Spring Spritzers!

I made some yummy Strawberry Lemon Spritzers last night thanks to Linda Wagner. They were quick, easy and delicious!

Equal parts Sake and Champage, strawberries, lemon juice, mint and vanilla stevia. It's all pretty much to taste but she gives measurements on her website.

The strawberries were perfectly ripe!

Cute, right?!

Throw in some Amy's spinach pizza and you've got yourself a good time. Oh. So. Good.

Making My Day

Caramel Macchiato and an Apple Bran muffin...best breakfast ever.

WAY overdue car wash! Driving down the freeway afterwards was like seeing through new eyes!! 

Crusin with the pup...he's not scared of being near the window anymore!

Enchiladas!! Thank you Groupon! I'm kind of a Groupon freak...

Oh fried ice cream...there are no words

Vegas skies are pretty much amazing...

Took Bentley to the park and called upon our inner child...i'm glad I didn't break it! No really though...

He's cute.

The past two days were great. And much needed. Oh and did I mention that the weather has been perfection!? Perfection.

Weight

this is a giant block of whatever is most difficult for you to carry and trust me on this, you'll carry it more times than you can count until you decide that's exactly what you want to do most and then it won't weigh a thing anymore.

brian andreas

Joyful Jones

Lisa over at Joyful Jones Blog is doing a great giveaway for a Nicholas Sparks book and Barnes and Noble gift card and Tote. I've heard great things about this book so this is an exciting giveaway! Her blog is so cute and inspirational as well! I love finding other blogs that give me the motivation to stay joyful and not miss out on the little things in life. So thank you Lisa for that! :)

Weekend!

I absolutely HATE seeing the weekends go!

At least it gives me a reason to look forward to the next one...

We ate at the Slider Truck (finally) for the first time. YUM!

I highly recommend the Barby...it was amazing! We took our sliders and Bentley to the park and had a picnic.

Gotta love a lazy Sunday.

Free breakfast at Mimi's, we love that place! I tried to go healthy but ordering turkey sausage was as far as I got with that one! Ha!

Jack, Bentley and Corky hangin out. I spent most of the weekend at my mom's (like usual).

Too much time on my hands...I should have been writing my English paper but instead I waited until the last minute, resulting in me typing delusional nonsense because I was falling asleep while writing...when will I learn?!

My little sister ordered this mask for $20...according to her, "It wast the best $20 I ever spent..." Love that girl. Corky was lucky enough to be able to try it on!

As dumb as this is...it makes me laugh every time! (Source unknown)

We also went apartment hunting which is always fun (and stressful!) Unfortunatelly our rent is going to go up if we renew our lease so out we go! I'll miss this place :(

Cake Stands!

So i've been keeping my eye open for a cute cake/dessert stand and I finally found some that I LOVE!! Moon Face is doing a giveaway for them and hopefully I'll get picked...keeping my fingers crossed! You can get them at the Etsy shop Stands for all Seasons. I seriously love them all and don't know how to pick just one but the black and turquoise are definitely my favorite! Anyway....we shall see who wins!

Obsessed.

I am obsessed with Pinterest.com thanks to Lisa at Joyful Jones Blog! For real! You do have to be invited to use it but its a website where you can "pin" different things you find around the internet, on other people's blogs, pictures, etc. onto your board and share it with other people on the site. You just put the "pin it" button on your browser's bookmark bar and can "pin" anything you'd like to your boards with just a click of the button. It's super handy for keeping track of all your finds! I love that you can see what other people are pinning as well. 

These days half my life is being spent on this website. That could be good or bad?

Either way I love it. For real.

Taste Test.

So I just took the Etsy Taste Test and i'm pretty happy with the results! Here's my taste that they came up with! If only money grew on trees, I would seriously DIE for this...

etsy

Believe.

Not sure of the source

"God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. but He can't if you don't pray, and He can't if you don't dream. in short, He can't if you don't believe."

-Jeffery R. Holland

I need to get back to this place. Praying. Dreaming. Believing. 

