winter white flakes.

It's snowed this weekend! Wasn't it beautiful?!  It truly feels like Christmastime. I love turning up the Christmas music, decorating the house and going to all of the events this season.  This weekend, we went to a Christmas concert at our church, which was just beautiful.  And the following night, we went to an ugly Christmas sweater party.  You know you have a good sweater when you dread putting it on. :)  I'm sure there will be pics on facebook, but I didn't take any this time.

This past week, my sister-in-law and I planned a Christmas craft time.  We had a good time together, and I'm excited that she invited me.  I've been wanting to do this for a while, and this gave me the initiative.


Our craft table.



I changed the ribbon on this wreath, added lights and replaced the ornaments. Doesn't it look great with the lights and garland on the mantle? You can view Jodi's wreath here as well as some of her other great Christmas ideas. 



One of the ornaments we made. ...We got the idea from another blog, and it very much resembles some of the ornaments available at Pottery Barn this year.



Jingle Bell Wreath to welcome visitors.

ho! ho! ho! Tis the season.  Writing this post has been a good reminder to me.  I want to enjoy each event as time with family and friends.  It's so easy to get overwelmed with planning, scheduling, cooking, shopping, that one could stress right through the season.  I'd rather take the time to enjoy some good Christmas movies!

November.

November went by so fast, but it was a month of blessings. 

• I'm enjoying a bible memory class that meets once a week.  I love the ladies, and I love how just talking about a few verses can be so enriching and bring so much sharing.  Ultimately, it's about committing to memory, but honestly, it's more than that.  It's taking the time to stop, study and listen as God reveals Himself through His Word. 

• I also made time this month to create several much overdue cards for friends. 

• Earlier this month, I was so excited to win tickets to the Veggie Tales concert.  Josh and I planned on taking my nephews, but unfortunately, he had a last minute business trip.  Thankfully, my sister joined me in taking the boys.  I won the tickets from Naptime in Naptown, which is a great blog for young mothers.

• I've enjoyed doing more cooking and baking in November.  pumkin rolls, cookies, my grandma's cranberry salad and more.

yum, cranberries!

• We also celebrated my birthday with friends and family as well as going out to dinner, just the two of us. 

• Finally, I want to leave this post with a verse that's filled my heart the past couple of weeks.  I've been wanting to memorize it for a couple of months (sad, I know), but I finally can say that it's not only in my mind but in my heart.  And I hope to continue to learn how to live it daily.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Let your gentleness be evident to all.

The Lord is near.

Do not be anxious about anything,

but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,

will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers and sisters,

whatever is true,

whatever is noble,

whatever is right,

whatever is pure,

whatever is lovely,

whatever is admirable

—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice.

And the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4:4-9

Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for my family. This Thanksgiving, we spent lunch time with Josh's family... all 60+ of them! Yes, it was a crowded house, but it's always fun to see all of the cousins, aunts and uncles. Plus, I love the Mayes' traditions of sharing what we're thankful for and singing hymns and praise songs together. (With that many people, everyone can sing out... even the tone deaf!)


Grandma Mayes playing the piano as we sang hymns.  She is such a precious woman, and although I don't know her like some, she has blessed my life with her kind heart.

We traveled to my parents' house in the evening to enjoy our second meal of the day. Needless to say, I didn't go back for seconds at either house so I'd have enough room for dessert. Although a smaller crowd, it was so nice to have everyone together. We all sat around the table after dinner and shared stories and laughed together. And nothing finishes the day like the family movie Toy Story 3.

Craft Time

I've had this craft brewing in my head for some time.... an organized station for the calendar, invites, pictures, etc.  I love it when we get baby announcements, etc., and I wanted a place to display them... but not on the fridge.

At our apartment, we had a magnetic, white board calendar on the refrigerator.  It seemed to work well at first, but eventually, it became more of a hassle to update monthly than it was worth.  I didn't want to throw it away when we moved because I had plans for it... told ya I've been thinking about this for awhile.

We use to place invites, save the dates, etc. on the side of our refrigerator; however, since we moved, we didn't have a place for such items.  So, my solution was to create my own "station."

I was recently at Hobby Lobby, and everything I bought for this project was 30% to 50% off... my kinda shopping!  I love deals. I think it's in my blood.  Anyway, I digress...  Starting with the magnetic calendar, I found a fabric that I really liked and felt wouldn't be too busy for a background.  I tucked it tight around the calendar and stapled it to the back. 



