Finding Sunday

Happy Love Day!

2012-02-14T06:43:00.000-08:00

For you to ponder on this Valentine's Day.

What is love?

Some fourth grade answers.

Our Valentine's Day plans:
Dinner at home, dessert in Laguna Beach.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Super Bowl Sunday

2012-02-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

Super Bowl Sunday started with church and baptisms.

Woot Woot!

And that would be Nick, doing the baptizing!

And then the party continued at our house.

I pulled out the Super Bowl decorations from last year's party and put them up around the house, including our fun little betting game.

I was not thrilled with the outcome of the game, but I wasn't really too excited about either of the teams anyways. Unlike my sister, who is a bit Patriot obsessed.

Until next year...

Also from Redding

2012-02-08T20:56:00.000-08:00

Nick and I came home from Redding with all kinds of goodies. His grandma was happy to give us all sorts of old things. Among these things was this really cool toolbox. Nick liked the tools inside, and I liked the box. Once we got home, I found the perfect use for it.

My succulents have been quite successful, so I decided to clip a few little branches off and replant them in the tool box. Did you know that you can do that with succulents? I just learned that recently. But, it's not like I walk around the neighborhood and take clippings from neighbors plants. I mean, seriously, who would do that?

Embroidered Tablecloth

2012-02-07T19:16:00.000-08:00

When we were in Redding, Nick's grandma pulled out her signature tablecloth. This tablecloth is too cool not to share. Over many years, Nick's grandma Helen has collected various signatures from people visiting her home. She has them sign in marker and then she embroiders every single signature and picture. It is amazing, and I totally want to copy her. I just need to learn to embroider first.

You can see Nick's embroidered hand at the top of this picture where it says NMK, from when he was one. And, that would be my foot. If you haven't heard the story of my missing toe, it's a good one that I will save for another time. That footprint is from before we were married, and I had completely forgotten it was on there. I am sure it was Nick's idea to trace it onto the tablecloth.

A Birthday Post

2012-02-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

Today is my brother-in-law's birthday.

That's right! And I know you are all just desperately wishing you could be my sister in this picture here.

In honor of Sean's birthday, Nick and I sent him this little video.

We have yet to hear back from him.

Hmmm....

What the heck, Sean???

Happy Birthday Anyways!

The North State

2012-02-01T20:26:00.000-08:00

We are home from Redding, the land of Nick's ancestors (or some of them, at least.) We celebrated Nick's grandpa's life and spent lots of time with family remembering him. It was hard, but good. Here are some highlights from the trip.

The memorial:

Walking at Sun Dial Bridge:

Looking at baby pictures of Nick:

Eating and playing games:

A TRAMPOLINE!

We really enjoyed all the family time we had. If only we all lived closer :(

Even though it was not so fun to say good-bye, it was really nice to get back to our pups.

On a side note, I am totally doing this this month:

You should too! Follow me @melindaann on instagram, and tell me if you are doing it, so I can follow you too!

AaaaaND...Don't forget about the giveaway I am doing on Kristina's blog. Twenty-five dollars could go a long way in my etsy shop, and I have been adding new things each day!

This Month's Instagrams

2012-01-31T21:16:00.000-08:00

If you so please, you can follow me on instagram.

Username: melindaann

Twenty-Two

2012-01-30T15:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Kimberly Joy Swenson turned 22. The little girl who was 9 when I moved out to go to college. Who used to sleep in my bed with me whenever I came home. Then she grew up and scoffed at the idea of sleeping with me. I was so sad.

Kim, I think you should come spend the night tonight for old time sake.

I love you baby girl!

Happy Birthday!

(and I am sorry I did not post this on your actual birthday :( I was without internet access this weekend.)

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FYI: I guest posted over at Plum Paper, and I have a giveaway going on over there. Go check it out!

Chinese New Year

2012-01-25T21:05:00.000-08:00

Ni Hao!

In case you were not aware, yesterday was Chinese New Year.

This event did not go uncelebrated in our household. Typically, Tuesday dinner is Taco Tuesday around these parts, but for Chinese New Year, we needed to do something REALLY special.

