under construction

Wow, we've been kind of lame lately. Haven't posted for awhile. But it's because this office redo is taking up all my spare time. ALL. OF. IT. I thought I'd give you a peek into my crazy life for the last month.....

My office has been a constant embarrassment for the last 5 years. 5 years peeps! It's french doors are immediately to your left when you walk into my home. You would've thought that I would've at least made curtains or put film on the glass doors by now. Nope, too lazy I guess. I'd rather profusely apologize anytime someone sets foot in this room than buy some contact paper for the doors. But soon, I will be really happy I didn't cover up the doors into this office......

Here are my tips for wall paper removal. 1) Get free child labor. That's why you have children right? 2) Hire someone, it's a total pain. 3) When the first 2 aren't an option, use really cheap windex and spray the heck out of it. Use a putty knife to scrape off the excess. I read online that the people at Sherwin Williams remove wall paper this way. My husband agreed that this was easier. I watched HGTV during this process, because it was my birthday and this is what I wanted for my birthday. Wall paper removal for birthday- I'm officially an adult!

Here is my completely embarrassing office. We were just starting to take down the wall paper before I snapped this photo. The lights in the office have not been turned on.... in 5 years! The window blinds have never been opened in this room.... in 5 years! We sat in darkness when we came in here, so we didn't have to look at the mess. Pathetic. I know this. I've been in denial for 5 years!!!

Ok. Now get ready to jump out of your seats and scream like Oprah just bought you a car..... Here is a little sneak peek of the office of my dreams..... I'm so happy right now, I can't stop smiling!

The finishing touches are still taking place. My family is coming into town later this week and I'm so anxious to have their help! The worst part is over. The fun part begins!

Lisa's Make-out Chicken Pot Pie

image found here:

You read the title right. I can't tell you how many people want to make-out with this chicken pot pie. Warning: Do not eat this while dating! It's not very attractive to have bits of chicken and potato plastered on your face even if you served it over candle light and fine linens. But it's impossible to eat this pie while mainting some semblance that you're a mature adult! My friend Lisa (in good ol' Utah, woot woot!) gave this recipe to me years ago and every time I make one for a neighbor they become my new bff. That is, until I give them the recipe! Hmmm, maybe I should hold out longer and get some freebies or something before I hand over this reputation-slandering-oh-so-good recipe? Get ready to wow your friends and family, that is, if you're willing to share!

Lisa's Make-Out Chicken Pot Pie-
-4 chicken breasts -1 Cup chopped onion -1 Cup chopped celery
-1 Cup chopped carrots -1/3 Cup butter -1 Cup chopped poptatoes
-1/4 Cup flour -2 Cups chicken broth -1 Cup half & half
-1 tsp salt -1/4 tsp pepper -store bought pie crust or homemade
-frozen peas (optional)

UPDATE- Lisa told me she browns the bottom crust in oven for 2 min @ 400 degrees before adding the filling. Good idea! A lower fat version is to just have a top crust and no bottom crust. But who's kidding? I don't do low fat anything, just ask my cholesterol!

Boil chicken with water and chicken boullion (or use half chicken broth, half water) until chicken is done. In a large Saute pan, saute onions, celery, carrots and potatoes in butter for 10 min. Add flour and cook for one minute. Combine broth and half and half. Stir into vegetables and cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly. Add chicken and stir well. In a 2 quart dish or pie plate place bottom crust and pour the filling on top. Add the top crust and brush crust with half & half. Cook at 400 degrees for thirty minutes or until golden brown.

*hand over the pie to your favoritest people with one hand and hold a can of Mace in a defensive position in the other hand. There's no telling what will happen when you give them this chicken pot goodness!

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes-They Don't Suck!

A couple of days ago I showing my husband "our blog," "our blog?" he said, "when was the last time you posted anything for your sisters to read?" He's right, it has been forever and when he whipped up this for breakfast this morning I knew it would be the perfect thing to share.

