fabulous giveaway!

Charm Design Bags and Totes $50 gift card GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

soo cute!

linda & harriet love

i'm in LOVE with linda & harriett letterpress. all their work is so fun and creative! how about this calender?

i love the artwork - it makes we want to frame each month. AND on the bottom of each month is a postcard that you can tear off! what a fun way to be able to use the calenders again.

these moose tags are so adorable! they can be used pretty much anywhere - from gift tags, to ornaments, or even artwork!

and these cards....be still my soul! :) i love the moose card!

christmas pigs kissing card

moose peeking card

thank you swirls card

cure card

alright, i'm off to science!

-carlotta

happy (late) thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving dinner

Look! It's my best friend Andi! :)

The dancing basket...aka Lilly. Sorry about my HORRIBLE piano playing...Lilly said she wanted me to play it fast so she could dance better, hence all the mistakes. Sorry!

Some things that we're thankful for - Jeremiah: Mr. Larry (our old neighbor who helped us renovate our house), our house, his room, everything in his room, and survival handbooks (sigh...that's his latest thing...) Lilly: chocolate, ham, ice cream, bacon, (can you tell the girl likes food!?) neighbors, Mom and Dad, Jeremiah, MeMe, the Beecrofts (Pastor's family), Wusi (the family nickname for me), people.

MeMe: Mom and Dad, brothers and sisters, a nice home, food, and nice friends

Me: our cozy house, my wonderful room, amazing friends, family, my laptop, that we're able to take trips to Germany and Tomball, among other places...

We left at 5am Wednesday morning...I can't believe we actually made it out the door that early! We had our Thanksgiving service the night before, Tuesday night, and Pastor's wife had her annual open house/reception in the fellowship hall afterwards.

I set my alarm for 3:55am Wednesday morning, but I was so excited I ended up waking up at 3:20.

The drive was uneventful and we were able to arrive around 2pm. We were so thankful that we didn't run into any traffic (well except for a 5 minute thing in Dallas)! The rest of Wednesday we just relaxed and got settled.

Thursday (Thanksgiving) morning was spent watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Around 1pm we had our dinner, and around 3pm we were off to visit some friends. We surprised our friends the Stocktons - who didn't know that we were in town. We were only able to stay about 15 or 20 minutes, but it was still nice to see them.

Then we were off again to visit our friends the Watkins. They used to be in our old small group back in Tomball, and they took our horse, Sunny, when we moved to St. Louis. It was so nice to see them all again! It had been a while since the last time we saw them.

After visiting the Watkins, my parents dropped me off to spend the night with my best friend, Andi. I was sooo thankful to be able to spend a night with her, considering our busy schedule!

Friday afternoon my grandma had one of her friends over and Andi's family, the Bensons, for cake and coffee.

Then Saturday morning we already had to leave! :( The drive back went well....nothing really exciting. It was a whirlwind of a trip, but super fun.

Was this post too detailed for you?? Sorry. :)

I'm off to study latin....sigh. Tomorrow I already have to go back to school! I can't believe how fast the week went by. Now I'm looking forward to Christmas! :) -carlotta

i'm back! (sort of)

I AM ungrounded from the computer now & have my laptop back! I have a lot to do though in preparation for our trip (SOOO excited about that! In case you didn't know. Which I'm sure you probably did.), so I'll do my next real post after we get back (Sunday or Monday), as my grandmother doesn't have internet. We're leaving at 5am tomorrow morning....yikes! That's early! :) But the good thing about leaving early is that we'll be able to get to Tomball by 1 or 2pm. Wishing you all a happy Thanksgiving! -carlotta

i'll be back soon!

Hello dear readers!

I'm not allowed to use the computer for an undecided time...so I'll be back as soon as I can! :)

-carlotta

a trip to the teaching garden

A few days ago we went the to the Teaching Garden, a part of Tulsa's (rather small) botanical garden. There they have tips on how to plant and when, and of course flowers, flowers, and more flowers! Here are some pictures from our time there.

I'm (slightly) obsessed with taking pictures at an angle. If you haven't, you know, noticed it yet.

And of course the day wouldn't be complete without a picture (or two) of this sweet girl. I know I post WAY too many pictures of her (and I feel a little guilty that I don't post enough of the others....), but she is such a camera hog, I only have pictures of her! :)

today i took my brother to starbucks as a treat. i got this: a java chip frappuccino. it was soo yummy! it's basically a double chocolate chip, but with coffee. i LOVE the double chocolate chip, but it wouldn't hurt to add some coffee to it. i suppose i could have asked for that with a shot of coffee, but i don't really know the ropes of ordering extra things very well. so this was a perfect compromise! i can highly recommend this. :) we also did a little shopping. i haven't laughed so hard in a long time! read on to see what made me laugh so hard. :) we went to pier 1 to get a couple other christmas things, since i couldn't finish shopping very well after my little mishap that last time i was there. and no, i didn't disguise myself, and it worked out okay. :) while there we saw this: um, would someone kindly explain this? i get a kick out of the one on the left! when my brother saw this he almost had an accident from laughing so hard. we also saw this:

those roosters kind of scare me. then while we were looking around, we saw a little {on the chubbier side} girl, and she was playing with some eyelash curlers from a display while her mom was on the phone. she took two and was trying to curl her eyelashes. it was SO funny! my brother took one look at her and ran behind a shelf so he could let out his laughter. i did the same thing! i know it may not sound very funny now, but it was one of those 'you had to have been there' things.

