Hayden's 5-year Portraits

Honestly, I have no idea how we got here already.....to the place where my baby girl is five and getting ready to start kindergarten next year. I love every minute of being her momma and she makes me so proud each and every day. Here are Hayden's portraits for this year. I'm sorry but I have to say it....she's beautiful.

Father's Day Idea

I saw this idea on Pinterest and knew it was a perfect project for me and Hayden given the fact that she's a total ham who LOVES to pose! I bought the super-cheap chipboard letters at Hobby Lobby and had Hayden paint them aqua (I wanted her to be a big a part of this project as possible so she could be proud of herself when she saw the end result). Then we went outside and I snapped away while she did her thing. I bought a triple frame so these will be framed side-by-side to spell "DAD". I plan on sending it with him to work to be displayed in his office. He should love it!

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

I made this for dinner tonight and was reminded just how yummy it is. I thought I'd share it with you! It's made in the crockpot and it super easy. My friend, Whitney, gave me the recipe for the Hayden's Heroes cookbook.

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

1 9-10 oz. jar sweet and sour sauce

1/4 c. packed brown sugar

3 T. soy sauce

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. pepper

3 lb. bag frozen meatballs

1 medium red bell pepper, cubed

1 20 oz. can pineapple chunks, drained

Combine all ingredients but meatballs and stir until combined. Add meatballs and toss to coat. Cook on low in crockpot for 7-8 hours. Serve over white rice or mashed potatoes. My family prefers the potatoes. Also, I never actually use the full bag of meatballs. For my family of three (which includes a man that eats like a garbage disposal) I probably use about 1 1/2 lbs. of the meatballs. Basically I just keep dumping them in until it looks like I have enough.

Hope you love it!!

The Nursery - Some more updates

Well, the nursery is coming along nicely! It still has a long way to go (bedding, stuff for walls, more pillows, decorative stuff, etc.) but I've been working hard on it and I thought I'd show you the latest updates.

Ok, so we all remember that this is how the room started out, right..... And then I showed you what it looked like with the new paint...
Here are some new pics with some descriptions so you know what else I have planned. First of all, let me say that I totally realize that rug is much to small for that space. I found it at Hobby Lobby and it was on clearance for EIGHT DOLLARS so I reeeeaaalllllyy wanted it to work. Alas, it doesn't so it looks like I will have to order the original one I found HERE for $150.00. Boo.
I'm horrible at remembering to take "before" photographs! I wish I had taken one of this dresser. It is a dresser from the '70s and the color brown was awful. The handles were brass. So I painted it the aqua and sprayed the handles red. I LOVE how it turned out. I ordered the polka dot changing pad cover to match the bedding and it should be here in a few days. I'm going to paint the small black picture frame I just don't know what color yet. I also ordered the alphabet letters for this wall but they will take 5 to 8 weeks to come in. I can't wait to start painting, staining and covering them!

Again, I totally should have taken a before pic of this lamp. It was suuupper cheap at Gordmans. I brought it home, sprayed the bottom a metallic brown color and covered the shade. The fabric has metallic leather circles on it and cost more than the lamp itself!
So, I got it into my head that I HAD to have red and white chevron fabric for the curtains. HAD. TO. Well, of course, I could find every other color of chevron fabric on the internet but absolutely no red. I finally stumbled upon a website called Spoonflower. It is the greatest thing ever! Designers (or you yourself if you want) can upload their designs to be printed onto fabric and sold. It is a wonderful place to find modern, geometric prints. I read somewhere on the website that you can contact the designers and ask them to create something for you! I found a girl that already had a grey and white chevron and asked if she could put a design up for sale in red and white. She emailed me back the next with the proof for my approval! I told her I loved it and she let me know when it was officially available to for sale. You can order swatches, fat quarters, and different yard increments. I was so happy I found the website and I was thrilled with my fabric when it came in! I found some way cheap curtain rods at Ross and painted them the aqua color to help them pop. I did both windows the exact same way.
You can't tell the color very well in the next pic, but the two larger pillows are a deep aqua velour from Pier 1. I made another pillow with the rest of the lampshade material. I'm going to order a pillow that matches the bedding to also go in the window. I'm still on the hunt for other small pillows to fill that space up.
Once again, no before pic. This rocking chair is very special to me because it is the chair my Nana rocked me and my cousins in when we were babies. She just passed away in January and my Papa gave me the chair for the nursery. While the color wood isn't my favorite, I'm not touching it. I did, however, cover the cushions because they were a ratty, old, burgundy corduroy. I also made the little dog initial pillow for the chair.
Here's a better pic of the chair fabric. It almost has an sheen to it in person.
As you can see in the next pic, I still need to find a little side table to paint (going garage sale-ing this weekend) and I need the floor lamp for the corner. I ordered a cheap one from Walmart's website that has a plain white drum shade. I will spray the base the same as the other lamp but I'm not sure about the shade yet.
Obviously, I still need the bedding. The collage of prints that I showed you in THIS post will go on the wall above the crib. You can see the bedding at that post, as well. Not sure about the other wall yet. I'm obsessed with the frames at The Organic Bloom and all the colors they come in, but I'm not sure if frames are what I want up againt another wall full of frames. Again, something else to figure out.

