Double-Wedding Week

The weekend of February 7th unttil February the 13th I was in snowy Utah. February 7th was the day my brother got married and it was truly a blessed union. My brother found this fantastic girl who suits him so well. I love how Danielle brings Eric out of his shell and makes him feel comfortable in any situation. We are thrilled to have her in our family, you rock Danielle. Here is a pic. of the handsome couple. My awesome cousin Jess took this picture.

I wish I had more pics of the day, but I totally forgot my camera...boo! The temple sealing was incredile and Eric and Danielle were given great advice. The reception was held downtown at the Gallivan Center and it was so amazing. Instead of flowers Danielle had sparkly branches as decor and it was amazing I wish I had some pics to show. It was seriously one of the best dance parties I have ever been to. I have never danced so much in one setting! The DJ rocked it up.

Heather and I stayed for the next week awaiting yet another blessed wedding from one of our best friends from college! During the week Heather and I seeped in as much time with our older sister and two nieces because they had just moved from Cali back to Utah. Tears were definitely shed! Here a couple pics of the little gems!

Here is a pic of Camryn and Kennedy playing store. Cam's obviously was the cashier and Kennedy was the shopper!

Look at that face...priceless!

We also had a Valentine's tea party and made sugar cookies. Kennedy was quite the little helper in the kitchen and helped make the frosting and even more she wasn't shy with decorating the cookies...they were fab!




We also had the opportunity to meet up with some college friends...it was so fun to see them! Ali just got an internship in New York...so awesome and Kerianne is going to Botswana for research...so cool!

I love Kerianne's laughing smile...seriously awesome!
Last but not least is the wedding of DeEtte and Jason Carver. It was so fun to be there for DeEtte. She looked stunning as you can see! Heath and I were able to steal some precious moments away from the busy bride to talk, hang out like the good ole days. Here are a couple of pics from the great day! Oh and isn't Palmer the cutest boy ever. such a handsome dude!


Here is a pic of another tea party we had in downtown Salt Lake....called the Beehive Room. It was so fun getting in some time with all the sisters before I came back to San Diego.

Academy Award Gifting Event

This past weekend I had the great opportunity of helping at an Academy Award gifting event. It was so much fun, Erika and Christy also came and we had a blast together. The head coordinators of the gifting event was kind enough to let me pass out my product for free when every other vendor had to pay $10,000-$15,000 for a booth! We sure did luck out. It was located at the SLS hotel in Hollywood! We saw some b-lister stars overall it was a blast. Here are a few faces I was able to snap a shot of with True Birds accessories!


Here is Annalynn McCord the star of 90210, she is also rumored to be in "New Moon" the second book in the Twilight series. I had the opportunity to escort her around to all of the different booths. She was so sweet and nice and had the cutest accent, she was from Atlanta, GA. It was so fun to see how real celebrities are. I guess I was expecting them to be arrogant or something but I did not meet one person of that nature!

Here is Tony Dennison from "The Closer", with Keira Sedgewick. I also had the opportunity to escort him and had fun getting to know him...it is amazing how open he was about his life, he talked about his girlfriend, and his relationship woes he went through with his last girlfriend. He even asked some advice as to what products his current girlfriend would want. It was funny to because he went to another gifting event Heather was at and said he recognized her and Heather asked him if he went to "The Secret Room Gifting Event" and informed him that I was there and that we were twins. He was so nice and told me he would personally gift a True Birds accessory to Keira. What a stud! This girl had to be my favorite of the day! Her name is Holly Fields and she was such a joy to be around Christy and I co-teamed and escorted her around. She was a guest star in a couple of episodes of The OC. But she is mostly recognized for her voice overs, she has done voice overs for stars such as Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore to name a few. She was newly engaged and full of life and a charming personality!

This is Kim Coles, she was such a fun lady and hilarious as well as she is both an actor and comedian.

Last but not least is Melissa Farman from this season's Lost. She plays the young Danielle Rousseau and I completely recognized her as she walked through the door because she was on a recent episode of Lost. She is one multi-tasker she has been involved with acting along with going to school full time...what a go-getter.

