A fun filled saturday...

This Saturday, Zack and I decided that since the weather was BEAUTIFUL that we would have a picnic and go biking at a local park. It was nice to have the opportunity to spend some time together doing something that we both enjoy. Saturday mid-morning, I made and packed us a lunch while Zack loaded our bikes onto our car for our outing. We had a picnic lunch on a blanket and then got on our bikes and biked up and down the paths along the river. The view was really pretty, the weather was gorgeous, and we had a great time.


Then, that night, we, along with our friend's Hector and Christy and Cliff and Pam, went over to Caren and Forrest house for some food and fellowship. Caren and Forrest grilled up some turkey burgers, Deer Burgers, and some hot dogs (side note...Forrest's grillin' skilz have improved since the first time that we had hamballs at there house a couple of years ago! lol, :) you know we love ya, D.C.). Caren also made her yummy jazzed up baked beans...I'm not sure what she does to them, but they are a-mazing. I tried out a new recipe for potato salad. I think that it was a success, and I will likely make it again. I also made a pie and some mint Oreo truffles, and Pam brought brownies...so, there was no shortage of yummy food! I forgot, in my hurry to try to actually make it to Caren and Forrest's house on time for once, to take pictures of my dishes...and then had a moment of camera shyness as I realized that my friends would be watching me and my food photo shoot. I did take some hurried pictures, just so that I would have some to share with ya'll...but it was not without some embarrassment!

Mint Oreo truffles

Hector caught dishing up some pie!

My feable attempt at taking a discreet picture of the pie! lol...This picture does not say a thousand words...
sigh, better luck next time! It tasted good...I guess that is all that I can tell you!

While we were waiting for the burgers to finish being grilled Caren and Forrest's adorable little daughter came running to me with her hands filled...she handed me these:

Buttons!!!

...what can I say, I have been and am SOOO blessed to have the most thoughtful and wonderful friends that I could imagine!

After dinner, we ended up playing a game of "Things", which was pretty hysterical...again...I love our friends!

while Zack got things ready for the game...

Caren and Christy shopped for little Cohen out of her OVERFLOWING bin of cute clothing that she has for little boys.

Love this Family!!!...that is one of the sweetest little boys EVER!...and I'm not talking about Hector! ...although, he is pretty sweet too! lol!

Who knew that children's books could be so thought provoking?! :)

Spring's a creepin in...

Today, I FINALLY took the time to take down most of my winter decorations and started putting up some spring decorations in their place...I guess since we actually had 3 - 4 days of nice weather, that I got the spring itch....although, I have to do these things in stages...it is hard to say goodbye to those friendly winter decorations...I mean they have been my cheery friends for a couple of months now! :) ...I was, however, able to overcome the nostalgia and put them away in the end! :)

I still have a little more to do as far as taking down and organizing my winter decor, but I got a decent start on spring...I really do not have that many spring/summer decorations...I have been looking around for ideas and hopefully will be able to try a few things out before it is time to change things up yet again for fall (Which I love!).

So, I thought that I would share a few pictures of some of my spring decor...I would love to see some of yours...maybe it would give me some new ideas of things to do!

I made this wreath a couple of years ago, and I surprisingly still like it! :) I ment to get a picture of it while it was still light outside, but forgot. Maybe I can remember to get one tomorrow.

This little candle nest sits on my coffee table. I couldn't get a very good picture of it due to glare. The glass probably could use a washing too! So, don't look too closely!

I used the grass vases from Christy and Hector's baby shower on my mantle. I thought they looked pretty there.

I made a little nest using Spanish moss and some painted wooden eggs. I plan to "speckle" these eventually. Right now this is sitting on my kitchen table, but I am not sure that it will stay there.

Things from Thursday.

Today I spent the majority of the day sewing.

I finally made the little skirt that I cut out over the weekend. I thought that it turned out pretty cute. It is pretty much the same as the one that I made on Friday, but I used green contrast fabrics instead of the blue that I had used on the last one.