I found some ribbon to use on half of the board and stapled it tight around the back also to create a partial french board.  Finally, I secured the board in my open frame to hang.  I put a couple magnets on the right side of the board, and I hung it next to our calendar with a tack strip below it.  ...makes me feel like Pottery Barn, but at less than half the price!  Told ya I love a deal. :)

Yum!

As you may have heard, I recently made a change in my career path and am now staying home.  Surprisingly, I've managed to stay pretty busy as I'm looking into new opportunities.  I love having a morning routine, and I'm amazed at how quickly the hours in the day go. 

Recently, I decided to pull out one of my Paula Dean magazines.  She's my kinda cook... good, American food without all the fluff.  Of course, healthy isn't the staple of her recipes, but you can be sure they'll taste good.  I've been wanting to make fried chicken, and this issue had options for about four or five different kinds of fried chicken.  I decided on the chicken fried chicken along with a recipe for pepper gravy and smashed potatoes.  I was so excited that it turned out well that I took a picture of my plate. :)  My husband loved it too, which always makes me happy.  Makes me feel like a real cook. :)



It's been fun having time to plan, shop and cook some nice meals for our dinner... rather than the regular spaghetti, which by the way, I'm looking for a good, home recipe for spaghetti sauce if anyone wants to share theirs. The only catch is not having an idea how much it will cost if you're needing a lot of new ingredients.  We're working on the cash system and living in a budget.  Last week, along with the regular groceries, i.e. milk, cereal, bread, I had a list of items for a couple of new recipes I wanted to make.  Thinking I had plenty of cash on me (and my cart seeming so NOT full), I didn't bother to really count up the cost before going through the check out lane.  I started to perspire a bit as I noticed the $$ going higher and closer to my cut off line. darn those spices.  Thankfully, I didn't go over, but I'm not sure what I would have done if I had.  My gut reaction was to pull out the ol' card.  The next time I went through the line, I kept back the "maybe's" on my list until I had a chance to confirm the math in my head was the same as the cashier's total.  This probably sounds stressful and crazy, but there's a part of me that loves it.  This is a new challenge, but it's kind of freeing... when we're done, we're done.

In other news, the Colts are playing the Texans tonight.  Hope it's a good game as the Colts' injured list continues to grow by the week.

First and Ten!

I love my husband so much.  He's a great listener, and we have a lot fun together ... often finding something to laugh about together.  Just tonight, we were outside testing the new corn hole game that his dad gave him for his bday.  ...works like a charm, except the hole keeps moving. :)

Anyway, I'm so proud of him, and I think he'd be a great sports announcer someday. But until then, he's started a blog about football. You can check it out at http://www.firstandtenweekly.blogspot.com/. It's for those who want to know more about football. ...It's especially good for us Colts fans as he's writing it from the perspective of the Colts games.

Every week, he will have an update and the basics of football will be included too! Enjoy!

say it's your birthday! do, do, du-do, do.

We had a great time last weekend with friends and family as we celebrated Josh's 30th birthday.  It rained for a short while at the beginning, but thankfully, the sun came out so we could enjoy the back yard.  The day was topped off with a great win by the Colts during the Manning vs. Manning bowl.

As promised, here are the recipes for the soups from the night.  Perfect for fall!



Broccoli Soup
2 quarts chicken broth
5 medium potatoes
1/4 c. onions
4-6 carrots
1 large bunch of broccoli or 4 c. frozen broccoli
1/4 c. margarine or butter
1/2 c. flour
1 c half and half or milk
2 c shredded cheese
salt and pepper

Dice vegetables and cook in broth until tender. Add butter. Shake flour & milk til smooth and add to soup mixture. Cook until thick. Add salt & pepper to taste. Stir in cheese just before serving. Do not boil after adding cheese.

********************
Beef Barley Soup
2 1/2 lbs. beef short ribs (I use stew meat)
2 T cooking oil
7 cups water
1 - 16oz can tomatoes, diced
1 large onion, sliced
2 T instant beef bouillon granules or 4 cubes
1 1/2 t salt
1 t dried basil, crushed
1/2 t Worcestershire sauce
2 cups sliced carrot
1 cup sliced celery
2/3 c quick-cooking barley
1/2 c copped green pepper
1/4 cup snipped parsley

Brown meat in oil on low heat; drain well. Stir in water, undrained tomatoes, onion bouillon, salt, basil, and Worcestershire sauce.  Cover, simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Stir in carrot, celery, barley, green pepper, and parsley. Cover and cook another 45 minutes. Remove ribs (if you use bibs) and cool to cut off meat. Coarslely chop. Discard bones. Skim fat fro msoup. Return meat. Heat through. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 8 servings.

