New Guilty Pleasure?

Pretty Little Liar...and I'm only slightly embarrassed to share my new love.

I mean what's not to love?
Awesome fashion? Check
Drama? Check
Suspense? Check
Super hot teacher? Check
Secret affair w said hot teacher? Check
Girl coming back from dead and threatening her friends via texts? CHECK!

Seriously this show has it all so check it out!

Top Two Tuesday: Things I wanna buy

Oh boy there are so many! I did just get one thing crossed off my list of things I want to buy- my yellow wedding shoes! I decided to go with yellow heels instead of boring white and i looove them. Do i really have to wait till October to wear them?

Anyway here are my top two:
1. A HOUSE. And not just any house. We hope to buy a house in the next 6 months--wahooo to no more renting! And we have thought a lot about where we want to live. Stay in the suburbs like now or move closer to downtown Denver where Drew works. We ultimately have decided we are ready to head back into the city- this means more family time since Drew wont spent 2 hours commuting every day, which is the number one reason. The other main reason is we decided we are too young for the suburbs. We are 23(24 in a week and a half for me and 6 months for Drew) and thought we Should be in the suburbs to raise a family, but we have ultimately decided we are not ready for that yet! This also means we can look at and possibly buy an awesome 1920's brick bungalow verses a 3,000 sq feet 'model home' in the burbs. Those houses are just not us. We would rather have a smaller, unique, old brick house, with build in shelves over a fire place and all hardwood floors vs a cookie cutter house like the ones near where we live now. Plus who wants to clean that big of a house? Not me!! The perfect neighborhood filled with these beautiful old brick houses also happen to face the most amazing park in all of Denver! BONUS!

2. New furniture for new house! (Whenever it happens) I love the idea of an old, old house with brick walls but filled with modern furniture.

Well there it is!

I feel like summer is almost over!

And its depressing me. Its just going by waaay to fast! We have next week here, and then Friday morning Jasper and I are driving the 10 hrs to spend the week in Iowa. And I'm Really excited about this! While we are back we have lots of stuff going on! Two wedding showers, my bachelorette party, my birthday, Jaspers family birthday party (he turns 3 the day after we get back!) several play dates, lots of family time, and seeing all my friends!

But when we get back I feel like summer is basically over! And I've got lots of things left I want us to do!

Take a camping trip up in the mountains.
Explore more famers markets
Go to the Boulder Reservoir-maybe this weekend!
Picnic at the creek
Splash park on Pearl St.
Estes Park again- LOVE this town
...I'm sure there are more but its a start!

This looked fun: 5 question Friday

1. Do you collect anything?I collect little Swedish nicknacks. And this is a recent thing. When we lived in Sweden we would pass a little antique store and we would always pop in there and always found the greatest things. I have about 30 pieces ranging from little trays, glass plates, wooden shines, little people/trolls. I cant get enough!

2. Name 3 celebrities that you find good looking.
*Rob Pattinson.
*Prince Carl Philip of Sweden. If you don't know who he is google him. He is Gorgeous.
*Katie Perry- I think she's beautiful.

3. Do you have any scars? If so, what's the story behind it (them?)?
Do stretch marks count? Cuz I've got a few of those on my inner thighs and not really a cool story there besides giving birth to a 9 lb baby when my pre- preggo weight was Maybe 110. Other than that I have a scar on my head(mainly under my hair) from a fishing accident in Sweden when I was 4 and a scar on my knee from a rollerblading incident in Jr. high while rollerblading by the hotel where the cute high school boys worked.

4. What is a food that you like to eat, but others might think it's gross or weird?
I don't think I eat anything that weird? I'll have to think more about this one.

5. Have you ever seen a tornado in real life?


I spent 10 years living in Iowa-ofcourse I have. Several. But usually when tornados were around I was hiding out in the basement- but a few times when driving home I've seen them in the distance.

Wedding colors and Question.

Were getting married in October and our wedding colors are black, white and yellow. I want to wear yellow shoes and even think I found some that I want. Yellow flats with a strap around the ankle. But both of my friends that I've shown the shoes to think its silly to have yellow shoes. But I WANT THEM.

What do you think?? I need feedback!

Top Two Tuesday: Favorite Summer recipes

This one looked fun! Can't wait to check out everyone's ideas!

