Just so ya'll know,

there's some new bloggers in town.

Lane & Jocelyn!

No pressure, guys, no pressure...

Fantastic Salsa

(because it just doesn't feel like a blog post without a decent picture)

This is an amazing amazing recipe that you can just throw into your blender and be eating fresh, healthy salsa 10 minutes later !!!

1/2 small red onion
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 garlic clove (or as much as you want!)
2 tablespoons of canned pickled jalapeno chile, drained (in Mexican food section at the store)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (14.5 ounce) can of diced tomatos, drained

And that's it! So good with some plain ol' Dorito chips. :D Enjoy!

Have a happy weekend!

Clean

I felt like blogging tonight. . . not feeling very inspired, but. . . . I cleaned my room today and it felt so amazingly good to have more floor. Having a cluttered space really messes me up and leaves me feeling useless. So I need to make it my mission to never let it get to that stage, but it's really hard with the amount of stuff in my bedroom.

Anyways, this is what my room looks like when its clean. Except now I have a sewing machine on my desk as well as a laptop. Let's see if I can give some insightful information as we view the images...

• That's a twin bed that is not nearly the size I need it to be. At least my duvet is a double so I have plenty to wriggle up in
• the black and white photo above my bed is of me when I was 2 or 3. My dad took it, and it's pretty cute, but my hand is actually down my overalls, not in my pocket as it appears, which makes it kind of funny...
• that huge yellow spool of thread is my favorite. I love the color and it is solely for looks.
• The black desk was made by my boy when I needed a drafting table. It's an old school desk, with a shelf under the top and the top lifts up so it angles for drafting. He also added the side shelf so I could use my laptop at the same time. It slides so that it can be tucked away under the desk, and has hooks underneath to manage cords ... genius eh? Like I say, it's more of a sewing table now.
• I got the flower rug at Winners and I really like the pop of red :D I really like Winners.
  
  

• I tied a ribbon between two pins on the wall and clothes-pinned stuff to it. Included are: a picture of a beautiful beach in Australia, photo booth pics of me and Emerly, a postcard and letter from Susie, an Orange Business Card (Earmark's, I bought some awesome cards once from them), picture of Wade and Tara... dunno what else...
• I hate organizing 24" x 36" drawings. They're totally mixed and matched it there, if I ever needed to find something... I don't even want to think about it.
• that's a stack of magazines behind. Anyone want some interior design magazines?!
• to the right of that is my door

• this is the icky side of the room. With no good way of storing purses, I stack them on this white shelf that came with my room. It works, but it annoys me by it's perpetual messiness.
• I like having a long mirror on my closet door. My closet, on the other hand, is the same width as the door (normal door size) :D
• in the mirror you can also see my other dresser that's stacked with stuff as well.

See?! STUFF everywhere!

Well, wasn't that fun!?

Now I can go to bed. Night!

Baby's on its way!

I had fun last weekend trying to creatively capture some shots of Tara's belly.

I couldn't get over how much better everything turned out in black and white, so I made them consistenly that way...

{turn on your speakers}

sorry about the "leawo.com" part but I forgot that when you make a powerpoint presentation, you can't exactly just upload it as a video. Anyways that's an online program that converted it for me. Nothing you need to be worried about, but it is annoyingly in the way the whole time, I know. (I won't do that again!)

Thank you Colbie Caillat for the tunes. (love that song)

I will maintain that it's a boy in there still though.

Anyways...

What didya think??

PS: Animoto Makes it WAAAAY easier

Picnic Weather

Got 1 more thing up in the shop; but I must pull myself away from the computer as I am on my way to a great Friday & Saturday with my boy!

(yes, he's back from Kelowna for a few days again)

Maybe I'll pack a picnic for tomorrow; the weather is just begging me to!

Weekend plans, anyone?

Dear...

Dear Susie:
I am really excited that you got your parcel already!!! Yay! When I was at the Post office, I was over the weight limit by like miniscule amounts so I actually ripped out some pages from that lists book to get it down to weight!!! (Don't worry, I took them from the 'work' section)

Dang that glitter. I shoulda took that out instead.
Also, really excited to be able to Skype with you now!

Dear Everyone Else:
Here are the projects that I made, all 5, all different, all interesting and unique and beautiful in their own special way...maybe... sort of, anyways.

I'm glad you all like them, or so you say ;) either way, I had fun! Thanks for joining in!

Oh, Moxie

A snobby guard dog.

twenty-two

I was asked to blog about what it's like to turn 22. So, get ready for an epic story. No, really though. Let me try to examine...

My list of things to do before I turned 22 is a little embarrassing to look at. There are things on there that I did do, things that I never did, and things that I don't really care to do anymore.

I am proud of some of the things I've accomplished in the past year, however, I feel like there is so much more to get going on in the coming year.

Though I haven't committed to any new-year’s resolutions yet, a few things spring to mind for this new year of my life:

I want to be more thankful and less judgemental of the amazing people in my life. I want to grasp the amount of joy there is to be had. I need to share more of myself and reach out to others. I want to make a positive difference to other's lives, without really trying or thinking about it.

I want to be trusted to be an honest and reliable source of friendship. I want to love selflessly.

There's been so much in my life lately that makes me thankful and feel blessed; I don't want to forget about it next week or next month.

I want to remember everything that is awesome every day.