Tacos on CHINESE PLACEMATS! And these placemats truly are from China. I know this because I exported them here myself. We even invited Amy over for the occassion.

Now, when Amy sees that I have posted this picture, she is going to call me and tell me to remove it immediately, because she thinks she looks like she has chipmunk cheeks. But, I will not remove it, because we all know that in real life, she does not have chipmunk cheeks. Plus, I think it is hard to debate the fact that Nick and I look much worse. And yes, Amy and I are wearing the same sweater. (But, I put Nick in between us to distract you from this fact...and it worked, didn't it?)

Well, as if this grand dinner celebration was not enough, we really topped the night off when we made a very traditional Chinese dessert...Chocolate Chip Cookies!

And, if you would like to see pictures from the Chinese New Year that I actually spent in China, go here.

Grandpa Kinnier

2012-01-20T16:53:00.000-08:00

Nick's Grandpa Kinnier died last night.

We knew it was coming, but it still sucks.

Death sucks.

Thanks to Jesus, it's not as bad as it could be.

We will see him again, but, we will still miss him very much for now.

That's Nick in the middle with his dad and Grandpa on the top of Mt. Lassen. His dad's got some nice shorts, right?

Grandma and Grandpa Kinnier

Your prayers would be greatly appreciated for Nick's grandma and the rest of the Kinnier family.

More From My New Etsy Shop

2012-01-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

I added a few more things to my etsy shop today, so it's not all headbands anymore. Here are a few of the things you can find there.

Very soon, Kristina will be doing a giveaway on her Plum Paper blog for some credit to my shop. Nick will be so glad to see me get rid of some of this stuff. :) And even better than that, I figured out how to change my shop name, so it is now Finding Sunday. Spread the word people.

Wanna see the shop? Click here.

Heart Garland -- Repost

2012-01-17T21:12:00.000-08:00

This post that I wrote for Caramel Cup has been getting a lot of action on pinterest, so I thought I would repost it in honor of the approaching Valentine's Day.

Here it is:

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I went a little heart crazy this year in honor of Valentine's Day.

 
I have never decorated for Valentine's Day before, but felt inspired this year.  I now have these hearts hanging in 3 different places around the house.

The Office:

The Living Room:

Our bedroom:

You can read more about the process here.

Have a lovely Valentine's Day with your loves....

(Here are my loves just for fun)

My Mountain Man My Beller Butt

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And this year, of course, my little Brontie needs to be added to my list of loves.

Etsy

2012-01-16T21:48:00.000-08:00

A couple years back, my sisters and I had high hopes of making it big in the headband business. I mean, of course that kind of business could support four people....duh. So, we made a bunch of stuff and thought it would be a good idea to try selling it at a flea market. Except not a lot of people came to this flea market, and while we had a lot of admirers, we didn't have a lot of buyers. So, we ended up having a lot left over. Being the eldest in the family, I was left with the responsibility of figuring out what to do with everything. The only logical thing in my mind was to shove it in the closet and forget about it. And so I did. (Have I mentioned how much Nick loves all the "stuff" that I collect and shove into the closets? What can I say? I'm a Swenson. We have a problem...see here.)

Anyways, I felt inspired this weekend to start an etsy shop and put some of that stuff on there. So, I now officially have an etsy site that I wish was named "Finding Sunday", but no one told me that the username is supposed to be the name you want your shop to be and that you can't change it. Cool.

So, my shop name is mkinnier....really cool.

There's much more to come, and I have some jewelry and scarves to add to the shop, in addition to all the headbands. And that's it. It's not going to make me a living or anything, but it's fun.

Click here to visit the shop!

The Decor and the Dessert Table

2012-01-16T11:35:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share some of the decorations from the wedding, because it was so perfectly and beautifully decorated.

Molly's cousin, Meredith, did all the flower arrangements.

Everyone in the family helped make different jams for the favors.

And here is more of the dessert table that we worked so hard on.

Well, that wraps up the wedding posts. It's been fun to relive it all.

You can see more of the wedding from our cameras here and here.

