I am a HUGE Lady Gaga Fan.
So is my boss.
And since he is nicest person EVER he took a bunch of us to go see her show and I got to gift a ticket to my sister for her birthday. Here is a re-post of the video I shot when we gave her the ticket:
We are soooo related.
Anyways, Juliette came over and we started playing around with dress-up stuff to get ready for the big show at Staples.
“Be fierce Juliette”
A few shots from the show:
I was thrilled to partner with Operation Shower again this year to help spoil pregnant mothers while their husbands are deployed. It was especially exciting this time since I was asked to decorate a table. I didn’t want to do the event on my own so I asked Emily of Could be Interesting to help me out. Here are some shots of the table we came up with:
There were soo many beautiful tables at the event here are a few shots I managed to grab to share with you all:
And the Sweets table was super adorable too:
Hey there, Cupcake! Always hits it out of the park with her insane cake designs!
The wonderful Jackie Culmer was on site shooting pics, here is a little something she calls “the Oprah moment” when all the women were told they were all getting Maclaren strollers:
It was an incredible event, these women are so deserving it was fun to show our appreciation and shower them with goodies!
So we have been house hunting for the last 4 months or so and we finally had an offer accepted on a house this week! It has been a long journey to get to this point, cleaning up our finances, finding a good lender, finding a good agent, and traveling all over Orange County in search of the perfect property. The market in our area is VERY competitive right now, houses are selling in 4 days (on average) and there are tons of cash buyers – meaning, people like us with conventional home loans don’t stand a chance. After putting offers in on 4 other houses we finally got accepted on this house:
It is a 1941 Bungalow in North Long Beach that was just “flipped” in October. It has some of the charm we were hoping for but all the nice amenities we wanted. The kitchen is my fave:
The house has 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths and we offered at $340K, which is probably a little too much. This week we go through appraisal and home inspection so we will see how off our offer was from what the bank says market value is. It is pretty scary and exciting right now, we are day 25 of a 30 day escrow so we will know soon enough if this house will really be ours!
If you follow me on Pinterest this will explain why you have been getting a bajillion home decorating pins from me. 
I am not going on a crazy cleanse like usual this year just refocusing on making healthy choices. Wanted to share a few great recipes i have found in from Dr. Weil’s True Foods cookbook.
I made this Tuscan Kale Salad for lunch this week and it was shockingly delicious for how simple the recipe was. I don’t think anyone goes in for a bite of Kale and says this is going tot taste great, but this simple salad is super tasty.
Tuscan Kale Salad
4-6 cups kale, loosely packed, sliced leaves of Italian black (Lacinato, “dinosaur,” cavolo nero) midribs removed
Juice of 1 lemon
3-4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, mashed
salt and pepper, to taste
hot red pepper flakes, to taste
2/3 cup grated Pecorino Toscano cheese (Rosselino variety if you can find it) or other flavorful grating cheese such as Asiago or Parmesan
1/2 cup freshly made bread crumbs from lightly toasted bread
Whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and a generous pinch (or more to taste) of hot red pepper flakes. Pour over kale in serving bowl and toss well. Add 2/3 of the cheese and toss again. Let kale sit for at least 5 minutes. Add bread crumbs, toss again, and top with remaining cheese.
Food as Medicine:
Kale is among the most nutrient-dense commonly eaten vegetables. One cup provides 1,327 percent of the Daily Value (DV) for vitamin K, 192 percent of DV for vitamin A, and 88 percent for vitamin C.
I am also making this dish for dinner this week from the book:
Panang Curry with Tofu
So excited for one of my oldest friends Julie and her hubby Tim, they welcomed a beautiful healthy baby girl into the world last week. I was lucky enough to hold her when she was just 22 hours old. Julie is a natural Mummmy. I can’t wait for my first babysitting gig!
This year Misha & Renny hosted a Midnight Masquerade party at their house in Long Beach. We all donned our finest sparkly duds and showed up with masks in hand. To quote Misha she was going for a “twilight meets romantic gothic” look. Sadly, Misha got the flu literally an hour before the party started and couldn’t participate all night. Here are a few fun shots from the party.
Renny and Jonny making Ponche.
