Weekend Wrap Up(s)

Our weekend have been pretty relaxed for the most part. For example, two weekends ago we did a little shopping and stopped for lunch at our favorite Mexican place-Chipotle before heading to our niece, Emma's indoor softball tourney. We headed to Jefferson Pointe for some shopping at Charming Charlies and Bed, Bath and Beyond and then stuffed our faces with delicious golden burritos. Well, actually I stuffed my face; the hubs had a salad bowl. Check these pictures out and allow your mouth to water!

After Emma's softball tourney we headed to dinner with the family, including my MIL and FIL. Of course we went to no other place than a Mexican place...I am almost positive we are going to turn into Mexicans because we eat it SO much. Really, I am not exaggerating here!

While it may be Spring for the rest of the USA, it has not quite made an appearance in good ole IN yet. We did have a couple warm days last week and were able to get outside and enjoy the sunshine. I was so happy to feel the warmth on my face and see water-not snow! Being slightly homesick for Florida and tanning by the pool, going for a walk with the hubs really lifted my spirits. We knew there were tons of trails and hiking paths in our county so we went to the closest one we knew of and started out. The path starts out as a boardwalk going over some swampy looks lands but I am not sure they can be called swamps. See, in my mind to classify a body of water as a swamp there must be gators and snakes...this area has none of that. Once you are past the boardwalk the path opens up as a paved walkway and it wraps around one of the many lakes in our area. You can also ride bikes on the trail/path which the hubs was pretty excited about...though I am not sure why, since we do not have bikes! Regardless, seeing low lying water, lakes, birds and feeling the sun put me right back in Florida. I could close my eyes and pretend I was there...it was so beautiful! Here are some pictures I snapped on our first walk of Spring!

This past weekend was pretty productive. I like weekends like that! Saturday started out with leftover omelets from dinner on Friday and they were delicious! We had a couple errands to run and then we were headed to North Manchester for my hair appointment. I had been looking forward to this appointment all week and had suffered many bad hair days in the days prior! I was able to snap some before pictures of my hair, but I have not gotten a good after one yet. I think I just need a few days to get used to styling it myself and perfect it before letting you all see it. I do like it though! After the appointment we went and got some smoothies for lunch that were so good. The sun was out, so I just pretended it was warm and I was in a tropical location while drinking it :) Pineapple, strawberries, oranges and coconut? Yes please!

I have had the itch to plant some things for a couple weeks and I finally gave in. We headed to Menard's to get what we needed and I got my fingers dirty on Sunday. We are starting the plants inside, and I hope we have luck with them. Right now we have cilantro and impatient flowers planted. The seeds should germinate in about 2 weeks so I will report and let you know what our progress is! I usually start out with mature plants, so I think the only thing I have ever grown from a seed is a bean or something we did in elementary school in a plastic bag. Do you know what I am talking about? Anyways, here are our lovely plants as of now:

I also was able to make some yummy snacks for the coming week. Hello apple cinnamon and blueberry muffins topped with powdered sugar! What can I say? I like things sweet!

Hope everyone else had a great weekend too. Only 4 days until the next one :) I will let you in on a secret too; next weekend our weather looks GREAT. We are talking about temperatures out of the 40's!!!! FINALLY!

 



Randoms and a GREAT deal!

So sorry for my recent lack of posting. I have been beyond busy at work...In fact, as of last night when I left at nearly 7pm I had already worked over 40 hours this week which means that today is nothing but OT. That makes me happy! I love getting OT and look at it as the perfect opportunity to save a little extra money or maybe buy something that I have wanted but kept putting off. Currently, the hubs and I are saving for (fingers crossed) hopefully a anniversary trip to the Key's and also for his surgery.

Yep, I said surgery. Thankfully, it is nothing too serious though. The Mr. needs to have his wisdom teeth removed and his surgery is scheduled for the Thursday before Easter. If you could please pray for the Lord to ease his nerves and also that we might have a fast recovery. I know he is already afraid he won't be able to eat his normal fare at Sunday Easter dinner. Thanks for your prayers and support-we both really appreciate them!

