This Little Nest of Mine

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T22:48:00.001-05:00

Kansas City loves their BBQ and their Chiefs. But what happens when we have a Monday night football game on Halloween? The number of trick or treater's is at an all time low. In fact our doorbell only rang 3 times the whole night long.

THANKFULLY we did not give out chocolate or I would eat it all. LUCKILY I bought some nice colorful lollipops that adds some pop in the kitchen.

Happy Halloween!!!

*EDIT* The Chiefs WON in OT!!!!

Picture Catch Up

2011-10-25T20:41:00.000-05:00

I am dusting off the cobwebs from my blog. I am back!!! Whew! These past couple months have been busy, busy, busy!! I can't complain, though, because I absolutely love spending time with my girl, even if it is running her all over the city to the next "thing" she has to be at. I am glad she is outgoing in school because I was not. I was shy and it thrills me that she is not afraid to try things and it is excites me even more to see her succeed at them.

Here are some things we have been up to and what I will be catching you up on in the next several posts.

It is sooooooooo good to be back!

Thank you for visiting!!
XOXO!!

Schedule Overload!!

2011-09-05T22:27:00.000-05:00

I can't get to my blog as often as I would like because my daughter's school schedule has kicked in.

Days with nothing to do are few and far between. She is trying out for the school play tomorrow and if she makes it we will go into over drive!!

But I am not complaining. This is exactly one of the reasons I wanted to be a Mama. The busier we are the more time I actually get to spend with her. Especially the drives to and from the events she has to be at/come home from. We get a lot of special mother-daughter talking time in and I love every second of it! I am not saying she is always pleasant because there are days she is less than sweet. But you take the good with the bad.

Here is my girl cheering at the first volleyball game of the year. She is the 3rd from the left.

I don't know if it is the overwhelming schedule or that I am now dancing in my 40's but I have became awful forgetful. My memory was one of my best attributes. I feel like I am loosing it as I am forgetting so many things lately. I have resulted in having to write myself notes like this.

I forgot my cell phone at home a couple days so I have resulted in leaving myself a note each morning. I laugh though, remember how we used to not have cell phones and we functioned just fine? Now if I forget mine I feel "naked". Oh how the times have changed!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

The Help

2011-08-28T12:29:00.002-05:00

This weekend I went with some of my girlfriends to see The Help.

I highly, highly recommend this movie!!

Emma Stone is one my favorite actresses and she does not disappoint in this movie.

The offspring of this man, that I grew up with on TV, is in the movie. But you won't like her character at all!!

You will fall in love with these two gals. I hope they win awards for this movie.

And be sure to bring plenty of these

We just had our napkins for our popcorn and didn't have enough to wipe our tears.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

Twice Skunked!!

2011-08-22T23:02:00.000-05:00

Our dog got skunked AGAIN!!! At least I figured out where the nest is. Calling in a skunk exterminator tomorrow!!! Uuuuuuuughhh!!

When Life Gives You Rain Take Pictures

2011-08-20T23:44:00.000-05:00

It has been rainy the past few days so we haven't done much.

I did an intense cleaning - every nook and cranny- of the living room this morning. I am going to try to do the same for the kitchen tomorrow. Kay played make-up artist and I was her model. And we ran a few errands. That is it.

I was bored this evening so I got the camera out and took a few pictures around the house.

Maybe tomorrow it won't be so wet outside.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

Two Blessings

2011-08-19T08:06:00.000-05:00

I love reading Megan's blog, In This Wonderful Life. Today is a very exciting day for them as they will be welcoming their twins, Knox & Sloane.

Be sure to stop by Megan's blog to send her well wishes as she delivers, or to see the pictures of their new bundles of joy once they post them. You can also read their big brother, Cohen's, story who now lives with Jesus.

I am so happy for this couple. They have been through so much. They are so open with their story and are a true inspiration. May God's blessings be on them today and their sweet children.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Dress Form

2011-08-15T17:28:00.000-05:00

My sister and I have totally different decorating likes. But, boy, does my sissy have a keen eye for things that will go perfectly in my home.

Look what she found me at a garage sale last week!!

I have wanted a dress form forever!! I have seen them in some of the antique stores but they were way too expensive. I even went as far as seeing what they would cost brand new and then I could make it look old but those were even more than the ones I seen in the antique stores!

The lady that was selling her had her in a room that she had decorated in a Paris theme. I am so thankful she was selling it a great price and that my sister stopped at this garage sale before someone else picked her up!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

Randomness & We've Been Skunked!!

2011-08-08T22:49:00.002-05:00

Here is what has been going on in our world.

Our oldest left for the Army this morning. My mind has been racing all day long. I wonder what he is doing now? Did he forget anything? Is he getting enough to eat? Is his bed comfortable? Is he making new friends and fitting in? Please keep him in prayer!!

I made a stop at the expensive thrift store. I just cannot figure that place out. I picked up this apothecary jar in which it was WAY under priced by this thrift store standards. Not that I am complaining!

I have had my eye on a glass candy dish at this same thrift store for weeks now. It is priced at $24.98!! The candy dish cannot be any bigger than the bottom fourth of the apothecary jar yet is priced $22 higher!! Like I said I just don't get how they come up with their pricing! If the candy dish ever comes down to $2.98 I just might buy it!

I also found this cute little jar for 98 cents. I love the red clasp.

I am in no way ready for winter but couldn't pass these cute salt and pepper shakers up. I have had visions of fall and Christmas decorating in my head for weeks now!!

Last but certainly not least...

I love this dog but she has been a thorn in my side the past several days.

We tend to stay up really late on the weekends. Ok, I stay up late during the week too but even a little later on the weekends. Before I go to bed I always let the dog go out to do her thing one last time. On Friday evening I let her out at 1:30AM and when she came back in she had been sprayed by a skunk!!

I have never smelled something so rotten in my life!! I didn't know she had been sprayed so I let her back in the house although she never left the kitchen. The kids were already in bed and within minutes they were all up with their shirts over their noses asking what smelled so bad. Yes, the smell consumed the house that fast!! And the smell is not like the skunk smell when you pass one on the street that has been hit by a car. This is much, much worse. Being that it was 1:30AM there wasn't much we could do until the next morning. I had her sleep in the kitchen which was a huge mistake! I should have had her stay outside but she is an indoor dog. I am sure my neighbors would have called the police on us because of all the commotion she would have made if I left her out there.

So the following day we had to give her a bath to get the skunk smell off of her. We looked on the Internet and found that the best remedy. Here is the recipe just in case you may need it one day:

1 quart 3% Hydrogen Peroxide
1/4 cup Baking Soda
1 teaspoon liquid soap
(Dawn dish washing detergent is often recommended, but any dish soap will work)

Thankfully it only took one bath (outside!) of the solution and she no longer smelled like skunk. Then I had to tackle the lingering skunk smell in our house. I cleaned, scrubbed, and boiled everything with vinegar. We bought Glade air fresheners for every room. It even cooled off enough where we opened the windows for a while. We burn candles anytime we are home. It is now 4 days later and there is still a faint skunk smell in our house. The smell has turned to more of the rotten smell that you smell when you pass a skunk that has been hit on the road. Unbelievably awful!! I think we get used to it after we have been here for a while and the candles and air fresheners do a good job of masking the smell. I also Febreeze often. It is getting a little better every day but I think it is going to take a good week or so before it is completely gone. My word of advice is if you even think your dog has been sprayed by a skunk do NOT let it into the house!!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

Southern Plate & Omlete Made Easy

2011-08-02T22:18:00.001-05:00

Do you know about Southernplate.com? That is my newest website discovery and I am in love!! It is chocked full of delicious southern recipes. I have all kinds lined up to try.

Tonight I made their Omlete Made Easy for dinner. Yes, ma'am, breakfast for dinner, that is how we roll!

I added more than a cup of diced ham and the diced onion and bell peppers mixture to ours.

Here it is before it went into the oven.

About 5 minutes before it was done I added a little bit of cheese to the top. I had to move mine down to the bottom rack in order to get the middle to cook thoroughly.

Here is a close up of all its yummy glory.

Breakfast would not be complete in these parts without some Shatto Milk. It is so thick and creamy. We drank the entire jug!!

EDIT: I reheated a piece of the OME this morning for breakfast and it is still just as delicious!

Be sure to go check out Southernplate!!
Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

Colorado Trip

2011-07-20T22:38:00.003-05:00

I am not much of a traveler. I guess you could say I am a homebody. I am on the go all the time while we are "home" but it is in places I am familiar with. However, we have done more traveling this year than I believe we have in the last 10 years combined! It has all been very enjoyable and much needed. Since I am not much of a traveler I didn't realize the good it does for us to get away and enjoy parts of our beautiful country that we do not see on a daily basis.

I won't bore you with all of my mountain pictures. Although if you are my friend on FB you have seen them all!! But I will show you some of the highlights of our trip.

Our first night we stayed in Victor, Colorado. It is a small town with a population of 455. I don't know if it has to do with the economy or if it is just the way it is but most of the businesses are gone in Victor. But it still is a nice, peaceful little town.

We went to Victor to stay in The Victor Hotel. Two of our kids watch the show Ghost Adventurers and they have been to the hotel and said it was "haunted". I don't believe in all of that stuff but will say we did see and hear some things. Let's just say some of us were up until about 3AM because of shadows we were seeing under the door and hearing something being rolled around on the floor above us.

Like I said there were not many business in Victor but there was a "bar" (The Lucky Buck) across the street that sells pizza. My sister's family ate there before and told us we HAD to eat there. I am glad we did. It was the BEST pizza we have ever had!!

We also visited the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Here we are by the chapel which is absolutely beautiful! Boy! Do I have a cheesy smile in the picture!

The chapel has several different chapels inside for the different denominations. We walked into one and a solider was up front praying. It was so touching.

We ate at a place called Crave in Castle Rock. They sell speciality burgers. Here is mine. It had peanut butter, onions and bacon on it along with some sweet potato french fries. It was delish!

We also ate at Bronco Billy's Casino in Cripple Creek. The food is very cheap so that they can lure you into gamble. We didn't gamble at all but all 5 of us had a nice breakfast for the whopping cost of $20.12!! Most of the breakfasts were 49 cents and then if you added bacon or sausage it was an extra 75 cents.

While we are talking about food I will share one more place we at breakfast at. It was called The Egg & I. It was very good and decorated in all my favorites. I will post about the decorating in another post.

The most exciting thing we did was go to the top of Pikes Peak. I wanted to make the drive up the mountain to "say I did it" but I chickened out before we even got there. I am glad I did not drive because the closer we got to the top the more scared I got. It is WAY up there!

We made it all the way to 14,110 feet above sea level!!

Here are some pictures of the kids as we were coming down.

We spent our last day in Colorado Springs. This was our view from our hotel.

Colorado was beeeautiful! Goodbye mountains!! We hope to see you again sometime!!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Silver Jackpot II

2011-07-18T22:05:00.001-05:00

We have been having major Internet problems. We started having them a couple weeks ago in which we reported it to our provider. They told us they were having problems in our area and to be patient and they would get it fixed as soon as possible. We then went on our family vacation and when we returned we were still having problems. We had a repairman out in which he got us up and running again. Then a day later we started having problems again where we will have the Internet for a while and then all a sudden it will drop. We have another repairman coming out so hopefully we can get it fixed for good. We are wondering if the culprit is a mole that we have in our backyard. We think maybe he chewed the line in which now it has a short. ???

I will post some of our vacation pictures later this week. But for now let me show you the jackpot I found today at the thrift store.

Twenty five pieces of silverware for $6.25!!! I couldn't wait to get home and start polishing them!!

I heart them so much!!

I will have to get a bigger container to add them to. I need to go through them all but I think I have enough now to start using them as our flatware.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Viva Las Vegas Day 3

2011-07-08T20:50:00.000-05:00

My husband and I quickly learned that our favorite hotel was the Bellagio.

We spent a lot of time in this hotel too. Everything is very spacious in the Bellagio as well as bright and colorful. It makes you feel relaxed and happy to be there.

This is the check in counter at the Bellagio. Remember you can double click on the pictures to make them bigger!

These blown glass flowers are on the ceiling in the check in area.

This little courtyard is just outside of the check in area. They were having a flower display in the courtyard while we were there and it smelled heavenly. Here my husband is tossing some coins into the fountain in honor of his Dad that passed away in March. And a picture of the Hydrangeas that were part of the display.

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took on the trip. These were beautifully colored umbrellas hanging from a glass dome ceiling.

It wouldn't be right to visit the Bellagio and not see the fountain show!! We had a little bit of a wait time so we watched some ducks that were in the pool.

Let the show begin!!!

The fountain show was beautiful!! We never made it back down there at night to see it with the lights. We will have to do that on our next trip to Vegas.

When we went up in the Eiffel Tower we were able to catch the fountain show again but this time from up above.

Look how high the water gets!!

I have a few more pictures to show so be sure to come back tomorrow!
XOXO!

Viva Las Vegas Day 2

2011-07-07T21:48:00.003-05:00

The MGM hotel was right across the street from the hotel we were staying at. We ate dinner there at the buffet the first night. They had steak on the buffet that was wonderful!! They were small pieces so I had two!! There is a lion exhibit (cage) inside; however, we were inside this hotel on two different days and never saw it.

