That's Pintastic!

I don't know about you, but I am obsessed with Pinterest! I have many projects planned for the house! Today I am going to share some things that I have made.

We'll start with food:

I made this sweet potato casserole today to take to my parents' for Christmas Eve. It was SOOOOO GOOD! The 7 sticks of butter and 12 cups of sugar make it super healthy, too. The recipe claims to be similar to Ruth's Chris sweet potato recipe.

You can find the recipe here: sweet potato casserole

I also made this chocolate chip cookie dough fudge for some little Christmas gifts. It was not so good. It just tasted funny, and it was pretty gooey even after chilling it in the fridge for hours.

If for some reason, you want to try it, possibly to see if you can make it taste right, here is the recipe: chocolate chip cookie dough fudge

I made this to take to Thanksgiving with Kirby's family, and it was delicious! Very rich, but yummy! If I made it again I probably wouldn't pour the melted chocolate on top.

You can find the recipe here: Oreo brownies

I made this for a tailgate and for Whit's housewarming party. One word...YUM!

You can find the recipe here: Jalapeno Popper Dip

I've made several other delicious recipes that I've found on Pinterest, but we'll move on to some DIY craftiness.

I made these and put them on the mantle at our previous house. Our TV occupies our mantle at our new house, so right now they are homeless. The link on how to make them has disappeared. I will say it was a bit tedious with all of the taping and trying to make it perfect. Here is the Pinterest picture:

And here is mine:

Not perfect, but good enough for me!

I had some scrap wood left over from the previous project, so I turned it in to these cute little snowmen!  Of course mine aren't quite this cute.

Wooden Snowmen

I repainted this desk and chair and recovered the chair with the help of a link from The Pin.

Before:

(I had just started sanding it and remembered to take a pic)

After:

I made these things for my classroom:

Ziploc bags and Duck Tape to display student work

An erasble to-do list...good bye zillions of post it notes!

File folders and Duck Tape to organize my important papers

Pinterest has seriously changed my life! I just love it! What Pinterest projects have you done that you love?

~Janae

'Round Here

It's time for a little life update! Let's see, what have we been up to...

We moved in to our new house last weekend, and we are loving it! It feels much more like home compared to our rent house, which is nice. This is our "first" Christmas so of course we had no option but to put up a tree. Saturday night, after we moved in, we went tree shopping. We got a pretty tree and lots of ornaments, and when we got home we put it together and I got started decorating it. I was exhausted from moving, but I was determined to get that thing up! I have a feeling I won't want to take it down in just a few short days.

We put it up in front of the big window in the dining room, so it's kind of hard to get a good picture. I think I may need to add some more things to it, but overall she looks pretty!

Lucy is relaxing by the tree after 3 days full of adventures. More on that later...

One of my besties, Kara, had a baby! Welcome to the world Cooper Jack!

Congrats Kara and Andrew! He is absolutely perfect!

The girls and I had our annual Christmas party for, say, probably the 20th year in a row. I love these girls to death, and I'm so happy we are still best friends after all these years! We forgot to get a pic before Christy left, and Liz wasn't able to make it, but here we are!

I had to take a screen shot, so ya know, not the best.

Dad celebrated another birthday. 39th, I believe. ;)

Best Dad a girl could ask for! Love him!

Kirby won "The Sherman." He insisted that I blog about it. The Sherman is the name of their trophy for his Fantasy Football League. There's a story behind the name...quite silly if you ask me!

Lucy has managed to escape our new backyard 3 times now in 3 days. Apparently, the storm from the other night broke the latch on our gate. We thought we fixed it after her first jaunt down the street, but then the next day she showed up on the front porch with the pizza delivery guy. There's no telling how long she'd been out there or what she had been doing. So, obviously the fence needs more of a fix than we thought. For now our 50 pound Hog is guarding the gate :) Today I went out to get her, and she was gone again!!! Then I saw her across the fence in the neighbor's backyard. A board was loose on the fence and somehow her chunky little butt managed to squeeze through! She came back through though and we blocked the hole.

Our second night in the new house, we found Lucy just chillin' in the office.

Mom sent me this pic a few weeks ago of Chip and Phoebe sleeping on their backs. They look like an old married couple. So funny!

Tonight for dinner we had spaghetti and green beans. While we were eating Kirby goes "Is it just me or do these green beans taste like brown sugar?" I took a bite and agreed that they tasted funny, like cinnamon or something. I got to thinking about it, and we figured out why they tasted funny...

Apparently, you need to wash your pan several times after putting this smell good concoction in it.

That's what we've been up to! Merry Christmas!!!

~Janae

The Adventures of Lucy

Meet Lucy. She looks sweet, right?

LOOKS is the keyword here, people. LOOKS.

Lucy is a destroyer of all things. Just ask my sister about her baseboards and landscaping...

New toys last a total of 3 minutes if they aren't for "aggressive chewers."