Hope you all are enjoying the beginning of fall.  Maybe these soups will be just the touch to help enjoy the season.  I always think that they're better the second time (like chili).

Before And After: Kitchen Remodel Pics

I'm finally posting some pictures of our kitchen remodel.  Although I've put these pictures on facebook, I thought it would be cool to pair the before and after pictures together on my blog.  We still have a second phase to finish a few of the final pieces to the remodel, but it's been nice to take a break for a little bit and enjoy living in our new home without the constant drive to finish.  Overall, this has been a very rewarding experience, and I can't be more thankful to have such a nice kitchen in our first house.  It really is a great change as the kitchen has gone from my least favorite part of the house to one of my favorite rooms.

BEFORE


AFTER


Our overall goal for style was to make the room feel larger and more like a kitchen than an adobe dwelling.  Also we wanted to remove the dark, heavy feel that the backsplash, drawer hardware, and paint color gave the room.  In this picture, we ripped out the heavy tile backsplash and replaced it with beadboard; painted the cabinets; replaced the cabinet hardware; replaced the sink and sink hardware; installed a light above the sink; added needed electrical outlets; installed new butcherblock countertops and painted the room a great warm yellow.



BEFORE

AFTER


I love how deep the new sink is and the sink hardware is great.  We removed two of the cabinet doors as well as the wood space in the center to give some open shelves in the middle of the cabinet space.  This helped update the kitchen with a current trend and allowed for some of our dishes to be displayed.  I love the old glasses made of carnival glass at the top that my grandma gave me.  She bought them for me from an antique shop and I've kept them stored under my bed for many years waiting to display them.







BEFORE


AFTER


The stove top/microwave was one of the main reasons we realized that we HAD to go all out on renovating the kitchen.  The microwave was too large for the space, and it wasn't possible to reach and view the cook space below.  We will eventually add a hood above the newly installed stove.  We had to cut out the cabinet space below the stove top, but we added a storage space by adding a cabinet next to the refrigerator.






BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


The refrigerator felt like it was floating in the room and didn't match the rest of the black appliances. We moved the refrigerator to the right.  This allowed us to build it in so it felt like it was part of the kitchen and not floating on its own.  It also made room for a new cabinet and a place for the microwave. 






BEFORE


AFTER


This was one of the other reasons that we felt we needed to make more drastic updates to the kitchen right away.  The wall oven was only 24" making it difficult to fit a small cookie sheet in it without touching the front and the back of the oven.  The kitchen also was missing a food pantry.  By making a few moves, we opened up the space to add in shelves, which we evently, will add a door to the front of the pantry.  There was a short "desk" next to the former wall oven, which we removed.  We plan on adding a window seat in the open space in phase two.






BEFORE


AFTER


The laundry room is next to the kitchen.  We painted the walls the same color as the kitchen (also so the walls wouldn't be the same color as the floor).  To make painting easier, we took the washer and dryer out, and when we put them back in, we switched them so the washer's on the left and the dryer's on the right.  Then they open like suicide doors making it more convenient to move wet laundry into the dryer.  The cabinets were also removed to add additional shelf storage that stretches the entire length of the wall space.






BEFORE


AFTER


The kitchen table space feels larger with using the bookselves in the corner and the large, glass table.  We removed the rail around the room, plastered and sanded the walls, put on two coats of primer and two coats of paint to cover the "adobe feeling" hunter green.  I'm really pleased with how the color turned out.  It was a huge relief to see the color in my mind become the same color on the walls.  We got good advice from several friends to buy smaller, test size buckets of paint and also to buy good paint.  Once painting the test paint on a section of the walls, we realized that the color on the wall was not the same as the color swatch.  So, we took it back and had them add a little red to it.  They also printed the new paint color ingredients on the side of the test bucket.  So, when we went back to get gallon sizes, we knew it would be the same as what we tested on the walls.



It's fun to look back and realize the room's potential has now become reality.

Little Surprises

We recently turned the last unfinished room of the house into a music, media, guest room.  I love the wall color in the room, which helps bring out the richness of the newly refinished wood floors.  Plus, it's so nice to feel like we're using every room in the house.  Hopefully, we'll have guests come and enjoy the room too.  We've lovingly named the room "David's room."  I'm also excited for Josh to have a space for his music.  Maybe he can host guitar jams once again.  It's always great to see him pick up his guitar.



