Merry Christmas!!

With our bellies full, presents unwrapped and family game night winding down, it's time for this group of four to sit back and relax.  Hoping that you all had a truly wonderful, magical Christmas day!!  

Joy is....

Today is day 23 of the December photo challenge and the theme is "Joy is ___________."  

This is my post.

Joy is my family!!

They are the source of my strength, frustration, laughter and most importantly love!

I am truly blessed!

Wishing you much joy this holiday season! 

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Well after a night of blizzard like conditions and power going off and on, I am happy to say the snow has stopped falling, power stabilized and the winds have died down a bit to 40mph gusts from 60.  Have to love living in Nebraska during the winter!! We were lucky last year, having no snow days or major snow fall (5 or more inches). According to a news report, this was the first significant snow fall in something like 294 days.  Wow!!

Anyway here are a few shots after our morning dig out from the 3 foot snow drift in the driveway.  Hopefully the plows will come through and hubby can into our subdivision after work.

One of the drifts in the driveway and finally a semi clean driveway.

Though this one was pretty with the snow on our neighbors bushes.

Now it's time to finish wrapping some Christmas gifts and bake a few cookies.  Enjoy your frost day!!

Snow Day!!

Thanks to a blizzard moving through our area we are blessed with a snow day tomorrow!!

 I know this doesn't look like much but this was taken at the start of the storm, around 4 pm.

Winds and heavier snowfall expected overnight.  We could get 7-10 inches.  Anyone jealous? Or want to shovel for us?  :)  

Old habits...

Good morning!  Did you miss me?  :)  Life had been moving pretty well here, so well that I have neglected my blog since the 25th of November.  Guess old habits die hard!

Here is a brief recap on my happenings...  finished putting up all of our Christmas decor, made a few things as well - thank you Pinterest and the blogs I follow.  Picked up our son from college - looked like he was moving back home with all that he brought back, but that is another post. And started a photo a day plan from Fat mum slim.  Click here for her list and blog.  I know that last one threw you since I tried it before and failed miserably at it.  This one is a little different - she gives you a theme for the day. Love that!!  You also get to share your photos, if you want, on Instagram. Love that too, now that I finally have a smartphone.  My plan was to share them here too, but as you can see, I am a little behind.  I also started the project on the last month of her challenge. Better late than never right?!  :)
My hope is to create a collage of the photos I have taken and share them here, then start fresh in the new year.  Only time will tell.

Enjoy your weekend, I am off to bake Christmas cookies, wrap presents and enjoy my family.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I don't know about your house, but at mine -  Christmas is finally here. And the weather seems to be cooperating too with colder temps. (maybe even a little snow flurries!!)

One thing I always had to do was improvise when it came to decorating our mantle. In the 3 houses we have owned, not one fireplace. Even when we were building this one, we talked about it, but I thought the money would be better spent in the kitchen.   So.... say hello to my little sofa table.  It has been our "mantle" for 20 years and it is always fun to figure out how to decorate it.

I have fallen in love with all that subway art that seems to dominate Pinterest these days.  So I had to find one that would work for my "Believe" theme. (Thank you Pinterest!)  These are so easy to do, I had one on the "mantle" for Halloween and Thanksgiving too.   Anyway, after printing it out and picking up a cheap frame at Walmart, I needed something to balance out the other side.  I went to our local dollar store to pick up supplies for another project I found on Pinterest, when I stumbled upon these cute wire trees.  And they had one left in green - score!!  Another thing that I am in love with this time of year is scented pine cones - picked them up on sale at Michael's on Black Friday!! They fill my hurricane candle holder along with some white and silver Christmas bulbs - it's tucked under the table.  Simple and easy.    How do you decorate your mantle?  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Before I get to involved with all my cooking, sampling and  of course...eating, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!  Here's a little poem we share around here, it's silly but it's one of our traditions:

May your stuffing be tasty, your turkey be plump;

May your potatoes and gravy have nary a lump.

May your yams be delicious, and your pies take the prize;

And my your Thanksgiving dinner stay off your thighs!   