First one is super simple dessert. Lemon Bluberry Dessert.
Ingredients
8 oz. carton of frozen whipped topping, thawed.
1 cup of fresh blueberries
1 8 ounce container of lemon yogurt
Granola

Fold whipped topping and blueberries into yogurt. Spoon into a serving bowl or individual dishes. Serve immediately or refrigerate. Top with granola when ready to serve. Soo delish!

Summer Pasta Salad
Ingredients
Box of boiled pasta salad
some shredded iceberg lettuce
a cucumber
the white part of a leek chopped up
can of corn
a yellow pepper

Mix all together in a large bowl
For the dressing: a cup of sour cream, 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise, salt
Add dressing to salad and voila!

So far so..fine.

I'm 6 hours into this only raw fruits and veggies thing and its harder than I thought! It must be a mental thing because I don't usually even eat breakfast, more of a brunch around 10- but by 9 I was hungry. I think its more of a 'cant eat' thing thats getting to me. If you tell me I cant have something- well then that's what I want, or even feel like I NEED.

Here's breakfast and l lunch for today. I ate them both, breakfast at 9:15 and lunch at 12. I've also drank 60 oz of water so far and have been like 6 times already. So so far, so fine. I'm not going to say good because that would be stretching it.


Oh and we weighed ourselves this morning. According to our scale (not sure how accurate it is) I weigh 129 and Drew weighs 150. We will weigh again tomorrow and Sat. morning. Not really sure if the scales will show anything different after only a couple of days.

Looks like my computer is being dumb and doesn't want to let me upload my food pictures.

For breakfast: 20 oz glass of water, 8 oz glass of juice (organic, thick substance almost like a smoothie) a handful of raspberries and some cantaloupe.

Lunch: 20 oz glass of water, 8 oz glass of juice, large handful of cashews, salad ( lettuce, cherry tomatoes, half a cucumber and some salt) half a banana and large carrot.

Can't believe we are going to do this.

So the lady whose son I nanny for was telling me about a 3 day diet she was on. The only thing she can eat while on this diet/cleanse is raw fruit, vegetables, organic juice and nuts. THATS IT. She did it before her wedding and this week before going to the beach w friends for the first time since having her son this weekend. She doesn't have a scale so she doesn't know what/if she has lost any weight but last time she did it she went from having a dress that she couldn't breathe in to it being too big.

I was telling Drew about this and we decided to give it a go. His reason: he lost like 20 lbs a few months ago on the Game On! Diet (i lost like 5 in 4 weeks AND cheated a lot so it def works!) and had to buy all new clothes for work. But he has since gained 5-7 of that back so he wants to lose just a few. I don't necessarily have a weight loss goal anymore even though I'm still at least 10 lbs pre-baby weight, but I'm up for the challenge! Plus it just sounds SOOO healthy. Its more of a cleanse than a diet- which is why I'm doing it. I need to eat healthier!

Anyway so tonight after Riley(11 month old boy I nanny for) went home Jasper and I headed over to Sprouts. Its like 15 min. away and there are at least a dozen grocery stores closer, but they have mainly organic foods and its more of a farmers market feel to it.

So here's the food we will be eating over at least the next two days. Possibly Sat. as well but it will be a lot harder since we have a birthday party to go to. I was so surprised how little our bill came to, I filled 6 bags of fruits, veggies, juice and nuts- most of it organic- and spent only $29!! I was amazed. We will be feasting on bananas, cucumbers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, raspberries, cantaloupe, carrots, peaches and plums. Those are things we love- but it will be hard ONLY eating those! Going to need some support on this one!


And this is the face Jasper now makes if you ask him to wink.

Things that come out of my two year olds mouth:

Jasper "Mamma, me put my dick in the vatten(water in swedish)?

Me " You want to WHAT"

Jasper " Me put my dick in the vatten"

Me "Where did you learn that word?!?!?"

Jasper- looks very confused. Then walks over to the water puddle and puts his...STICK in the water. Whoops.

Fav new products

I had heard several people mention Laura Merciers tinted moisturizer. I have never been into the whole foundation thing. Actually I HATE foundation- I have bought several different kinds and they always feel gross to me. And I don't really like the look on foundation. I hate when you can tell someone has it on- so for those reasons I have always stayed away. But a when a friend and I had fun at a make up counter (Laura Mercier) and the girl did my make up using the tinted moisturizer and I LOVED it. I wasnt a huge fan of the $42 price tag, but if it lasts me a while I'll be happy.

