Wordless Wednesday

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday, this girl turned...

26

I feel like this is the year where things are going to change and happen.  I'm done looking back and only have blinders on for the future and the great things that I know have to be around the corner.  Last year, not sure why, blame it on me being 9 months pregnant at the time or what, but I had a very hard time with 25.  This year am happy to report I welcomed 26 with open arms.

The day itself was pretty relaxed, just how I like it!  I got lots of wonderful phone calls and messages for my family and friends.  I was spoiled with some wonderful goodies this year - some cash, clothes, flowers, lenses and filters for my camera and one of the things I'm most excited about below,

That's me holding my Amber Edition of Becky Higgins Project Life.  I look so forward to starting our Family albums.  As a previous paper scrapper unfortunately life gets busy and I found I hardly had time to do it and this is such a great option for me to preserve our family's life.  Haven't heard of Becky before, definitely go check out her blog that I've linked to her name above, am sure you'll fall in love as much as several other people have. 

Here's a picture of my girls' relaxing watching a show.  This is their new thing, normally Emma is laying down too, but she sat up as soon as she saw that camera come out. 

The Hubs & Emma made me my favorite cake, Party Cake anyone?  It was super yummy and loved hearing my little girl sing Happy Birthday to me. 

Mamarazzi's Pinktastic Swaptastic

Mamarazzi over at Dandelion Wishes is at it again with a great swap - everything you get for your swap partner must be pink of some variation.  How fun, girly, and exciting it's going to be to shop for my swap partner and see what they get me.  Can't wait!!!  Thanks Mamarazzi for thinking up this fun swap!  

Wordless Wednesday

*Opinions* Please!!!

I've been tossing around re-vamping the ole' blog.  I was hoping to have it done before the New Year, but between the holidays and everything inbetween - before I knew it 2011 happened, lols.    Decided today was the day to work on putting something together.  Now I've come up with two options and  I can't decide, so am asking for your input, please!  I thank you greatly!

Option A:

Option B:

Toy Organization

As much as I LOVE the Holidays part of me was dreading it some.  As we have a very large family with lots of grand & great-grand parents still around that I was not looking forward to everything the girls' would be getting.  Our house is old and has zilch-o storage! So, I am always trying to find space saving ideas.  My Gramma gave each person some money this year - I knew exactly what ours was going towards.  I'd been searching around and had decided in my mind on the Expedit from Ikea. Like this below, except I planned on laying it on it's side: 

I shared my plan with the Hubs and needless to say he wasn't too keen on the idea.  His first argument being that he could build it for much cheaper and his second being that between the two Ikea's around us, both are a little over an hour away - he didn't want to waste gas.  He argued that I just wanted to go to Ikea - well HELLO, why YES, of course I do!  It's been years since I've been to one.  

So, back to the drawing board so to speak and I started searching big chain stores that are local like Target and Walmart.  I came across this shelving unit on WM's site and fell in love! 

My awesome Hubby looked at it and told me that he could easily make that.  We pulled out the tape measure and figured out how long I'd want two shelves side by side to be in the space and headed to Lowe's.  He picked up some mdf to build these out of and within the week they were made and painted. Brought them up to the living room this morning and got the toys organized - needless to say, I'm in LOVE with them!

Just to get an idea - here's a before of the space these new beauties will be staying in.  Baskets with overflowing baby toys = a crazy mama!

Please ignore the surroundings, it's our overcrowded basement.  Here are the shelves after they were primed. 

Here's a close-up shot of them painted - glossy black.

Here's how they look from the other side of the room.

What I Learned This Weekend - 6th Edition

Better late than never right?  Hope everyone had a fantastic New Year's and long weekend!

1.  I've decided I really don't like when Holidays land on the weekend, makes me feel like my weekends are forever long.  For example, this weekend felt so long that I could have sworn today, Monday, was Wednesday.
2.  Definitely go to the grocery store any other day but the eve of a Holiday - it stinks!
3.  My parents are incredibly awesome and loaded us up on food for our pantry and meat for our freezer they got us for Christmas!
4.  I love finding deals, especially on clothes.  I used return money from Christmas presents, a shirt & a pair of slipper socks.  I was able to get two sweater cardigans *my new love in my wardrobe* and still have $4 leftover!!!
5.  The Hubs is amazing at taking any photo I show him and re-creating it for me at a much lower cost!
6.  There's nothing like having your house back in order after the holidays.
7.  I've decided there will be no more "resolutions" just goals for the year.  They are much more rewarding when met!
8.  There's nothing better then hearing my baby saying Mum-Mum-Mum.
9.  Normally, it's when she's tired and hungry.
10.  New Year's Eve was sort-of a bust this year, I was zonked out on the couch by 9pm.
11.  I blame it on A's cruddy sleep the night before, she was up whining most of the night and I felt like I never fully slept at all that night.
12.  The Other Guys is a funny movie - I highly suggest watching it if you haven't yet.
13.  Love weekends when I can relax and watch some movies on tv - this was my plan for Sunday and I achieved it for the most part!

