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!

Catching up...

Okay, Okay....I dropped off the blogosphere for awhile, I know.

I'm doing a little work on here to clean up the blog & revamp a little bit, and before too long I will be back to blogging on a super regular basis!

Just a little pic spam of the time I HAVEN'T blogged...

My mom wins for giving me the best birthday cake ever. 

Also to celebrate my birthday, we hit Atlanta for Dragon Con so I could see my sweet Sean Maguire! Sigh, I never ever get tired of seeing this man.

as evidenced by our six million pictures together.

my beautiful girl graduates in May. This means....Aunt Nicole had to do senior portraits. 

The coffee truck is often the bane of my existence. 

Larry & I are as usual, keeping Nashville Movie Industry in business.

But I'm alive & well in Tennessee.....

First and foremost - who heads to the Sweet Sixteen for the 4th time in 5 seasons!?

My CATS, that's who! Go Big Blue!! WHAT a nail biter - it truly could have gone either way in that last minute & I was sure biting my nails. But my Cats pulled it off!!

In other news, the bestie & I spent the weekend with George Strait. King freaking George. No big deal. It was so hard to contain our happiness about seeing him, we've literally been counting down the days since November. 

King George bound!

It was aaaamaaaazing. 2 1/2 hours & 34 songs - which didn't even begin to cover all his massive hits! You could close your eyes and it was as if you had the record going on the turntable - his voice was so amazing. I went in with hopes of hearing my 3 favorite songs, but knew if I heard "Marina Del Ray" live, I would die happy. 

However, George must've heard me...because I got all three of my songs!

this is the result of a quick run to different seats with an iPhone!

We got so so teary eyed to 'Troubador' & 'The Cowboy Rides Away'. I hate this is his last tour, but can't blame him! I'm so happy he'll still be recording. 

Another thing that I loved was the crowd reactions. The true sing along to EVERY SINGLE SONG, no matter if they were singles or not. The massive freak out to "Unwound" - folks, it's hard to get countrier than that song! It's no secret Country Music was my first true love, so it's the little things like this that warm my heart. The want for genuine country music - and not the silly pop crap from today - is still there!

I loved this....waiting for his encore, everyone pulled out their cell phones and used the flashlight app to glow & get him to come back. It looked so awesome. (Glad my phone had SOME use - thanks Bridgestone Arena for not having WIFI and having the worst signals ever. Not being able to use our phones for pretty much anything the entire night was terrible, hahaha) 

"Oh the last goodbye's the hardest one to say....this is where the Cowboy Rides Away...
 Thanks for the memories, King George! 

Saturday was spent in Kentucky, celebrating the sis' birthday! Dolphie's was pretty packed, and we didn't get to sing as much as we normally do. But, we still had a blast and most importantly, Samantha had a great birthday! 

We totally told Metcalf to get his Strait on, we had a full set list of songs we wanted him to sing for us. Apparently, he took us literally - and showed up in his best button up plaid shirt.

The birthday girl brought red solo cup shot glasses (is this one of those "you know you're a southern girl if....you own both red solo cup shot glasses and mason jar shot glasses" things?) and wanted us all to do a shot for her birthday. To make it cuter....we popped out the sharpie and wrote our names on it. Well, kind of our names. Rita & I decided to continue channeling our inner country stars, sooooo everyone took lead from our other names.

with the birthday girl & the bestie! 

After that whirlwind weekend, I need sleep. Happy Monday y'all!

How to spend a Thursday night...

Oh what a crazy, crazy week it has been! Work, sessions, editing - it's been a whirlwind -- and about to get busier.

We did celebrate my sisters birthday on Wednesday at her house - and we celebrate 30+ year olds birthdays by playing Disney games together with the kids, eating dinner & watching "Frozen", hahaha. It was a great night though, and my sister had a great birthday.

Our cousin Mike and his fiance are in town this week for some classes she is taking for work, so last night we spent the night hitting a few places along the streets of downtown Nashville. Which is coincidentally what we did with him the last time he was here 6-7 years ago!

