National Bullying Month...

Why I've been missing...

We moved! Our new home.

Princess Molly

One spring morning ten years ago, instead of getting dressed and ready for a school, my dad contacted my eighth grade teachers to explain I would be out for the day. Little did I know what he had planned for us. You see my dad and I always did "father, daughter" dates and they were my favorite, however we always planned them for a Friday night, not during the day. I knew something special was going to happen that day! We loaded up the truck: him, me, and a cardboard box. Still suspicious as we drove up to a house, roughly three hours later to hear puppies barking.

Easy Chicken Pot Pie.

So, this week I decided I was going to create a meal plan for the week - I wanted to make things that were different than the norm. Last night I made "Chicken Pot Pie' that I found on Real Simple. I was super excited about this recipe for several different reasons - first off, I had never made Chicken Pot Pie nor did my family make it much growing up. And secondly, I was really looking forward to eating lots of veggies (I'm weird.) 

Crowned Accessories.

A couple of weekends ago, I had the privileged of meeting the beautiful, Stephanie, who is the owner of Crowned Accessories (with her grandmother!). There is something about Stephanie, and I can't figure out how to pinpoint the words to describe her... First off, she is beautiful on the inside and out. She will make you feel super comfortable in any situation, even just meeting her for the first time. She has a love and passion for live and what it's brought her. I could probably go on and on, but I'll stop there and get talking about her business. 

Crowned Accessories specialize in headbands, scarves and aprons - and they are awesome! I bought a headband, and am super excited to purchase my next one soon. With every accessory purchased, Crowned Accessories gives back to  Agape International Missions (AIM). 

DIY Coaster

So this weekend was full of do it yourself projects... My husband and I have what we like to call a "junk" room or a "catch all". Anybody with me? This "junk" room is also known as our second bedroom. It's a room that has become our storage room, or one that holds the things we don't want to look at after moving in over a year ago. It was pretty bad (notice keyword: was). J's cousin came in town Friday evening and we were determined to make it as cozy as possible. We worked for a good 3 hours cleaning that room. But i'm glad to say we came out with a good, cozy room and about 5 DIY projects. I'd call that success! If you're ever going to come to our house, you'd see a lot of these types of projects.

52 Reasons I love you.

So I know I haven't updated in some time now, but life has been crazy! In my previous post, we were getting ready for our cruise which was so much fun! We celebrated our first year of marriage together. I can't believe it's already been a year! The time has FLOWN by. Anyway, for our celebration of our first year we wanted to keep our gifts traditional - So for the first year, it's paper. Ha! So funny to me. I got creative and used the help of pinterest and made this little happy for my sweet, sweet husband. 

Poppy Seed Chicken

Okay, so I realize I've done WAY too many recipe posts and this will maybe be the last one for a while. What can I say, I have found a love in cooking. I look forward to cooking - strange I know! I guess getting married and knowing I'm the one who provides the meals, is important to me. I love cooking for my husband! I get nervous cooking for other people, but I've not heard any bad comments yet, so that's a good thing.

Whoopie Pie Filling.

So I'm a huge slacker on this post because I didn't get a picture to show how awesome these whoopie pies looked in the end. I decided to go with the chocolate chip cookie dough (no eggs) rather than a butter cream filling or even a marshmallow cream only because I was craving some chocolate. Anyway, super easy to make and super yummy to eat! 

Whoopie Pies.

I'm obviously in some type of cooking/baking mood this morning and it's only 10a.m. So far, I have made pancakes for the hubs, before he left for work and now I'm currently working on Whoopie Pies! Like most of the recipes on here, I've never tried anything like this. We're going on a little road trip this afternoon and I wanted to take something special for the trip. So this past week I ran across the recipe Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Whoopie Pies and if you follow me on Pinterest you saw I had pinned the recipe from Cookies and Cups. I've been dying to make it since I pinned. If it's not any good, then I'll delete the pin and move on with my life. I know, sounds weird but I've been known to do it in the past... 

Anyway, on with the recipe.... I haven't made the filling yet, but the actual pie is to die for! So yummy. A little  richer than I expected but none the less, delicious. 

For the Whoopie Pie: 

I made my recipe a little different than the original. 

It's Official.

WE'VE BOOKED IT AND WE'RE LEAVING IN 18 DAYS!!!!!!

The Monster.

Many of you know already, husband and I have a precious 4 legged child... TERK! 

Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread

A couple of weeks ago I got on a homemade bread kick... I was bound and determined to make a delicious, sweet, desert-type bread. My first recipe was Cinnamon Sweet Bread - it was eh. My sweet husband said it was good and ate most of it along with his brother, who complained that it continued to rise in his mouth! I obviously didn't let it rise long enough... 