I’m not much of a breakfast person, coupled with the fact that I’d rather clean up the mess than cook so needless to say I don’t make breakfast. David on the other hand loves to cook and is always willing to experiment in the kitchen. Frankly, when I saw him pull out the griddle this morning less than an hour before we had to leave for church I was less than excited. If there’s one breakfast food I really could care less for its pancakes (and the mess that would be left until after church). Quickly I snuck into the pantry to grab a quick bowl of granola cereal so I could avoid eating pancakes.

When David started pulling out cream cheese and powdered sugar I started to think I it all wrong and the griddle was a mistake, but David assured me he was indeed making pancakes….cinnamon roll pancakes… just an idea he’d been thinking about trying.
I have to admit I was a little intrigued and the smell was certainly wonderful so I had to at least give them a try. The first words out of my mouth were “WOW, they don’t suck!” In fact they were TOTALLY worth the after church mess! The best part was they were so easy and just took a few extra ingredients so we were not late for church.

Here’s how to do it:

Your favorite pancake mix –we use the ol’ Costco standby Bisquick
Cinnamon Sugar mix –David’s concoction (1/4 cup Cinnamon; 1/4 cup Granulated Sugar; 1/2 Cup Dark Brown Sugar- combined )
Standard Cream Cheese frosting recipe with a little extra milk so it spreads easier

David made the pancake batter per the directions and in small batches transferred enough batter for 4 pancakes to a smaller bowl then poured in some cinnamon sugar and very lightly folded it into the batter to try and get a swirling effect before adding it to the hot griddle. To avoid the hassle of transferring batter you could just mix cinnamon sugar into all the batter at once, but it will all get mixed together without the swirly effect. Cook like normal and then add your little bit of butter before drizzling a little frosting to the first layer, repeat until you have your hot stack of pancakes piled high and add a little extra frosting to the top. Enjoy!

Holy Cow! It's a prom dress!

That's what hubby said when he first saw it. Living with three men (ok, one man, two boys) makes me long for a few more ruffles in my life. And I have such a hard time finding a shower curtain I like without spending over 50 bucks. So.

After drooling over the many ruffled shower curtains I've seen out in blog-land, I finally went for it... with a bit of help from Mom (she did the most annoying parts, figuring out measurements, serging and doing the rolled hem on all 11 layers! I love going home to have mom work on my projects for me!) I was so excited to make this that I even skipped taking a nap yesterday to whip it up! Impressive, right? Initially I had planned on using this tutorial completely, but I ended up just using a single layer of sheet for each layer where she had doubled it. Thanks to my mom using the rolled hem, I think it made the shower curtain much lighter (although it is still pretty heavy). I did use her idea to make a little ruffle for the top of the curtain to cover up the metal grommets that don't look so great with the ruffly look. Ooo, and you might be interested to know that I've never liked the ruffling method where you have to pull a thread because the thread ALWAYS breaks on me, so I just made the ruffles right before I would sew right over them- much easier in my opinion.

Here's a close up of my small ruffle on top.
So hard to get a decent shot in such a small bathroom!

I love it. I keep walking past the bathroom just so I can look at it. Go make one yourself. The end.

Linking up here:

This Party was Dynamite!

So, first of all, if you haven't seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite, or you just didn't like the movie, you should probably just skip this entire post. You just won't get it.

Usually a party is either hit or miss. This party ended up being both, depending on who you ask. For me and my husband, it was a definite hit. For some of our guests who couldn't remember anything about the movie, it was definite miss. I realized something got lost in translation when a party guest asked me if Zac just really liked tater tots. Oh dear. Zac and I both really love the movie Napoleon Dynamite and we sit and watch it a few times a year and laugh at the same lame jokes. Here are the invites. I just set the scene, took the picture, printed, and sent. Like my attempt at a unicorn? Me too.