We all had a blast and when we left one night Erika said she saw Nathan from Heroes. It was so fun for the weekend, but I do not know if I could handle living there the LA lifestyle is so busy all the time.

Great Big Happy Birthday to my one and only!

Well it is Paul's birthday, he turned the ripe age of 31! All the reason more to love him, he is older and wiser :) He is such a great guy, for his birthday I made him a card of 31 reasons I love him along with a coupon book for treats and such. His main present, however, is in the mail and he is so excited. He is getting a new mountain bike and is super thrilled. Paul is always fun because he is always exploring new hobbies, which keeps things fresh and fun. Thanks for being such a great husband, confidante, and comedian in my life. It is rare occasion when I can stay mad at Paul because he always cracks a joke and breaks any small barrier we come across, he keeps things lighthearted. He is more than I could have ever hoped or dreamed for and I am the luckiest girl to have him as my eternal companion, love ya babe!

True Birds

(Yayyyyy! I can finally tell you!)

Hello friends! Today I'm happy to expose the underground project I've been working on with my twin sister, Heidi, for almost a year now. We've kept our side biz pretty hush hush as we needed to place our accessory products in the hands of the right buyers/showrooms, magazines and influentials before we exposed our idea to the web world.

Our accessory company is called True Birds. We've been calling each other 'bird' for many years and thought the name fitting! We had a big vision of a business idea and limited time with newlywedness, work endeavors, moves and the sort but after lots of passion, designing, fabric districting, midnight sewing, marketing, graphicking, photoshooting,web-site-ing (I just made up a slew of 'ing' words!)and the like we have come out just in time for the last of the Christmas shopping! Yahoo!

We've struck some luck with a great buzz about the product. We're in numerous boutiques from Beverly Hills to the N.Y.C., have had some celebrity requests for True Birds from the likes of Mamma Mia's star, Amanda Siegfried as well as the writer of JUNO, Diablo Cody. We also just recently had a request for a meeting with the hair accessory buyer from Henri Bendel which will be held next month. We've been so blessed and we love how it is all naturally taking flight!

(A quick glance of what the True Birds, http://www.truebirds.com/ web store features)

So, we want to spread a little Christmas Cheer! We're offering a 40% off coupon for all orders until December 31, 2008. This coupon is for our family and friends and their family and friends so feel free to share it!

If you want to get an additional 10% off to get a total of 50% off your entire order its easy! All you have to do is post something about True Birds on your blog and/or facebook, send us a link of your post to truebirds@gmail.com and we'll immediately send you your 50% off coupon for your entire order as well as our much appreciation and email smile :).

fyi: All of our accessories are almost up! For the next couple of days the only items you can purchase through the website are the adult 'soft bands' and 'baby bands' because the others aren't linked for sale yet. If you would like to order others that don't have the link to buy online you can email us your order and phone number and we can do a paypal order via phone. Thanks!

*other fyi: you enter the coupon code on the page after you enter your credit card information

For Christmas Delivery order by

Wednesday, December 17th (11:59 PM PST)

*We would love to play Santa for you so we will pay the extra PRIORITY MAIL charge to make sure you get it just in time!

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Many thanks go to our so supportive husbands for letting us run with our dream, be our biggest fans, let us leave glitter, feathers, sequins and needles--ouch!--everywhere and also for backing us up financially in the state of the economy. Our sister Sandy has also been a true inspiration as one of our photographers, idea bouncers and super big fan. She's been with us all the way and so have her daughters, our darling nieces, who actually inspired us to create our Baby Birds line so younger heads of hair could have hip headwear too. Our sweet Mom and Dad and mother-in-law's have been so kind, supportive and interested, thank you! As well as our Grandparents and cousin Em. We also couldn't have looked profesh and all without the talents of Mariah and Nina, our two dedicated, talented and super rad photographers and our many willing friends that were able to model. Thank you ALL!

By the way, Heather and I don't enjoy 'modeling' our own products on the website but you do what you gotta do to cut costs! No offense taken if you get sick of seeing our faces dawn the products, we get sick of seeing our faces on there too!

http://www.truebirds.com/

I'm excited to finally share this with you!
Happy Holidays!

I'm Dreaming of a Silver Christmas.....

