I hope you guys are having a lovely week! It was such a fantastic week for our family and we enjoyed a happy occasion this past weekend celebrating our Granny getting married.
Emily got to be a flower girl so I scored this cute little flower girl dress from thredUP for the occasion (I hate spending a fortune on one occasion dresses!) and we got all dolled up for the event. I still stuck to my capsule and am thankful I added a little black dress to my wardrobe for occasions like these. This was Emily’s flower girl debut and she rocked it and walked her Granny down the aisle like a true professional flower girl!
I am no wedding photographer, but my grandma asked me to take some pictures of their big day. I don’t know how wedding photographers handle the pressure of capturing those big moments and I’m thankful my grandma wasn’t expecting anything too professional because THE PRESSURE!! This is one of my favorite pictures that I snapped of them though! Isn’t it precious? I combined a million coupon codes and got some photo albums printed from Shutterfly and made sure to blow this one up in an 8×10. I can’t wait to give them their pictures.
This image, in particular, just makes me really happy!
I’m looking forward to a quieter weekend with my family and just scored another big stack of books from the library to dig into! Let me know if you’ve read any of these- I always love your opinions on books.
Here are a few other things that are making me happy this week!
I Finally Mastered My Curling Wand
Years and years ago I purchased this Conair Infiniti Curling Wand (just a little over $20!!), tried to use it, promptly failed, and put it back in the box to never be used again. It may have been the length of my hair, but I really think it was the fact that I couldn’t figure out how in the heck to use it. Curling wands require a bit of a learning curve. If you saw me, you would have died laughing- it was awful.
My sweet friend, Abby from Twist Me Pretty, had this incredible tutorial on how to use a curling wand and I started using that and finally got the hang of it. Her curls are much looser thanks to the larger barrel on the iron, but I am happy with what can acheive with my $22 curling wand that had been gathering dust in storage. Since my hair is coarse and thick, it takes a long time for me to curl it all, but once I have it curled it actually holds until I wash it a few days later!
Here is a close up of what my hair looks like with using it and that picture from my grandma’s wedding (above) also gives you an idea of what the waves look like. I always wondered how people achieved (and held) their waves like this and now I know the secret. If you have wanted to experiment with a curling wand, I can’t recommend that tutorial and this inexpensive wand enough!
The New Harry Potter Illustrated
We got to take part in an Instagram campaign to share about the new Harry Potter Illustrated which was so exciting. Today this is not sponsored in any way, our family is just madly in love with this new book. For those that haven’t heard about it yet, Jim Kay is going to be illustrating the entire Harry Potter series in this colorful book and this is the first book in the series. This first one had over a hundred illustrations, but each illustration is like a million illustrations because of his incredible detail. Watch this piece on BBC to get a peek at his technique and artistry- it is jaw-droppingly beautiful! What is more impressive is that he is putting his own interpretation on each of these characters which I would think is one of the biggest challenges since the movie versions are so beloved.
My daughter asked to take this book to school yesterday which upset my son who also wanted to take it into his art class to show them. When we picked up my holds at the library, guess what was sitting there…yup, this Harry Potter Book. My son checked it out so they would each have their own copies and they both have been rereading it with these illustrations nonstop.
We were almost late for our bus this morning for this very reason. I’m not kidding.
If you have a Harry Potter fan, I would definitely add this to your Christmas or birthday wish lists. It’s simply stunning!
The Martian (With My Dad)
I have been impatiently waiting for The Martian to come out ever since I read the book. You may recall that Andy Weir joined me in our Sundays With Writers series to talk about his book and the upcoming film. I had my husband help me craft the questions because the science behind so much of this story was so astounding that only a genius mind could have ever come up with such an incredible survival story for an astronaut stuck on Mars in this book.
I encouraged my Dad to read the book and he absolutely loved it as much as I did. We planned to see the movie together when it came out and I got my movie date with my Dad yesterday which was AWESOME! The movie was just as incredible as the book which, in my opinion, rarely happens. We didn’t get to see it in 3D, although I have heard that the elements are really amazing if you can see it that way, but the visuals were still really incredible.
My Dad read the book more recently so he remarked a couple of times on a few things that were missing, but we both thought it was a really good interpretation and kept that humor that we loved.
If you haven’t seen it yet, I can’t recommend it enough. For those that have asked me if they can take their space-loving kids to it, there are several F-Bombs (although fewer than the book) so I guess it depends on how comfortable you feel with that. If that element wasn’t in there, it would have probably been a PG film! I hope that helps!
PS- Can you believe how affordable a movie before noon is in our town? Such a steal!!
Happy weekend, friends! xoxo
*this post may contain affiliate links- I only recommend what I love though. Check out past editions of It’s the 3 Little Things!
Now it’s your turn! What’s making you happy this week?