Holiday Re-cap and Birthday Party

After a very successful and busy Christmas, I am happy to say the holidays are almost over. I had a wonderful time seeing my family and friends, however, it was really tiring. It was one busy day after another. So now after baby boy's first birthday yesterday and my last Christmas party tonight I will have a few days of relaxation before heading off to the dells! Exciting! 

Anyways. For the birthday party yesterday, I used some ideas I found on Pinterest. Obviously! 

The food: Salsa Chicken. Let me start by saying: I LOVE CROCKPOT COOKING. It is just so easy. And there are so many options. This was probably my 4th time making this recipe and it is really good. The original pin brought me here to Texas Fit Chicks blog. If you are too lazy to go to the link, the recipe is:
1 cup frozen corn
2-3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 can rinsed black beans
1.5 cups of chunky salsa. 
(I didn't actually measure any of this. And I tripled the recipe. Roughly 7 chicken breasts, 3 cans of corn and beans, and two jars of salsa (one large & one small). It fed 12 people with enough left over for another meal for a family of 5! We made the burrito with it.)
It is super easy and super good. I like to let the chicken cook almost the whole time and then make pulled chicken. I used the entire mixture of beans, corn, chicken and salsa and put it in a tortilla with taco/burrito fixings. It was a hit. It is going in my recipe book for sure. Next time I make it I will have to take a picture!

Apple slices. Also a HUGE hit. I cut up 4 apples and they were all gone in about 20 minutes.    The original link brought me here. All you do is cut up an apple or two really thin slices and soak the slices in a bowl. In the bowl you squeeze the juice of one orange and one lemon (more if needed). Enough so that all the slices are covered. Put the bowl in the fridge for 30 minutes-2 hours. SO GOOD.

The biggest thing that happened yesterday, was my little man turning 1. ONE!?!? How did that happen? Of course I had to take a few pictures ( by a few I mean like 175??) I got the idea for the pictures I took here. I loved the idea of 3 different pictures but that go together and have a message. Here are a few of the pictures I took. 

I think I got a few pretty good shots of him. I will have to get a few printed before his party to put out. Maybe even a few wallets or sizes for people to take at the party next weekend. Thank goodness I still have some time to decide which ones I want to use. But I think these turned out pretty well. I'm still a rookie photographer but I love capturing the moments. 

I recently decided I was going to put scrapbooking on hold, since I have no time and limited funds, but I wanted to have a way to display my photos from the last year besides the 10 picture frames. So I decided to make a family yearbook. I saw a deal on amazon for photo books at Photobin.com. So i started one. I am currently 100 pages in and am only at July in my pictures. Theres more work to be done. But I am excited to get it printed! :) I will post pictures of that when it's done! 

Time to get ready for the last Christmas Party of the year! Hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season. My new years resolution will have to be blogging more! 

Until next time,
-Amanda :) 

Stocking Stuffers

I was actually very excited about my first Christmas as a mom and an almost-wife. I thoroughly enjoy buying things for those I love, and have probably gone a little over board for one little boy this year. I know he is only going to be one...and he won't remember a thing. But I will. I would remember that I barely got him anything. So I got him quite a few things, and I got his daddy quite a few things too. 

Usually on Thanksgiving my family decorates the house for Christmas. With it being just Colton and I in the apartment, and very little money to spend on decorations, we only have  a few of the gel window clings in each room. Yup. That is the extent of my christmas decorations. It's actually a little depressing. So being the good mom I am, I bought stockings for us. It just wouldn't be Christmas without stockings. I didn't really think much about having to fill the stockings. I have been trying to come up with stuff to put in them, and I have gotten a few ideas from some other blogs through Pinterest. The one thing I never thought about, until now of course, was who gets to fill my stocking?? Then I realized...ME. That is so very sad. What's worse? I had more ideas of what to put in my stocking than my fiance's. 

Anyways, I wanted to make a list of ideas that I can use for years to come.