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Happy Martin Luther King Day!

I will be reading his biography to my class this week. It is so inspiring.

The Reception

2012-01-15T20:44:00.000-08:00

So, after the ceremony came Molly and Eddie's reception. The whole ceremony and reception took place in the same place. Some friends of the Kinnier family have this amazing backyard that was the perfect venue for everything. In my last post, I forgot to talk about Molly's dress. It was her mom's wedding dress, and it was perfect for her! So, here are some highlights from the reception:

Pretty amazing backyard, huh? I'm not jealous at all.

There was lots of dancing.

Even I got a dance in with Molly.

Such a fun, fun night.

Friday the 13th

2012-01-13T18:40:00.000-08:00

Oh, the dreadful Friday the 13th.

Twenty-eight years ago today, it was Friday the 13th.

And twenty-eight years ago today, my sister was born.

Which sister? you may ask. I do have three of them, afterall.

Well, it's this one:

Amy Lynn Swenson

Isn't she cute!

And now, I am off to celebrate with the birthday girl.

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On a not so happy note...

If you could say a little prayer for the Kinnier family, it would be very appreciated. Nick's grandpa is not doing well, and we don't know how much time he has left before he gets to meet Jesus. Nick is headed up there for the weekend to be with his family.

Way Late Pictures from Molly and Eddie's Wedding

2012-01-11T16:29:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I know this wedding happened ages ago, and these two are like an old married couple now, but I just got the REAL pictures at Thanksgiving. I know Thanksgiving also happened ages ago, but it has taken me that long to look through all the photos. That's how many there are. So, rather than post all 56,000,000 photos on the blog, I have narrowed it down to a few of my favorites. However, since there are still a lot of pictures that I like, I am going to split this up into a couple posts. So, this first one will consist of the pre-wedding ceremonies, and the wedding ceremony itself. Here goes....

Pre-Wedding:

Siblings.

Lovers (ewww, gross):

The Kinnier Family:

Kinnier Siblings:

Fortlage side of the family:

Kinnier side of the family:

Cousins:

Pretty Molly:

And a few more for fun:

The Ceremony:

Still to come:

-The Reception

-The Dessert Table (because this was my pride and joy)

-And that might be all....or it might not be. We shall see how many pictures I choose.

Christmas with my Husband.

2012-01-06T17:41:00.000-08:00

Nick and I finally celebrated Christmas with each other on Wednesday, even without a Christmas tree. Not that it feels much like Christmas anyways, since we are having 80 degree weather. We woke up in the morning and exchanged gifts.

Nick made me the coolest outdoor table ever, inspired by our many visits to Restoration Hardware.

Now he is working on a bench to sit on one side of the table, and then we are going to go garage sale hopping to find a hodge podge of different chairs to sit around the rest of it. I LOVE IT!

Of course we went to our usual celebration breakfast spot.

Ramos House Cafe

I asked Nick to take a picture of me in my cute outfit because I secretly want to be a cool fashion blogger. He called me a narcissist. I doubt I will be a fashion blogger anytime soon.

For the afternoon, we decided to take advantage of our winter summer weather. So, we came home, grabbed the dogs, and headed to the beach.

I ran Brontie down the beach while Nick got ready to surf. When I came back to our spot, Nick was in the water, but had set a little tent up for Belle.

Nick surfed while the dogs and I entertained ourselves with lots of pictures and some reading. Not that much reading happened. Brontie likes to make that difficult.

Belle loved exploring the beach.

And Brontie loved digging.

No pictures of that though, because I was too busy trying to get away from the flying sand.

And I loved snuggling up to my pups and enjoying the sun.

Nick couldn't leave without attempting to put Brontie in the water. He is determined to make Brontie a water dog.

I don't think there is much hope.

The perfect Christmas!

Ringing in the New Year

2012-01-05T11:38:00.000-08:00

This year, we rang in the new year sleep style.

But it wasn't only sleeping, because our friends were camping down in Carlsbad. We headed down there in the afternoon and stayed until about 9:30. We couldn't spend the night because Nick had to be at church the next morning....the life of a pastor.

