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That time it was all about me....






And here lies my completely shallow & selfish post, because when it's your birthday, you're completely allowed to do that, right???


It's finally September which means….my birthday month is over! And a great birthday month it was. Do my friends/family know me or what?! Throughout the month I kept receiving box after box. Eventually I opened up all these gems.

What kind of treasure trove is this? A mix of Disney, Once Upon  a Time & The Walking Dead? It’s hard to get better than this.

And not only did I get a mix of all my shows and Disney, I got my coffee mugs! While I don’t drink coffee at home, most of you know I AM obsessed with tea. (And yes, I drink wine out of them too!) So my twin cousin sent me these gems for the new Inside Out movie! (If you haven’t seen it, you HAVE to,  it’s not only a great Disney movie, it’s an AMAZING message about emotions - and probably something kids really need to learn.)


(They are adorable, and yes, they are all my faves but we pretty much determined after the movie I’m a mix of Joy & Disgust ;) 

After all this,  I rearranged my cabinets, and….I’m pretty sure I’ve got my tv show, and Disney covered with my coffee mug collection?


I spent my actual birthday having lunch with my mom and niece, and hitting Jurassic World in theaters again. Yes, it was the third time, but...it was in the IMAX? Who would skip that chance??

Saturday I went to celebrate at Dolphie’s with the sis, our friend Kim & my best friend.  The Denny’s next to the bar is long gone, but this was the first time we’d gone in a few months….so sadly the Denny’s before and after our night tradition has ended. We grabbed dinner at O’Charley’s beforehand, and ended up going to bed after karaoke was over. Bummer. But still a great, great night.

My sister totally wins on the cake front. HOW ADORABLE is my Snow White dress cupcake cake? Seriously? This is adorable. Because yes, I'm the 32 year old with a 12 year old heart. This is what happens when you're an artist that loves the creative stuff.

My sister found it online, so she was so proud she got the bakery to do it exactly like she saw it!

Slight picspam, because there really aren’t a ton of pics to post for once:





And with that....it's off to get my nerdy brain back in photoshop!


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Happy (almost/getting closer!) Fall Y'all!


I love summer. Always have. I love warmth, I love the pool, I love flip flops -- summer is just fun.

However, I also love love love fall. Not only is it fun, it smells amazing and it's gorgeous. I am so excited for fall decorations, pumpkins, apple cider and of course Pumpkin Spice Lattes! I am ITCHING to put out my adorable pumpkins I painted in UK blue last fall!

And of course, Halloween. I have my Halloween playlist ready and roaring to go. While normally I have fun at a Halloween party, this year I'll be in Atlanta at a Walking Dead convention...because the nerd in me can't not go & I need to see Norman Reedus in the flesh. Given how many people cosplay at cons....I'm sure I'll be surrounded by plenty of zombies on Halloween this year ;)

But lets be real... the two best things about fall are (well, okay, besides all my shows coming back!):

Bath & Body Works having Pumpkin Pecan Waffles in stock.


A friend of mine spotted the small candles in stores a couple weeks ago and immediately sent them to me. And now I'm the nerd who keeps going to stores every week to see when they plan on releasing the large three wick candles so I can stock up. Last winter I blew through so many of these candles that I resorted to eBay for more. 

And of course....


It's almost Hocus Pocus time! Fall & Christmas are the best times of the year because I can turn on my tv at any given time and find Hocus Pocus or Christmas Vacation. And even though I own both movies, watch both movies year round....I STILL get giddy finding them on tv!

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I'm baaaack

I’ve swore forever that I was going to get back into the swing of blogging. And then I failed. And then I swore again, and updated….annnnnd still didn’t come back. Life happened. I got swamped with stuff, and when I wasn’t swamped with stuff…I was getting back into the swing of drawing. (Hooray for finally finding inspiration and motivation!) Eventually I realized I really missed blogging – and I missed a lot of the bloggers I follow, and then I started to hear from people asking what I was up to, and I had to finally get on the ball and get back on here!

 So, I’m back! And now I need to catch up on everything I've missed!

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Disney Adventures...

(Yes I know what a bad blogger I’ve been. I’m fixing that, I promise. I have so much on the horizon to blog about!)

Two weeks ago, girl & I took over Disney World! It was partially just a fun trip for us, partially a Graduation present for her – because I’m a good aunt-, and partially for me to get my A) Disney fix & B) take a trip because y’all know I cannot sit still for very long at home.

