Be my guest

Hey-o.....I hope you all are having a fabulous week! It has been busy around here.....yesterday was our Sweetie's third birthday. I cannot believe it has been three years since our baby girl was born. She is a beautiful, smart and funny little girl and we are so, so blessed.

I've had two basketball games two nights in a row...before you go thinkin' that I'm some kind of coach, I'll preempt you and tell you that I am in charge of the pep band at our high school. Two nights in a row--especially when one of the nights is baby's birthday and I'm sad to be gone that evening--wears me out a bit. So.....I am glad that is past. And I have Friday and Monday off from school....yesss!


Today you can catch me over at Our Crazy Ever After, posting on everyone's favorite January topic......organization. 

If you have never checked out Lauren's blog, you will love her and her crazy humor! Click on her blog button to take you there.

See you there to get your de-crapping on......!

An old bottle.....

Check out this bottle.....

My husband gave this to me on our first Christmas together......this would be December, 2011. We had gotten engaged just a few days before.....and the note inside said, "To drink on our 10th Christmas together."

Well, this was it. : ) It's hard to believe it's been ten years. As he would say, "The longest ten years of my life." 

He's so funny. Don't you think? : )


We were pretty worn out by the time Christmas day evening rolled around, so we decided to enjoy our bottle on the 26th. 

I did a little research to see what kind of food would be complementary to champagne. 


Keep in mind that we are on a budget.


Besides super fancy food (think snails or caviar), my research indicated that fried food would enhance the flavor--or the notes, as the articles put it--of our champagne.


So.....we chose a sampling of White Castle's fine fried foods. White Castle opened about 3/4 of a mile away from us about six months ago. And this is the first time we have patronized it. They have some breakfast sandwiches that look killer.

I must say, the taste of the champagne was quite unlike any other I've had. It was not very sweet....definitely a sparkling wine, I guess. Can you tell I'm quite the connoisseur of champagnes?

Somewhere, I'm sure a wine snob is throwing up his or her mouth a little bit. I don't care....it was perfect.


Here's to the next ten.....: )

No more holidays....but it's still winter....

Hey, hey, hey...well, here we are, knee-deep into January. Perhaps I have alluded to my feelings before in this forum, but I kinda hate January and February. I really have a hard time getting excited about anything in these two months. And just last week, I posted about how much I hate New Year's Eve. I bet you can hardly stand the positive vibes emanating from my blog!!


It's cold. It gets dark early. When I get home, I want to do nothing but curl up on the couch for the rest of the night. Now that I have children, I cannot do such a thing. They want to do things not related to curling up on the couch. And they have to be fed.


It's gotten a little better in the last few years. My daughter's birthday is this week. That makes for a little bit of fun and excitement. : ) My birthday is at the end of February. That, along with the Golden Globes next week, makes up the extent of my post-holiday, winter excitement. Having Christmas s^&* going on during December is about the only thing that makes that month any fun and tolerable. 


Sorry about being a little MIA last week....we started back to school and said daughter's party is this weekend, so I've been a bit preoccupied with all of that! Returning to the kiddies at school after about 2.5 weeks off was shock to the system. It was a nice long break. : )


So....I will be beating the winter blues by guest posting with Emily over at Domestic Deadline this week about just that. 

And I got some new little things done around the abode to show off to you all. So stay tuned!

What a ham

You know, sometimes you gotta just toot your own horn. I'm feeling accomplished this week at my attempted culinary feat.


You also must know that although I possess some gifts, cooking and baking is not one of them. I describe myself as a functional cook. I have a few good recipes that I know how to make well and they get the job done, but you'll never find me creating new recipes or looking forward all day to trying out something new in the kitchen. 


Each year, my mom and dad are sent a Honeybaked ham as a holiday gift. It rocks for us, since my mom calls me up and asks me to cut it up and bring her back a slab of the prime pieces. I then proceed to cut up the rest....we use some and freeze some.


And.......every year, I've stuck that d&*$ ham bone in a baggie in the back of the fridge and told myself I'd make some soup. Well, this year I did. Buh-bam.


I started with two bags of beans. They got soaked overnight, 6 cups of water per 16oz of beans. I drained them the next morning. I should preface this by saying that I was not totally convinced this would work.

I put the ham bone in the pot with the soaked beans and 6 more cups of water. I put the pot on low all day.

After 4-5 hours, I added some salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and some Italian seasoning. I also threw in some corn and shredded potatoes that I had on hand in the freezer.

Miraculously, most of the meat fell off the bone. Yum!

It was quite tasty and filling, if I do say so myself.

After a day of doing some of that, it was much appreciated soup! Okay, it wasn't that much snow, but since we haven't had any, we'll take it. Or at least the kids did. : )

Party Time......