Lucy LOVES to dig. Our backyard is full of holes...mostly around the fence and on the sides of the house. She will dig all day if you let her. I'm not sure if she's trying to escape (sometimes I secretly wish she would...I kid, I kid) or what. I think she just enjoys it. This is what she often looks like when she comes inside.

"Mom, I have no idea what you're talking about. I swear I haven't been digging."

About a month ago I was out of the room for a few minutes and left Lucy alone. I came back to find this scattered on the floor.

It took me a minute to figure out what it was until I found the lid.

Today I got a text from Kirby showing me what he discovered after getting out of the shower.

Another ink pen bites the dust. This was before Kirby attempted to clean the carpet. Little doggy prints and all. All over the kitchen, too.

This was after he "soaked, scrubbed, and vacuumed." Looks like we won't be getting ANY of our deposit back. Maybe it just needs a woman's touch...let's hope so anyways. Either way, we only have a week left in this house!

And here's Lucy after the massacre of the pen...

What are we going to do with her? If she doesn't get her act together before next week, we may have a "free to good home dog." Ha!

She really is a pretty good dog, but just when we are starting to think we can trust her and leave her alone for a minute, she goes and does something like this. Aggravating, but we love her!

She is quite photogenic if I say so myself! Look at those crossed ankles! She loves to turn her bed over and lay on it upside down. Weirdo!

Anyways, so a blog about my dog on a Friday night. Married life is so exciting! Haha! We decided to stay in tonight, order pizza, and pack for the big move! We did our final walkthrough today of the house and signed more papers. I'm so excited it's almost here!

Happy weekend!

~Janae

The Sunday Social

I'm doing my first ever link up today with Ashley!

1. What is your favorite holiday season tradition?

My favorite holiday tradition is spending Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family. We've done this every year since I was born, and it's so nice to spend time with family that we don't get to see that often.

2. Do you have a certain holiday movie you watch more than others? If so what is it?

I love Elf and Home Alone!

3. Show us your favorite decoration or Pinterest decoration you wish you could have.

I found this on Pinterest, and I hope to try to make something similar soon!

4. What is your favorite holiday song?

"Baby, It's Cold Outside"

5. What is your favorite holiday dessert?

I'm not too picky when it comes to dessert, but if I had to pick it would be peanut butter fudge.

6. What is on your wishlist this year?

I would love to have these...

...and things for our new house! Fun stuff, you know, like ceiling fans and light fixtures!

~Janae

We Bought a House!

Yep! You read it right...Kirby and I bought our first home! We had been looking, but then decided to wait after we found out how much we would have to pay to get out of our lease. Well, last week our realtor called and said he had just listed a house that we would love. So the next day we went to look at it, and seriously, like, 30 minutes later our offer was accepted! It all happened so fast, and we are very excited!  We pushed back the closing date until December though so we can save a little more AND not have to pay millions to get out of our lease. Here she is!

It was a foreclosure, so there were several things that needed some fixing up...hence the dumpster. I'm ok with all new carpet and fresh paint throughout :) Of course there are a few things we would like to change eventually, but for the most part, it's perfect!

Counting down the days till December...

Janae

Homemade Ice Cream

If you know me, you know I love me some ice cream! Our friend, Cory, got us a homemade ice cream maker for a wedding gift. We've used it twice...we were successful once. Ha! The ice cream maker he got us is really easy to use! You don't need ice or salt, so you never have to worry about whether or not you have enough ice. It also makes for easy cleanup! This is the one we have. It is a Cuisinart, and I think it came from Dillard's.

The first time we attempted to make ice cream, it didn't really work out. Maybe we should've read up on the directions beforehand. We were making it more difficult than it really was!

The second time, however, our ice cream was delicious!!! It was such an easy recipe, too! You should try it out if you have an ice cream maker! Here is the recipe:

Chocolate Ice Cream

Ingredients: 1 can of Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk

                   1/2 gallon of Chocolate Milk

                   8 ounce tub of Cool Whip

Once you've gathered all of the ingredients (there's so many, I know), pour the condensed milk, Cool Whip, and half of the 1/2 gallon of chocolate milk into the ice cream maker. Stir it up, then pour the rest of the chocolate milk in if you can. Our ice cream maker must be on the small side because it was full, and we couldn't pour anymore in it. Then, you just turn on your machine, and let it do its thing for a while. I think we stopped ours after about 45 minutes, but we could've eaten it sooner than that if we wanted.

We all loved it, and I really loved it because it was so simple!

~Janae

Just Dance

Ok, I'm almost done with the wedding posts. Promise. I just HAD to post some pics from the reception. Why? Because some of them are absolutely hilarious. Especially if you were there. And even if you weren't, I think you will be able to see the hilariousness in them.

Kiddos

First dance as husband and wife :)

Daddy/Daughter Dance

Mother/Son Dance

Precious!

And the hilariousness begins...

"You know, Brock, I think you're right. I should take offmy wine-stained shirt and just wear my vest."

The reception was so much fun! A huge thanks to Mr. Dustin Burger Brock Entertainment for providing the entertainment. Our DJ was great!

~Janae