Brooke Layout

December 20, 2011

CANDY! CANDY! CANDY!

We literally made hundreds of Christmas treats. Want proof?

Chocolate and caramel covered pretzels...

Snowflake shaped Ritz sandwiches with peanut butter in the middle dipped in chocolate...

Oreo's dipped in white chocolate...

And everyone's favorite: Peanut Butter Balls!
(I got more than one text from Jay saying "I'm dipping my balls in chocolate")

We ended up making 30 little boxes and 6 tubs full of candy. There were much cuter boxes, but I didn't get a picture of them. :(

And now this is what my kitchen looks like

Christmas at the Dillons

I love our big old fashioned lights. 


I didn't have enough garland to wrap around the posts, but I think it frames the porch nicely this way!



I put a poinsetta in our big milk jug. Love that thing!


The tree! 


An ornament we picked up at Disney to remind us of our wonderful vacation!


Just a little Christmas everywhere...


LOVE LOVE our advent calendar





I have a lot of Ho's on my table. 


And a little Christmas here, too. 


 Am I the only one who doesn't put Jesus out until Christmas morning? 


Three little stockings all in a row. 


I love our stocking hangers, but they are hard to get a picture of!

April 20, 2011

Winston

big news in the Dillon family... we've grown! we fell in love with a pound puppy named Winston and brought him home yesterday.


we have been thinking of adding another dog for quite a while, so when a local furniture store had a free adoption event we couldn't resist.

now, i knew adding another dog would be hard. it meant lots of training, habit correcting, more food, more vet bills, more time, more space, etc. i also knew it would be an adjustment for the whole family, but i had no idea how hard it would be for me to watch daphne during this transition.

now, daphne has been with us for almost three years and we raised her from a very small puppy. needless to say, she is our furry baby. i knew that it would be hard for me to share my heart with another dog. the biggest surprise has been how emotional i have gotten. when winston took daphne's normal spot by the couch i got all teary eyed. watching him take a toy away from her got me all choked up. having her turn away from my affection was the worst. i've already had a crying emotional breakdown and we are on day 2.

daphne has never been an agressive dog and has always been shy/timid, but when we're at home alone with her the personality comes out. she is fun loving and playful and sweet. with winston here, she's been much more reserved and i miss my sweet girl. they say you're supposed to let the dogs work out their relationship and not choose the "dominant" dog, but i so badly want to jump to daphne's defense. i want to give the toy's back to her, kick winston out of "her" spot, and make him respect her. mostly because she's had the place of honor in our house for so long.

i'm hoping that this is just transitional, but am fearful that i will lose some of my favorite daphne-isms.

only time will tell...

April 04, 2011

taxes.

recently a friend of mine told me that her dad used to tax her allowance when she was little. she called it his "propaganda". i call it genius. every time that she would get allowance her dad would take part of it and tell her what he was going to go spend it on. i think i will be doing that to our children. that way, when they grow up and the goverment takes lots of their money to spend it on whatever they feel like, including giving lots of it to people who don't appreciate it, our children will be fully prepared.

unlike me. who cringes at every paycheck. who watches her hard earned dollars getting picked at all year only to get to the end of the year and desperately hope that they decide that she deserves to get some of it back. harrumph.

March 23, 2011

For dog lovers only

For anyone who has met our dog, you will remember that she is kind of a scaredy cat. So, imagine our surprise when we took her to the dog park and she did the obstacles!!! They have a little fence and a hoop and I thought it would be fun to get her to try to jump over/through them, but I did NOT think she would do it. Since she did it, we decided to take some videos so that everyone would actually believe that it happened!

Enjoy!




The other doggie in the video is Daphne's good friend Molly. Molly's owner Shannon and I are currently working on our synchronized dog walking routine. The dogs are really great at making complicated zig-zag patterns for us to untangle. :)

March 06, 2011

Mustache Bash


What better way to celebrate turning 26 than making all of your adult friends wear mustaches to your party?


I LOVE theme parties. In fact, I really can't remember a time that I've thrown a party and there hasn't been some sort of theme. So, when it came time to plan my birthday party I knew it had to have a theme. Many people have asked me where I got the idea for a mustache theme, and the honest truth is that some of my cool friends had one once and I thought it seemed rad. So I went for it! Little did I know that our friends would be so into it. One guy friend actually grew a 'stache just for the occasion! My husband surprised me by shaving my initial into his face (M is for Manda)


I even had a mustache cake! One of my old co-workers (and good friends) made this beauty for me! 



