Author: Sydney

Freezer Meal Challenge

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So I have decided to give myself a challenge! I want to make some freezer meals before the baby comes so I decided it would be kind of fun to see how cheap I can make the meals!

I’ve couponed off and on over the last year or two, so I decided if I plan all the meals I want to make now, then I can try to coupon/watch for sales on the ingredients that I need. This will keep me motivated to watch the sales each week and watch my favorite coupon blogs for the deals!

In addition to making freezer meals I decided I wanted to try a couple new recipes this time around. I do enjoy the ones I normally make but I’m hoping for some variety this time around.

So here are the meals I’m going to shop for:

Soups/Sauces

Ground Beef

  • Taco Meat
  • Lasagna – I may tweak this one a little this time…I’ll let you know how it turns out!
  • Hamburger Patties
  • Meat Loaf/Meat Balls

Pork

Chicken

Pastries

  • Banana Bread
  • Zucchini Bread

All the bold items are new recipes. My baby is due at the end of May so I decided that it would be good to make some hamburger patties and freeze them ahead and also to marinate some chicken and freeze it. Both of these are super easy but I know Tom will be excited to start grilling again so It will be nice to have them on hand and ready to go!

I’m going to make two or three loafs each of the banana bread and zucchini bread – I’ve gotta make sure this mama eats breakfast every day!

Now onto the planning/tracking spreadsheet…I put together a spreadsheet of all the ingredients I need for the meals. Then I went through my pantry/fridge to figure out what I already have.

Here is what I’m working on….it’s a lot! But I think I can make it happen!!

Meal Planning Spreadsheet

Impossible Spinach Pie

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So tonight I threw together my mom’s recipe for “Impossible Spinach Pie” which is really just a recipe from Bisquick. It took me no more then 10 minutes to put it together and it’s super yummy! The nice thing is that it has Bisquick in it so you don’t have to make a crust!

The last time I was at the dr. for a check up they told me I was anemic so I thought this would be a good option because of the spinach. I normally serve this for dinner but tonight I made it as a breakfast option for me to take to work.

Ingredients:

  • 1 (10 oz.) pkg. frozen spinach, thawed & drained
  • 1/2 c. chopped onion
  • 1 c. shredded monterey Jack cheese
  • 1 3/4 c. milk
  • 1  c. Bisquick
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 tsp. pepper
  • 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, grease a 10 inch pie plate.  Saute the onions until tender. Mix spinach, onions and cheese together in pie plate.
Beat remaining ingredients until smooth, 15 seconds in blender on high or 1 minute with hand beater. Pour into pie plate.
Bake until knife inserted in center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool 5 minutes.  Refrigerate any remaining pie.
I like to eat it just like it is but you could also add sausage, ham, bacon or anything else that sounds good to you!
Makes 8 servings

Career vs. Calling…

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Right now for book club we are reading The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns. He is the president of World Vision and the books is about how we went from being a highly paid CEO to being the president of World Vision.

The Hole in Our Gospel: What Does God Expect of Us? The Answer that Changed My Life and Might Just Change the World [Book]

There is a part in the book where he talks about your career vs. your calling. Growing up in America makes it is easy to think what am I going to do with my life…meaning my career…but we need to be aware of what God is calling us to do. Often we get so caught up in our career that we aren’t even paying attention to what God is calling us to do. A few quotes from the book really stood out to me and challenged me.

“Are we willing to take the outrageous risk and do the unpredictable thing?”

“A career becomes the altar on which they sacrifice their lives”

“A career is something I choose for myself, a calling is something I receive from God”

“A career is something I do for myself,  a calling is something I do for God”
 
“A career often promises status, money or power, but a calling generally promises difficulty, and even some suffering, and the opportunity to be used by God”

I’m not saying we should all drop what we are doing and run away from our careers but this part of the book really made me think twice about what God is calling me to do and what God is calling Tom and I to do. Are you listening to God and really seeking what he wants you to do with your life? It’s so easy to get caught up in our day-to-day life and be completely ignoring what God is asking us to do.

I’m a huge fan of missons…short term and long term…this book has really opened my eyes and challenged me. I’m not done with it yet but would highly recommend it…just be prepared to be challenged!

29 Weeks…Almost 30…The End Is In Sight!

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So last Friday I hit 29 weeks…I can’t believe how close I’m getting to the end of this pregnancy! Things have been super busy with work so it’s making the weeks go by really fast!

