Cards

I know five minutes in the store will give you a funny, sentimental, or sympathetic card, right? I just can't see having to pay the $2 (if you're lucky!) on something that most people will only look at a couple of times. In my world, homemade is much better anyway!
I know we are way past Mother's Day, but I have never been accused of being prompt! Here is a card we made for Brian's mom. It turned out super cute, I think, and I will probably use the format again!

I used sticker letters on the front because I cannot stand my own hand writing and I usually realize after I am done that I have misspelled something. Stickers make for easy corrections!

On the inside of our card, we put pictures of each "child" holding one of the letters to the word LOVE. For each letter we thought of an attribute of our mom, typed it up (again because I always make mistakes or don't like the handwriting!), printed it out, and glued it on. I used 2 pieces of card stock glued together to get the length I needed for the word. We all thought it turned out pretty cute and it was easy to do. Much better than a store bought card!

New ADDITION!!!

Now all of you I am sure thought that I was going to announce a pregnancy...LOL but I am not. Just going to tell you of our newest additions to our home.

Yes, we still live in the city limits, but they allow us to have chickens! We are super excited about fresh eggs!

Check back soon for a post about our chicken coop building experience!

Spiritual Wall

Brian and I are always looking for more and different way to help us, as a couple, grow closer to Jesus. When we bought our house, we were trying to memorize a verse in Galatians (Brian's future post) and it wasn't going too well. It is difficult when you have so many thing in a day that you need to remember things that need to get done, places you have to go, people you need to call, work that must be turned in...you get the picture.
So when Brian and I moved in, I decided that we were going to put it on the wall (not literally). I typed it in PowerPoint, so that I could add my flare to the Word Art, put it in a frame, and hung it up in our room.
Then it grew...a prayer reminder (praying), a Bible reading accountability chart (Reading), a weekly catechism question (Learning), and of course the memory verse (Memorizing)...all went up, hence the name "spiritual wall". What else can it be called?!!

Brian and I love it! It is right by our door, so when we go out we can take a peak. It brings accountability, many fun "quizzing" moments, and just a centered thought on Christ while in this room. What do you think? Anything we missed?

Our room...

The first room we are going to release for viewing just got done a few nights ago. We have been working non-stop on it and I love the way it has turned out.

Hopefully you can see the progression around the room. I still (obviously need to finish making the curtains for this room..watch for that post. They are gonna be super cute!) We decided to go with black, white, and red in our room and I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out.

The door you can see goes into the bathroom which you will see as we make our way through the house. I found our bed spread at a "Tuesday Mornings". They have a lot of cheap bedding sets. I liked it, but (at the time) it was just black white and grey. I sewed the red ribbon on there and now love it. It just made the blanket and pillows pop!

To complete the tour, you see our closet door (which is closed for good reasons!! LOL) and our bedroom door, which leads down a long hallway past the other rooms and into the living space. The hangings that you see are our "Spiritual Wall".

This is our room. Watch upcoming post for the rest of the house tour!

Too much bleach is a bad thing!

When I was a kid, I remember my mom using bleach for all her whitening needs. Just wanting to be like her (LOL), I decided to bleach my cloth napkins. What I didn't take into account was how much bleach she used or how long she left her items in the bleach water. I washed the napkins out a day later and found that each one was nicely white, but extremely holey as well.

So just FYI, when you're bleaching items, make sure to use the right amount of bleach and a couple hours will probably be sufficient. Just one of those tiny bits from my homemaking attempts I thought I would share.

Laundry

Ok so we have been packing and preparing for our move.

This process is nuts and you think that as you take things and put them in boxes my house would get more organized...NOT!

We cleaned out the attic and since the stuff in there had been slept on by racoons (yes we have racoons in our attic) and mice, I felt the need to wash the bedding and clothing before I packed it. This also helped me see what we were keeping and what we were going to get rid of.

This is the mess that it created!

Now Mom, before you panic and jump in the car to drive seven hours and "fix" me...I should update you on my progress! LOL

So drop the keys, and relax....its folded and maybe will be put away (or worn) from here!

Hope everyone else is having a productive type day too!

My Kitchen

This is my favorite room in my house! As you can see, there are dirty dishes in the sink, stuff on the stove, and the counter has cookies on it, which is the way you will find it most times. My kitchen is NEVER clean! But I love it that way and I would imagine there are several people who are deployed right now who whole heartedly feel the same way!

It is really funny to me...as a child, my mom would have probably had to tie me up to keep me in the kitchen long, and heaven help the person who ate whatever the product was! But since then, I have perfected my ability to be still long enough to be in the kitchen...it calms and relaxes me, frustrates and aggrevates me, and most of all fattens and slows me (LOL).

So the cookies on the counter and the cupcakes on the stove (they were not cooked there! no jokes, crazy's!!!!)

This is my latest addition to my kitchen (really the addition is in the laundry room, which is in the kitchen so by default the addition is part of the kitchen!)

In keeping with my promise to one of my very special readers, I wanted to show you my favorite room!

The apartment...just for you Sarah!

This is my beautiful bathroom! It is green and gave me a place to put my Costa Rica memories...I love the way it turned out!



Next is my bedroom...












...and of course the most important part of any house! THE CLOSET!

Now I must add a disclaimer...these pictures were taken on the one day that everything was clean. So if you happen to stop by (feel free anytime!), it will NOT be this clean. (said with total certainty!) LOL...I have come to know that I have my strengths and spotless housekeeping just didn't make the cut! I am good with that...it gives me more time to do other things.


Stay tuned for more pictures of my new place....

Life in gereral

I had stopped update my blog for awhile because I felt like it was a good use of time...because I didn't know if anyone read it. So here's for my best friend Sarah...because she reads it! Love ya...oooh and sent your christmas presents yesterday (wednesday). I know I know they are late, but hey nothing like spreading out the joy of the season right? All my plan the whole time!

