National Dentist Day Gift

As a dentist's wife, I'm always looking for clever dental related anything. I stumbled upon The Tooth Book by Dr. Seuss when I was pregnant and thought it'd be a perfect gift from his daughter-to-be. 

National Dentist Day is on March 6th every year and here's a simple idea for your favorite dentist...especially if he (or she) is a parent. There are a plethera of tooth-related children's books, so this is easily adaptable. And if they're a by-the-code-type-of-dentist and candy is a no-no, you can bet your life that the staff wouldn't mind indulging in a few goodies between cleanings and insurance claims. 

Oh, and please see past my terrible i-phone shots. my iphone was way past it's expiration by this time and I was too pregnant & lazy to pull out the digital SLR. 

Goodie bucket filled with variety of white candies: sixlets, taffy, gumballs, kit-kat white, lifesavers, buttermints and white chocolate reese's peanut butter cups

I wrapped the book up in white paper, and tied it up with a bunch of balloons and delivered it to M's office.

Here's Dr. Daddy reading The Tooth Book to our sweet babe on the day she cut her FIRST tooth! oh, when I walk in on picture-perfect moments like this, I melt. These two have my heart.

If you want to adopt the same tag I created & used, feel free to click and save as on the image below.

I'm back, baby!! Sorta....

Sooo....it's been a while. i know. but seriously, how do I have eleventy-thousand unread emails from this blog? That may be a slight exaggeration, but there are far too many! For that, I am sorry...I did not mean to ignore and purposely neglect your sincere emails with questions, problems downloading files, purchase requests, etc... but you see.... my focus has dramatically shifted over the past year. 

Here's a quick recap: 

Aug 2013

Oct 2013

Apr 2014

....fast forward 8 months to

Dec 2014

and by fast foward, I mean REALLY fast! Holy cow, this little babe has consumed my entire life but I have never loved a job or a calling more...being a mother is my favorite. But, it's true what they say....it goes by way too fast!  My litttle babe is only getting bigger and I intend to spend as much time as I can by her side watching her grow. and kissin' on her sweet cheeks! 

But, I'd like to throw a few posts up on this ole' blog of mine (if for no other reason, because it helps ME keep track of things I've done and a resource to easily access them again). So, look for some new posts coming soon! (and again forgive me for not returning past emails...and let's be honest, for future emails, too. probly. i'll try. ;)

Fresh Picked Blueberries!

I really know how to pick 'em... and I'm not just talking about berries. There's nobody quite like my sweet husband....and if I had to go back 8 years, there'd be no question that I'd "pick" him again. There's nobody in the world that I have more fun with, think more highly of, trust more completely, love whole-heartedly... and I thank heaven everyday that he's mine forever. 

We've had a hankering for a little road trip adventure so we put the city in our rear-view mirror for the day and said hello to Blueberry Hill Farms in Edom, Texas. What a cute little country farm!

YUM! We have yet to decide what to do with our fresh blueberries....but I have a feeling it's going to be something like these Grilled Blueberry Breakfast Sandwiches.

If you have a blueberry picking date in your future plans, be sure to snag this little printable:

Date Night: "Plane Crazy About You"

When it came to doing regular date nights, the craziness of Dental School kept us "grounded" for the past little while....  Tonight, it was all about letting our love take flight again.

DFW Airport has a really cool observation area known as Founder's Plaza where you can have a picnic, listen to air traffic control communications from the FAA tower, and watch airplanes land and take-off. Most airports have some sort of viewing area, so if you live in a town with an airport, this is an easy date for you to recreate. 

Folks, we've been cleared for take-off...it won't be long before Love is in the Air. (okay, no more cheesy lines, I promise. maybe.)

Airplane Tunes

As we drove to the airport viewing plaza, I had cued up a few songs to play in the car that fit this date's theme. This website has a ton of categorized songs about airplanes, but I chose these 4 for the ride:

1. Frank Sinatra - Come Fly With Me

2 - Train - When I Look to the Sky
3 - Leaving on a Jet Plane - Chantal Kreviazuk
4. Train - Counting Airplanes

Dinner/Picnic

Our in-flight service included:

Airplane Wings (in two delicious flavors from The Wing Stop)

Mile High Breadsticks (from Pizza Hut)

Blue Sky Puff (blue cotton candy) 

Jet Fuel (soda pop)

I can always get away with my "cutesy stuff" with hubby when it involves food....  I get to be creative. He gets food. Win-Win. :) Oh yeah, and you can grab the free printable at the end of the post. Win-Win-Win.