One of my great joys in life is decorating. Sometimes I even take it to the extremity of taking pinecones from the Wild Animal Park, and Paul giving me the "I can't believe you just did that" look. But I'm not ashamed :) When my mom and I went to Z Gallerie over the Thanksgiving holiday we were able to get our theme inspiration, "silver christmas." However, I am very frugal when it comes to picking up Christmas decorations. Below are some of my fun finds, hope you enjoy!

These branches rock, I have to admit I did get these lovelies from Z Gallerie, my mome was kind enough to pay for them they were half off the day we went! However, you can create this same look by using branches, preferably with berries and spray painting them with silver and glitter, very doable. I also found the snowflake tin canisters at Target in their dollar section, the mercury bird was also found at, can you guess...Target.

A fun idea for the centerpiece of your table is by using some very fun, detailed ornaments. Getting coarse sand, mine was purchased at Walmart, getting styrofoam balls and hotglueing small shells on, and other silver knick knacks and treasures :)

Our beloved tree, Paul and I had so much fun decorating it!

These pinecones are the infamous ones found at the wild animal park :), anyway all you have to do is dust it with some silver and glitter spray. The extra greens are fun to place anywhere. When you get your tree cut, I highly recommend you ask for the trimmings so you can use them around the house.

I missed the snow, so I had to have snowflakes somewhere! Here I have some 3-tiered frames and all you really need is very small, flat ornaments and frame them as you would a picture. If you have larger, flat ones you can attach them with ribbon to the frame.

Here we have a nutcracker, I am a little obsessed but they are so stinking cute. If you have ever seen the nutcracker you know this mean mouse character. It was too funny for me to pass up, I found it for Target for $10, what a steal of a deal.

In this platter there is poutpouri, purchased at Target with the silver pinecones.

I love Christmas and the excitement it brings to gather with friends and family to enjoy this festive time of the year. I have been listening to Christmas tunes and the christmas bells keep ringing in my head...just the way I like it. Onto Christmas presents!

Gobbly...Gobbly

Hello all, I have been neglecting my blog and feel like a blogging failure! I will keep trying to do better though I promise!

So, I just wanted to tell you about my special turkey holiday. We actually took the fun long road trip to Utah. Paul's sister Ruth was due on Thanksgiving and Paul's mom of course wanted to be there for the shining event so she hopped a ride with us! Paul's mom is so witty and funny...always telling embarassing moments of Paul's childhood...which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was super hard for her to leave her kiddos at home for Thanksgiving let alone two weeks! We were so proud of her!

We made our first stop at Ruth's in Provo. Here she is the mother-to-be she looked so great, it was hard to believe she was the full 9 months. We were all anxious for her to go into labor and in order to push that baby along Ruth drank herbal raspberry tea. Poor Ruth it wasn't the tastiest tea in the world...


Then we headed to my parents home in Bountiful. It was fun having my parents all to ourselves, spending some special one on one time with them. I was able to help my mom out in the morning by taking her to physical therapy to increase the strength in her wrist and elbow. It was really difficult to see her go through all of the pain...but she was a champ and pushed through the painful hour and a half sessions. I am so proud her!

While we were there,we we also happy to see my mom and dads future home! The view is absolutely stunning. When you look out the window you see hundreds of evergreens stretching across the hills. When you open the door you can hear the sound of rushing water...truly a paradise. The inside of the house needs some major work but my mom is going to work her interior design magic and make it breathtaking I am sure.

Turkey day came and one and all were stoked for the feast. My mom was not able to help much because of her injury so she did a great job at directing Heath, Danielle (my amazing future sister-in-law) and me as to what needed to be done. It was truly an adventure before this Thanksgiving I usually helped with the salad and setting the table...but this time I helped with the whole she-bang. My favorite task of the day was making the rolls, Danielle and I were a little nervous because we both had never attempted homemade rolls before...let alone being compared to the incredible baker my grandma, but my mom helped coach us and they turned out pretty darn good if I must say myself. On the menu:
Pear Salad
Turkey
Cranberry/Orange relish(yum!)
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Yams
Rolls


We all filled up again and again and went around the table and told what we were grateful for. We missed having a couple of my siblings who were unable to make it. My sister Sandy, Tim and Kennedy along with my brother Jason and Rachel :( But we heard they had a fun Thanksgiving. We then trekked along to the notorious Twilight movie. I enjoyed watching it for the second time and Paul to my surprise also enjoyed it! Some of my other family members thought it was a little cheesy but I guess it didn't bug me all that much...I am a romantic, sappy individual and proud of it!

