Weekend Wrap-Up...on Friday!

I realize I am doing a weekend update on Friday (I started this post on Wednesday!!!) and I am sorry. This week has just been a little bit crazy, which is okay with me. I am pretty happy that today is Friday though...I always look forward to the WEEKEND!

So, Happy Friday Y'all!

We had a great weekend last weekend. Friday night we had our youngest niece, Hadley sleep over. Her big sister Emma was having a sleepover with friends at their house so we kept Hadley so she would feel special and important too. We had SO much fun with that little girl! The first comical thing happened Friday evening when Stephen and I took 20 minutes to figure out her car seat. We could not figure out how to buckle her in, the straps were missing. She kept telling us that she didn't use them anymore but we weren't sure we could believe her....turns out she was telling the truth. Hadley has officially upgraded to a booster seat. When we figure that out we loaded up and head out for grocery shopping and dinner. She was a sport through it all!

We ate at the Japanese Steakhouse again...what can I say, when I find something I like, I usually want to eat it often until I can't stand the thought of it anymore. Hadley LOVED the onion soup...which I don't like. She drank and drank, I thought she might put a straw in it!

Here are some pictures from dinner:

Oh, and I can't forget to tell you about this steal:

We bought this rug at Aldi's. Yep, the grocery store! It was a great price for the size and I was thrilled about that. I really like the colors too and how it looks on the wood floor in this room. The room is basically empty right now, but not for long...you'll find out why soon!

Hadley was pretty set on sleeping in our "flower room" which is the guest bedroom, but we decided it would be easier on all of us if she were in our room. We blew up the twin air mattress and made a cozy spot for her right next to my side of the bed. She told me it was "perfect". Haha!

Seriously, how cute is she!?!

She slept very well until around 2am when I heard her crying. She said she wanted to get in bed with us and so the three of us squeezed into our queen size bed. Apparently Hadley is not a still sleeper! After a couple hours of her wiggling and kicking I moved to the air mattress and was much happier :) Stephen said that even after I moved out of the bed she was still kicking and rolling into him though!

Stephen got up early to take my car for servicing and Hadley and I slept until 9:30! When we woke up the house smelled like cinnamon rolls because Stephen had breakfast ready. Yum! After breakfast we painted our nails and cuddled to watch a movie:

Note: Louie usually jumps off the furniture as soon as you sit down, so the fact that he is sitting there with us is pretty much a miracle. He is getting better with socialization and I am so proud of him!

After Hadley headed home, Stephen and I headed furniture shopping. I did not expect us to buy anything, but to hopefully get some ideas and find out what we liked. We really needed new furniture in the living room because the furniture that we have was mine before marriage and it has some snags and tears that bother me.

Well, we shopped at 3 places and made a purchase at the final place. I am so excited about our new furniture and cannot wait for the call saying that it is in and ready for delivery! That should be sometime next week...okay, okay...here is our new furniture:

I took these pictures directly off the Sofa Mart website, but we also got a double storage ottoman that they do not have pictured. It is the length of the loveseat and has a HUGE storage compartment that will be great for many different things...crafting things, movies, photo albums, kids toys (one day)...you just never know!

The plan is to put the old living room furniture into the empty library/reading room/nook, as long as it fits though the door way! I can't wait for it to all come together!

We also hit Hobby Lobby and stocked up on some Christmas ornaments because they weer 40% off! Of course purchasing Christmas stuff totally put me in the Christmas mood and so I am listening to Christmas music now on my drive to and from work. I just love this time of year!

Speaking of Christmas, when are you putting your tree up? I am trying very hard to wait until the Saturday after Thanksgiving (I will be shopping on Friday), but there are no guarantees!

Well, it is time to get to work for the last day this week! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

the coals are ready!

I bet you are wondering what is up with the title of this blog. Well, I am here to explain that for you today. I can hear you all screaming "yay" as I type! :) So, tonight is our oldest nieces birthday party/campout/sleepover with friends. Emma had picked out what cupcakes she wanted me to make for the grand party at the beginning of September and I have anxiously been awaiting the time to make them since then!

Well, this week was that time!