In other news: It is officially Spring but I am not sure the state of IN got the memo. We have had a couple warm days and I did get to wear sandals one day this week, but I also had to scrape ice off my car 2 days this week. Ugh. I have been itching to plant things for a couple weeks now. In Florida, I know that the azaleas are already blooming along with tons of other flowers. I want that here! I can guarantee you that as soon as store here stock their garden centers I will be there getting everything I need for our potted garden. In the mean time, I am just going to read up on tips and how-to's to assure I get the job done right!

Thankfully this morning I was reading Bower Power and found this awesome deal that I wanted to share with you too! Right now Amazon is runnin’ a pretty darn good deal…Two years of Organic Gardening (that’s 12 issues) for $12 + free shipping. Issues come every two months with lots of gardening tips and secrets that just might come in handy for you! I ordered mine and I am pretty excited for my first issue to arrive-I can only hope that it has great step-by-step directions (with pictures) on how to grow a fantastic tomato garden! Click HERE for the link to Amazon if you are interested in taking advantage of this great deal :)

I do have some posts brewing in my head...maybe next week I will have some time to sit down and type them out. I hope everyone has a great Friday and weekend...TGIF!!!!!

What a weekend!

As promised, Monday is here! I will never understand why this day has to come to quickly every week! Regardless of the fact that today is Monday-we had a great weekend. Friday night we stayed home and made our own pizza pie. I think staying home and making our own pizza while watching movies on the couch is one of my favorite ways to spend a Friday evening. It is just perfect :) I also baked the cupcakes that I needed for my niece's Hadley's birthday cake. When it comes to baking and cake decorating, I totally lack patience. There, I said it! Baking the cupcakes on Friday and icing/decorating them on Saturday was my way of leaving plenty of cooling time so that we did not end up with a hot mess in the kitchen. Genius? I think so!

Saturday the weather was dreary...really dreary. We needed to get some errands ran and some shopping done so off we went. First we were at the bank, then Goodwill donating 5 bags of clothes, then McDonald's for my favorite diet coke, then headed to the mall for some shopping! We went to the outdoor mall because that is where Charming Charlie's is (we were looking for Hadley's birthday present there but did not find it) and it was nice because no one was there. I guess the rain/mist kept all the other shoppers home! After getting a few things and lunch we headed to Target and Hobby Lobby for the cake decor items I needed. By the way, have I mentioned how much I love Hobby Lobby?  I pink fluffy heart that place!

The day was successful shopping wise. Now we were headed home to tackle decorating and putting the cake together for the birthday girl! I was feeling nervous and wondering if I had gotten ahead of myself-after all, I have never made buttercream frosting before! Turns out there was nothing to worry about because with massive amounts of butter, sugar and whipping cream; what can go wrong? The icing was delicious! Once I had the first batch of pink icing mixed and colored to my liking I started thinking about what to put this cake together on. Well, my cookie sheets were all too small and I did not have any poster board. Thank goodness Stephen was willing to run to the store and pick up some thick poster board. It was the only thing that would do! This created our next problem-how do we get the cake to her house? Well, after icing all the cupcakes we decided that it would be best to carry them to my SIL's house in containers and put the cake together there. Sometime around 8:30pm we were headed to her house with green icing and a lot of cupcakes in hand!

Stephen wanted to document the mess that was our kitchen on Saturday night. Counter space really is important we were lacking in it!

Putting the cake together finally!

This is the face of sheer excitement. She was so happy!

The finished product!

Once the cake was put together, the task was figuring out how to store it! We ended up putting the cupcakes back in containers for the night and covering up the frosting stems with a cookie sheet. Home we went!

Sunday morning we got up pretty early and headed out to Emma's last gymnastics meet. Emma usually does really well and this weekend was no exception. It was a great way to end her competitive gymnastics streak!  Here are pictures from her meet:

After the meet we all went out to eat for Hadley's birthday lunch. After that it was time for cake and presents! This little girl was so excited and all smiles. It was so much fun watching Hadley open all of her presents and seeing the excitement with each one of them.  Soooo cute!

So that my friends is our awesome weekend in one very picture heavy blog post. Hope you all had a great weekend too, and Happy Monday! :)