Happy Birthday Hubbs (belated post)

The Hubbs Birthday was early in May and I totally forgot to post about the absolutely insanely delicious birthday cake that I made for him. His favorite is Red Velvet. We both LOVE the Ultimate Red Velvet Cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory. I can bake Red Velvet Cake and I can bake a cheesecake-how hard could it be to put the two together? Not hard at all-just really time consuming!

But sooooo worth the time and effort! I started this cake at around 6ish and here is The Hubbs blowing out the candles at around 11ish! You may be wondering about the candles, I goofed and got an 8 instead of a 9! Dork move on my part! But I used 9 singles instead (hehehe)

Doesn’t that look delicious?!! I didn’t feel like shaving white chocolate so I took a short cut and used white chocolate chips. Both cakes (cheese and red) were made from scratch.

Got the recipe from Erin’s food blog see the link below.

Red Velvet Cheesecake from Erin's Food Blog

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Rosie Pink Monogramed Pillow

Well I’m making much progress on Pookie Doo’s Pinkalicious room makeover. I am almost ready for the big reveal in a couple of weeks. I can’t wait to share it with you all. But until then here is a pillow I just completed for her bed. I got the pillow idea from Beth at Stories from A to Z. She used ruffled ribbon, I used a ribbon of roses. I love her blog, tons of cool tips, tricks, and ideas. Okay so here’s the pillow!

I used leftover fluff, a travel pillow cover I think it was about $2  and pink rose ribbon from Hobby Lobby I got it 50% OFF! SCORE! The iron on transfer paper I already had.

The finished pillow complete with rosie ruffles and Pookie Doo’s initials. I didn’t get the pink letters to match the roses as  well as I wanted but I couldn’t waste the ink!

Linked to Southern Style Wow Us Wednesdays
Linked up to Remodelholic
http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/2011/06/tutorials-tips-link-party-15.html

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Enchiladas ::Reicpe::

Before learning to make Enchilada's the right way, I thought the kind you make from the Old El Paso box kit were the BOMB! I was having a conversation with a friend and some of her family of whom are Mexican and can cook their faces off! Her Mom makes this potato salad-Oh eM Geee!

 It's so good....ok ok back to enchiladas.....I explained to them how I made Enchiladas and they had a good laugh. The next day my neighbor bought over a plate of REAL enchiladas. Folks when I tell you it was an tastebud party going on in my mouth- no lie. She'd bought over enough for me to share w/ the Hubbs but for some reason when he got home from work I couldn't remember where I'd put it.  Darn kids musta got to it!  Needless to say, I have never bought another Old El Paso Box Kit!! I hounded and begged asked her for the recipe and of course it's one of those "I don't know the measurement" type of situations. I told her just gimme' the ingredients, basic instructions and I'll make it do what it do!

Though I no longer buy the box kits the canned green enchilada sauce works great!

Fry your corn tortillas until brown, they will pucker and swell and that’s okay.

First put down a layer of tortillas. I always make them in my Pampered Chef Rectangle Baker

 It’s AWESOME!

Layer of shredded chicken breast and on top of that, a layer of Muenster cheese.

You’ll do this twice.

So tortillas, chicken, cheese,onions, tortilla's, chicken, cheese....got it?

For the top layer I put just a layer of tortilla’s and more cheese!

Ingredients:
3 Cans Green Enchilada sauce (small cans or 2 large ones)
2 packs of Chicken Breast or any type of chicken meat (I guess about 3 - 3.5 lbs)
1 1/2 pound Muenster Cheese or 2 precut packages
1 small/med onion
18 corn tortillas
Cooking Oil
Sour Cream (optional)
Directions:
Put chicken in a pot with LOTS of seasoning and enough water to boil the chicken. Cook until completely done.
Fry tortilla's until they are brown on both sides your pan till browned on both sides.
Saute Onion
Using two forks shred all of the chicken
Pour all of your enchilada sauce into a large shallow bowl
Dip your tortilla's in the sauce and layer
I add my onions to the middle layer or you can mix it with the chicken throughout
Once your done layering cover with aluminum foil and bake at about 350 degrees for around 20-25 minutes.

Linked up to remodelholic

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Spring!

Okay so I couldn’t think of a fancy smancy title for this post. I’m really not that clever. But I had to share a with you a few of the photos I took of my girls’ over the Easter holiday. They absolutely love when I grab my camera and say, “Let’s go out for a photo shoot”. It helped that we’d been watching an America’s Next Top Model Marathon too. I got great shots, they had a blast and we laughed the whole time.

What things come to mind when you think of Spring? For me it’s the beginning of finding some great stuff at yard sales and maybe hosting a couple of my own to get make room for the cool “new to me” stuff I find.

Munchkin has plans to open a lemonaid stand and sell jewelry. Pookie doo she just wants to be in charge of the money!

COOKOUTS/ BBQs!!! Yeaaaaaa Boi! I think we’re gonna be having one of these really soon. The Hubbs got a new ginorous grill late last summer and I know he can’t wait to fire it up!  The girls’ and I call him The Grill SGT. I know, it’s korny but we don’t care-thppppppppft!

Outdoor projects. I have a couple in the line up: An armoir, dinning set, computer desk, and some picture frames for now. I don’t have a garage so I have to wait for great weather.