We have so much to be thankful for:  family, employment, a home to live in, food on the table and freedom.  Please take time to enjoy your loved ones and all that you are thankful for.

Great little dessert

I am not a Pumpkin Pie fan. In fact, I can't stand Pumpkin Pie.  It makes me gag.   I know, a little un-American for this time of the year. But I make it every year because my family loves it and I have a very small sliver with ALOT of Cool Whip on top.  But this year, I have stumbled upon a wonderful little recipe from Tablespoon.com :  Pumpkin Turtle Cheesecake.  

Let me know if the link above doesn't work.  All I have to say is OMG - these are wonderful!!  They are so easy to make and you get your own!!  Try them and let me know what you think!

To All Of Our Hero's...

With much love and gratitude!!  

Homecoming 2012

Well as you can see, some time has elapsed between posts.  That's life!  Since then... we've been busy with school stuff... open houses, Homecoming, visiting Danny at UNL; home stuff... trying to revive our dying grass (not working), decorating for fall and Halloween, crafting and getting outdoors and enjoying the fall weather.  I did manage to take a few pics of our daughter and her friends heading off for Homecoming.  They had a blast.  Ahh to be 16 again....  nah, I like where I am.  :)

It took 5 shots to get this one with all of them off the ground.  Love it!!

Have a great weekend. We have a lot planned which means I will have more to post. Sometime. :) 

What are your plans?  

Leave me a post and let me know you were here.  :)

Whooo doesn't like something cute?

I don't know about you, but it's been a long week here.  Between a major sinus infection, an ant infestation in our classroom, getting read for the annual open house night at school and being my daughter's personal taxi, I am happy for another quiet Sunday.  I wanted to share what we did with our kiddos to decorate the bulletin board in front of our room.  Wanted to do something fall-ish but something that we could keep up all year long and have the kids add things to it.  Came up with an owl theme.  What do you think?

The kids had so much fun painting then decorating their owls.  We let them go, didn't correct them by telling them where the eyes and wings should go. We showed an example and let them go.  It is truly their own work and for a class of 3, 4 and 5 year olds they did a great job. Here is one up close. Too cute!!  

We never forget

Finally a quiet day!

It has been a long couple of weeks.  I always look forward to the Labor Day weekend, having an extra day and all but this time around it wasn't so relaxing.  It started well enough: I celebrated my birthday and took my daughter Em, shopping for her homecoming dress and had a great birthday dinner with the family.  Then the wheels fell off.  I dropped my phone in my glass of water, completely frying it. It was such a freak accident but I was still so mad.  Tried the rice but it didn't work, so I had to replace it.  The kids car stopped working....AGAIN! and I decided I didn't need potholders to handle a pan I just took out of the oven 10 minutes before.  OUCH!!  Then the weepy emotions took over after the hand burning incident when I had to drive Daniel to his rides house so he could go back to college.  Not a stellar weekend. And why is it when you have a holiday from work, the 4 day week seems to last FOREVER?   At least this weekend has been pretty quiet, minus my constant sneezing, runny nose and watery eyes. I did manage to complete my Mizzou wreath in time for their debut in the SEC.  Would have been perfect if they could have won.  Here is how it turned out:

Who is your favorite college team and what do you do to celebrate them?

So now I am going to do nothing for the rest of the day!  Hope you are having a quiet day!! 

Lazy girls dinner...

I decided to take the lazy way out to make dinner  last Monday when school started for all of us. Now usually the lazy way for me is to bring take out home but I wanted to try something healthier and not as expensive.  While doing my weekly shopping I found these items in the frozen food section, on sale!!, and decided to give them a try.  Any one try these before?  

Not really gourmet dining at it's finest, but the picture on the bag looked promising. Look at all the broccoli.  Well, here is what it really looked like:

Heavy on the snap peas and one lone broccoli.  See it in the pic?  It wasn't bad, but needed more sauce than the packet it came with and luckily I had some hoisin sauce on hand.  Will I buy it again for our now family of 3 with Danny off at college?  Probably not.  It was supposed to serve 4 and we barley had enough for the three of us. Good thing I had the spring rolls with it.  

 

The lone frat room pic...