If you don't have time for a whole dinner/picnic thing, you can go the simple route--- serve yourselves up a bag of "prop-corn" along with some refreshing "Jet Fuel" soda.

Paper Airplanes

I saw this picture one day while browsing the web....

...and thought I could recreate it for our date. Wrong. My picture turned out nothing like theirs...granted, they had a photographer and were dressed up for an engagement shoot, but still! We enjoyed our little paper airplane contest regardless. It's a good thing we don't build planes for a living, though, cuz both of ours crashed and burned.

We had a great evening watching the planes, enjoying the cool breeze (which is sort of a big deal in Dallas), and dreaming of where we'd fly to if given no limits and a moment's notice.

And, that's it. Gee, time sure does FLY when you're having fun. ;)

Oh, here's your free printables if you want 'em:

*oh, and a tip: Put a strip of wax paper underneath the soda pop label...it protects the paper from getting soaked!

Root Beer & Pickles: New Job Gifts for the Hubby

You know by now that my hubby survived Dental School and is now out in the "real world" of dentistry... which involves a whole lotta drillin', fillin', and billin'! (too bad almost all that income from the billing portion will go to paying back student loans for the next, um, 20 million years. or something like that. *gulp*)

So, after his first day on the job, instead of surprising with something big that cost a fortune, I got him a pickle. Yup. Laugh all you want... I wanted him to know that he was "kind of a BIG DILL".

He's been working for a little over a month now. Some days are great and some days bring new challenges and frustrations, but I wanted to remind him that I'm "rooting" for him each and every day.... So, I built him a Root Beer Cake! 

 {of course, I didn't use the whole 12-pack for the "cake". I put a couple in the fridge so he could enjoy a cold one when he got home!}

If you've got a spouse to cheer on through graduation or a new job, feel free to snag my free printables below.

BIG DILL TAGS:

Graduation Version:

New Job Version:

ROOT BEER CAKE TAGS:

Dental School Graduation - Open House/Party

Well, folks...it's true! We made it through Dental School! (and by "we" I mean: he made the grades/graduated while I survived the four "widow years")  

Cause to celebrate? Ummm....definitely.

Meagan (my sweet friend from day one of dental school) and I, put our creative efforts together and planned this Dental Graduation Open House for our husbands. 

We had a simple, but yummy spread at the Open House of:

Vegetable Tray
Mixed Fruit Bowl
Chips & Salsa
Appetizer Meatballs
Cocktail Dogs (with TOOTHpicks)
Tooth Shaped Iced Sugar Cookies
Powdered Sugar Tooth Brownies
Blue Punch & Water

 (check out those "tooth"picks in the cocktail dogs... Oriental Trading hooked me up!)

(I cut a stencil out of paper, "laminated" it with tape so the grease wouldn't ruin it, then powdered the individual brownies (made in a pre-cut brownie pan). My mother-in-law was behind the powdering handwork...I'm so glad I had her to help!)

(Meag made these cute cookies to satisfy every guest's sweet tooth!)

I took a favorite punch recipe and turned it blue with food coloring to create this Mouthwash Punch...fun! (Make sure your punch is a clear liquid to start with or you may end up with alternate colors!)

Tooth Banner Decor 

 A favor....who doesn't love an extra pack of gum?

A proud display of their White Lab Coats.

 A photo display of them individually, together at school, and with their wives over the four years.

 Guests were invited to provide some words of wisdom for Mike and Ryan on separate wisdom teeth... both LOVED reading these after the open house. 

...this party was nothing except for the amazingly awesome people that were there. It was a bittersweet moment to be celebrating when we knew we'd be leaving many good friends behind soon!

We're so proud of our grads! Now it's off to Texas for all of us to find out what the "real world" is all about.

Boston Bucket List: Exploration Guide to Living in or Visiting Boston

As our time in Boston is winding down (less than 3 months to go), we look back on all the fun we've had while living here. It's such a great city with access to so many other wonderful places throughout the northeast. We have absolutely loved it here and will certainly miss the New England charm. It's our home and it will be a sad goodbye. 