At 9:30, we left to come home. We were both struggling to stay awake on the drive, so when we got home, we went straight to bed. This was the first New Year I can remember that I have not stayed up for. I wasn't too heartbroken about it.

Especially at 6:30 the next morning when we woke up to go to church.

As for New Year's Resolutions, I came up with two.

1) To be less selfish in my relationships, especially my relationship with God. I want to seek God simply for the sake of knowing him more, not for the sake of getting what I want from him.

"He must increase, but I must decrease." -John 3:30

2) Walk Belle everyday. She is 16, and I want to keep her healthy for as long as possible.

Yep....I even have a Bible verse for this one too.

"A righteous man cares for the needs of his animals." -Proverbs 12:10

There you go.

Tandemonium

2012-01-04T13:27:00.000-08:00

Nick and I went on an end of 2011 bike ride from Dana Point to San Clemente on Friday. It was a perfect day for a bike ride, since we are currently having summer like, 80 degree weather here....awesome. And since I was feeling all mopey that morning, with 2011 not exactly being the year I had hoped for, this was just what I needed. The conclusion I came to on this bike ride:

Sometimes I get so caught up in what I want my life to be, that I forget to enjoy the life I have right now. And, it's really not so bad. See....

See...not so bad.

2011 in Review

2012-01-02T00:18:00.000-08:00

Well, 2011 is over now, so I thought I would do a little recap of the year for us. Except, this is not little...it's loooong. But, I am sure you are all just dying to hear all about the things we did this year, so here goes....

January

We rang in the new year with friends, Amy had a birthday, Kristina and Sean moved to Atlanta, Kim had a birthday and I made some Valentine's decorations I actually liked.

February

In February, Sean had a birthday, we had a Super Bowl party, Nick and I enjoyed a Valentine's Day trip to the beach, Molly and Eddie got engaged, Katie and Collin got married, and I showed off my grandma's talent.

March

March marked one year without Grandpa. We also had even more birthdays and revealed our completed dining room. I was called "fluffy" , my mom became my blog editor, I shared our backyard deck and the deck I would like it to become, Nick and I celebrated 8 years of being an item, and I made some new creations.

April

I turned 30 and shared twenty memories from my twenties, threw myself a big birthday party, celebrated my birthday with Nick and my family, celebrated Easter, saw friends get married and planted our garden. Oh yeah, and someone else had a birthday too.

May
In May, I recovered the chair that made me famous (ha), we hung slatwall in our house, celebrated my mother, celebrated Kristina's birthday, and added a new little one to our family. I also wrote a post on being an over the top dog person and on being thirty and childless.

June
June brought a trip to Chicago, a trip to Arizona, a Father's Day celebration, family time with the dogs, a coastal camping trip and Turlock visit, Brontie's first letter to Belle, and the high school graduation of 3 cousins.

July
We celebrated the fourth of July, Esther's birthday, and our FIFTH anniversary all on the same day, we celebrated Grandma's birthday, my parents moved to Arizona, we spent some time in San Diego, I rekindled my love for Neil Diamond, fell more in love with my dogs, celebrated Nick's 28th birthday, and took a trip to Arizona to visit the parents.

August
Molly and Eddie got married, we enjoyed Ramos House Cafe, my wonderul summer ended, I discovered that I am a trend setter, and Mom had a birthday.

September
We celebrated Labor Day, I braved the blackout of the century alone, Caramel Cup created a cute ladybug dessert table, my chair was featured on Apartment Therapy (WHAT?), we revealed some additions to our dining room, I made some cute notebooks and plant pots, and we took a trip to Catalina.

October
Nick competed in a triathlon, I took another trip to Arizona, I got my iPhone, Nick built the coolest shelf ever, and we had our annual Halloween party.

November
Dad turned SIXTY! Belle turned SIXTEEN! I realized that I do actually have a lot to be thankful for, we took the dogs camping to San Diego. I taught Nick how to play football, and we hosted the Kinnier family Thanksgiving.