alright, i need to go fix dinner for the little munchlings...my parents are out on a date. :) -carlotta

there is

a little three year old

that just

melts my heart. and she knows it.

happy holidays vs merry christmas

I wanted to share my thoughts on Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas. Yes, yes, I know it's kind of early (although I admit I'm listening to Christmas music right now...it's my first time this year though :)), but I wanted to clear a couple things up before we are in the real Christmas season. I think Happy Holidays is (slightly) overused. I suppose it's fine, because it's used from November-early January, and there are a pretty large amount of holidays in that time frame. Thanksgiving, New Year's, Hanukkah, and of course Christmas...I'm sure they're more too. Happy Holidays can be used in the context instead of saying, "Happy Thanksgiving, Happy New Years, Happy (?) Hanukkah, Merry Christmas!" That would be kind of a mouthful. :) But it is also being used now for only Christmas. In magazines, the windows of stores, online, etc, you very often see the phrase, Happy Holidays associated with the commercialized version of Christmas. Gifts, Christmas trees, etc. I've never seen Happy Holidays with a picture of a turkey, Hanukkah candelabras (? not sure what they're called. But those candelabras with 8 candles), as well as a Christmas tree and gifts, have you? If you were to say, Merry Christmas (which I always do), there's a chance that people would get offended. People who celebrate the commercialized version of Christmas. The dad of some of our friends, who is a PR guy, when he was responsible for writing the Christmas greeting for his company, was not allowed to say Merry Christmas in his letter. Merry Christmas was the only thing that used to be said, even up to 20 years ago. But now people have to be so politically correct because "they don't want to offend anyone". Sometimes it really frustrates me. Take public schools for example. Christians aren't allowed to talk about their religion, not allowed to even say Jesus for heaven's sake, but then they're so concerned about Muslims, Buddhists, etc, and allow them to do/say whatever they'd like in school as far as religion goes. Um, say again? Hello?! What's up with that people?! Why are Christians suddenly being shoved out the door? But I digress. So, basically what I'm saying is that Happy Holidays is generally overused. It can be used in the context of acknowledging many holidays in the same time frame (mid-November-early January), but usually isn't. Merry Christmas will (and always has been) be my preferred greeting this year and the years to come. So I say to you now: Merry Christmas!

a completely humiliating + mortifying story

Edit 9/16: This post was scheduled to publish tomorrow [9/17] but it's not working for some reason. This IS my post for 9/17, though, just so you know! I can't believe I'm blogging about this, but hopefully you will get a laugh over my story! :) Yesterday I did some Christmas shopping. My mom dropped me off after we went to Whole Foods, and I planned to walk back. Feeling very sure of myself, I went to Starbucks and got some hot chocolate. I waltzed right up, ordered, and gave my name so they could right it down on my cup. I made small talk with the barista, who said that she'd never met a Carlotta before, and that she loved my name. So far so good, right? I got my order, and walked over to Pier 1. I walked around and sipped my drink. At one point, I set my cup down and opened the lid because I wanted to see if the people at Starbucks had put whipped cream in. I put the lid back on - or at least I thought I did - and continued shopping. When I lifted the cup to take another sip, I didn't get any hot chocolate. Instead, I felt a warm trickle down my shirt all the way until just below my knee. I looked down, and I was practically covered in hot chocolate. It was one of those omigosh-I-can't-believe-this-is-happening-maybe-I'm-imagining-it-and-I-can-just-somehow-"rewind"-this. But no, it was for real. There was a puddle of my drink around me, too. It was so so so embarrassing!!!! I am such a klutz. I thought I might be able to just cover it up with my jacket, but realized quickly that it was out of the question. Timidly I approached a sales associate and asked where the bathroom was. She gave kind of an odd look when she saw my apperance, but told me where it was. I went to the bathroom and washed out my (formerly white) scarf, and cleaned my shirt and pants the best I could. My shirt I could cover up with a jacket but my pants where another story. It looked like I had had an "accident". I am such a klutz. I felt so bad that the sales people had to clean up my mess! I wanted to clean it up when I got out of the bathroom, but they had already done it. I saw them giggling, glancing in my direction...but I probably would have done the same thing if I was in their position! I quickly made my purchases and walked home.

