Mexico!

Earlier this month Chris's family took us to Cabo San Jose, Mexico, and today I thought I'd share a few photos with you! On this particular day we took a (long) walk from our resort into town to explore the local art district. 

This is the view from our hotel porch. The palm trees all had light switches attached to them! 

Leaving the resort.  

We stopped at a tourist-y market, Chris made a weird face.  

I really wanted to bring home a pretty blanket, but I decided it would just take up space.  

Creepy cape-mask things. 

I loved how colorful the buildings were.  

 

The highlight of the day was when we stopped at a blown glass factory and watched a demonstration. The guys blowing the glass were intense, they were wearing shorts and tennis shoes, no aprons or anything. We had friends in college who had a blown glass set up who wore thick leather aprons and work boots, the dudes in Mexico had nothing like that! It made me nervous, haha. 

These are the only photos from our trip that I'm going to post. The rest are shots of the family as we lounged around the pool, so I think I'll keep those to myself :)

Garden Party

// Dress and Belt: Thrifted // Cardigan and Boots: Target // Ring: Vintage (stolen from my momma //

I feel like a hypocrite here because I was just complaining about eBay sellers who hack off the bottoms of vintage dresses, and here I am in a dress I chopped apart. I didn't even hem it before I took these photos! But this dress is a thousand times better short than it was as an ankle length one. I guess my thing with the eBay sellers is that they take away the choice of altering a vintage dress, plus they cut it to fit themselves or their model, rather than leaving the buyer the option to change the length according to their height and proportions. I'm all for altering dresses if need be! I have a pile waiting for their turn at the sewing machine. They've been sitting there for a while, though, but it's on my to-do list!

I wore this outfit out to dinner with Chris's family at Texas de Brazil. We were celebrating Chris's and his dad's birthday, as well as his dad and stepmom's anniversary. I hadn't been to Texas de Brazil before but I heard good things! The salad bar was amazing, but the best part was the guys who walk around with huge skewers of meat (sorry veggie friends!!). You may not know, but in all my 26 years I had never eaten beef, no hamburgers or steak or anything of the sort! But, Chris was raving about how amazing the steak was at this place, and he said if I was ever going to try red meat that this was the place to do it. So, I did! I tried filet mignon, and I have to admit, it was really good! I feel like I've ruined my chances of enjoying it again, if I tried top of the line steak for my first taste, will I ever be able to eat ~regular steak?? 

It's been raining here pretty much daily, so we've been sticking close to home for the most part. I got a bunch of orders shipped out, and I've been working on some cute new things to list soon too! I'm also itching to start a quilt but I'm also kinda terrified so I just obsess over it without actually putting any work into it. Any tips for a quilting newb??

A Baby Beach Day.

On Monday my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew visited our new house for the first time. We spent a little time at the beach and I snapped some adorable photos of Emerson enjoying the water :)
Emerson's hair is getting so curly! Cute cute cute. He had fun trying to eat rocks and splashing in the water, but it was super hot out so we didn't last long at the beach. We came back to our house and he busied himself with banging on the table and trying to catch the cat. Babies are hilarious :)

Today Chris and I rand LOTS of errands, and spent too much money buying birthday presents for family (lots of late July and August birthdays in our lives!). I also stocked up on more awesome stuff from LUSH, which I can't wait to test run and fill you in on. We're spending the night lounging on the couch and I'm pretty damn excited about it. We haven't had a quiet night in together for quite some time!

Instagram!

I've been trying to use Instagram a bit more lately, and I thought I'd share my most recent pictures on the blog! If you're on Instagram, you can search susannahbean to find me!


I'm trying to figure out what to put in my window boxes. Also, I love the little gnome our landlord left behind :)
I found this little headband in a box of craft room junk. What do you think of it?
I found these pretties too :) I'd like to find new homes for the purple one (on the bottom) and the yellow one, $7 each with shipping. Email me if you're interested!!
I really can't resist buying my nephew clothes! I'm definitely gonna be in trouble when I have babies of my own.
Jeans is adjusting well to the new house, and totally loves his little kitty perch again (he hasn't used it in years, but we put it in front of the window and he's on it all the time!)
I feel like it's really weird that Jeans lays with his back legs straight out (he looks more normal in the picture than it does in person, he's usually on his tummy with his legs pointed straight behind him!). Apparently a lot of people's cats lay like that though.
Jeans and Chris play peek-a-boo in the kitchen entryway.
Please don't judge me for this, but Jeans and I share water bottles. He gets so pushy when I open a bottle, I just gave up trying to keep him from drinking out of them. I know, I'm a gross cat-mom.

My dad and stepmom rescued this little squirrel a few weeks ago and I got to visit with him! It was seriously a dream come true. So so cute, and I want one! But, he's a wild animal that'll be going back outside as soon as he's big enough.

