To Sean, no matter where you are now or what you are doing, know that today we celebrate your love for life, your sense of adventure, and your undying spirit. We celebrate the day you were born since we are all so much better off for having known you. Happy birthday!

For starters, I would like to share one of my favorite bands of my 30th year, She & Him. This super-duo is made up of the super cute and talented Zooey Deschanel and the very musically inclined M. Ward. Here is a little video of one of my favorite songs by them (admittedly, I don’t have a song of theirs that isn’t my favorite! )

This app is actually an interactive storybook of retellings of Aesop’s Fables. The characters are fully interactive and you can move them on the pages and try to help them overcome the obstacles they face in the fables. This interactive storybook is going to change the way you read bedtime stories and make them so much more engaging for you and your child. The interactivity will help to make the stories more meaningful for your child since they can engage with the characters and help them to reach their goals as the story goes on. Besides the interactive characters, the app is gorgeous! The art work is beautiful and Vicki and Ray have done a great job of bringing these characters to life.

This video shows a lot of the great interactive features of Wild Fables.

You can also read more about the app and the stories at www.wildfables.com. The website has more information about the app as well as a few fun blog posts related to the app. And the website is pure eye candy. Very well done and pleasing to the eye.

So I hope you will take my advice and definitely check out this app. It is well worth it and you will not regret it. Your kids will be begging you for more!

But this post is not about the projects using yarn that I have made for myself, this post is about the projects using yarn I made for my dear sister’s birthday! My sisters both have birthdays in the early part of January, and it is always a challenge for me to make sure that they don’t get shorted on their birthdays, since their birthdays ride the coattails of Christmas. For Christmas this year, we bought my sister, Jackie, a new camera which she both needed and wanted. But since we spent a good bit of money on it, we told her it would be a Christmas/birthday gift, which I hate because I feel like it is such a rip off! So for her birthday, I knew I wanted to make her something so that she would have gifts from us on her birthday, but I also knew it had to be budget friendly.

This fall and winter my sister and her boyfriend have been working vigorously on their house. Painting, spackling, decorating, and even a few unexpected (major) home improvement projects. To honor their hard work, I thought that a handmade home decor gift would be perfect. So for my sister’s birthday, I tried to apply some of my new-found love for yarn as a creative medium to make her gifts…

I think it was a HUGE success! I love these, and it was very hard to let them go, but I know Jackie will make a great home for them!

Jackie’s new living room and dining room color is this pretty sage green, and she definitely favors the earth tones, so these colors were an obvious choice for her. (Actually, my dear hubby, Shawn, picked them both out). The yarn was so nice to work with, especially the brown, it was so soft and thick, and made the prettiest pom poms (made with my new set of pom pom makers, which I am dying over!!)

So while I may not be able to knit or crochet, I think I may have finally found a way to use yarn in my own projects. I can’t wait to make more of these sometime soon!

P.S. Since today is Jackie’s ACTUAL birthday…Happiest of birthdays to you!! Hope your day is full of all your favorite things!

I am a huge music fan and enjoy all different kinds of music. I have always been that way. If you ask me about a particular event or time in my life, I can probably name a song that corresponds somehow. Music is a crucial part of my day, I just wish I had more time for it. The long commutes I used to have between home and school were awesome (at least an hour and half) for listening to music. Now I have about a ten minute commute and that leaves a lot to be desired.

Today I want to share with you a video from a band I am LOVING right now. Shawn, my sister Courtney, and I just saw these guys in concert here in MD last month and thanks to that wonderful evening, I now have my new band crush! The band? Vampire Weekend.

What I love about their sound is that every song makes me want to bee-bop and bounce! So fun! And smart…I will take a bunch of Ivy League musicians who sing about fancy commas any day! I dont’ have just one favorite tune from these guys, so I chose this video because it is so fun. I love the shared drumming and the hats and scarves!

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Well hello blogland! I have missed you! Unfortunately, I always find myself apologizing to my readers about my lengthy absence from my much-loved (thought it may not seem like it) blog. After the wedding, I was completely immersed in going back to work and beginning a new year with a new group of little kiddos. Now that things have gotten back to some sort of normalcy, I am hoping to be able to make more time for me…and my blog!

I don’t know any better way to bounce back from a hiatus (from anything) than a new perspective and a few new goals.

It is a bit dated now, but in August Elsie, of A Beautiful Mess, posted on her blog a simple challenge for herself and anyone who wanted to play along called 4 Simple Goals. The idea is to choose four SIMPLE goals for yourself to fulfill by the end of the year.

These are my 4 Simple Goals for the rest of the year…

1. Take more photos. This is something that I LOVE to do, but never seem to actually do it. There are lots of times I take my camera along with me on whatever adventure I may be encountering, but most of the time, sadly, it never leaves my bag. I want this to change! Besides, I have a cute new hubby to take photos of!

2. Blog more often. I know, I know. How many times have I said that before? But this time I am going to keep it simple, and try to come up with some sort of schedule for my blog to help keep me on track. I also have a few ideas I want to try out for some regular features and post topics.

3. Start re-organizing and decluttering my house. I have a lot of great ideas for re-decorating…who am I kidding…decorating (for the first time) my home I have lived in for 5 years. But before I can tackle those projects, I need to get rid of stuff! I am going to try to start small, throw out one thing everyday, or one thing every week. Something small, but something to get the ball rolling.