The hotel I always thought I would like the best was the Luxor. I like the shape and the light that comes out the top. We only went into the lobby of this hotel and it wasn't what I thought it would be. It is not bad or anything. Just plain and simple like it would inside a pyramid.

My husband's second favorite hotel is Caesar's Palace. I think it is because he is into sports and he knows some big time sporting events take place here.

They have some really neat statues inside.

We spent a lot of time in The Venetian. My husband is part Italian and I love learning about his heritage. One thing I knew I wanted to do was take a gondola ride. The outdoor rides were down for the day so we had to take an indoor ride. The ride is only 12 minutes long but a lot of fun. We rode with another couple that this was their first time in LV as well. We took pictures of each other but ours turned out blurry. Oh well. I got a shot of our gondola driver who sang us Italian songs on the ride. If you are in LV I highly recommend taking a gondola ride. If you are with your honey you will especially like what the Italians do under each bridge!

After our gondola ride we had some gelato which is Italian ice cream. Gelato is full of flavor unlike our traditional ice cream!! My husband had pistachio and I had cinnamon. I sent my MIL (who is Italian) a text and told her we have to learn how to make gelato! In the background of the picture is a lady dressed up as a statue. She would move every once in a while. People would walk up to her stand and put money on the top step.

Here is some 4th of July decor inside The Venetian

Here are a few hotels that we did not go inside but took pictures of them or their signs.

We went through the Paris Hotel and even went up into the Eiffel Tower.

I also recommend going up in the Eiffel Tower. The ride up is sort of scary but once at the top the view is spectacular!! It only costs $20 for two people to go up and you can stay as long as you want. I will share some pictures from the view up there today but will save some for tomorrow as I show you our FAVORITE hotel. (You can double click on the pictures to make them bigger)

See you tomorrow!

XOXO!

Viva Las Vegas Day 1

2011-07-06T22:46:00.000-05:00

My husband surprised me with a trip to Las Vegas. We had talked about going for years mainly just to tour all the hotels on the strip. We had NO clue what to expect except for some pointers that friends and family that had already been gave us. I thought I would take a couple days to share some tips now that we have been in case anyone stumbles upon my blog and are in our shoes before their first trip to Las Vegas.

First off it is the desert so it is hot. I absolutely love desert weather. It is totally different than summer weather we have in the Midwest which is very humid. So you want to dress accordingly. I wore cotton shorts and a blouse during the day and was perfectly fine but then again I love hot weather. My husband got a little warm.

You also want to wear comfortable shoes if you plan on walking the strip. The hotels are HUGE and you will walk a long distance to get from one to the other. I saw many women wearing 4 inch heels and I don’t know how they did it. My legs would have done gone and gave out on me by the time we arrived at the first hotel.

Two more things that are key are lip balm and water. If you forget to bring lip balm with you most of the stores in the hotels sell it. Your lips will get very dry and you will want to take care of them. All the stores sell water as well but it is expensive. There are locals that sell ice cold water on the streets and walkways for $1. It is a better deal to buy it through them. While we were there we noticed several ambulances on the strip. We later found out it was from individuals drinking alcohol as a way to keep themselves hydrated which was really doing the opposite effect.

Since we did not know anything about the hotels we stayed at the Tropicana which is one of the very first hotels on the strip coming from the south. It is an older hotel that has been renovated. Our stay there was very nice. It is more of a down to earth hotel. You more than likely wouldn’t be staying with snooty flooty high rollers there. It has a smaller casino but is still a lot of fun. The only draw backs to this hotel are since it is at the beginning of the strip it is quite a walk to all the bigger hotels. Also the parking lot is always full. We would walk what seemed like a mile from our parking spot to the hotel entrance!!

Our friends told us that eating in Las Vegas was very cheap because they want you to spend your money on gambling. Well we never happened upon cheap eating. We were there on a holiday weekend so maybe they raised the prices?? Although the food was expensive it was good…. so we can’t complain.

As you are out and about walking the strip you will encounter many people trying to sell you things. Of course they will tell you they are not trying to sell you anything but that is a ploy. Just politely say no thank you and keep walking. DO NOT STOP or they will reel you in!! They may say some rude comment to you but who cares you are on vacation and enjoying your time. Everyone there is trying to make money and they get a little ticky when you won’t be their customer. The strip is good people watching. You will see things that you have never seen before. You will see things you wish you had not. And you will find people who need to be found.

We rented a car but it really was not needed. You can walk anywhere you want to go. Or they have a real good deal on 24 hour bus passes. We did drive to a few places but that was a scary experience. Ninety –nine percent of the people do not know where they are so they are all over the place. The rest are cabbies which will run you over and not look back. Then there are the locals that want to get to where they need to go and the lost tourists are in their way! One time when we went to Orlando we got a silver car and couldn't remember where we parked. We got this neon green car so that we would be sure to be able to find it if needed.

Tomorrow I will start the tour of hotels and the strip. See ya then!!

XOXO!

No Justice for Caylee

2011-07-06T09:32:00.000-05:00

I have been following the Casey Anthony case since the night the story broke. I have read and seen more information about this case then I probably should have. To say I was disappointed in the verdict is an understatement. Now a day later after the verdict was read I continue to feel emotionally drained. Here are my thoughts on this case.

The Prosecution. I think Linda Drane Verdick, Jeff Ashton and Frank George did a brilliant job presenting their case. Sure they only had circumstantial evidence but it was good evidence. I hope they do not feel like they didn’t do enough because that would be untrue. I think they represented little Caylee very well.

The Jury. I have mixed feelings about the jury. They didn’t know Casey Anthony like we did. They didn’t get to read or see all the information that we did. They didn’t know Casey Anthony acted one way when they were in the court room and was all smiles and giggles when they were not in there. I know it is their right to not speak publically about their decision but it has left a great deal of us American’s saying “Huh?” Did they really think this decision through in 10 hours or less? Some say there was no motive but I don’t see it that way. Casey wanted to have “the good life” without a child. Then there was the charge of not guilty on child neglect. How can a mother not report her child “missing” for 31 days and that not be child neglect? Although we all know she wasn’t missing but thrown on the side of the road like garbage but that is not neglect either. HUH???

Then there is George. I think the entire Anthony family is dysfunctional but in my humble honest opinion George is the one with the most sense. I may be entirely wrong but that is how I feel. I think he is totally controlled by his wife, Cindy. Perhaps his weakest link is that he cannot be a strong man and run his family like he should. I do not believe George sexually abused Casey nor do I believe he had anything to do with the murder or cover up. Although I do believe the Anthony’s know more about what actually happened but they are not saying in order to protect Casey.

Which brings me to Cindy. I have never been a Cindy fan. There was a part in the trial where I felt like she was starting to be honest but then she went back to lying. I have never been in a situation like Cindy has but I told my daughter long before this trial was even in existence that I would never lie for her. And I meant that. Honesty is very important to me and it is something I will not tolerate. But with Cindy being a liar herself she not only trained Casey to lie but she accepted Casey’s lies when she told them.

Brother Lee. I go back and forth on Lee. I think the G & A overindulged in Casey and Lee got left out of the picture many times as they grew up. I believe by the time Casey was a teen she was a handful and Lee was left on his own. I believe he spend quite a lot of time by himself or with his friends. At times I have seen him distance himself from this case and others he, too, lied for Casey.

Where do we go from here? I believe Cindy will allow Casey to go back to the family home once she is released from jail. I think that decision will be totally disrespectful to her husband after Casey threw him under the bus in the trial. Casey will not be able to work unless Jose hires her. But that would be kind of weird for him to pay her after he was her attorney for three years for free!! Casey will continue to free load off of G & A and they will allow it. But maybe that is what they deserve after lying for her under oath. I believe the Anthony’s will live in hell on earth once Casey gets back into their home.

Casey. Although I do not think the jury made the correct verdict we all know people like this will flub up again. Casey will pay the price if not on this Earth but one day she will meet God and have to redeem her sins.

Trust. I have to have trust that the Lord knows what He is doing. He would never let this little girl’s death be in vain. With the female role models Caylee had maybe it was best for her to go live with Him. This case is so much bigger than Casey Anthony. Sure she will be strutting around like she is hot poo poo that she got away with it but it isn’t about her. Sure she is going to get book deals and appear on every TV show that will toss money at her. She is an Anthony. That is what they do. But that will all go away one day and the world will forget about them. But we all can always hold Caylee’s memory in our hearts. We can all smile when we hear Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star being sang. We can all be better mother’s holding our children tighter each day AND teaching them the lessons in life like how to not be a liar. We can flip on our porch light every night at 9PM and let them shine for Caylee.

We don’t have to like the verdict nor the Anthony family but we do need to pray for them.

Still here

2011-06-27T22:38:00.000-05:00

I am still here!! I have been following the Casey Anthony case ever since it happened and all my spare time goes to that right now. Hopefully that will all be wrapped up with in the next week (and little Caylee Marie gets the justice she deserves!!) and I will be back to blogging!!

Silver Jackpot!!

2011-06-13T20:26:00.000-05:00

Today my co-worker that I normally go to lunch with had errands to run so it gave me the perfect excuse to run to the thrift store by my work. I found some great little finds but my photos are not that great. A certain someone, who happened to live in my womb for 40 weeks, decided to use my camera one day when I was not home and changed some of my settings. I get a headache thinking about how to set them back to what I had them. I mean I could read the users manual but that sounds too easy!

The best part of my find was several silver spoons! Ca-ching! I hit the jackpot today. And at 25 cents each that was a real bargain!

And here is how everything looks cleaned up.

The sweet creamer and butter dish with a silver lid.

And some sweet saucers to go with my mix match china set I am collecting. I always look up china on replacements.com just for the fun of it after I buy it. The thrift store did not have the matching tea cups but if they did all 4 sets would be worth around $115!! And people just throw this stuff out! I am glad they do!

I didn't get a good picture of all the silver flatware but these are my favorite. They are personalized with a "T". I am slowly getting there in getting a mix match silver flatware set. The hardest to find are the forks. Any pointers?

And just for fun I wanted to show you the flowers in the popcorn tin again. They are thriving so well. I love when I drive up to the house and see them sitting there in all their glory.

Thank you, Belle, for your recommendation of Google Chrome. You do not know how long it took me to do this post. As soon as I get off from here I am going to download it!! Thanks again! XOXO!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

Flower Pot Tin

2011-06-07T21:26:00.000-05:00

Hopefully Blogger is done doing their maintenance and I can upload more than one picture tonight.

This project started out with a tin that I found at the thrift store. It used to be a popcorn tin so I like how big it is.

My sweet husband tapped some holes in the bottom with a nail and hammer so that the extra water can get through. Easy peasy!!

I filled the bottom third or so with potting soil.

Then I added some flowers and topped it off with more dirt.

As you can see I turned the lid over and sat the tin inside to catch the extra water. Yes, it is going to rust and I will probably have to throw it away...eventually. This was picture was taken about two weeks ago. The flowers are doing really well in it. Do you notice our balcony area that is two different colors? Yeah, didn't quite get that finished before it got too cold out last year. Painting that is number one on my list whenever we have free time.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Update

2011-06-06T21:06:00.000-05:00

Did you think I fell off the face of the earth? Our summer schedule has kicked in and we are busier than ever. Our teens are out of school but are all in summer school. Earning some extra credits like good kiddos!

After the Joplin tornado we got quite a scare here the following week. Here is a picture of the clouds over downtown Kansas City. This picture (from Google) was not altered at all. Scary! I called my husband who works downtown and told him to take cover immediately. He told me the managers were telling them it was no where near them. He totally freaked out the next day when he saw this picture. And by the way they DID end up taking cover.

This storm ended up producing a touch down tornado about an hour and 15 minutes south of us. We had to take cover at work for about an hour and a half. The cell phone lines were overloaded as we all attempted to get in touch with our children who were at school. Tis the season for severe weather. I don't like it one bit!

K's cheer camp was cancelled in Joplin which is completely understandable. I was bummed for selfish reasons as my husband and I were going to go to the Precious Moments Chapel while we were in the area for the camp. Oh well, we will hit it another time.

I am getting ready to start a project in our upstairs bathroom. I am going to paint the walls, the vanity and a wall cabinet. I am going to have to do it in bits and pieces as time allows but I am super excited about it.

I finally did my little flower pot tin project a couple weeks ago. Here is how it went.

Well apparently Blogger is doing maintenance right now and I can't upload any other pictures. I will be back tomorrow to post about it.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO

Joplin

2011-05-23T23:07:00.000-05:00

I am sure you have heard about the devastating tornado that hit Joplin, MO. There are no words to describe what they are going through. It is awful. I pray that the Lord be with them during this time and help us all come together to help them rebuild.

We have a friend that left to go down there yesterday to help out and we pray for his safe return. One of our firehouses from our city sent a crew down to help as well. We pray for their safe return. A police officer from a neighboring town went down and was struck by lightening and killed today. Please pray for his family. I also have a friend who has some friends that were visiting Joplin for the day. They have found the car they were in, in which the top of the car was ripped off but they cannot find those that were inside the car. Please pray that they will be found.

Please pray for those that lost family members, got injured or lost everything.

