A little Randomness...

So yeah, this guys living in our backyard.

He’s fallen out of his nest a good five times.

Mama bird should of made a better nest. Geezz.

My husband thinks this baby bird is his child. He’s picked him up and put him back in his mama’s nest every time. Don’t worry Matty googled it and read that it was safe to pick up a baby bird with gloves on. The mother will still love her baby no matter what.

And let’s be honest. We either pick up the baby bird or Chasey picks up the baby bird with his mouth. (Reality of the situation).

The mama bird has returned to the nest every day.

Hopefully her other egg will hatch.

And heck yes, check out our veggie garden growing!

We are attempting to grow---green peppers, red peppers, jalapeño, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, watermelon and squash.

We’ll see what happens.

Anyone have any fourth of July plans?

We’ll be going out on the boat Saturday (since the fourth is on a wednesday-lame) for the fourth of July fireworks on the water!

Awesomeness!

Our first official summer cookout:

Friday we held our first summer cookout with the new grill.

A bunch of our friends came over and everyone brought food and alcohol- the two most important ingredients to having a successful cookout.

We even set up our new badminton net—courtesy of Sears for $17

Badminton is the shit, guys. Even though it was 100 degrees outside and the birdy kept going over the fence and the boys insisted on me going to fetch it; I had an amazingly fun time playing.

It was good to see everyone and to have myself some good laughs.

Matt and I are so blessed to have these amazing friends.

Chasey was happy about having company over he was smiling.

Notice Chase in the background?

My mom's on the floor---hurry! Must.lick.and.play.with.her.

Yup, this awkwardly happens a lot in our household.

My girlfriend Jess stopped over with baby Caleb--he's perfect!!

Chase, jealous? 100%

I mean, he looks like a doll baby! So cute!

And it was discovered...

Chase likes margaritas as much as his mama and papa. 

China Cabinet

Hi y'all. Hope everyone enjoyed their weekends! Matt and I did a lot this weekend (nothing new there) but we also attempted a new project together----restoring furniture--- and I must say, we ain’t too shabby at it.

I’ve wanted a china cabinet for a while now but just haven’t wanted to spend the money on one or found one that’s “hip” enough for me.

I wanted something unique because I have to put the china cabinet in-between the living room and dining room of our small townhouse.

To trigger my need, my mom called last week stating that she was getting rid of her old china. (They are moving- Yay for them!!) Knowing my mother entirely too well, I knew this meant I had limited time to come and collect my prize. (Momma don’t play when it comes to cleaning and ridding her house of junk).

So Saturday Matt and I hit up a few local flea markets with no luck at all, so we decided to check out the local Goodwill---and long behold a small enough china cabinet to my liking.

What made me like this china cabinet even more, its price----$55!

We had plans for this china cabinet…it involved some mint green paint and some new modernized knobs.

We also decided that for $55 if we really f-it-up we could just donate it back. So we awkwardly attempted to stuff the china cabinet in our Pontiac Vibe and road foreheads to the windshield home. (so happy no one hit us—stressful drive home).

Restoring the china cabinet was hard work but surprising easy, you basically need to…

Sand down the entire cabinet—we used 150 sandpaper and went with the grain.

Matt used wood glue to cover the extra holes on the middle drawer, since I only wanted one knob on each side of that drawer.

After you sand off all the shiny wood paint, wipe down and dry your cabinet.

Pick your color paint (we actually used leftover paint from our accent wall in our living room, it stated on the can that it was safe for indoor furniture so we figured why not!).

Since we didn’t prime the cabinet we had to do more than one coat---two seemed to do the trick since we wanted the cabinet to have a shabby chic feel to it.

After we let the paint dry we added our cute flower knobs, thanks Pier 1!

Total cost of this project:

Cabinet: $55

Paint: Free (since it was leftover from when we painted our living room!)

Knobs: Originally $5 a knob on sale for $2.50.  $2.50x6= $15 plus a leftover Pier 1 gift card= $.81

Materials: Had sandpaper and brushes at home!

Total: $55.81

Don’t think you can beat that! Even if we only keep the cabinet for a few years.

Think we've found our new calling :-)

Father's Day...

Blue Angels came to Baltimore this past weekend.

Have you ever seen the Blue Angels?

Images Courtesy of  http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/2012/06/a-blue-angels-view-of-baltimore/#1

Images Courtesy of  http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/2012/06/a-blue-angels-view-of-baltimore/#1

 I think they are the hottest, I mean coolest.

We didn’t even go downtown to actually see them perform but we did go to Martin’s Airport (about ten miles from our house) to watch them land and get the pilots autographs.

Yes, we pawned off the children (my nephew and his cousins) to get their autographs. My sister’s sister-in-law (can you follow?) even made four out of the six Blue Angel pilots hold my nephew. It was great.

My sister’s sister-in-law (still following?) was in military men heaven. I think she might have even been drooling.  Mmm Hmm she loves herself a man in a uniform. Ain’t no denying that.

