St. Paddy's Day

Hey there, bloggy friends! I sure have missed you! We are almost done with our kitchen (I know, it's been forever. Trust me, I know). I'm super happy with how it's turning out and have discovered some new blogs to fuel my decorating. More on that later.

Today, it's St. Patrick's Day. For some odd reason, I adore this day. Maybe it's because it's a holiday where you can just have fun...no pressure, no gifts...just wear green and have fun. This year, B-Man is old enough to get in on the excitement. So fun!

So this morning we had a yummy breakfast that would make Dr. Suess and Sam-I-Am proud. That's right, green eggs and ham! We did ours scrambled. Brady is into helping in the kitchen and his new favorite thing is cracking eggs. He's pretty good at it too-especially considering he's only two (and a half)! After he cracked the eggs, I whisked them up and he added the green food coloring. Then he put the ham in the skillet, I poured in the eggs, we both stirred, and he added the cheese.

Photo taken with iPhone

Don't they look positively disgusting? I assure you, they were yummy...and devoured.

Next up for the day: a craft! I'll wait while you pick yourself up off the floor. Those of you who know me well, know I am not crafty, though I secretly aspire to be. I somehow discovered this blog and found a tutorial even I felt confident enough to tackle!

I gotta tell you...for my first ever real "craft", I am thrilled with how it turned out! I can't wait to snap a pic of my favorite little guy wearing it...once it dries.

I changed up the original design a little. I though the heart was a little too girly for the rough and tumble boy who would be wearing it. I went with a four leaf clover thing, but in retrospect I probably would've chosen a more standard/simple design for the four leave clover. Oh well. I also added "Lucky". 

For purpose of full disclosure, I didn't actually dye my shirt because, well, I ran out of time. I did actually buy the dye, but never got around to using it. Thankfully, little guy had a green shirt in his closet. I think we got it for free from a neighbor, so it's the ultimate score! The color looks a little wonky in the picture, but I assure you, it's green.

To make up for not dying and, because I wanted to, I also added a design on the back.

How cute is that? I even impressed myself! (Note: it looks kind of crooked, but that's just because the hanger was dangling at an angle...I am anal enough that I made sure it was straight).

Want to make one of your own? Check out the tutorial. I will definitely be making more stencil shirts. They are fun and creative and help me feel crafty! Thanks, Sarah, for sharing!

What a Mess.

No pictures today, just an explanation as to why I've been M.I.A. lately.

Currently in my kitchen:

• The trim has been painted
• The back wall is almost all painted
• There is a ladder in the middle of my kitchen
• The kitchen table has been spackled and is ready to be sanded and painted
• There are random stools and chairs scattered throughout
• The refrigerator is pulled out from the wall
• There are painting supplies everywhere

Thankfully, here's what else is in my kitchen:

• Coffee
• Food
• Light
• Warmth
• A very energetic little helper, who makes me laugh
• Praise and worship music, which makes me thankful

I should note that I am the type of person that gets stressed when my kitchen is messy. We have a pretty open floor plan and, when the kitchen is a mess, well, you just can't overlook it. I'm looking forward to getting this (these) project(s) done quickly and getting back into my normal blogging swing.

Hang in there with me! I promise to show after pictures (I never thought to take before pictures).

Spaghetti to the Second Power

How is it possible it's March? Furthermore, how is it possible it's Wednesday and this is my first post of the week?

I will say I've been really productive around the house. I blame all the do-it-yourself, creative blogs like this or this. Honestly, how do these women find time to be a wife, a mom, clean, cook, be creative, and blog? I can (on occasion) do all those things (with the exception of be creative-though I do try), but at the same time?! Hey, I'm no Wonderwoman, though I'm beginning to think they may be!

Inspiration usually only strikes with the home renovation-fix it up on the cheap-type blogs. But, the other day I was inspired to try something new in the kitchen. Namely, spaghetti squash. (Thanks to LeslieRays for the inspiration!).  We eat summer squash and zucchini all the time, but I've never tried this particular variety. After this meal though, it's going to get a lot more play in my kitchen.

First of all, here's what I did:

• Rinsed the squash
• Microwaved for 1 minute to soften it up
• Slice the ends off and then slice in half, down the middle (even softened up those suckers are hard to slice!)
• Scoop out all the gunky seeds. Note: I was surprised because it kind of reminded me of a pumpkin on the inside. I just used a spoon to get out all the goopiness.
• I lined a baking sheet with foil (this is optional, but by doing this I didn't have to wash the sheet afterwards. Bonus!).
• I put a little butter and salt on each half (next time I will also add some garlic)
• Pop those babies in the oven at 375 for about 40 minutes 

Meanwhile I made my sauce (because I didn't have my usual sauce in the pantry). I tried something different and I was really pleased with how it turned out. My favorite thing I did was add some fresh spinach pesto to the sauce. Extra veggies and extra flavor.

