Coppertone CLEARLYSheer Sunscreen Review

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I absolutely love summer activities, but not always the heat and definitely not the sunburn that accompanies them! I'm all burn; it doesn't even fade to tan. Not the best combination. I've used all sorts of sunscreens and their either too expensive, too greasy, or too smelly. Finally, I've found a sunscreen that I actually really like.
Coppertone ClearlySheer is different and other sunscreens I've tried before. It feels light and clean after absorbing in just seconds. My skin actually felt softer and smoother after using it, but that may just be because I have dry skin. It also didn't cause any breakouts when I applied it every morning before putting on my makeup, which was fantastic since that in my mind is the purpose of facial sunscreen. It also wasn't shiny, but rather had a nice matte finish. And not that it matters as far as protection, but it smelled amazing. No sunblockesque beachy smell. It smelled of summer coconut and lime.

The lotion formula was my favorite but I also liked their waterproof spray. As always, it's important to rub a spray into your skin to finish applying. Also, no sunscreen is "once a day and done." This sunscreen is no exception- reapplication throughout the day is essential to protect your skin from harmful rays. I would highly recommend this sunscreen if you can find it.

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Disclosure of Material Connection:
All opinions expressed in this blog are those of my own, not of Coppertone, BzzAgent, or any other company affiliated with them, or the products.
I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” 

Homemade Healthy Banana Ice Cream

It's summer and dare I say, getting HOTTER by the minute! The weather makes me reminisce back to my childhood when I actually liked all this hot weather. One of the main reasons was the ice cream truck would come around my neighborhood two or three times a day and each time it did, I would beg my mother for money and when she usually said "No," I'd try and scrounge up change in time before the truck passed my house. Seriously, though, those superman popscicles, with the gumballs in them, where do you buy those? Not at the store as far as I can tell!

Well, I still love ice cream, but not the guilt I have from eating it. I like frozen yogurt, but even then, it's not always healthy. While it may be low fat, the carbs are usually out of this world. In my own happy place, I'm eating gelato from a giant waffle cone dipped in chocolate and sprinkles on the outskirts of Rome. In reality, though, I wanted to come up with a better option.
As a kid, my grandma used to make us "ice cream" by blending together frozen fruits- usually strawberries and bananas or blueberries that she picked and froze in the summer. I decided to pick an idea from those wonderful memories. I'm not a photographer with a sassy camera, just a sassy attitude, so all you're getting is the end shots of the product drizzled in chocolate sauce (homemade, too, but that's for another post.)

Homemade Banana Healthy "Ice Cream"

3 bananas, peeled, frozen
1/4 cup milk- more or less as you like it. I used skim, but it's way better with whole, 1%, or 2%.
A handful of frozen fruit- raspberries, blueberries, 2 apricots- whatever other fruit you want to add, basically. It's totally optional.
a tiny splash of vanilla

Put everything in a food processor or blender and let her rip until it forms a nice creamy consistency. I like it thick- my grandma never added any milk, but the milk makes a nice, creamy texture.

If you don't want to dig out the blender or food processor every time, you can whip up a whole batch at once with room temperature fruit and freeze it. It just makes the "ice cream" a little harder.

Marc Jacob's Daisy

I was lucky enough to try out the Marc Jacob's Daisy perfume at a party with my friends. OH MY! We are all seriousely craving springtime and this party put us in the PERFECT mood for spring!

With a bold floral scent and beautiful grapefruit and vanilla undertones, this perfume is our favorite Marc Jacob's scent so far!

 Natalie loved the Eau so Fresh by Marc Jacob's Daisy. It was my favorite scent as well. Here she is showing off her Daisy Chain bracelet... we'll get to that, later!

 The appetizers included mini cheeseburger pies arranged in a Daisy array. I made them fresh right before so they were extra delicious!

 We played several games centered around the flowers. My friends Kriste and Lenore were the winners and each won a small bottle of perfume!  Here they are showing off the fantastic Daisy product! They thought the vanilla scents were perfect for a perfume with Daisy overtones and said the scent was very fresh and "freeing."

