the weekend plan

dust off the shovel and gardening gloves, must reconcile the last 9 months of neglect.



My parents gave us raised beds (for vegetables and such) for our birthdays. And by gave us I mean they are going to come help us build them. Plus my mom ordered these nifty pre-made corners/joints from Burpee that should make the construction process a little less technical. Poor Brock has to get gardening supplies for his birthday. He is the best sport.

I shall report back with our progress.

DIY local favors from my favorite date farm

Hi hi.



Finally posted our favors, a mini how-to, and a template to make your own labels on 100 Layer Cake today! Go see.

Go see this wedding...

on OnceWed.

Dying. Die-ing.









photos by Kirsten Ellis

birthday balloons and candles

Brock's birthday was yesterday. Happy birthday husband! (I do not call him husband in real life, btw).

So Sunday while he was out teaching a tennis lesson to a friend, (he is not a tennis coach in real life either, but he's an excellent teacher and player), I decided to decorate the house in old fashioned birthday stylings. ie. Balloons.



Might as well hop on the trend while it lasts, right? It's amazing how a balloon forest can transform a regular Sunday afternoon into a fancy little party for 2. Immediately upon wrangling the bouquet into the living room, I popped a bottle of good champagne into the freezer and celebration was officially in order.

(Side note: having an engagement party is an excellent way to stock up on quality bubbly that will last you at least a year. Worth the effort of throwing one, in my opinion.)

Balloon forest is also an excellent excuse to take silly blurry photos after finishing that bottle of champagne.



And a birthday always necessitates SOMETHING from Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert. We tried Buckwheat Strawberry Shortcakes. Yum. If you don't have this book, I suggest you order it immediately. So many beautiful, simple sweets.

We're now officially in our 30's. Which feels much different than just being 30, it turns out. But good. I think.

maybe i'll hold off on getting that goat

Karissa's wild pack:





My friend Karissa lives on an inexplicably huge property in Encinitas (San Diego), tucked behind The Gifted Preschool and the 7-Eleven. She and her man Travis started the goat experiment to ultimately make goat tacos from scratch, but other members of the project have since ruled the original intention out. So now they have a herd of goats roaming their yard, eating every single bit of green in sight. Plus things like the rubber on their car bumpers.

Okay then! So much for my perfect idea of getting a little goat to mow our backyard. But they are super cute. And much better to visit than to keep myself. For now. Until I get my own farm.

so this is how it's going to be...

apparently keeping up 2 blogs and a full time job is more difficult than i anticipated.

which is why i have the weekend to sort things out.

have a pretty weekend. back soon.

showgirls have all the fun

That makeup. I'm in love.

The Tropicana is canceling the Folies after 49 years. There's something about the end of an era that always feels kind of sad.

From my always reliable favorite news source, NPR.

Our Wedding: a welcome cocktail party

Because everyone had to travel to our wedding, and we wanted to make sure we were able to actually spend time with our friends and fam during the weekend, we hosted a little cocktail party the night before the wedding. SOME of us may have had a few too many martinis the night before at the rehearsal dinner and ensuing late night party at Melvyn's piano bar, so WE enjoyed the entire cocktail party sans cockatils. But everyone else seemed to enjoy themselves. Including most of my bridal party who left our house with large bottles of whiskey sticking out of their purses. Luckily they managed to recuperate in time to get ready for the wedding the next day. Such trusty friends.

We rented a great little house in Palm Springs for the week around the wedding which was excellent for hosting such things as cocktails parties. Ours was super casual... you know, kind of a make-your-own-drink house party situation. Plus we made some simple, never-fail party foods (homemade pickles, spiced nuts, a heaping cheese board, salted chocolate chip cookies, etc.) and pretty much just let the party run itself.





























Post Wedding Notes:

If you're going to drink too many martinis before your wedding (which is hard to avoid when all of your friends are in town and your wedding is in two days and you're so excited), I can't recommend enough doing so TWO nights before the wedding. Excellent plan, if I do say so myself. I was so happy nursing club soda Friday evening and waking up Saturday morning perfectly intact and ready for a big party.

And even though throwing a party the night before the wedding was a little stressful, I'm so glad we did. It made the weekend and our whole wedding celebration feel so much longer, because like everyone says, the actual day goes by really quickly. And renting a house so we had a place to relax and store all of our wedding supplies was one of the best decisions we made.

I would possibly NOT recommend lugging 3 cars full of wedding supplies (centerpieces, ceremony arrangements, favors, bathroom baskets, programs, escort cards, 40 lbs of lead flower frogs, etc) from your rental house to the hotel at 11pm the night before your wedding. However if you're not going to hire a full time planner, I'm not sure how you get around that, right?

Next comes the actual wedding, promise.

All photos by Michéle M. Waite.

100 Layer Cake surprise for monday morn

The blog is live. And much sooner than we'd planned! But we had such a great response after our first announcement that we decided to go ahead and launch our blog before the rest of the project is ready.



We're kind of nervous... like we're sending our child off to the first day of kindergarten, so do let us know what you think. We want it to make friends and everything.

100layercake.com/blog

andre balazs prints for the standard

In doing a teensy bit of snooping around The Standard's site before we left, I found these:






So awesome. I love his whimsical patterns and shapes and groovy colors. Kind of wanting... but I know I do not need. Prints are like tea towels in my life... I just like to have them so I can visit them in their drawer every once in a while when I need to look at something pretty. I am comforted by their presence alone. Which admittedly is a little weird.

Also, in case anyone else is heading to Miami, definitely recommend The Standard. Esp if you can get a good rate. We liked that it's small and stylish and simple and off the main drag. Tall hotels scare me.