Baby Stocking Stuffers (these will be mainly boy items for the time being): 

1. Puffs (yeah those gerber puffs, all the kids I know love them, mine is no exception)
2. Toothbrush
3. Sippy cup
4. Snack container
5. Little cars
6. Balls (preferably ones that bounce, since those are his favorite right now)
7. Small books
8. Any type of snacks
9. Socks
10. Hat and mittens
11. Movies
12. Teething toys

Mommy Stocking Stuffers:

1. Make-up (eye-liner, mascara, lip stick, foundation, etc.)
2. Nail Polish
3. Hair accessories (bobby pins, headbands, clips, etc.)
4. Hand Sanitizer
5. Hair spray, moroccan oil, heat protector spray, shampoo, conditioner, sea salt spray (anything for the hair) 
6. Gum
7. Toothbrush
8. Giftcards
9. Socks
10. Tea 
11. Essential Oils
12. Travel sized stuff (mouthwash, hairspray, deodorant, hand sanitizer, etc)

Daddy Stocking Stuffers:

1. Gum
2. Candy
3. Cologne
4. Tie/bow-tie
5. Toothbrush
6. Gloves
7. Gift Cards
8. Golf balls
9. Mini Alcohol Bottles
10. Travel sized stuff

I am hoping to come up with many more ideas than this, stocking are pretty big! Hopefully will keep updating as I think. But it's finals time, and I should be studying (clearly that's why I am blogging!), so off to the land of productive people..I hope I'll make it there before my grades fall any further. ;) 

Until next time!

-A

Waffle sandwiches

As we have all been told, "breakfast is the most important meal of the day". I never was huge on breakfast, except the weekends of course, when there were pancakes, bacon and eggs, fried potatoes...cereal and milk just didn't compare. So I just didn't really eat it. Which of course meant I was starving by lunchtime and ate way more than necessary. I think the end of high school and beginning of college I began to realize just how important breakfast was. Now I eat it everyday. It really does make a huge difference in my energy levels and productiveness throughout the entire day.

Coming up with a variety of quick (and delicious) breakfasts has been an issue for me, I'm trying hard to eat healthy and lose all the baby weight. I have a lot of smoothies for breakfast, but I can only drink smoothies so many days in a row. I will get waffles to eat without syrup if I am running late, but the whole grain ones are so plain without syrup.

So I began to try different things on my waffles: cream cheeses, peanut butter, chocolate, nutella, fruit, etc. Whatever I believe will add flavor.

Well here's a winner: Peanut buter & Nutella with banana slices. YUM

I do thin layers of the Nutella and peanut butter or it is too much!

I'm not going to go and say this is low-cal or anything, because both peanut butter and nutella are high in calorie and fat, but it is quick and easy! 

2 Eggo-Whole Grain frozen waffles: 280 calories

1 tbsp Skippy Natural Peanut butter: 95 calories (I'm not sure I even use that much!)

1 tbsp Nutella: 100 calories (again probly 3/4 of tbsp or less)

1/3 banana: roughly 40 calories (less because I used 7 little slices!) 

There are so many ways to make this more healthy, but Breakfast is important! I figure I usually burn off all of breakfast playing with Colton all day :) These calories will help you jumpstart your entire day and get your metabolism going, might as well give it something to work off! 

Other ideas for waffle sandwiches:

blueberry waffles with plain low-fat cream cheese

whole grain waffles with plain low-fat cream cheese and sliced strawberries

whole grain waffles with peanut butter and honey

I will update as I come up with more ideas and try them out :) 

Happy wednesday everyone! Don't forget to eat your breakfast! 

-A

The holidays are upon us!

I must be the worst blogger in the world! (or the busiest student/mom ever...either way!)

