Some of my new creations!

Here are some of the projects I have been working on…..I am terrible at taking pics of the stuff I have made, but here is what I have….

This is for my BF's newest little one...she is due to make her grand apperance at the end of July! I cannot wait to meet Miss Tinslee!!

And as usual...a perfect little hand tied bow at the corner of each 4x4 square!!

Chocolate and pink is what mom is going for in the nursery. I really like the way it all turned out…especially the letters.

Here is my friend Amy’s blanket for her new little one who arrived last week! I didn’t get a chance to get it to her while we were home though, so the good ole’ snail mail will have to do. I made on for big sister last year, so I did the same pattern for little sister.

I made a blanket for a fellow Nestie and gave it to her at our GTG we had. I could have sworn I took a picture of it…like I am 99% positive took a picture of it, but I can’t seem to find it any where. It really turned out cute. Maybe Mommy to be will post a pic of it on FB and I will steal it to throw up here! *Hint hint….*

I also made a blanket for D’s BF and his wife’s new baby, Bryson James. It matched his nursery perfect as well. I posted the fabric several blogs back….lime green, blue with bubble and yellow dot. I also put some blue gingham bows in each corner. Yet again I forgot to talk a pic….I know I suck!

I made another blanket for a friend that I went to nursing school with. She is having another little boy! Yea for 2 under 2!! Big brother’s blanket was cream, chocolate, and turquoise. Little brother’s blanket is mint green dot, tan-ish/pale blue/mint stripy fabric, and pale blue. Yet again…no pics.

Now something I do have pictures of…3 precious dresses that I made after seeing on one of my FAVORITE blogs…..www.makeit-loveit.com. She has so much stuff on there and I can’t wait to make it all! Stay tuned to my home updating blog for her great ideas I plan on putting in our house!

Ta-da!!!! Aren’t they so sweet!! Here is how it was made, again thanks to Make it and Love it!

Here is my first dress for my niece Emmy Gracy:

White tee, sassy zebra print skirt and a hot pink sash!

Emmy’s big sister Kaylee Bear:

Black tee, yellow polka dot (Bear’s favorite color), and a zebra sash!!

And for my BF’s daughter…my Angel, Kailyn. Since soon to be little sister, Tinslee, got so much, I had to get my Angel something too….

Purple shirt, fun multi colored dot fabric for skirt and hot pink sash and trim on bottom.

They all looked so cute in their new dresses, I wish I would have thought to take pictures of them in them!! The only picture I have of any of them in the dresses is my Angel. She wore it at Tinslee's shower and her mom put a pic up on FB with her in it...so I stole it! :D

Blurry, but you get the idea...

Well those are all the new creations I have for now. But I will have more soon, once we get all settled into our house and I can manage to find some time! I have spied several new projects on Make it and Love it, that I am dying to create!!

So stay tuned!!

Holy blog-tastic!!!!

Well it has been about 12 years and 1.2 million 101 updates since I have posted anything!!! D and I just got back to Cali from visiting the wonderful world of Oklahoma…I am so happy to be home, but at the same time, I miss my Okies!!!!

So here go some 101 updates!!


First and foremost….*insert drum roll please*….we are now officially homeowners!!!!



AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! As of June 18th, 2010!!!! We drove home from OK, I packed Monday and moved Tuesday and I was back to work on Wednesday night and Thursday night, Friday AM I picked up my college roomie from the airport so we could enjoy a girls weekend, and yet again back to work on Monday, while D went back as soon as we got back to Cali…so needless to say it has been a rather busy few days already! But I will post pics soon of our house. It is rather messy as you can imagine, but as I get things settled I will get some posted!

I went to my first 101 concert and by the way things are going, I should be close to finishing up my goal of concerts this year! Friday June 4th, 2010, we went and saw Tim McGraw at the Cricket Wireless Ampitheater.


It was a great day for an evening concert. Lady Antabellum was their opening act and they did great too…but this is what I was really wanting to see...