We thought when we first arrived that'd we'd have all the time in the world to see all that we wanted.  Upperclassmen friends warned us that "the 4 years fly by!" and that we should pack it all in whenever we can. We've tried to do just that. 

I've had several people over the years ask me about my "bucket list" as they prepared travel and touristy plans of their own. We're big on travel and the "been there-done that" philosophy...so, this is a list of our experiences...abbreviated.

This is a great starter list for anyone considering a move to Boston, a visit to Boston, or those who live here now that need to establish a bucket list of your own....

Just click on the downward arrow on the box above to download the document!

Smart Cookie: Exam Treat

This weekend is a BIG weekend in my life. like, BIG big.

M takes his final clinical board exam of dental school today and tomorrow... We've both been pretty nervous about it. He's nervous because he has to do 3 different timed procedures pretty much perfectly. I'm nervous because I"m "on call" as his back up patient in case one of his patients don't show up (an automatic failure in that case)...and I HATE being a dental patient. So, we're hoping and praying all goes well and he passes! There's a lot riding on this exam! 

I sent him off today with a little edible encouragement...

...so he can get a little fillin' before he starts drillin'! Maybe he can bribe the examiners with them, too..? ;)

PS....if your spouse is a student, there are some fun ideas over on my other blog, Love Actually. You can check 'em out HERE.

"Full" of Love: romantic theme

M planned a Valentine getaway to the White Mountains of New Hampshire this last weekend... That, in and of itself, made a great Valentine's Day! But he added a few sweet touches to ensure a lovely weekend!

You can use those "touches" for an anniversary, romantic rendezvous, or to get an early start on next year's Valentine's Day (yeah, right...) I've tweeked his original touches to make a printable for you.

I woke up at home to a table outside our bedroom decorated with lights, rose petals, a small gift box, a love letter, and a framed print like this:

He wrote me a love letter with some keywords that pulled in his "FULL" theme...It really was clever and sweet and something for me to treasure...

Inside the gift box on the table were these....

Laminated strips with "FULL" words...these were for me to use, like coupons, whenever throughout our weekend getaway, starting with the road trip...so he gave them to me first.

Whenever Cards

CareFULL - so I could freely nag by saying "careful!" (like I always do)
awFULL - anything that I thought was "awful" like where to eat, what to do...I could turn down.
helpFULL - for when I needed him to be "helful" to me...
lawFULL - if I caught him speeding or driving crazy, I could nag about being "lawful" and he'd listen.
armFULL - an "armful" of love whenever I wanted it (aka: a hug)
grateFULL - for when I needed a little appreciation from him...
blissFULL - I could choose the "blissful" music for our roadtrip

At the B&B, he set up a basket FULL of goodies...

...with words like: {bellyFULL, bowlFULL, delightFULL, flavorFULL, handFULL, spoonFULL, mouthFULL}

...and another gift box for me to open. Inside were:

Activity Cards

FULL HD - he brought a mini projector and canvas screen to watch movies on the "big screen"
playFULL - for going out, playing in the snow, etc.

FULL Body Massage - my favorite.

FULL House - playing cards or other games he brought

pitiFULL - in case I just wanted to lay around and do nothing!

FULL Moon - he brought the Twilight series DVDs in case I wanted to do a marathon.

He also presented me with a mini muffin pan which was decorated cute with little cutouts covering each muffin tin (something like this with a little less girly-frillyness):

In each muffin tin was an attribute to describe me using the word...(what else?) FULL. And, I could open them whenever I wanted throughout the weekend. Gosh, I sure love this guy...

When I chose each tin and pulled out my strip of paper with the word on it, he explained or used an example to tell me why he thought I exemplified that attribute. sweet.

Here is the list he put together for options:

{YouthFULL, TruthFULL, TrustFULL, MeaningFULL,ThoughtFULL, PowerFULL, UseFULL, WatchFULL, SuccessFULL, SkillFULL, MerciFULL, JoyFULL, GraceFULL, MindFULL, BeautiFULL, FaithFULL, RespectFULL, FULLfilled, CheerFULL}

If you can't already tell, I was FULLy impressed and touched by his thoughtfulness. Hope it's an idea you'll be able to put to use!

You can download a few different color variations of the print HERE.

...and, I thought I'd share a few tidbits from our trip: