saturday (and GIVEAWAY WINNER!!)

The winner of the Sand and Starfish giveaway is...

Natalie Ensor!
Congratulations! Please email me within the next 48 hours to claim your prize :)

So far, my somewhat lazy Saturday has consisted of...

1. Luxuriously sleeping in and then browsing blogs on my iPod

2. Chowing down on coffee cake

3. Going to my Grandma's house and shoveling her steps because it snowed an inch last night

4. Wrestling with a bucket of salt (don't ask...)

5. Enjoying an amazing taco and...

6. Stuffing myself with more coffee cake ;)

And now I'm sitting on the couch, wanting to go outside and take some photos of the winter wonderland that is my neighborhood. Oh yeah, and wanting to waste my money on-yep, you guessed it- more makeup ;)
Oh, and I got my first paying blog design last week! Pretty dang exciting :) Check out the blog HERE! Would you like a blog design? Check out my design site :)

-hannah
p.s. this is my 400th post! Yea!

A random post ^_^

Hello readers! Today I went over too my grandma's house with my two friends and all of my siblings (it was a half-day for my friends) and we took my cousins and my neighbor to the park down the street from my grandma's. Let me jut say, those three kids (two toddlers and one baby) are the cutest in three kids in the world. We had so much fun with them and of course, I brought my camera but I'm unable to post photos any of the cuties on my blog, same thing with my friends. :(
Anywho, it was a nice day and somehow the subject of caramel frappachinos from Starbucks came up at least four times so that would always lead us to moan and groan about how we wanted the delicious coffee milkshake :)
And also at the moment I'm in love with etsy. Isn't it just the best website ever?? All of these lovely handmade things from all around the world right in front of you! I have a gadget on my sidebar for my own etsy shop, *wink wink* though, its not very impressive. I'm trying to improve it though! :)
Do you have a etsy shop? If you do I would love to know!

I'm BAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!

Yes blog world, I have returned! My vacation was amazing, relaxing and just generally fun.

At first being by myself was strange, but after the first day I was perfectly fine.

Did I cry when my family drove away? Almost.

Did I cry when I had to leave my aunt's? Almost.

Did I cry when I saw my family waiting for me in a parking lot? Did I cry when I saw Mark hanging out the window waving and then dancing around like a maniac when we pulled into the parking lot? Did I cry when they all came running towards me? Did I cry when they gave me a huge group hug?

Of course not. :)

I didn't snap too many photos at my aunt's but when I was at the mountains with my family I went crazy :)

Above is a picture of Pink Piggy. I've had her since I was a baby and of course she had to come ;)

When me and my grandma and my other great aunt were driving to meet my family we stopped at a bead store. 

It. Was. So. Beautiful. In. There.

And then in the mountains:

"I'm the tin man!"

For a week I read, wrote, drew, took photos, watched TV and enjoyed my peace and quiet. I said to my mom, "I could easily have stayed for another week." (Just because it was so relaxing, nothing against my family!)

I hope I get to do it next year!! And I got a very special gift from my aunt. I don't feel comfortable posting the gift here so if you would care to know, just shoot me an email!

I'm going to the mountains again.........:)

And just to let you know my family will probably be going to our cabin every weekend so I will probably not be posting most Saturdays. Hopefully most Sundays will bring loads of photos from the mountains. So I was thinking about combining my photo blog with this one. Yes I've brought it up before but I really want your honest opinion. I think it would be so much easier just to manage one blog. Anywho, yesterday we had our family over to celebrate my grandma's (my mom's mom) 70th birthday! It was a blast and it was a great opportunity to take lots of photos of my cousins (mostly my baby cousin because I was sort of babysitting her the whole time, which I didn't mind at all, she's so darn cute!). Unfortunately I won't be posting those because I don't think their parents would feel comfortable with their pictures on the internet. There were tons of desserts and I sampled almost everything (which I payed for later, but it was totally worth a little stomach ache!)
Cookies, cake, an awesome pudding/brownie/cool whip/chocolate thing that my aunt brought! (I did not get any pics of that. I know, shame on me!)
There were also three kinds of pies but by the time I finished all the other stuff I was waaayyy too full to risk anything else. So I hung out with my cousins (I am the oldest of all of them but they're all super fun!) and uncles and aunts and snapped photos like crazy. Every time I took a photo of her, my one-year-old cousin would say, "see! See!" so I had to show her a few pictures of her gorgeous self. (Whenever I showed her a picture of herself I think I saw more drool on her face than usual! LOL kidding!)
At the end of the night I played a slideshow for my grandma that featured every member of the past three generations. (Ok, I might have missed one or two of her sibling but everybody makes mistakes, right?)
She loved it! And it was made by yours truly.................... moi! (With a little help from my mom of course!)
So that's what's been going on around here for the past 24 hours!
Gotta get to bed!

A Party and Aunt News =)

My mom is hosting a going away party for my grandma's friend. It's actually going on right now and I haven't gotten any cake yet so I better hurry up with this post before it's gone. Most of the people I don't know so it's kinda boring, which is why I'm upstairs writing this post :)
My mom talked to my great aunt the other day and they thought that I might be able to go there next week *squeals*! I wasn't originally able to because my dad's birthday and my grandma's birthday are next week, but I can go after my dad's b-day because we are probably going up to our mountain house during his and we aren't celebrating my grandma's as soon as I thought we were so.................. yeah :)
I'm so excited I hope I get to go! But my mom told me so suddenly that i was like, "Wow, umm okay..........." I was not expecting it at all! But it was a very nice surprise!
Ok, I'm going to get cake now ;)
And don't forget, if you ever need me to make you a blog button of some sort, I can do it! I think I might start selling the buttons that I make if the first few go well =)

At Grandmas!

I'm posting this from my grandama's computer! We slept over at her house last night because my parents went to Chicago! I slept in my grandmas' bed and she slept in her roommates room and *sigh* her bed is sooooooo comfy!!

Since my grandma watches our cousins every weekday we get to play with them. They are so cute :) The younger one is 1 and every time i say "HEY!" in a funny voice, she imitates me and  says "Heeee!" it's adorable! 

My sister got a ukulele for her birthday and she won't go anywhere without it- so naturally she brought it here. Mark always wants to play it but doesn't know anything so she won't always let him which can aggravate him a bit........Hopefully everything will go smoothly lol!