2010 in Review!

I honestly can't believe that tomorrow is the last day of 2010!  We've been blessed in lots of ways and not so much in only one area in our life (the hubs being laid off for so long!).   But when I look back at what 2010 has brought us, being creative with our money to re-vamp our house and create decor on the cheap, lots of quality family time, some great memories of Avalynn's 1st year, and lots of quirky laughs.

Here's some of my favorite projects & how-to's that I've shared over the past year on the blog.  I'll be linking to Rhoda over @ Southern Hospitality here. You should definitely check out some of the other fabulous blogs that are linked up showing off their highlights from the year.

To start, back in January the Hubs refinished our hardwood floors in the living room as shown in this post.

Early Spring we used some of our return money to do a partial remodel of our kitchen as shown in this post. 

After re-painting our dining room I decided our current furniture needed a desperate facelift and scoured Craigslist for a couple weeks for a dresser to re-do as well, as shown in this post.


I also tackled our "middle" living room area and created a humongous family picture wall in this post and here's how it looks after re-painting the walls, read more about our paint fiasco here.


The Hubs & I attempted making our own mason jar chandy that pretty much rocks in my opinion, click here for more details on that.


Created a FREE piece of art for our dining room, here - our Family Est. piece.

Emma got really into Toy Story this year and had a blast planning her 4th Birthday extravaganza in a Toy Story theme by making some really cute treats & desserts, here.



I look forward to 2011 - knowing that it can only get better in some areas of our lives.  I have tons of *new* ideas for around our Casa and look forward to sharing the journey of them with all of you!

Happy 11 Months Avalynn!

Baby Girl - 

Wow - I can't believe we are at the tail end of your 1st year.  So much has happened and you have changed and grown so much!  I think I'm in a little bit of denial that you'll be a toddler in less than a month.  

We celebrated your 1st Christmas over the weekend.  Well, you actually had two full weekends of family Christmas's since our family is so big.  You definitely have the idea of how to open presents, and love tearing off little pieces and just playing with those.  As soon as you'd get something open enough you'd have to peak inside to see what it was.  And honestly, you didn't want to play with anything you got, your sissy's toys and our gifts seemed so much more interesting to you.  

Your top two teeth have popped through for a grand total of 4!  You are sleeping through the night still and taking two naps a day.  I've switched you to mostly formula as my supply was dropping and now only nurse you first thing in the morning.  I enjoy our mornings snuggling in bed.  Your current favorite foods are peas, chicken nuggets, hot dogs & cheese.  You love the orange Gerber juices the most!  

You still won't stand by yourself, which also means no walking yet!  Which is A-OK with me!  You of course pull yourself up on anything or anyone to walk around.  And you can "run" from one side of the couch to the other so fast it's crazy!  Some of your favorite toys to play with are your wooden pull alongs, your rocking horse at Mimi & Pappy's, & the plush play sets you and your sister got for Christmas.  Also, Daddy says stuff your not supposed to, like computer cords, tearing through your sister's games and getting out every piece of them - actually, anything of your sisters really! 

Daddy calls you a tank because when you want something there is no stopping you.  You charge ahead and attack it, usually me!  You give the cutest lovings, in bed in the mornings you'll either dig your head against ours or throw it back into us.  Sometimes they hurt if we're not watching when you throw yourself backwards - lols.  Anytime someone goes in the basement you love to look through the pet hole in the door and talk to whoever is down there.  You play peek-a-boo a lot now, sometimes even pulling your own shirt up over your face to hide.  

I look forward to this last month of your babyhood and celebrating your turning 1 in a BIG way with all of our loved ones and friends!  You are so loved little girl and bring such joy to our lives! 

Love, 

The Mama

Christmas

jumbled into one big loooong post!  Know it's after the fact but did want to share some of the many pictures I took.  We are blessed with a lot of family, and these are just from this weekend, not including the previous weekends' Christmas's we had.


The Hubs & I Christmas Eve before heading to the in-laws for dinner and church.

The girls' ready for church.

My favorite part of Christmas Eve service, lighting the candle's and singing Silent Night.

At my parents house for our celebration.

Baby Girl showing off her new snow suit and boots.

The tree with all of the presents underneath.  Do you like our "fireplace"?  If only it were real - some day in our next house! 

The Hubs bringing the girls' down Christmas morning - I love that Avalynn is pointing at me and so excited.