Today marks the first official day of college for my son Danny as classes start today.  It seems the  higher learning gods blessed him with a great schedule... none of his classes start before 9:30 and they end by 12:30.  Can you say LUCKY!!  (or blessed!)  After my last post about moving in, I was able to go back to Lincoln for a parent picnic for the fraternity.  To my amazement, the house looked better. After all they boys spent a whole day cleaning it...Danny had bathroom detail.  Ahh... the life of a pledge.  I was able to snap one picture. This is really how big his room is. Who would have thought that the fridge and roommate fit pretty well?!   Good luck Danny!!

Moving Day for Danny

Well, the moving day is over and he is all safe (hopefully) and sound in the frat house at UNL.  I did bring my camera but was so appalled at the sight of his floor and room that I couldn't bring myself to take any photos.  Let me paint you a picture... you see those big beautiful fraternity and sorority houses on tv and they are really pretty and well taken care of... well, it seems that his house didn't get that memo.  Now I know that it is a house full of 44 young men, and having had one of those young men living in our house, cleaning the bathroom or picking up trash on your floor wasn't at the top of the list.  But not having a door knob, a working lock or a fixed window is unacceptable.  So is having holes punched in the wall and broken furniture laying around.  Now back in my college days, our houses were relatively clean and unbroken, and if it was broken it was fixed before a new person moved in!  Times are different I suppose.  The boys don't seem to mind or care.  All of them! I wanted to run screaming from this house. With the help of Danny's roommate parents, we were able to give them a door lock, board up the broken window and secure the ac unit to the window sill. According to the frat president, the house manager/ maintenance guy will fix the door knob this week. Not holding my breath on that one...at least they have a working deadbolt with keys. Let the learning commence!

Ending of an era...turning of a page...

My life at the moment is a roller coaster. We take our son to college tomorrow!  Tomorrow!! This week has been one of the hardest for me since my father passed away 4 years ago. It doesn't help when PMS hits and my Crohn's decides to give me a little flair-up. Needless to say, I have been a weepy, crabby mess.  You really think you are ready for this wonderful, needed change but you aren't.  Most of my friends are in the same boat, minus the Crohn's and PMS I hope, as their children leave this weekend also.  We are  thinking of starting a whine with wine group next week.  :) 

 I think my low point for the week, was yesterday when I was shopping with Danny at Target, picking up toiletries for him and groceries for the house, when he picked up salsa to put in the cart.  I burst into tears!!  In Target! Over salsa!! Both of my kids just kinda smiled while I scurried to the bathroom to compose myself.  Watching your kids grow up is fun and exciting, but having one of them leave to go on his own, and not really "need" you anymore is tough. Eighteen years goes by in a blink of an eye!  Keep plenty of Kleenex handy. 

Humor on a hot day!

So this really doesn't have anything to do with the heat or the weather we've been having but I thought it was funny. {Maybe my brain is fried from the heat} My daughter Emily sent it to me, and where she found was on tumblr, sorry I do not have the exact link. But thanks to whom ever posted it! Maybe it will take your mind off the heat for a few minutes.  

Red Sky Festival Day 2 - Brad Paisley

After a day off, the Red Sky Festival picked up where it left off with great music.  Only this time it was much better.  Sorry Rascal Flatts, you were good, but Brad Paisley is better!  He rocked us country style for 2 hours.  It was awesome!! Loved how he used the video screens and had a virtual Carrie Underwood appear and sing "Remind Me" with him. He paid tribute to the fallen from the shootings in Colorado and to his friend Andy Griffith  The weather even cooperated a little... it was hot at 95 but there was a breeze and clouds rolled in to keep the sun at bay a little.  Of course, the beer we were drinking helped too.  :)  Anyone else go? Or have seen him in concert before?  Here are a few photos from our night:

One of the opening acts - The Band Perry.  

They were very good and seems like they will have a long and happy country music career!

She even came back to help sing "Whiskey Lullaby" with Brad.  Great job!!

Brad's opening song - "Camouflage"

Not only is the man easy on the eyes and can really sing...

he plays one mean guitar too!

