Oh, How Pinteresting!

23 Jan

Oh my love for Pinterest is back in full swing. It’s become my nightly ritual to browse before I go to bed. Even better news, my sister is FINALLY on Pinterest! This my friends is a blessing because I quite often was sending her links via text or email of things I saw that she’d like. After much nagging she created an account…yippee!

So, I’m linking up with The Vintage Apple for “Oh, How Pinteresting!” to share with y’all some of my faves from the past few days.

cupcakedecorPinterest via

mardigrascupcakes

Pinterest via

pumpkinpancakes

Pinterest via

painteddresser

Pinterest via

brickwall

Pinterest via

Grab and button & link up with The Vintage Apple for
“Oh, How Pinteresting Wednesday”!

Our Journey – Faith and Timing

21 Jan

Happy MLK and inauguration day, lovelies! There has been a lot of thinking that has gone into this post. A lot of typing, deleting, retyping, deleting, typing, you get the picture. But today a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King struck me and so here I sit again trying to put into words what I’ve wanted to say for so long…to start finish this post.

MLKquote

For two years, we’ve been trying to conceive our first child – unsuccessfully. Turns out that I am one of the 6,000,000 women out there that are considered to have fertility issues. Our faith is in the Lord and we have taken several the first steps towards trying to have a family – without seeing the entire staircase, without knowing His plan for us. And we’re okay with that. We cling to His promises and we will continue to move forward and are hopeful that in His timing, we will have a family of our own.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance ” James 1:2-3

For now, we’ve taken a huge leap of faith when I recently gave my resignation at my full-time job. We felt that at this point in our journey towards starting a family this was the next step He was calling us to take. It’s a scary thought, but we feel His presence and hand guiding us. The next step in our journey we are uncertain of what that will look like, but we are confident when the time comes to make that decision He will have prepared us. If I’m being honest, this uncertainty has caused us to spend more time on our knees praying.

“Let your hope make you glad. Be patient in time of trouble and never stop praying” – Romans 12:12

So thanks for letting me share this part of our journey with y’all. We are blessed beyond measure, patient and faithful.

james

2012 Year in Review

31 Dec

With just a few short hours before we ring in yet another year, I guess it’s time for the obligatory year in review post. If I’m being honest, I’m ready for a new year, with new joys; 2012 has been tough to say the least. But out of the pain, sorrow and hard times I’ve been able to see the blessing from the Lord. Through this year I’ve learned that I need to spend more time on my knees in prayer and less time talking, trying to control and solve the problems. Give it to God.

20121231-161404.jpg

A few highlights from 2012:

  • My beloved LSU Tigers went to the BCS National Championship game
  • Visited our good friends and their adorable baby in Houston
  • Surprise visit for a weekend getaway to Disney World with my awesome sister and her family
  • Started our master bathroom remodel
  • Great week at the beach for the annual family J.A.M. Fest
  • Bought a new car
  • Got braces
  • Started a quarter-time job working at Chick-fil-A as part of their Marketing team
  • Worked some pretty incredible weddings and events
  • Got a pretty cool new sewing machine
  • Celebrated my 100th blog post
  • Made my first two maxi dresses
  • My team the Washington Redskins finally are NFC East Champs after being the division doormat for over a decade

Have a safe and happy evening! Cheers to 2012 and the new blessings to come in 2013. See y’all next year!

What’s Your Elf Name?

24 Dec

Hello! It’s Christmas Eve, can you believe it?! Only one more sleep until it’s Christmas Day! I can’t wait.

Do you know your Elf name? Well you should as well as the names of those you’re celebrating the holiday with. Using the first letter of your first name and your birthday month, match the words to determine your Elf name. This cracks me up every single time.

elf names

In our house today we have Perky Pointy-Toes, Twinkle Sugar-Socks, Sunny Sparkley-Toes and Elvis Sparkley-Toes working hard for Santa to prepare for his visit. My favorite elf (hubs) who is working today is Puddin McJingles…classic. Merry Christmas everyone!

Love,
Perky Pointy-Toes

High Five For Friday

21 Dec

Hello! It’s been a pretty great week! I celebrated my birthday, finished my Christmas shopping and am getting ready to celebrate the Christmas holiday with family and friends. I’m linking up with Lauren @ From My Grey Desk for High Five For Friday to share pictures from my week. I hope you had a great week too!