I can't believe we are already into december, and the holidays are upon us. It is Colton's first official Christmas and I want it to be special, I am aware he won't remember it, but it doesn't even matter. I went through a stage back in high school and my first few years of college where I dreaded the holidays. Let's be honest, they are A LOT of work, especially when you are broke. Trying to find gifts for everyone with no money, and the awkward moment when someone gives you a gift and you haven't gotten them anything....yeah DREAD! But this year I am totally into it! Although I really shouldn't be spending the money, cause being in college with a baby doesn't leave me much money to work with, I love buying gifts! I went black friday shopping and everything! I haven't been so proud of myself in a while. 

First of all one of my favorite holidays ever...THANKSGIVING!!!! I love it. The food, the family, the last 24 hours you have money... I love it. It has always been one of my favorite holidays. Starting on Thanksgiving it is okay to listen to Christmas music and decorate for Christmas. It is such an exciting time. 

Being the organized (haha) mom I am, I am trying to not be a procrastinator this year and wanted to get christmas cards ordered and out by the first week in December. So I needed to take some pictures of Colton. This of course is one of my favorite things to do, but since the weather has gotten colder it is harder to get outside and do them. Unfortunately, I do not have good lighting for indoor pictures and prefer the natural light the outdoors offers. But there is not much of a choice anymore so I went to Pinterest of course to get some cute ideas. I had seen something a while back of a child wrapped in lights for pictures and another where a mom had used wrapping paper as the background. I really liked both of those ideas, and I searched for them again, but couldn't find them :( Anyways, I decided to combine them(? honestly I could have seen this exact thing, I don't know, but I am not trying to take credit for something I have seen!) and take some Christmas pictures! Here are a few that turned out well!

I got the santa pajamas at Target and the wrapping paper at Walmart. I set up the background by taping the wrapping paper to the floor and wall, I made sure to tape it to the floor as close to the wall as possible. And I plugged in some christmas lights, I had to borrow some from my neighbor since I couldn't find ours. I think multicolored lights would have worked well too. 

We had to sing some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse songs to get the smiles, but even the blank stare is kinda cute. Overall I think they turned out well. 

WARNING: If you do this with a toddler, they WILL eat the lights! 

Exhibit A:

He didn't actually bite them, but he likes to put stuff in his mouth. (Don't worry we were watching him closely!) 

So I got the Christmas cards ordered and I believe they are done, I will have to wait until I am back home this weekend to pick them up or have my mom do it. I can't wait to see them and get them sent out. I feel as though I have accomplished a lot already! On black friday I watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas and wrapped gifts! Yay holidays! 

Now all thats left is buying and wrapping the rest of the gifts, and planning a birthday party for my soon to be ONE-YEAR-OLD! I can't believe how fast time flies!  It has been a great start to the holiday season and I can't wait to be done with my classes to really start enjoying!

I hope everyone has been enjoying the start of the holiday season, and have had as much luck getting stuff done as I have!

Until next time...(I know that is usually a while)  :) 

-A

Hall-O-Ween

It is 3 days before Halloween and we have been getting in the spirit for about a month now. We did the Soap Factory-Haunted Basement in Minneapolis and The Haunted Hayride at Running Aces and ValleyScare a few weekends ago. It's always fun to get in the spirit of the holidays. But my fiance's family LOVES halloween so we always have a busy October. 

 

This weekend was costume bowling and the Halloween feast. Costume bowling always requires some preparation since we have to do couples costumes, but in our case, group costumes. So we did some thinking about what we wanted to do for the three of us. Here is what we decided: 

The Flash, Superman, and The Green Lantern

Colton made a really cute little Superman. It was hard to get good pictures since he never sits still. But hey, that's like superman right?? 

Costume bowling was really fun, as always, but there was only one other group dressed up. It's a little weird when Halloween is in the middle of the week. 

But Saturday was the Halloween feast and it was super delicious! I love meals that are themed and creative. Next year I am going to try to have a more active roll in preparing the meal. Might even try to contribute my own recipes! Sounds like a lot of work right now, good thing I have a whole year to think about it. But after our delightful meal, we do pumpkin carving.

