Guest Post: Infinity Scarf to Turban

The ever-gorgeous Gentri let me take up some space on her blog today! I love head wraps and turbans, and fall time is perfect for them. I was playing around with a light-weight, infinity scarf (I scored at Walmart!) and realized it can easily be turned into a turban! Multi-faceted accessory for the win! And I call it the infiniturban. Haha, I think I'm witty. ;) Check out the simple how-to over on Gentri Lee HERE.

Showering Kira & Baby Girl with Love

This past Thursday I threw a baby shower for a beautiful friend of mine...Kira is the type of person you feel instantly comfortable with, she makes you want to be better, she has an awesome sense of humor, she'd do anything to help a friend, she's a super mom, and she finds beauty in everything around her. She is one of my best friends and is such a blessing in my life. Kira has two sweet children that joined her beautiful family through adoption...we adore both of them. And now she has a miracle baby girl growing in her belly! I still remember when she told me she was pregnant, and thinking about it I have tears in my eyes! Adam and I have not struggled with infertility, but people we love have and it makes my heart ache, and definitely reminds me to not take it for granted. So knowing that Kira is now experiencing pregnancy and will soon give birth for the first time, to her third child, puts butterflies in my stomach!

Family and friends of Kira's came over for an evening to shower her and her baby girl with love. :) While enjoying a nutella fondue spread, cupcakes (thank you Karen!), and raspberry lemonade (thank you Adriana!) they wrote words of wisdom and love notes on baby blocks I decorated for little Miss J. Then we played a couple games...the first one was a Madlibs birth story we all created for Kira, and it made for some good laughs! Then everyone became baby sketch artists and drew a baby girl I described to them...but their canvases were paper plates they had on their heads, which made for some hilarious, picasso-like portraits. ;) Then came the generous gifts from everyone! It was so fun ooing and awing over everything and imagining Baby J being in Kira's arms so soon. :) And as a little "thank you" for everyone coming to the shower, they left with a facial masque and some chocolate they could enjoy after they had a relaxing shower at home. ;) Kira, you and your little girl are SO LOVED. Can't wait to meet her and soak up her newborn sweetness!

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I absolutely loved planning the shower for Kira! And I wish I could say I came up with all the details on my own, but some of them were inspired by creative ideas I found online...thank goodness for Pinterest and Google. :) 

Nutella Fondue recipe: here, I tripled the amount of nutella it calls for

Cloud cupcake-topper idea: here

Hanging cloud centerpiece idea: here

Baby block memento idea: here

Madlib Birth Story idea: here

Baby Sketch Artist game idea: here

No matter how long it's been...

You know those friends that you don't get to see nearly as often as you'd like...as in, years pass between hugs? But no matter how long it's been it only takes a few minutes of talking that you're cheeks hurt from laughing so hard (that's for you Shay;) and it feels like you're back in middle school all over again, talking about cute boys and sharing Lip Smackers...except now you're talking about your cute husbands and sharing red lipstick. haha!  Well, that's what it was like last week. I loved kicking off the new year going out to lunch with old friends...two of my best friends, Makinzie and Shalyn. Goodness I love those two! And it was pretty awesome watching our three little ones together (missing Brooks who spent the afternoon with Daddy) who were born just weeks apart. Ava was one lucky lady spending the day with cute Brody and Lincoln. ;)

Love and miss you ladies already! xo

PS - Remember this Kinz and Shay?? General Conference weekend, April 2007...good times. :)

Girlfriends Getaway

Kari, Brooke, Jenny, Lexi, Kira, Nicole, Shay, Ava, Me
Not pictured: Adriana & MeKenzie

I am definitely an add-in with this fabulous group of girlfriends that have known each other since high school, and some even longer. How awesome that they've stayed close! I met most of them for the first time last year and they are all so great. Thanks Kira for the invitation to join in on this fun overnighter! Last Friday evening we drove through the gorgeous mountains to Midway to eat dinner at the charming Cafe Galleria...then went to the Homestead where we changed into comfy clothes, ate our weight in candy and sweet chex mix (maybe that was just me;), drank hot cocoa, and stayed up 'til 4 in the morning talking and laughing. Girl time is good for the soul I tell ya! Ava was my sweet little sidekick, but sadly she was feverish from teething...so after a not so restful night, she was zonked while we went shopping Saturday after a delicious lunch at Baja Cantina in Park City.