The Blue Angel Pilots were just so nice and our little community put together a really nice festival in honor of them.

It was a fun way to spend Father’s Day with my Dad!

I mean, if there is funnel cake----you just have to eat the funnel cake and get powder sugar all over clothes and beard, if you’re Matt.

Hope everyone enjoyed their Father's Day with their Dads!

Our camera died mid festival---that would be why there are no pictures of my dad or many pictures at all of the blue angels...it died before the Blue Angels even got there. 

Bummer.  



This weekend there was a lot of …

Drinking…..

Barefoot Moscato wine with frozen blackberries (courtesy of my sister).

Grilling out…

(I don’t know, smoking cigs next to a gas grill might be a little risky. Just sayin)

Matt’s dad bought us our first grill!

The grill is so manly…..I want no part of that thing. I’ll leave the grilling to the men.   

Beef eating…

I’m beefed out at this point. Everything you can put on a grill, we did. And I ate it, all.

We ate those steaks at 10pm at night bc it took so long to build the grill. The flash on the camera makes it seem like we’re “normal” and eating at a decent time. Don’t let it fool you.

Overall, a lot of eating...

We even ate lunch Saturday at Red Robin and the waiter gave Travis this massive drink for free.

He was in straw heaven.

Overall, a busy but fun weekend!

Hope everyone enjoyed Father's Day with their Dads. I know I did!

(More on our Father's day later this week!)

Weekend in Review:

Our weekend looked something like this...

-          Helped bf Emily & her soon-to-be hubs move into their new house (across the street from us)!

-          BYOB and sushi with amazing friends

-          Hit up the new grocery store by our house  (You know you’re getting old when this is exciting)

-          Got a pedicure at a new nail place, and then hung out with three-year-old nephew which resulted in a smudged big toe

-          Marshalls for some good finds on work clothes    

-          Target and Chick-Fill-a with nephew and parents

-          Sang “how much is that doggie in the window” an estimated 200 times this weekend

-          Chris’ boat with amazing friends and family Sunday to Hart Miller Island

-          Lived my worst nightmare- public bathroom on island with 1,000 spider webs and spiders inside. I still can’t believe I pulled down my bathing suit and peed in there. What was I thinking?! Ahhh!!

-          Kayaked for the first time

-          Got a tan and a really burnt nose

-          Swam in insanely dirty bay water and enjoyed every minute of it

-          Sat in sun for an additional 2 hours because boat wouldn’t start back up

-          Ate ice cream and crab chips for dinner Sunday since we didn’t get home until 8:45

We def. had a fun jam-packed weekend, think it’s safe to say it’s officially summer.  

Woop Woop!



Dog Hair....

I love Chase but seriously dude, the dog hair is out of control.

I was making myself….let’s be honest; I was making Matt crazy because I was literally vacuuming the red area rug twice a day. (If not more, I was a little obsessed).

I decided it had to be done…..I had to move the dark area rug under the kitchen table, so Chase couldn’t shake a million pieces of fur on it every five seconds, and invest into a white area rug for the living room so the dog hair would be less noticeable.

Because seriously people, I was going MAD I tell you!! MAD!

I think it’s safe to say, this was probably the best decision of my life.

I can finally stop obsessing over the dog hair and relax when I’m in the living room.  

 

Also do you enjoy my 1970’s green chair? It was my Grandmother’s and my mom was going to get rid of it. I was all, “No waaaay, girl! Send it over here. We need the extra seating and I love how it’s puke green!!”

My sister said, “Aren’t you scared you’re going to walk downstairs and Cunnie’s (our Grandmother's) spirit is going to be sitting in that chair?”

Me, “No, but now I am!”

Also, did you notice that they are the same area rug only opposite colors?

Perfection.

Chocolate Bark

The other day I was reading an old People magazine and stumbled across this article about Karina Smirnoff's favorite sweet treat. See it here.

It was a recipe for chocolate bark and it looked totally amaz.

Since Matt got his raise at work, holler! I thought I would make the chocolate bark as a yummy congratulations treat!

So Sunday at the grocery store I picked up the ingredients (and some of my own touches) and tried it out.

It’s very good, and I feel like not that unhealthy….?

Ingredients:

Two bags of Chocolate Chips

Cranberries

Glazed Walnuts

Sliced Almonds

Coconut

Directions:

1.)    Place wax paper on a cookie sheet

2.)    Put chocolate chips in large mixing bowl and melt in microwave for about 2 minutes or until completely melted.

3.)    Spread melted chocolate on wax paper

4.)    Add your cranberries, walnuts, almonds and coconut on top of the melted chocolate

5.)    Take your spoon and lightly push and spread your toppings

6.)    Put in freezer for one hour

7.)    Once hard, break bark into pieces

8.)    Eat.

9.)    Enjoy!

So fast and easy.

I stored my bark in my fridge to keep it hard.

Seriously guys, this turned out super yummy!