December
We decorated for Christmas, a put up my California wall, we had a Christmas party, made cute Christmas cards, and celebrated Christmas with my immediate family and extended family.

Phew....I did a lot more this year than I realized, and this post took me way too long. Most of you probably aren't even reading it anymore. So, farewell 2011.
Welcome 2012!

The Month in Review

2011-12-31T12:53:00.000-08:00

Now onto January and the New Year....

2011 Christmas Cards

2011-12-30T12:02:00.000-08:00

This year, we sent out my favorite Christmas cards yet. I thought I would share the process of how the Christmas cards came about. I really wanted to incorporate a baby envelope into the card, so that was kind of the inspiration. (Since I don't have a baby human). Then, I drew out what I wanted on a piece of paper. (Don't laugh.)

No, those are not my children, but I wish they were. Those are pictures cut out from a World Vision catalog, just to give me an idea of what a picture looked like on the card (as if the card was going to look anything close to what I drew).

Rather than try to do this complicated design myself on the computer (because that would have been impossible, considering that I have absolutely no graphic design knoweldge), I decided to give the job to my sister, Kristina. Because, obviously, she has a bit of graphic design know how. She was able to take my idea and run with it. And, it was so much better than what I imagined in my head!

This is the digital version she sent me, using last year's Christmas picture, just to give me an idea of what it would look like. Then she printed them out and mailed them off to me to assemble.

But, I was still without a Christmas card picture. So, I whipped up a little Merry Christmas sign (so so easy to make), and we headed out with the dogs to our favorite picture spot to take the picture, with our fabulous photographer, Amy Swenson. Here are a few of the pictures that we did not use. I thought we would have some funny outtakes with the dogs, but, surprisingly, they were very well behaved and cooperative.

We ended up choosing this one:

But, I wasn't thrilled with what Belle looked like. She looks a little sad and pathetic. Thankfully, Amy is not only a fabulous photographer, but she is also a fabulous photo editor. So, Belle was given a little head swap from one of the other photos and a few other fun tricks were done to the picture, and we ended up with this for our card:

Then, the assembly of the cards began.

I planned on using baker's twine all along and kept intending to order some, but that never actually happened. So instead, I found a tutorial online and made my own.

Here's the final product:

And then, I entrused Nick with one job...JUST ONE JOB. The buying of stamps and mailing of cards. This is the picture he sent me and the text message conversation that happened that day:

Actually, I should say...Nick did have more than one job. He wrote our whole Christmas letter. And IT WAS GOOD!

Christmas at Grandma's House

2011-12-29T16:41:00.000-08:00

The Carmack family (my mom's side of the family) had our traditional Christmas day at Grandma's house. Lots of hoopla surrounded this Christmas, since my cousin Jake lacerated his spleen while dirt biking 2 days before. Way to go, dude. He was in the hospital until 4:00 Christmas day, but he got out and made it in time for the grand gift exchange. While we waited for him, we engaged in a little ladderball. But first, we had to call AAA to open my car because I locked my keys in the trunk along with ladderball. Way to go, me. But, then they couldn't get the trunk open and left without helping us. But then, a Christmas miracle ensued. After many failed attempts to open the trunk in any and every way, it magically popped open the first time my dad tried it. Way to go, Dad (or Santa...or Jesus... or whoever was responsible for that little miracle! I like to think it was Jesus...it was his birthday afterall),

And so, there was ladderball....

And then there was the gift exchange.

Grandma gifted all of her daughters and daughters-in-law with beautiful new quilts....jealous.

Pictures in front of the tree of the many families within the Carmack family is a yearly tradition.

Grandma and her daughters...

Grandma and her daughters supposedly trying to be Swenson girls...

I don't know what makes them think we like to take pictures like that.

But, I think they need a little practice.

I love Christmas at Grandma's! Favorite day of the year!

Swenson Family Christmas

2011-12-28T22:20:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Christmas with my family on Christmas Eve. The day was of course filled with last minute shopping, wrapping, a bit of fighting, and a lot of laughing. There were also A LOT of presents.

I LOVE my family!

Next up...Carmack Family Christmas...