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.