Pumpkin carving is so much work. Gutting the pumpkin, deciding on a design, actually carving. By the end, my wrists are killing me! So this year I decided to go another route. I have been seeing a lot of pins  with melted crayon and I have been trying to figure out what I could make so that I could try it. And I had seen some crayons art on pumpkin, and well, I wanted in on the fun. Here is how mine turned out...

I started by cleaning off the outside of the pumpkin with water and a towel and I dried it completely. Next, I painted the entire outside of the pumpkin white. I used blickart Acrylic paint. I just did one coat so it looked a little line-y and ghost-like (and because I didn't want to do another coat..). I let the white coat dry and painted that face with black acrylic paint. After that, I found all the old red crayons I had. I used many different color reds to give it more of a bloody feel. I used a hot glue gun to attach the crayons around the stem of the pumpkin. After that I used a hair dryer to melt the crayons. 

WARNING: Have someone hold up newspaper all around the pumpkin or you will have red wax EVERYWHERE! 

I learned that the hard way. I spent 15 minutes cleaning up little red wax droplets. Lesson learned. Anyways, it was a hit. I like how it turned out. But I think next time, I would put a knife in the pumpkin somewhere and glue they crayons around it. That would make it look like the pumpkin got stabbed and was bleeding from the wound. But here is are a few different views of the pumpkin so you can get a better look! 

You can see some of the crayons didn't melt completely. But I think it still looked pretty good for my first time! Hope I was able to give you some good ideas, or at least get the creativity flowing! 

Until next time :) 

-A

Grown-up Chips and Cheese

Lookie here, I'm getting in one more post today! Probably the last for the week or two, thats how it goes with children. They take away your time on the internet. Could be worse right?

So my dinner plans got cancelled and I haven't gone to the grocery store yet. I always put off shopping with him because...well, shopping with a 9 month old sucks. So I have basically nothing to eat. No bread, very little amount a veggies, one egg. Hard to make something delicious. But I was wrong.

My dad sent me back to school with salsa yesterday. I LOVE homemade salsa. LOVE. I thought about doing chips and cheese, but I saw very little nutritional value in that even with the salsa. Chips and cheese used to be my go to snack. I mean come on. Its EASY. Throw a few chips on a plate, sprinkle on some cheese. Microwave for 60 seconds. Eat. Yum.

Well I realllllyyyy wanted to use this salsa and I didn't know what else to make so I grabbed the chips and went in the fridge to get the cheese, and there was some corn and black beans. Cue light bulb.

I grabbed cheese, corn, black beans, zucchini, onion, jalepeno, and tomato. All things I love that I just happened to have a little bit of sitting as leftovers in the fridge. Don't you love when things just come together like this??

I laid my chips on the plate, spooned on the corn and black beans, sprinkled on the cheese, cut up the onion, zucchini, and jalepeno, added that, and sprinkled with a little more cheese. I threw it in the microwave for a minute at a time. Each time on power three. I do this so I don't burn the cheese and have the rest cold. I think it ended up being around 3 minutes on power 3.

I then put the tomatos on top. Serve with salsa and light sour cream. It was great! And actually had some nutritional value! Score!

I just tried to add the picture I took, but my phone says that media can't be displayed. Just that picture? Right. Well I guess I will just have to make it again. Oh well :) I'll post it next time I make it!


But here are some other ideas of what you could put in this:
-avocado
-green peppers
-chicken
-ground beef
-brown rice
-green chiles
-cilantro
-lettuce

I think you get the idea! You really can use whatever you can find in your fridge!

Tilapia Ficcata and Zucchini Boats

As much as I hate cooking for one, I am trying to eat better and not eat frozen packaged meals all the time. So, alone, I am working on trying recipes that I have pinned. I meant to post this about 2 weeks ago, but I tried these two new recipes.