Thanks so much ladies for such a great time! There is something so awesome about women getting together to unwind and laugh and share. And I love knowing that Ava will someday have girlfriends that she'll count on in hard times and make some of the best memories with. :)

2012 Kjar Sisters Retreat

This past weekend was the annual Kjar Sister's Retreat...it was my year to plan it, and anticipating each activity with these fabulous women was almost as much fun as the activities themselves. :)

One of my favorite parts was Friday's lunch at the Beehive Tea Room. Our afternoon tea party was just lovely. That establishment is a perfect example of how we shouldn't judge a book by its cover. After coming in from downtown Salt Lake City streets, you walk down a hallway and back into the most beautiful, enchanting rooms! The decor was eclectic and cozy, and the china and silver used was absolutely lovely as well. We all had a great time enjoying our hot cocoa and herbal teas with freshly baked scones (one was lavender white chocolate. So. Good.), 3 kinds of delicious tea sandwiches, and then dessert of fresh berries and whipped cream along with a rich cake-truffle. We talked, and laughed, and sipped...remind me why we weren't all speaking in English accents ladies?? ;)

The cooking class at Sur La Table was fantastic as well! We could tell our chef/teacher loved what she did, and we all had a great time learning how to make some fabulous dishes...sweet corn, tomato and pancetta risotto...grilled salmon with cherry-lambic barbecue sauce...zucchini carpaccio with shaved parmesan (my favorite)...and blackberry and sage-honey tart (my other favorite:).  

After a day of getting pampered, shopping, and enjoying delicious food together, the night was not over. :) Back at The Armstrong Mansion, a lovely B&B in Salt Lake, we changed into our pajamas and satisfied our sweet tooth (sweet teeth? ha) with some Nutella fondue and exchanged our "favorite things."  One of them even came from overseas...LaCol picked out a Venetian mask for each of us from her trip to Europe last month. They are gorgeous and we couldn't resist putting them on, and laughing our heads off at how crazy, err, fabulous we all looked in them. ;)  We also did a neat craft of transferring photos to wood. I first heard the idea from my brother, and I used the tutorial here. I think I still need to give it a few more tries and really master it before I do anything on a large scale, but I think we had fun and all the photos used had such special memories! :)

Saturday morning we all got extra beauty rest and slept in, then enjoyed a scrumptious breakfast served at the Mansion. I wanted the day to be super relaxed, and wasn't thinking about the time! We left at 1:00pm and I didn't realize that's when the Downtown Salt Lake Farmer's Market closed, our first activity for the day.  We rushed there and caught a few vendors selling their fresh produce (how was that lemon spinach Becc?). I love farmers markets! The plan was to get lunch from the vendors there and then go to Liberty Park and ride the ferris wheel. :)  Time just wouldn't allow...we all needed to get back to our kidlets. :)  So we had lunch at Tony Caputo's, followed by gourmet chocolate. It all came to an end too soon.

I look forward all year to spending this time with such incredible women that I'm blessed to call family. Thank you so much Mama & Papa Kjar for making it possible!! And I already can't wait for next year, Sharla is planning it, and I have no doubt it's going to be a riot! :)

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PS - The kids normally stay home while we "big girls" have our time away, but being that I'm Ava's breakfast, lunch, and dinner she needed to come along ;) and she was a sweet addition to the group! Everyone was so great with her, she was loved-on constantly. And thanks to my sweet Adam and  awesome friend Kira I knew Brooks was in good hands! He had a blast with Kira and her kids most of Friday, I loved getting pictures she'd text to me of the fun he was having! And I know he loved every minute of Daddy-time, especially their In-N-Out date. :) Thank you SO much Adam and Kira!