

I found this beautiful post about Wonderland on the Kiss the Groom blog and it describes exactly how I am feeling today.


some days i get lost…not sure what direction to turn…these are not bad days though…inside of confusion lies little sweet bits of beauty…it is in the pauses, the sense of feeling lost that i find solace in the small things….a soft blanket…a cup of tea…the wind on a lazy afternoon…so what if you the key doesn’t fit….beauty is in the imperfections…may you all get lost in wonderland….xoxo

Happy Sunday! I hope you get lost in the solace of the small things today.

A Christmas Surprise

After much discussion and battling Paul and I decided to surprise our families and come home for Christmas.  My dad ruined the surprise for my mom cause when I called him to tell him we were coming home (I had to ask him a question regarding our trip) he loudly shouted "YOU ARE COMING HOME!" really loudly through his house and my mom overheard and within 10 minutes all of my siblings had called me to tell me they were excited.  At least I know who is the leaker of important information.

We did succeed at surprising Paul's mom and that was worth all the cost of the trip.  We snuck up on her at Costco and her face was priceless and she started freaking out.  It was so much fun.

Anyways I am so happy to be home. I get to see my family today and I can not wait.  We had dinner and games with Paul's family last night and it was so much fun. 

I hope everyone this year has a fun Christmas Surprise.  This picture above is so cool.  I took it at Macy's in NYC and I want to make one of these. They are styrofoam balls wrapped in yarn. So clever.

Merry Christmas Eve.

Monogram Corkboard

 

I really like this and want to make a big S one.

Click here to get the tutorial.

image and tutorial via the ever fabulous Martha Stewart.

Today I am grateful to have great S names.  Sutliff and Stone.  I really like my married last name... Stone.  It is a nice solid last name. I like to think that Leah Stone sounds important or maybe even famous-like. There was nothing wrong with my maiden name-I will always be a Sutliff.  It is a bit of a unique last name and a pain in the butt to spell over the phone, but I love my family and my heritage.  So here's to families and honoring your name.

It is definately better than the name Iona Knipl.  Click to read the NY Times article about worst last names.

Or check out this one.  Ha- don't mess with these ladies.

My Mother

Today is my mother's birthday.  I am so grateful for her.  My parents left yesterday to fly back home to Utah and it was sad to see them go.  We had such a wonderful time together laughing and sight-seeing and going out to yummy restaurants and watching movies. 

One of my favorite things about my mom is her contagious laugh.  It is enough to make you laugh so hard you almost pee your pants.  Sometimes she laughs at the most ridiculous things and she wont stop for like ten minutes and for the next 2 hours she bursts into spells of laughter because she can't stop thinking about whatever it is she found so funny.

My mom had 5 kids-can you believe it-I don't even know if I can handle having one and she had 5 and to top that off she had all 5 kids without drugs.  Needless to say, my mom is one tough cookie.  A great example of this is when we lived in Michigan, I had to have been like 5 or 6 years old,  my mother made tuna macaroni casserole.  My oldest sister and a pill at the time as she was going through her pubescent years of her life said "Mom that is disgusting. I am not eating that." Mind you to set the scene my mom isn't a lover of cooking, so if she made a meal you better be proud of her and grateful cause she did it out of love for her family and not cause she loved to cook. So my mom was a bit fed up by my sister and just walked behind her and dumped the whole pan of food on her head. My sister was covered from head to toe in tuna macaroni.  Way to go Mom!  I learned right then and there to eat whatever I am served.  So thanks for that and thanks for being so great.

Happy Birthday Mom! I love you.

Bad Game and an Awesome Game

Today I am grateful that I didn't pay $200 a seat to go to the University of Utah vs. TCU game yesterday.  It was a sad game to watch- actually a bit painful.

I am also grateful that my awesome nephew Ian rocks at football and helped his team make it to the championship game next Saturday.  Way to go Ian. I wish I could have been there to see it.  I really miss that- I would dare say it is the thing I miss most about living away.

Ian started the game off with a touchdown.  Ian scored the last TD (video at the bottom) to end the game with a 27 to 6 win.

Next up; Skyline...
  Ian is the one on the right.  Rock on Ian.

Autumn Leaves

Today I am grateful for the beautiful Virginia fall weather.

My parents and me with the dogs in Williamsburg, Virginia on Halloween.

Can you see this deer? He was in my yard today. It is just so magical to see such a beautiful creature.

 

Have you heard of Eva Cassidy?  She is amazing-her voice is so smooth and full of emotional.  I could just listen to her all of the time.

Check out Eva's version of Autumn Leaves.

Seriously, I have a Cute Family 2

More of my cute family. Also taken from Smithpix. All photos by Aaron Smith. This makes me want to go pumpkin picking. Has anyone else gone this fall?

Seriously, I have a Cute Family

Here are some great photos that my brother-in-law Aaron Smith took of some of my family at Gardner Village yesterday. I stole this pictures from his blog, Smithpix, and I hope he doesn't mind. He is just such a great photographer that I just can't help myself. Man seeing these photos makes me miss home so much.