The Centerpieces
I also decided to show you guys my makeup for that night, I was super excited for the party to start so I started getting ready like 3 hours early. Thus, you are getting to see a montage of my makeup. #entertainingmyself
Oh and I finally got that gold nail polish from Essie I have been eyeballing:
I decided to host a PJ movie party for some of my girlfriends the other day and I got way to into decorating for it (shocking, i know). I couldn’t help myself Christmas stuff is so cute and I have Michael’s coupons just burning a hole in my wallet. I decided to keep it simple and just serve desserts and two cocktails- a rock candy champagne one and some spiked hot cocoa. Here are some pics of the set up:
I do not own a white table cloth, so I used a sheet I had. It was super wrinkly so I ironed it and it still came out blehh, oh well. I covered the top of the table with some craft paper and set up all the treats and drinks.
The Hot Cocoa bar was a hit, I got some cups from Starbucks and ordered the holders from Garnish – then I found some fun stickers and wrote “Warm Up” and “Sip Cocoa” on all the cups.
These bad boys are mint chocolate covered marshmallows from TJ’s.
AND THESE… are the best cookie I have ever had. Courtesy of my friend Kaitlyn, we have graham cracker, chocolate chip cookie, marshmallow and a square of chocolate. These are bananas.
I found a cool stamp in the bargain bin at the craft store and decided to stamp the popcorn bags (also from Garnish).
Then I made little treat carriers so you could grab your popcorn and some sweets easily when we sat down to watch the movie.
TJ’s also sells rock candy right now for the holidays. So I scrapped my original plan involving pomegranate seeds and went for the sweeter option.
My job is one of the best things about my life, for realz, I am super lucky. The people are like family and my bosses are so smart, kind, and driven it’s a gift to be apart of their staff. They always let us get creative with our holiday party and this year we planned a HO HO HOLMICIDE murder mystery dinner party. We rented out a small local restaurant (The Old Vine Cafe) and everyone got into character from Kris Krangle to Spanky the elf. Here are a few fun shots of our team:
Jon and I as Rudolph and Vixen
Just a quick post to update those of you who understand my cat obsession, I just love him!
I was at whole foods saying hi to the hubs the other day and noticed a few fun things to add to our bar:
I’ve seen this before and it is super pretty, looks like this:
I also spotted these Fruit Lab Liqueurs from Greenbar Collective (btw obsessed with their products), they aren’t priced bad and have some really unique flavors like hibiscus, Orange, and Jasmine.
“FRUITLAB liqueurs add depth and body to cocktails by bringing the flavor of whole fruits, flowers and real cane sugar to your glass. These liqueurs are bright and flavorful by design and contain a third less sugar than most.”
When the frozen puff pastry arrives each fall at Trader Joe’s I get super excited, it is the easiest stuff to work with and always inspires me to try some new recipe’s. You may have caught this little gem I posted on instagram last week, Rosemary Goat Cheese Tart with Prosciutto. Super simple to make.
Follow the directions on the puff pastry box to prep it. Then brush with an egg wash, layer on some goat cheese slices, chopped rosemary, and bundles of prosciutto. Pop it in the oven for about 15 minutes and drizzle with a balsamic reduction.
So I was getting the short hair itch (again) and decided to go for it and try a haircut I have been eyeing for like 3 years:
Yes, the long angled bob.
The reason I have never gone for it in the past is that I have super frizz ball hair that gets uber poofy when short, humid, or just left el natural. My case in point, from this post:
And that is with like 7 extra inches weighing it down, so that is why I decided to try a Brazilian Blow Out in conjunction with my new cut. I was a little nervous after reading some horror stories online but after a re-assuring informal facebook poll I decided to go for it.
So here is a picture of my hair this morning:
I then headed to Halo Salon to meet with the lovely Veronica.
Yup, this is my hair dresser and she is amazing!! Not to mention photogenic.
Anyways, so we started with the cut she fully dried it and flat ironed it. Then washed it again and applied the chemicals (ewww but I had to try it), V applied it section by section and then let me sit for 5 min or so. My scalp was a little warm and tingly that was about it. Then she blew it dry and flat ironed it (again), except this time my hair turned into pure silk. I kid you not. It is glorious!
The cut turned out perfect, I am not sure it is “the best” look on me personally but I am glad I tried it and am totally happy with the results. The cut is utterly perfect thanks to V’s total OCD ways, I highly recommend her (obvi’s).