They girls were planning on camping out in the backyard, complete with tents and lots of blankets. BUT, mother nature had other plans for Emma's party. Because it is going to be cold tonight...the low is 31, I think they will be sleeping inside. The cupcake she picked go with the former theme of her party; a campout. Emma wanted to stick with these cupcakes even though they will be sleeping inside tonight.

Okay, okay...are you ready for the unveiling?

Here ya go:

These cupcakes started with yellow cake, and then were died black for a coal looking cake. Since Emma asked for yellow cake that is what we did, but you could use chocolate too :) Once they baked I let them cool over night and began to decorate them the next evening. Before crumb coating the cupcakes with frosting I stuck them in the freezer to firm them up a bit and then crumb coated them. The marshmallows were cut in all different sizes and directions so not one cupcake would look uniform. I applied these with dollops of buttercream and stuck them back into the freeze for the time being!

The life stages of a coal cupcake! :)

Once all the marshmallows were applied I died some buttercream frosting to a gray color and then spooned it into a liquid measuring cup to heat it up. Yep, I heated up our frosting. Just stick it in the microwave for about 35 seconds. Trust me, it works!

Now it is time for dipping! I took each cupcake out of the freezer individually when I was ready to dip it. You want them to stay nice and cold so the hot frosting does not melt the marshmallows or pull them away from the cupcakes. 

Don't be afraid to push the cupcake in the frosting! I wanted good coverage so you could not see any white frosting or marshmallows. Once you have it dipped and covered, allow the excess frosting to drip off before setting it onto a cookie sheet to cool and harden.

Apply sprinkles before the frosting sets so they will stick. In these case you want orange and red sugar crystals or nonpareils. I also crushed some Oreo's to use as a topping too! `

And the finished product:

Cute huh?

I can tell you that Emma loved them when we delivered them last night. I was so relieved that she liked them and hope her friends do too! Now I am thinking up ideas for their next birthday...ha!

Hope you have a great Friday and weekend, we have our youngest niece staying the night with us tonight during Emma's birthday festivities. Wish us luck! :) We also might go furniture shopping tomorrow because we really need a new couch...probably more than I need a new Digital SLR Camera. Gotta prioritize, right? I think we will be going to Furniture Row: Sofa Mart first to see if they have a good selection. Anyone have experience with them? Let me know where you recommend shopping for furniture, I would love to hear!

Toodles!

Pumpkin Muffins

Sorry for the lack of posting here recently. I don't know if it is how busy work is, or the cold, nasty, wet weather we have been having...but I am in a funk. A blogging funk that is. Ever happen to you?

Anyways, over the weekend I made some pumpkin muffins that were too good not to share with all of you. So, here I am blogging and sharing just for you...feel special!

These muffins were so incredibly easy to make (really, I can't stress that enough!) They only have 2 ingredients. 2!?!? I did decide to add some extra sweetness, so mine had 3 ingredients but yours could only have 2.

INGREDIENTS: 

1 Box Yellow Cake Mix

1 Can of Pumpkin

Handful of white chocolate chips if you wish :)

Mix all of the ingredients together and spoon into a greased or lined cupcake pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until a knife/toothpick inserted comes out clean. Note: my time varied between batches and I am not sure why, so I recommend baking for 25 minutes and continuing on if necessary.

Let cool before devouring enjoying!

We did some other things this weekend too! Here is the breakdown in pictures:

Saturday we headed to Fort Wayne for a Newsboys concert and a little shopping. Louie was looking too sweet not to take his picture!

Headed to the mall for some shopping. We only wanted to stop a 2 stores and Chipotle for lunch. It was a successful trip and yummy-after this we were onto the concert:

We LOVE the Newsboys. I like their old music and their new music-it is all Jesus filled and great! Michael Tait was pretty hilarious in between songs too. I loved all the references he made to the "chocolate church" and "vanilla people". I am sure someone in the crowd was offended by it, but it was just so funny. The color of our skin does not matter in the least. Jesus love us no matter what! Praise him for that!!!

There were several bands opening for Newsboys too. I really liked Royal Tailor-who I was not familiar with. We ended up buying their CD and it s great. I encourage you to check them out!

We did a little bit of singing and dancing at the concert, too :)

Sorry for the blurry picture, but it was crazy in there!

Our Sunday was spent at church and home. We watched The Amazing Race in the evening while Louie took a nap and made himself comfortable:

Can you believe how he is laying down, and sleeping!? We have a crazy pup in our house. Good thing we love him!