The weather was awful in Joplin today and hindered search and rescue efforts. We have more storms coming through tomorrow which almost our entire state could see severe weather. I pray we can all be spared these storms, especially the Joplin area.

If you would like to donate you can do so through the American Red Cross. I have provided a link here.

We are supposed to be headed down to Joplin in a couple weeks for Kay's cheer camp. The tornado hit about 9 minutes away from where we would be. I am almost sure it will be rescheduled somewhere else.

Thank you for your prayers!
XOXO!

One Basket Makeover Down, One To Go!

2011-05-16T22:47:00.000-05:00

I like that on Monday nights Logan's has a special where you basically get two meals for the price of one. Who wants to cook on a Monday night? We don't do it very often but when we do I am so thankful I am not the one doing the cooking!!!

Before we could go eat we had to wait for K to get out of cheer practice and for hubby to mow the grass. (For the record it was considerably warmer today-he mowed in shorts!)

We got to our table and ordered our meals since we always get the same thing every time. K and I share the 2 for 1 meal deal and hubby orders his own. Once our food was delivered my husband went to mix up the butter and sour cream in his baked potato but it was hard as a rock. We summoned the waitress who took it away to get him another. He should have got a baked sweet potato like I did. It was heavenly!

While the waitress was off getting him a new baker he cut into his steak that he ordered medium. K and I like ours medium rare but his was less cooked than ours were!! So once the waitress came with the new potato the steak had to go back in which K and I were done with our meals before his new steak came out. (Insert Jeopardy clock here)

Which brings me to my craft of the day. I was so excited to get the baskets spray painted. By the time we got home from Logan's it was going on 8:30 and the sun was just peaking over the horizon. It is nothing for me to spray paint in the dark so I got started. *Note to self get one of those spray paint thingies so that my finger and arm does not hurt so bad.

I got the first coat on and threw the liners into the wash. After the first coat dried I sprayed a few more coats on. My finger was killing me by then!! The second basket will have to wait!!

I let it sit outside and dry and then brought it inside and put its freshly clean liner back into it.

Now what to do with it? When I picked it up at the thrift store my idea was to put all my little spice containers inside.

But I don't have as many as I thought I had. It looks sad in there!

I could use it for a kitchen gadget holder.

But then that makes some open spaces in the cabinet that I would have to go dig through my stuff to find something to replace them.

Or it could be a napkin holder.

Yes that will work!

When I brought the laundry up from when I washed the liners I left everything in the living room but the red checked liner. A little bit later my husband came into the kitchen and asked me what I was going to do with the hat??

He is such a goof ball!! That is the blue checked liner for the other basket!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

Gone Thrifting

2011-05-15T20:45:00.001-05:00

There is a joke going around in Missouri right now that Mother Nature must be going through menopause because of her hot and cold flashes. It is hot one day as to where we wear shorts and have our air conditioners on. And then the next day we are back in our winter clothes and coats. Over the weekend I saw many people out mowing their lawns with their winter gear on!

Since it was so cold and we couldn't do anything outside I hit up a few of the local thrift stores. I found some really good stuff!

I found these cute tins that say crackers, cookies and candy. I love that the words and lids are in red. I almost didn't buy them because it was $11 for the whole set. A little pricey at a thrift store if you ask me. But I am glad I got them because the work perfectly in my kitchen.

I also found these cute little baskets with red and blue gingham checked liners. They are going to be a work in progress as I am going to spray paint the baskets. It was just a little too cold to get out and do that this weekend!

This cute little cherry bowl caught my eye. Anything with red in it can probably find a spot in my kitchen.

Here is how they ended up on my cabinet.

I also found this MILK sign.

And a few items to add to my silver collection. I am finding this is going to be very slow going as I am not finding much silver flatware when I go out. It must be the hot item to find right now.

Over the weekend we also went to one of our nieces pre-school graduation and another nieces high school graduation open house. And my husband's entire family met for lunch for our oldest son's birthday. This will be his last birthday at home for a while since he leaves for the Army in August. We had a great weekend spending time with our family.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

Oh no she didn't!!

2011-05-13T21:51:00.000-05:00

Look what my baby girl did....

She passed her learner's permit driving test!! I don't know if I am ready for all of this!! I know I am not ready for my baby to grow up!

I bet you can guess what I hear 10 times a day now. Can I drive??

She has only driven in the neighborhood so far. I think we will move on to some parking lot driving as her neighborhood friends have proved to be a distraction. She then is taking a driver's ed course through summer school.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

Silver Flatware

2011-05-11T22:26:00.000-05:00

Ever since I read this post on Katie's blog I was inspired to collect silver flatware. I can while away an evening looking at china and flatware on the computer.

Over time I picked up a couple pieces and then brought them home, threw them in a dish and let them continue to tarnish. The real reason they continued to tarnish is I always forgot to pick up some silver cleaner when I was at Walmart.

I revisited Katie's post today and set a goal for myself to polish my silver before the days end. But first I had to make a quick trip to Walmart to buy the cleaner!!

My flatware in its tarnished state.

And after it was polished.

I want to collect a set that is completely different from each other. Now that I know the results I will be on the look out for flatware the next time I go to the thrift store or antique store.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

Spring Flowers

2011-05-09T21:59:00.000-05:00

On Mother's Day morning I woke up to this wonderful blessing....

My sweet lilac bush had bloomed. The aroma is so strong and sweet.The bush is in my backyard; however, I can smell it in the front yard. Love it!

While we are talking flowers let me take you on a walk around my yard to show you the others that are in bloom.
First we will stop off at my flower bed in the front. I always try different flowers each year. This year I wanted to go with the red, yellow and purple color scheme.
For the red I chose Begonia's. This plant had a perfect bloom on it but I waited too long to take a picture of it. It is actually dying out now.

For the purple I planted some Lobelia but the pictures did not turn out well. I planted two of them in which one is thriving and the other I am questioning if it is going to make it or not.

For the yellow I got Osteospermum's. You can see a little bit of the Lobelia in the background.

I also couldn't resist these Dahlia's. Their blooms are so pretty.

The little lady who owned my house before I did had so many pretty things planted in the yard. Unfortunately I have killed off a few things. She was the one that started the lilac bush. She also started this beautiful Hydrangea bush. I need to prune it because it is so top heavy but I am afraid I will kill it as I have a couple other bushes I trimmed back.

It is absolutely beautiful. And look who showed up for a photo op.

Do you see her? If not let me get a little closer.

Ladybugs are the only bugs I am not afraid of. Ok, I guess I am not afraid of lightning bugs either.

My mom got me this Hibiscus plant. Did I spell that right?

That is all the flowers I have for now. My roses are starting to bud and the peonies are starting to come up as well. Peonies are some of my favorites too so I can't wait for them to bloom!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Not Much Going on in the Nest

2011-05-02T22:51:00.000-05:00

I haven't had anything to blog about lately. Can you believe I have been at a loss for words? Me? So I decided to blog tonight but I am reaching...really reaching.

Several weeks ago I noticed K had a little collection of used razors going on in her shower. I left them there to see if she would throw them away. Nope! I think she was trying to see how high the pile could get. I finally got sick of them and tossed them in the trash.

I have a beautiful lilac bush in our backyard. While many have seen their lilacs bloom and grow into blossoms of delicious aroma mine is a slow bloomer.
These are the blooms on Easter Sunday.

Here they are as of today

It will probably be a couples weeks before they fully bloom. I can't wait though!! I get lots of flowers off of it that smell so yummy!

Tomorrow night we are having someone out to give us an estimate on remodeling our kitchen. I wish I had a picture to show what my cabinets looked like when I moved into the house. They were awful. They still are but they were worse then. They are not even made of wood. The doors are a particle board of some sort and had a laminate on top of it that looked like fake wood. Hideous I tell you! I couldn't stand it so I painted them white which looked a little better but still not good. That is why you rarely see that portion of my kitchen in my photos.

We are just getting an estimate at this point. We probably won't have the work done until 2012. We need to find out how much we need to save. But being at the point of even talking about remodeling the kitchen means we are getting closer and closer to moving!! I remember many years ago when the kitchen remodel was years on down the line. And now here we are a year away!! We will get there one day!

That is all I got!
Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

First Garage Sale of 2011

2011-04-19T22:32:00.000-05:00

It was a whopping 39 degrees this past Saturday morning but that didn't stop my sister and I from hitting our first garage sales of 2011. We bundled up and checked Craig's list and hit the road.

Our first stop claimed to be having a HUGE neighborhood garage sale. We like neighborhood garage sales. Let me rephrase that we LOVE neighborhood garage sales. This one didn't turn out to be so huge though. Only 2 of them. But we did score some finds. I am sure the weather kept some folks from opening up.

Here is my loot from the day.

Two very nice bunches of flowers for 50 cents each.

A Gibson pitcher for $1. I looked it up on Replacements.com and it goes for almost $40 on there!

A beautiful cloche for 50 cents

A picnic basket in need of some repair and paint. But for 50 cents I couldn't pass it up. I love using picnic baskets to store dishes or decor in that is not in use.

My favorite find is this quilt. We went into a fancy shmancy neighborhood and met a very nice couple with some great items for sale. The quilt came in it's original packaging which displayed its $119 original price tag!! It is only a twin so I don't have a bed to put it on right now but I will come up with something. The colors and patterns are beeeautiful!

I don't know if we will go again this Saturday or not. I have been bitten with the garage sale bug and am ready to go to some more!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Two Kisses for Maddy

2011-04-14T11:30:00.001-05:00

Today you can pick up Two Kisses for Maddy at your local bookstore. Or you can order it here.

The book was written by Matt Logelin. His wife, Liz, gave birth to their beautiful daughter Madeline and 27 hours later passed away from a blood clot.

Matt has started a foundation called the Liz Logelin Foundation. You can read about it and Maddy on his blog here.

I wish the circumstances for Matt writing a book were different. However, he keeps Liz alive by the wonderful work he does with her Foundation and through his blog. And he is a great father to Maddy who is as cute as can be!

Easter Centerpiece for Under $10

2011-04-11T22:27:00.001-05:00

Back when the kids were little I decorated for every holiday. Even the small holidays like Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's got almost as much attention as Christmas.

But now that our kids are older and our lives are 100 times busier than I thought they would be I don't decorate as much. I plan on picking it up again once I retire but that is still a handful of years away.

I pulled a couple of things out of my decorating stash for a quick Easter centerpiece. This will probably be the extent of my Easter decorating this year.

I got the bunny a couple years ago (when I was in my bunny craze days) at a thrift store for $5. The eggs were from another thrift store that I found at Christmas time this year. They were $3 for 6. The doily was 99 cents at yet another thrift store. And the tray was leftover from a catering event at my mom's work so it was free. It was less than $10 for everything!!

I thought about putting Easter grass where the doily is but even though our kids are teens I knew they would mess with it and I would have grass everywhere! She prefers doilies anyway!!

This little bunny fu fu is such a sweetheart watching over her beautiful colored eggs.

She has a little friend over in the corner of the Hoosier that auditioned for her space first but lost out. Oh and there is another taking a little rest on the high chair!

I hope you are having a wonderful day!
Thank you for visiting!
XOXO!!

Bringing Cottage Back

2011-04-10T23:04:00.000-05:00

This weekend I took the Amish decor to the kitchen and got back out some of my cottage decor.

Oh, how I have missed this stuff.

I did quite a bit of tweaking to my decor over the weekend. I am short on time tonight but hopefully can do a couple posts this week.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!

XOXO!!

Nuttin Going On

2011-04-07T19:13:00.000-05:00

It has been another busy week in our household. K started a tumbling class and cheer practice starts again next week. Time is flying by. I can hardly believe next week is the middle of April!!

I have not done my mason jar craft yet. It really needs to be done outside. It is supposed to be warm on Saturday so hopefully I can get it in then.

I picked up this can for a project I am going to do either at the end of this month or the beginning of May.

I am super proud of the picture. As you know I am not a very good photographer. It may not be much but I think this is the best picture I have ever taken. It took me about 30 shots to get this one.

Something clicked in my brain about how to take pictures so I took several others.

My photos are not usually this crisp. It is the little things in life that tickle me!

I also thought this was cute. The boys were playing at the computer while I was cooking dinner. I was cutting up an onion and the littlest guy wasn't too fond of the smell.

That is all I got. Nothing too exciting on our end.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Can I Get A Do Over??

2011-04-01T23:09:00.000-05:00

This week has been awful!!

I am so burnt on everything!!

I spent most of the week dealing with all of those joys of raising a teenage daughter.

Don't get me wrong. I love her to pieces but, good night, that girl can wear the tar out of me sometimes!!

But alas next week is a new week.

I took Monday off from work to have a "me" day. I deserve it!!

I am going splash some water on my face and start a new...

And do things that I like to do like finally get to my craft and spend some time learning how to use my camera.

The only rule I made for the day is

Cheers to a better week!!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

All photos from Google.

Another Busy Day

2011-03-28T22:56:00.000-05:00

Ever have one of those evenings where you want to do something you want to do but there are so many things piled in front of it that have to be done? Sound like your every day life? Yeah, me too!!