ONE

photo 1

TWO

photo 2

THREE

photo 4

FOUR

photo 3

FIVE

photo 5

  1. Holiday nails in Essie Fishnet Stockings (red) and Beyond Cozy (silver). That’s Macy waiting impatiently for my nails to dry so that I can take her outside. She has impeccable timing. 
  2. My office mate for the day. I moved her bed next to the space heater and I, and she snuggled up for the day while I worked.
  3. I turned 30-ish! Okay, 33 to be exact. I made these tasty Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcake Crowns to celebrate!
  4. Josh surprised me at work for our hot chocolate bar event and he stayed to hang out and play Gestures with us. Fun!
  5. Celebratory birthday sushi!


Bathroom Remodel Update – The Needle is Moving

4 Dec

You aren’t done with that, you ask? Nope. When we first started the master bathroom remodel, I asked my neighbor-friend how long it took her hubby to complete their remodel. Her response [insert super, sweet southern accent] “A season.” HA! I laughed, surely we can get this done in a season…er, seasons.

In our defense, the hubs has been hard at work on the bathroom…when he’s not working his full-time job, saving lives, cats and other things, studying for promotional exams and working overtime. Or going on vacation, afternoons at the gun show or shooting range. I am not a complete slave driver, and I’ve gotta give him a little break here and there. Honestly, the length of time to get this bathroom complete hasn’t really phased me because we have another bathroom to use. Plus, I kinda like the dust that it creates in our bedroom, makes it easier to leave sweet notes to my honey…written iin dust. How romantic!

Some of you have asked, “How’s the bathroom coming along” and I figured that it was time that I gave you an update. I would say we are about 80% done with the bathroom. So here’s a look at what we’ve done so far.

window

Dad and DIY Master J framed out the window in our bathroom. I’m in love with this and now want to frame out all of the windows in our house. I’d like to say that a window without a frame is like a cupcake without icing…or something poetic like that.

shower

Only a few more tiles left and the shower will be complete. The hot guy working on my tile says that it’ll be done on this week. Then we call in the shower door man to install the beautiful frameless shower doors. The shower door man is different from the hot guy working on the tile. He (shower door man) pales in comparison, just sayin’.

tub

Doesn’t everyone keep their toilet in the bathtub? This picture shows the tub wall tile. The genius tile man made it so that the decorative tile is the same height as the decorative tile on the shower wall. This wall still needs a few pieces of finishing tile, a.k.a. bull nose, which I don’t get because it doesn’t look like a bull, nose or the nose of a bull.

floor

Not a great shot, but this is the floor tile. Is there anything else to say about this, I don’t think so.

PS – Sorry, honey for all of the references to you using everything but your name! Y’all see, he thinks it’s lame that I don’t refer to him by his actual name on this here blog. I think it’s funny that he thinks it’s lame so, when in doubt I like to call him by anything but his name, to make him smile roll his eyes.

Everybody Loves Crack

3 Dec

True story…everyone loves crack. You see, my friend, Gina first introduced me to crack and now I’m addicted. And you will be too once you make this. So that you don’t go into any type of withdrawal, I won’t drag this post out, I’ll just give you the fix you need.

Ingredients

  • 2 sticks Unsalted Butter
  • 1 cup Light Brown Sugar
  • 1 bag Chocolate Chips
  • 1 pinch Kosher Salt or Sea Salt
  • 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
  • Approx. 1.5 sleeves of Saltine Crackers
  • Aluminum foil
  • 11×17 sheet pan w/lip

Preparation

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line lower oven rack with aluminum foil to catch an caramel boil-over.
  2. Cover the entire 11×17 pan with saltine crackers.
    crackers
  3. Combine butter and brown sugar in a saucepan.
    sugar
  4. Bring the caramel to a boil and simmer for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add salt and vanilla.
    caramel
  5. Quickly pour the caramel over the saltine crackers and spread out so that it covers all of the crackers.
    prebaked crackers
  6. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.
  7. Remove caramel covered crackers from the oven.
    baked crackers
  8. Pour chocolate chips over the crackers and spread until all of the crackers are covered in melted chocolate.
    chocolate chips
    melted chocolate
  9. Place the pan in the refrigerator for about 30-45 minutes so that the chocolate hardens. Remove from the refrigerator and break the crack into pieces, like you would for peanut brittle or peppermint bark.
  10. Package up to give as gifts, or serve in pretty bowls at your next party. Yum!
    packaged crack

There you have it, crack. Everybody loves crack, I promise.

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