Blab 'n Gab

Wow - It's been a year since my last post! We have quite an update to share, we are expecting our first baby on November 19th! We already know that it is a little girl and we have started gathering baby items we need. Luckily, an awesome lady at work said she is done having children so she cleaned out her baby stash and gave it all to me for free! We got a bouncy seat, jumper, swing, pack and play, floor mat, mobile, and walker! Our baby girl is going to be living large! LOL. now, all we need to do is buy a crib and get this little girl some clothes to wear! We are planning on having a shower in October so we will see what we get then. Oh, and we cant decide on a name to save our lives... That should be fun! Poor girl may be the nameless baby at the hospital for a while!

Here is what you've all been waiting for! I stained my cabinets a darker color and below is the before and after picture! Of course, I didnt have a picture of the before, but all cabinets in our house are the same 1997 oak color so I just took a picture of our other bathroom which we haven't stained yet. I plan on starting on that bathroom this week. Can you tell I'm putting off the kitchen? There are so many cabinets in there and they are so tall it would take weeks!

I found this awesome tutorial on how to stain ugly old Oak cabinets here Which is really awesome because I have ugly old oak cabinets at my house! See? (plus ugly floors and countertops too, but that will come later!) Well, I got all of the required ingredients for this painting extravaganza and have been layering coat after coat on my poor old bathroom cabinets. I decided I would test it on a small cabinet area (the bathroom) before destroying my entire kitchen. It has turned out great! I will be putting the doors back on the cabinets this weekend and will then post the lovely after look! Stay tuned and come back on Monday for the final reveal!

Sooo.. you know you can buy those picture frames that spell out your last name with pictures of random objects that make letters? Like these... Well, Our last name has 11 letters - ELEVEN - so there is no picture frame on this earth long enough to contain all of those letters.  I could have spent a fortune to pay a company to make me one, but I figured it would be a lot more fun to take all of the letter pictures ourselves! I let the hubby know my plan and we planned a day at the local flea market to take pictures. When it rained us out, we went to the art museum instead and got a lot of great pictures! I used a tree root for the L and K, art sculptures for the S’s, and found a lot of E’s and the W with in the ancient artifacts exhibit. I later took a picture of our gate for the Z and some sticks in our backyard for the other Z. It was fun going on the scavenger hunt and it gave us something to do together as well! Once I got all of the pictures printed in Sepia tones I...

Hubby and I are going to celebrate our first year of marriage in a couple weeks! He is very traditional and wanted to give gifts made of paper for our first year together. We will be on our cruise to the Bahamas when we exchange gifts so I wasn’t sure what I should get him that I can get on the ship and in our luggage. I thought about tickets to a play or show, but we had been looking at them together so that ruined the surprise. I then came across this great idea at http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/1st-anniversary-diy-map-gift-tutorial#axzz2RrDFqGHE   I had seen the framing of maps before, but I never thought of writing on the frames or cutting them into different shapes! I went to Michael’s and found a set of 4 square picture frames for about $14. Then I just googled our special locations and printed them off on a color printer. Finally, I searched for different clip art shapes that I liked and printed them off. The hard part was making sure they were all the same size....

I stumbled across this really cute idea to create a crossword puzzle for the hubby to figure out. You can make all of the clues related to your life together. Your first date, where you first kissed, where he proposed. So fun! You can generate a crossword puzzle online here . There was another idea to make a word search for your hubby.The words could be to ask him out on a date for later that evening. After he finds all the words he has to unscramble them into the sentence. Such a creative and romantic idea! I found a word search generator too here . Even another idea would be to create a matching game with pictures of the two of you. This would be great for long distance relationships and there's an online generator available here . Now I just need to think of clues.... :)

I stumbled across some great crock pot recipes and wanted to post them before I lost them all! I cant take credit, but these are publicly published so it shouldnt be a problem! All recipes should be divided into 2 freezer bags. Sausage and Peppers 6 Italian Sausages (or chicken sausage) 2 green peppers 1 red pepper 1 large onion 4 cloves garlic, minced (if using store bought minced garlic.. 1/2 tsp= 1 clove) 2 cans Italian diced tomatoes 2 Tbs Italian seasoning Add drizzle of Olive oil, cook on low 6 hours. Serve over hot noodles or fresh French bread. Teriyaki Chicken medium-large bag carrots onion flakes 2 large cans pineapple (undrained) 4 garlic cloves, minced 4 chicken breasts 1 cup teriyaki sauce Add add'l 1/4 cup sauce to crock pot. Cook on low 6-7 hours. Serve over hot rice. Savory Chicken 4-6 chicken breasts 2 cans stewed tomatoes 4 Tbs white wine (or extra broth) onion flakes 4 garlic cloves, minced 1 cup chicken...