box makeover

Since my hubby did a great job on the shelves in my closet, I now needed some cute storage boxes. I had one that I bought a log time ago and paid 25 dollars for but I really didn't want to spend 50 dollars on some boxes. As I was loading some paper in the copy machine at work yesterday it hit me...I could use the boxes the paper comes in and cover them with pretty fabric for storage. Here they are! I think they came out great.

Isn't this fabric great. So spring time...Total cost for two storage boxes...20.00 dollars and I have extra fabric for a project I already have in mind.

Say Cheeeeese!

My sister, niece, and two of my sister's students came up to our house this weekend. While my sister and her two students went shopping Saturday, I got to spend the day with my sweetie pie of a niece. She is sooooo sweet. First we did an arts and crafts project and made garden stones for a special gift for her mommy. Then we went to the park for several hours and had a blast playing in the one warm day we had. Here are some pictures of my day with her. She takes her cheeeese face seriously, you'll see what I mean...

Working on our arts and crafts
Our stones...
Posing with a stone. Cheese face #1
Cheese face #2...
Cheese face #3 ( I told you she takes them seriously. HAHA!!)...

And finally a smile (and look at those big blue eyes)...

Progress

My weekend has given me a bunch to blog about but I am going to try and spread it out through out the week so I don't go overboard in one post. Today seems like a good day to post about progress since it is weigh in day and all. I lost one more pound. I have become happy enough with that through out the day. This morning I was a little disappointed because I wanted to see more of a loss. But I am happy that I lost a pound. It is progress in the right direction. Also, I think that this week will be a good week. I think that the slowness over the last few weeks is due to teetering on the edge of dropping a point for my daily point values. Today's pound has dropped me down a point. If I get to where I feel stuck again I may go ahead and drop a point before it actually shows I have to on Weight Watchers online. I remember this tip from my days of attending the meetings.

The other progress I wanted to share was the progress on the deck. Ryan is doing such a good job. It is looking great. He was a little frustrated that the beautiful day we had Saturday (72 and sunny) was half spent on buying a loading up the supplies and bringing them home and unloading. He actually spent ALL day (I mean ALL day Sunday from 8:30am til 7pm only breaking for lunch I made for him) working on the deck. It was so cold (only 41) and WINDY Sunday. So here is the progress so far. I won't post again on the deck until it is finished so that I have a good before and after picture.

My favorite part of the new deck is that I get to go shopping for new deck furniture and planters. :)

Yummy recipe

Despite a migraine yesterday. We hosted a dinner "party". It was my husband's uncle's bday and we had them over for dinner last night. The menu was grilled steak (not for me YUCK! I am not a huge meat eater and I don't like steak at all. I have been called crazy.), salad, rolls, mashed potato bake, and for dessert earthquake cake. Now you are probably thinking the yummy recipe that I am going to share with you is the earthquake cake, but it's not, its the mashed potato bake. It is the first time I made it and it was out of this world. My mother in law and Ryan's aunt both want the recipe. Here is the recipe courtesy of Paula Deen's cookbook The Lady and Sons Too:
5 cups water
4 cups frozen hash brown potatoes (not the shredded kind)
One 7.6 ounce package of Betty Crocker Butter and Herb Mashed potatoes mix
1 stick butter
4 ounces of cream cheese
1 cup cheddar cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
french-fried onions
Preheat the oven to 350. Bring the water to a boil, add the hash browns, and cook for 5 min; drain. Prepare the mashed potato mix according to package directions. Soften the butter the cream cheese together in the microwave. In a large bowl, mix together the hash browns, mashed potatoes, butter and cream cheese, cheddar cheese, sour cream, garlic salt, salt, pepper. Place in a greased 2 quart casserole. Bake for 25-35 min or until golden on top. Sprinkle the onion over the top and bake for about 5 to 8 mins or until onions are golden brown.

Makes 8 servings.