Here he is singing "Welcome to the Future"

And singing "She's Everything" to me...

and 14,000 of our closest friends.  ;)

Final song of the night - "Alcohol" 

with a little help on guitar

 from surprise guest, C.C. Deville

from Poison.

He is a great performer, loves his fans and stays true to country music.  Can you tell I am a big fan?

What are your favorite Brad Paisley songs or concert moments?  I would love to hear from you...hint-hint  please post a comment.  :)  Enjoy your "American Saturday Night"  

  

Red Sky Music Festival - Day 1

For one week in hot July, Omaha hosts a music festival with local and national acts. This year we were lucky enough to get tickets to see two wonderful groups, Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley. (can you call Brad a group...I'm not sure) Anyway yesterday was the first day of the festival and even though it was hot - we saw several wonderful groups.  To get things started Eden's Edge was up first.  They are a newer group to country music and I really didn't know that much about them except for the one song I hear on the radio... "Amen"  They were really good.  Here is a photo I was able to take in between sips of water. Did I mention it was hot?  102 and we were in the shade hot!!

Up next came the Eli Young Band, another newer group and a crowd pleaser judging by the screams from the crowd. One of my favorites of theirs is "Crazy Girl".  Here they are: I know it's not a great picture but I was saving my energy for Rascal Flatts.

We had one more opening act before the stage was turned over to Gary, Jay and Joe Don, it was Little Big Town.  They were great and sang my two favorites..."Pontoon" and "Boondocks" - 

As you can see our seats weren't to bad...center stage and we were in the shade, but again does that matter when it is 102?  Finally all the opening acts were finished, and although they all were really good, I couldn't wait until Rascal Flatts took the stage.  They were amazing!  And we had a good time. Here are a few of the pics I took before my battery died.  Don't worry, I will have it charged and ready for Brad Paisley on Friday!!  We have the same seats for his show so I hope to come away with a few good shots.  And we found out that our seats come with club level access to the a/c bar, bathroom and concession area and in seat concession service.  Love it when we fall backwards into things like that!  :) 

Here's Rascal Flatts:

One of my favorite songs is "Bless the Broken Road", (Gary is singing that one above), what's yours? Please share...I would love to get comments!! 

A recipe to share

I don't know about you, but it seems I am always looking for a new side dish. We always have salad with our dinner, but I try and serve another vegetable and it always seems to be green beans. So in my search to break away from the bean, I found this recipe for Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower from The Biggest Lose Cookbook and it is awesome!  So I though I would share.

Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower
The Biggest Loser Cookbook, page 130

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:
     3 cups cauliflower florets
     4 teaspoons grated reduced fat Parmesan cheese
     2 teaspoons fresh parsley leaves, chopped
    1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
    1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
     salt to taste
     2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 425.

In a medium bowl, combine cauliflower, cheese, parsley, garlic powder, and pepper. Season with salt. Toss to mix. Drizzle on the olive oil and toss again.  Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

Bake for 15-17 minutes, tossing once. Bake until lightly browned and crisp-tender.

Per serving: 104 calories / 4 g protein / 11 g carbohydrates / 6 g fat / 5 mg cholesterol / 4 g fiber / 121 mg sodium

Here is what was left out of the batch I made.

It was so good!  If you try it, let me know how you like it!

Busy as a Bee

I don't know if I told you but after 11 years in a portable (think trailer) my preschool classroom is moving into the school building!  Yay!!  Yes, change is hard, but this is going to be a great move because we now have a huge room and lots of storage. The custodians called us last week and told us they moved all of our stuff into our new digs so we could come up and start unpacking.  So, that's how I spent most of last week. As of today, we are all unpacked, mostly put away and now we just need to hang up all of our cute preschool decorations, posters and all the stuff that makes it look like a preschool room!  School doesn't start until August 20th so we have time for that.  I will try and post a few pics when it is all done and looking cute! 

With all that going on however, I did find time to make my great, wonderful and dear friend Mia a cool fall wreath and was able to spend the day shopping and catching up with her. It's hard when you live 2 hours away, but we are good at finding time to get together.  I mean, we text each other and facebook and all, but it is so nice to get together for a girl's day!