Then I came across another recipe called Cinnamon and Sugar Pull Apart Bread, also known as Elephant Ear Bread. It was awesome!!! And it only took me two recipes for the bread to turn out right!! (I was slightly proud of myself!)

Anyway, here's the recipe for the pull apart bread... 

per http://www.foodsnots.com/2012/03/cinnamon-and-sugar-pull-apart-bread.html

Trip 1: Gulf Shores.

We went to Gulf Shores last weekend and got FRIED! It was a blast though. We drove down Saturday night after a wedding Jordan sang in. Which was so beautiful and J did such a great job! I wanted so badly to nudge the girl next to me and say, "hey... pssst... that's MY husband!" But I didn't. 

According to the Jeep GPS, we were supposed to get there at 11:30p.m and beat it by an hour! It's only about 3 hours to get there for if you want to visit us, we go to the beach one day or for a weekend! 

Here are some pics from our weekend trip. There will be more later to show our exciting adventure!! 

Be looking for it! 

Family Reunion.

Last weekend, my husband, his brother, parents and I drove to Butler, AL for a family reunion. It was so fun to meet new family, see old family, eat some good food and relax on an old farm.We kept thinking it would be a perfect get away for all of our college friends to come and hang!

There were three cabins: a girls, a boys and a main lounging area. The girl's lodge was decked out with AC, 4 bedrooms and a mini kitchen. The boy's lodge didn't have the AC, however it had several bunk beds throughout the cabin. And by several, I mean around 10! They were just so cozy! The main lounging area had a kitchen, living space and a bedroom. The walls were covered in old pictures of the family. It was really neat to hear the family talking about their heritage and laughing over their old memories.

Weekend in Indiana.

This past weekend, Husband and I were able to travel to Indiana for our dear friends Kelsy and Jonathon's wedding! We spent a total of 3.5 days with our family and friends from college! It was a perfect weekend to get away, relax and reunite with some very special people. My heart is so full of love and happiness.

Husband I hadn't seen some of our friends since last October and my family since Christmas. It was a long time coming but the reunion was so sweet! 

Here are a few pictures from the weekend (pictures taken by me, husband and other friends). 

Enjoy!

Husband and I

Summer Flowers

This past weekend, Husband and I had a car wash with his work to support Relay for Life! We set everything up in a Hardee's parking lot, washed about 5 cars and made over $200! I'd say that was a success! When that was all through, we went to a local flower shop and bought new summer flowers for our yard! It was the perfect Saturday, other than getting a little burnt.

Wild Rice Chicken Bake

All day yesterday I was craving wild rice... weird I know... but I decided I would make a wild rice-chicken bake. It was so simple and so yummy! Husband loved it. It was a first time to make this recipe (it was one my mom made when I was younger). I didn't have all the original ingredients so I altered it a little bit. So I get to claim it as my own, right? 

Summer Trips

Summer is fastly approaching and I've quickly learned my summers are much different now, than summer in school. But none the less, I'm still very excited! Since husband and I live in the south, which I love, we're really close to some great cities! So this summer, we're planning a week and a few weekend trips that I'm so stoked about!! 

Here are some of our tentative plans:

Trip #1: (this is definite) Since we weren't able to take a honeymoon (stupid work) we're taking a cruise during our anniversary week!! I've never been on a cruise before so I'm slightly nervous, but the excitement over-passes that fear times a billion. 

We will be boarding a HUGE boat on July 23 (our anni) and come back to our humble abode that following Saturday. During our cruise we will spend 5 days exploring the Western Caribbean. 

(photo by: http://www.carnival.com/)

Find Derek Lueking

An old high school friend of mine, who now lives in the beautiful state of Tennessee, posted a link on her Facebook page several weeks ago. As I went to the page and continued to read of the situation, my heart broke for her and this family. Several weeks have passed since I originally read about Derek Lueking on the "Find Derek Lueking" Facebook page and now I return daily for updates. 

Crawfish Boil

Me, being from the north, had never experienced such an event like I did on Saturday. Our small group, who consists of 3 married couples and 4 singles, got together and boiled 44 pounds of crawfish. Now, I had no desire to eat any of that, but I did enjoy cracking the shells for my husband! Here are a few pictures from our day. Hope you enjoy! 

Beautiful Family.

I have the most beautiful family known to man. Now,  it is not a very big family but they are very near and dear to my heart. My husband, of 8 months is my biggest encourager! We dated for 4.5 years before we wed on July 23. Each and everyday I am so excited for 6 o'clock to hit because I know my husband will be home in 10 minutes! There is not a day that goes by that I don't thank the Lord for putting him in my life.