home

I grew up in the same house my whole life.  I was not quite a year old when my parents built their home and moved in.  It was half finished, but liveable, and for the past 40 years my mom and dad have worked hard to make it a HOME.  It's a lovely ranch style brick home that has enjoyed many additions and upgrades in it's lifetime.  It's always been home to me and when I walk through the front door, I am home and it doesn't matter what's going on in my life, I know everything will be ok.  There will be a warm fire, homemade cookies, and mom and dad.  I guess I'm still a little girl at heart. 

I haven't been home for 18 months because my parents have been out of the country.   But the wait has come to an end.

My parents are HOME.

(Me, Ryan, Matt, Dad, Mom, Jeff, Nate, Erica)

This is my family.  I feel incredibly blessed to have them in my life and am so grateful for the support system they are to me.  And it was wonderful to have all of us together on January 15th.

Mia and I are home as well after an amazing trip to Salt Lake City this week.  We were invited by Cricut to come to an event where they were unveiling their brand new machine, the Cricut Explore, and it far surpassed our hopes and dreams!

This machine can do anything and everything at the touch of a button.  It is so user friendly and will cut through about 50 different types of material.  From thick leather to fabric to corkboard, this little beauty just keeps on cutting.

We will receive our own machine in a week or so, and can't wait to start creating and inventing!  We can't thank the team at Cricut enough for the fabulous two day event they hosted.  Cara and Mallie completely outdid themselves and the president and CEO of the company, Ashish Arora is so passionate and driven about his product that it's contagious.  Our accommodations were extremely generous and it was fun to be treated like queens for two days.

Although the new machine was the highlight of the party, coming in at a very close second would be all the fantastic girls we were able to meet!  There were 110 bloggers there and we made some great friends.  This is only about half the crew that flew out of Arizona.

Got to see our girl, Mandi with {Vintage Revivals} and she joined us in our room for the after party where we made ourselves sick on pie.  Worth it.

We also got to meet stationery designer Anna Griffin who we have admired since the 90's.  She was fantastic.  Mia is praying in the background? Actually, she's probably sleeping.

The displays and project rooms were out of this world, bursting with creativity and ingenious ideas and applications.  All done with the new Cricut Explore.  I'm telling you, the sky is the limit.  I'm really sad now that I didn't get more pictures of every single thing there, but taking pictures was a nuisance because there was so much to do and see!

 

 

Mia also celebrated a birthday recently!  She is trailing dangerously close behind me.....Her husband hosted a fabulous dessert bar for her girlfriends.  I'm bummed I didn't get any pictures.  It was dessert so naturally my hands were full.  But it was fun and so, so good!

The sinks in the basement bathroom are in, and we even have running water!  I'm on the cusp of calling that massive project D.O.N.E.

I made an Anthropologie inspired wreath for my front door, and even though it's in the mid 70's here everyday, I'd like to think that it's winter somewhere.

I thought that things were supposed to slow down after the holidays?  I think I'm going to take a nap for the rest of January and hit the ground running in February!

your girl,

jilly