 OK, the story with the Daisy Chains. Marc Jacob's and Crowdtap sent me a kick with bracelet making supplies to make daisy chain bracelets. Before the party, I decided to make one as an example. Being a teacher, this is just something I do. Well, it's a good thing I did. The little metal circles for the end of the bracelet had holes in them, so they kept slipping off the finished bracelet. That caused all the little beads to fall off. My husband soldered them, but then the soldered metal broke the bracelet thread. It was a bit of a mess. The end result was me tying two broken bracelets together. Most of the lobster claw clasps didn't work as well- eeek! My sister made one with me, but that was all. It was too much work and MUCH frustration to make them at the party.

 Our spread was delicious! Everyone brought a daisy-themed appetizer or dessert and we had a great open bar! So much excitement! After the movie, we watched "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." It was a great time with lots of food, fun, games, and so many delicious perfumes!

Instead of the bracelets, I collected together some of my old candlesticks and bought birds houses from Michael's and we each created a stand for them!

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All opinions expressed in this blog are those of my own, not of Marc Jacob's, Crowdtap, or any other company affiliated with them, or the products.
I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Shrimp Scampi Recipe and Review

It has been a crazy January! We thought surely after Christmas, January would be a bit more docile. Not so. I went back to work and am not working a full half-time which is lovely. Babysteps! I also began a second maternity leave in the afternoon at the same school doing the same job. What a blessing that has been!

We just bought a Jeep Patroit as well. My Stratus was such a fantastic car that served me well for so, so many years. It was time, though, as oncoming repairs would cost far more than the car was worth. We picked my new Jeep up on Friday and I've been enjoying it ever since! I've always wanted a Jeep.

It was perfect timing, too, as this January has been the coldest and snowiest on record. We've already had 5 snowdays, today being one of them. The weather has been so chilly and there has been so much snow, it's even too blizzardy to snowmobile up north! So it's quite canceled most people's plans.


John left this Monday for Kapuskasing, Canada despite the weather to do some extreme car testing. With him gone, I've been cooking up some delicious seafood creations! I have a freezer full of beef and chicken but also of shrimp, salmon, catfish, sole, crab, and lobster. NomNom!

I was given the awesome opportunity through Crowdtap by Campbell's to test some delicious products and host a party! I was compensated for a Campbell's Skillet and a Campbell's SlowCooker Sauce. There were a few snags I had. Between the weather, my party kit not arriving on time, and all sorts of snow issues, my party was thrown on a weekday evening with a few coworkers.

The dish was easy enough to make!

I used 4 ingredients:
1 Pouch Campbell's Skillet Sauces: Scampi
1 lb raw frozen peeled, deveined shrimp, tail off.
1 package pasta I used gluten free multigrain with quinoa
1 tbs oil

Optional:
Pepper to taste
Lemon to taste
Basil to taste

To begin, heat oil in a skilled. Add shrimp and cook until pink.

While shrimp is cooking, prep pasta by boiling water and cooking until al dente. Drain.

When shrimp are slightly pink, add the pouch of Campbell's Skillet Sauce and boil. Simmer until shrimp are thoroughly cooked, about 5 minutes.

Serve pasta with shrimp and sauce. I added seasonal veggies on the side.

Some of our thoughts:

The scampi sauce seemed a bit watery. Usually, my homemade scampi is thicker and more creamy. It didn't quite look like the package and wasn't as buttery as scampi sauce usually is, either. However, it was quite savory and blended very well with the shrimp and pasta. The dish was extremely easy to make and took very little time. For lunch, it served about 4 portions. There is no need to add excess salt as the sauce itself is rather salty. However, I did add a fair amount of pepper, lemon, and a bit of basil.

Want to join Crowdtap and participate in shaping brands through surveys, discussions, and exclusive samplings? Join through my referral link!

All opinions expressed in this blog are those of my own, not of Campbell's, Crowdtap, or any other company affiliated with them, or the products.
I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” 

Hershey's Spreads... Oh My! And a peek at my classroom!

