Some blogs that I love...

Last night a friend asked me what blogs I love. I gave her a list and then decided I would share. Not only do I follow my oh so talented friends, (Whipped Cream on Top) and my lovely family (McPherson Love Nest) but I have an assortment of flavors in the how-to and home department. Here are my top 5 most favoritest blogs.
Young House Love
The Petersik's are my favorite DIY couple! Their blog not only includes their trials and triumphs of house renovation and decorating, but they give you a little peek into their real life with Baby Claire and Burger, their pup. I have gained a great deal of knowledge from this blog and you can blame them for my obsession with wanting to use cloth diapers. Thank you mini showerhead for the toilet.

Design Sponge

Design*Sponge is a daily website dedicated to home and product design run by Brooklyn-based writer, Grace Bonney. Grace has the best before and after tutorials and great ideas for the home. I absolutely love seeing what she posts everyday. She highlights fashion and artists that are to die for. Like the talented Gemma Ahren. Her home was just barely featured.

(NB for Nikson Bishop, right?)

Bleubird Vintage
Who doesn't know Miss James? Clothing designer, lover of a great many vintage items, and the cutest little mama bird, and she has a darling shop on etsy. And much to my surprise and excitement, she uses cloth diapers too!

Promise TangemanThis girl has got it going on. I kind of wish I had the talent she had. She is a web designer and photographer and her wedding was so stellar. She will always have cool DIY crafts or she will feature upcoming artists. She also has my Tiger shirt.

Last, but not least, Sweet PaulChasing the Sweet Things in Life

This guy has won my simple heart. His recipes are to die for and his crafts and projects are super easy and so classy. Love.


I want to know where you get your inspiration? Leave me a comment of what awesome blogs blow your mind.

Family Home Evening

Blake and I try to have a regular Monday Night/Family Night. Some people think it is silly since it is just us, but we actually have a ball! We have a prayer, a spiritual lesson (I gave it on Faith), talk about upcoming events and family business, and then we get to do an activity. This Monday night we got to carve pumpkins and I think it is our best year yet. Blake opted for the skeleton and mine are always a surprise, even for me! I just kind of try something out! I also got to make cookies and roast pumpkin seeds since the skeleton turned to be more than Blake bargained for. We played the soundtrack to Nightmare Before Christmas and The Phantom of the Opera. Loved it! And I am loving our porch!

Trying to figure out how to make it work.

So last night Blake and I watched, What Lies Beneath. He had never seen it before and since it is the season for spooks we thought we would give it a go. I have seen the movie several times, so this go around I spent plenty of time looking at the beautiful Vermont home that the setting is in. The walls are a crisp sea blue and trimmed with stark white. Everything is simple and lovely. Even the flower basket "Claire" takes to the crazy lady neighbour is dreamy. I love all the decor. Glass domes sheltering the ferns, the rotunda in her bedroom lined with linen pillows. To die for!

I have always adored the Cape Cod style and have always dreamed of a home that captures the freshness of it, but I also dig the beachy styles and industrial mod. Where do I go from here?


My goal is to eventually create a home that I can capture the comfort and class of a traditional home with...

Source

The sophistication and crispness of shabby chic industrial living. Although my style may seem expensive, I am learning that it really just takes a lot of practice and a good eye for screaming deals. Now, all I need is a house!

The Infamous Diaper Bag

So my thoughts are, thus follows; I find diaper bags to be one of the most frustrating pieces of the baby wardrobe. It really has been kind of burdensome to search for a bag that fits my personality and criteria. I am one of those soon-to-be's that likes practical pieces that will grow with my child rather than pieces my child will grow out of. For example, our nursery colors are black, white, red, and gray with a few splashes of mustard yellow. The choice was made simply because baby doesn't care what his room looks like when he gets here, by the time he is five he will have had the pirate stage over and done with, and when he is a teenager his room with be very classic and mod (a style I very much adore). So you can see how my mind feels overwhelmed at the thought that I am to carry a piece of baggage that will provide me with every necessity of my growing babies life. Kind of like a magic carpet bag; "You mean to carry carpets? Nope, made of." A high five to who can comment with what movie that is from! Here is my reasoning for the stress...

1. They always seem to be ugly and if they are not ugly they are pricey. (Hello, Petunia Pickle Bottom, would you like to meet my credit card?)
2. What about the Dad? He will carry it too, right?
3. Is it really all the efficient in comparison to a purse?

So my bestie Natalie and I went on the hunt to find the perfect diaper bag. Instead we found a rockin' Ellen Tracy Purse and some whimsical parasol fabric at Joann's. To sum up our victory, I think I found myself the perfect diaper bag!

Before

After

Our cute little family. Mama bird's got a brand new bag!

Getting Ready for Halloween...with Spooky Crows!

Halloween just isn't the same without a few spooky crows in the mix; turns the house into an Alfred Hitchcock movie. (Shudder)


I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but I am absolutely in love with October. I have a better attitude, I love to dress up, and decorating does something for my soul. (Notice the Halloween nesting dolls from Grandma Audrey, that little sweetie) I love when the leaves turn and we can drive up to Park City and soak in the reds and yellows. I plan our Halloween costumes in March. We were supposed to be Sandy and Danny from Grease this year, but unfortunately my waistline sponges over the rubber band top of my Miley Cyrus leather leggings. Such a shame! So you will just have to wait and see what we come up with this year! I have next year planned and hopefully perfectly executed, body willing.

Anyway, I thought I would sophisticate some of my decor this year with a little white gloss paint. I got the idea from YHL and now am a little obsessed.