I wanted to work on a craft tonight but...

the table was a mess and had to be cleaned up

Then there were dishes to be done and the counter cleaned up

And I had to curse our new dishwasher. I hate it!! We got it for the price of a service call through our home warranty when our old dishwasher had too many problems to be fixed. We knew it was a low end model without all the bells and whistles but we only had to live with it for a year until we have the entire kitchen remodeled. Now that it is installed and I have been using it for about a month all I can say is it is going to be a very looooong year until I can get a new one.

On a happy note I played with this little sweetheart for a little bit

Until I remembered I need to put their new bag of dog food into the tubs.

I then read over the notes I took while I interviewed my Dad about his time in the military. That is a big part of who my Dad is and I wanted to make sure I got as much documented as possible for the future generations of our family. I always had it in the back of my mind to do but with my husband's father passing away I knew I can't take time for granted. My Dad loved that I interviewed him about the military. He told us all a lot of stories and even grabbed out his military year books.

And remember when I said I didn't think this guy was in a hurry to get his permit?

Well, he proved me wrong!!

I will try again tomorrow night to do my craft. I have parts of it sitting out ready to go.

I am sure there will be another long list of to do things but if it all goes right I can have some me time in the late evening and I can at least get this craft started.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

I Am A Travelin' WOman!!

2011-03-24T22:05:00.000-05:00

No time for pictures tonight. My SIL and BIL are coming over tomorrow night to go out to eat with us and I still need to mop the kitchen floor and clean the upstairs bathroom. But I do have time for a little post....

I am sure I have mentioned on here a time or two that I don’t travel well. It is not that I don’t like to go places but I do not like the crowds of over-touristy attractions. I get to those touristy attraction places and immediately think, “If only I was royalty I could have this entire place shut down just for me.” Because after all, you know it is all about me!! HA!

Back when my husband I went on our honeymoon we did the tour of parks in Florida. My husband loves the excitement of being with the crowds and couldn’t wait to take me since it was my first time being at those parks. Not to be ungrateful but I hated every moment of it. We have a theme park where we live and to me it wasn’t much different than it but that we had to wait in line for 30 minutes to an hour to ride the rides. And there were people galore where ever we walked. However, we did spend a day at Daytona Beach and another day at Clearwater Beach and I was in paradise. The beaches weren’t so crowded and I loved lying in the sand and hearing the waves, taking in the smell of the ocean all while the sun danced on our skin. I am sure we will visit Florida again someday but we will skip the parks.

We had one trip planned for this summer but it seems as each week goes by we find out we are going to yet another destination at some point during 2011. Luckily most places are not touristy.

Here soon my husband and I will be taking a train to go to our state capital. My husband had always wanted to take a train ride so we decided we would go to Jefferson City. I have been there before and there are a lot of great things to see. I think he will enjoy it too. I am praying for no rain that day!!!

Next we will be heading down south to see K at cheer camp. On our way there we will pass by The Precious Moments Chapel. I have a few of their figurines and had always wanted to see the chapel. My husband has been there before as a child but doesn’t remember a lot of it.

Our next trip will be our summer family trip to Colorado. The biggest things we will do there are to go to Pike’s Peak and Garden of the God’s. We are going in the middle of the week so I am hoping the crowds will be fairly small. I am crossing my fingers!!

We recently found out about our next trip which will be the proudest trip we take this year. Our oldest boy has registered for the U.S. Army and we will be going to see him graduate from boot camp in the fall at Ft Leonard Wood. If you have read my blog for any length of time you will know our oldest boy started giving us a run for our money at the age of 17. He has continued to do so until this month. We have prayed and prayed (for 4 years) that he would get on the right path and we thought the best place for him would be the military. God answers prayers !! We are so proud of his recent choice and we think he will excel in the military.

There may even be a road trip or two to some Amish communities thrown in there with my gal pal, Kelly. You know how much I would love those!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

Dedicated to Grandpa

2011-03-19T22:48:00.000-05:00

I have been gone all week because we lost my father in law on Tuesday. He is pictured here with his children and one of his granddaughters. He had been sick and we were told last Thursday he had about a month left. Five days later he was gone. We were able to spend the entire day with him on his last day although he was not coherent. But we know he knew we were there. We had an incredible Hospice nurse that ended up pulling a double shift just to be there with us. My father in law went peacefully to our Lord a little after 10PM that evening.

We spent the next several days making funeral arrangements, gathering pictures for a slide show and being with family. It finally hit us today - our first day of not having to rush around. I didn't even get dressed today.

But we had to carry on with life. We celebrated AJ's birthday this weekend since he will be in Florida next week with his mom. We now have another 16 year old. It is a bittersweet. I just don't like having children that are of driving age. It scares me! AJ hasn't even got his permit yet and doesn't seem too interested in getting it so maybe we have some more time before he takes to the streets.

In the hustle of things I forgot to buy candles so I had him blow out the candle in my mason jar.

All of our kids now have an iPod touch and we didn't buy a single one. They each saved up their Christmas, birthday or earned money in order to buy their own. AJ was the last one and he was happy as a lark to finally have one.

I had to snap this picture of B while eating his cupcake. I was over at the sink when I heard my husband say, "Son, what are you 2?" I turned around and saw he had cupcake icing all over his face.

I love to take pictures and even though I am not any good at it we learned this past week how important each photo is. So I made them all get together for a group shot. I don't like to be in the pictures but I am going to have to learn to do that or there won't be any of me.

I love my goofy little family!!

I worked on a small project while I made dinner this evening. It is no big deal but I like it alot.

All I did was type the words Farm Fresh Milk into word and printed it out. The background is a light tan although you can't see it in the picture. My dream would be to run a dairy farm so that is why I really like this hanging on my wall.

That is all I have for now.

Be sure to hug and kiss your family members as you never know when it will be your last chance to do so.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!

XOXO!!

New Table

2011-03-13T22:34:00.000-05:00

I can't believe our forecast is calling for 2-4 inches of snow overnight. I thought winter was over!! At least it is supposed to be 70 by Wednesday so if we do get snow it will be gone fairly quickly.

We sold our counterheigth table because it was way too big for our small kitchen.

I then pulled an old table out of storage that I have had since before I was pregnant with K.

I have been looking for a long time for a new table. I was having the hardest time coming up with something that was small enough for our tiny kitchen, within our budget, and the style I liked.

I then gave up on the style I wanted because everything I liked wouldn't fit in our tiny kitchen. I came across a small table at Kmart that would work out perfectly. It was small and I liked the look and it was within our budget. I know once we move I can get the table of my dreams but this will do for now.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Miracles in the Making

2011-03-11T16:26:00.000-06:00

I will get to my second kitchen change soon but thought this was way more important to blog about.

Last summer I particpated in a Day of Blog Silence for Baby Cohen. Baby Cohen is the sweet son of Megan and Brent and he went home to be with Jesus after 12 days.

Baby Cohen and God are working some awesome miracles for Megan and Brent. You can go here to read about it. Be sure to go back several days so that you can read all the exciting news!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

Roosters in the Window

2011-03-09T22:26:00.001-06:00

A couple days ago I bought a valance for the kitchen window and I was so bummed when it didn't work out. My kitchen window is small and the valance hung half way down the window. The valance itself was so cute!! It was red and cream stripped. I loved it but it wasn't meant to be.

I took it back tonight and looked around for something else but they didn't have anything that would go with my kitchen.
*~Sigh!~*

I then went over to the Country Living kitchen linens (yes, I was at Kmart!). I found some really cute napkins with a rooster on them and I remembered seeing some napkins as valances in other blogs. Hmmmm? Maybe this will work. They only had 4 so I bought all of them.

Once I was home I tied some wire across the window and hung them up with clothespins.

I really like how they turned out. I probably need a couple more so I will head over to the other Kmart across town to see if they may happen to have some in stock.

I love how simple they are but have a touch of vibrant red!!

I still need to do a little "something" in the window but I am too tired to do that tonight.

We also picked up something that is going to make a BIG change in the kitchen. I hope to be able to show you by the end of the week!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Subtle Changes

2011-03-07T22:44:00.001-06:00

I haven't done any kind of decorating in .... forever, so this weekend I wanted to do something even if it was small. And small it was.

I switched out the plates above my shelf in the kitchen to the Belgian Rose Country Living plates.

I am going to repaint the shelf black once it gets warm outside. I have enough of the red paint that if I don't like it black I can paint it back. And in case you are wondering why the right side of the shelf is empty my sweet husband uses that space to charge his cell phone. Silly boy!!
I then used all the Belgian Rose Rooster Country Living plates above the french door. If you remember I had the Rose and Rooster plates alternating above the french doors before.

Nothing big but it gives everything a new look.

All of the plates came from Kmart's Country Living line which I am in love with almost everything in that line!! Especially when they are on sale!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!!

All Kinds of Proud

2011-03-03T23:34:00.001-06:00

Tonight was the cheer banquet. We were excited since it was our first one.

I was helping with the set up so I went up to the school early and was in awe when my girl showed up looking so pretty.

We bought this outfit for her to wear on opening night of the play since they have to dress up for school that day. But since we had a snow day that day we decided this would be a good chance to wear it. I usually see my girl in ripped jeans and tshirts or sweats and boots so it was nice to see her all dolled up.

We had a nice dinner with lots of good food before the ceremony began.

The ceremony began with the JV girls getting their letters. Here is K getting hers.

After they gave the letters out they gave out a special award for the cheerleader with the highest GPA. The cheerleader that received that was also the lead female role in the school play that K was in last week. It was a Shakespeare play which is harder than a normal play. It was impressive that this girl managed her time with the demanding play rehearsals and cheer during basketball season where they cheered twice or more a week AND had a great GPA. A job well done!!

Next they announced that they were giving a very special award. This award was going to a cheerleader that had a great attitude, attended all practices and games, was outgoing, maintained good grades and a team player. The award was for JV Cheerleader of the Year and guess who won??

Yes, that is MY baby girl!! I was so proud when they announced her name!!

If you remember I was totally shocked when she told us last year she was going to try out for cheer. I had my reservations that she would make it as she has never had any interest in dance or cheer. And the tryouts were 5 days after she had all of her wisdom teeth removed.

She attended workshops for 2 days before tryouts and when she would come home she couldn't remember a thing that she learned. I was so worried for her.

On our way up to the school to find out if she made it or not I was preparing myself on how to soothe her if she didn't make it. But thankfully that was not needed because she did make the squad!!

And we were very impressed the first time we saw her cheer at a game. She picked up everything like she had been doing it her whole life long!

She has been on the fence if she is going to try out or not next year. She really likes cheer but has an equal love for theatre. She found the schedule of handling them both at the same time as well as her school work was a little overwhelming.

After receiving the award tonight she said this is going to make her decision that much more harder. She doesn't have to choose between the two - she may end up doing both. Whatever her decision is we know she will make the best one for herself.

K with coaches

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Blueberry Bread

2011-03-01T00:25:00.001-06:00

I talked to K during passing period while she was at school in which I told her it would be a good idea for her to make something for everyone that has helped her out to get to or from cheer practice and play rehearsals. She agreed with me but said she didn't know anything that everyone would like. I told her I would come up with a recipe and get all the ingredients before I got home.

After dinner, homework and her shower we got started on making some blueberry bread mini loaves. During the first ten minutes I wasn't sure how far we were going to get. K immediately started complaining about how tired she was. I calmly explained to her that I was sure we were all tired from time to time when we took her or picked her up from school but we did it anyway and that this was her chance to give back. Then the drama came in that she had not slept well in over 3 months and that she finally wanted to get a good sleep tonight. Well, I wasn't going to give into her but empathized of how tired she was and assured her she would get to bed soon and would sleep well.

Once she knew she wasn't going to get out of it she had a great time preparing the recipe. There was a time or two that I "assisted" a little too much in which she told me she knew how to do it. That is something I need to work on. I tend to be way too mothering at times and I need to step back and let her do it so that she can be proud of her accomplishments.

So I stepped back and only assisted when she asked.

We had a great time laughing and goofing around. She got a kick out of when she was folding the blueberries in I told her to be real gentle and not murder them. She then asked, "Why will the blue berry police be after me?"

Our plan was for her to make two batches but after the first it was getting pretty late so I let her go onto bed and I made the second. She made the first batch with a good attitude and we got to spend some quality time together.

She is also going to give a handwritten thank you card with the loaves of bread. I found these and thought they were perfect.

Before we got started on the bread she insisted on filling out the envelopes with nicknames she calls everyone.

In the end I had one messy kitchen to clean up. Teens do not cook like us adults do.

We have not tasted the bread yet but there were several great reviews on the site I found the recipe on.

Blueberry Bread
2 eggs (beaten)
1.5 cups white sugar
1 cup orange juice
1 t cinnamon
1 t vanilla
1 dash nutmeg
1 dash cloves
3 T vegetable oil
3 cups all purpose flour
1 t salt
4 t baking powder
1.5 cups fresh blueberries (we used frozen, thawed)
.5 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Mix together the beaten eggs with the sugar. Add the cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg and cloves and mix. Add the orange juice and vegetable oil, mix. Set aside.
In another bowl mix the flour, salt and baking powder.
Add the flower mixture to the egg and sugar mixture and mix.
Roll the blueberries in flour so that they do not sink to the bottom of the pan.
Carefully fold into batter.