Hershey's Spreads Review

So recently, I had the opportunity to try some Hershey's Spreads! It's a new product by Hershey's which is similar to Nutella- only there are other flavors as well, like chocolate and almond and plain chocolate. I received the chocolate with hazelnut flavor so it was very similar to the Nutella I'm used to.
If you know me, you know that chocolate is one of my favorite foods and I could just eat it all day long, so I was especially excited for this Sample and Share. Additionally, it came RIGHT before the massive Polar Vortex smothered Michigan and my neighborhood with two and a half feet of snow. I was able to enjoy HERSHEY'S Spreads all to myself, though I wasn't able to share it with as many friends as I would have liked as I couldn't leave the house!
I loved the texture of the spread- I thought it was firm enough to work as a dip but fluid enough to spread onto toast. It goes with almost anything sweet or salty :) I ever ate some with blueberries for a sweet and sour twist- it was delicious!! While I love nuts, I'm not nuts about hazelnut. I feel I would have enjoyed the Chocolate with Almond more than the Hazelnut. The hazelnut seemed to add even more sweetness to the already sweet chocolate, thus masking a lot of the other delicious notes with, well, sweet.
My favorite pairings were using the spread in a parfait with fruit and pretzels as well as with my oatmeal in the morning and dipped shortbread cookies.
I would CERTAINLY recommend HERSHEY'S Spreads to a friend! I myself am excited to try the Chocolate with Almond flavor.

In other news, my new job is just fantastic! It's a dream job, only part time. Elementary students are just my favorites to work with! Every grade has it's ups and downs, and I loved working with high schoolers, but an elementary setting just feels right.

Here's a little pic of my desk in my classroom. It's about half the size of a regular classroom with tables, a few computers, and some filing cabinets (OK, TONS!) I just adore Dr. Seuss, so I created a Dr. Seuss bulletin board with revolving quotes :) (I also added black behind the quote... talk about a headache!)

Want to join Crowdtap and participate in shaping brands through surveys, discussions, and exclusive samplings? Join through my referral link!

All opinions expressed in this blog are those of my own, not of Hershey's, Crowdtap, or any other company affiliated with them, or the products.
I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” 

Framed Burlap Pumpkin Patch for Halloween/Fall

So basically, I've only been using this site to host images. What gives!? The lest I can do is combine both my review/freebie site and this one. I'll have to look into that...

Yeah, that type of stuff might scare you, too
if you saw it outside your window every night.

I think fall is my favorite season for crafts. Between all the beautiful colors I can use, the materials available to me, and the delicious roasting foods, I just can never decide where to start! However, I dislike halloween. Maybe it's from my childhood gore-crazed neighbors who set up scenes from "Saw" and other scaries every year in their yard. Large floating feet? Nope. Someone burried alive? NOT for me. Spiders, snakes, witches, black fog, ect- no way.

HOWEVER, we did dress up our puppy, Maya! If you haven't met Maya yet, she is simply the sweetest, most charming dog. She LOVES love, other dogs, people, kids, and chewing on everything. We got super lucky. She was a bumble bee. She didn't mind wearing a costume, but she LOVED chewing it! This is the first and last costume she'll be getting.

Anyway, onto the craft! As I stated before, I don't like Halloween. All the decorations I could find were somehow directly related. I thought about painting pumpkins, carving pumpkins again, maybe putting some tied up cornstalks outside, but I wanted something festive for inside, too. I found some cute jeweled owls at Michael's and put out my painted "Thanks" wine bottles. Our living room colors are already brown, red, ect, so that room doesn't need much sprucing. I finally figured out something to put in the kitchen, and this is what I came up with :) A framed pumpkin patch!

Framed Burlap Pumpkin Patch

They were super simple to make and were even easier with my awesome Silhouette I won last year in a Thanksgiving customer appreciation drawing from ConsumerCrafts.com. You'll need:

variety of papers (pumpkins)
scrabble tiles
burlap or other fabric
frame with glass
hot glue or strong fabric adhesive
scissors
Silhouette (or scissors or punch for pumpkins)

Cut a piece of burlap to fit the inside of the frame with extra to wrap around the glass. You'll be gluing the burlap onto the glass and wrapping the extras around.

