Birthday Cake Sneaky Peeky

I finished baking the layers today. I can't wait to decorate it for CJ's party on Friday!

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

Link up here!

I'm loving that my parents have been here since Friday! I've only been able to see them twice now since we moved to the east coast so this has been a real treat!

I'm loving the Gospel Meeting my dad has been preaching for the church we are members of. It started on Sunday and the last night is tomorrow night.

I'm loving that my Dad has been preaching without notes! I've never seen him do this and he has done a great job!

I'm loving how much Chloe Jo is loving having her Grampy and G-Jo here to play with her! They are spoiling her rotten, but I wouldn't have it any other way!

(I didn't get a good pic of CJ and my Dad. The one I did get was blurry.)

I'm loving the adorable kitchen my Dad modified for Chloe Jo! This kitchen was built by my Dad for my niece, Kaylee. She has outgrown it (she will turn 10 in April) and passed it down to Chloe Jo. The top of it was really long so I asked my Dad to cut it down for me and bring it out here so I could paint it. After my Dad cut the top down, he wasn't done. He made the towel rack, the plate rack and modified the burners. Then he decided he wanted to paint it and I let him! I was not looking forward to painting it so I'm very thankful that he wanted to do this for CJ. It turned out so cute and it looks adorable in her room! Plus, she loves it.

I'm loving that my Mom and I got to take CJ to the park to play today. It has been cold and rainy ever since my parents got here, but today was sunny so we were able to go outside.

I'm loving this little outfit CJ wore today. Mom bought her the clothes and I bought her the adorable shoes and hair clips. Love it!

I'm loving matryoshka dolls. I have been seeing these pop up more and more lately! I love it because it reminds me of all the time I spent in Ukraine during my high school and college years. I love these dolls!

I'm loving that I was able to pick up a few cake decorating supplies this week that I've been wanting! I really would love to take a cake decorating course, but I will be busy during the next one Hobby Lobby is offering so I will have to wait. I've been wanting to do this for a long time! Hopefully next time.

What are you loving today?

Halfway there!

I know you guys were on the edge of your seats waiting for an update about my weight loss. Well, I'm super excited to say that I'm halfway to my goal!!! I always weigh-in on Sunday morning and this morning, the scale showed that I have lost 11 pounds so far! YAY! My goal is 20 by June so I am definitely on track. Although, since my parents are here and we are having a Gospel Meeting through Wednesday, I don't expect to be able to get out and walk any this week. Hopefully, I'll be able to stay the same and resume my normal routine next week!

My Recipe Box: Broccoli Cheese Soup

I'm taking a break from cleaning. Have I mentioned that I hate to clean??? I love a clean house so I make myself do it, but I hate it. I'm notorious for dragging it out throughout the whole day because I'm always taking a break to do this or that and the other. I know that doesn't make any sense. I need to just do it and get it done, but alas, I can't.

Anyway, I'm taking this break to blog a new recipe that I tried this week! I'm not usually a big fan of broccoli, but this soup is delicious!

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Ingredients:

6 cups water

4 chicken bouillon cubes

1 tbsp dehydrated onion

1/2 tsp salt and pepper to taste

8 oz. Velveeta cheese, cubed

10 oz. pkg chopped broccoli

4 oz. very fine noodles (I used rotini and they worked just fine)

1 1/3 cup dry milk

1/2 tsp garlic powder

Bring water with bouillon cubes, onion and salt and pepper to a boil until bouillon cubes are dissolved. Add broccoli. Boil again. Add noodles. Cook until done. Add milk, cheese and garlic powder. Cook until cheese melts.

Mmmmm. I'm going to go have the leftovers for lunch!

Princess Diana never wore a meat dress.

When I went to get groceries and other stuff we needed this week, I picked up a People magazine. Now, usually, I don't indulge in buying magazines, but I had a coupon. I had the coupon last week, but Charlie Sheen was on the cover and I refuse to buy anything with him on the cover. Seriously, could his life be any more of a mess right now?

Anywho, back to the topic at hand. I was perusing my People today and found a fill-in-the-blank quiz taken by Lady Gaga. I'm not a Lady Gaga fan by any means, but, because I'm OCD and I have to read everything, I read her interview. One question popped out at me and seemed a little off. It was:

9. My style icons are: "I have so many. My mother...and Princess Diana."

Princess Diana!?!? Really? There is as much similarity between Lady Gaga's fashion and Princess Diana's as there is between 1980's Madonna and Michelle Obama. As in none. Zip. Zich. Nada. Michelle Obama ain't wearing no pointy bra, ya'll. If she had said 1980's Madonna, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. Or Johnny Weir.

