A Very "Pinteresting" Valentine's Day!

Well, I didn't do much as far as Valentine's decor this year. Ok, make that I didn't do squat as far as Valentine's Day decor this year. But we made up for it with goodies!

There were so many different yummy ideas on pinterest I couldn't decide which ones to try. I went with the strawberry cake mix cookies from this pin, and let me just tell you - that recipe is a KEEPER! I had to hurry up and bag up the ones for the school kiddos because they were going fast. We made them last night and there's not so much as a crumb left for today, Valentine's Day. *sigh *...

(*disclaimer* This post is full of  pathetic Iphone pics, I know they're terrible...)

We made some of them just for the boys' teachers...

I found that idea on pinterest too, but couldn't seem to find a ready made printable for the tag in a Valentine's Day version...so I just put one together myself real quick in photoshop. It's not fantastic, but it works. The guys wrote little notes to their teachers on the back.

The boys have been "selling" candy bars for the school fundraiser, and I'm pretty sure their daddy and I are their best customers. Something HAD to be done. (They really are that good.) So I found a candy bar wrapper printable on pinterest here,  fancied them all up, and handed them out at church as Valentine's gifts. Whew! Got rid of those wicked things. Now I owe the fundraiser envelope quite a few pennies...

 The boys were thrilled with their lego star wars Valentine's cards, complete with glow stick light sabers. 

Here is the link to that pin.

Which begs the question...

What in this world did we do before Pinterest???

 And I still have a whole board full of ideas to try next year :)

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all! I hope it's SWEET!

The little monkey is ONE!

 It's SO hard to believe my little guy is already a year old! 

Thank you Jeannie for the ADORABLE birthday shirt and the darling little party hat! We tried absolutely everything to get a piccy of him in the hat. They *all* looked exactly like this:

So he's not into hats, obviously. 

At one point he yanked it off his head and crammed it onto the monkey's head and then gave us a "take that" kind of look.

He has definitely developed some rather strong opinions in his first year. 

 I think this age is my favorite! He's so much fun. Yes, he's into *everything* and you can't leave him alone for even a split second... but it's still my favorite. It's so fun to watch him learn new things, try to do things for himself, hearing all those first words, and watching that little personalty shine through. He's no longer a little helpless newborn, but a miniature little person with his own personality. He provides a huge amount of entertainment around the old parsonage!

 On the day of his party, the weather decided to climb up to a scorching 101 degrees. Let me just tell ya, that's not exactly good for cakes. Before very long it starting to lean toward the left, so we had to hurry up and eat it!

  It *would* have been a very fun cake to make, had my heating element not decided to conk out right in the middle of it! Out of desperation, I ended up cooking the smaller round layers in my toaster oven, and I don't recommend it. It actually tasted just fine, in spite of it all. 

 He had a hay day with that smash cake. I think he liked the smashing more than the eating! 

We ended up hosing him down with the water hose when he was all done and putting him in his swimming pool. ;)

Happy Birthday little monkey, Mommy loves you!

 

For the Bama fans...

I got into the game day spirit just a little bit. ;)

No better way to celebrate than with red velvet cake! 

And houndstooth just makes everything cuter. It never hurts to throw in some extra chocolate either. 

Roll Tide, Y'all!

Day 7

The little guys made some of these cute snowmen doughnuts. 

Bet you'll NEVER guess where we got the idea... Ahh, yes, my new love Pinterest. I am *so* addicted.

This was an awesome little project - so easy, no mess, the guys could do it all by themselves, and no baking! They each took a plate of them to school to share for snack time. Thank you, Pinterest!

Porch Redo and a Lego Birthday

I've been pondering the idea of painting my wicker porch chairs black, and it finally got the best of me. I took the plunge, and now I'm wondering why I waited so long. I'm really loving it with the freshly recovered houndstooth pillows. The Alabama fan in me is subtly popping out. Ok, that word, subtly, just looks so weird. That IS the right way to spell it, right? Or did spell checker just fail me... 

Anyhoo...moving along.

Here's a shot of the porch before I got the itchy spray paint finger...

And here she is now.