I used my Silhouette to cut out a bunch of pumpkins with all my different papers but you can use scissors or a punch instead. Or just buy cutouts from the store, I saw some again at Michael's.

Next, I lined them all up and placed my scrabble tiles on the bottom.

Finally, glue them on BEFORE glueing the burlap onto anything. I had to use hot glue to get everything to stick well to the burlap.

Finally, glue the burlap, centered, onto the piece of glass that came with the frame. You could use a heavy piece of cardboard as well.

Wrap the excess around the edges and trip if you need to. Especially with burlap, because it's so thick, you have to glue the excess edges down to the back of the glass. Otherwise, it may come unglued when things brush against it and start to wiggle around the frame.

It hangs gorgeously in my kitchen!! Festive without all the connotations!

Mocha Cappuchino Knockoff!

What a great week it's been! Absolutely beautiful! John's been a bit busy working on his class and work to notice, but I'm hoping that dies down. Here's a picture from the other night. I finished working out to find that my husband had built our cat a house out of pillows. She stayed in there ALL NIGHT and didn't think we could see her :)

We had a game night this past weekend and it was so much fun! It was great to be able to see everyone during that long dull stretch of time during the winter after Christmas when everyone kind of hibernates. (Us, hibernating!?) We've gotten extremely lucky, there are snowmobile tracks all over our area! Right behind our house is a giant field with four wheeling tracks that some local snowmobilers have taken to. They've also taken to driving straight through our lawn and plowed driveway to get there versus the streets. One day...

Anyway, this morning I couldn't find any substitute jobs, but the rest of my week is booked, so that's possitive! In the meantime, I've been working out and, since I don't much care for most meats and am getting sick of shrimp and tuna, decided to get some of those DELICIOUS Bolthouse Farms juices!!

 If you've never tried one of their amazing blends, you're missing out. My favorites are their carrot-orange, vanilla chai tea, and mocha cappuccino. They're so good, you just can't help to drink the whole thing! However, there are some MAJOR drawbacks- they're expensive! These two are the 32oz size and cost me $4 each at Kroger this week, but there are only 4 servings in each.  The other night after a workout, I didn't want to break into any protein powder because there's taurine in it and I wanted to sleep, so instead, I had some of the vanilla chai tea. Oh. My. Goodness. Having assumed they were good for me I had never looked at the label... until I was tossing and turning and not able to sleep. They are LOADED down with sugar! So much sugar! Now, I am trying so hard to eat healthier and sugar is my one catch... no wonder I like these! So anyway, I wanted a healthier option and cheaper, too! So I came up with a recipe for my own. I'll figure out the chai tea one later. Here's my finished product :) It's just as tasty! I wasn't going to add NEARLY as much sweetener as the Bolthouse blend, but since I prefer dark chocolate anyway with less sweet, it doesn't bother me.



Bolthouse Mocha Cappuccino Knockoff

•  1.5 cups skim/fat free milk
• 1 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 small packet (1 tbs) agave nectar
• 1.5 cups coffee (I used the medium Keurig setting and a Starbucks dark roast. Add more or less depending on the strength you want your drink. I like mine strong, so this is what I added.)

Brew coffee. Add agave nectar and cocoa powder while still hot. Mix in milk and add ice.Depending on how much ice you add, it will change sizes.

It's not a total match, but it's delicious and only clocks in at 100ish calories for 8oz instead of 160 with 16 grams of sugar from agave instead of the 28 or so that Bolthouse has. These are total approximates using MyFitnessPal, I haven't actually measured everything and don't plan on it!


In other news, I'm doing the spring craft-show at Nat's high school again with my aunt. It's only a day, and only Saturday, and obviously no where near Christmas, so we'll see how it goes. I have a TON of "Mother's Day" tags to add to my books that can be easily taken off, so I'm hoping it'll make them more of a selling point! Here's a picture of my newest creation line. They measure 4.5"x2.75" and are cute as a button! I made all these little mini "Scrabble Tiles" and I just want to eat them up! This is my "fruits of the spirit" book. I made this sweet little tea time one that I'm FINALLY keeping! It just looks too perfect next to me vintage teapot candle.