Anyway, I don't go back to school until the 19th of January. Late, isn't it? I love it! I am spending the time getting so projects done around the house...pictures in the next blog (have to clean before putting them out on the web!). I have sewn a ribbon on my bed spread and pillow cases to make them more what I wanted for my room. Worked a little more on my military scrapbook. I must say it has been a little emotional than I thought, but I have another post on that! Baked more than I care to think...sending most of it overseas to my buddies there (Let me know if ya need a refill guys!)...using some of it for family gatherings too. I would say that I have cleaned my house, but hey, I wouldn't want to lie on a world wide web! Let see...I have started working on my spanish curiculim also...or again. It is a trail run with my nieces and we took off over christmas, but now that we are back at it, I am wishing that I would have taken the time to think about my next lessons a little more. My biggest challenge of the season was getting things for my house! I have a lot of the eccentials, but the walls are pretty bare and the tan on the walls is just a little boring! So with all of these projects you can see that posting wasn't my top priority.

No worries though...I will update regularly from now on!

The braid bread

The other day I was chatting on MSN with my friend from Costa Rica. We were making plans for my next visit and revisiting all the great memories that we made the last time I was there. As part of my language learning, I would read the recipes and bake hoping that I usnderstood what it was saying to me. This is one of the recipes that I brought home.

It is just bread, but before it is braided, I put sweeten condensed milk, cinnamon, nutmeg and all-spice inside. It makes a great breakfast bread.

Dinner

Just a salad, but I decided to make it restaurant quality tonight! Just for one!

I have changed a few things that I do with my salads lately.

• 
  
  One I only use spinach...not lettuce anymore. It is better for you and I have found that for me it tastes just as good.
• 
  
  Two - I stopped getting fresh tomatoes and started using canned. Especially in the winter months, I have found that canned tomatoes are cheaper and taste sometimes better than the fresh.
• 
  
  Other than that I just throw on some carrots, boiled eggs, chicken, parmasan cheese and finish it up with my special salad dressing.

I love salad and for me and my army weight requirement standard that is a really REALLY good thing!

Third times a charm!

Good thing this was my first time!

This is my first atempt with fondant. It was fairly easy, but i made a few mistakes along the way. One thing is for sure...there is no patching up with fondant! But it was a fun try.

I decided to use the leftover icing for leaves...kind of a funny green but it worked ok I guess!

More self prescribed therapy

Here are a couple more cakes that I made today.

It was one of those cakes that I hated while I was doing it. Couldn't get it done fast enough! It was a little more dfficult than I was used to.

So after I got done with that really annoying butterfly, I did a funny cake with the leftover batter I had.

Both of these turned out better than my last cake!

 I was so frustrating at the time that I just started

 slinging icing everywhere....

VERY THERAPUTIC!

I highly recommend it as stress relief, but definately not for show! Yikes!

Cheap Cheap Cheap

Ok..so I admit it! I am CHEAP! LOL! I love to save money, especially on things that I have to have, like grocerys, health and beauty items or clothing. So my newest hobby is coupon clipping. I make my grocery list and then try and find a coupon for as many items as I can. There are several sites that I use for this quest.

First...
     You can always do a google, bing, or yahoo search for the product you are looking for. This way is really aggervating because it will pull up all sorts of surveys and questionares to take or sites that you have to register to be able to download coupons.

So...
     I recommend a couple of sites that you try first.

http://print.coupons.com/Couponweb/Offers.aspx?pid=14505&nid=10&zid=py13

http://www.couponalbum.com/index.htm

http://coupons2.smartsource.com/smartsource/index.jsp?Link=QKMLBTO57RA5I

     This site has different coupon sites that you can go to...it is usually pretty good, especially for it's restaraunt coupons.

http://www.wow-coupons.com/index.php


     Here is one for bigger items or well non-grocery items

http://www.thefind.com/

Second...
     Thing that I have found that has saved me a few dollars is a Price Book. It is kinda a wish book of the bigger things that I want or need. Each page is for one item...on this page I put a picture of the item I want (if I have one), the description, and then the price. Here's how I save though...I put the price under the store that has the product at that price. So if Wal-Mart has it as $150 and Target had it at $148, I know this and save a couple of bucks, especially if I find a coupon for that store or that item. It helps me know where to go and what store to look for a coupon for!

Third...
     Another way I save is samples. I know sounds cheap right...well, it is! So there are some sites that give you samples of things you normally buy every day. I have gotten tooth paste, tooth brushes, shampoos, soaps, cereal, granola bars, make up, perfume...you name it. Now it is only a sample, so there isn't much of it. But it is good for a guest basket for your bathroom or snacks on a road trip! Here is one site that usually has some pretty good samples...or like I said before you can google it.

http://www.freeflys.com/FreeSamples


Hope these ideas help you on your savings!

My self-prescribed therapy

When I get annoyed,

 frustrated, mad, upset, or just need to think,

I bake.

E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G!!!!!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Double Chocolate Chip CookiesMini Pumpkin Pies

Applesauce Muffins

And that's just the stuff that made it to the oven...I still have peanut butter cookies and spiced pinwheels to bake! Call me crazy, but maybe I will start tomorrow off on the right foot...at least a sweet one.

Beauty

Here is the newest creation of mine...it took me all day because I had to take a break after and sometimes during each step! But it got done...nothing fancy. Just a couple of designs that I wanted to try.

These cupcakes were really the left over batter from my cake. But I hate to ice cupcakes so I tried this new way and loved it. No trying to make it smooth or get the right amount. It is great...just fill the icing bag and pipe it on in a spiral. It looks a little more decorative and yet it is SO much easier!