I had the pleasure of going to Siemens Healthcare and getting a 3D ultrasound for free last week. It was fun to see that he is doing well and is a healthy baby. The U/S tech said he is measuring 1-2 weeks ahead of where he should be. He was almost a pound bigger then the average baby his age. She also told me that he has a “really big head”…um does she realize what she is saying to me?? I don’t think so, she just kept saying it over and over again! I mean I’m glad that he will have a lot of room for his brain but I don’t want his head to be too big!! Now I’m a bit worried! She said his head alone is in the 85th percentile!

Here is one of the amazing pictures from the U/S scan:

I can tell he has the same button nose as Taylin!

I also just wanted to share a couple of pictures of my sweet girl. I realized that I’ve been so busy and I haven’t taken any pictures of her lately so after she got ready for bed I snapped a couple of pictures.

She thought it was a lot of fun and I can’t believe how big she is getting!

This week I had 5…yes 5 friends have babies…I’m so excited for all of them but it’s making me really excited to meet our sweet boy!! He is going to be here before we know it and I can’t wait!

Nursery Decor Details

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The Nursery is coming together and I thought it would be fun to share some of the decor that I’ve got going on in his room. I’ve share a few things along the way but I’ve also completed a few other projects over the weekend that I wanted to share.

Chevron Pillow – This was made with the fabric I got in Portland last week. I didn’t do a tutorial for this but here is a great one I found online if you want instructions to make an envelope pillow case.

Fabric Pennant – Here is a great tutorial for making your own pennants!

Horse Pictures – I shared how I made these here

“B” for Bryson – not much to share here – I got the inspiration for this off Pinterest as well!  I’m thinking I’d like to add chicken wire to the back of the frame – like this

Faux Sheepskin Rug – here is the tutorial

I feel like everything is coming together really well. Once the weather get’s nicer I’ll be able to paint the dresser. We are also in the process of drying out a log round to use as an end table by the gilder!

 

Rustic Paint Stick Light

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I’ve been plugging away at all the little projects to make Bryson’s room come together. Today I’m going to share the light I made for his room out of paint sticks. I saw this idea in Pinterest and knew it would work perfect in his room!

While we were at Home Depot picking everything up for the bathroom remodel I asked the paint counter if they sold bulk paint sticks. They told me no, but I could help myself to free paint sticks. I proceeded to explain that I wanted about 50 paint sticks for a project…I’m pretty sure they thought I was crazy but they were happy to give me all those paint sticks.

Next up I needed a lamp shade to use as the form for my paint sticks – I ran to Goodwill and found one that was the right size but was ugly camouflage! I put two quick coats of spray paint on so that it would blend in better (I forgot to take picts of this part of the process…fail!!)

Supplies:

  • Lamp Shade
  • 40-50 paint sticks – depending on your lamp shade size…you’ll just have to estimate
  • Stain – I used Minawax Jacobean
  • Tons of hot glue

I stained one paint stick to see if I the color was what I wanted. I started my first paint stick on the seam of the shade to make sure it was covered up.Then just keep gluing them all on. This probably took me 15-20 minutes.

The finished shade – now it was time to stain it.

Make sure you do the staining outside…it has a really strong smell. I just painted it on and the wiped it off with a rag.

Here is the finished product!! It turned our really well and was a super cheap project. It probably cost me about $6-$8. We did have to buy a kit to hang the light, which my husband wired in. That was an additional $15 but you may not need that if you are just making a lamp shade or if you can modify the current light to fit the new shade.

24 Hours in Portland!

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So a few weeks ago we heard that Sherry and John from Young House Love were going to be at the Portland Home Show. I absolutely love and adore their blog, I read it every single morning. When I heard they were going to be in Portland my friend Lisa and I decided we were going to drive down and go to the home show.

We left here at 6:30 on Tuesday night and 3 1/2 hours later we were in Portland!! Lisa’s amazing friend Amy let us crash at her house for the night. The next morning we got up and went to Fabric Depot – this place was huge and had so much fabric – it was a little overwhelming!! They had some amazing home decor fabrics

I bought some flannel to make some burp rags for Bryson and the chevron print is for a pillow and a few other accents for Bryson’s room. The camo was by special request from my husband…he really wanted camp burp rags for his son!

When we were done at Fabric Depot we went to Mother’s Bistro & Bar in Portland for lunch and I had biscuits and gravy…it was so so yummy!! I highly recommend trying it out it if you’re in the Portland area!

Next up we were off to the home show! We had heard that Sherry and John were teaching an invite only blog seminar while they were here but we had not gotten the official invite 😦 When we got to the home show the first thing we did was ask where they were. The woman at the info booth said they were just starting their seminar and if there was room we were welcome to go listen!