Next time I go to Pier 1, I'm going to have sunglasses, a hat, wig, and fully buttoned up peacoat so no one can recognize me. Just kidding...sort of. :)

Oh, and did I mention yet? I am such a klutz!

blah

I don't know...this past week has just been kind of blah. Nothing really exciting happening...just pretty much the same ol' same ol'. School, homework...I don't think I left the house this past week except for when we went the to zoo on Friday. And the weather's all yucky now. I knew the nice weather wouldn't last, but I'm still sad. So I'm pretty much living for our trip to Tomball (9 days!!!!). Last night we had some neighbors over for dinner...so that was fun. There aren't any girls my age around our house...instead they're lots of 12, 13, 14 year old boys. It's actually kind of reverse - all the kids that are under 10 are all girls (something my brother doesn't really appreciate) and all the kids over 10 are all boys. But, oh well, I'm not complaining. :) I just love our neighborhood, though. It's so nice that I can walk to an outdoor shopping mall by myself...and it's a really nice one, not a strip mall. It has American Eagle, Starbucks, Pottery Barn, Pier 1...go to Starbucks, do a little shopping. When one of my friends slept over a few weeks ago it was fun to go there by ourselves. I want to head over there sometime this week to start my Christmas shopping...I can't believe it's already that time of the year again! I'm going to start earlier this year so hopefully there won't be a panic when Christmas gets closer. And maybe I can enjoy the days leading up to Christmas better, too. I have about a week to find a Christmas present for my best friend Andi (who lives in Tomball)...I want to bring it with my when we go down to Texas so I can save shipping. Alright, I need to head to science class! ciao, carlotta

modern technology | reconnected with old friends

Modern technology is so amazing. Yesterday and today I connected with lots of people that I haven't seen in years through Facebook. Some of them were even in my kindergarten class back in Texas, and I haven't seen them since then! Crazy. Technology has come a looong way since the 1950s. Think about everything that has been modified and invented since then - tvs, computers, microwaves, wifi, iPods, portable digital cameras...things that we used every day. The list goes on and on. I think more things were invented in the 20th century than in the past 300 years. Who would have thought a hundred years ago people could talk to others on the computer face to face with the help of a webcam? Who would have thought that you could have a small portable device that you can fill with music and carry with you every where? Who would have thought you could stick cold food in a little box, set the timer for 2 minutes, and it would come out warm? Anyway, I think that's pretty cool. :)

a trip to the zoo

Today we went to the zoo with some friends. My mom was able to get a big discount due to the fact that we're a "school group"...here are some {actually a lot} of pictures. :)

A poison dart frog! They were so cool. One of my favorites. Their colors are so bright they almost look fake!

One of the giraffes! I love giraffes... :)

Fun with friends...

The flamingos!

We saw a crazy lady at the zoo too... *wink*

Lion cubs

The meerkat....he was pretty adorable :)

More giraffes! Actually, this is a picture of a picture :)

The giant tortoises! You can kind of compare how huge they were to the lady in the backround...and she's on a platform.

One of the elephants!

One of the two bald eagles!

This swift fox was soooo adorable!

The artic fox...this one was my favorite. He was soo cute - you just wanted to pick up and cuddle him!

Another giraffe...again this is a picture of a poster.

The chimps! The little one looking at its toes was a baby :)

meet my love

meet my love, pbteen. i know, i know, i've expressed my feelings toward pbteen before...a lot...but i haven't done a post on it in awhile. :)

i love this room. i love all the bright colors...and i like how the pink and green look together. the green is really rich and dark, but not dark enough to put out the "vibrance" of it. and that huge peace tapestry is awesome. :)

this room is SO cool! i love the brown, which is kind of the color of my room, and the pink looks really good. the bed is amazing, i love how its upholstered! and that white trunk is pretty snazzy too :) i think i'm drawn to this room because of the AMAZING bookshelf. it is SO cool! very 60s. and i love love love the grey color. i've always liked grey. i think hot pink and light grey go together really well....and the grey isn't so overbearing that it seems dark - this room is still really light and airy. i think these chairs are just "the bomb" {i know...i'm kind of overdoing it will all the positive adjectives.... :P}. i would love one for my desk :) this room is so pretty! although i would never be so bold as to paint my walls that color, but i admire anyone who does! the dark color really makes the white pop...very cozy. ok. i LOOOOVE this room! the brown {again} got me...and i love the white against it. i just LOVE all the accessories that pbteen has in all of their rooms...and i get very sad when they're not for sale. :)

this room is so pretty! i wish i could see the rest of it...i wonder if it's all dark brown. i love the white flower mobile against the richness of the brown! i'm not real crazy about the bedding, though...

i love this room! the bed with built-in storage is so handy...and i love those hanging lamps in the backround! the green of the bed is really pretty, too.

this room was the inspiriation for my room! obviously, my room isn't this perfect...it's still a work in progress. :)

okay, i have a {small} confession to make after this pbteen-filled post. i've never bought anything from pbteen {yet}. shameful, isn't it? and here you guys are thinking that i'm probably some person paid to give them a good reputation... :)

they're a little too pricy for my taste. i LOVE looking at the catalogs, though, and getting ideas! i do want to purchase something {preferably on sale... :)} sometime, soon, though....

....

on a side note, this a clip that i thought was pretty cool. enjoy!