So long, 2010 Part II

6.  The rest of June was kind of awesome too.  My folks came up to help assemble and mail out our wedding invitations!  We also pieced together the ceremony with my stepdad who officiated our wedding.    We took a day trip down to Starved Rock to hike and explore all the canyons.  It was beautiful and so much fun to get out of the city and into nature.

Last but not least, I also had my bridal shower/bachelorette party the last weekend of June.  It was so much fun and pretty amazing to have all my best girls together in one city!  Yummy food + drag queens = best night on the town ever!

7.  July was fun, we celebrated the 4th by going to Tennessee and partying it up, Badger style at the lake.  I also quit my job!  Aahh..so liberating.

8.  August, sweet, sweet August.  You were so good to me.  I had the best first two weeks of August a girl could ever dream of.  We explored San Francisco and Point Reyes with friends.  We ventured up to Napa for an amazing welcome dinner, the wedding of my dreams and a brunch in the forest.  I stayed out there longer and made my way down to L.A. via Highway One and checked out the Pacific Coast with my brother's family.  I went to Disneyland with the 3 best kiddos.  Seriously, the month of August ruled so hard.

9.  September was pretty awesome as well.  We honeymooned in Italy, traveling all over from the Cinque Terre to Venice to Florence to Rome.  Pretty amazing, if I do say so myself.

10.  October is my favorite month of the year (in close competition with May) and I milked it for all it's worth.  We went to a pumpkin patch and came home with pumpkins, apples and happy memories.  We used up every last apple from a peck and a half and my love affair with baking deepened that month.  Halloween was really fun too.  I was David the Gnome and the mister was Luigi.

11.  November got me into the holiday spirit.  I turned domestic and picked up knitting.  I'm so glad I did!  We also drove down to Wichita and spent Thanksgiving with my family.  Aside from getting sick, it was a wonderful visit.

12. December, how I loved thee.  I was so into the Christmas spirit this year and enjoyed every second of it.  But now that it's over, I'm over it too.  Funny how that works.  We had a great Christmas in Louisville and will hopefully have a wonderful NYE in Chicago.

I just want to thank each and every one of you for making 2010 a fantastic year for Mo Pie, Please.  I look forward to sharing my world with you each and every day and absolutely love reading all of your comments.  You make the world a special place.  Happy New Year to everyone!

Bring it on, 2011!

So long, 2010 Part I

What a whirlwind of a year it's been, seriously.  2010 totally kicked 2009's ass.  Wanna know why?

Here, I'll show you ::

1.  January was a pretty decent start to the new year.  We flew out to California for an open house at our wedding venue and made the most of our time out there.  Somehow, we managed to spend a night in San Francisco (and get completely wasted/pass out fully clothed with contacts still in eyeballs), journey up to Napa Valley/Sonoma to meet with our wedding coordinator, caterers and florist and then head due east to Tahoe for a few super snowy days nestled in the mountains.

We took our engagement photos on a frozen Lake Michigan in January; they all turned out great thanks to Raegan!

2.  February is always a good month for us because that's when we started dating so many years ago.  Last year for V-day/Anniversary, boy treated me to a swanky stay at The Wit downtown which had a great view of State Street and the iconic Chicago Theater.  

3.  March.  What a month March was.  Between March Madness and SXSW, I had a lot to occupy my every waking moment.  I flew down to Texas to meet up with my favorite dudes who were playing the festival.  We partied like crazy in Austin and had a really great time and ate a lot of really great pizza.  Definitely the highlight of the month.

4.  April really flew by.  I went to Kansas City for my bff's bridal shower.  We decorated everything in a Breakfast at Tiffany's theme because her new last name is Tiffany.  Unfortunately, I had too much wine the night before and was experiencing one of the worst hangovers EVER that day but I still enjoyed myself.

5.  May is definitely one of my favorite months of the year.  It's my birthday month and everything is green and pretty.  What's not to love?  This birthday, the big 27, was one of my recent favorites.  All it entailed was a picnic on the boulevard but there was grilled pizza and it was pretty hot that day which made me happy.

6.  June was a crazy month - my bff got MARRIED and we had an awesome time celebrating it!

{there was karaoke so I sang my heart out to her}

I'm back!

Well friends, we've made it back to Chicago in one piece.  We're both exhausted and ready for some down time in our apartment where it still smells like the Christmas tree and our basil plant and goldfish are still kickin' it.  We took Gus with us and he did great even though we put him in a house with a pug who was ever so curious. He had some Christmas day visitors too - a feisty french bulldog and a dapper wiener dog.  Boy was that a show.

