SO Many Ideas!

I found this blog the other day and I have so many ideas! You have to check it out, especially if you have kiddos and like decorating/celebrating/doing anything on a budget!

Pumpkins, Plants and Tree Skirts

Yay for productive weekends!

Friday night, I made our tree skirt after I got all of the necessary fabric either on sale or half price because of coupons. Here's the final product. I'm excited.

I backed the burlap with red and green fabric that says "NOEL" on it. I did it so that the burlap had some reinforcement and so that it wasn't rough against our wood floor. I remembered seeing the fabric at the fabric store last year and it was on clearance so it was even better. The hilarious part was, as many times as I reminded myself to make sure the 'right' side ended up on the outside when I turned the skirt inside out, it didn't and now the fabric says "LEON". Yep. Great job, Sarah. At least I'll laugh about it every year I pull it out. :-)

Mike and I ran errands today and got pumpkins for the fall and a new little plant for our living area since I killed the last one. I DON'T have a green thumb.

Groceries for the next two weeks are put away, laundry is done (minus ironing), I made pumpkin bread for us and a loaf for our sweet neighbors just because and now I'm watching the Yankee vs. Red Sox game. Now, if only we got the Cards game tonight... they're gonna clench!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!!

My Favorite Dessert

I wish I could take credit for my new favorite dessert recipe but I can't SO, make sure you visit Closet Cooking to check out more recipes as wonderful as this one. (I recommend the beef stroganoff, my entire family loves it!)

Chocolate Stout Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Directions:
1. Melt the butter in a sauce pan, remove from heat and let cool a bit.
2. Mix in the stout and cocoa powder.
3. Mix the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
4. Mix the eggs and sour cream in another large bowl.
5. Mix the stout mixture into the egg mixture.
6. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet.
7. Pour the batter into one or two greased and parchment lined circular cake pan(s).
8. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until a toothpick pushed into the center comes out clean. If you bake it in a single pan then it should take about 40-50 minutes. If you bake it in two cake pans then it should take about 20-30 minutes.

Bailey's Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:
4 ounces cream cheese (room temperature)
1 cup confectioners sugar
3 tablespoons of Bailey’s Irish cream

Directions:
1. Mix everything.

Other faves are gooey butter cake and brownies. If you need a really quick fix for a chocolate craving, Mike and I like making s'mores in the oven with the broiler setting.) :-)

Thankful Thursdays

Yay for Thursday! As always, SO SO SO many things to be thankful for but here are some of the highlights:

• Six Sigma Green Belt training is one day from being over. Hallelujah! Now, if I can just get my projects done so I can certify.
• Cooler weather. I know, I know, I've said this a lot lately but I really don't like the hot weather and cool weather means Christmas is just around the corner.
• Having the opportunity to work with kids and help them learn about God. I love the way their eyes light up when they talk about our God.

Happy Thursday, ya'll!

Laminin

Just watch. We serve an AMAZING GOD.

(thank you, Renee, for sharing this!)

In Honor of the Emmys

Since tv tonight is all about fashion, I thought I'd do my own fashion show/wish list. This truly is if the sky were the limit. I really need to learn to sew.

I've been eyeing this coat for several years now. I think this year may be the year I finally get it...

How cute is this skirt from Boden?!?

and this sweater is so cute. It's from Boden, too.

this skirt is cute.

You can never have too many scarves.

Sunflower Days

I ate breakfast with my grandparents this morning. We went to McDonald's and then took a drive to find a field of sunflowers. Oh, do I wish I had taken my camera! The fields we found were far from huge but to see hundreds of sunflowers at once was amazing. It was a fun morning. :-)

As a baseball fan, this makes me laugh and want to cry at the same time because I would love to catch a foul ball sometime. It also reminds me of how God still loves us when we throw something special that He gives us back.

Thankful Thursdays

I'm thankful for:

• being home with my husband. I had a great time visiting friends and spending time with my Mom but it's so good to be home.
• new opportunities to work with new kids. Yay for AWANA!
• a job. I know I've said that a lot but it was so nice to know I have a job to go back to after the furlough.
• Cardinal baseball. Eight and a half games up over the Cubbies. Wahoo!
• coupons to get the fabric for our tree skirt. (now if only I didn't have to wait until Sunday...)