Some silhouette love!

So I have been EXTREMELY blessed to have won this awesome SILHOUETTE CAMEO!! If you know what that is, your mouth may have just dropped open. It is super duper exciting and I'm LOVING it (most of the time.) Anyway, here's some wedding album stuff I've been working on.

Eating Healthier.

Eeeeek, one thing I am striving for this year is to be more CONNECTED! I haven't officially released this blog yet for that very reason; I wasn't sure if it was something I was going to stick with. I think if I had the following, it wouldn't be hard at all... but I don't know if I will, so we'll see.


One big thing that John and I started doing in early December was eating healthy. I'm a pretty healthy eater as is, I just take giant portions! I also am a die-hard sweet tooth, so anything sweet and savory is up my alley. I also love carbs. love love love. Mac and Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, Waffles, Homemade bread... OK, so I guess I'm NOT that healthy of an eater! John is opposite me. He can usually do without sweets and even carbs, but he LOVES salty things and dairy. I am telling you, that man eats at LEAST three times his daily amount of sodium (which, when you look at the DV of sodium on labels isn't that hard to accomplish. Salt is in everything and there's a lot of it.) I think we're still in a transition period grace stage. For example, for a snack, I'll have a LITTLE portion of icecream... or a LARGE portion of sherbert. John will have a banana... and load it up with peanut butter. Hey, we're getting there.

Anyway, the point of this is that I've been having a super fun time finding new recipes to try, as Emily will tell you! I will find myself on the phone with her salivating together over salads and bakes and chicken things... who knew I'd ever be that excited about dinner. I've found some great recipes that I can throw in the freezer until we're hungry. I've been told the crock-pot is man's best friend, but I've only used it once. SOMETHING likes to jump up on the counter and curl around it and poke her nose under the lid whenever I use it. Trust me, the counter is one of the most off-limit things for Penny and she knows it. Thus, I either have to be home with my eye in the kitchen or there's no crockpot stuff happening quite yet.


Here's one of the delicious things I've been creating:

 PIZZA! This is goat cheese, ground turkey, spinach, and tomato (at least on my half.) I used a Pillsbury pizza crust and just baked according to those directions, adding as much as I wanted (or as little.) It was super, super, super good and I'm just bummed I didn't have time to make homemade pizza crust!!

Anyway, so that's new with us. I'm still subbing, but rarely lately as there aren't many openings right after Christmas. I'm just reading, undecorating, organizing, and crafting in my spare time. John has been so busy with work. Pray for him because he's really getting down about it. He is constantly on conference calls and comes home from work drained. Penny is going crazy. Everyday, we find her in a new spot that she is not supposed to be in. Here was one from last week:
We have NO idea how she's even gotten up there, but it involves jumping on kitchen stuff and that is a total no-no. Very frustrating.

Also, I was offered a part-time resource room job in South Lyon at an elementary school. It would only be until the end of the year and it was every day for three hours, so no extra subbing. I was really excited that I was chosen but SUPER bummed when I found out it takes me about 2 hours to get there during rush hour in the morning. 23 SB is nice... but not that nice at that time. It is a long. Long. LONG. way.

Our Saturdays.

So here's what the two of us have been up to lately. I started subbing this week for PESG and am loving being back in the classroom! It's still a bit tough to not really see progress in my students over time and its tricky not being able to teach stuff how I like to, but I know how important it is to follow the teachers lesson plans and I just keep praying for God to show me the job he ha for me in his time.

John went to New York Thursday to check out a supplier and plant in Buffalo. He came back yesterday. It was so weird to have him gone for a day and night. Works been rough on him lately but I'm so thankful he has a job and he's so smart, I know he'll pull through.

Since everyone asks about our little stinker, she's doing well, curled up on my lap currently. With all the attention and reactions she gets, we can't wait to see how people react when we decide to have kids!

So, today Johns been working on his TV lights. I've been working on my books for the craft show, and Penny got a bath that she was really happy about.