Here's Zac all posed next to his pinata. He thought the shorts and tall socks would help him look like Kip, Napoleon's older brother. We're pretty sure no one realized why Zac had his socks like that.
Here's the baby all dressed up as Rex, the tae-kwon-do instructor. Zeke was also dressed up as Rex, but he had no business getting his picture taken with the pre-party tantrum he had going. My mom made the pants and I knew it was meant to be that Wal-mart carried this patriotic doo-rag. Seriously, who would wear this in real life??
I googled "Napoleon Dynamite cakes" and found something similar to this. If you remember in the movie, he feeds his llama Tina her dinner from a casserole dish. And he calls her a fat lard. So this is referring to Tina, the llama. Not my husband. Pretty sure our party guests didn't remember this either, I'm thinking they went home thinking I'm a really rude wife. On a side note, can you believe I actually took a cake decorating class once? Obviously I didn't learn much.
I made this happy birthday banner a few weeks ago. Totally love it. I found a similar sign done on eighteen25 and had to do it for us. The one part of the evening that the guests actually understood.
Here's our little "Time Machine" for Zac. Just some pictures from the past I thought everyone would enjoy seeing. I'm thinking they think we always have our bookshelf full of Zac's childhood pictures.
So now here are the activities. We just got a new dance video game, Dance Central, and we played that upstairs in the living room and then we had the movie Napoleon Dynamite playing downstairs. The dance game was awesome and we had a lot of good laughs making fools of ourselves. When everyone came in, I had them draw their rendition of Zac's face. (Remember in the movie when he draws a picture for the girl he wants to ask to the dance?) It was pretty funny to see what everyone came up with. I also had Glamor Shots by Deb all set up, but the person I had planned to be "Deb" got sick last minute. And I was too busy running around to do glamor shots, so we didn't end up doing it. I also forgot to take a picture of the hubby riding his bike around the neighborhood while I ran around throwing rubber dog-toy steaks at him, ala Uncle Rico.
I had this great idea to make some boondoggle keychains like Deb did in the movie, but here's what I ended up with. 4 keychains. That's it. And do you know how long it took me to make these 4? You don't want to know. Way too much time for an ugly keychain, so I gave up the idea that I'd include those in the party favors.
Here are the party favor bags.
And here's what was inside. Classics from the movie. The bags doubled as a way to hold the candy from the pinata we smashed.
Now for the food. Here are the cupcakes. From a box. I know, lame. For cupcake toppers, I wrote out some of my favorite quotes from the movie.
This one was my favorite cupcake. Living in Idaho and all.
I ordered a couple party trays of sandwiches from Jimmy Johns.
"Chicken Farm Protein Shake" It was really orange juice. If you've seen the movie, you would actually think this is funny.
The Dang Quesa-dillahs. I actually just used the chicken taquito recipe from Our Best Bites and omitted the chicken and turned them into Quesadillas. They were a big hit and I think it's the only part from the movie that people remembered!
"Deb's 1 % milk"
"D-Qwon's Dance Groove Energy Drink"
"Fun Pack Chips" "Napoleon, you know we can't afford the fun pack!"
The Birthday Boy!
And here's the two of us at the end of the night. Super fun, super exhausting. I decided that the best part of planning a party is the actual planning, but it was worth all the effort for all the fun we had. Happy Birthday Zac!!!

My house

A certain TV show called me to see more photos of my house this weekend. (insert jumping up and down and squealing like I'm a Justin Bieber fan, which I did, with witnesses to attest) I'm still trying to decide if it was a prank or not. But it made me motivated to really want to complete my home. The problem is that I'm not a decorator. I don't want to know the decorating rules because I'd rather break them anyway. I just love the process of designing a room. I love to go to bed at night dreaming of what I could do with my awful office. I love coming up with crazy ideas & seeing the look on my friend's/hubby's face when I tell them my idea. (They look at me like I'm smokin' something!) The process is fun and finishing my whole house would be like finishing a really good book. I just don't want it to END! So maybe that's why I've never had a finished home. I've been a home owner for 12 years and never had every room decorated in a house. I start one room, hit a bump and jump to the next room. Accessories are my nemesis. They are the jewelry to every room. Without them the room is dull and boring but sometimes you wear the wrong jewelry and you can go from Prom Queen to Lady Gaga. It ain't pretty! Can you imagine wearing a beautiful gown and tennis shoes. Even if your tennis shoes have diamonds on them, it's still a bust. Oh, how I wish accessorizing a room were as easy as picking out the right shoes and bangle! Someone please tell me how to have accessories look personal and not like clutter or off the shelf of TJ Maxx. After taking these pics of my home I realized that even though "less is more" sometimes less is boring. And I never want my home to feel boring. Time to come up with some new crazy ideas for accessories so I can shock my friends and family. Oh, the high I get from shock value! Here is a glimpse of my ever changing home......