I typed it into weight watchers online and it is 6 points per serving. So YUMMY.

My sister is coming up tomorrow with two of her students to go shopping up here. I am excited to see my sister (I always am) but the most exciting part is that while she takes her two students shopping I get to watch my niece. It is the first time that Aunt Lissa and Kaylee bug have ever gotten to spend time just the two of us. I am so excited and have so much fun planned for us!

My first Award!

Lisa from Another Day Today bestowed this award on me. She is so sweet and totally made my day! I really enjoy reading her blog and seeing projects she completes. My favorite so far is the makeover her and her hubby did on their door. It was amazing! Thanks so much Lisa.
Along with this award I am supposed to list 10 things I love and then present the award to a few other bloggers.
10 things I love:
1. My husband. Plain and simple, I love that man.
2. My family.
3. Scrapbooking and card making. It is such a fun way to preserve my most favorite pictures and memories.
4. Adding little decorative touches to my home.
5. Reading a good book in the sunshine on our deck.
6. The beach.
7. Riding our motorcycle on a warm sunny day.
8. Football
9. achieving goals I have set for myself.
10. Traveling.

I would like to give this award to Kellie. She was the first blog I ever read. I love reading about what she does on the weekend. Her and her husband always have so much fun.

I would also like to give this award to Megan. She has a great blog and a great Esty store. I love seeing the sweet things she makes. I bought my first Esty purchase at her store.

And finally I would to give this award to Kristen. She has great blog and makes the prettiest picture frames. I am sure that she will be my next Esty purchase.

New Project

We have begun our "big" project of the year. I say we but really it is just my hubby that has begun the project right now. I will be helping once the wood is purchased this week or whenever Ryan is ready for me to help. I tend to stay out of his way when he does a project, a lesson learned many years ago :). I think our deck will look amazing when we are done. It should be done by the end of April. We have had to special order some of the wood and the new posts.

When we moved into our house the only deck we had was this part. This part will soon be changed. We are removing most of the front of it and opening it completely up and adding stairs into that lead into the backyard.

Ryan added the part of the deck on the right within the first month that we lived in the house.

Here is the work he did late Sunday afternoon. Basically, he broke ground. He is ordering the wood today. It has to be specially ordered because the places we have checked don't carry 20 foot boards.

Also, we are removing all the wooden pickets and replacing them with these:

photo taken from here.

You will have to excuse the current deck. It looks so much prettier when I have my flowers out and it has been used. Right now it is still in it's bare winter phase. If warm spring weather would ever come and STAY I could plant some stuff but as you can see the grass hasn't even started to green yet.

Weekend recap and weigh in day

First...today is weigh in day and my tightening of the reins paid off and I lost 3 pounds!!! 4 pounds away from 10% (earlier I posted I was close but I had the wrong weight in my head of what I needed to be at for 10%). So, a loss of 3 has put a nice smile on my face today. :)

I did enjoy my time off work. It was such a needed break but I picked the crappiest of spring days to take off. It rained both Thursday and Friday then it snowed...that's right SNOWED...Saturday. YUCK!!! I want and need warm weather now!!! I did get out a little on Friday during the break in the rain and took some pictures at a tiny park in Cave Springs.

As I wrote on my last entry my bro-in-law and 5 of his friends were supposed to come up to stay the night Friday and skydive Saturday. 5 actually turned into 12! They were a great group of people though. All of them were very nice. Well, since it snowed Saturday, skydiving was canceled and they decided to stay another night and try skydiving on Sunday. Sunday turned out perfect (cold but sunny) for them and they were able to jump Sunday. This is a pic of some of the group:

Here is my bro in law, Cole, suited up:

Here is a shot of him floating back to safety:

Here are him and his trainer after the jump:

And here are him and his friend that jumped with him post jump (Cole is on the right):

They said it was totally amazing. Everyone had a blast. Although when Cole landed he was ghost white and looked like he could either pass out or throw up.