Christmas was good to us.  We brought back a truckload full of goodies, had great food and got a lot of family time in.  We also got to party with Raegan and Alex, hooray!  The picture above is an airbrush painting that Alex made for us.  Isn't it great?  I have been laughing non stop since he gave it to us - and no it did not come from the mall (but it sure does do a good job of mocking it, right?).  We're totally gonna hang that baby up in the living room for all to see.

I'm trying to get back in the blogging groove, so forgive me if I'm a little slow to start.  I'm glad to be back though, thanks for all the wonderful comments you've left as of late!

Happy Holidays from Mo Pie, Please!

Well the holidays are finally (almost) here and I'm so happy about it!  This is a scheduled post as we are currently all packed up and shipping out to Louisville to spend the holidays with the Badger family!  I am super excited because I've never spent Christmas with them (we usually go to Kansas to make my favorite children incredibly happy) and there are also so many friends I'm excited to get to see as well!  Gus is coming with us too, even though he isn't sharing his excitement.

I've downloaded Chelsea Handler's A Horizontal Life : A Collection of One Night Stands for the drive, have a ton of yarn to occupy my hands and a ton of cookies to munch on!  I brought my computer with me so I may or may not be posting - we'll be gone until the 29th so posting will definitely be light.

Happy Holidays dear readers - you've made this year completely wonderful for me!  If you're traveling, safe travels to you!

P.S. - Dancing Branflakes posted my Christmas tree along with some other awesome bloggers trees, go check it out if you haven't already!

* Images 1, 2, 3, 4

Bloomerie

I'm so into the designs of all these fabrics from the Etsy shop, Bloomerie.  They are a mother-daughter team based out of Virginia who are both avid sewers.  How cute is that?  I've often thought about teaming up with my mom on some things and these two are making me think about it that much more.  I also love how it says this on their great blog - We’ll be here to help you bloom creatively.  I'm no sewer, I sucked at the sewing portion in Home Ec, but seeing these fabrics makes me wish I had it in me to be half as talented as my mom is or my grandma was! 

Comedians of Christmas

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If you're in need of a few laughs today, please listen to this week's episode of This American Life.  It's a Christmas special called Comedians of Christmas Comedy Special and it is wonderful.  Not only are there tidbits of humor from comedians like Wyatt Cynac (of The Daily Show fame) and Mike Birbiglia but there are some hilarious jokes from children about Christmas.  I've been laughing so hard, the kids jokes don't make much sense but that makes them all the funnier.

Pendleton

At the fantastic holiday party last night, my friend Maggie discovered a Pendleton blanket whose current owner is a very handsome Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy named Theo.  Seriously, he's awesome.  Unbeknownst to our friends, Theo sleeps every night on a gray and red wool Pendleton blanket that hails from an army-navy store in Virginia.  Talk about one stylish dog, right?  Well it was funny that she discovered that because I had been planning a post on Pendleton blankets for awhile now.  There's just something so amazing about the quality of these blankets and story behind them.  I love all of the designs for the blankets and would love to give a special baby one of their adorable blankets (some day I can swing it).  Are you a fan of Pendleton?

Holiday party time

It's time to get dressed up nice...

get in touch with that festive feeling....

eat some cookies...

drink some champagne...

and be merry!

Tonight we're going to a holiday party with many lovely friends and I can't hardly wait!  There is plenty of snow on the ground, cookies baked and deviled eggs on their way.  I'm going to don my perfect red lipstick, wear sparkly shoes and sip on champagne all night long! Well maybe not all night long but you know what I mean.

*images 

Lunar eclipse

Were any of you lucky enough to catch last night's beautiful and rare lunar eclipse?  I wanted to see it so bad.  I was able to stay up late to watch it but unfortunately ole man winter interfered with the view here in Chicago.  I've been having so much fun looking through photos and watching videos of it and it seems that nearly all of my Facebook friends were able to watch it (jealous).

For some really great shots, check out NASA's Flickr group photos, they're pretty unbelievable.

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Holly Hue

When I was at the Chicago Renegade Craft Fair a few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to come across these fabulous designs by Holly Hue.  They had a small space on the second floor and unfortunately were shoved in the corner where it was hotter than Hades and hard to see them.  But luckily I did and I managed to score a similar tunic like the one in the last photo.  I love how the designs are symmetrical or a-symmetrical, stripy and colorful.  They're right up my alley and I love them.  What do you think?

Gus loves Holly Hue too, he's made the sack that my tunic came in his new bed and I'm pretty sure he'd be crushed if we actually threw it out.