Bathroom Shelves

So i've been wanting to get organized around here.  What's new?... However its kind of a necessity considering that my guest bedroom is now going to become Max's room and all the crap i have stuffed in there has to find a home.  Most of the stuff that found itself hiding in the guest room came from the adorable ladder shelves i had in my living room that had to come down because of a certain little person wanting to rip everything down.  After spending an embarrassing amount of time on pinterest i found a few different inspiration images that prompted me to prompt my husband to build some shelves over the toilet in our half bath downstairs.  They turned out great and i can't wait to do them in our master bath once its been repainted (which has to get done soon also).  They are the perfect spot for my cake stand & milk glass collections and other cute things that were displayed in the living room.  

All we did was use a piece of wood that was 8" wide and 1" thick and cut it to the length of the wall.  We used a 2"x1" under it on the sides of the wall to act as the support and then a decorative piece of trim went on the front to make it look pretty. We painted them white before we put them up, and i still need to go back and touch up where the nails went in. The air powered nail gun was the essential tool used, if you dont have one of those puppies they are worth the money if you like to do diy projects, we've used it a lot.   

29

Today my wonderful hubbs turns 29.  We celebrated last night with a little backyard party with yummy cake and friends.  I can't say enough good things about my Matty- he does so much and is truly my better half. What a reason to celebrate!

We enjoyed a snicker doodle cake with brown sugar frosting, creamy fruit dip and sparkling orange punch. Here are the recipes:

Snicker doodle Cake:

For the cake i looked at a few different snickerdoodle cake recipes, specifically THIS one and realized that the main difference in a white cake and this one was 1 tablespoon of cinnamon, so i opted to make my favorite white cake recipe and just add the cinnamon.  It was just as moist as normal and so delicious with the cinnamon.  I also baked the whole recipe in one deep dish circle cake pan and then cut it after to add the frosting in the middle. 

1 box white cake mix

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/3 cup water

2 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup sour cream

4 egg whites

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 325.  Mix all the ingredients until smooth, combining the dry first and then adding wet.  Put into a cake pan and bake for 1 hour, or if you are doing 2 cake pans it would be shorter, i would guess 30-40 mins.  

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Frosting:

4 1/2 sticks of butter, softened 

1 cup light brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

7-8 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup half-half

Beat the butter, brown sugar and cinnamon until smooth, add 6 cups of the powdered sugar.  Once combined add the half & half and the vanilla, then the rest of the powdered sugar.  

Sparkling Orange Party Punch:

3 2-liters of Sprite

1 bag of ice

1 can frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed

1 can frozen pina colada mix, thawed

Mix it all together!

I used the fruit dip recipe from THIS blog.  It was good, i still love my Nutella fruit dip the best but it was yummy.  

Love Her Mother

Today i am so grateful to be a mom.  I am grateful for a wonderful husband who is so great, a fun and happy son and a beautiful daughter soon to be here.  What a great day :)

Today in church one of the talks was based on Elaine S Dalton's talk in the last general conference.  You can read the whole thing HERE, but below is one of my favorite quotes from it, so true.  

"So how do you raise a girl? Love her mother. Lead your family to the temple, be guardians of virtue, and magnify your priesthood. Fathers, you have been entrusted with our Heavenly Father’s royal daughters. They are virtuous and elect. It is my prayer that you will watch over them, strengthen them, model virtuous behavior, and teach them to follow in the Savior’s every footstep" Elaine S. Dalton

Best Maternity Product EVER

Last time i was pregnant my great friend Jenny bought me a pair of these.  Belly Ups.  They are Ahhhhh-mazing, mostly because no matter how great or expensive maternity pants are, they never stay up. Its a constant pulling up all day long, and it gets old.  Seriously these are the answer.  I have them in the nude color and i find it works best if i clip them to the side of my bra but then the bottom part closer toward my back- it seems like pants are always falling off my butt.  Anyway i just wanted to share an ingenius product that i couldn't live without right now.  You can get them HERE.  