We had the best time – honestly, I get a LOT of time with the girl because she comes over a lot of weekends to spend the night or we’re out shopping, etc – but it was a blast for us to actually get away for a week! Also, she’d never flown before so it was pretty much the cutest to watch her staring out at the window.

So I’m not a Disney World newbie, but I haven’t gone to Disney in a few years, so there was a lot of new great stuff, including the Seven Dwarf Mine Train Coaster. Seriously, this is the best. We road it so many times, and on our last night there, we timed it just perfect to ride it as the fireworks set off – it’s breathtaking to be riding the roller coaster and having the sky light up around you! (And we were able to haul it off the ride and go watch the rest of the fireworks show sitting still!) We scheduled all our fast passes in advance, and I cannot recommend it enough – especially if you want to get on the Dwarf Mine Train without the 2 hour or so wait. (Although the last time we rode it, we DID wait in line & timed it nicely enough to only have to wait an hour!) There isn't too much at Disney I won't ride -- but there's certainly a few things. But because I love her, I wanted her to experience every ride I knew she’d love (okay, minus Space Mountain, because…I’m not into Space Mountain. At all.), so I sucked it up and even did Tower of Terror with her. (I survived. I still don’t like it.)

We did park hopper, but we only hit Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom & Hollywood Studios. Epcot was great when I was a kid going on a field trip – but it’s kinda boring when I’m on vacation with the kid. We hit Magic Kingdom multiple days & spent Wednesday at Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. We also squeezed in Downtown Disney for some shopping & to hit the Art Gallery!

I know the “happiest place on earth” is so cliché, but man it really…IS. It’s the best vacation. I head back the weekend of the niece’s graduation – literally the morning after her graduation, my group & I shove out to Orlando for another con & we’ve extended our trip a few extra days to give us Disney time. I’m not sure there’s anything better than hitting Disney twice in a year. (Family vaca is in July, and we’re skipping Disney so the boy can see Lego Land. What a sacrifice to go to Orlando and skip Disney World!)

Some picspam & commentary. And by some I mean a “lot” - not even kidding, you've been warned :) Seriously. I haven’t even gone through pics on my camera, so this is phone run down & a few shots from Disney's photographer.

Off we go! Paige’s first flight. It only took us 17 years to put her on a plane, hahaha.

At the hotel! It’s like “you know you’re at DISNEY when…..”


 Downtown Disney’s Art Gallery is my life. I could live here.  When you’re an art nerd, stuff like this just…absolutely blows your mind. Paige & I wandered the place for at least an hour analyzing all the gorgeous pieces, I don’t think we ever wanted to leave.  These pieces were just incredible.

How did you know which room was ours? By our window of course, we were NATURALLY the Little Mermaid & Snow White room.


Hellooooo Magic Kingdom! With our adorable Evil Queen and Ariel ears. We went big or went home – and had ears of our favorite characters made before we left, so Paige was Little Mermaid/Ursula themed for the week (with a touch of Maleficent!) and I was the Evil Queen/Snow White themed all week! This was Paige’s first time seeing the Castle!


 We got there so early the first day, we rode so much stuff so quickly. Here we are on Dumbo!


And the Tea Cups – the kid hasn’t laughed this hard in a long time!


Since Ariel is her thing, I did a fast pass for the photo ops with Ariel. Paige was pretty adorable in her little Ariel ears and her shirt – and it was a huge hit all around. Everyone and their brother stopped us all week to ask where I got all our different ears!


With the girl. Duck face is a requirement at least once when you’re with a teenager.

One of the days, we hit Hollywood Studios first --- and we hit so many characters in a quick time span, which wasn’t even our initial goal! We went with a super early fast pass to Toy Story Mania. Pixar was one of our biggest excitements for Hollywood Studios, and it didn’t let us down – we got our pics with Buzz & Woody before we had even been there an hour!


And then we just kept running into characters…

 Chip & Dale. How adorable is this?

  Donald Duck – we actually had been in line for another character & they swapped out for Donald right before we got up there. But we weren’t complaining.


  My girl at Hollywood Studios…..we had priorities – as soon as we got off Toy Story Mania, we hunted down the Starbucks before looking for more characters

 So I totally don’t remember this from my last Disney trip…they have a VILLAINS shop? I’m pretty sure both our jaws dropped and we rushed over there. This place was badass & we both LOVED it.


 This was actually kind of hilarious – we went online weeks leading up to plan our fast passes and our game plan, and when we saw there was a tribute to some actors at Hollywood Studios, I joked “wonder if they’ll have any of the Golden Girls!”. Once we started to walk past it, Paige and I at the same time said “OMG IT’S BETTY AND BEA!” and made a beeline. (And pretty sure Paige was the youngest person to be OMG BEA ARTHUR! At Disney World. That’s my girl!)  