My awesome friend Lisa showed up with the same 'stache and the same color of eye shadow on. We're meant to be besties. :)


My current co-worker Tessa, and her hubby Drew showed up to celebrate with us. Fun fact: Tessa and Drew have the EXACT same wedding anniversary and dating anniversary as Jay and I. Small world.


Also making an appearance was my book club! I adore these girls and am so glad that they are my friends. I look forward to book club every month!


My friend Kat shares my love of goofy poses, and completely ridiculous movies. If there is a "bad" movie out there, chances are not only have Kat and I both seen it, but we both LOVE it.


One final note about the night... I treated myself to a haircut and style and went to the mall to get my make-up done. The only other time I've done that in the same day was for my wedding. I have to say that I felt so beautiful! It was so nice to have something completely different! I LOVED my new look!!!


There are LOTS more pictures and a LOT more friends came to have fun. Check out the rest of the party pics by clicking on the link below!

MUSTACHE BASH PARTY PICS

February 25, 2011

Only in America

The other day at work, a girl said "I had some chocolate thunder from down under last night"

...

...

...

My thoughts EXACTLY. I thought she was being a bit of an over-sharer!

Until she mentioned that this is the name of a dessert at a certain Australian themed steakhouse.

WHOA.

Only in the good ol' U S of A would someone eat something named "chocolate thunder from down under".

February 09, 2011

a girl and a cookie sheet.


also: used pool salt to clear the rest of the walkway when i was done. who needs ice melt and a snow shovel???

walking in a winter wonderland

so... we don't own a snow shovel

that's what bowls are for. right?

Dude, where's my car?

if you look closely, you can just barely see my matrix's little black antennae sticking up out of the snow!

SNOW!

woke up this morning... looked outside... and realized that we would have to dig a spot in the yard for miss daphne. cause it looked like this:











and it's still snowing...
videos to come!

January 26, 2011

our evening entertainment

cause who doesn't like videos of daphne??? ;)


the one and only daphne dillon

and the epic quest for toys!
in this episode she takes on the very scary... BASKET!!! Dun dun DUN!!!



the saga continues...



what we've been up to lately

we went to the jason aldean concert! one of the perks of my job is having access to some really great shows   (and really really great tickets!)

January 23, 2011

Testing! Testing!

we got a flip cam for christmas... so i'm testing out the upload. :)
this is a video of daphne enjoying the snow.
what a weird dog she is.

What we've been up to lately

we babysat a couple of cuties while a friend of ours had surgery




January 12, 2011

it's cold.

We got our first snow here, so Daphne had to go outside in her winter coat and check it out.




January 06, 2011

If you give a mouse a cookie...

Lately I've felt like I'm trapped in the children's book "If you give a mouse a cookie...".

(For those of you not familiar, it goes something like this: if you give a mouse a cookie... he will ask you for a glass of milk. if you give him a glass of milk... he'll ask for a straw. if you give him a straw... he'll need a napkin. And on... and on... and on...)

It seems like I just can't catch up! If i had to write my own version of this book, it would go something like this:

If Manda gets a new job...

If Manda gets a new job, her schedule will change
And if her schedule changes, she won't have time for a work out
If she doesn't have time to work out, she won't feel like it's worth it to eat healthy food
And if she isn't eating healthy food, she won't have as much energy
If she doesn't have any energy, she won't be able to stay up late
And if she can't stay up late, she won't get to see her hubby when he gets home from work
And if she doesn't get to see her hubby, she'll miss him.

If Manda gets a new job, she'll need new pants.
And if she gets new pants, she'll need new shoes
And if she gets new shoes, she'll need a new sweater to match
If she gets a new sweater, she'll need a new shirt to go under it
If she gets a new shirt, she'll another new pair of pants to match
If she gets another new pair of pants, she'll need new another new pair of shoes...

But Manda also knows that

Once Manda got a new job, she was much happier
And because she's much happier, she won't worry as much about how she looks
And because she's not as worried about her looks, she'll feel more confident
And because she's feeling more confident, she'll be a better employee
And because she's a better employee, she'll be proud of herself
And because she's proud of herself, she'll want to share that with her husband
And because she wants to share with her husband, she'll make time to hang out with him
And because she makes time to hang out with him, she'll have a happier hubby
And because she has a happier hubby, he'll let her spend money on pants, shoes, sweaters, and shirts.

January 04, 2011

Well hello there...

This blog is about a girl




















The boy she loves




















And their dog




















Enjoy.