Thank you all for your sweet words about my dad! He came home yesterday morning, and he's getting lots of rest and feeling better every minute :) We're all so glad he's ok, it was definitely a scary situation but I'm glad he was able to have the surgery before anything terrible happened. Now we just have 6-9 weeks of recovery to get through...!!

Life.

 

I feel like every other blog post of mine is an explanation of where I've been. But things are pretty crazy in my life right now. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen that my dad had to have surgery. He's been seeing a cardiologist for a little while who told him that he'd have to have open heart surgery in the next few years, then it turned into the next few weeks, and then he went for a test on Wednesday and they wouldn't let him leave. He had a triple bypass and aortic valve replacement surgery on Thursday. It's been tough, and I've spent a lot of time at the hospital, but he's doing great! I haven't had too much time or energy to wear my blogger hat, but I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things soon :) Thank you all for bearing with me! And thank you for all your good vibes and kind words, it's all meant so much to me.

I'm still here...

 I love this photo of Chris, and I love him and how supportive he's been.

I feel like these last few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind. I have so much going on right now that I'm struggling to keep up with everything. A lot of the people I'm closest to are going through some really tough stuff (some are sick, some are splitting up, some have had their lives turned upside down...). I'm trying my hardest to keep things together well enough to support everyone who needs it, and it's tough, guys. I'm starting to feel a little more in control now, so I think I can get back into my usual swing of things :) I have a lovely guest post from a sweet friend coming soon, and hopefully a cool tutorial by the end of the week! Right now, I'm off to bed (after I finish this episode of Bones... I'm obsessed!). Goodnight lovelies.

What I wore: a Wisconsin Thrift

Dress and belt: Thrifted

Tights and boots: Target

A few days after Christmas I made the not-too-long drive up to a little town outside of Racine, Wisconsin to pick up my niece Isabelle for a day together. She was in town for the holidays from California, and I haven't seen her since my sister's baby shower last July, and I wanted to spend some quality time with her before she packed up for home. We did some shopping, ate lunch, and talked about everything under the sun. I'm only ten years older than her, and even though we live so far apart, we get along so well when we're together that she feels more like a sister than my niece :) 

We ended the day at the local Goodwill (of course!!) and I found this little gem of a dress. I've been digging wearing warm colors lately, more pinks and reds than I normally do. I don't mind wearing bright colors at all, but usually I stick to aquas and blues and greens. But I really love this dress, and it fits well and has pockets, which are the the basic essentials for something to become a staple in my wardrobe :) 

Kaelah and Mike left the other day, and OF COURSE we didn't take any photographs together. Well, one single blurry (but still pretty awesome) polaroid on an old camera of mine that I'll post eventually. And, we didn't film the vlog we wanted to. Maybe we'll Skype each other and answer your questions then! I guess we just get distracted from the 'blog world' when we're around each other... Not totally a bad thing! 

Have a beautiful day, friend!

What I wore... to Christmas with my mom!

My mom was in town from California a few days before Christmas, so we all decided to get together on the 22nd to celebrate. My sister Lauren had arranged a family photoshoot with her photographer friend Jen. It was really fun and the photos turned out cute! This is the outfit I picked, although I wore my brown Target boots rather than my Blowfish Heda wedges. I think these wedges are way cuter though!

Kaelah and Mike got into town last night, and we're having such a good time! I'm so thankful to have these two in our lives. Oh, and this happened...

We both said yes, of course :)

Hope you're having a fabulous weekend!

Pretty cake.

I don't have much to update you on, I've been busy working my real job and working on Etsy stuff and haven't had the time or motivation to get dressed up and take pictures :) Here's a little peek into the birthday celebration we had for my niece Vivianrose, though, because my sister Lauren made the prettiest winter themed cake! My niece (and sister Cara) just moved from California to Wisconsin, so this winter will Vivianrose's first! We did all winter themed gifts, a huge sled, snow boots, and a lovely headband from my shop :)

How was your weekend?

Jewel Tones and Baby Love.

Yesterday I went into the city to visit my sister and nephew. It's been a couple weeks since I visited, and since then Emerson turned one month old! It's funny, I'm not normally afraid or nervous with babies, but when they're brand new it can be a little nerve-wracking. Now that he's officially one month old, though, it was a lot less pressure interacting with him. I was snatchin' him up and snuggling on him as much as I could!

Skirt, Cardigan, Belt: Thrifted

Tee: Target clearance

Scarf: Gift from my momma

Lauren and I took Emerson out by ourselves (my sister's first time out sans hubby!) and had a nice little lunch at Caffe DeLuca in Bucktown. Emerson was a teeny bit fussy, so while Lauren dealt with him I ate, and then we switched! It was a great little venture out, and I loved being out with my sister again :)

We came home and addressed a hundred or so birth announcements to send out, I held the baby as much as I could before he went down, and then I headed home, tired but so so happy. I feel so lucky to live close enough to my sister and brother-in-law that I can pop by on my free days to hang out. I don't want to miss anything in this little bug's life!!