I think Joshua is ready for the next Harry Potter movie.

I just love being an Aunt.

Leaf-Peeping 2010

1,776 miles driven over 12 states in 4 1/2 days

Here is where we went Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Canada (Montreal and Quebec), Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut.
full photo album

Thurs night:
left around 9:00 pm and drove until 12:00 and slept at a rest stop in New Jersey

Friday:
Headed north through New York State. Saw upstate New York which was absolutely beautiful this time of year. We drove through the Adirondack State Park, through Albany and into Canada.

Drove all around Montreal. Found a Starbucks for free wi-fi and realized that Montreal was not where we thought we were going and actually we were hoping to see Quebec City.

Ate dinner in Montreal at the most charming restaurant called Juliette & Chocolat in the hippest most fabulous neighborhood.

377, avenue Laurier Ouest
Montreal, QC H2V 2K3, Canada
(514) 510-5651
julietteetchocolat.com‎

I ordered in French. It was fabulous. We had a jambon and fromage (ham and cheese) crepe and a dulche de leche pear desert crepe. Yummy.

We got back in the car and drove 3 more hours and slept at a beautiful rest stop outside of Quebec City. Man it was cold that night in the car.

Saturday:
Drove into Quebec City. I was giddy like a school girl. I loved it. I loved the language, the people, the food, the architecture, the experience. Words can not do justice to the European quaintness of old town Quebec, but maybe photos can.

Around 2 pm we jumped back into the car to head back to the USA and drove through Maine on a small highway and past a gorgeous lake called Wayman Lake. The leaves were bursting with color.

6 hours later we made it to Portland, Maine where we ate lobster at Jay's Oysters. Neither Paul or I had even had lobster before, so it was quite comical to watch us try to figure out how to shell the thing. I will say that it was amazingly delicious, but Paul and I agree that we will never eat food again where we can still see its body as we are consuming it.

Sunday:
Woke up early to find a shower. We found a YMCA in Portland and they gave us a shower pass for only $3 a person. So off we headed to our respective locker rooms only to find out that the ladies showers were communal. I am not a nudist and felt a little awkward to shower in front of a bunch of ladies, but my pits stunk and my hair was a bit oily so I had to just do it.

We spent most of Sunday in Maine driving down the coast and looking at small towns and saw the famous Portland Headlight as posted about earlier.

We stopped in Kittery, Maine and took the dogs to an amazing park/beach where we let them run off leash. Jack kept drinking the salt water and shortly thereafter realized it didn't sit well in his stomach as diarrhea shot out of his bum. Poor Jack. I had to actually wipe his butt with a towel, it was really awesome. Paul made me do it cause he was gagging.




From Maine we headed into Salem, Massachusetts to see the famous Witch Museum. I must say I was a bit disappointed. I was expecting something more horrific and spooky. Lots of people were dressed up though, but not my favorite part of the trip.

Around dinner time we rolled into Boston. I was told we had to eat Italian food in Northern Boston and googled to find a well recommended restaurant calle Giacomos on Hanover Street. We drove past and it was packed. The line was out the door and the wait was over 2 hours. So I called them up, got the order to go in 15 min flat and we ate in the car. I would highly recommend this restaurant. We got pumpkin sage tortellini with a marscapone sauce and it was definitely enough for 2 all for $14. It was heavenly.

Monday:
Headed to Cape Cod. Found some magical deserted beach and ran the dogs for a while.

Continued to New York to see some friends and got stuck in horrible holiday traffic. Ate dinner in Westchester New York outside of the city and began our return home. We made it as far as New Jersey and slept at another rest stop.

Tuesday:
Drove home and had 6 hours of class that evening.

Wew, I am tired.
Click here for more photos (all 200 of them! Enjoy.)

Banana Cream Pie Tradition

Every year on the first weekend of October, Paul's family gets together and makes Banana Cream Pies. I don't just mean like one pie---I am talking like twenty plus pies. They deliver the pies to neighbors and friends.

Well Paul and I have missed the party two years in a row now, so last night Paul and I made our own Banana Cream Pie.

If I had my way the pie would have lots of chocolate in it, but sadly Paul is a purist.

I can't find the exact recipe we used, but this Martha Stewart Recipe looks tasty plus it has chocolate on top so I vote for you to try it. We have already eaten over half of our pie.

Do you have any family traditions? What is your favorite kind of pie? I think mine is maybe Key Lime or apple or maybe some kind of chocolate goodness.

More Photos Robbie and Sarah Stone Wedding

I found some other photos that Sarah's sister Karin took of the wedding and wanted to show you all the other cute things of the day.

And Aimee, I am not obsessed with weddings, I just like to post cute things and creative event planning.

Enjoy!

Clay statues of Robbie and Sarah. So cute. And these DIY bride and groom statues are a very creative way to top a wedding cake.

Simple and beautiful wedding cake. And tasty too.

This was the awesome brunch that I helped Shari put together. Yummy French pastries.