I was tickled pink to find the porch swing on craigslist for a mere 30$! My hubby was less than tickled about hanging the said bargain swing. What started out as a simple hang-up-a-swing project turned into a discovery of lots of rotten wood, pulling it out, and repairing it project. Good times, I tell ya. 

 The newly painted chairs are *subtly* sporting a touch of Alabama pride, too. 

I'm well aware that the wicker is totally falling apart. But a few cans of Krylon fit in the budget much better than new porch furnishings at this time. Maybe next spring...

Those of you that know me, and my flip-flop-wearin' summer-lovin' self, will be so proud to know that I actually planted some fall flowers. Go, me! Baby steps, people. Soooo hard to let go of warm weather...

 After a trip to the pumpkin patch, we brought home our pumpkins and had a paint party. I painted mine white to go in the ORB planters.

We got a little more creative with some of the others...

Thanks to pinterest for the fun idea!

 Jackson and I had birthdays last week. We celebrated with a little lego party, per his request. He wanted lego star wars, but we made a compromise and settled for just plain legos instead. Whew. I had a hard enough time making a regular old lego cake - not so sure how I would have fared with the star wars. 

He was pretty happy with it, so it was worth the effort ;) Actually, I kinda had fun playing with the fondant. It was my first time, and I must say it's rather addicting! All I need is another hobby. You know, for all my spare time...sigh...

Jackson turned 8, and Mommy turned thirty-something. 

But who's counting?!?

THIS is wicked.

Cooking isn't really my favorite pastime, BUT when my eyes fell on these beauties from Tidy Mom, I could not rest until I had baked a big ole batch. These were so good there aught to be a law against it.

You've got to bake some. All you need is a brownie mix and a cookie mix and you're well on your way. Click HERE for the recipe. She's got the recipe all printable and everything. Oh, and MAKE the ganache. You'll thank me. Your thighs won't, but that's ok. Now I've got to go spend a few hours on the wii to work off some guilt...

But, boy oh boy, was it worth it.

FOF Valentines Sweets!

Do cookies count as a "Finished Object"? You'll probably find more "objecty" Finished Objects over at the Chari Tree.

I chickened out and did these while the boys were busy playing. I tried to be very quiet, but, alas, they caught me. But I was able to pacify them with a little ball of dough. Instead of creating something with it, though, they just scarfed it down like starving puppies, and scampered off again.

Anyway, here are some of the finished cookies. I still have some more to do. We're going to hand them out at church as Valentine's gifts. If they last that long. Gotta find me a good hiding place...


I monogrammed some of them ...

All wrapped up and ready to be delivered!

Hope everyone has a very SWEET Valentine's Day!!

A little somethin' to warm you up.

One of the happiest memories of my childhood is my Granny's home made chicken and dumplins. Between me and my brother Jeremy, we could pretty much clean up a whole pot. Years ago, she told me how to do it, so I scrounged around and found the little piece of paper I had scribbled it on. Then I remembered why I'd never tried it on my own. Granny thought measuring was for wimps.

But I gave it my best shot, and it turned out just the way I remembered it. Granny would be so proud. My favorite part about this recipe? The SHORT list of ingredients.

1. whole chicken

2. water

3.flour

Great, huh?! Of course you add salt and any other seasonings that make you happy.

Here's what you do:

Boil whole chicken in a big pot of water. Debone. Put all the chicken back in the pot of broth. Give the chicken skeleton to your doggy, he'll love you forever. If you have a doggy.

Take a scoop of flour , and add a spoonful of broth from your pot to it, enough to make a nice nonsticky ball of dough.

Dump it out on a floured surface and roll it out. But don't do it like mine. I wouldn't win any "perfectly circular rolled out dough" award. That's why I don't make pie, but that's beside the point. Roll it out kinda thin, unless you're one of those weird folks who like fat lumpy dumplins. Cut it into strips.

This is what I mean by "kinda thin".

Then just drop 'em all in the pot of chicken.
Salt it heavily. And if you're feeling real adventurous, add some ground pepper and some poultry seasoning, or what ever floats your boat. Boil until the dumplins are soft and serve it up with a big ol' glass of Milo's sweet tea.

If you just said "what's Milos'?" you haven't yet begun to live.

Welcome to the South, friends.

This is what I call comfort food. It warms you up from the inside out.
And it really makes me miss my Granny.