Paper Bow + family trees

Everybody get excited! Tomorrow is my super adorable cousin's first birthday party... and nothing is cuter than babies and birthdays!

But.... something has me perplexed. Is my cousin-in-law truly my cousin? I mean, I guess I could say that Joey's cousin Richard's daughter is turning 1 today and her birthday party is tomorrow, but that sounds so long and drawn out. Especially since we're talking about a one year old.

Can I say she is my cousin, or is that offensive to Joey who really is her cousin?  What if he doesn't care and just stares at me like I have 5 heads? And are they (we?!?) technically second-cousins, and how does that work? AH!!

Seriously.

This stuff boggles my mind. I should not be old enough to buy cars and put offers on houses if simple family tree nonsense trips me up. And I should definitely not have a child of my own. What chaos will ensue after that happens?!

But, regardless of who is who and what relation we are, my adorable little whatever-she-is Alli turned 1 today and tomorrow we are all caravan-ing out to Hannibal to see her! :) I am excited to see everyone and mostly see how big she has gotten. I think the last time I saw her was Christmas-time!

I was browsing Pinterest of course, and found this adorable DIY bow from Ellinee.com and had to attempt it for something. I thought, HELLO, why not for this?! And best of all, it came with a free PDF and instructions on how to do it. I LOVE that.

I had to get creative though, as I do not have a color printer.

(Everybody BOOOOO with me until Joey understands that having a brand new wireless C-O-L-O-R printer is seriously in everybody's best interest. Er, namely me.. but whatever.)

So all I did was print out, in grayscale, the bow PDF and cut out the pieces. Then I traced them on the back of a different patterned wrapping paper and continued on with her tutorial. It was easy and I think it looks amazingly cute!

Just as a side note, this wrapping paper is amazing. I bought it when Borders was going out of business and only paid like $1.50 for the roll (normally $6!) so that I could plan my some-day nursery around it.

I felt like it was too cute not to use now, but that's the last present I wrap with it so that I can do fun DIY crafts in 25 years when I decide to have a kid.

What?

Recently...

I have been a little AWOL recently.. it's been quite an eventful week and a half.

Joey and I put an offer down on a condo, and it was accepted! Only..... the condo association wasn't FHA approved. So even though we were pre approved and the seller accepted our offer, we couldn't get the condo without getting a conventional loan. It was a big let down, but now we are looking at bigger and better things! We have a list of houses that we are super interested in, and our realtor is taking us to see them on Saturday! I am excited... so here's hoping things work out!

In other news, my father is in the hospital. We found he had a heart attack last week and since then, he has been under doctor's care while his body is reacting to the heart attack. I am not going to get into details, but your thoughts are appreciated.

I have taken a few pictures during the week, so I thought I would share them with you below. Enjoy!




Left: Starbucks on our anniversary :) // Right: Chinese food for dinner

Left: The first warm day of the year // Right: Ethyl's for a friend's birthday.. I love this picture!

Left: Girl scout cookie time. YES! // Right: Adorable spring time wreath my sister in law made!

Left: Awesome nail color.. so bright! // Right: Apparently I'm confused about the weather. ha!