Anyway, after I saw many cool fall wreaths on Pinterest  I knew I wanted to make one for her.  I gathered my supplies, most of them from Hobby Lobby {thank you 40% off coupon and sales}.
And it went from this:

To this:

I was so happy with how it turned out and Mia LOVED it!!  Have you made anything inspired from Pinterest lately? Please share!! 

Picture Walls

I am able to cross off another project from my post on July 1st... photo walls. Finished these yesterday. YAY!

My husband and I are paint-challenged when faced to paint large, high walls say on a stairwell. And since we have been in this house for a little over 6 years, I am kinda tired of seeing a blank wall. (Hubby doesn't mind) So I have been seeing so many cute photo arrangements on Pinterest, I had to create one, well two in this case for both our main stairwell and the one that leads to our finished basement.  I bought a vinyl quote from Stampin Up before they retired their Decor Elements line and had it sitting in my craft room waiting till summer vacation when I could use it.  Here is the stairwell before:

Pretty plain and boring.  (Again, I took the pic while I was planning where to hang my photos so ignore the paper taped to the wall)

The quote is one of my favorites from Rose Kennedy:

I thought the best way to display our moments was with collage frames. Plus we already had some on hand that we didn't use from when we moved in and that I received from Christmas so bonus...no extra money spent!  (Hubby loves that!)  

Here is the end result: 

The picture doesn't to the wall justice, and I was standing in our office area to take the picture. I may add one more frame later in the open space above the large frame, but for now it will do.

The other stairwell has a ledge that had all these pictures sitting on it. Drove me crazy and you guessed, hubby not so much.  So it went from this: 

To this:

A kind of family sports shrine, leading to our St. Louis sports themed man-cave in the basement. One of these days I will have to share pics of the man-cave. That was the only room in the house I let my hubby have complete control over when we moved in. He did a pretty good job too! 

Bathroom upgrade

Since it has been SO hot here, I kept myself busy with some indoor projects.  The big one I got out of the way was the upstairs bathroom redo/upgrade.  Since both of the kids are nearly adults at 18 & 15; I felt it was time for this to go...

(I really need to learn how to take before pics, before I test paint samples..see them up there?)

So for about $60, here is what I decided on....

What do you think?

Of course I needed new art work and I didn't want to spend a fortune on it, so I made my own. Thanks to some stencils and canvas from Hobby Lobby, metal work on the clearance table at  Gordmans and paint I had on hand; I created these:

Love the metal art work.  It had blues and greens in it but I covered those with my black spray paint. I like the painted canvas too, but I really need to work with stencils more, or maybe use appropriate stencil paint instead of the the acrylic paint I had on hand.  Still not to bad, and cheaper than what I could buy in the store.

Here is one more look:

I am really happy with the end result.  Would love to know what you think, so leave a comment if you can!  

Happy 4th of July!!

Hope everyone is having a safe and happy 4th! We are playing it safe this year (you can read that as cheap) and enjoying our neighbors fireworks.  How did you celebrate?

Happy July 1st

Hot enough for you?  It is here, that's for sure.  We have been laying low this past week, staying cool and hydrated. Because of that I actually have no pictures to share!  Oh don't worry, there will be more coming. Here are my things in the works for this week:

>finish decorating my stairwell wall with pictures and uppercase living-esk quote
>paint the main, aka kids, bathroom
>decorate the finished bathroom
>take Danny to New Student Enrollment at Lincoln, still can't believe he is going to be in college
>enjoy the 4th of July!

Hope your week is full of fun, crafts and relaxation.

It's So Pinteresting

I have been busy crafting, thanks to Pinterest, and I thought I would share what I made. And I figured out how to include the links so you can make your very own.  Yay!!  Please let me know if the links don't work, I don't want you to miss out!  :)  Here's are a few things I made this week:

Travel Toothbrush Holder from Simple Things Sweet Life

Kiss Pies from Picky Palate

Oven Fried Pickles from Skinnytaste

Fourth of July Wreath from Capital B

Let me know if you find some pinteresting things to make!  Happy crafting!!