The first one I made was the Zucchini Boats. You can find the original recipe here.

(Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees). First crush up a clove of garlic and mix it in with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. Take whole zucchinis and cut them in half. Then, slice the bottom so its level and it doesn't roll around in the pan. Scoop out  all the seeds from each zucchini. Brush the olive oil mixture on the zucchini boats.

The recipe suggested using grape tomatos. I don't believe that the kind you use actually matters, I think she suggested it because of the size. I used the tomatos from my dad's garden (aka the best tomatos ever!), and arranged slices along the boat. If you have bread crumbs, I did not at the time, sprinkle them on now. Stick in the oven for about 30 minutes.

After the 30 minutes, take them out and place your cheese, I used mozzarella, in between each tomato slice. Place back in the oven and broil until the cheese is bubbling and golden brown.

I used the toaster oven and it turned out great! I enjoyed my zucchini boats with garlic butter rice. Not the healthiest choice but it was delicious!

The next recipe I tried was Tilapia Ficcata, this is another one I found on pinterest. The original recipe from Proud Italian Cook, can be found here.  

I have always been a fan of fish, mostly in the fried form during a camping trip, but I will eat it whenever. I have only made it myself a few times, but when I found this recipe I knew I had to try. Fish is very good for you and low in calories and fat (I am still trying to lose the baby weight!).

Here are the directions from Proud Italian Cook:

"In a saute pan heat some butter and olive oil. Dredge your fish in some flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Nicely brown both sides of your fish, I prefer tilapia in this, I think it holds up really well and I like the "non fishy" taste.

Gently remove your fish, deglaze your pan with some white wine scraping up the brown bits. Squeeze a half of a juicy lemon in, more if you like, a nice splash of chicken stock, a couple tablespoons of capers, and a little more butter. After it reduces a while, put your fish back in along with some sliced lemons and fresh parsley. Cook a couple minutes more just till the fish is done, and the all the flavors blend together." 

I did not have capers. It is just not something I have in my kitchen. I don't mind them and I am sure they work well with this recipe, but I did not add them or the parsley in. But this was seriously SO FRICKIN' GOOD! I loved it. I am a huge fan of lemon so this was perfect! I highly recommend trying this sometime. 

Once again I had rice in my meal, this time adding the green beans! It was so good! I need to make it again!

So that is a few of the meals I found on pinterest that I have tried and enjoyed. Hopefully I will be able to try a few more in the next couple of weeks and let you know how they go!

Floating Picture Frames

I am almost through week two of living in my new place, and I have been continuing to work on decorating. I LOVE having pictures all over but get sick of the same old picture frames. While shopping around for picture frames a few years ago I came across the floating frames at Michaels or JoAnns and I really like them. They allow you to be as creative as you want. They also allow you to do  different size pictures and patterned papers.

If you don't know what a floating picture frame is, it is basically just a two pieces of glass with pictures in between inside a frame. You can buy one here.

I gathered the pictures that I wanted to put in my frame, a "family" paper cut-out, some different patterned scrapbooking paper, and tape. 

I arranged my paictures the way I wanted them, did any cropping I found necessary, and then when it was the way I wanted, I taped it all down. You do not have to do any taping, but sometimes the frame doesn't hold the glass close enough together and pictures slide around. 

 This is my finished product!

(note: The pictures I used are big! I have three 5x7s, an 8x10, and a 4x6 that I cut down. If you use smaller pictures you can fit many more!)

(If you have walls that are not white, you should think about the color when deciding on pictures or paper that you will use. If the colors are too similar to your wall, you might have a hard time seeing the beautiful pictures in the frame.)

More ideas:
-Diploma, with pictures from graduation. If there is an achievers, or any other scrapbooking store, near you they often have different stickers and embellishments from the local high schools that you can add to it to make it look more professional. Otherwise DIY is always good! 

