Mother's Day

Ahhhh Mother's Day 2013.  My first Mother's Day as a Mother of a baby girl (who is outside of the womb).  It was so sweet.

First thing in the morning Todd woke me up with coffee from my new Verismo... bliss!  Coffee is seriously like my life blood these days.  It's just the most amazing drink on the planet... and maybe margaritas...and beer... ughhh I could never actually choose between them.  

Anyways, he woke me up with coffee, a sweet sweet card, and a beautiful gift.  A few weeks back Todd had taken the most precious picture of me and Simone snoozing together.  He had that pic printed on a large canvas to be hung up in our house.  It's seriously so wonderful.  Simone is the highlight (as well she should be, pretty baby) and I'm in the background.  Gotta love a man who understands Mommy with no makeup does NOT need to be the point of focus on a huge canvas.

It's in sepia tone... picture here does not do it justice... 

After calling Todd's Mom and getting my own loving phone calls from my Pop Pop & Aunt in New Jersey. We skipped over to breakfast at The Nosh.  I know I've talked about this place before.  Their pancakes are perfection...and on top they put this amazing pecan butter.  I could eat my weight in them.

My Girl & My Feast!

Um, Sweetest Picture Ever?  Yeah, I think so!

We stopped off on the way home at the local farmer's market.  This is seriously one of my favorite things...and we are almost always running around too much to fit it in.  Todd bought me this sweet stone bracelet.  I'm in love with it!

It's soo pretty and my favorite colors!

We bought a bunch of veggies for a big salad, and also grabbed tamales.  SERIOUSLY, if you live in Ahwatukee... or you hit the Ahwatukee Farmer's Market go see the tamale guy. They are amazing.  We always buy at least a dozen... and always wish we had more!

After that we hit our grocery store to grab mimosas (needs to be added to the most amazing drink list...) and some chicken to make one of my favorite dishes Pulled Chicken Sandwiches with Coleslaw.  While the chicken cooked in the crock pot, we enjoyed mimosas pool side with our baby girl.  In Arizona... that's about the only thing you want to do outside around this time of year.

Look at that HAT!

These three cuties!

That's what I like to see on the bar/grill in construction!

My father-in-law, Jim, joined us for dinner.  Whenever we have extras we invite him over, and he always is very appreciative of both the food and the time with his favorite girl in the world, Simone.  He even had a mimosa!  Gooooohead get down, Grandpa Hart!  He treated us to an Orange Leaf dessert, his favorite...and mine, too!  Simone soaked up the snuggles from Grandpa, and I enjoyed way too much frozen yogurt with sprinkles.

Orange Leaf Fun - She matched the decor... HA!

In honor of my Mom I rocked some of her gear.  Her style was the best, and I just copy her any chance I get!  I also wore my new favorite white eyelet shorts from White House Black Market.  I actually scored these at Goodwill a few weeks ago.  They are sooooo summer.  My chambray shirt is from Ross...that's where "I got it", and my pink shirt was another Goodwill find.

Mom's seagull pin, her "Michelle" necklace, and very Aztec-y earnings 

We had a great day with our sweet girl, and really coffee, pecan butter pancakes, mimosas, pulled chicken, and froyo... what more can a Mom ask for?  Oh yeah, Todd even did the dishes.  

Hope all of your Mother's Day festivities were amazing!

Mother's Day Goodies for Grandma

Now that my sweet Mother in law has her Mother's Day Gift in hand I wanted to share what Simone & I did for her this year. 

Grandma & Simone

She is such a special Mom, with a caring heart who is constantly doing for others.  She teaches first grade and works tirelessly teaching her kids with love and care.  Her hours are long and the thanks are far too short (by my measure anyways...).  She deserves more than we can afford to give her, that's for sure!

I swear having a baby makes it so much more fun on holidays like this!  I had an idea of what I wanted to do, and was off and running to Michael's.  

I got some Martha Stewart fabric multi-purpose paint and some fabric pens to do the hand prints, foot prints, and the writing.  We picked up a set of hand towels and a little makeup bag to decorate.  Simone was such a sport.  She handled the paint pretty well, although she really just wanted to squeeze her hand tight when the paint was on it.  Hence why one of her hand prints looks like a tiny bear cubs claw!  I figured that kind of thing adds personality to the gift, right!?

I decided to do the little captions "Helping Hands & Little Feet".  Now, 90% of my crafty ideas come from Pintrest, but that was an "Amy Original" as we say in my house.  I debated on writing the year, but figured it was an important piece of information to add.  For inside the makeup bag I decided to include a small pedicure kit.  I got this great idea from the Pin-Pal exchange I did when I received the beauty in a jar gift.  Since we are far away and can't take Mom for a pedi, we mailed her one! :)

I wrapped it all up with this really cute string that I grabbed in the dollar section of Target (score!) and stamped out some Fleur-De-Lis (a little nod to our family symbol and Simone's very French name...Oui Oui!) confetti with purple paper. 

And, the response from Grandma?  She loved it!  She has plans to hang up the towels in her guest bathroom and good timing on the pedi kit... her nail lady is out of town for a few weeks! 

I think we enjoyed putting it together as much as she liked receiving it!

Happy Mother's Day to a wonderful lady!