Sometimes I get so frustrated with myself. I say," I need to do this...I should be doing this...I will do this soon..." Umm hello Alli?! Do it now. Shut up and just do it. 

So cheers to doing and no more just saying! Hopefully....

Ranunculus

source. 

i love spring. and i love rananculus.

5 hours till my alarm goes off...

I'm wide awake, completely jealous that Brian and Bentley are fast asleep!! I've been cursed since high school with sleeping issues. You'd think I'd be used to it by now!

On a brighter note...have I told you lately how much I love my family?! All 8 of them!

I was also thinking how I have no pictures of my dad on my laptop...time to get to scanning! I definitely look a lot like him and nothing like my mom...according to his side of the family, looking at me is like looking right at him. I've heard that my whole life but after he passed away nothing makes me more proud than to hear things like that!!

Elder Richard G. Scott

I didn't watch all of general conference but I was around for the second Sunday session. The second Elder Scott started speaking he had my full attention, not sure what it was exactly but I am so glad I heard his talk! It was titled, "Eternal Blessings of Marriage." Although I am not exactly active in church right now, I do still believe in a lot of it and miss the comfort that it brings me. Elder Scott is such a sweet man and really left me feeling comforted with his words.

How wonderful that we are taught to respect, love and cherish our spouses to the fullest extent. It's such a great comfort knowing that there are men and women out there who are so truly happy and really can have wonderful relationships. I realize there are always trials but it's how you get through them that matters. I am not married but I will be one day and without the church in my life growing up, I truly believe I would be missing out on so many great examples and lessons to live by. Brian is not a member of the church but member or not, I believe the principles and values taught in our church and even in my family's home are things that everyone can benefit from. I'm not saying people who aren't LDS can't be happy or don't have morals, etc. There are great people out there who didn't grow up LDS, Brian being one of them. Luckily he was raised by a wonderful mom who taught him wonderful things. I do, however, think that there are many people out there who weren't lucky enough to be taught such values and their relationships throughout life will suffer from it. I am far from perfect and have plenty of work to do on myself and my relationships but I am so incredibly grateful for such loving parents and the church to inspire and motivate me. I haven't been to church in a while, there are a lot of feelings and opinions I need to deal with before I believe I will be ready but that doesn't mean I don't love and respect it. I'm having a rough patch in my life right now and am just straight up confused on the next step but I believe that if I return to praying, scripture and going back to church, that I can have the faith and help from the Lord that I so desperately need. It's clear to me that I can't do this on my own so I suppose it's time to buck up! Slowly but surely I'll find my way through this life.

He's Home!!

This is a little late but oh well. Also, my blog appears to be turning into a Bentley blog...only temporarily lol! Anyway, the Sunday after we got Mr. Bentley, we got home from grandma's and went to bed. In the night (sometime after 4 am, so I guess in the morning), he had thrown up twice. By the time I left for work, he'd thrown up again and around 8 thrown up again! Since he's so little and I was being paranoid about his hernia anyway, I had Brian call the vet and they headed over. Turns out poor Bentley had Parvo!! It can be really serious and young puppies die from it all the time. We got his vaccinations the day after we got him but our vet said he must have caught it before then. We had to make a decision to try and treat him at home or have him stay at the vet for three days getting treatment (expensive!!). I personally wouldn't be able to handle the guilt if he didnt make it and we had chosen to treat him at home so we decided to leave him in the hands of our amazing vet! Blah blah blah, long story short, he stayed at the vet for 4 loooong days and had lots of shots and very little food. He's a brave little sucker and made it through and now he's home! He's skin and bones and on a temporary (and expensive!) chicken only diet...but happy as ever. We sure love him!

He's sort of grounded for a month since he's still contagious but since he's already been to my mom's and around Jack and Corky, its a safe zone. Sunday we caught some rays (as you can see Jack and Bentley stole my seat). Bentley was getting warm since he managed to fall in the pool earlier...so funny!

Long story short...last week was stressful but Bentley is happy and healthy!