Example:
I went home, to Mom's, for my Birthday weekend. I took pictures of Tara's pregnant belly and was shopping with her and mom, got to visit a little with Laura and Leif, met Ruger, caught up with Moxie, was excited with the news of a new baby born to share my birthday with, was spoiled with meals at home and out, and got to come home to a boy who always outdoes himself in showing me how much he loves me. I will miss him a lot while he's away working for the next few months . . . it will be different for us to be miles apart again, so hopefully the time goes by fast.

Today, at work, there was a handsome older man who was talking to the lady behind him in line at the checkout. He had grabbed a chocolate from the isle and mentioned that his wife would be pleased to find that treat hiding at the bottom of the bag. He smiled so big. And he pulled out his wallet to show the lady in line a photo from his wedding day, and proudly proclaimed as he pointed to her, "That’s my wife!" When it was his turn, he showed it to me too. And it was the sweetest little black and white photo, with a great looking couple standing next to each other.
Simple. In love.
He told me, "She keeps my train on the tracks".
It was so sweet, and really melted my heart. I want to be that proud, that supportive, that loud about how lucky I am.


I have said "I" a lot in this post, so I'm gonna sign off now...

But please enlighten me: what are you thankful for and what will you do more of this year... ?

love,
ayla

Your Handmade Game Gift is on it's way!

Remember the game?
Yeah, so I am done makin' my stuff (Step 1) and getting it in the mail (very important Step 2)

I used this game as an excuse to try making a few things that I'd been wanting to try for a while and just see how it goes; so you were guinea pigs and there were some screw ups but what can you do... give them away thats what!
I won't tell you what I made each of you because they're all a little different, but I will tell you what it could be made of. Here are all of the supplies used:

- old tshirt
- old sweater, shrunken
- value village-bought fabric
- old curtains from VV
- pieces off a purse I don't want
- ribbon that was lying around
- an old man shirt I got at Value Village to use for somethin' I don't remember it was so long ago
- fabric that came from mom's house or grandma's house or both
- recently purchased thrift shop fabric
- used socks
- cotton thread
- old buttons

So, as you can see, I didn't spend any money on the making of these things. As a result, you may notice that the thread doesn't match or something crazy like that. Also please be advised I enjoy sewing but it doesn't mean I'm a pro, I am still learning, and you (lucky you) got to be a part of the learning process!
Also. my machine requires a fair bit of steering (as I like to call it), even when you're sewing in a straight-ish line, so, yeah, my stitches may look somewhat wobilly.

Anyways, enough excuses yet?!

I really, sincerely, hope you like what comes in your mail box (except you Calgarians, I am making a special trip to drop those off cause it's cheaper than Canada Post :P) !

Love,

Ayla

L&J Wedding Photos Sparkled!

Lane & Jocelyn's photographer has blogged some of their Wedding photos here

Look good so far, don't they!?

This was my surprise for them:

I thought it would make a great departure shot, and the photographer captured it perfectly!

They loved it. I had fun covering all the little match boxes with lace and paper with their initials stenciled on (my new favourite way to do lettering, if you haven't noticed my new banner!)

an Etsy shop

Here's what I've been up to lately!

Time to advertise to the world ... there is much more to come, but you can look at what I had time to upload today!

Get shoppin' folks, it's all one-of-a-kind, first come first served!

;)

And this is my 100th blog post!

My Christmas Day

My Christmas pictures - finally! There are way more but they're mostly of Massey or more of the same thing you see here.

It was such a bright sunny morning and the living room was so bright; not like last year, or most Christmas mornings for that matter! Beautiful though!





Oh, the anticipation!

Massey being very efficient at handing out all the presents and stockings!

Ron openning his stocking ...

My picnic bag from Ron - so amazing! Can't wait to use it.

On the phone with his sister - or brother? :D

After the presents were openned the boys resided right here all day, with their new lego table making their new lego town!

Massey was quite satisfied with this light-up toy which was the first present he openned! Whenever I got my camera out he'd hold it up to my lens!

This is where my boy resided all afternoon. I don't know how he slept; everyone was all noisy and busy right next to him.

See, when the light-up thingy is right on my camera, it looks like this!

What a cutie! Its hard to catch him smiling!

See!? He and his uncle are the two serious boys here...

And here's all my loot (besides my bike, which I never did get a picture of but I will soon!)

My stocking was beyond full and it was a super surprise!

So that was my Christmas Day! It did not include any turkey. It did, however, include a selection of beef, chicken, and fish tacos with an assortment (beyond all assortments) of toppings. This is a Christmas tradition I could get used to! (it's not a tradition for them either...yet...just a random idea for this year!) I took pictures of the spread but they've suddenly dissapeared, so you will just have to believe me.

My Laptop arrived!

I am lovin' the look of the desktop when I started it up!

You like?!

New Years Eve

We played Apples to Apples, Taboo, 100, and Scattergories. We ate Fish and Chicken leftovers from the wedding (fish was Veeerry chewy!), salad, chocolate cake, cheesecakes, candy and more candy. Then New Years came and nobody even stood up. It was a good night.

Brenaya, Me, Sonya, Jocelyn
Also known as: my sister in law's sister, me, my boyfriend's sister in law, and my sister in law
Okay, so not as confusing as I thought it might sound...



ps. I really like how my camera takes black and whites, as in the top photo. I think I prefer it to the way it looks when I turn a colour into a black and white on my computer, as in the lower photo (although I did choose to make it more of a high-contrast black & white)
But for some reason I just really like that top pic of Andrew and Sonya playing Taboo.