Fall Bottles

Update on the job front: both companies I'm trying to sub for, PESG and PCMI, have pretty long process including background checks and several fingerprinting (I guess one fingerprinting for one can't be shared with the other??) Anyway, I'm continuing to plug away.

So also on the recent fall happenings, as I've had lots of time, I made this cute little project one day. We have accumulated so many wine bottles since our wedding. I've gotten some REALLY cute ones I want to use for something else, but a lot of other bottles that I wouldn't want to keep and have no idea why I've kept. Well, I saw a cute post on Pinterest for painting them with glitter on the inside for Christmas. Adorable, but I wanted some sort of fall decor since we have none. I had six bottles; what could I spell with six?

 This is what I came up with! The coloring is a little off, this was taken with my old camera, but they're super cute! The first is actually a bright red and the "N" is a wine-purple; very pretty. We love them! And I threw some twigs in from the yard since I'm too cheap to buy fake flowers :)
I used:
paintbrushes
different color acrylic paint
modge podge or other clear sealer
bottles
water and sponge
Chalkboard marker, paint marker, or paint for letters

1. I soaked the bottled in the water and scrubbed off the labels when they were ready. Totally unnecessary! Oh well, ya live and ya learn! It was a disaster and time consuming. I'm painting right over them next time.
2. I painted each bottle a different color. Let them dry.
3.The only clear seal I had on hand? Modge Podge, which I don't usually think of a sealer but I didn't want dried paint rubbing off onto my mantle! I covered the bottoms (heavily) and the sides of each bottle with a sealer.
4.  Using my nifty chalkboard marker that has come in handy SO many times long after our wedding, I doodled a letter on each bottle. You could use paint or a paint marker as well.

Lastly, the cork candles are a birthday present from my aunt a few years back. I had 4 and it just didn't work to leave the other 2 bottles empty. I thought about getting some fake foliage or something from Michaels, but I'm too cheap and went hunting in my yard for twigs instead.

xo
Alex

UPDATE: So here's the inspiration that I used for the bottles:

Here is the tutorial for how to do them from Cleverly Inspired.


The more I've been looking at candle and bottle holders (I. Have. So. Many. Candles.) the more I see some that look similar to mind. Here's another one from quite the patriotic home that looks pretty nifty.

Movie Screenings

Something I've recently discovered, and John and others have enjoyed with me, are movie screenings. They're when a company wants to get buzz about their movie out prior to the release date, so they hold screenings in certain cities and theaters. Well, it's totally free (sometimes you get free concessions, too) and you get to see the movie before everyone else (but who cares about that, I said free, right??)

My first one was in the spring through Crowdtap.com, a social media survey/brand sites. However, the sites that most big-name movie screenings go through is Gofobo.com. I have fallen in love with this site and have already seen a good handful of movies, just after 2 weeks! I've seen Trouble with the Curve and Won't Back Down and will soon see Hotel Transylvania, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, End of Watch, and Chasing Mavericks (from Nickelodeon.) So check out Gofobo or let me know if you want to see Hotel T (I have 2 passes left) on Sept. 22 at 11am in Royal Oak.

Update: Again, you can't go wrong with a free date night :) Many of the Movies shown are in 3D and we've been suprised with a few Imax ones as well. My most favorite find so far? Seeing The Hobbit a week before it came out. Seriously, take a few minutes to poke around the site!

Craftyness Board

Quick post, and then I'm off to clean. Thursday is my cleaning day and I need to get it done before I leave for a movie tonight with Kriste. Here is a board I made a few days ago with a bunch of stuff on it!
 Ta-da! It looks fabulous!! I've seen a few at a variety of stores and thought they were cool, but didn't want to pay. Then I started seeing a few homemade ones on Pinterest and since all I needed was a frame, I decided to do one myself!

 This menu has a magnetic backing from an old dry erase board I had. I just cut a piece out and pasted behind the menu paper. Then, I made Popsicle sticks with some of our favorite meals (or Johns, at least, and I eat veggie sides and a salad.) I put little magnets on the back I cut out from a square and they stick perfectly!