Pour into greased pan and bake at 350 for 35-60 minutes. (Yes, I know that is a wide spread of time)
The cooking part gets tricky. Some people on the site said that they split the batter into two (bread) pans and it cooked better. Others just used one pan and said it was fine while others said they had a hard time getting the center to cook thoroughly. I cooked ours in 4 mini loaf pans (at the same time on a cookie sheet) and it only took 35 minutes.

Tomorrow night I will take K around to deliver her breads and cards.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!

XOXO!!

A Renewed Attitude

2011-02-28T09:43:00.000-06:00

I started a post last night but I deleted it because it was full of anger. I was very upset with my daughter because last night she displayed complete ungratefulness for everything we (my husband, my parents, my sister and I) have done for her over the past several months in regards to her play and cheer.

I went to bed mad at her.

And I woke up mad at her.

I was going to ground her from everything she owned that was fun (cell phone, iPod, Facebook etc.) And I was going to make her work tailend off until she learned a thing or two about being grateful.

I was in an ugly mood.

But I knew that was not how I wanted to be.

So I prayed to God for guidance. I know He blessed me with this beautiful child and wants me to raise her correctly.

And being ugly was not being correct.

He led me to a wonderful article that really opened my eyes about teenagers. I knew many things in the article because He has led me to countless other ones before. But sometimes I forget how difficult it is to be a teenager. I forget how my child is completely engulfed in herself at this point in her life and is learning about becoming her own person.

I also forgot that the way I react to her is the way I am teaching her to act. I mean I could take everything away from her and scream and yell at her but is that really going to get me anywhere? Am I teaching her the right way to act when I do things like that? That is a big fat NO on both!!

So I threw all those nasty ideas I had out of my mind and let the Lord refresh my attitude about being a teacher to this precious child.

If I wanted to teach my child how to be grateful I had to do exactly that…teach my child how to be grateful.

So instead of taking everything away and making her to listen through yet another lecture I am instead going to have her take time and make something for us all to show her appreciation.

It is her choice as to what she wants to make in which she can put her full heart and soul into it.

God is so good and I am so thankful He is ALWAYS there for me!

Weather Changes

2011-02-24T21:16:00.000-06:00

A week ago today we set a new weather record in these parts. We hit 74 degrees!! It was so beautiful and warm. There were lines at the car wash. And many people were sporting shorts and flip flops.

And just 7 days later it is not so warm...

Excuse my dogs old kennel that we pitched outside during the last snow storm when we bought her a new one. I have every intention of donating it to local dog rescue if we will ever thaw out and stay that way!

So far we have got about 4-5 inches and it is supposed to keep snowing for another 3 hours. ~*Sigh!~* I am so jealous of those that live in really warm places like Florida, Arizona or Hawaii. This white stuff is for the birds!!

Although we haven't got a call yet we are thinking school will be cancelled tomorrow. Kayk has already been told that the show will go on whether they have school or not.

Speaking of which, the matinee that they did for the middle school students went great today!! Yay!! AND...there is a picture of my baby in the newspaper. Thank you to the local reporter who came to the school and did an article on the play. I ordered the picture so once it comes in I will scan it and post it on here.

Thank you for visiting!!
Keep yourself warm if you are getting snow like we are.
XOXO!!

Amish License Plate

2011-02-23T20:42:00.000-06:00

I never knew the Amish had to license their buggies. But there it was in front of me one day when I was looking at Amish items on eBay. Amish license plates!

There were some really neat worn looking ones that I really liked but I settled for a newer one because it was cheaper.

And this was the only one that had "Horse Drawn" imprinted on it. That gave me the warm fuzzies!

I have it sitting on the dresser in the living room along with the Amish family right now.

I couldn't get a good picture of it without a flash so sorry the license plate blinds you in this one.

This isn't where everything is going to be ~ it is just where it all landed for now. I have a list of things I still want to buy like a women's prayer kap, a straw hat, and a miniature buggie and horse. But I have to do all that in moderation. My hubby tends to get a little flustered when I buy too much at once so I took a chill pill and will let him relax a bit before I add a few more items. Baby steps! Baby steps!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Almost Show Time

2011-02-22T22:04:00.000-06:00

Today was the first day of dress rehearsal in full make-up/costumes. My sweet girl is an evil fairy so she had to look the part for the picture - no smiling. She tells me her hair isn't as poofy (what I wouldn't do to have her locks!) as it was when they first did it and the make-up smudged quite a bit. I am super impressed by the hair and make-up which were done by two high school girls. I already decided I am bringing them flowers to present to them after the show. They have an hour and a half to get 24 fairies hair and make-up done!

My girl is super excited for the show to start. The G&T students will be on the high school campus on Thursday to see the play.

Break a leg, Kayk!!

Thank you for visiting

and

have a great day!!

XOXOXO!!

It's A Girl!!

2011-02-21T12:49:00.000-06:00

This weekend my sister and nieces went with me to a local doll show. I was mainly going to get my Kewpie doll appraised which I will save for another post. Then we also knew there would be a local vendor there that makes American Girl clothes. My niece got an AG for Christmas but the clothes are so expensive. She takes her AG with her wherever she goes but only has a couple outfits.

The Doll Show took place in a historical mansion in our area. I wish I would have taken a picture. I would go up there right now and take one but it is too cold outside. I will have to do another post on some of the mansions in our area. We have some pretty ones. The house was set up with vendors in each of the rooms of the house. Some vendors had their doll collections just for us to look at and others had items for sale. Trust me when I say when my niece got into the AG room she was in hog heaven!! She was able to get a couple outfits and shoes for her doll. Once she had those she was ready to make a bee line for the door but we still had a few rooms to go through.

The last room we visited had Reborn Dolls in them. If you don't know about Reborn Dolls they are dolls made to look like real babies. I made one several years ago when the technique first came out but mine looks nothing like the ones they make today.

I had no intention on getting one when we went there but once you hold these little lovies you can't leave one behind!! My nieces and I each had to bring one home.

Their dolls are "twins" just with different colored eyes. Aren't they so real looking? The artist that makes these does a fabulous job!

This is Morgan

And Eleanor. Here she is dressed in one of the AG dresses my niece got at the show.

Their names are subject to change as they do about every other hour.

And here is my baby. This basically what she looked like at the doll show. Mine is a vinyl body where my nieces dolls have a soft torso.

Here she is in a gown Kayk used to wear. It is way too big on her.

And some various poses.

Look at the detail

I haven't decided 100% on a name yet. I want it to be something southern and right now Brynlyn is at the top of my list.

I am so glad to have her part of my collection.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!

Check In

2011-02-17T11:12:00.000-06:00

I thought I would do a quick check in. We are still plugging along. Kayk’s cheer season is now over, somewhat, as we still have the banquet to attend and then tryouts for next year are just a few weeks away. We attended basketball games almost every night for the past two weeks. I think I mentioned before how much I like basketball. Some of the games were very exciting even going into overtime and double overtime!! Kayk’s school won every game but one!!

We are now in full swing of the spring play with rehearsals on days when school is not even in session. That is probably because they missed several rehearsals when school was out due to bad weather in January.

I am having so much fun with the “Amish” theme I am working on for our living room. Although yesterday was extremely frustrating. I was bidding on some great Amish items on eBay and was winning until the last (literal) second and someone stole it from me. We were at Quick Trip where my husband was filling my car up with gas and I was inside the car monitoring the auction on my phone. I refreshed my phone where it showed one second left in the auction and refreshed again and it said I had been outbid! Uuuugh!!!

Oh well, I will keep looking.

I wanted to share a site that I found that has GORGEOUS Amish photographs. The prices are high but they certainly warrant them as they are so great. I don’t know if I will ever be able to purchase one but I can certainly dream. Click here to see them ~~> Bill Coleman Photography.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

Amish Love

2011-02-11T22:58:00.000-06:00

I am obsessed with Amish people.

I like to read about them especially journals of their daily life.

I like to go places where I can see real Amish people.

I could almost live the Amish lifestyle. Almost. I could do without TV, computers, and even phones. But I couldn't live without heat and air conditioning. Or shopping. I am a simple person but not that simple. I like my make-up, shoes, purses and of course, home decor.

But their simple lifestyle is very attractive to me.

I have struggled for months about what I wanted to decorate my living room in. I spent hours on the Internet looking for inspiration but nothing spoke to me. I had recently picked up a couple Amish books and the idea hit me smack in the face. Since I love the Amish so much why not decorate in an Amish theme? We were in the middle of a blizzard at the time so I jumped on eBay just to see what kinds of things I could find. I found things like real Amish bonnets, straw hats and some paintings. The hamsters in my head were working the wheel! I didn't bid on any of those items but continued to look and searched for figurines. I found some figurines that were an entire family that were as cute as can be!! There were already a few bids on them and there were still two days left in the auction. I placed a bid and then got into a bidding war with someone. I decided to wait the auction out and go in for the kill in the last few minutes. By the way, I absolutely HATE it when someone does that to me but I HAD to have these figurines. About an hour before the auction was over I upped the ante and placed another bid and was the high bidder. I then sat at the computer watching the auction for the next hour. The person that was bidding against me didn't make another bid. I was sure they were going to come in the last few seconds and steal my Amish family from me. But they didn't and I happily won the auction!!

Today my sweet Amish family arrived.

Aren't they so cute??

I didn't read the description word for word so I didn't realize how big they actually are.

Some are 12 inches tall!! The more to love!! And I do love them. They are my second favorite things right behind my Hoosier cabinet.

Meet my little sweet Amish family starting with the darling daughter..

And the son. He is a shelf sitter.

The father

And the Momma and baby

Look at that sweet little baby

I put them on a shelf in my kitchen but they are not going to stay here. I just wanted to see what they looked like on a shelf.

It is too late tonight but I can't wait to find their "home" tomorrow somewhere in my living room.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Stress

2011-02-09T22:38:00.000-06:00

At the informational meeting before cheer tryouts the coaches stressed that they wanted all the girls who made the squad to feel free to be involved in as many school activities they wanted to. In fact they encouraged the girls to be involved in more than just cheer.

Then, before Kayk tried out for the school play I had to sign a piece of paper saying I was ok with my child trying out for the play. On that very piece of paper it also stated that they were aware that students were involved in other activities other than the school play and that they would work with their schedules.

Here we are in the final two weeks of the cheer season AND two weeks before the school play and guess what?? The cheer coach and the drama teacher are demanding my sweet girl be in two different places at the same time for the next 7 school days. They both are tugging at her not leaving her any options and it is completely stressing her out. And me too! There are two other cheerleaders that are in the play that are going through this same thing. One, which her mom got asked for a divorce about 6 weeks ago and then just today found out she has stage 3 breast cancer!!

I am doing my best to try to teach my daughter how to balance time and set priorities but they are not making it easy. She wants to handle this herself without me contacting the coach or drama teacher. Like I said yesterday....if we can only get through the end of this month life will be so much easier!!

I am going to share a few pictures I took about a month ago taking some practice shots with my camera. These are all items of Kayk's when she was a baby or little girl. They make me smile and push all this frustration out of my mind.

Her first pair of booties

Her first pair of sunglasses

Her first baby doll

The gifts that my girl made with her own little hands....oh be still my heart!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Lil Update

2011-02-08T23:24:00.000-06:00

If we can just get through this month we will be able to take a big sigh of relief. It will be nice to slow our lives down to a crawl. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Here are some things we have been up to.

Since I last posted we received a snow storm, a blizzard and right now it is lightly snowing - although we are only supposed to get about an inch tonight. Our kids went back to school after Christmas break on January 3. Since then they have missed 8 days of school due to snow, ice or just plain cold temperatures. Speaking of cold it is down right cold in these parts right now. Our high today was 10 degrees!! 10 degrees!!! Brrrrr!

We also ordered AJ's class ring. He is a sophomore this year so we really were not expecting to order it until his Junior year. Thankfully we had already put the money back for it so it didn't hit us by complete surprise.

Other than that one of the heating elements went out in our stove so we had to replace that tonight. Also the motor is going out in our dishwasher. We had the AB May guy out today and he said it will be a couple days before he can get the parts in. I hope it doesn't go completely out before then because I don't do dishes!! Believe it or not I would rather clean the toilet than do dishes by hand.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

January...January

2011-01-27T10:30:00.000-06:00

Back when Kayk was in elementary school I served several different positions on the PTA board. At the time PTA was my spouse and child rolled up into one. I was at the school so much I rarely saw my husband or child in the evenings. It takes a lot of effort touching the lives of 400 children. Our PTA parties were some of the only celebrating some of the children got. It was worth every minute of my effort. I made some very good friends while serving on the PTA board and some I would rather not know. But all in all I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.

I always said I would retire from PTA once Kayk got into high school. I served on the board for 2 years in middle school and then retired a year earlier than I said I was going to. It was time to go and let someone else take on the role. I wanted to be available to be at everything Kayk would be involved in when she was in high school.

Now that we have a semester of high school under our belts I am glad I had the notion to look into the future to know to give up something that took up so much of my time. I am glad I have an outgoing child that needs to be at some sort of school function almost every night of the week. While some parents complain they have to run their child to and fro I embrace every opportunity. I am proud to be sitting in the audience and see my child look up at me knowing I am there – there to support HER!