Is that a great butt or what!?!? Lol….I kid, I kid. We had pretty decent seats too. I was really pleased with the set they did. We tried to see him again when we were home in OK at the Zoo Ampitheater, but they were sold out. D and I were really surprised when Tim came out and he was talking about his new song that had recently came out, and he refered to it as “Our new song” as in including his band the Dance Hall Doctors. We thought that was really cool that he includes his band in his success. I don’t think I have really heard any other artist refer to themselves and include the band. Super classy Tim, super classy!!!


June 14th, 2010...new restaurant

Nestie GTG at Iguana Grill in downtown OKC…definitely a no go. It wasn’t very good and it was absolutely freezing the entire time we were there. I also felt like we were being rushed, even though we told them repeatedly we would be there for a while. Now it WAS great catching up with my Nesties….how I have missed you guys! So many baby bumps and great gossip! Too bad the food wasn’t as good as the company.

June 1st, 2010...new recipe.

I got this from a Hungry Girl email. I can’t think of the name right off the top of my head, but it was something to the effect of nacho chicken, or something similar. It isn’t super WW friendly like the HG recipe calls for, but it isn’t too far off. Here are *most* of the ingredients.

*3 Chicken breasts, filleted and tenderized
*Bread crumbs (not in the original recipe)
*Shredded cheese
*Laughing Cow light cheese- 1 wedge
*Fat free refried beans- 1 cup
*Baked Tostitos Scoops chips- 3 per chicken
*Taco Sauce
*Ground red pepper, garlic powder, salt & pepper to taste


Mix the beans, and 2 cheeses together to form a yummy looking paste….


Then take the filleted chicken and add a scoop of the bean mixture on top in the middle and crumple 3 Tostitos on top.



Now here comes the tricky and messy part. I don’t have pics of this part because it was soo messy. You roll the chicken around the bean mixture securing with toothpics, making sure the beans don’t spill out too much. Then spoon taco sauce over, just enough to coat and place in bread crumbs with red pepper, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper.



Roll in crumbs again to coat. Place in Pam coated pan, bake at 350 for 30 to 45 minutes, making sure the chicken is cooked through.



Viola….yummy chicken. Not exactly pretty, but yummy nonetheless!


“Before I Fall” by Lauren Oliver


I decided to read this book thanks to a recommendation by a fellow Nestie, Gingy. I am so glad I read it. It was a pretty easy read, but I really, really enjoyed it. This book is about a young teenage girl who has the thought in her head that it could never happen to her. We all had that ideation in our heads at that age, of course, but in her life she takes everything to the extreme.

Samantha “Sam” Kingston is young, beautiful, popular, amazing friends she would die for, and a boyfriend that every girl would kill for. But Sam is not the nicest of people. The last day of her life is on Cupid Day…a sort of Valentine’s Day. The premise of the day is to get as many roses as possible, and if you don’t get many or any at all, you are banded for life. That seems to be how things happen in the New England small town.

The day continues on and Sam and her best friends go to an underage drinking party in the country that evening. One of her friends decides to drink and drive and they crash. Sam dies, and she is able to describe what that moment when you die is like.

Then suddenly she wakes up in a cold sweat only to realize she has to repeat that day, again…and again….a total of 7 times. So it makes you think, what would you do on your last day if you could repeat it over and over again. Would you change anything? Would you skip school/work and spend time with your loved ones?

It really made me think. I know I wasn’t like Sam in high school, and I don’t think I was a “mean girl”, but it really made me second guess my high school experience and pray that I treated every one well.

I have also now kept up with my blog for 3 straight months on at least a weekly basis...bravo to me! That marks another off on the list. This last month has been really crazy, but I will try to keep up with posts like I did before!

So that is another book down…just a few more to go!!!!

Those Who Save Us

So last night I finished another book to add to my home library. It was a historical fiction, and took place in one of my favorite time periods. It occurred during WWII in Nazi controlled Germany. The book is called Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum. Here is the synopsis from her website:

For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Anna's daughter Trudy was only four when she and Anna were liberated from Nazi Weimar by an American soldier and went with him to Minnesota, so Trudy can't remember much....but she has one piece of evidence from the past: a family portrait showing Trudy, Anna, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald.

Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the dramatic and heartbreaking truth of her mother's life.

The book was very well written and I really, really enjoyed it. She was a great writer and was able to describe the terrible nitty gritty that Anna had to endure in order to save her life as well as her only child. Anna's daughter Trudy, has no real idea where she has come from, but does know that the man she called her father all her life is not her real father. As a young child, as well as all of her adult life, she would ask repeatedly why the man she thought her father was gone. Her mother would repeatedly tell her that that part of her life was over and she would not discuss such things.

Overall , a really great book. I wish the end was a little better, maybe drawn out a little more. I felt like it just stopped suddenly without really explaining what else happened. But still really good...

Another book down and many more to go!

Vitameatvegamin...and fruit pizza...yum!

So I started taking a vitamin daily on May 26th, 2010. My 101 goal is to take them daily for 3 months straight. So 1 week down...11 more to go! Luckily I got some pretty tasty vitamins and nothing like Lucy took in her super famous episode featuring Vitameatavegamin...yuck!

Since I am no longer on BC and D and I aren't really doing anything to prevent a pregnancy, I grabbed a prenatal chewable vitamin. I have a horrible time trying to swallow pills, let alone a horse pill (also know as a prenatal vitamin), so the chewy ones are just perfect for me. They are just like little gummies and so delish! I don't think I will have a problem taking these daily!

Memorial Day, after D and I got home from Vegas, we went to a friend's' house for a BBQ. I was in charge of desert...no surprise there since I am the Queen of Baking. I had wanted to try something new and fresh since it was the start of summer. I had had this desert previously when others had made it, but I wasn't super sure how they did it. So I made up my own recipe.

Now, I don't have pictures of it, shame on me, but I was making this at a friend's house and I didn't want to look like the weirdo taking pics of my food. :D

So what I did was try to figure out a good base for my pizza. I had it before with a shortbread cookie type of crust, but I didn't have time to make a shortbread, so sugar cookie it was. I grabbed a roll of pre-made cookie dough from the store and let it soften to room temperature. Next for the 'sauce' I used cream cheese, some sugar and orange juice to taste. The OJ just made it a little creamier and easier to spread. Now, you don't want to add too much sugar because the fresh fruit adds so much sweetness to it.

Now, after the cookies is soft and mailable with your hands, I just placed it on a foil lined cookie sheet and flattened it out like a pizza crust. Bake it according to the package directions, which for me was about 13 minutes. It looked a little too toasted, but it was ok.

While the cookies was baking, I made the 'sauce' and sliced the toppings. I used fresh kiwi (peeled and sliced), raspberries, and strawberries (sliced). I let the cookie cool before topping with the sauce and fruit. I spread the sauce out not too thick, but enough to cover the whole top, almost all the way to the edge. Then I just arranged the fruit in a way I thought looked good, covering the whole top. Then I sprinkled some sugar on top of the fruit to get their juices going, then I put some fresh honey on top as well for an added sweetness, and viola! Done!! It was a huge hit too!!

Weekend Recap...

So we are back from Vegas and completely exhausted!!! I think the 4 days we were there, we got a totally of 11 hours of sleep. Absolutely craziness is how I will describe this weekend. But it was so much fun going with a group of friends.

We left Friday afternoon around 3pm...not exactly what we were aiming for, but oh well. We wanted to leave by 12:30-1pm at the latest, but what can you do?? We finally got to Vegas around 8:30 or so. It took us a bit longer to get there because of the traffic, which we didn't exactly expect because we wanted to leave earlier. So we dropped our friends off at Treasure Island and we took off to out hotel. We probably would have stayed with them at the same hotel, but we had the fur-babies with us so we had to stay off the strip at a little hole in the wall hotel. It wasn't terrible, but D and I agreed, we won't be going back there.