Every Toy Story nerd knows….Pizza Planet is the place to be! Paige talked about this for WEEKS leading up, she was DYING to check it out. So, obviously, we went the day we saw Buzz & Woody. My only disappointment was there was seriously no Claw Machine in the arcade part? Is it like gone? Because shouldn’t Pizza Planet of all places have the Claw?? We used Pizza Planet time to chill and charge phones, and I’d like to think we weren’t the only ones scouring the place looking for the Claw Machine while reciting “YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN!” (Isn’t the best part about Disney that you can quote every Disney movie and everyone else totally gets it!?)


 We also found Mikey and Sulley! Or, as Paige used to refer to him when she was little: Silly. 

 And then we found Mater & Lightning McQueen!

In what was probably our most exciting moment of the trip, we noticed on a sheet that the Incredibles were going to be at one part of the park, so we wandered back. It turned out to be this building with tons of characters and games for kids to play. And as we walked in, we saw Baymax! We didn’t think they had Baymax out, so we went over & they told us he was leaving and to come back for the next round --- and be there an hour early, because since Big Hero 6 was new and so popular, his line was pretty crazy.

That gave us a little time to kill, so we did go and find the Incredibles! And Frozone was obsessed with Paige & after we got our duo op with them both – he insisted on getting another pic with just Paige.



 And then we randomly found a small line that went to a room in the back. Paige curiously asked whose line it was, and was told “Minnie Mouse” in reply, and I cannot even tell you how big her eyes got. Seriously people – Disney’s not for just the little kids. “OMG Aunt Nicole we have to meet Minnie! I want a pic with Minnie!!” I think this is one of my fave pics of the entire trip – and now I can frame this pic with me & the twin cousin with Minnie from Disneyland in ’11. 



We got Baymax afterwards! Seriously, how adorable is he!? And, because the kid is awesome, she fist bumped him so she could do the “bata-lata-lata-la!” with him. (Which we saw tons of people doing throughout the day!)



 Some of the scenery at Hollywood Studios is amazing & I absolutely love some of the vintage feel to the entire park!

snapped this one for pretty obvious reasons :) 

Animal Kingdom was next on the agenda, where we were trying to hunt down Rafiki and Baloo. Rafiki was doing a parade when we went so we didn’t get  a pic BUT we did find Baloo & King Louie. We hit a few rides at Animal Kingdom – and the Primeval Whirl has to be the worst ride I’ve ever ridden. Seriously, whose idea was that?! It was physically PAINFUL when you go around the corners. 

Baloo & King Louie

 Another day at Magic Kindgom, another ride on the Tea Cups!


 My Snow & Evil Queen ears enjoyed the Castle.

Thursday while we were there marked the anniversary of Granny’s death. We always do something for her on this day, and we’re always together, but….it just happened to fall on Paige’s spring break this year which was the best time for our Disney trip. Because of this, it was our goal to find Goofy – her favorite – to get our picture with him. We successfully found him after another ride on Dumbo!

 And he couldn’t have been cuter. And my mom couldn’t have cried harder when we sent her the pic and told her what we did to celebrate Granny.

We totally wanted to be by the castle for fireworks, but we also wanted to ride the Mine Train Coaster again, so like I said; we hit the coaster at the most PERFECT time. 


And obviously because we were going so fast, I couldn’t take any pics. Once we got off, we immediately rushed to the castle to watch the rest of the fireworks show.


Overall…..an amazing vacation & an incredible week with my girl.  I’m so glad we went – and I’m so glad I’m this close to her and do these sorts of things with her. She’s already ready for our next trip – which I think Mom wants in on – so I think it’s pretty safe to say she had a good time!




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Christmas 2015

Finally! I'm baaaaack.

And probably no better time to come back than to recap Christmas! (And as I draft my best of 2014 post, I swear I'll post it Wednesday, and it WILL be filled with tons of pics I neglected to post the past few months :) ) I haven't even pulled photos  off my camera yet, so....here's some iPhone documentary.

As usual, I spent Christmas with the kiddos, Sis & my Mom. Sam was sick, Paige was getting over being sick, so it was a little more low key than usual, but it was a really really great day. Even with the sicklings, we were able to still go out for our annual Christmas Day movie, and Sam was able to stay away for a little while!