The day before Thanksgiving my mom and I went to Gateway together to pick up a couple of items and went into Z-Gallerie and fell in love with their inspiring Christmas decor. We had fun browsing the store for ideas and found the one item we could not pass up, the sparkling branches and since they were 50% off my mom purchased some for me she is so nice! On Friday I helped my mom decorate the house for Christmas. We had such a fun mother daughter day doing something we both loved to do! Paul did a good job at snapping a couple of candids...my little photographer!

Friday night we went to the Hale Centre Theatre to see the musical "Into the Woods", it was the first time I had seen it. It was a mesh of about 7 different fairytales and how they all worked together to make their dreams come true. There is something about seeing a live play not only is the set alive you feel like you are a part of it just as much as the characters are. When intermission came I was a little disappointed because when I was waiting in line this girl was on her cell phone talking about the play then she said she wasn't looking forward to the end of the show because.......-she gave the whole ending away, seriously the nerve! No surprise ending for me.

Saturday came all too quickly and Paul and I packed up and headed off. We already had a full car at this point but I insisted that we take a couple of branches that were cut so I could take them home and spray paint them. Oh the silly things I do for decorations. It felt like I was in a forest when I was driving and looking through my rear-view because of the twigs that stuck out every angle. Paul was a champ and hardly complained about them at all.

At this point Ruth was about to get induced but we had no idea how long it would take before the baby came. So we headed off we were happy to find out that the baby was delivered at 5:00 p.m., if only we had stayed around a couple of more hours! Congrats Ruth and Jared we are so happy for you!

Under the Sea Halloween

Oh, how I love Halloween! Ever since I was about six I worked in a costume shop. I loved it, it was so much fun to go through the many aisles and pick and pull costumes off the rack to change me into whatever I wanted to be for a given day Whether it was a genie, witch,...you name it! This holiday definitely holds a special place in my heart!
Ever since I moved to California I have had a difficult time not living in a costume shop for the month of October. It wasn't until the 29th of October till I realized Halloween was almost here! Heather and I were in LA at the time and decided since we were close to the fabric district to go and check out some patterns and figure out what we could pull together last minute. We were going to go with cave people...until we saw some awesome sequin fabric. I had always wanted to be a mermaid and here was my grand chance, so we picked up random pieces of fabric we felt would go well together for a mermaid and a merman! Halloween is not Halloween for me unless I dress up!
The day of Halloween was kind of hectic and Paul came home a little bit later so we tried to make the merman costume work on him....but he ended up looking like a crossdresser and decided to bag his costume. However, lo and behold he pulled out an awesome tiger outfit his mom had made for him! Seriously, he made the funnest tiger. Every once in awhile during the night he would pounce out in front of people...it was hilarious!
We ventured off first to Seaworld, and I felt truly at home :) We met up with some friends Adam and Natalie, and saw the Rockin Shamu show. It was really fun to be there and see all the kiddos dressed up. We trick or treated and they gave us loads of Swedish Fish, how appropriate. Let alone they are one of my favorite treats!
We snapped some shots with the under the sea crew.
This girl was so hilarious, she was so funny...just look at that face. Isn't it funny how chilren are dressed up as he or she-devils!

Here is Paul and I, me trying to pull the face of a mermaid and Paul pulling out the claws!

Taking the trolley downtown. It was my first time and it was so much fun! Once we were downtown we people watched...our favorite costume of the night was the pacman crew. One dude was pacman and he had his three accompanying ghosts chasing after him...it was hilarious!

We then went to the mall and Paul had his first experience with Hot Dog on a Stick, crazy I know! It was a definite hit!
Last but not least we went to Ghiradellis for some ice cream. Thanks for joining us for Halloween Adam and Nat!