So we unload and meet our friends for dinner. We decided to meet up at Margaritaville, next to the Flamingo. It was pretty good. They had a live band and cleared some of the tables out for a dance floor. I went out and was dancing with one of my friends, having a good time and this guy comes up to dance with us. No big deal, right? I don't mind dancing with other guys, because D doesn't really dance and he doesn't care either. But this guys was just too much. He was just grinding up on me and I kept backing away, pulling my friend closer and she was putting her arms around me to be in between me and the guy, but he didn't really get the message. After the song was over, he puts his hands around my waist, spins me around, looks at my wedding ring and says, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas..." EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! He kept pulling me closer to kiss me and I kept pulling back, but he would not let go! My friend had to pry us apart and I stormed off. I felt so dirty and so insulted. I know this guys was really drunk, but still, I feel like that isn't an excuse to ask me to cheat on my husband. Even worse, when my friend told him my husband was over at out table, he said, "That's okay...." Double yuck! Then he goes and asks my friend as well to go to his hotel...and she told him, that her husband too was sitting at the table. This guys just didn't get it...AT ALL! Needless to say it really put a damper on my night.

After that we went and gambled for a while, because it's Vegas right??

We eventually made it to our hotel room and passed out for 3 hours before getting up and heading to TI. D was playing in a poker tourney that morning and I was going to lay by the pool with our friend who was staying there. It was fabulous being lazy by the pool and getting some sun, but Lord have mercy was it hot!! We didn't stay too long out there because the men didn't last long in the tourney, so we went upstairs, showered and off we went. That first day we went to see the pawn shop in Pawn Stars. It is a show on the history channel that D loves!!

We walked back to the strip...well the Stratosphere at least from downtown Las Vegas. It was a hike!! We caught a cab from there and headed back to our hotel to get ready to go see the fight that was that night at the MGM. We got back to our hotel room and passed out! We were so tired! It was a very short 2 hours, but needed. After that we headed back to TI to watch the fight at the Kahunaville.

This was the monster drink the 3 of us girls split...it had dry ice in it to make it all bubbly! :D

This was the friendly wager D placed with a friend about the fight. D said Evans was going to win and friends said Rampage was going to win...

Well, we won!! Nice!!!

All of us before leaving Kahunaville and heading out to the strip again!

This is the newlywed couple that we went to Vegas with...they had been married just 1 week and really the whole reason we took the trip to Vegas! He is deploying next week for 7 months so this was our last hoo-rah before he left. It was a great time!

D and I outside the Wynn Hotel...just beautiful waterfall!!

The next day, Sunday, we spent the entire day poolside at TI while the boys, yet again, played poker. They came and joined us a few hours after we got there and we had just a blast!! Lots of beer, great music, and an amazing pool!! We stayed at the pool for about 6 hours before us girls took off to the hotel room to get dressed for dinner and our last night.

The last night, we headed to Monte Carlo for some more gambling and poker action. Well it couldn't have been better! D won his first poker tourney and pocked $650!!! I was so happy for him! He wants so desperately to play in a major poker game in Vegas to get him to the World Series of Poker at the Rio. I really hope one day he is able to get to it. He is such a good player, that I know one day he will get there!

The next morning, bright and early at 6 am we hit the road. I had to go to work that night so I didn't want to push my luck any more and be late to work. Apparently the traffic out of Vegas Memorial Day weekend is brutal. It was all smooth sailing until we were about 1 1/2 hours from home and we hit a HORRIBLE traffic jam. We literally could see our exit that would take us straight home. It was at a dead stand still. People were getting out of their cars trying to see what was going on, but we just couldn't see. I even stood up on my seat and was looking through the sun roof to see if I could see anything, but no such luck. After about 30 minutes, the traffic started moving and we were off towards home!!

While I was driving home, I turned to see D sleeping and Boot, sitting on D's shoulder like a parrot. He was just pleased as could be sitting there. It was pretty amusing....

And here is our little Rocko guy, doing what he does best...being a lap dog...

But eventually we made it home, and it was nap time!!!! :D