The kids had a pretty awesome haul present-wise. We are past the "Santa" phase now, but of course still put stockings together. As usual, Mom and John were out early - but Samantha was too, trying to get some sleep. Even without Santa - I struggled to get Short Stuff to bed! :) He was so excited, he couldn't stand it!

The kids loaded all the presents under, around, and behind the tree. Every few minutes, Short Stuff would remind me IT WAS ALMOST CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Eve antics with the babes. 

The babes ended up waking Mom & I up around 6:45, so it was the usual "you can open your stockings until we eat breakfast and everyone else is awake, then you can open presents" - but Kadin got lucky & Samantha ended up waking around 7 anyway!


The kids got a great haul this year...I swore I was cutting back this year, but....I legit did not. And neither did Mom or Sam really, so they made out pretty well! 

Some of Kadin's loot!

With his Guardians of the Galaxy dvd -- which ended up being some of our Christmas Day viewing! (And yes, we WERE watching Frozen Christmas Morning. No shame, Paige and I were loudly singing along before present opening started)

This was an "almost all eyes were on Short Stuff!" moment. 

Mom made out pretty great too -- it was a super Olaf Christmas for her :) 

I was pretty excited about two of the gifts I got my sis: the Fiona Goode Funko Pop (AHS FTW!) & a Kate Spade mug. I'm a good sis!)

Every year we have to put gifts to the side that are breakables because otherwise...Kadin would have them all over the place Christmas morning when trying to pass them out! This year the breakables pile was also pretty much the "this is a special thing, you need to open last!" gift, which had one for me, Mom, Sam and Paige. I missed getting a pic of Mom on the phone, but hers was this singing Olaf that Paige was SO INSANE PROUD OF. 

And then Paige....


She got this gorgeous music box that Mom had ordered for her MONTHS ago. It had some pretty great wording on it about Granddaughters and Grandmother bonds & it made Paige cry, so it was a pretty successful gift.

And Samantha....

got an iPad mini! Successful Christmas all around! Paige was going to get her this, but she and John ended up going in on it together :) 

And I made out pretty fabulously, I must say. I suppose my family and friends know me a little too well, because the number of incredible Disney, Clark Griswold, stuff from my show gifts I got was pretty amazing. 

My "must open last" gift was from my sister, who made my day with these:


I know everyone knows my massive love for not only Disney, but Disney villains, and I REALLY wanted these ornaments -- since I planned on a Nightmare Before Christmas mixed with other villains on the tree next year. And I was off to a great start with it this year with a couple of my Evil Queen ornaments. But these....these I was A) surprised my sister spent so much and B) did not expect! 

My mom majorly upped the game this year (she even got me the Queen wine glass I wanted?! And went to the Cash Museum to get me the Johnny Cash calendar I wanted? Best Mom ever?) 

BECAUSE NOTHING IN THE WORLD IS BETTER THAN CLARK PAJAMAS! Thanks Mom! Clearly, mom knew that Christmas Day pajamas are pretty important to my sister & I - (hence why she wore her Christmas Story shirt & I my moose ear shirt. We actually only wore these because we forgot to buy matching footie pajamas - yes we really wanted to do that!), SOOO she got my sister Elf.  Oh  yeah - Christmas Day PJ game just got upped a notch. 

So the twin cousin sent me the most AMAZING Disney Princess shirt & a Macy's Gift Card. In my day after Christmas shopping, I spotted this tea infuser pot at Macy's and lost my mind. I was SO EXCITED! I make tea every night, so I was SO stoked to use this the night I bought it  - and paired it with this new mug Paige got me! 

No, guys....you know how much I love Edward Scissorhands (still one of the top 5 movies ever made, don't EVEN try to tell me otherwise), so I completely geeked out over this makeup bag. And not only did my sister buy me this, she put a Jack and Sally mirror in it!/ What!? Best Christmas Ever?

For our Christmas Movie this year, we chose Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. Mainly because we love that line of movies, it's a good family choice, and we've seen them all in the theater so far. But the fact that it's one of Robin Williams very last movies made it a little more bittersweet. It wasn't as great as the first two, but it was a good movie, gave us a lot of laughs, had us repeating lines the whole way home -- and certainly had us in tears at some of Robin's last lines. They did a beautiful tribute line to Robin & Mickey Rooney at the end with "The Magic Never Ends" afterwards, and that also made us cry. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

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PS: Paige and I both got so much Disney stuff - me a mix of Villains, Snow White & Ariel, Paige with Ariel and Ursula and I can't even begin to say how much more excited this made us for Disney in March!