Hope you all are having a great Wednesday and week for that matter!

Weekend Wrap-Up in Pictures!

Happy day after Monday, y'all! We had a great weekend full of house projects and some time with family, too. Friday night we kicked off the start of the weekend with a birthday dinner for our niece's at El Mex in our town. Let me just say this: we LOVE El Mex. If you ever come to visit us, you are guaranteed a trip there! Now, on with the update:

This was just as we were walking out the door Friday night.

Ainsley's birthday was the last week in September and Emma's birthday was just last week. They both got their birthday gifts from us on Friday night. The pillow that Ainsley is holding below was made from a PJ set of hers that she outgrew. This child LOVES penguins and did not want to get rid of the PJs, so I made it into a cute little pillow that she can cuddle and sleep with whenever she wants. I believe she liked it. Agreed?

I'd say her smile says it all. I think the pillow was a hit!

So, birthday's at El Mez are pretty embarrassing. They put a sombrero on you and sing. But that's not all they do! They also smear whipped cream on your face the entire time they are singing. For some reason these girls just love it!

Emma is about to be whipped creamed!

And it begins!

The finished product! :)

Friday night Lauren from church joined me for a chick flick. We ran into her family at El Mez and the plan developed from there. We wanted to get Bridesmaids to watch, but our RedBox did not have it. We settled on Something Borrowed. It was nice to have her home from college this weekend and to get in some girl time! Stephen watched the movie with us too, but he did fall asleep a couple of times. Have you seen that movie? I thought it was okay...not sure it is one I want to purchase though!

Saturday we planned on planting all our bulbs for spring flowers. We had a lot of bulbs to plant! 165, actually. I started working with Louie as my sidekick while Stephen ran some errands in town. Once we was back we both worked on this project. In the end we did not get them all planted, but I think we did pretty good.

Hopefully next Spring this flower bed:

will be blooming beautifully with many different kinds and colors of tulips. I am praying!

We also planted many around the historic sign in our front yard, and worked on re-painting the wording on the sign:

AND I bought a new paint pen to add our name to the sign. Hopefully next weekend I can work on that!

Last week the above tree had changed colors at the very top, but this weekend it changed completely. I think it is just beautiful! I don't mind the orange/yellow glow it casts to rooms inside our house either :)

Louie was our supervisor while we worked. Doesn't he look content?

He also liked playing in the leaves! I guess when he got tired of laying he would decide to frolic and play. So cute!

I love his tongue out on this one!

This is probably my favorite picture of the weekend. Or maybe my favorite picture ever taken of him!

After planting we showered and got ready to head out for our weekly grocery shopping. While I was waiting on Stephen (I think he was walking Louie) I snapped a picture of me and the pretty flowers the hubs got me for our first anniversary. I want to remember these, so this is my documentation!

Before we left we stopped to snap a few family pictures (maybe one for our 2011 Christmas card?) with the beautiful trees and leaves:

Sunday we went to church and taught our first Sunday of Sunday School. We are teaching 5th and 6th grade, so it should be exciting. I know I am looking forward to it. We also had nursery duty during service, so we had a morning full of sweet kiddos on Sunday!

Sunday evening we went back to El Mez, well it's another name but it is owned by the same people...for a great dinner with Stephen's boss and co-workers plus their wives. After dinner we all went to Eagles Theater to see Courageous. Stephen's boss Mark was nice enough to cover dinner and our movie tickets-he had seem the movie the prior week and felt that strongly about all of us seeing it. Let me tell you, the movie did not disappoint. I would recommend it to anyone, regardless of if you have children or not. We laughed and we cried; it was so good! Have you seen it or heard great things about it? They do have a FB page for the movie if you want to check it out!

Lastly, I wanted to share with you the gift that my boss brought me on Friday:

Isn't it just the cutest and sweetest pumpkin? I LOVE it!

Tomorrow morning I will be dropping Louie off at the Vet for round 2 of his heartworm treatments. Please say a prayer for him and for us! If any of you have gone through this with your dogs, feel free to let me know how round 2 went. We would appreciate it! I am praying that since he handled the first round well that this one should not be much different, but you never know. Prayers appreciated. Thanks! :)

Hope everyone has a terrific Tuesday!