The Slow Cooker Saves My Sanity

Lately i've been feeling a odd sort of feeling toward an appliance.  It might be love, but i think its more of gratitude, and its toward my crock pot.  Seriously, i have other work horse appliances that i use more often and that do great things, but the magic of the slow cooker brings relief to my life like no other.  I absolutely love being able to be finished with dinner at noon, or even 10 am.  I don't know if its being pregnant, or having a one year old, or both- but by the time 5:00 rolls around, i do not want to cook.   I want to eat but not cook.  It seems like that is also the time of day when my child wants my full attention and if i start to do anything around the stove top he uses his high-pitched bloody murder scream and a good amount of pulling on my legs to let me know that he's not cool with that.  That's where the crock pot enters and saves the day.  Chicken Tacos, done.  Roast, done.  BBQ, done.  I think my only problem is that i need more recipes to put this little lady to work, so i can more fully enjoy my evenings with the screamer.  I see a summer full of afternoons at the pool coming home to dinner already done, doesn't that sound heavenly?! What are your families crock-pot favs?

Also i'm totally coveting this crock-pot that i saw in the Williams-Sonoma catalog (however its way cheaper on amazon).  It has a lot of cool settings like browning (perfect so i dont have to brown the roast on the stove first) steam, roast and slow cook.  It could be a perfect Mother's day gift, no?

Here's one of my favorite recipes that is so easy, i'm sure you all already have something like this in your recipe arsenal, but i thought i would share, sorry there's no picture.

Mexican Crock-Pot Chicken
3-4 chicken breasts
1 can black beans- drained
1 can diced green chilis
1 pkg taco seasoning
1 can diced tomatos

Mix it all together in the crock-pot and cook for about 4 hours.  Shred Chicken and serve on tortillas with sour cream, cheese, etc.  Or use for Nachos.  Delish!

Little Shop of Horrors

Last weekend Matt and I went to the KC Rep's last show of the season- Little Shop of Horrors.  I had never seen the movie or the play before and i loved it! I know i talk a lot about the KC Rep, but it really is amazing theater right here in Kansas City that exports to the rest of the country, even sending some productions to Broadway.  The actors were all amazing in this production with some wonderful vocals in the musical portion.  The production was entertaining to say the least, but also had a very thought provoking message to ponder as you left the theater.  I highly encourage you to go see it!  It's playing through May 20th, and if you are a student the tix are even cheaper.  Check it out at KCREP.com

a Weekend in the Windy City

About a week ago Matt and i jetted off to the windy city.  It was the first time we had taken a trip together without Max.  My dad and stepmom were amazing and came to our house and watched him.  It was clear i didn't need to worry about him at all because he had a blast, he was actually pretty upset when they left. poor kid stuck with only mom and dad now...  Here's a little recap of our little getaway. 

 We had a crazy cab driver, who despite his "Gods Army" baseball cap and scripture plastered cab was actually pretty rude...

 We enjoyed Millenium Park, especially Anish Kapoor's bean.

We ate really good food. These pictures are the night we splurged and went to North Pond.  It was delicious, and yes i know our anniversary isn't until June but we know we won't be going anywhere then so this was an early 5 year anniversary trip, so when i called and made a reservation and they asked if i was celebrating anything i said yes. :)

 We went on two architectural tours, which were fabulous!  One was walking and then the second was a river cruise tour, both by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.

We ate Chicago deep dish pizza...

And stayed in this really really cool hotel.  It's called the Public.

We had our fair share of morning baked goods...

This one is called Floriole 

We went shopping. We loved the Wicker Park area and all their unique shops including vintage/antique to cool new trendy boutiques. 

 Matt got a new hat.

 And we had some really great tacos at Big Star.

The tulips were blooming all over the city and they were just gorgeous!

For breakfast on our second day we ventured to milk & honey cafe.  Seriously one of the best breakfasts i've had in a long time.  Orange Brioche French Toast- enough said :)

 We did some more shopping around.

 We had sandwiches on pretzel rolls at Hanna's Bretzel.

 and had a true cafeteria experience at Manny's.

We saw impressive works of art at the Art Institute of Chicago.

 And we couldn't leave town without having a cupcake :)

It was a great weekend to say the least. :)