Happy Birthday to Mr. Fab Four!

Happy birthday to the hubby today he turns 39! 

 

I cant imagine life without the guy & cant explain how thankful I am for him as my husband, best friend and daddy to our girls!  Take today for example, we had it all planned out....he was going to go into work late, I promised him a birthday breakfast date at our local diner....wake up to the horrid wind and crazy snow storm, school delayed then closed and plans changed in a hurry.....we enjoyed a quiet cup of coffee at home before the girls woke up instead then he loaded them up and drove to Aunt Connie's for the day on his way to work, since I'm in training for work this week and cant manage a snow day of kids on top of that!  He's ALWAYS there when you need him and does anything under the sun for his family.

Happy Birthday Dave!  We love you!

Menu

#1 chili  w/ honey cornbread
#2 spaghetti w/ meatballs & salad
#3 chicken enchilada soup
#4 turkey tenderloin w/ creamy garlic shells

Nutella brownies
Frozen PB bites
Vanilla cake w/ whipped cream cheese frosting {for the bday boy}
Breakfast coffee protein shake
Tropical green smoothie

Pomegranate! The secret is out.....

We all love pomegranate even the girls but rarely bought them because they were such a pain to get to the part you want to eat! So messy and took forever to get those precious little red seeds out... This is life changing, not even kidding! Be prepared to be amazed and run to the grocery store to stock up on this delicious fruit! Maybe I'm CRAZY and I'm actually the last to know this secret but I had to share it!

Awhile back I came across this YouTube video through a friends Facebook page! We eat WAY more pomegranate now! Not a clue who this guy is but thanks Mr.YouTube video star!

Video

Still not sold?!?! Check out the many health benefits of this fruit here!!

Homemade chocolate syrup!

Ok so I make a lot of new recipes, every week cruising Pinterest for dinner and snack ideas. Once in awhile I get a doozy though. Like seriously strike gold! This is one of those recipes and I wanted to be sure to share it and never lose it!!

Savannah LOVES her chocolate milk...I mean really loooooooooves it.  I like to drink a small glass after a run or workout too!  We recently made the switch to drinking a local farm's raw milk since we are really trying to watch just what we put into our bodies!  Out of chocolate syrup the other day and when I looked at the back of the bottle in the grocery store and realized there were way too many things listed, half of which I couldn't pronounce, its like putting garbage into the really good quality farm fresh raw milk we buy! So, I googled a recipe and realized how easy it was and I had everything on hand already! I used a easy and highly rated recipe I found online and made some changes based on all the comments & I left out the dash of salt it called for.

Homemade chocolate syrup!

 

1 1/2 cups water

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp. vanilla

 

original recipe here

 

 

Add water and sugar to a small saucepan, heat over medium heat, whisking constantly until the sugar dissolves (basically you just make simple syrup).  Once sugar is dissolved add the cocoa whisking constantly until it comes to a low simmer, it will NOT thicken much so don't worry.  Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.  Let sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes then pour into glass bottle or mason jar, pop in fridge and once completely cooled (we let ours sit overnight) it will be thickened up to the consistency of the store bottled stuff!

 

I will NEVER buy bottled chocolate syrup again!  Soooooo very good & literally 5 minutes to put together!

 

Menu

#1 homemade hamburger helper  w/ salad
#2 BLT lettuce wraps w/ fresh fruit
#3 beef stew w/ fresh bread
#4 grilled cheese w/ tater tots
#5 chicken & dumplings 

Ranch dressing 
Banana pancakes
Homemade mozzarella  {wanted to try forever, finally going for it!}
Banana chocolate chip oatmeal bread

Master Bedroom makeover - DIY headboard

When we first moved from AZ to NY and bought our dump of a house in 2003 we proceeded to gut the entire thing...and by gut I mean down to the wall studs and floor joists!  We don't mess around!

Our master bedroom and bathroom were the first to happen!  For obvious reasons, while the kitchen was atrocious and the whole house a disaster zone we needed somewhere to actually take a shower and feel clean afterwards!  So fast forward 10+ years later and it needs a little updating.  We recently redid our master bathroom, here.  So we continued on into the bedroom this month.  We never had a window in our room and now we do! SCORE! Never realized what a dark cave it was before! This wall backs up to the hall near our kitchen which we access our back patio from, Dave chopped the hall in half, swapped the window for the door and BAM! 

I have a slight addiction to pinterest...no big secret there, I mean seriously who doesn't?!? Its like the best of everything, you don't have to be creative and crafty because millions of people out there already are and you can just copy them!! HA!HA!   I had been searching DIY headboards and narrowed it down to a few top choices, nothing was just perfect though....so enter a SUPER handy husband {thank God, I mean really I do thank God for this man and his talents - no joke he's like a jack of all trades, computer nerd by day and car mechanic/carpenter/handyman by night!}  Although he likes to give me heaping bucket loads just a bit of grief about all my projects he does enjoy the end result just as much as I do! 

Here is our new updated master bedroom! See our dresser re-do here!

 

 LOVE LOVE LOVE it all!

 

 I upholstered 3 panels and tried my hand at tufting for the first time ever!

 

Seriously gorgeous trim!

Made some pillows out of fabrics I fell in love with shopping for headboard panels!

 

Finally, the window! So nice to have natural light in there

 

 

Reading Corner!

Looks like there is 1 benefit to living in a 130+ year old house with short gabled ceilings upstairs!  Emerson has been begging for months to make this little wasted space into a cozy reading corner.  Finally this weekend we brought it to life for her!  She already had a bookshelf over there so we just took a shower curtain rod and I made some quick curtains out of fabric from my stash and voila!

Add a pillow, blanket, stuffie and grab your favorite book and just close the curtains.  She is thrilled and I don't know what took me so long for this $0 project!

Menu

#1 creamy tomato spinach pasta w/ garlic knots
#2 lasagna roll ups  w/ tossed salad
#3 taco salad
#4 chicken & broccoli stir fry w/ steamed rice
#5 grandmas mac&cheese w/ Parmesan pull apart rolls 

Vegetable dill dip  {seriously addicted & make 1x week}
Pink breakfast smoothie
Triple chocolate crunch granola

Menu

#1 chicken asparagus penne  w/ fresh bread
#2 grilled ginger sesame chicken salad 
#3  linguine w/ shrimp &  garlic Parmesan knots
#4 crockpot roast  w/ BBQ potatoes
#5 banana pancakes w/ waffle hashbrowns

Granola
Peanut butter breakfast cookies
Granola bars

Easy Peasy Envelope Pillow Covers!

Its that time of year......Christmas is over and the excitement for the new year has already started to wear off...now we are into the dreaded never ending winter......cooped up and housebound on days like today that the temperature doesn't even get to 0!  Need to jazz things up a bit, add a bit of color!

I followed this super quick and easy tutorial and made some covers for our couch pillows!  I LOVE the velvety brown & left one alone but its just kinda feeling drab this time of year and I'm dreaming of the colors and feelings of Spring!

Super quick & easy and best of all CHEAP.....and this allows me the freedom to switch out as the seasons or my taste {just ask Dave this happens A LOT} change!!!

BEFORE

AFTER

 

goldish color super soft cozy chenille

fun warm retro flower print on chocolate background

olive green with brown poppy embroidery

 

HAPPY New Year!

We spent our New Years Eve with our very best friends!  We started this tradition several years ago and its always a GREAT laid back night where parents get to hang and relax and kids all play together and stay up late to ring in the new year {wicked late for this young crew}

Here are my 2 little party animals ready to celebrate!!!!