Then I thought that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't giving her enough credit. So I typed in Lady Gaga and did an images search.

Hmmm...I don't remember Princess Diana ever wearing an ugly, nude-colored, see-though trashbag and shoulder horns.

Okay, next picture.

Oh. Um. Huh. Nope. I don't recall Princess Diana wearing a horrible tiger-striped hoody and that kind of make-up. I couldn't even think of a way to describe that mass of horridness on her face.

Then I thought, maybe I'm going about this backwards. What does Lady Gaga's mother look like.

Very respectable in this picture. Maybe not overly conservative, but enough for one to think she would have a daughter who would not be wearing weird horns on her shoulders.

Okay, let's look at a picture of Princess Diana.

Not even close to anything I've ever seen Lady Gaga wear. Princess Diana is exuding beauty and classiness. Lady Gaga...not so much.

Oh here we go. Lady Gaga is wearing a suit. With an enormous horn hat. But, it's a suit! That's a step in the right direction!

That suit is very similar to this one that Princess Diana is wearing...okay, no it's not. Not even close. And Lady Gaga is walking with what I assume to be a body guard, not two dapper young princes.

Uh huh. The infamous meat dress. Princess Diana was never that ready to be marinated and thrown on a grill. And yes, I realize Lady Gaga was trying to make a statement, but next time, just buy a T-shirt with a kitschy saying. Kaithxbai.

And just for funskies, I tried to find a picture of Princess Diana in something even remotely close to something I could see Lady Gaga wearing. This is what I came up with:

It's no meat dress.

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

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I'm loving that my baby is going to be turning 2 in a few short weeks! I have her presents hidden in my closet. I know how I'm going to make her cake. I have decorations bought for a party when Grampy and G-Jo are here next week! It's going to be fun times in our house!

I'm loving that my parents (Grampy and G-Jo) are going to be here on Friday!!! I'm so excited to see them and show them around our new neck of the woods!

I'm loving the book "Daughters of Eve" by Lottie Beth Hobbs. This is a great women's study about women of the Bible. I finished it on Monday and I really enjoyed it!

I'm loving this amazing weather we've been having here! We have spent so much time out of doors lately and I love that! I'm started to get a nice tan...except for the fact that when I walk I wear ankle socks and my walking shoes so when I wear sandals I look a little crazy with my white feet! Plus, we haven't been out much this week because CJ has been sick.

I'm loving that it is officially Spring! I love everything about spring. The new grass that starts coming up. The flowers blooming everywhere. The smell of the fresh new grass and flowers. The transition from winter into summer. I. Love. It.

I'm loving our new hanging plants! I bought three different colors of petunia's for our porch on Monday. I did great with our petunia's last year so I thought I would go ahead and do them again. While I was buying the flowers, I also noticed that they were selling hanging strawberry plants. I may get a couple of those for the back of our house.

I'm loving all the snuggle time I've been getting with CJ this week. I'm not loving that it is due to the fact that she is on day 3 of a fever.

I'm loving these songs:

I Won't Let Go (ABC Special) - Rascal Flatts - Rascal Flatts Videos

Colder Weather - Zac Brown Band - Zac Brown Band Videos

Who Are You When I'm Not Looking - Blake Shelton - Blake Shelton Videos

What are you loving today?

Who searched Michael Bolton!?!?!?

So I was checking out my blog stats just now and looking at the things people have searched to end up on my little slice of the internet. All of them made sense except one: "Michael Bolton." Um, I don't remember ever blogging about him. Although, maybe I have. I've been known to forget things. Even if I have mentioned him once or twice, how in the world did you make it to my page by searching him? Not that I mind that you're here. Welcome, Michael Bolton fans. Please make yourselves at home!

Top 2 Tuesday!

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Today's topic is

Top 2 Dream Rooms!

1. I would love to have an amazing, large kitchen. I love to cook and I would really enjoy more counter space and, especially, a convection oven, double please!

What I love about the kitchen above is that it is basically traditional. I like that it's an eat-in kitchen. I prefer that for the most part. There's no reason to track food all over the house! I love the white cabinets and the gorgeous counter tops. I think white cabinets make a kitchen so cheerful! I also love that huge island!