• 1 cup fresh baby spinach leaves
• garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 Tablespoon of parmesan cheese (you could use other cheese if you wanted)
• Sprunch that in the food processor (I used the Magic Bullet again since it was already out and dirty from the tomatoes)
• Add in 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil and blend that until it's the desired consistency.
• Note: Because I didn't want the spinach to get wilty, I waited until right before I took up my meat sauce to mix it in. 

When your squash is done, just put it on your plate and rake up some of the "noodles" with your fork. Put in the meat sauce and top with cheese. It is so, so good.

I took this pic after I had mixed it all up. It was much prettier before I dug in!

Next time, I'm going to try to make an Asian inspired stir-fry using spaghetti squash!

Piglet is Pink.

Original title, eh?

Sometimes the hardest part of writing this blog for me is coming up with a title. It's ridiculous.

I don't know about you, but this has been a strange sort of week for us. We haven't really had much going on, but it has felt so busy and rushed. To top things off, I am officially out of room on the laptop. That either means I need to start deleted some things off, or fork over some bucks and invest in an external hard drive. Or both. Oy.

Not helping my space issue is my addiction to fonts. I recently found Dafont and I.am.hooked! It has a ton of free fonts for you to download. If you are into fonts, check it out, but be warned...it's hard to leave the site!

Without further ado, here is this week's edit:

I honestly can't remember all I did, but I do know I duplicated my layer, set it to multiply, created a layer mask and filled it black and then painted back on with a 25% white brush (thanks, Ashley!). I also adjusted the levels to make the colors pop.

Then, just because I can (well, at least I think I can), I created some water drops, just for fun!

I just wanted to have some fun with it, but still keep it simple. Incidentally, I also gave Piglet a tattoo, but then I removed it. Poor little Piglet just doesn't seem like the tattoo type.

Here is the before and after. As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome. I really do appreciate them!

As usual, I'm linking up here:

  

Joyful.

For the Lord your God is living among you. 
He is a mighty savior.
He will take delight in you with gladness. 
With his love, he will calm all your fears.
He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

                                                                                                         -Zephaniah 3:17

Linking up here:

  

A Man Named Fred

We read books. A lot. Usually when we read, B-Man will finish the sentences for me if I give a pause. It's cute and it makes my heart happy.

Today we were reading about Noah. There was a line in the book that read "God asked one man to build the ark. That man's name was...." I thought it was an appropriate place for a pause and Brady, quickly recognizing his queue, finished the sentence with "Fred". Awesome.

Linking up with I Heart Faces and Phonography.

  

Ten on Tuesday

1. Happy belated President's Day. Did you celebrate by learning all our past presidents? If not, you can get your education on here. 
2. I wished Brady a happy Presidents Day, to which he immediately replied "I want to open it!". Poor kid, he thought I said presents day. 
3. I actually did scroll through #1's link and came to a picture of our 11th president. Is it just me, or does he have a slight resemblance to Mel Gibson?

   

   Photo Credit / Photo Credit

4. I've come to the realization that every family with small children has a special name for passing gas, as if somehow calling it by a nicer name makes it less icky. The "f" word wasn't allowed in our house, so growing up, my brother and I had to call it a "puff". Here in the Butler household we call it a toot. What words do you use? I know you've got some good ones!
5. I may have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. Brady has a particular ball he plays with and every time he does, he always says "I do not care for so much reason". Where does he come up with this stuff?!
6. Thanks to some cool new apps on the iPhone, the little guy now knows a rhombus, ellipse, parallelogram, equilateral triangle, right triangle, scalene triangle, pentagon, heptagon, hexagon, as well as star, semicircle, rectangle, square, and circle. Technology is a beautiful thing.
7. Our city had an indoor garage sale this past weekend. I scored some good deals, but my favorite was a huge black frame. It is kind of distressed looking and I love it and it only cost $1. I got it to fame a family picture (assuming we ever take one), but it came with a framed Twilight poster. I'm not going to lie: I was embarrassed carrying it around. 
8. You know who wasn't? The hubster. Yet another reason I love that man.
9. I know I've mentioned this before, but my friend is raising money for adopting. I'm having an online party for Tastefully Simple and all the proceeds go towards her adoption. I am selling products through March 1 and so far have $0 sales. That's right. That number is zero. I feel like the biggest loser of a friend ever. Please buy something, for my friend and for my ego (but more for my friend). The food really is super yummy and you will be helping a great cause.
   
10. I am also linking up with Forever n Always Shoot and Edit. I missed last week's theme of romance. I was uninspired (photographically), so I'm jumping back in with this weeks' theme of pink. Not an easy color to find in our household, but I did what I could. Be sure to check back later in the week for the edit!