So while my blog may seem like it is being neglected at the present time please know that I am running my girl to and fro and/or sitting in an audience showing her support. Right now we are in the meat of basketball season where she is cheering for both the girls and boys JV teams. (And unlike our football team our basketball teams actually WIN so we stay for the varsity games too!) She is also going to be in the spring play so there are 2-4 rehearsals a week on top of cheer practice and games. And did I mention we are also in the middle of enrolling for next school year? Our school does a fabulous job making sure our children are prepared to enter college once they graduate. There are several workshop nights the school hosts so that we know what classes our children need to take. They are extremely beneficial!

But as busy as we are with Kayk’s school activities life continues to go on at home. This past week both of our dogs got very sick from some dog bones we purchased. There was a lot of cleaning and sleepless nights until they got better. Thankfully they are back to normal now. Also our kitchen faucet went caput! My husband and I went to buy another one in which he installed. After having it a week it just was not working for me. The water pressure was entirely too high. Unfortunately our bathroom sink clogged so when we had the plumber out he looked at the kitchen faucet and said our pressure was where it was supposed to be. His suggestion was to take the faucet back and try another one. (Low arc vs. high arc) That is what hubby will be doing tonight. We are still under a blanket of snow in which the kids missed two more days of school last week. (In which I attended a summer school workshop this week and from the looks of it since school is not going to let out as planned the summer school schedule is going to interfere with our Colorado trip dates) It has been getting slightly warm during the day so some of the snow melts and then the temperatures go back down to freezing overnight which causes the melted snow to freeze. We have to be careful where we walk!! It is going to warm up over the next few days and then get really cold again with more snow at the beginning of next week. Spring can’t get here quick enough for me!!

But we plug on!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!

XOXO!

More Kitchen Updates

2011-01-20T22:00:00.000-06:00

This is what we woke up to this morning....

We actually had a good majority of it before we went to bed. School was out again today so I decided to stay home with Kayk. We are supposed to get more tomorrow and even more on Sunday. Boy, how I wished I lived amongst the palm trees somewhere in Florida!!

And this...

was our watch dog. She let us know if an additional flake fell, snow blew, someone shoveled their driveway or a snowplow came up the street. Needless to say we had to end up shutting the blinds because she was driving me insane with her yapping!!

I have been working in the kitchen the past several days. You are probably sick of seeing my Hoosier but I redecorated it again. I am really liking how everything is coming together in my kitchen now that I added color to it.

I went to the antique store last weekend looking for the Aunt Jemima and Uncle Moses salt and pepper shakers. I found one exactly like the ones I got for $15 as soon as I walked in the door. I continued to look around and found a smaller set for $30. I didn't want to spend $15 for them and certainly not $30!! I went back down one of the first few aisles again and saw that I overlooked a set that were only $5!! You really have to pay attention in booth antique stores as so many people have the same items priced on both ends of the spectrum!

I also found this flour bag for $2. I brought it home and stuffed it with some poly fill and it looks like a full bag of flour! I also picked up the pastry blender for $3 but saw one in another booth for $9!!

The enamel box was my favorite find of the day. I have always wanted one of the enamel bread boxes but either can't find one or do not have enough money when I do. (They run between $80-125) When I saw this Savory enamel box for $10 I thought it was pretty much the next best thing. It no longer had its clasp so I tied it shut with a red gingham checked ribbon. I am not sure if the faux loaf of bread is going to stay or not but it is a filler for now.

I saw this cute idea for red hots in a jar on another blog (sorry I don't remember where so I can't give credit)
This goes along with Valentine's Day.

Wow that looks real squatty, doesn't it?

Last but not least my little shelf next to the Hoosier.

I have a couple other things I am still working on. Also, I am going to be starting a new project in the living room soon!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!

XOXO!!!

Blue Plates

2011-01-18T23:10:00.000-06:00

Uuuugh! I do not like winter!! We have actually had it pretty good this winter until last week when we got 6 inches of snow!! Then last night we got some freezing drizzle. And if that wasn't enough we are to get 7 more inches of snow tomorrow. I am longing for beautiful, sunshiny days!!

Since I have been couped up in the house I actually have some things to blog about but I am going to keep it short tonight.

On Sunday evening I went to the thrift store with my sister and saw these cute blue plates that I knew would look great up on my kitchen wall. They were $3 each. This particular thrift store tags all items with colored price tags. Then each day they choose a color of a tag and those items are 50% off. I thought since I was off from work for several days I would check back each day and snag them when they were 50% off. So I ventured back to the thrift store for 3 days in a row and the "yellow" price tag was not the color of the day. So today when I went in and yellow was still not the color of the day and the upcoming snow storm on its way I went ahead and paid full price for them.

I like the blue plates alot better than the bird plates I had up there. This wall in my kitchen is not complete yet. I don't have anything to put on the shelf....the shelf portion is not very wide so it is hard to find things that will fit on there. I will keep trying. I did a little project that replaced the English Tea picture that I will blog about later this week.

Well I best go prepare for the snow storm. Our kids were out of school because of the weather 3 days last week and were out again today. I am preparing for them to be out Thursday and Friday as well.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Adding some love...

2011-01-08T13:27:00.002-06:00

Kitchen Transformation

2011-01-03T22:46:00.000-06:00

Remember how I said I wanted to add color to the kitchen? Part of the problem was the wall color.

With the white walls everything looked so washed out. Dull. Boring!

So I spent two days scouring over the popular paint companies online color viewers until I came up with a paint color. I selected Behr's Winter Garden for my teeny tiny kitchen and these are the results...........drum roll!!!

I am still not good with my new camera so the color isn't quite as light as it looks in the photos. I LOVE how it turned out. (I know I always say that and then repaint within 6 months but this time I PROMISE I am going to leave this up for a long time!!!)

The red shelf used to be green. I painted it with a quart of paint that I got on clearance from Lowe's. I always visit the flub up cans when I am at Lowe's in which you can get them for anywhere from $3-7 and you never know when they will come in handy for a project.

I pulled all of the decorations from storage. I can't promise they will stay around as I redecorate once or twice a ~~month~~ week. But for now I am content which is my New Year's Resolution. I want to quit all this changing of everything and just be content and enjoy things the way they are!

Here are few more pictures from my kitchen.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!!
XOXO!!

Happy New Year!!!

Easy Smell Good Project

2010-12-29T20:39:00.001-06:00

I don't drink coffee because I am not fond of warm drinks. But I LOVE the smell of it. Perhaps it has to do with all the years I worked downtown by the Folgers plant. I would step outside just to take in the luscious aroma. Mmmmmm!

Today I am going to share a very easy project that will have your home smelling delicious in a matter of minutes.

You probably have all the supplies needed around your home.

You will need a canning jar, a small bag of coffee beans and a taper candle.

All you do is fill the canning jar with the coffee beans, insert the taper into the middle of the beans, light the candle and with in moments your home will be smelling wonderful.

In fact, I lit mine in the kitchen and then took a few photos and before I could even turn my camera off my husband called from the living room telling me how good it smelled.

I lost track of how many times I said "Mmmm" as I took in the luscious aroma as I typed this post. Mmmmm! Mmmm! Mmmmmmm!

The coffee beans I selected are Cameron's Chocolate Caramel Brownie.
Heavenly!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!

XOXO!!!

A Great Idea....That Didn't Work Out So Great For Me!!

2010-12-27T23:52:00.002-06:00

Today on a blog I saw the sweetest thing where this lady used her cake stand as a spice holder. She actually had a two tier cake stand and hers were either white or red. I only have a glass cake stand but thought I would give it a try to see what it looked like. After all, I had good intentions when I got my cake stand, but the only thing I use it for is to store dessert plates. (click on pictures to make them larger)

So I took all of my spices out of the cabinet and put them on my cake stand.

I didn't love it and it certainly took up what little counter space I have. But I decided to give it a try.
I then had to go rearrange things on the Hoosier cabinet because I had a big hole. I rearranged and rearranged and rearranged ten more times and nothing worked. So, I nixed the cake stand idea and put it back on the Hoosier.

My new theme in the kitchen is pops of red and blue.

I wish it was warm outside because there are so many things I want to spray paint in order to bring my new colors in. There are 124 days until May 1st. Yes, I am counting!!

I can't believe I am going to show you this but here is what my table looks like after a rearranging session. You are actually getting the view of the good side.

So, now I am off to clean up that mess and then head off to beddie bye!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Ready to Decorate in 2011!!

2010-12-26T23:02:00.000-06:00

Well, I didn't get as much done last week as I had planned on. *Sigh!* Kayk got the flu on Monday evening and spent the next several days pretty much in bed and she wanted her Mama to lay with her most of that time. She is at the age where she doesn't want me around all that much so I jumped on spending that extra time with her.

But then I also got the flu. *Sigh!*

Oh well! We are both better now and that is all that matters!

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas. I know we are blessed and enjoyed spending time with our families.

Like every other year my Christmas decor came down today (the day after Christmas). I am ready to move on to see what 2011 has in store for us....and I am ready to get back in the groove of decorating.

I worked on rearranging the items on the dresser in the living room for a new look. Ignore the Balsamic Vinegar canvas underneath the mirror. It is a place holder for a sign that I ordered.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

Christmas Time With Family

2010-12-24T08:00:00.003-06:00

Last night we had Christmas with my parents and my sister's family. We mingled and had snacks until my nieces could no longer wait to open presents.

Here the girls are with their Ugg like slippers

Kayk with her train case

And her sweats WITH pockets and boots. She can't wait to go back to school and wear this get up!

I didn't get a good picture but this is my BIL with his Carhardt jacket. He better not be letting this baby lay around because I just might snatch it up!

My sister with her coffee maker.

Us girls always do an ornament exchange in which we all have themed trees. My mom has a snowman tree, my sister has a Santa tree, E has a gingerbread tree, S has a candy themed tree, Kayk's tree is of things she likes....I didn't teach her well as she is an MU fan. And I have a "sparkly" tree.

After presents we played a game of Farkle

My two beautiful sisters

My BIL had been in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa during his work day. He was plum tuckered out by the end of the night.

We all had a wonderful time and look forward in getting back together on Christmas day.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

Christmas Baking

2010-12-23T17:56:00.000-06:00

Today Kayk and I spent the day over at my sister's house doing some Christmas baking. In the pictures below you will see in, no particular order,: we put our kids to work tidying up my sister's house since she is hosting our family Christmas this evening, our kids acting goofy, my sister's dog taking a nap next to Kayk, the cinnamon roll dough (we have home made cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning in which we put a candle in them and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus), the rolling of the dough (in which I had to stand on a stool because I was too short), the cutting of the cinnamon rolls, the ooey gooey goodness going inside the cinnamon rolls, and the cutting of sugar cookies. Oh and my sister's beautiful white Christmas tree. Enjoy!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

ELF Cosmetics

2010-12-21T16:45:00.000-06:00

I am taking a break from organizing today to share some great make up with you. I will get back to the organizing tomorrow.

Have you ever heard of ELF Cosmetics?? I had never heard about them before until a couple weeks ago when I was bidding on some make up brushes on eBay. The day after I placed my bid the seller removed the item from eBay. I was upset as I fell in love with those make up brushes and was really hoping I would win them. After that happened I searched on ELF make up brushes (I am so glad I remembered the company name) and found they are a complete cosmetics company. And what is even better is most of their products cost between $1-3!!!

I like make up as much as I like china and shoes!! I can while away on a rainy day playing around with make up. Love it!

I use a wide variety of make up ranging from the drug store to name brand cosmetics. Sephora is like going to a candy store for me! But, unfortunately, I can't afford to buy everything I want from there. I was a little reluctant purchasing from ELF (which stands for Eyes, Lips and Face) because since it was so cheap I thought it would be like the make up they sell at the Dollar Store. I did some research on it and found that most people who purchased these products were generally very happy with them. ELF was running a special where if you purchased $20 worth of cosmetics you got free shipping. I thought I couldn't go wrong and made filled up my shopping cart with $20 worth of products. Which I may add is A LOT of stuff when most items are $1!!

Now I don't know if it was because of the holiday or the free shipping special but it took 10 days for me to receive my items. Seven of those days my order was sitting "in processing" status. Once my order was filled I had it three days later. There were a handful of items I wanted to purchase but they were on back order and still are today.

Here is what I got and my opinion of the products:

I purchased the lip gloss in Plum Pout and they threw in the lipstick (Fantasy) for free. I love them both and the two colors compliment each other very nice. I did not wear a lip primer today so they both wore off within a couple hours. The lip gloss is very silky and not sticky. I believe both lip products are $1 each.

I have olive skin so it is hard for me to find a foundation that looks right on me. It seems when I finally find one the company I purchased it from discontinues that shade. So with that said I purchased the ELF Flawless Finish Foundation in Buff and I LOVE it!! Watch for it to be discontinued soon! This particular foundation cost $6.

I got several of the eye shadow brushes which are about half of the set I was hoping to win on eBay. They are all very soft and easy to work with. Each brush has an imprint of what it is used for on the stem. These retail for $1 each and are absolutely wonderful!!

This is the Daily Brush Cleaner. I watched a video review of this on YouTube in which the gal liked how it worked but couldn't stand the smell. It does have a strong fragrance but it is not unpleasing. I did notice the fragrance stayed with me for about a half hour after I cleaned my brushes. If you are not a fragrance person you may not like this. You spray a couple squirts on your brush and then wipe clean on a towel. I would buy this product again and it retails for $3.