-Baby pictures. I have been taking pictures monthly and plan to make a floating frame with a picture from each month to show how much he has changed in the first year. Smaller Pictures around the outside and a larger one in the middle with letters showing what month each picture is from.

-School Pictures, K-12. You can find paper that shows their favorite thing from that year (a sport, a cartoon caracter, pink sparkles, cookies, etc.) and frame each picture so you remember what they liked at each age. 

Back to school!

It's been a while since I have had a chance to post. My summer has ended and I am now back in school, for my last two semesters of classes. After the spring I will only have student teaching, then I GRADUATE! I am beyond excited. 

However, then ending of summer also meant leaving my family, and most of all my fiance. It has been very lonely here with out him. I have been here almost a week and I am finally settled in and got a break from homework and playing with my baby. I have never lived alone and now I have an apartment all to myself. I love that nobody else is here to mess it up (besides Colton, who drags his toys into every room!), but I do miss everyone being around. 

Anyways, enough of that. Here's some pics of my new living space :) 

His new room! He finally gets to use the crib and crib set we got! It's so cute.

 Colton decided to dig through the closet and take out all of the toilet paper!

 My little boy is already eight months, so I of course had to take a few pictures. These are a few of the ones I really like. But he has started to go through a stage where he won't sit still, so it is getting really hard to take his picture.

My goal is to get some scrapbooking done, and to maybe make some more wedding plans, but this weekend is Labor Day weekend, and that means we are headed to the cabin. I think for the first time in years it may be nice enough to hit the lake :) Time for some rest and relaxation after a stressful first week of school. I will probably have to do some homework, but the rest of the time I am going to spend having a relaxing time with the family! :) Have a great weekend everyone!

Renaissance Festival

This weekend I had my first experience with the Renaissance Festival. I had only heard specific things about it from an old coworker, but I have very few ideas about what to expect. One of my best friends is doing an internship with them this year and got myself, my fiance, my little sister, and my mom in for free, which was so nice.

As always when traveling with a small child, it was a production. Getting his food packed, making sure he had the right clothing for the weather, diapers, snacks, toys, etc. Well I got it all ready and we left...leaving his lunchbox, with his sippy cup of water and other pre-made bottle, on the kitchen counter. 10 minutes into the drive we turned around.

After that it was smooth sailing. We got there and my first impression: It's big! Honestly I wasn't expecting it to be as big as it was! It was awesome. The street performers were pretty fun to watch, sometimes got a little long (especially since we were all starving), but they were fun!

My sister and I were saying how we would like to live in that time period or a year or two. It would be interesting. So different from the life we have now. No cell phone, no computers, no TV. My life would be so different! It would be kind of fun to learn stuff from that time period and what they did for fun.

We looked at many cool shops and handmade products. All very awesome. But my favorite thing, by far, was riding the elephant! My fiance was wondering why on earth you would want to ride an elephant. Why the heck not? How often do you get to do that? It is not an everyday occurrence, at least not for me. Well I talked both him and my sister into it (it was only $5!) and they both thought it was co cool too. I loved it!

Anyways, it was really fun. And for those of you who live somewhere that you can attend a Renaissance Festival, I recommend going. I plan on going every year now, and planning more time there! 

Also has many activities for both parents and kids :)

Make Your Own Kids Book

Now this is something I found on Pinterest that I changed a little to fit my needs. Here is the link for that post! It is idea number 5.

But basically it is just a way to make your own book for infant/toddlers. It is cheap and if you have to throw it away, no biggie.

I decided I was going to make an animal book for Colton, because he LOVES The Lion King. So I thought it would be cute if I did an African Animal book.
Here is what you need:

I printed off pictures of African animals from google images and cut them out. I grabbed scotch tape, 4x6 index cards, and markers. Pictured is sandwich bags, but i ended up using CONTACT PAPER.