The cool thing in this picture could easily go unnoticed, but not to me.  We decided to get a daybed so the room would have a couch feel instead of guitars in a bedroom.  To help the daybed feel more day than bed, we put a whole assortment of cool pillows on it.  However, to finish it off, I wanted just three more Euro (big square) pillows.  I had found a couple before for a steal of $10 each (Ralph Lauren) from Home Goods and was hoping to find such a steal again.  After searching many stores for bedding, I was unable to find nice, big Euro pillows without spending too much.  Deciding to wait, I kind of put the search on the backburner.  But to my surprise, my dear hubbie remembered my hope to get those Euro pillows to finish off the bed.  He surprised me by going back to Home Goods on his lunch hour and finding three Tommy Bahama Euro pillows for $10 each!!  I squeeled with delight when I came home that night to my surprise, and I love them all the more because of his thoughtfulness.

love.

I heart Chick-fil-a.

Everything AND the kitchen sink.

The sound of ice falling into the ice maker. The smell of fresh popcorn. The feel of running water over your hands while washing dishes. Sounds funny to say, but those are the things I am excited to welcome back into our kitchen.

We’ve been in our new home for about a month now. The day we first saw this house, we loved it.  Similar to picking out my wedding dress, this house was the first one we looked at in real life, and it didn't take us long to realize that it was the one. Great yard, big ol' trees and an awesome deck. But from the moment we walked in, I didn’t like the colors of the kitchen and couldn’t wait to do some work on it. We toyed with the idea of only painting the walls and cabinets at first and waiting to do the rest of the kitchen update in phases. But as we came across a few issues such as the microwave being installed less than a foot and a half above the cooktop, a 24-inch wall oven that you couldn't fit a cookie sheet in and no pantry, we quickly realized that we would need to go ahead and take the plunge to update all of the kitchen at once.

This being our first remodel experience, it’s been a learning process for us both. First of all, it’s taken quite a bit more time that I originally envisioned. There were some days where the time factor began to wear on us, and we were having trouble seeing the light at the end of the remodeling tunnel. But after about a month, we are practically done. I’m so looking forward to posting before and after pictures that I might go ahead and do that before e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g is done. We still need to do a little touch up paint, caulk and trim, order a hood/fan to install above the stove and build a window seat and shelves next to it. But considering all we’ve accomplished, that is a very small list, which continues to dwindle.

The remodel has also taught us to get creative when it comes to cooking. Because the kitchen was a working zone, all of our dishes, cutting boards, knives, utensils, pots and pans, etc. remained packed up in one of the bedrooms. And the fridge, pantry, and microwave were in the garage. And once we ripped out the countertops and sink, we no longer had running water in the kitchen making it difficult to wash what dishes we did pull out for necessity.


Washing dishes in the bathroom sink.


Clean dishes air drying in the laundry room.


We ate plenty of grilling, take out and had two awesome moms bring us some home baked meals with love to help us through too.

Slowly but surely, things have made their way back to their rightful places in our new kitchen. And as of this morning (now that the kitchen sink has running water again), we officially have a fully furnished/functioning kitchen. This has been just as exciting as putting my dishes away into the freshly painted cabinets. Can't wait to try out that new sink and wash them in it!



My dishes in their new "home." (and a sneak peak of our new kitchen pictures coming soon!)

I know the years will pass away quickly, and we’ll soon forget the inconveniences of our first few weeks of living here. And I guess that’s how it should be. But for now, every time we go in the kitchen, we just stop and enjoy all the work that’s done.

oh yum!

Will someone come over so I can have an excuse to try making this?



Scrumptious lemony little biscuit cakes piled high with homemade whipped cream and farm-fresh strawberries.

Hardwood Floors

This past weekend, we (and by we, I mean mostly my hubby) refinished the hardwood floors in our new home.  They turned out BEAUTIFUL.  I'm so proud of my husband.  He worked so hard and did a great job.  Thankfully, we had several family members give their time to come help too!  Their showing up was a great motivation for us!  And now, here's pics of the floors.  Just keep moving down and you'll see the transformation from old and scratched up, to sanded, to the first coat being put down, to finished. 















...  and now we're off to work more on the kitchen (I'm taking pics of this room's changes and hope to post later too!)