The worst part about the majority of our family being in FL & OH is we don't really see them as often as we want. But when we ARE together, it's like no time has passed and we're instantly the kids we were growing up.  It was fun to catch up & talk (okay, so it was a little more like shouting, hello bars with live music. Welcome to Nashville!) about so many memories... "Remember when we were at Universal Studios and...." "Remember that Christmas Eve that...."

We started out at Margaritaville, where we grabbed dinner!

And then we moved onto Tootsies, which is probably the worst to go and actually think you're going to be able to move or talk because of the insane crowds (but it's where I wanted to take Danielle, since she hadn't been there before! Just playing the good Nashvillian!), but SOMEHOW we lucked out upstairs and got four seats. This never happens when we're there! 

Then we headed over to Silver Dollar, which usually has a pretty good band playing. We saw three bands play &  two were really fabulous, and the last was just flat out entertaining.  However, Silver Dollar has better lighting, which prompted a "THIS IS GREAT LIGHTING, LET'S TAKE A TON OF PICS!" 

Mike was so outnumbered by girls!

The logistics that went into taking a group shot were pretty hilarious. 

We capped the night off at the Full Moon Saloon because the band there usually doesn't play crap - IE; they won't play any of the BS you hear on the radio today. I always get such a delight when someone requests Luke Bryan or Jason Aldean & the band says no, they only play real country music. I love my town. We got them to play us some Alabama, Strait, Waylon & Alan Jackson, did some obnoxious singing along & got Mike to do some crazy dancing for us before realizing it was close to 1am....Danielle had to be at classes on time Friday since she was late Thursday, so we called it a night! 

Such a great kick off to a killer weekend....the bestie will be here shortly & we'll be heading off to our George Strait concert! I am over the moon that it's finally here! We head to Kentucky tomorrow to of course, celebrate Samantha's birthday at Dolphie's!

Happy Friday y'all!

PS: It's SPRING, IT'S SPRING! Don't think I didn't paint my toenails & rock open toed wedges last night!

Sweet Sixteen!

Happy Sunday! First and foremost: My show is back tonight! 3 whole months without Once Upon a Time is no fun. You have no idea how excited we are -- and we might be throwing a little viewing party. (Yes, our shows are serious business.) Ohhhh the excitement!

Some family gently reminded me this week that I was a little behind on blogging about Paige's Sweet 16. Oops...this week has flown by, and I completely got absorbed in other projects!

Paige had a pretty fabulous 16th! The Birthday Girl chose a local Mexican Restaurant for her dinner – I don’t think she expected them to come put a sombrero on her head a top the crown she wore, and loudly sing to her. She played the embarrassed card, but I know she secretly liked it & had a great time!

my beautiful girl! 

Operation make a huge deal of the 16th Birthday was a success!

She was tickled by pretty much everything, from her dinner, to the flowers her little brother picked out for her,  to the balloons I came in with. (Ever tried to fit lifesize Sweet Sixteen balloons in a Ford Focus? The struggle is real, folks. Thank GOD I scratched the “I’m going to get the giant Sweet 16, and then 16 balloons to surround it!” idea!)  And of course, she was quite pleased with the $$ in her cards. The joys of being a teenager is everyone knows cash is on your mind, and usually gives you that. That made present opening time quite easy and quick! This year, she got cash & a Disney World trip this November  from Aunt Nicole, so now it's time for us to start planning! Not to mention, she can save that cash and buy her own souvenirs at Disney!

What really made it nice was Mom was feeling up to going out (she's still recovering from her surgery, thanks to everyone whose checked in!), and my bestie drove up to celebrate with us, so we had a full house of people who just wanted to celebrate our girl!

partying with the sis, birthday girl & mom!

sis & bestie!

For home, we had it a little more low-key. All she really asked for were these pretty fabulous cupcakes my sister had made:

And her highness even indulged me and let me shove the camera in her face a few times without the "Ughh Aunt Nicole, are you taking more pictures of me?!"

my gorgeous girl! this face still melts my heart just like it did 16 years ago! 

the girl spent forever in the bathroom beforehand, so Paige could curl her hair and get dolled up. Definitely the belle of the ball ;)

Happy Birthday lovebug! 

All in all, Paige had a really fabulous Sweet 16. And being a total sap, she let me know she read my blog that I'd written on her birthday, which made her cry. Which of course made me cry that she cried. Ahhh....we're so related!