Not only do I love decorating for fall and mostly Halloween, but October also means Priesthood Session Cookies! Every October the LDS church holds General Conference. It is by far the best time of the year and it causes a lot of people to really search their own souls and decide where they stand as far as being believing. I have found that it is when I listen to conference and then really try to apply the principles I have learned that I see the most growth in my life. I felt like this years "over-all theme" wasn't about homosexuals and adultry, or even how mad God is at us (which I don't think He is), but if we are willing to follow the prophet or not. It's a decision that can enable power or disable a soul. One of the sessions is strictly for the male members, Priesthood Session. "But that's biased and discriminating." No it's not. I have never felt that way and I never will. The women get a session the week before, and besides Blake didn't get to make cookies with the cutest babies in the world. And are they cute! They may even be cuter than my own unborn or at least a close second. "Grandma Cheryl" has my sister's kids over to make Halloween cookies and it is always a total blast! She is the sweetest mother-in-law. I think she wishes all the babies in our families could live with her all the time.


Um, Tyler is such a sweetheart. You would think a boy his age would come in to this whole cookie thing with a bad attitude, but not when it was turned into a contest. Boy won the Best cookie of the night!


Emma makes her annual visit and though last year proved to be her worst cookie decorating experience, she pulled through and won 2010's "Cutest Cookie". We are so proud of her!


Luke could not wait to sink his teeth into those sugar babies. He used every single topping to decorate his cookies. Very efficient.

Cute Nat and Emmsy.

Yum!

This is quite the intense process. The kids were so cute about helping Luke do it on his own.

Some of the finished goodies!

I am proud to say that creepy witch belongs to me. Cheryl opted for some gel frosting that turned my witch into perfection.

Halle Gal. I seriously think she is the cutest ever! I would also like to mention that she freakishly resembles an aunt of hers, mmm, I won't mention who.

Just some thoughts...

Last week I was able to attend a seminar with Stephanie Nielson of the NieNie Dialogues . BYU Women's Services launched "Recapturing Beauty" with her as a key note speaker. I went with Natalie, my sister, and Natalie Call and her mom. I don't know if I really expected to have the feelings I did once the conference was over. I expected to hear her story and gain some helpful insight into feeling beautiful when really being pregnant, for me, has been difficult. Lately I have been feeling rather large and "Hagrid" looking. I have desperately needed a hair cut and my massive mane has been completely unkempt. I was looking at pictures from college with my cousin Emma and thought, "I was cute at one time." Ha!
Anyway, on with my new found perspective. I am six months into one of the biggest changes Blake and I will ever experience. When we got married our hope was to get a lot accomplished as husband and wife for the Lord, not realizing that our idea of being in the service of the Lord was going to involve bringing to Earth one of His precious sons. Our mission has turned into a father and mother type classification. I was a little disgruntled to say the least. I was feeling really cute and super happy before I got pregnant and then all of the sudden I was hit with a very selfish and yucky feeling. Becoming a mother is not a new concept for me. I spent every waking hour of my toddler and elementary life playing babies. I had a small blue kitchen play set that my little sister Mamie wanted to play restaurant with, when opening the refrigerator or sink cabinet to prepare the meal, she would find my sweet baby dolls tightly wrapped like burritos and soundly sleeping while "Mother" was tidying up the room. I have always had babies in my life. I am the official "weener" for Garrett and Stacey's babies. I am in no way unable to be a mother. But I have had thoughts of selfishness and uncertainty for the past six months that I guess I need to share. During the conference, although Stephanie's feelings of being burned in an aircraft accident where in the forefront of her speech, my back burner thoughts were consumed with her undying love and connection to her children and the loyalty and peace she gained from her husband. I have always been a woman who has needed specifics. Who am I, exactly? Who will I marry, like, what's his name and what does he look like? I have always prayed to know the answers to these questions and lived my life according to what I figured fit the mold. Jaclyn Jones was going to be a big time actress or the lead spokeswoman for a Fortune 500 company. She would be elected for president one day. And yet, my path has been so different. I was Sister Jones, in the Canada Winnipeg Mission, and I gratefully became the blessed wife of the amazing Blake Bishop. I live in Utah of all places and now serve as a Young Women's President, constantly learning from my sweet girls and my incredible counselors. So here I am, in the middle of hundreds of women listening to this woman who felt like her only reason for living is to be the mom of her kids and the sweet wife of her husband, hearing the Spirit tell me how lucky I am to be a mom and have the same feeling erupt within my own soul. That I too, would have the ability to be so closely connected to sweet spirits Heavenly Father would send us. I have found that my first comment to a congratulations is, "Yeah, I am kind of chubby." Or when people ask if I am excited I say, "Now I am, at first we were not really wanting to be pregnant." Um hello. Jerk Mom! It was right before the conference that I began to realize I had a problem, and as I drove to pick up my sister I asked Heavenly Father to help me understand my new role as a mom. I am so grateful I had the opportunity I did to go that night. I came home with a resolve to be more grateful for who I am "now" rather than who I think I should be. It is amazing to know Heavenly Father knows me that well. I will never be able to deny the fact that He exists in my life and that He is a part of who I am and the marriage and family I am blessed to be with. I am learning each day to be grateful for His love and I see it throughout the little things each day. It is when Blake gets home from school at 10 o'clock at night still so excited to be home and with me even if he is exhausted. It is in the amazing friends that invite me to conferences that, unbeknown to me, will change my attitude and perspective. It is in a sweet mom who reminds me that simplicity in my home will create great happiness. It is my dear Dad, who rarely gets the credit, but deserves the most for teaching me that Heavenly Father is in charge and it is when we rely on Him that the greatest miracles happen. I am a blessed girl and I know it is due to a Father in Heaven who loves me and sends me the little things. I love my life and I am excited to be a mom.