I taped the pictures onto individual index cards, and the educator in me wrote some facts about the animal on the back of each card :)

I then used contact paper to make each card waterproof and drool proof. (This is where the original post used sandwich baggies. But my little guy has sharp teeth and he would be eating the plastic in minutes. So i decided on contact paper!)

Cut it down so there isn't too much extra contact paper hanging off each card. Decide what order you want the cards in. Then use tape or contact paper, I used contact paper, to bind the book. 

I first did the entire book, which really only held the first and last pages, then I put contact paper in between each pages individually. Putting it in between each of the pages helps to reinforce the binding of the book. It really keeps it together. 

This was my finished product:

I didn't really think it through how the pages would look, because as pictured about it says Lion and has a picture of a giraffe on the next page. I think if I made another I would plan it out better and have the picture correspond with the text. But I think it works for the purpose he will use it for.

The most important part: He seemed to enjoy it!

So that's that. Hope you enjoy! 

Bridesmaid Gifts

In my attempt to have a small wedding, I have decided to have a pretty large wedding party. Surely having 8 bridesmaids isn't that many right? Okay, I will stop kidding myself, it's a lot. But since the wedding is out of town we are making a weekend out of it. And hey, the more the merrier! So anyway I decided to have 3 maids of honor, and 5 bridesmaids and I wanted to ask them in a special way. I started looking around pinterest (obviously!) and I found a few cute ideas, but couldn't quite decide. I kind of knew I wanted to do a box of some sort with stuff inside. So I went to Joanne's and this is what I bought:

I got a cardboard chest looking box for each girl, paint in my wedding colors, paintbrushes, little flower embellishments in my colors and some scrapbooking paper. The total for all of this was around $100.

I guess I should mention I already decided that the MOHs would be wearing purple and the BMs would be wearing the aqua (Malibu). So I painted the outside of each box the color of the dress they would be wearing and the inside the other color.

Ex: of MOH box

After this I had to decide what I wanted to put in the box. On a random trip to target, I went in the travel section and decided that it would be a cute idea to put some travel sized items that they could use that weekend. Inside I put a shampoo and conditioner, deodorant, sunscreen, hairspray, toothbrush and toothpaste, and mouthwash. I also found mini bottles of flavored margarita mix that made one drink (non alcoholic). I put in one bottle per box. I also bought little plastic diamond rings that I put in there too, along with a little cards that said a little about the wedding and wedding party.

Here is what they looked like completed:

I used Modge Podge to attach the scrapbooking paper with their names onto the lid of the box, and the "Will you be my Maid of Honor?" sign to the inside. If I had unlimited resources I would have wanted to add some rhinestones, but I think they turned out pretty nice!

You can see that their are cards inside.
Card 1: Was just a little thing I wrote saying that we had been through so much together and that I wanted them to be up their with me.
Card 2: Explained that the wedding was out of town, it said the date, the name of the resort, and that we would be staying together in a townhome that weekend.
Card 3: was a picture of the dress wit the price.
Card 4: Told them the name of everyone in the wedding.

It was a little time consuming, but it was worth it!

Newbie :)

Well, I have been debating starting a blog for a while now. So after being awoken at 4:00am by my little energy ball, I decided today is the day. So I guess I should start by stating why I have decided to do this. 

It's not like I have a grand theme like many blogs I have seen. It will not be strictly food, or hair, or crafts. I love it all. I just wanted to share all of the things I find. Or ideas that I come up with on my own. Pinterest is an obsession for me. I pin all the time. My boards, especially the food one, has gotten a tad out of control. So this is a way for me to share what I have tried. 

I have a lot going on in my life right now, including getting ready to take my little boy to my last year of college. I cannot wait to graduate and to student teach, and of course have my very own classroom. The idea being able to decorate and organize my own classroom is beyond exciting. 

But before that happens, I have to get married. Well, I don't have to. But I am! It is very exciting, but also A LOT of work. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It has been fun and stressful. All i can say is thank god I have almost a whole year left to plan! 

That's it for now.