I also recently bought Pixi Gel Liner. So far Love it. I love the little brush that comes with it, and I like the look of a gel liner so much better than a regular pencil liner. Can't wait to go back and get a bronzer to test out. So far looving Pixi.

Thirdly I also bought a Laura Mercier blush. Also a product I tend to stay away from, but have been pleasantly suprised!


*Picture taken right after I had my make up done at the Laura Mercier counter in Nordsroms. Wish I could have my make up done every day!

One of my favorite meals

I love a simple lunch. And today when I couldn't decide on which of my two favorite sandwiches I wanted for lunch...I made them both. Open faced sandwich- good bread, butter, havarti cheese and pepper slices. Freakin DELISH. Cucumber sandwich, simple but also Amazing.

Our Weekend.

Agh it was so nice to have THREE FULL DAYS with Drew at home! We had amazing weather (minus some rain on the 4th in the evening) so we had lots of pool time, a parade, bbq with friends, shopping and some playing in the creek. Hope everyone else's 4th was as amazing as ours!

Top Two Tuesday

Today's Top Two: Favorite purchases made this year..

This is actually a really hard one for me! I shop A L O T- but its for things like shoes, toddler clothes/toys and dresses. Not exactly major purchases.

Number 1. on my list would have to be...MY WEDDING DRESS. Even though I didn't technically buy it. I picked it out a month ago- after trying on at least 30 different dresses during two different outings and 3 stores. I can't wait to go back to Iowa in July to try to get it fitted! I have almost forgotten what it looks like!

Number 2. Our MacBook Pro. Enough said.

So I'm currently in the process of filling out this questionnaire thing a lady from Drew's church sent me. It's for a wedding shower they are throwing for me (us?) in Iowa in a few weeks. I'm suuuuper exciting because Jasper and I will be going back to Iowa for at least a week- probably more like 9-10 days. I love it when we can make it back for more than a few days. And during that time I will have TWO wedding showers and my bachelorette party!

Anyway one of the questions was about how we got engaged. I love the story so much I thought I'd share it here.

It happened last may, in Ljusdal, Sweden. Ljusdal is the town I grew up in. I lived there till I was 11 or 12- when we moved back to the states. We were studying abroad for the semester (Drew, Jasper and myself) and had a made our 2nd trip up to visit old friends, my grandma and uncle and cousins.

He had bought the ring 2 weeks before but wanted to wait until we were up in Ljusdal to propose. The whole week he was carrying it in his jacket pocket- once I got chilly and asked to borrow his fleece, he said no then he would be cold and told me it was my fault for wearing a dress when I knew the night was going to get chilly.I was a little annoyed at the time but it made sense later on! He had told my grandma(who doesnt speak a word of english) that he was going to propose and showed her the ring, and she was the only person who knew. She felt very special to be included. All week up in Ljusdal he kept asking me to go for a walk in my old neighborhood- but every time we went to go I invited others to go with us- so he kept missing his chance- and was getting quite frustrated with me for ruining the plans. Once he even asked me to go for a walk at 2 in the morning (the sun doesnt set in Sweden during the summer so it was bright out) but I said no because I didn’t want to wake up the people whose house we were staying at because they were sleeping in the living room right outside our door. Finally it was the day before we were leaving Ljusdal and he was running out of time. We were at my grandmas apartment sitting outside on tire swings. He asked me to come sit with him on the swing- while I was sitting there he pulled out the ring but I didnt even see because I was watching Jasper who was playing in the sandbox, making sure he didnt run out into the road. He sat there saying I was his best friend, how much he loved me, the best mother he could ask for for his son,couldn't wait to spend the rest of his life with me etc. etc. None of this caught me off guard since these are things he says to me frequently. He finally said “Darlene arent you even going to look at it!” And then I looked down at the ring in his hand and was speechless. He said its the only time he has ever seen me speechless. After I put the ring on(perfect fit!) I realized I hadn’t even said yes.

Maybe 2 minutes later my sister came outside with her camera to take pictures of the gardens (her and her boyfriend were in sweden visiting us for two weeks) and caught the moments right after on camera. Which I'm so glad she was there to do. Then I proceeded to call my mom in Iowa where I think it was 5 in the morning..whoops!


The only thing I wish is that I would have been wearing at least some sort of make up- but then again, he chose to propose to me looking like that, no make up, unwashed hair, wrinkly dress...Me.

I'm the type of mom...

who once in a while lets my child eat ice cream right before dinner. Because life is just too short.