I think that this would look really cute with a little white t-shirt.

I also made a pair of pants that can go with the little Easter dress that I made last Friday. The dress came to mid thigh on the little girl I made this for and would be cute with a pair of white bloomers (looks so cute at that age!), but mom thought that it might be nice to have a pair of pants to go along with the dress. So, I made these little pants to mimic the dress with little white cuffs and rick rack to mirror the dress.


I decided to look through my stash fabric to see if there was any cute fabric that I could make another dress out of. So, today I made this cute little yellow floral dress as well. It still needs buttons sewn on...but I'm not sure if I have enough sitting around at home. I need to wait on purchasing any buttons for a little while..I have already spent my sewing budget for the month. :) How is that possible? lol!


Tonight, I tried a recipe for round steak. So, we had round steak, potatoes, cauliflower and cheese, and salad for dinner. The round steak was pretty good. It reminded Zack and I of roast beef. Zack was not really a big fan of the cauliflower...I thought MAYBE if it was drowning in cheese sauce that he would be more willing to eat it! He ate it, but said that it was "mediocre." I didn't realize that I had a cauliflower expert on my hands! lol. Maybe I'll have better luck in the veggie department next time! :)

Trying to get back into shape.

I have been trying for about the last year to get back into shape after nearly 4-5 years of not really exercising! It has been a LONG road with miles left to go, but I am finally able to get out there and not feel like I am about to die...I've come a long way, now I just feel like I might at any moment pass out or fall over! haha... :)

There are a couple reasons that I started trying to get back into shape the beginning of last year. 1) STRESS reduction, 2) STRESS reduction, 3) overall health, 4) to get into a routine of healthy habits now while I am still young and healthy, 5) to get my body back into shape.

I have been trying, recently, to do better with consistency. That seems to be my biggest challenge to an exercise program geared at getting in shape....consistency. I will do great one week and then awful the next. For instance, last week I ran 15 miles for the week, but the week before did not run or workout at all. Ugh! Frustrating! Life sometimes gets in the way of my exercise program, but surely there is someway to stay consistent.

Does anyone have any suggestions for being more consistent? What do you do to stay in shape?

New friends and new food!

When Zack and I went to the marriage conference a few weeks ago, we hung out with some of our old friends that were there, but we also hung out with a couple that we didn't know very well. I had met Patrisha at my women's Bible Study on Tuesday mornings, but we hadn't really gotten to know each other very well. When Zack and I first got to the marriage conference, we saw them sitting in a row with some empty seats, and so we went and sat next to them. We were able to talk with them some during the marriage conference, and then exchanged phone numbers at the end of the day...yea, new friends! :) So, Patrisha and her husband, Devin, invited us over to their house tonight to have St. Patrick's Day dinner with them. How fun!

Patrisha and her family celebrate St. Patrick's Day by making corn beef and cabbage every year. Zack and I had never actually eaten corn beef...so, we were not sure what to expect (Zack was a little scared! lol). We were pleasantly surprised. It was really good...or Patrisha is just a really good cook...or both! I would have taken a picture to share with you, but we are just getting to know Patrisha and her hubby and I didn't want to freak them out on our first time to hang out...there is plenty of time to unload our oddities (such as taking pictures of all of our meals) on them...all in due time! :) lol.

I brought dessert tonight, and I tried a new recipe, shocking, I know! I wanted to make something St. Patricky...so, I found a recipe for mint chocolate cupcakes with mint cream cheese icing. Let me just tell you they smelled A-mazing cooking, but they just tasted ok...not great... I think that the best thing about them was the icing! It was really pretty yummy! I brought some mint chocolate chip ice cream along too, just in case the cupcakes were not good! Patrisha and her husband said that they liked them, but we are just getting to know them so it is hard to tell if they were being polite of if they really did like them...at least they didn't make gagging noises and spit them back out onto their plates...I guess that that is a plus! lol...at least they looked pretty. :)