I purchased three of their eye shadow compacts.

Ethereal

Hazy Hazel

Drama

The pigments in the eye shadows are very good. I would go as far as to say they show up BETTER than my name brand eye shadows. I got a lot of glittery eye shadows which I do have glitter that fell off under my eye. But I am a the more the better glitter kind of girl. My sister doesn't like glittery eye shadow so I don't think she would like those. These were $1 a piece.

The above three items I picked up at Target while waiting for my order to come in. Supposedly Kmart carried ELF products as well. My Target only carries a few brushes and sets of eye shadow, lip gloss and eye liners. The brush is an all over facial brush that was $1. I love it!! The other items came as a set with 1 pencil eye liner, 1 liquid eye liner and a mascara. I absolutely LOVE the pencil eye liner. I don't do liquid eye liner so I gave that one to Kayk and she loves it. I am undecided on the mascara. I have only used it once. I am pretty much hooked on L'Oreal's Voluminous mascara.

Since I placed my order I have received an email that ELF was running another special where if you spent $15 you got free shipping. I was on their site today and they have a couple different specials going on now. It appears that they run specials ALL the time. They have so many different items that I have not tried yet. Be sure to stop by their site to see what you might like. www.eyeslipsface.com.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!

XOXO!!

Organizing the Bathroom

2010-12-17T21:26:00.000-06:00

I made it to Friday which means I am now on VACATION!!! I have been looking forward to this week for months! I am not a winter person at all - I would much rather be outside soaking in the sun. So, I spend the winter months organizing so that I have something enjoyable to do while it is cold outside. I wrote out an agenda for the week with all the things I want to get done.

Since we didn't have anything going on this evening I decided to get a head start. To get me in the organizing mood I looked up a few organizing websites. I love seeing everything so neat and orderly that it instantly makes me want my house to look the same way. I came across this website that got my juices flowing! Isn't her house organized to the T? I love it!! For the record if I need to pitch a lot of things out all I have to do is watch an episode of Hoarder's and I am board to start clearing things out!!

I always start with the bathroom. It is a smaller room and you usually do not have things in the bathroom that you are personally connected to so it is easier to start throwing things away there. Once you get the bathroom looking great it keeps you motivated to go onto other rooms.

I started with our main bathroom. Here are some pictures of before:

Those are pictures of under the cabinet, the wall cabinet and my bathroom drawer. Would you believe that in my bathroom drawer the only thing I actually use in there is a pair of tweezers?? That is definitely getting cleaned out!!

As I was cleaning out the wall cabinet (which I want to get around to painting someday) I knew I had to come up with an idea for me and Kay's contacts. We buy a years supply at a time and I usually just stuff the bags they come in into the cabinet. That is not so pretty. I remembered I bought some pencils pouches on clearance at Office Max after school started. There was a pink and purple so we could tell each others apart. They worked perfectly for storing the amount of contacts we have left now but I am going to have to think of something else when we buy our new ones.

Here is the cabinet after:

We even have room to spare!!

Here is the trash can after I went through all the drawers and cabinets. We had way too much stuff that we were not using.

I am just getting started!!! Be sure to check back with me next week and see the progress I am making!
Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

Cookie Exchange

2010-12-14T23:18:00.001-06:00

My sister and I dipped the Oreo Balls for the cookie exchange last night and I am so happy with the way the turned out.

They looked so festive!

Here is the recipe and some pointers:
1 package of Oreo cookies
1 package of cream cheese (softened)
(I made 3 batches which yielded a little over 100 balls)

First grind your Oreo's in a food processor. We put about 6-7 in at time and grinded them down and then poured that into a bowl. Once we got the entire package grinded we poured it all back into the food processor and then cut the cream cheese into 5 chunks and then let it grind (mix) for a couple minutes, until completely mixed together.

Then you shape them into small round balls and REFRIGERATE!! (Getting them really cold before dipping is the key!!) I let mine refrigerate overnight.

Next you stick a toothpick in the top of each ball, melt the chocolate and let the dipping begin!!

I used the Wilton's Mini Melts which come in a wide variety of colors. I originally purchased the white almond bark but then learned that you can't color it. Learn from my mistake!!

Once the chocolate dries we squirted white chocolate on top just by putting it in a baggie and cutting the tip off.

Very easy....the chocolate dipping is just time consuming!!

Tonight we had the cookie exchange over at my SIL's house. It was SOOOO much fun!!!

My SIL has a gorgeous home that she decorates beautifully! I snapped up a couple pictures of her Christmas decor.

We finished with an ornament exchange and then it was time to head back home to my family. I am looking forward to next year's cookie exchange!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

December Happenings

2010-12-12T22:45:00.000-06:00

I have neglected my blog for so long!!! Actually we were going through a PC upgrade which ended up having some not so pleasant moments! You know where you plan on everything going smooth and fast and then you hit that wall and can't figure out why you can't do what you want to??

It was the gazillion photos I have stored on our old PC that we were having trouble getting them all over to the new one. THANKFULLY everything is now transferred over. Wheeeew!

We really have not been up to too much except working on the PC. Kayk auditioned for the spring play and landed a role in it. It will be a non-speaking role but she will be doing alot of dancing so she has to attend alot of rehearsals. On top of that she will be cheering at the boys and girls basketball games over the next few months. I think it will do us all some good even though it will be a very hectic schedule to keep. I love my teen aged daughter but after all she IS a teen aged girl and has all the drama and moodiness that comes along with it. It helps to keep her busy.

Other than that we have been trying to keep warm. Winter has hit us in the Midwest and we received our first snowfall this weekend. It wasn't much but it sure was COLD out. Unfortunately the weather people are saying it is going to be a negative 14 windchill tomorrow. Brrrrrr!

I have been cooking some comfort food to keep us warm.

I am attending a cookie exchange this week at my SIL's house so tonight I made a little over a hundred Oreo Balls.

Tomorrow night my sister is going to come over and help me dip them all in pretty Christmas colors. Pictures to follow!!

That is all with us. How about you?

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Rudolph, is that you?

2010-12-01T22:49:00.000-06:00

Look who is guiding my ~~sleigh~~ car....

Kayk said she isn't riding in my car until I take it off!! I guess she won't be riding with me until after Christmas!! LOL.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

Photo Crazy

2010-11-30T22:34:00.000-06:00

I am still playing around with the camera. I think I have died and gone to heaven!! This is so much fun!!! I think I will be preoccupied for quite some time which will make my husband happy that I won't be out shopping!

Here is some more of my recent work:

While I make dinner I walk around the house giving anything and everything a photo op. Let's just say my family is sick of my taking pictures of them!!

Kayk also cheered at her first basketball game tonight. I LOVE basketball and had a great time. Especially since our school took home a 61-32 victory!! Our football team was horrible. I think they won one game the whole season long. At least the basketball seems like they will be giving the girls something to cheer about.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!

New Camera

2010-11-29T23:49:00.000-06:00

I am still around...just continuing to be busy, busy, busy!!

I typically like that this time of the year is so busy. I am usually almost out of vacation time at work so I like that it flies by and my vacation bank starts over on January 1. Fortunately I saved up vacation this year and will get to enjoy taking the whole week of Christmas off. I am on the countdown to when my vacation starts!!

At the end of last winter I asked my husband if he could work it into our budget to buy me a new camera. I have a love of taking pictures but am not the best of it. My biggest problem is that I learned on a 35mm film camera and using a small pocket camera just wasn't working for me. I wanted to take the plunge and get a DSLR. He told me we would be able to get one but it would be towards the end of the year before we could buy it.

I have had many months to research and find the perfect camera for me. Since I took a class on a Pentax and have a film one and a couple lenses I decided that I would stay within that family. The bonus is the lenses are interchangeable!! I decided on the Pentax k-x in white.

We ordered it shortly before Thanksgiving which made the delivery take forever!! Well what seemed like forever! It finally arrived today and I am totally IN LOVE!!

I popped the batteries in and immediately started playing around with it.

Now I will be counting down the days until April or May when it is warm enough to get outside and really put it to use!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

November Happenings

2010-11-17T23:14:00.000-06:00

I have been neglecting my blog lately. It is actually because we have been so busy.

Doing things like.....

Traveling to Marshall, Mo where Kayk's cheer squad got to cheer at a college football game. It was freeeeeezing cold but the girls were champs cheering without their warms up on!!

And then for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to give our little dog her Frontline treatment AFTER she went to the groomer...

That turned out to be a VERY bad idea as she got fleas. Whatanightmare!! We had to brush her several times a day to get them out of her fur. Then we had to clean and wash EVERYTHING in the house and spray. It was TONS of work but we finally got rid of them. I am soooo glad I had went ahead and put the Frontline on our big dog or it could have been worse. Our poor little sweetheart was so miserable.

Last weekend I made a Thanksgiving meal for our family which turned out very nice. I didn't take a picture but we ate off my mismatched china which was so beautiful!! We have a dinner to attend this weekend for my husband's side of the family and then will go to my family's on Thanksgiving day.

So with Thanksgiving winding down I am slowly putting away the fall decor.

And just yesterday I got bit by the Christmas decorating bug...

with a purchase of a white Christmas tree! Hopefully the elf in me will get everything put out this weekend. Check back soon!

I also got to spend the evening last night with some of my best girlfriends and my sis when we went to visit our friend, Janelle, and her sweet newborn.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

All You Need is Love Project

2010-11-06T23:44:00.001-05:00

I did a project today that I have been dreaming about doing since last year. I found the inspiration here at Enchantresses 3.

I am usually willing to try anything but my projects usually do not turn out the way I vision them in my head. This one was no different.

I started out with a plain piece of plywood that was being thrown away at work.

When I originally thought about doing this project I was going to do it straight on the wood. However, I came across a site where a gal modge podge old phonebook pages to a project she did to make it crinkly looking. I thought I had the link to her site to give her credit for it but I can't find it. My sincerest apologies!

Here is the project after the phone book pages were modge podged on. After the Modge Podge dried I painted it all antique white and then spot painted it white just like the genius gal who thought up this technique said to do.

The lettering is why I put this project off for so long. I wasn't sure how I was going to do that part. I recently purchased a Cricut Cutting System from a friend in which the lettering dilemma was solved. Or so I thought.

Here are the letters all cut out and put in place. Although I knew it wouldn't work perfectly I adhered the letters down with scrapbook tabs folded in half. I then spray painted it with flat black spray paint.

As you can tell the spray paint got under the letters and in places the scrapbook tabs shape was left behind.

Soooooooooooooo I had to go back over it all by hand painting the letters. Uuuuggh! After I did that I lightly went over the letters with antiquing glaze.

And here is my final project.

It is not awful but not perfect either. I am considering trying to find the vinyl sheets that I can put in my Cricut and doing it again on canvas. All in all it was fun to do and has given me some ideas to try a couple other things.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!

XOXO!!

Which Plates To Use??

2010-11-02T21:51:00.001-05:00

I am still playing around with color in the kitchen in which I redid a wall this evening.

This is with my Creatures of Flight plates. To me, it looks a little busy and nothing matches. Also, excuse the bad photo quality - I had my camera set on the wrong setting. Oh and ignore the ugly return vent that is ALWAYS in my way!!

I then fixed the camera settings and used some rooster plates. I wasn't going for a rooster theme but it seems my kitchen may be going that way.

The ledge on the shelf is very small so it is hard to find things that will fit up there. If I go with the rooster plates I may go get some red and white polka dot mugs from Gordmans that are on clearance and I have a coupon!!

Which of the plates do you think look better??

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Slumber Party

2010-10-31T21:33:00.000-05:00

On Friday night my friend Kelly hosted a slumber party which included her sister, my sister and me. We grew up across the street from each other in which both our parents still live there.

Our parents go to dinner together on Friday nights so we decided to "crash" their dinner. It was so funny because my sister and I were waiting in my car when Kelly and her sister pulled up. They got out of the car and almost immediately our parents pulled in. Kelly had to run off and hide so that they didn't see her. We gave them time to get seated before we went in and made the crash..

We had so much fun eating with our parents....just like old times!

This was Lindsay and Susan's piece of chocolate cake. It was HUGE!!

We then went over to Kelly's and watched Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

Then at 12:00AM

Kelly waxed our eye brows.

We stayed up until 2:00AM laughing and having a great time!

The next morning we were going to crash our parents again for breakfast but didn't make the 7:45 breakfast call.

So after hair braiding (as you know no slumber party is complete with out it) we headed to Englewood Cafe around 11AM.

Englewood is a little dive in Independence that has served people like Harry S. Truman and Ginger Rogers. It was soooo good!!

Kelly and Ty who has the little creamers in his eye!

Our slumber party was so much fun and I can't wait to do it again! Thank you for hosting it, Kel!! I love you to pieces!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!

XOXO!

Pumpkin Carving

2010-10-28T23:46:00.000-05:00

Tonight our friends Kelly and Tyler came over to carve pumpkins. I have known Kelly my whole life long which means our kids have too!

Tyler and Kayleigh when they were little.

Our Jayhawk pumpkin

Kel's puking pumpkin. She saved the guts and seeds and is going to have it coming out the pumpkin's mouth.