Happy Birthday my Sweet Girl!

16 years ago today, my life forever changed when I became an aunt for the first time. At a little over 9 lbs, she looked like the incredible hulk in the nursery window. All it took was a first glimpse and I was madly in love with the sweet baby we called Paige. I was all of 14 years old – and I don’t think at 14 I even knew I was capable of the love I felt for that girl.  

I was with that child almost every day of her life for the first few years, and that’s no exaggeration. She stayed at our house during the day & into the night when my sister worked with my dad, so I raced off the bus each day to get in the house and get my Paige time in. On the days my sister wasn’t at our house, I was riding my bike in the winter to see my baby, and every Tuesday & Thursday, I spent the night at my sisters so they could go out. (Not to mention, she was all of 3 days old when my sister called me and said, “Do you want to come spend the night and watch Paige for me?”) 

All of this led to a bond I wouldn’t give up for the world. I wanted her attached to my hip growing up, and I got exactly what I wanted. I was more than the doting aunt, I made every attempt to be the best aunt she could ever ask for. She knew if Mom said “No” to a toy, Aunt Nicole was going to say “Yes!” – and she still knows that today. And not only did I want to spoil her, I wanted to be there for her. From first day of preschool to school programs –  I made every effort imaginable to be there. When I moved away super briefly, I ended right back here because at the end of the day, being away from the kids – especially during their formative years – wasn’t something I enjoyed.

I know people love to tell me “when you have your own children, it won’t be the same as your niece and nephew”. No, I don’t have kids. (And I think we’ve already established that I don’t want them.) So you can try to tell me this (but please don’t, I really hate your unrequested advice), but I promise you: There will never be two people in the world that I love more than these two kids. Period. These kids not only taught me how to love, they brought out the best in me. I excel every day because I’m an influence in their life, and I want them to reach their fullest potential.

Happy Sweet 16 Paige! I wouldn’t trade being your aunt for anything in the world!

Short Stuff is 12!

In important news of the day: 

This headline made my day. I really wasn't going to watch the Grammy's this year, but I guess that's changed! 

So yesterday, I had a sweet post typed up for Short Stuff's 12th Birthday, and of course instead of hitting "save" while drafting it, I hit discard. I was so annoyed I didn't attempt to type it up again. So with that - yesterday was Short Stuff's 12th Birthday! I don’t know where the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday I was standing in the delivery room, crying with my sister! 12 years later, it’s the running joke in our family that he really belongs to me. Every little quirk he has, my sister is quick to use the ‘You get THAT from your Aunt Nicole!’, yes, yes Kadin you do. It’s okay, I turned out pretty awesome. And while he may be a picky eater like his Aunt Nicole, but he also has my smarts & brings home report cards just like I used to bring home, and definitely got my creative gene. My little love bug is going to go places! 

And of course, with the birthday comes party time! We celebrated his birthday over the weekend with some family & friends and some of his friends from school. His friends were so adorable – and so polite!  "May I", "Would it be okay if", "Thank you" were used so often, it restored my faith a little bit in kids today! 

His obsession with wrestling was his theme -- and boy was it the theme of his presents! The number of figurines he got was crazy -- which shocked me because he has SO MANY right now, you wouldn't think it's even possible to have anymore! He had such a good time with everyone, so it was a successful party. He didn't want to be sung to in front of his friends - but was still a good sport and let me put the candles in the cupcakes for at least a photo op!

I got him a card that wouldn't open, the inside of the card was actually on the back of a card and it completely blew his mind, his reaction was hilarious. He was so thrown off! 

We didn't tell him his big sister Amy was coming to the party, so she was a surprise.....as soon as she walked in and said "Hey Buddy!", he rushed over to hug her. So freaking cute. 

I somehow forgot to take a pic on my actual camera of this, damn it. This birthday poster was huge and hung up in pieces - we thought it would make a cool photo backdrop (sigh, and then the photographer forgot to actually take photos at it. My bad. At least I took pics on my phone!) -- he was so excited about it. 

Happy Mid-week, y'all! Here's hoping the rest of the week flies by.....because another Holiday weekend sounds good to me!