4. Read more. I read all of the time – blogs, Facebook, Twitter, email. But for this goal, I would actually like to read more books. I have an e-book that I downloaded to my iPad for vacation in July, and I have read one chapter. It’s an author that I really enjoy, but I have such difficulty making actual time to sit and read. I hope to be able to (at least) finish that book before the end of the year.

So there you have it, my 4 Simple Goals for the rest of the year. What special goals do you have for the rest of the year? Any outstanding goals that you really need to get a jump on?

I wanted to share a playlist today in memory of Sean. This is a playlist that was created for his memorial services, initially. Over time, I have added and deleted songs from this list. I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I have. Some of the songs are songs that Sean loved, others are songs that remind me of him. (You can click on the play button to listen to the entire playlist right here.)

And, as a special bonus, here are some of the photos from the slideshow we ran over the weekend when we had our memorial gathering for Sean. I hope you all enjoy these as much as I do! (I apologize for the slideshow running off on the sidebar, but I wanted to make the photos as big as possible.)

January brought lots of fun and surprises. I can hardly believe the turns my life has taken in the last few weeks! Let’s dive right in, but I am going to save the best news for last!

We started January off with a gigantic party with our closest friends to celebrate Shawn’s divorce finally being final! It has been such a long time coming, almost three years, and we were all so happy for him! A true fresh start. To celebrate, we had everyone over to get the night started with some drinks and snacks and we rented a limo bus to take us out on the town! We had an awesome fun time and it was a great way to start a new year!

Our last big hurrah for January was the Polar Bear Plunge. This is an awesome fundraiser for the Special Olympics of Maryland. The whole idea is to raise money for a wonderful cause, get a little crazy with your friends, and take a dip into the Chesapeake Bay, often frozen and always always cold! So Shawn and I ventured out with his boss’ Krav Maga martial arts group and boarded a bus to Sandy Point beach where we would take part in the big plunge. This all would have been fine and good if Maryland hadn’t been hit by a nice surprise snowstorm and 13 degree weather! It was freezing and started snowing at around 8:30 am. We were scheduled to plunge at 1:00. That’s a lot of waiting around in the cold and snow to jump into the frozen Bay. What the hell where we thinking??!!?!? As it turns out, since this is my first year actually making it into the water, it will also be my last! I am done with the Polar Bear Plunge. We had a fun time, until waiting on the beach to plunge and trying to thaw out after. We have had our fun with the PBP and will now retire our frozen bathing suits!

And the biggest most exciting news ever happened in January too! (drumroll…blrlrlrlrllrlrlrlrlrlrlrlrl…!)

Shawn and I are engaged to be married!

As of January 22nd we are officially a betrothed couple! I could not be more excited as this starts a whole new chapter of my life and our lives together. It’s amazing. I want to do a separate post for the whole story, but here is a little ring bling to tie you over!

It’s absolutely gorgeous! I could not love it more! The kite set diamond and the mill grain along the sides, it’s so vintage and beautiful! Thanks Babe, you’ve done good!

This New Years Eve was quite low-key. Shawn and I were joined by my mom, sister, aunt, uncle, and little cousin. We had a great time, playing games and hanging out. We don’t have cable tv anymore, so watching the ball drop in Times Square, which is definitely a huge part of New Years Eve for me, was a little challenging. We were able to find it being streamed online and so we watched that happily, but we were sad that the streaming was a little slow and we really celebrated the official New Year about 3 minutes late (shhhh don’t tell anyone!! )

Anyway, it was a very enjoyable night and a nice way to welcome in the new year, calm and relaxed. Here are some of the photos from the night, some of my favorites are of Shawn and I dancing a chorus line to New York New York! Ha!

July found us gallivanting all over the place. First we spent a whole week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina with our good friends Jessop and Lauren, and Mike. We rented a really nice beach house and had a great time. Then we drove from North Carolina to West Virginia to meet my family for our big family reunion. Wow, what a trek! Despite the rain we had that weekend, we had a great time with everyone.

In August, we ventured back to good ole’ San Diego, our home away from home. We went to visit our dear TracyAnn and keep her company for a week. It was great to be there for so long, and we had such a blast while we were there.

In September we took our annual Labor Day trip to Ocean City. This year Nikki, Andy, and Sami joined us at the beach for the weekend. We had a great weekend of golf and good times.

October and November were really busy months for us. We hired Nikki to work with us on our new photography project Allure Studios. We visited my parents on Halloween and had a good time with the family. Then Thanksgiving we spent with Shawn’s family and then with mine. It was a very low-key holiday, and apparently so low-key that we didn’t take any photos!

December brought even more plans and we were busy as usual. The first weekend in December we got together with my mom’s family for our annual candy making.

Around the middle of December we took a group of friends to Hampden to see the Christmas Street lights. Nikki, Andy, Jessop and Lauren had never been to see the Christmas lights so this was a great opportunity to take them to enjoy the sights and experience.

The month continued with a Blizzard the week before Christmas. That was awesome! School was closed for two whole days and it was a wonderful much needed time off work. The night of the storm, Nikki, Andy and Sami came over to visit and enjoy being snowed in with ys.

And last, but not least, the end of December brought us another wonderful Christmas filled with our fantastic families and lots of good memories.

Well that’s a wrap! 2009 was a fantastic year but I am so excited to see what my 30th year has to bring me!

Happy New Year to all of you! Live Well, Laugh Often, and Love Much!