Last but not least ROAD TRIPS…living on the East Coast there are so many places to go and see. The best part is a lot of them can be done in just 1 day! So we get up early on a Saturday, pick a direction, and with our trusty Garmin Nuvi, we hit the road. Although the gas prices are really putting ???? on our road trips! UGH!

So what about you? What images do Spring bring to mind?

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Carmely Apple Pie {recipe}

This is one of my favorite pies….easy to make and so yummy with French vanilla or vanilla bean ice cream. My apple recipe is from my Gran Gran who measures by, “a pinch of this, a dollop of that, and about a 1/2 cup of…” and I’ve learned to bake the same way. I can tell you what to use just not reeeeally how much-sorry, my bad!

When I first started baking I wanted to learn to make crusts from scratch,so I called my Gran Gran and asked her for the ingredients and her reply was, “Baby, I don’t know, every since I discovered Pillsbury I just use that”. Gran Gran’s Apple Pie’s are to die for! She bakes big GINORMOUS 15”x18” ones.

One of my favorite kitchen tools is this Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer. Helps me and Gran Gran whip up pies in almost 1/2 the time.

Their handy dandy Baker's Roller is perfect for my pie making needs. I got to check to see if Gran Gran has one of these.

Mix in the sugars

and a little flour, then add apple mixture to your pie pan, top with Carmel and about 2.5 – 3 Tbsp. of butter.

After topping with your 2nd crust don’t forget to brush it with a little egg white/water mixture. Bake at 375 degrees until golden brown and when you tilt it no juices run out.

Ingredients:

3-4 Large Granny Smith Apples

I box Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust

1 tsp. lemon juice

About 1/2 C white sugar

About 1/2 C light brown sugar

1 TBS flour

2.5-3 TBS butter

                                                                  2 TBS Carmel sauce

                                                               1/2 -3/4 TBS cinnamon

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Fancied up Laundry Room

It’s true my The Hubbs thinks I’m a little CooCoo for decorating the laundry room but I was inspired by sooooo many of my bloggy friends and their neat spaces, I thought why not? Plus we were finally getting new appliances.

Like Thrifty Decor Chick's, KevinandAmanda's and this one.

I will admit I don’t necessarily LOVE doing the laundry  but it’s one of those things that has to get done and why not do it in a pretty space!? So here’s the BEFORE:

Our old funky washer and dryer. See my sad 1/2 attempt to organize with those green bins I stole borrowed from The Pookie Doo.  And now the AFTER:

See those curtains? They used to be in my living room, they were in “going in yard sale pile” but I thought they’d be perfect for this space. PLUS I’d be being thrifty cause I wouldn’t need to go BUY more fabric!  *High FIVE*

So the baskets, I found at Walmart $6 bucks each. My first thought was to buy wooden letters for the LAUNDRY sign but I all ready had brown vinyl so I used it and my Cricut Expression to make the signs and tags. I all ready had the Mason jar and clothes pins. The frame was $3 @ Michaels. OH the washer and Dryer! Geez, what got a good deal from The Home Depot. They were all ready 15% off and we got an extra 15% OFF!

Since the new set is “energy efficient” and we had leftover “non-energy effiecient” laundry soap. I thought it’d make a cute decoration. The rug, it came from Wal-Mart and guess what!? It was on clearance  $15 from $25. I consider that a splurge but it was on clearance.

I attached velcro to the other 1/2 of the curtain and to the shelf to hide the tool box and The Hubbs work boots. There is still a little work to do on the wall where our freezer is but I’ll get to that later.

We live in military housing so I wanted everything to be moveable. Had this been a home I owned, I’d probably gone for installing cabinets. But this works!

Remember my subway art thingy! There it is. Also scapped a little backyard clothes drying scene with my Creative Memories Everyday Display. That’s a pair of jeans, a towel and a dress.
Thanks for stopping by!

Linked up to Remodelholic.com

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Subway Style Wall Art

I’ve been seeing these subway art wall hangings all over the blogosphere. I decided a while ago I wanted to make one but couldn’t decide what kind or where to put it until……our dinosaur washer n dryer had finally pushed us to the limit and they had to go and I decided to pretty-up the our laundry room/closet/space er whatever.(more on the big redo later)

While at Michael’s looking at baskets for my laundry room/closet/space er whatever, I saw that the canvas’s were 50%- I love a sale! So I got one to attempt to make my own subway art.

I all ready had the die cut machine, paints, and vinyl so this was a $5 project! My kinda project!

I didn’t plan out where to put words. I just cut them out one at time and stuck em on the canvas. Turned out pretty good if I do say so myself! I’d like to mount it onto a darker piece of wood to make it really POP! We’ll see.

This post is linked up to House of Hepworths
StoriesA2Z

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**Under Construction**

Recently I started thinking about this blog and the direction or lack of direction it was going. I have not been a very post heavy blogger. My goal was to do at least 4-6 posts a month. But working FT along with the long list of other things I do, I couldn't keep up. So I've decided to give it another go. But first up I want to give her a much needed face lift! So please excuse the mix-matchy mess that is going on right now as I try to figure out how to do it all myself! Today I followed a tutorial from Blissfully Domestic on how to make a Blog Header. I love how this one turned out but I do want to update it with more recent photos.

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