Photo courtesy of the Portland Home Show

I was so excited…seriously they have an amazingly successful blog so to get to hear them speak about blogging was amazing. Following the seminar they did a meet and greet and with the everyone that attended!

Photo courtesy of the Portland Home Show

Photo courtesy of the Portland Home Show

It was a lot of fun meeting them and hearing them speak about blogging! I learned a lot of tips and tricks about blogging!

I was so weird when you read someone’s blog every day for 2 or 3 years and then actually see them in person!

Next up we headed to HomeGoods and scoped things out – I didn’t get anything but it was fun to finally go to the store I’ve heard so much about! I’m so glad I took a random day off work…we had so much fun in Portland even if it was only a 24 hour trip!

A New Lou

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Last weekend we made a run to Home Depot to buy a new faucet for our bathroom sink. It had been leaking into the sink for a few months even when it was turned off…super annoying. So off to Home Depot we went…little did we know we would be doing a mini bathroom remodel…that weekend!!

I’ve been wanting to redo our bathroom for a while but never felt it was really necessary – everything in their functioned just fine but it just wasn’t my style. When we walked into HD the vanity and mirror set were right there (great product placement HD!!) Tom said, “wow that looks really nice” and I agreed I mentioned that it seemed like a really good deal ($299 for the vanity and mirror). Since we had just gotten our tax return Tom said let’s go price out what everything would cost and see if we can do this project for under $500.

We price everything out and it came to about $550 with tax for a new vanity, mirror, faucet, flooring and baseboards…not to bad especially since the vanity was exactly what I’ve been wanting!! So we decided to go for it!

Let’s jump into the before pictures!

The flooring in the bathroom went up the walls instead of having baseboard. Apparently this is really good in case of a water leak but personally I thought it was really ugly!

After Tom ripped out the flooring and the vanity he found that the vanity had been recessed down lower than the rest of the sub floor so he had to cut some plywood to make the floor level. It’s amazing how when you start pulling things apart in an old house you end up finding weird things previous owners have done!

And now for my favorite part…the after pictures!!

The new flooring with baseboard – no flooring going up the side of the wall 🙂

The new flooring that we installed! Way more updated and I love it!

A few things you may have noticed:

  • We kept the same paint color – I still love this color and we had extra paint in shed so we were able to patch the wall and touch up the paint where we needed to.
  • We didn’t replace the toilet – we purchased our house from some friends and knew that the toilet is only a few years old so we didn’t need to replace it. Also it’s a really nice Toto toilet! Score – one more way to save money on the bathroom!
  • We didn’t do anything in the tub area – the tub has very simple white 4×4 tiles that are in great shape – we felt there was no reason to replace them.

Overall we couldn’t be more happy with how it turned out. I feel like the simple vanity, mirror and flooring change really updated the bathroom.

I have to give a special thanks to my husband who worked his butt off! He is a total rock star and I’m so glad he took on this project!!

Nursery Art – DIY Photo Canvas

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I’ve been trying to come up with something to put on one of the walls in Bryson’s nursery and as I was cleaning out some excess home decor I came across two canvas paintings I use to have hanging in my living room. I almost gave them to Goodwill and then it hit me…I could turn them into a photo canvas!

So the other day I edited a couple of pictures I had taken while we were in Colorado for Christmas. Once I was done editing them I had them printed off at Costco (8.99 a piece). I spray painted the outer rim of the canvas black, then cut the picture to fit the canvas and mounted it with Mod Podge.

I’d say they turned out pretty well and you could do the same thing with a canvas from Michael’s and a family picture or a favorite picture of your kids.

Not to bad for $18.00!!!

 

25 Weeks…Yep I’m Pregnant!

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So I wanted to post a quick pregnancy update! My last update was at 21 weeks and I feel like my belly has grown quite a bit in the last few weeks! To me it’s pretty obvious that I’m pregnant but I still get people saying “Oh, your pregnant, I can’t even tell”. Um…I think it’s pretty obvious that there is a baby in there and that I’m not just getting fat!! LOL!!

At my last appointment I had gained a couple more pounds for a total of 8 pounds so far! I can’t complain about that!!

At my next appointment I’ll be having my test for gestational diabetes – I’m hoping that all comes back normal.  They will also be following up on my thyroid to make sure it’s still functioning ok.

I’m definitely not experience morning sickness anymore but I am having a hard time sleeping so that is really frustrating!

The last couple weeks have been great we have made awesome progress on the babies room and we are also in the middle of a bathroom remodel (more to come on that later)!!