Opening stockings.

She LOVES Toy Story!!! 

The in-laws have arrived for our Christmas with them.

Avalynn loves her new pony! 

This girls' excitement is pretty awesome to see! 

Love these two more than life itself! 

The Hubs explaining the craftmanship of the drawers to Emma. 

Passed out on the drive over to the Hubs grandparents, last Christmas of the day! 

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend with their families and loved ones!

What I Learned This Weekend - 5th Edition

Hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend with your loved ones!!!  We certainly did!

1.  Remember what all things you do on holidays, because kids' don't forget and will start to expect it.
2. Case in point - I decided last year to stick a present under Emma's tree from Santa, Christmas Eve morning she comes down and tells me how excited she was for that present - OOPS, wasn't planning on doing that this year.
3. This made me think what to put under them and we became creative and wrapped each of the girls' ornaments, hung them on their trees.  We decided they would be from Fred, our newest addition Elf on the Shelf.
4. Doesn't matter what Avalynn would open she'd only want everyone else's presents.
5. Avalynn was totally getting opening up her presents - loved this!
6. Avalynn woke up before Emma Christmas Day and we ended up having to wake up Emma to get started on the days festivities.
7. Egg & Sausage Casserole *new* recipe were a HIT for Christmas day breakfast!
8. We are SO blessed by all of our families.
9. I'm happy that we were able to celebrate another year with everyone.
10. Singing Silent Night while lighting candles is my FAVORITE part of church on Christmas Eve.
11. Opening presents was much easier this year as everything we wrapped we "pre" opened and then put back in the box so we wouldn't waste so much time opening cruddy boxes.
12. I'm starting to chat again with a lost friend, I've missed her friendship greatly over the last 4 years and hope this is a new beginning.
13. I've decided Miracles really do happen around Christmas it seems.
14. You know you've been busy when you are getting ready to put the baby to bed and realize she's 11 months today!
15.  I feel like I didn't get to take in this last blessed day with her.
16. Lesson learned - don't use re-chargeable batteries for Leapster Explorer's.  We thought Emma's Explorer had stopped working and I finally got it to work after cotton swabbing all battery parts and putting in some regular batteries.

Merry Christmas

It's officially Christmas Eve and I think we finally are done wrapping the last item!  (I kept finding things I forgot about.)

We will be celebrating the next 3 days with our families and am so looking forward to Emma's excitement and taking in Avalynn's 1st Christmas.

Wish you all a safe and hope you have a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones!!!

Recipes & some more Recipes

I'm always looking for some new great recipes to add to my list of dishes to make for parties etc. This year I tried out a couple new ones and they are definitely being added to the recipe box for another time.

1st up - Chocolate Chip Dip: *seriously, if you make this - bring along some copies of the recipe, have had 3 people ask for it*

Ingredients:
- 1 block of cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 3/4 cup of 10x sugar
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1 Tsp vanilla
- 1 cup of miniature
- Graham crackers - I get Scooby-Snack Graham crackers, perfect size for dipping

Directions: Beat cream cheese & butter, add sugars & vanilla, stir in chocolate chips.  Serve cold with graham crackers.

2nd Dish - Bacon Potato Bake

Ingredients:
- 8 cups of red peeled potatoes
- 2 Tbsp flour
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup (8 oz) sour cream
- 2 Tbsp melted butter
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups monterey jack cheese
- 1/4 cup bread crumbs
- 8 bacon strips.

Directions:
- Slice up the potatoes, think scalloped potatoes, I use our cheese grater, the side that supposed to be used for cucumbers or whatever - it works and goes faster than using a knife.
- Boil water in a pot, cook potatoes for 10 mins, drain.  Dump in whatever dish you'll be cooking in, have used a casserole dish and also done in the crock pot.
- Combine flour, eggs, sour cream, 1/2 butter,  & salt - mix well.
- Your going to put a layer of potatoes, spoon over the above mixture, top with cheese - repeat until you run out.
- Toss the remaining butter with bread crumbs and put on top.
- Bake @ 350 for 45 mins.
- Just before serving top with crumbled bacon.

I'm always searching for new sugar cookie recipes and think that I've finally found some keepers.  Yesterday we made some rolled out sugar cookies, click here for the recipe, for the big man in the red suit.  And I have a good hunch he's going to *love them*.   We also tried this "drop" sugar cookie, click here for the recipe,  that has a really good sweet taste.

And my last two are a butter and cream cheese spread I made up for some gifts this year.  I made this Cranberry-Citrus Cream cheese and this Cinnamon - Honey Butter.

Hope you try out one or two of these and like them as much as I do!  Happy cooking & baking!!!