Hope you're all having a blessed week. Tomorrow's Friday! :-)

Tree Skirt

Yes, I know it's a little early to be thinking about Christmas but I'm making something so I need to get started on it. Not to mention the fact that I'm one of those crazy people who decorates for Christmas at the first of November. You have to have it up long enough to enjoy it!

So, last year our poor tree was naked at the bottom. I couldn't find a tree skirt I liked and honestly, I wanted to make one but couldn't find the right inspiration. The other day, I came up with the perfect idea.

Picture burlap:

bordered by a red plaid taffeta ruffle (I want a little bit of a deeper red than this though)

and some kind of rope trim to finish it all off

I hope it turns out as well as I have it pictured in my mind but we'll see!

From East to West and Back Again

The day after I got back from NYC, I left for New Mexico with my Mom. We were long past due for some quality girl time and we had a blast doing absolutely nothing other than a little shopping and enjoying salads with either grilled chicken or salmon for the 4 nights we were there.

Silly me brought my camera but only took two pictures. The first is of the board we bought to make a headboard for the master bedroom at the cabin and the second is what the mountains looked like when we were headed home with the board in the back of the car. It held off just long enough to get home and get the board out of the car without getting soaked.

My Mom bought this cute little butter dish for me when we went shopping. The sunflowers are so fitting since we live in Kansas and the blue coordinates with our dishes. It will come in handy at Thanksgiving since everyone is coming here! (I have these berries all over our house for Thanksgiving. They're so simple but work so well.)

I felt crafty today - in large part due to a trip to Michael's to look around their big sale right now - and realized we needed a little stocking for Lily. The felt puckered a little because the sewing machine and I weren't getting along very well tonight and I gave up fighting back. It's not perfect but it's still cute. I have great plans for a Christmas tree skirt so I'll post that once I get the fabric.

Backto work tomorrow - furlough time is over for me until Thanksgiving. Hope ya'll have a wonderful week!

Labor Day '09

My college friends and I headed to NYC for our annual reunion. Jordan and Kelcey were amazing hosts and tour guides - they, along with Sarah G., even made "NYC Survival Kits" for all of us.

Here are a few highlights from the trip. We missed you Emily, Britt, Colleen, Katie, Sarah, Erika and Amanda!

Thankful Thursdays

Today I'm thankful for:

• quality time with my Mom this week.
• quality time and adventures with my college friends last weekend.
• the mountains and God's creation
• my husband who is at home working while I'm having fun. (Don't worry, I'm going back to work on Monday, I just needed to use more furlough time...) :-)

Thankful Thursdays

Have I mentioned recently how thankful I am that the weather is cooling off? Yes? Well, I still am. :-) In no particular order, I'm also thankful for:

• a week off work with my husband. Yes, I'm leaving tor NYC tomorrow but the last few days with him have been so relaxing.
• a weekend with friends this weekend.
• a girls getaway next week with my Mom!
• fall decorations - the house feels cozier with them.
• my dog and cat. THey are so much fun to have around!
• last weekend with my family in STL.
• the peace I have knowing that I have a God that loves ME. I pray that I do my best to glorify Him as best I can every day.

It's Coming Back

I really hope this isn't an indication that the 80s style is making a comeback. This is just for a movie she's filming, right? :-)

Happy Birthday, Little Bro!

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Love you!

(a picture from almost 5 years ago because I don't have any recent pictures of just the two of us handy...)

Belated Spring Cleaning

Other than to see my family, one of the big goals of the weekend was for me to go through all of my things that were still at my parent's house and either get rid of it or bring it back with me. Doing so got me on a kick and I spent most of the day sorting through my closet and a lot of our other things to organize and get rid of anything we don't need/want any more. I have a big pile of things to take to Goodwill now - yipee!

Mike finished the trim around our fireplace today:

And carpeted the cat stand that he made for Pepper's food. Her food used to be on a kitchen table so Lily couldn't get to it but then she scratched the chair so Mike built this himselt. We used carpet samples to cover it since we couldn't find a small enough remenant to buy.

The cool weather made me want to make something a little more "fall" for dinner so we had beef stroganoff for dinner. YUM!

Tomorrow, finish cleaning, pack and then head to Labor Day '09 with the girls in NYC!