Mint Chocolate cupcakes with Mint Cream Cheese Frosting

We had a good time hanging out with Patrisha, Devon, and their 2 kids. Their kids were super cute and FULL of energy! Their oldest was too funny. He was playing all kinds of pretend games with me. At one point he was an apple and someone had eaten his face off! Ha ...where do kids come up with this stuff...wish that I was that creative. Hopefully we will get to hang out with them again sometime. Zack was excited, because he got to play the Wii. ...I even played a couple of games...which I was HORRIBLE at...see parents, if you deprive your children of video games when they are young, they turn out like me...game controller challenged and blogging about all of the food that they eat/make!! :)

Some of my favorite things; food, friends, and music

Tonight for dinner, Zack and I had Barbecue Pork and Penne Skillet with garlic bread. I had found the recipe a while back and the picture of it looked so yummy that I just had to try it...even though to hear the name of it you would wonder if it could possibly taste good....I was pleasantly surprised, it was different, but good! kinda like BBQ nachos are our local BBQ place, but with pasta instead of chips. Zack really liked it...and it was really easy to make.

We had small group tonight, which for some strange reason has been really small the last couple weeks...I'm starting to wonder if it is Zack and I's house that keeps them away...maybe I should suggest to Zack that if we had wood floors that our friends would come! :) Ha! Do you think that would work? lol

We were super excited that Hector and Christy were able to come tonight for the first time since little Cohen made his appearance! It was SO fun t0 get to spend time with them...even if Hector did try to spit chocolate chip cookie all over my freshly cleaned kitchen! :) Poor Christy can't take him anywhere! haha...just kidding. Hector, you saw what a mess my husband is, banana pudding everywhere...what's a few more crumbs! :)

We played a game of "Last Word" since we didn't have a very big crowd. It was nice to get the opportunity to just hang out with some friends...we love all of the couples in our small group! What an amazing blessing to have godly friends!

Zack recently (yesterday) introduced me to this fun music site called pandora. Basically, it is a free internet radio station. You go to the website and type in the name of your favorite band/singer/rapper/ mariachi band, and it will generate a radio station for you with music by that artist and similar style artists. You can generate different "stations" with different genre of music. An example...one of your radio stations might be as general as "bluegrass" or as specific as "U2". I have been having a lot of fun setting up radio stations with different music that I can have playing during the day...and the best part is IT'S FREE!!! Yea! It's like having a huge CD library and having it on shuffle! :) If you like listening to music, you should try it out! Then, if you find a song/CD that you just cannot live without, you can do what I do and shoot over to Swapacd.com to see if you can order it for cheap cheap!!

Today's Project

Today I was planning to go to a wedding shower, but it just wasn't practical for me to drive 2 hours in the rain...plus, I hadn't had a chance to get them a gift...and Zack and I REALLY overslept today...think that the rain and staying up late last night probably had something to do with that. I love and hate sleeping in. I love sleeping, but I hate feeling like so much of the day is gone.

So, instead of going to the wedding shower, I got roped into going to a "leadership" training meeting at our church today...This is definitely much more down Zack's alley than mine...so, I unwillingly (and I am ashamed to say, with some whining) went because Zack asked me to. It was pretty good, but still reminds me of being in school...blah! and, I had not read any of the assigned reading. Thankfully, they didn't reference it too much. The only real benefit of going to the meeting (personal opinion) was getting to meet some of the other people that lead small groups at our church.

Anyway, after we got home from that, I was able to do some sewing, and I decided to try the other new pattern that I picked up at the sewing Expo last week. It is a pattern for a little girly skirt.


I think that it turned out pretty cute. I have another one cut out with the same black, green, blue, and yellow fabric, but with a different contrasting fabric. I am hoping to get that one done in the next couple of days...we shall see.

I also need to do some stuff around the house! ....that might have to take precedent over my sewing for a little while.