I put the calendar and cleaning list page behind plexiglass to make it a dry erase board. I've got my weekly chores I can cross off and it's nice for John to be able to do a quick peek at what's going on this week. I have a separate planner for all the details, but he usually just likes to know the time and where.

 My notes and grocery list. It's ridiculous for me to remember everything we've run out of and we both need random things at random times, so now I have one compiled list that's placed where I'll never forget it.

I love these meal sticks!!! Super cute and SOOO easy to plan a week's worth of dinners! I can just look in the fridge to see what I have and then make my list according to what else I'll need.
                                   And this is just a page from our wedding album I 
                                    pulled out recently. It's coming along, I promise!!






Also, pray for Penny, today is her surgery. In fact, she's probably done. John and I were both anxiously waiting for her to get spayed and declawed. We love our little gymnast, but she cost us $200 worth of blinds and drapes. She completely tore the bedroom and living room ones down.

What we're up to.

John and I have been quite busy around the house. Sorry for not updating recently! It's been hectic trying to get everything fixed and all the "construction" stuff done! I've been working on making books for craft shows and working on our wedding album which is looking awesome and going to be huge!

John, on the other hand, has really been hard at work. He's nearly finished with the bathroom save the shower. We have the tile, we just need a certain shower head and a few other little things. Here's some pictures of his hard work so far:

 Our sink went batty! It leaked completely and was creating all sorts of mold underneath. I guess the past owners didn't clean it. Well, John replaced it and killed the mold and it now looks wonderful!

 Now it looks like this (excuse the mess, I just went and snapped a picture.) It has this insanely neat handle and faucet.

 I'm sure everyone forgot what the bathroom looked like, but that's ok, because it was yucky. We couldn't change the silly layout of it, but that's ok, we're making it look awesome despite that! Here's a toilet John put in. I took this some time ago, there is trim now.

And the sink and tub! It's really a lovely sink, a bit small, but nothing bigger would fit. It's also tall! The tub was there when we moved, but John added trim around it and we're planning on building a shelf to hang above it.

 And here's the shower. I don't really have much to say about it, it was HORRIBLY moldy, we had to rip out everything around it. There was a massive leak that was never fixed and it had to have been there for at least a few years. Yucky. Fortunately, we killed all the mold and ripped it out.

 John also installed a new gas dryer. Our electric one stopped working suddenly and when I went to investigate, it was STUFFED with lint in the tubes (and Victoria must have left the past owner some secrets, because they were in there, too! SUPER YUCKY!) And the dryer tube thing was burning because it wasn't meant for a dryer. Praise the Lord that our dryer stopped working for no reason, because there WAS a reason, a few of them. When John cleaned it out and got everything set, he plugged it back in and the whole dryer lit up in blue sparks. Super, super weird. Needless to say, we got rid of it immediately and used a gas dryer we had received as a wedding present. Praise the Lord for providing for THAT one.

 Our new door :) John didn't put the whole thing in, but he sure had to keep track of the person who did! He helped clean it up and what not and it looks absolutely lovely!

 Our new dishwasher :) The last one didn't wash at all and was rusting on the inside, so we got some rusty dishes. We got this new one and it's amazing, super quiet, and on works so well.

 This has to be John's proudest accomplishment so far. He mounted our TV on the wall and threaded all of the cords through the drywall. You can see our lamp on the left. It's sitting on a table with our Wii, computer plugged into the tv, and some other stuff. We are definitely liking it!

 John put this up awhile ago: our master bedroom ceiling fan. His NEXT job is going to be the blinds on the left. Our cat Penny pulled all of the blinds down, so we put some curtains and yes, a sheet over the window. The blinds should be in in a few days.







So that's some of John's amazing work! I've heard so many things about how Engineers can't even use a wrench and he's proving it all wrong. Our house is coming along so wonderfully and it's nice to think it's all ours and we can, for the most part, make it how we like it and create a home! As for me, I'd rather not post my work just yet. I'm pretty excited for everyone to see it when it's finished!