If you are local and want to try the blow out thing, V said if you call and mention igoyougo she will give you my special price of $100 buckaroos! (instead of the usual $175)
Workaholics is a television sitcom that premiered on Comedy Central on April 6, 2011. The series is in its third season, and is predominantly written by its stars Blake Anderson, Adam DeVine, Anders Holm and Kyle Newacheck who play three recent college graduates and a drug dealer, roommates, and co-workers at TelAmeriCorp, a telemarketing company, living in Rancho Cucamonga, California. [Wikipedia]
Been busy this weekend getting these babies ready for the mail, time to spread some holiday cheer!
Front
Back
now, it wouldn’t be a Smith Christmas card without some kind of typo (if you read this blog regularly, this will not surprise you) let’s see if you can find it.
This year we spent Thanksgiving with my Dad’s family, just the 7 of us. It was a smaller group than normal but made for a super relaxing nice family day. My stepmom Sharon and I shared all the cooking and my Dad took care of the turkey.
I decided to try my hand at arranging some flowers since I was still totally inspired by the stuff I saw at Matt and Emily’s wedding and had one of the flower boxes left over from her centerpieces. My sister Sam and I worked on this sign together and it wasn’t until way later I realized I wrote the wrong year, doh! Here are some more shots of the flowers.
I had so much fun putting this together that I brought some small pumpkins and squash and we made some more arrangements to put around the house.
(yes that is a R2-D2 in the background)
We spent the day playing games and hanging out when we weren’t cooking.
Once the Turkey was done we got on with the rest of the show and whipped out a fantastic thanksgiving dinner.
I volunteered to bring a pie (I have not given up on how much I suck at baking yet) and I made a pumpkin cheesecake. I put little flags in it to help convince people to try it…it didn’t really help because the thing turned out horrible. I swear there is no hope for me. Good thing everything else went off with no problems and overall we had an excellent feast.
Originally sourced from Steamykitchen.com
Garlic and Chive Mashed Cauliflower
I have been loving this handy trick lately since I am totally a meat and potatoes girl. You can use the recipe from SteamyKitchen or you can do what I did which was to take hers and jazz it up a bit.
1. Separate the cauliflower into florets and chop the core finely. Slice your potatoes and garlic.
2. Bring water to a simmer in a pot, then add the potatoes and garlic, cook until fork tender and then add the cauliflower. Cook the cauliflower until very tender.
3. Drain and discard all of the water (the drier the cauliflower is, the better) and add the milk, butter, sour cream, salt and pepper and mash with a mixer until it looks like “mashed potatoes.” Mix in tons of chives.
Here are my picks for some cool gift ideas for the people in your life this holiday season.
These are adorable and I found them on THE BEST SITE for the photo lover in your life, check out photojojo
I just feel like this could be a super useful gift.
Misto Box – Coffee Subscription $15 for 1 month
These have been around some time but did you know that you can design your own and monogram it. This is a great gift idea.
Instapark Green and Red Laser Projector Light
A friend of mine bought this recently and it pretty much makes a crazy laser light show all around you, very cool and only $42!
Another party favorite.
Kendra Scott – Customizable Jewelry
I was given a gift card to this site for my birthday and it is SO COOL! You can customize your own jewelry, from earrings to necklaces there are tons of shapes, sizes, and colors to choose from.
A Blueprint
Say What?? Ok, follow me here. You just think of something they like or are interested in and try to find a blueprint of it. Frame it and give it to them.
Because real men carry hankies…lol
So I turned 29 this week, officially living in my 30th year. Since I was going to be up in Sacramento visiting my bestie we decided to throw a big party and get lots of our friends to come visit. I came up with this theme – Getting Old Is A Challenge- based on the idea that we would play a series of minute to win it type games.
We decided to neon-ize this party just because we love neon and make it sort of an Olympics based concept – so we would have a podium and medals, etc. Most of that happened but the reality was we were having to much fun to really take the whole game thing really seriously. Let’s take a look at some of the decor we used:
First up was the baked potato bar wall centerpiece. I found a quote I liked and made a print online for the focal point then I came up with this idea to use crepe paper and make a flower boarder to anchor it.
Brittany made me a beautiful coconut cake that matched.
Oh and these cupcakes.
Here was the winners podium/photo backdrop we made. Brittany is an art teacher and so we used some of her kids’ artwork to pull it all together.
I don’t have many pictures of me and my friends yet, they are on another camera so that might end up being a separate post. But here are a just a few:
(Bianca’s new little guy Noah)
Thanks Britt for everything, it was a blast!
Here is a look at some of the other printables from the party:
