Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is probably my most favorite holiday. I love having a day in the middle of the week where we get together with family and friends, eat until we are stuffed and remind ourselves what we are thankful for. I am so thankful for:

My wonderful, loving husband Cody

My shiny black lab Grady

My amazing parents

My sister and my brother

A job that pays the bills

A roof over our heads

Food in our tummies

Shoes on our feet

Clothes on our back

Living in a free country

My education

My friends

The sound of children's laughter

The smell of clean laundry

Stars to wish on

The man in the moon

Winter, Spring, Summer & Fall

The friends I have made in blogging

And so many more things!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Cap'n Crunch French Toast

One of my husband's favorite things that I make is Cap'n Crunch French Toast. It's a special treat for him that I make once in awhile, but probably not as often as he would like! Completely easy and totally yummy! Just crush up some Cap'n Crunch cereal, I don't really know how much, just enough to coat your bread. I made 4 pieces, so I probably did about 2 cups. I also use Texas Toast because it stands up a little better.
I use the bottome of a drinking glass to crush the cereal. I suppose you could use a food processor, but this is a really easy way with less clean up. And it doesn't hurt to have a few uncrushed pieces.

Just do a regular egg wash like when you make regular French Toast. Make sure you use plenty of butter in your skillet. Coat both sides generously with the crushed up cereal.

Cook until nice and golden brown on both sides. The sugar in the cereal gets a nice caramelization which makes it crispy and sweet.

I like to top it off with a sprinkling of powered sugar. You can eat it with syrup, whipped cream, or whatever kind of toppings you like. It might even be sweet enough for you with nothing added.

**

This recipe comes with 2 thumbs up from my picky husband! Enjoy!!

One of those weeks

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you wish you could just erase it from your life? That is what I want to do with this week. There was nothing good about it. The nasty cold I got didn't show me any mercy. I missed a day and a half of work and didn't get much sleep. I am in a horrible fight with my sister in law. She did something that really hurt me and she has not made any attempt to call and talk to me about it. I have tried to contact her, but she just ignores me. I have been very emotional about the whole situation. I hate the thought of a family being torn apart because of something someone did that was completely avoidable. My black lab Grady has been having seizures. He had 2 this week. We took him to the vet today and they pretty much told us he will have to be on medication for the rest of his life. It breaks my heart to see him when he is having a seizure, he looks so scared and helpless. There were a lot of other little things that happened too, but those were the biggies. I know my problems probably seem like nothing compared to what some people are going through. But nevertheless, I am not too happy this week. I am so glad that the weekend is here. And through all of this horrible stuff that has been happening, my husband, my prince charming, has been right there by my side. He took care of me when I was sick, he went with me to the vet with Grady and he is completely understanding and on my side through this family issue. I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful man to spend the rest of my life with. He is the bright spot in my life!

Thank you for letting me vent the frustrations in my life this week. Now I am going to have a glass of sweet red wine and cuddle on the couch with my amazing husband!

Beautiful new bathroom

Our bathroom makeover is complete! Thanks to my wonderfully amazing husband, I now have a bathroom that I am proud to show off! He pretty much did all the work, I was just the creative consultant!! We definitely wanted to give our bathroom some life, but we didn't want to spend a lot of money on it. So, with some paint, a few new fixtures and some organization, our bathroom is ready to be seen!

(After) The people that lived here before us did some custom sponge painting in neutral colors. Not really my style. I don't like the wood fixtures either, but like I said, we were doing this on a small budget so we did what we could to make them better.

This house is very small, just under 1,000 square feet. So accordingly, the master bathroom is very small as well. This is not our "Forever House", but it is our house right now, so we do what we can to make it ours while we are here!

This bathroom just doesn't have much going for it!

The shower is a pretty nice size, but that is about the only thing great about this bathroom.

But look at it now!!

I love this color! Aqua Chiffon on the walls above.

We painted the light fixture and medicine cabinet white as well as the chair rail, moulding and bottom portion of the wall. We replaced the old faucet with a new one that has white handles.

We painted the cabinet white too, distressed it and added some crystal knobs. Love it!

I even painted the towel hook white and distressed it just to make sure it fit in!

Silver shower curtain, rugs, toothbrush holder and waste basket finish it off. The white shelf above the cabinet was my inspiration for the whole thing!

I think I will call this my Tiffany & Co. bathroom! It has all the things I love!

Bathroom Redo

On Saturday morning, my husband says to me "Let's refinish the kitchen cabinets!" Sure honey, think we can get it done today? I really want to refinish our cabinets, but not right now, less than 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. Instead, let's repaint the master bathroom, including the one cabinet and see how that goes. We are random like that. Off to Lowe's we go! I knew the color I wanted and amazingly he agreed. I could've gone a shade lighter, but he wanted this one. Aqua Chiffon

Don't you just love the name? The bathroom is painted and ready to be put back together. I am the one that gets to put it back together and I have a nasty cold so that's just not happening today. I love the way it turned out and can't wait to show you! You will have to wait because this cold is kicking my butt-thank goodness for a day off tomorrow...hoping to get it all done then! Pictures coming soon!

Childhood Pinks

Apparently, I have liked the color pink for a very long time. And to prove this to you, I am showing some of my Childhood Pinks today for Pink Saturday. Thank you to Miss Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for letting me participate! This pretty little ceramic doll was made for me by my mom when I was about 6. She made her blonde with blue eyes to look like me. She also made my older sister one that looked like her. In fact, I think we both still have them! This doll has the prettiest pink dress with vintage lace trim, a hat, a book and a little teddy bear.
Her little book has a picture of a house on it and says something about bears in the forest. The bear came unglued years ago and I used to hide my diary key in it when I was younger! It made a very good hiding place!
My room when I was little was decorated in Unicorns. I had curtains, a beadspread and all sorts of stuff with unicorns. My mom made me this cute little unicorn jewelry box when I was probably 5. It has purple stars and pink swags in the middle and pink flowers in the grass. He's lost his horn, but I think it is still pretty obvious he is a unicorn!
This little ceramic jewelry box still sits on my dresser and holds a lot of little pink ribbons from Breast Cancer Awareness things.

This little lamb is as old as I am! I have had it since I was a newborn baby! She is actaully in pretty good shape being 28 years old and all!

I love her pink little mouth. And she has the sweetest pink rosebud above her ear!

And last but definitely not least is my peek-a-boo pink bunny! She too has been around since I was a tiny baby. You pull her cord and she plays a lullaby and plays peek-a-boo. I love the little pocket watch on her tummy-reminds me of a certain rabbit in Alice in Wonderland! Her pinkness has faded over the years, and I am so glad that I have her still. I hope to someday let my own babies listen to her sweet lullaby and show them how to play a fun little game of peek-a-boo!

Gift Wrapping

This Christmas, money is really tight so we aren't able to buy gifts like we usually do (and I love to shop so it really stinks!) Instead, I used my points from different rewards programs that I am a member of to buy them gift cards. My friend Kyla calls me a points hoarder, so I did have quite a few saved up and was able to actually get something for everyone on our list! And I didn't just want to put them in an envelope, I wanted to wrap them up like a real present. I also wanted to find some vintage wrapping paper but haven't been able to find any so I made my own! I Googled "vintage Christmas wrapping paper" and found some really cute designs. I copied them and made a solid pattern of them in a word document and printed it out on legal sized paper. Since none of these presents are very big, this size is perfect!
I don't have my tree up yet (the day after Thanksgiving and not a minute sooner!) so I didn't want to wrap a bunch of presents. But I had to try it out. My teenage niece and nephew love Subway so I am pretty sure this gift card will be a big hit with them. I took an empty check box, lined it with some tissue paper and placed the card inside.
The legal sized paper fits perfectly on the check box!

Here it is all wrapped up, tied with a bow and ready to be given away! All of the other presents I wrap I plan to make a lot fancier, but this one is for my 15, almost 16 year old nephew, and as simple as it is, he will still probably think this is lame! I can't wait to wrap the rest of these-I have a lot more fun wrapping ideas in my head and I will definitely show you when I am done!

I have also been making more tags with paper roses. I love these aqua snowflake ones. I painted them with glitter paint and they turned out really cute. I see a lot of these tags in my future!

Making these tags is definitely one of my new favorite things to do!

Happy Veteran's Day tomorrow. Thank you to all the men and women who have served and continue to serve our country to ensure our freedom!