Ty's Texas Longhorns pumpkin

I am so glad they are a big part of our lives!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

A-Z Questionnaire

2010-10-27T23:33:00.000-05:00

A-Z Questionnaire

Area code: 816
Bed size: King
Chore you hate: Folding laundry
Dogs name: Koko & Maize
Essential start of the day item: Toothbrush
Favorite color: Robin's Egg Blue
Gold or Silver: Silver
Height: 4'11"
Instruments you play: Used to be able to play the clarinet
Job: Asset Manager
Kids: 1 daughter and 3 stepsons
Living arrangements: In a teeny tiny house with my husband, daughter and 2 dogs ~ every other weekend the boys are over
Mom's name: Mary
Nick name: Stac
Overnight hospital stay: 2 - appendectomy and child birth
Pet Peeve: People in my way when I am driving or shopping...I am always on a mission!!
Quote from a movie: I can't remember movie quotes but one that comes to mind is from one of my favorite movies, Sweet Home Alabama: Look at you, you have a baby... In a bar.

Righty or lefty: Righty
Siblings: 1 younger sissy
Time you wake up: I get out of bed at 6:30AM but don't wake up until 10ish
Underwear: Yes, I wear them
Veggie you dislike: Mushrooms
Ways/reasons you are late: I am a punctual person
Yummy food you make: Peach cobbler
Zoo animal you like: Polar bear

Now I tag you to complete the questionnaire. If you do leave me a comment so that I can come see your answers!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Canister Set

2010-10-24T23:04:00.000-05:00

I have been using these as my canister set for a year or so.

I picked them up at different times at the antique store. Their lids were originally white but I spray painted them red and then added a bow. They were as sweet as could be. However, they are not exactly air tight in which my baking goods were going bad far before I would use them up.

I tried to find a new canister set that I liked but couldn't come up with anything.
Then I remembered I had some old tins.....it was worth a try.

I only had three so I threw my cream jar in there until I can come up with another tin. I just put the baking goods inside the tins in their original packaging.

I just saved myself $50-70!!

The little wood box holds my sugar jar, salt and pepper and the rooster has measuring spoons in it. I painted the box pink but now am thinking about repainting it.

I hope you had a great weekend! Hubby and I took the day off on Friday in which we got 95% of our Christmas shopping done!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Calling Color!!

2010-10-20T23:36:00.000-05:00

I have been in a decorating rut for quite some time. And it all comes down to that although I love everything about decorating in cottage style in mostly whites or pastels....it is not for me.

I need color!

And alot of it.

Especially in reds and blues.

Sooooo...

I pulled out some of my old kitchen decor that I used before I started going all cottagey and mixed it with some of the white.

And since Kmart has their Country Living dishes 50% off this week I splurged on two patterns of their salad plates.

I was too tired to work on it very much this evening. I am hoping to have some time this weekend to dig through some more old stuff to see what I can come up with.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Color Change

2010-10-18T22:57:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend we took advantage of some of the last few nice days of the year and started painting our fake balcony that is on the front of the house.

I am so glad we will never have to look at that awful blue ever again!! There were out dated shutters in the same color but we changed them out in the spring.

I love the transformation!!! But I don't love our new (loud) neighbors that invited friends over and sat outside and watched us paint all day long!!! Weirdos!! It isn't quite done yet but will be by this weekend.

And here is proof that I helped!

Thank you for visiting and have a nice day!!
XOXO!!

Free PC's???

2010-10-13T23:17:00.000-05:00

We happened upon this sign tonight and thought it was funny. Buy a bucket of chicken and get 4 free PC's?? Husband & I thought it would be funny to go inside to ask just to see what they would say.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

More Fall

2010-10-10T22:10:00.000-05:00

This weekend my husband and I went to the pumpkin patch at....the grocery store.

There were many pumpkins to choose from.

We also got some mums & a scarecrow.

Then came home to put it all together.

We finished out the day with a Pumpkin Spice Shake from Culver's. Yuuummy!

I hope you had a great weekend too!
Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

The Power of Blogs

2010-10-07T22:18:00.000-05:00

I read alot of blogs. I don't usually comment because I do it in the mornings and want to get to as many as I can. Through the blogworld I have learned that we really care about our blog friends even if we don't share words in person, email, or through the comment section. When our blog friends rejoice we rejoice and when our blog friends hurt we hurt.

This past week I have done alot of praying for some families on three blogs that I read. And tonight I have a very heavy heart for one of them.

I learned about Leslie's blog through Kelly's Korner when she asked for prayer. Leslie had gone into pre-term labor with the twins she was carrying. Sadly, both of the babies did not make it. After birth Leslie went into cardiac arrest after suffering from a blood clot and went into a coma. Today Leslie went home to the Lord. What is even more sad is Leslie was married to a guy that buried his first wife 3 years ago who passed away from cancer. He had 3 children that Leslie stepped in and mothered as if they were her own. Please join me in praying for this family.

I have also been praying for Krystie. I have been following Krystie's caringbridge for about 2 years. Krystie has Tay-Sachs which there is no cure and children usually only live to be about 4-5 years old. Krystie got pneumonia and the night she went into the hospital they didn't think she would make it through the night. She was put on a ventilator and had a very rough week. Thankfully she is doing much better now and has been moved out of ICU. Could you also say some prayers for this sweet girl?

Then there is Baby Bennett. Bennett was born around 3 months early to amazing parents, Adrienne and Jim. Adrienne and Jim have suffered through 6 miscarriage's and 2 failed adoptions. They have 2 children they adopted and one they are in the process of adopting. (They were in process of adopting one of the children when they learned Adrienne was pregnant. Since then one of the failed adoptions they went through earlier in the year the mother asked them to go ahead and adopt her son.) Bennett is now a little over 3 months old and weighs a little over 3 pounds. Healso got pneumonia last week. He was doing better when his breathing started getting really bad again. The doctors took an xray and learned he had a mass in his lungs. This mass may go away on its own or he may need surgery. Little Bennett is such a cutie and has come so far. Please pray that he can overcome this hurdle and join the loving family he has at home.

In closing I just want to thank anyone who may come by my blog and read it. I thank you for the sweet comments and enjoying reading your blogs as well. The connections in the blog world are very strong and I am honored to have you as a friend.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Smelling Like Fall

2010-10-06T21:28:00.000-05:00

Tonight while we were out running some errands my husband bought me a lil present.

Not only is it looking like fall around here but it smells like it too! Yummy!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!

Sweet Tea

2010-10-05T23:16:00.000-05:00

We love sweet tea all year round! We typically go through a pitcher a day during the week and two a day over the weekend. Here is how I make our sweet tea.

Three family size Lipton tea bags

Brew them in very hot water in a cup for approximately 7 minutes.

In the meantime pour a cup and a half of sugar into the bottom of the pitcher. You can add more or less depending on how sweet you want your tea.

Pour the hot tea over the sugar and let it sit for approximately 5 minutes while the sugar melts.

Add a pinch of Baking Soda. Why?? It softens the natural tannins that cause an acid or bitter taste.

Stir to make sure all the sugar is melted.

Add cold water.

Enjoy!!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!

XOXO!!

Corn Broom

2010-10-04T23:53:00.001-05:00

This is our big dog, Koko

She can't sit still to take a good picture to save her soul.

BUT, one thing she does do is shed. All.over.everywhere!!!

I could sweep the house 50 times a day and there would still be dog hair all over. It drives me bonkers! And even worse for the Mr. (He isn't the animal lover that I am!)

In my 20+ years of living out on my own I have always used a polypropylene broom. It worked for me until Koko came into our lives. The dog hair gets stuck inside the polypropylene bristles and it gives me the grossies to have to pull it out. Because of all the dog hair getting trapped inside I typically buy 3-4 brooms a year.

I have never had a corn broom before and I wondered if it would do any better. Hmmm? I wanted an Amish made corn broom in which I found one on the Internet but the shipping and handling cost as much as the broom! Don't get me started on high S&H charges!!!

So, the next best thing was to buy one from Home Depot.

So far so good. Here and there a few dog hairs get stuck inside but nothing like the polypropylene broom. The only thing I have to get used to is I am 4'11" and this broom is about 4"7"!!! I am thinking I am going to have my husband cut it down to my size.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

Getting Ready for Fall

2010-10-03T19:44:00.000-05:00

I had hubby dig my fall decor out of storage and started putting some of it up this weekend. We won't finish the decorating until next weekend when we go buy pumpkins, mums and our scarecrow.

How are you getting ready for fall?

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

Apple Butter

2010-09-28T23:17:00.000-05:00

I finished cooking the apple butter and canned it this evening. I only got 6 half pint jars but they are my little pride and joys. This was my first attempt at canning. It was fun but I doubt I try it again any time soon. It is alot of work for one person especially one that works full-time!

I used this recipe which was really easy. The only changes I did was I only used 2 cups of sugar opposed to the 4 that the recipe asks for. Mine seems sweet enough with the two. I also cooked mine over three days. I let it cook for so many hours per day and then would cool it down and put it in the refrigerator overnight. I used approximately 20 apples (Johngolds with a handful of Jonathon's - I would have preferred Macintosh but the orchard didn't have them). My crock pot was filled to the rim with finely chopped apple pieces to start with and after it cooked down I only got the 6 half pint jars!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

2010-09-27T22:38:00.000-05:00

I don't like the frozen pot pies you buy at the grocery store but my husband loves them. Anytime I am going to be away for dinner he has us get him pot pies for his dinner. It could be 105 degrees out and he still wants them!!

I came across a recipe for homemade chicken pot pie on Kelly's Recipes. It is actually Paula Deen's recipe and we all have seen how good her food looks on TV. I thought I would give it a try to see if it was any better than its frozen cousin!!

This pot pie is so good!!! It is very light tasting. Yummy! Yummy! A great dish for fall!! My husband usually won't take leftovers in his lunch but he has requested this two days in a row. That makes my job easier!!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

Apples

2010-09-26T21:16:00.005-05:00

This past Saturday morning we got up early and met our good friends for breakfast at Corner Cafe.

Then we headed out to the country to get some apples.

This orchard didn't allow for us to pick our own. =(

But we still came home with plenty of goodies.

I have apple butter cooking in the crockpot right now, have made one apple pie and hope to get several more made this week. We also plan on making caramel apples this coming up weekend!

Happy Fall!!
Thank you for visiting and have a great day!!
XOXO!!

Chicken in basil cream sauce - YUMMY!!

2010-09-20T23:05:00.000-05:00

I made a new recipe tonight that was absolutely delicious!! I had to share!! Like a bone head I forgot to take a picture of it.

I actually got the recipe out of a church cookbook. My sister has made it before and gave me her tips of what she does differently.

Here is a link to the recipe. It is exactly the same one my sister and I use...except for our modifications which are:

First off we don't use the pimento's. We no likey!!

The second thing we did was instead of using the whole chicken breasts we cut ours into cubes and then followed the recipe of dipping them in the milk and then the bread crumbs.

We served ours on top of spaghetti noodles. (Noodles, topped with the chicken and then the sauce poured on top)

Bon Appetit!

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
XOXO!!

New Living Room Color

2010-09-16T22:16:00.003-05:00

Today I am going to show the new color of my living room. Before I show the pictures let me bring you up to speed on our house in case there are any new readers.

I purchased the house 8 years ago with every intention of flipping it in five years and moving on. Well, three years passed my goal date we are still here with TONS of work still to be done. As well my daughter is a freshman in high school and dug into her friends that there is no way I would move her away at this point in her life. So we will stay. For now.

We have done quite a bit to the house like installed new garage doors, a french door, and switched out all the doors to 6 panel white doors, installed crown molding and completely remodeled one bathroom.

There is still ALOT of major work to be done like have the hardwood floors refinished, completely remodel the main bathroom and will have the kitchen completely remodeled. Those jobs will take alot of money in which we still have to save for as we are cash only people. We don't "do" credit cards.

We are currently taking a break from major home remodeling as we are saving for a family trip to Orlando. Doing the tour of parks there. I am not too thrilled about it. I have been before and was not impressed but hubby wants to take the kids so we will go!

We are going to do some minor projects with in the next year like install all new baseboards throughout the house. We are going to also replace the ugly wrought iron railing in the entry with a new wood banister.

Once everything is done we are going to sell this house and move into our final house. That house will be move in ready or I am not buying it!! I thought it would be fun to remodel a house but it really isn't. I think it is because it takes so long!!! I love my husband to pieces but he is as slow as molasses getting the work done. However, I am always impressed once he finishes a project!

Now onto the pictures!! (you can click on the pictures to make them bigger)

The new color is called Cincinnatian Hotel Nichols Taupe by Valspar. I am not a good photographer so the color isn't exactly as it appears in the photos. It is very romantic looking. I also like how it contrasts with the crown molding (which I cut off in the pictures) and with the black decor.

Now that it is painted I have alot of new ideas of what I want to do with the decor. I just need the time to make some of it. So stay tuned!!

I thought Kelly's Korner was doing the Show Us Your Life - Living Rooms posts today but maybe I got the date wrong. I will keep watching her site and if she posts I will come back and edit a link to it later.

EDIT: Kelly's link is now up. You can see her living room here and see what others are sharing!

Thank you for visiting and have a great weekend!!
XOXO!