So that's it for now!!! I hope you like the progress and updates! More to come!

10 of my favorite drug store finds

I talk a lot in my product posts about Bobbi Brown and other lines that are a bit on the expensive side. I realize that's not always practical so I wanted to share in this post some of my favorite things I buy at the drug store ( Walgreens, specifically). Here they are in no particular order:

1. Garnier Nutri-Pure Detoxifying Wet Cleansing Towelettes

I love these face wipes. I've used all the different brands of wipes and I always come back to these. Face wipes are perfect for people like me. Read: LAZY. I'm that person that totally goes to bed with her makeup on if I've run out of my wipes. It's awful and I always pay for it later. These do a wonderful job of removing all my makeup and the smell is pleasant. It could be all in my head but, I really feel like these, combined with the next product, give my skin a really great texture.

2. Neutrogena Ultra-Sheer Dry Touch SunblockI love everything about this sunblock. I love the smell and I love the feel. This is actually what I use as my everyday moisturizer. It soaks right in to the skin and doesn't leave behind any kind of greasy feel. I couldn't go without this product!

3. Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Fast Dry Nail Color

Since the Insta-Dri polishes came out, I have been accumulating all the different colors. It does dry faster than any other polish I've ever tried but I also LOVE the brush! It's wide and flat with a curved tip that follows the line of your cuticle. It's wide enough I can usually get my pinkie nail in just one swipe!

4. Cover Girl Lash Blast Mascara

While I can't say that this is my absolute favorite mascara (that would be Trish McEvoy's High Volume Mascara) I CAN say that it is, without a doubt, my favorite drugstore brand. I try all the new mascaras when they first come out if they claim to creat volume and I always come back to Lash Blast.

5. Caress Evenly Gorgeous Exfoliating Body Wash

I'm that person you see at the drugstore opening the lid of every body wash, shampoo, deoderant, etc. to check out the smell. I'm a bit smell obsessed. Smells are very personal so I can't promise you'll like it too, but I completely heart the smell of this body wash and I love that it is exfoliating like a body polish. I kill two birds with one stone that way.

6. Loreal Infallible Lipgloss

By now, probably everyone knows my obsession with this lipgloss. My personal favorite color is Sunset for everyday wear. It glides on perfectly like a gloss and then sets into a kind of liquid lipstick that stays for hours. This is one of the few lip products that I buy back to back.

7. Loreal Sublime Bronze Tinted Self-Tanning Lotion

This is, by far, my favorite drugstore self-tanner. The bronze liquid is very easy to see when it goes on, ensuring even coverage, and the color can't be beat.

8. Almay Oil-free Eye Makeup Remover Pads

These don't burn the skin around my eyes and are very effective at removing eye makeup - much more so than liquid and a cotton ball, in my opinion. One tiny pad can remove all the makeup from both eyes.

9. Maybelline Mineral Power Perfecting Concealer Cream

I don't recommend this for your "spot" concealer because typically something thicker is needed for those kinds of coverups but, for under your eyes, this concealer is perfect! You want a thinner, lighter feeling concealer for that delicate tissue under your eyes. Heavy creams will tug on that skin as you apply them and, over time, that will create bags. This one is gentle because it is liquid-like and it does a great job of covering under-eye circles.

10. Old Spice Body Wash in Swagger

Ok, so this one is for the hubs - not me- but oh, how I love it! Every time Old Spice comes out with a new smell I have to check it out. This is my current favorite for Ryan. It makes the whole bathroom smell good when he takes a shower.

I'd love to hear from you what some of your favorite drug store finds are!!

Recipes: Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole & Oatmeal Raisin Choc.Chip Cookies

I've decided that, whenever I do recipe posts, I'm going to include both a cooking and a baking recipe. That way you kind of have dinner and dessert! First up is.....

Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole

1 can cream of chicken soup

2 stalks celery, chopped

3/4 c. mayonnaise

2 tsp. lemon juice

1 box Uncle Ben's long grain & wild rice

2 cans white meat chicken

crushed potato chips (I buy the cheap store brand version of Lays)

1. Cook rice according to package; add other ingredients except potato chips and place into a 8x8 baking dish. 2. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. 3. Add crushed potato chips to the top for the last 10 minutes of baking.

My mom made this when I was growing up and it has always been one of my favorite casseroles. The potato chips on top might sound strange but it is soooo good!!! It's also quite dense so it will definitely get you and your family full!

Now for some yummy cookies!!! I found this recipe in Country Living magazine a couple years ago and they are very, very tasty!

Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 c. sugar

2 eggs, slightly beaten

2 c. flour

2 c. old-fashioned oats

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 c. raisins

1/2 c. coarsely chopped walnuts

1 1/4 c. chocolate chips

1/4 c. milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Stir in eggs until well combined. 2. In a separate bowl, combine all dry ingredients, plus raisins, walnuts and chocolate chips. 3. Add dry mixture to wet mixture and stir to combine; stir in milk. 4. Drop dough in heaping tablespoonfuls, about 1 inch apart, on a baking sheet. 5. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

I hope you family enjoys these recipes!! Mine sure does!

I'm flattered!

My friend, Regan, over at Over Cups of Joe decided to do something fun and write posts highlighting her friends' blogs. She decided to start with me! She asked me some questions - some fun and some thought provoking - and she put up my answers yesterday. Head over there and check them out! Thanks, Regan!

Over Cups of Joe

Drumroll please.....(Argyle reveal)

Well, I'm sure that ever since I talked about my plans for Ian's nursery at the blog post HERE, you have been frantically checking back daily - sometimes hourly-to see if I've posted the pictures of the argyle walls. Not really, you say?? Hadn't really thought about it, you add?? Well, here they are anyway. I'm sure happy with the way they turned out!

Here's what we started out with, people. It's about a far from boy-ish as you can possibly get. I had made this room into a playroom for Hayden when she was about 18 months old so I went with pink, pink, a touch of black and white, and more pink. She hasn't played in there in over a year so it had become the room where you throw random things that don't otherwise have a place, shut the door, and pretend that they aren't there. I'm really good at that.

I don't know how well you can see it, but this pic shows where I drew out my diamonds using a ruler and level.

So step one was to paint all the dark chocolate paint. I hate taping off on detail work because have the time it bleeds and you have to touch it up by hand anyway. So, even though it takes me longer, I just use an angled brush and steadily paint the lines of my diamonds. There's still some touch-up work to be done but, in the long run, I think the lines look cleaner this way.
And here they are!!! The diamonds are in the colors of the bedding which you can see in the previous nursery post I linked above.
You can still see a touch of pink at the top of this next pic. The ceiling still needs to be painted. It will be the lemony-lime color.

I'm so happy with how it turned out! My next project is to paint the dresser aqua, glaze it with Van Dyke glaze and spray the pulls red. Should be cute! I can't wait for this room to come together!

Hayden's Heroes Video

As the Great Strides walk benefiting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation approaches, I wanted to share with everyone this video I put together for Hayden. It explains in more detail what CF is and what it means for those who live with it each day. I hope you'll take a few minutes to watch it. Thank you!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

You know you've thought about it.....

By now, you've probably all seen these nail polish strips by Sally Hansen at the drugstore. If you're like me, you look at them with interest every time you go to the store but you wonder to yourself, "Could I pull off leopard toenails??". Here's some examples of the patterns the strips come in. My neighbor has this houndstooth on her toes and it is darling. This is the pattern I'm trying to work up the courage to try. lol

I love how this looks like fishnet tights.
If they came in small enough sizes I would definitely do this for Hayden's nails.


Well, I decided I'm just not ready for any of those patterns. It's kinda like those feather extensions that are so big right now. I love them on other people but they aren't for me. So I got excited today at Walgreens when I found another brand and saw this silver pattern!
I loved the metallic pattern and, since it's all the same color, I didn't feel like it was too "crazy" for me.

They are basically like stickers. You peel one off at a time, stick it to your nail starting at the cuticle, and smooth it out toward the tip of your nail.

Then you take a nail file (the one that came with the packaging was worthless so I used my own) and file off the edge.

And voila!!! Ok, I realize that my toes aren't the prettiest thing to photograph but it's cute, right?Maybe by the end of the summer I'll be brave enough to try the houndstooth :) I'd love to know which ones you try!