a few of my favorite things - may

trader joe's | almondictive bits | speculoos cookie butter

lonny magazine | wordament | fab.com | snow patrol fallen empires

y'all! there's finally a trader joe's in my 'hood. gone are the days of driving 12+ miles to get to one! i pretty much love everything about TJs (baked jalapeno cheese crunchies, mini peanut butter cups, chocolate covered pretzels, 2 buck chuck), but here are 2 that i'm really diggin' right now. if you love graham crackers, you'll love cookie butter (use it in place of its cousin, peanut). and, almondictive bits...carmelized almonds dipped in dark chocky. do i need to say more?!

the economic downturn has pretty much shut down most magazines, so it's fun to see online mags sprouting up all over. i peruse a few, but lonny is good for salivating over gorgeous interiors. so, you know i have a windows phone, right? well, you should get one, so you can play wordament (it's only available on windows phone). it's boggle-esque and oh.so.addictive.

have you heard of fab.com? love it! i subscribe to tons of sample sale sites, but this is hands-down my fave. there are tons of sales going on at one time, and shipping is super reasonable. to prep for the snow patrol show a few weeks ago, i listened to fallen empires on repeat for days. i know it's been out since november, but it's still so, so good!

what are you loving this month?

music for may

after april's playlist, it didn't seem anyone cared about hearing the new lists. but, lo and behold, baby sister says to me the other day "i can't find your may playlist". well, it's not a full list, because i wasn't planning on doing one, but this is what was on it. a little snow patrol cause i saw them this month (AMAZING!); a little van halen because mr man saw them this month (he saw the DLR version, but i'm partial to sammy).

if you've got new tunes i should know about, i always love hearing about them. so, do tell...

monster mash birthday bash

in honor of sweet p's 3rd birfday today, let's take a little look see at the celebration! in february-ish, middle sissy tried to get out of sweet p what kinda party she wanted. after a little confusion, they checked out a party aisle and sweet p said immediately 'monstahs'. and, a theme was born.

now, since sweet p is a girly girl (her colors are blush and bashful), we couldn't just have any monster bash. mom was pretty specific about what she wanted, so here's the team effort invite complete with pink monstah. (hard to tell, but their eyes are blue to match sweet p.)

the party was at a park shelter, where we had plenty of room to string up a banner.

and set out snacks and cupcakes(!) adorned with round toppers.

you know no party's complete without a fun party hat. who wants to help me make it more acceptable in the adult community?!

mom wanted some fun activities to do during the party, so we made monster faces and the kiddies played 'pin the eye on the monster'. (sweet p was NOT into wearin' a blindfold, tho!)

mom put together a make-your-own-monster kit to say 'eye hope you had fun'. inside? homemade 'play-doh' in the party colors, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, and monster stickers.

see? there's no running and hiding from these monsters. cute-as-can-be! i love little green guys chiclet teeth! hee hee!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SWEET P!!! roro and UW love you and i'm so glad i got to celebrate with you!