Happy Birthday Lauren!!

Happy Birthday Lauren!!!!!

More than a friend, a sister!

Lauren is such an awesome friend, we met back in high school and we have been best friends ever since. Sadly we are on two different sides of the country her in Cali and me in WV but the friendship has always been the same pick up like we never left! She is always there for me when I need her and we know that there is always a shoulder for whatever support is needed. I hope she has the best birthday ever and hopefully we will see each other soon.

Love ya sista!

Weekend with Dylan

About a week ago Rae, Bill and Dylan came for a visit. We did chicken on a stick because thats the fun thing to do when family comes to visit.

On Saturday, Mountain Mans dad arrived around 11 and his mom at noon. Rae, Bill and Dylan got there around 1, we already had the chickens on and I was in the kitchen working on decorating a carrot cake I made. I also made green bean casserole and cheesy potatoes for dinner, after Rae got there she made baked mac & cheese. We cooked and enjoyed each others company by the fire. Mountain Man, Bill and Dylan had fun changing the rotors and breaks on the VW. Our friend Dwane and Rachel came up to hang out have dinner. We had so much fun relaxing and playing some apples to apples. 

On Sunday when Rae and Bill left Dylan decided to stay with Aunt & Uncle for a few days!! He had so much fun playing with Mountain Man!

 Sunday night was Super Bowl so we headed down to Nana's and there was very little game watching and a lot of playing around!

Monday was a beautiful day, it SNOWED!! We had so much fun playing outside in the snow!

Tuesday we spent most of the day at Nana's since she took the afternoon off to spend with Little Man!

Mountain Man showed Dylan the fun of behind the couch and Dylan loved it!

Dylan also learned the fun of a selfie!

Sadly on Wednesday we had to take Little Man back home. We had so much fun with him, he is such a good boy. He went to bed like a champ, he ate really well and was a blast! He will be back soon and we can't wait.

Our Bedroom

So recently I have been woking on sewing and making fun stuff for our bedroom! I found the fabric for the bedroom over a year ago and was so excited to put it all together!

The piece that I started to do the room around was this cute little dresser that I painted and covered the drawers with the fun fabrics. I redid the dresser last spring while we were still in Peoria and have been thinking about how I was going to do all the other stuff I had planned.

 So A few weeks ago I started on the curtains and I love how they turned out! Laying out the fabric and making sure I loved the layout was a lot of fun.

Then I tackled the head board and I love it! It was so so easy, it was cardboard and a few wood supports on the edges and in the middle. For our king size bed I bought 2 moving boxes at Walmart cut those and played them on top of each other and pulled them out to the correct width. I used the staple gun to connect them and then we stapled the cardboard to the wood frame. Next I folded a twin size quilt batting and stapled that to the frame and coved that all with the pieced fabric!

Until I can get the painting done, I at least got most of it done and I love how our pictures turned out!

Happy Birthday Veronica!

This post has noting to do with WV but all to do with one of my best friends in the whole world. Veronica Jo was born this day 29 years ago and walked into my life 22 years ago and we have been besties and sisters every since! We grew up going through so many things with each other, we played, laughed, cried and had so much fun. We saw boys come and go and share some of the best and worst memories. We have been each other rock and support system for forever.

Last October I got the pleasure to stand up with her as she married the man of her dreams. That day was so perfect because she was so happy and it was exactly the day she dreamed of! 

Most recently she gave birth my beautiful niece Melody Jo!! Sadly I haven't yet met this little beauty but I have enjoyed getting to watch her grow with almost daily updates.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VERONICA!!!

Crazy Holiday!

Here is our Christmas Card from this year!

Life here around the house have been a lot of crazy and a little lazy! I did my normal holiday baking craze! I have also been on a Chinese take out kick! First about the awesome take out I have been recreating.
So I got a craving for some Chinese take-out sadly for us that doesn't really happen. There a few Chinese restaurants but all too far to bring home and still be warm so I decided it was time to lean. I decided that I would try my favorite Moo Goo Gi Pan and Egg Drop Soup!! The MGGP was pretty easy to make, I just sautéed the veggies set those to the side, cooked the thinly sliced chicken, made the sauce and cooked it over the chicken and then added the veggies back in a tired till they were coated in the sauce and served it all over rice. I would say it turned out awesome, Mountain Man really liked it and he's not a huge fan of Chinese. The Egg Drop Soup is defiantly a work in progress, but ready to try it again! Then later I got an urge for some Szechuan Pork. So I went looking for a recipe and of course tweaked it a bit. I marinated the pork for a hour in soy sauce and sake and then cooked it in with some oil, then we cooked up the veggies (broccoli, green beans and mushrooms) then added back the pork and cooked the sauce with it and ate it over rice with a side of spring rolls! The pork and veggies were so good with just the right amount of heat.

During the Chinese take out adventures I was in a frenzy of baking!! Every Christmas I bake my little heart out, its just something I LOVE to do. This year had quite a few new recipes with some old trusty standbys. I made Red Velvet Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Walnut Pinner Cookies, Peanut Butter Cookies, Chocolate Filled Pretzels, Party Mix & Fudge. I took baked yummies to Mountain Mans Mom's Work and to friends and enjoyed a little ourselves!

We celebrated Our First West Virginia Christmas on December 20th at Mountain Man's Aunt and Uncle's up in Princeton. It was so great because a bit of the family could get together. We had a great dinner, I took green bean casserole and of course some cookies! We had so much fun laughing and talking. We also had a fun doing a gift exchange! I made two awesome gifts for us to take. I made an arm knitted scarf with some cookies for the first gift and for the second I made a movie night box with mugs, popcorn, two movies, hot cocoa and cookies too! We had a blast trading gifts. Mountain Man and I came home with some cash and M&M's!

We had a very low key Christmas Day. I was sick so I mostly sat inside and watched ABC Family Christmas movies all day, which was actually fun and relaxing. We had a nice dinner of ham, cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole and homemade rolls. For dessert we had bread pudding with a bourbon  sauce, very very yummy! They had a cool fire going on outside, I made it out for a couple minutes. I got this awesome owl soap dispenser for christmas to match my clock in the kitchen. we also got some fun cookbooks and ornaments from my mom and grandma made us stockings of our favorite football teams!

We spent NewYears at home, it was a beautiful day and we grilled steaks over the fire and had backed potatoes to go with them! We stayed up till midnight and then at midnight we decided to call some of Mountain Mans Navy Buddies and wish the a Happy New Year!

Overall we had a great holiday but I am glad to get back to the daily routine and make things happen!

Hope everyone had a Wonderful Holiday and a Happy New Year!