Entry Table- Hubby made it after I drooled after seeing it at Pottery Barn. It was a 5yr anniversary present. This artwork is from Bomobob on etsy, hung in edgeless frames. It's fun and cheery.




Stair case Gallery Wall- Work in Progress. I'm thinking of painting the frames fun, bold colors.






View from front door into Family Room- Vintage metal road sign stencils from a flea market. My room color inspiration!

I heart grey zebra rugs....



My pillow find that made me realize I was on the right track with this color scheme.

We can't forget the mason jar chandy that took far longer to install than to make!
My stinky trunks that I love as a side table but note to self: DO NOT OPEN. You'll smell like a 90 year old man's leather shoes.

Morgan's ROOM- The dresser. Why do blogs & tv shows make painting dressers look easy? They aren't!
My favorite part of the room. The canvas I painted with my favorite song lyrics- "the littlest bird sings the prettiest song"..... paper birds top it off.



The Santa Chair- She asked for a white sparkly chair for Christmas. Santa found her a furry one. Close enough right?

Martha inspired clipboards (we're on a first name basis, cause you all know who I'm talking about!) are the perfect clutter catcher. Jewelry, photos, hair clips, momentos all find a home on this wall.


Tissue pom poms and paper lanterns oh my! Can't forget the white polka's made from cardstock and 3M spray adhesive. Good thing I didn't painstakingly paint them!
Kimball's Room- This will change soon. He's growing out of a crib. The end of naps is soon coming! I bought this dresser when I was pregnant with my first. We were just sure the baby was a boy. 2 girls later, the dresser finally found a little boys room for a home. Note to yourself: Don't be impatient and buy gender specific furniture!


My wall of K's. Still working on replacing all the vinyl ones with vintage flea market finds. It's a process. Apparantly the letter K is the most popular. I learned that AFTER naming him. I might have changed his name had I known!

The guest bathroom. The first cabinet painting experience. I didn't love the work it entailed but I loved the result!

The frame was glued onto the boring mirror. Inspired by a Nate Berkus makeover I saw. My friends thought I was crazy, which I am, but I'm fun crazy! Right? I love how it brightens the boring mirror !
The master bedroom- The armoire was a 7yr anniversary gift. Inspired from a Land of Nod armoire, my talented husband made it for me. Vintage handle was found at an antique show. I so, so love this piece!

What? You don't have a saw horse for a bench at the end of your bed? It's a real shin digger at night!


His bedside table. Old vintage ruler with family photos and letters. YES, they are from my family and not strangers!
My side table- I have 8 orchids in the house. I'm obsessed with them. I currently have 9 in my home, all blooming at different times. It's better than collecting cats right? The ceramic egg crate is perfect for bracelets, rings and necklaces found at Anthropologie.

The photos above the bed make me smile every time. My 9 year old took them while we were at an old cemetary. It's very rare that I have photos of the two of us. I'm glad I handed over the camera that day!

Here's a sneak peek into the office that has been a major eye sore from the front door for the last 5 years. That's right peeps, 5 years. And it's still a mess. But now it's a fun mess. And those are the best kinds! Here's your sneak peek- work is still in progress!

There you have it. A glimpse of what I did this weekend. Crossing my fingers my all nighter paid off and my favorite design shows likes what they see! It's fun to dream anyway....