Around the House

Look at that! We finished our project! They may not be perfect, please don't point it out! We don't care! Let me tell you, getting them level and evenly spaced and what not was not an easy task. I think we did a pretty good job though! Kirby did most of the work, but I was a spectacular assistant. I still plan on painting the brackets because I can see them when I am sitting on the couch, and it bothers me! I also plan on putting different knick-knacks and pictures on the shelves, but we were so excited to see how it looked, we just couldn't wait! If you look closely, you may see where I got the clever new name for my blog. I love the shelves and think they are perfect for this little spot! Honestly, this was Kirby's idea...I think he's secretly been browsing Pinterest. ;)

You may have noticed Tony on TV. We've been watching The Soprano's. We are on season 5. Kirby is obsessed. We thought we were almost done because there are 6 seasons, and then we found out there are 20, yes, 20, episodes in season 6! What?!?

Anywho, summer has flown by this year! I cannot believe we go back to school in less than 2 weeks! I didn't take on too many projects this summer around the house, but I did paint the guest bathroom and the laundry room. I think they turned out pretty well. I painted the bathroom first and loved the results, so naturally, I decided I needed to paint something else...not the best idea. I thought the laundry room would be easy since it is fairly small, but it wasn't so easy with all of the shelves and cabinets. I wanted to quit. I do like the end result though. It's bright and cheery! I'd like to paint several other rooms, but I think I'll hire a pro next time.

That's all I've got for today!

~Janae

I'm Baaaaack!

I had decided to just give up on this little ole blog of mine, because, clearly, I'm not very good at blogging. I decided I like reading other people's blogs better than writing my own, and what's the point if I only post every few months or so. That was until Danielle guilt tripped inspired me to get back in to it. :) So, here I am. And, since I'm getting a fresh start, I decided to give my blog a new name and a new URL! Take note!

Want some cuteness in your life? Watch this!

Lucy does this all the time, and we think it is so funny! She will drag herself all the way across the house, and she'll leave a little trail in the carpet! She has a whole little stretching routine, but I can never grab my phone in time to get the whole thing on video.

Let's talk about DIY projects. Today, the husband and I decided to tackle a project that we thought would be fairly easy. We wanted to make "floating shelves" for this little nook in the living room. We went to Lowe's, picked out a board, had them cut it in to 3 pieces, bought some bracket thingys, brought our supplies home, slapped a couple of coats of paint on the boards, and then it was time to hang them up. This is where it got tricky. After a few holes in the wall, we figured out it wasn't as easy as we'd hoped. Now we are just frustrated. The boards are too heavy, and it seems our house may or may not be very well constructed. It's impossible to find studs in the wall, even though the stud finder seems to think there's a stud about every 2 inches. You lie, stud finder!

After this failed attempt, we went back to Lowe's to find a different type of bracket. Of course, we had no luck. Looks like it's off to Home Depot now. Hopefully I'll have a success story soon with cute pictures of our "floating shelves."

"This isn't going to work."

What a mess

"We're gonna make this work!"

Today was not nearly as productive as I had hoped it would be. My hopes for today were to:
-Work in my classroom (dropped off some stuff I had picked up over the summer, but didn't get any work done...and I had a good reason for not getting any work done, tell ya about it later)
-Hang shelves (nope)
-Finally open joint bank account with the hubs (check!)

Also, pray for Kirby and his family. His grandfather passed away this evening after being diagnosed with cancer a couple of weeks ago. :(

I'll be back tomorrow with a better attitude, I promise! (Not sure if I'm promising that I'll be back tomorrow, or, if I will have a better attitude...hopefully both!)

~Janae

Happy New Year!

Oh, wait. That was two months ago? Ok, well, I'm a little behind, as usual. Lots of things have been happening around here. This post is kind of all over the place, so please forgive me.

Let's start with a few Christmas snapshots.
Christmas morning with my family:

What are these weirdos doing? I would've posted their "normal" photo, but to be honest, it wasn't that great. You're welcome, sister!

Lucy Lou's first Christmas with our family

Mom and Dad

I can't forget sweet baby Chip!

Then we headed south for Christmas with Kirby's family:

We had a white Christmas in Fort Smith!

Sally=Caroline's elf on the shelf. I think she took the cake on the most presents :)

Nana and Caroline

Kirby and I got C this basketball goal

Just a few days later, Caroline celebrated her 2nd birthday!

We had a pretty low-key NYE with Brooke, Max, JD, and Becca. Dinner, wine, games, and good company=perfection!

Showing Sadie some love <3

One of my fav couples!

 In January, we went to Paint the Town Red with several of our friends. Party with a purpose...that's what I'm talking about!

Doesn't Kirbs look handsome?

Oooooh, and I got a new car!

Isn't she a beaut?

We had our first snow in our new house!

I know all 8 of you are curious as to what this girl has been up to (besides being the most photogenic dog ever).

Stay tuned for a Lucy update, and if you're lucky, a house update!

Happy Hump Day!

~Janae

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