Time Travel Thursday at The Brambleberry Cottage

Fridays Unfolded at Stuff and Nonsense

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Show and Share Day at Just a Girl

Simply Creations Link Party at Simple Home Life

Addicts (not so) Anonymous Addicted to Decorating

Sunday Showcase Party at Under the Table and Dreaming

Project Parade at The DIY Showoff

Creative Bloggers' Party and Hop at Homemaker on a Dime

Tip-Toe Thru Tuesday at Crayon Freckles

Sunday Shake-up at Jacque's Soda Parlor

Fabulous Friday at Ohh Baby

Pinspirational Thursday at The Artsy Girl Connection

Make the Scene Monday at Alderberry Hill

Sunday Salvation at Sassafras Salvation

Tuesday Talent Show at Chef n Training
Flaunt Your Flowers  at Tootsie Time
What I Wore/What's Up Wednesday at Rae Gun Ramblings

Happy New Year 2012

Happy New Year to you. I have to be honest here....I kind of hate NYE. I think it might possibly be the lamest holiday ever. Or the most overrated. If you don't have the coolest plans ever, then you are a complete loser. I think the one I remember the most is the one where it became 2000.


One of my least memorable would be when I spent the evening with my friend and her boyfriend at his apartment. LAME. The only upside was that the next day, I had my second date with my now-husband. I think a NYE date would have been way too much pressure for a second date, don't you? I suspect--but am not sure--that my husband's NYE that year was equally as lame.


So, last night, my husband watched college basketball and I fell asleep on the couch around 9:45. Miraculously, I awoke at 11:57pm. To Lady GaGa (Gaga? Ga Ga?) starting the big ball that falls.


So, because of our lameness, here is how we ring in 2012 in our household....the next morning.

Party hats, noisemakers, mimosas and egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches. Can't go wrong.


I'm pretty excited for 2012...2011 was certainly a wild ride and I'm ready for this one.

Guest posting at Ginger Snap Crafts

Hey! Happy New Year's Eve eve...if you haven't noticed from my sidebar, Ginger Snap Crafts has been hosting a Christmas Break to-do these last two weeks and yours truly is featured over there today. To get there, just click on the button over there....



I love her blog....great crafts, DIY and a great link party on Wednesdays, too. She is so friendly and welcoming. I appreciate her quite a bit, since I'm still fairly new at this blogging thing.

Enjoy!

A Doll's House

My baby girl got a dollhouse for Christmas. She's going to be three next month and she has run a little low on toys in the girl department, seeing as she has an older brother.

So, when my dad found an small dollhouse at my parents' lake cabin, he dropped it off to me and thought it would be perfect for our girl. C and I spent a lot of time working on it in the last few weeks.

Without further ado......what it looked like at the start.

It was all unfinished wood, so we sanded it down well.

We started with a coat of white paint. First, we used spray paint and it gave it a pretty good base coat.....but it was a bit thin..... 

We used black spray paint on the roof and had to do a lot of touch up with a sample can of white paint from the hardware store. It also gave the white a more finished look and of course my six year-old loved to help with the painting!


A few other projects that we did.....we picked out a fat quarter at the fabric store and made curtains. They are attached using little velcro strips in case our girl wants to change them in the future.

I used the same fabric and a bit of batting to make a bed cushion. (the star fabric is my son's choice and insists on it being there)

I think this may have been a nativity at one point...there is a little nail in the front where you might hang a star and there is a light at the back. It makes it nice so you can see what you're doing. : )

And....we made a rug out of fabric and felt. Here you can see the finished doll house....

Also gifted to Sweetie was the dollhouse family from her brother.....too bad they don't have any furniture yet. Welcome to the real world, dolls.

Here you can see it without the light and the roof shows up better.

Our girl loves it! Next up is to get some furniture going....I may try my hand at making some. Special thanks to my mom and dad who thought of Annie when they found this. : )

Party Time......

Time Travel Thursday at The Brambleberry Cottage

Fridays Unfolded at Stuff and Nonsense

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Show and Share Day at Just a Girl

Simply Creations Link Party at Simple Home Life

Addicts (not so) Anonymous Addicted to Decorating

Sunday Showcase Party at Under the Table and Dreaming

Project Parade at The DIY Showoff

Creative Bloggers' Party and Hop at Homemaker on a Dime

Tip-Toe Thru Tuesday at Crayon Freckles

Sunday Shake-up at Jacque's Soda Parlor

Fabulous Friday at Ohh Baby

Pinspirational Thursday at The Artsy Girl Connection

Make the Scene Monday at Alderberry Hill

Sunday Salvation at Sassafras Salvation

Tuesday Talent Show at Chef n Training
Flaunt Your Flowers  at Tootsie Time
What I Wore/What's Up Wednesday at Rae Gun Ramblings