2. I would love to have a craft room! I have craft stuff stuck everywhere in our tiny place and I really need a place to put everything together and organize it to where I don't go into convulsions thinking about having to get everything out. When I do crafts, I completely take over the kitchen and that is not conducive to cooking or eating in there. I heart this room.

I would change the paint color to something a little more happy and nix that ugly valance for something a little more "me", but the table and the cabinets and the CREATE letters would all stay! Love it!

My Creative Juices

I am the type of person who can look at a picture of a craft, devise a way to copy it and do it. I'm artistic, if you will. I've always enjoyed multiple crafts and creating. For the most part, I'm pretty good at it. I'm really not trying to toot my own horn here. I'm just trying to give a little background on me. There is one thing, though, that I've never quite been able to master or even come close to a desirable result: making wreaths. I love wreaths. I love hanging them on my door or by my door. I think they make your home look so welcoming and I love them. I don't like how expensive it can be to buy a nice looking wreath. I've tried to create my own wreath several times. It's never come out the way I wanted. Here is the last attempt. Yeah, it wasn't that great then and I'm kind of surprised I've kept it for that long. For the past couple of weeks, I've been wanting a new wreath. Season changes do this to me. I've been searching the internet for "inspiration" and I determined that I would make a good wreath this time. Or at least one that is better than the last paltry attempt. Here are a few wreaths that inspired me:

This last one is my favorite. I went to the craft store thinking I would do something similar to it.

So I went to the big town next door this morning to go to Hobby Lobby and pick out my supplies. I ran into a few problems. I wanted a grapevine wreath (the kind that looks like a bunch of twigs in a circle). Hobby Lobby had these wreath in two sizes. Tiny and Ginormous. Neither of which were what I wanted. I also couldn't figure out what flowers I wanted or what colors. What is it about making a wreath that stumps my inner creativity?!? I was kind of wandering around in the floral section aimlessly at this point and found myself in the "bush" aisle. This is the aisle that has bouquets of flowers, like what you would put on a gravestone. I realized that might be the way to go for me. The bushes have several coordinating flowers and lots of leaves on them. I picked one of those out and also picked out a few stems of embellishment. I didn't know what to do about the actual wreath, but I paid for the items I chose and decided to think about it later.

After I got home, I searched the internet for other things to use to make a wreath and didn't find anything that I had on hand or could get in town. After a couple of hours, it finally hit me. I would just rip off all the faded, old flowers from the last wreath and use that base. It worked perfectly. After that, my creative juices finally started flowing and I turned out, what I think is, a beautiful wreath!

I'm thrilled with the results and am so happy that I finally made a respectable looking wreath! Here is my whole porch with the wreath and our new hanging petunias that I picked up today while I was in big town.

Bulletin Boards and My Classroom

For the past few days, I have been working on changing out bulletin boards and redoing my classroom at the church building. I love teaching Bible class and I put a lot of effort into it. I recently ordered a year's worth of Sunday morning material and I made a list of lessons to create for Wednesday evenings. Since I have acquired two students who are both five years old and since Chloe Jo is not technically a baby anymore, I changed the door from saying "Welcome to Cradle Roll" to this:

It looks wonky in the picture, but I promise my OCD would have freaked if it really looked like that!

I also redid the bulletin boards in my room. I bought a years worth of bulletin board materials for my classroom and the foyer also! I am happy with the way this turned out for the most part. I don't like that the tree is two different colors (what's up with that?!) or that the cardboard was way flimsy. I didn't pay much for the kits so I guess I got what I paid for. It still turned out cute, though.

This small bulletin board is just for attendance charts for Sunday and Wednesday and for Bible charts. Since the bulletin board is so small, I had to sticky tack lesson material to the wall.

I also rearranged the furniture to fit better. The table was opposite what it is in this picture and it was in the way of the door. This works much better!

I don't think I ever did a post with pictures from my classroom so I just wanted to show you guys these cute children I hung from the ceiling. I made them one year for VBS and they had been in storage for a couple of years since then. I decided that I might as well use them now and not wait for whatever. They are too cute!

There are also two bulletin boards in the foyer (or the vestibule as one member calls it) that hadn't been changed since we've been here. I decided they needed a facelift. I really love these flowers! They came with smaller flower that you can put pictures in. I kept those for another time since this bulletin board is full!

This is the second bulletin board. This isn't my favorite set, but Russ loved it! It came with several more pieces, but as you can see, this was all that would fit. I still think it turned out nice.

So there you have it. I am going to go to bed. I have to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for church services in the morning!