Marathon mish-mash post.

It’s a mish-mash post today – a little life stuff and a little house stuff.

First, how cute is the pic of Eugene & baby Griff. from a couple nights ago? I mean, come on. Adorable.

Yesterday, Eugene finally had a baseball game that didn’t cancel due to rain.

They were playing a big game against my alma matter & were actually winning 2-o in the fifth.

The pup & I were have a grand ol’ time watching the team play so well…that is, until we encountered more rain {yet again.}

We waited patiently {& sopping wet} in the car to see if they were going to get to finish the game, but unfortunately they called it after about 30 minutes. They’ll have to pray for nice weather this weekend to make the game up. Later in the evening, we gathered at Eugene’s parents’ place to watch The Office’s farewell to Michael. {I’m not certain, but I think Eugene shed a tear.} And I got to celebrate my birthday yet again with this beautiful cake made by my awesome sister-in-law, Rita. I’m so blessed to have married into such a wonderful family!

     

Alright, onto house updates. It’s been a while since I’ve posted about the house, and that’s because I’ve been so busy with life lately that I haven’t had any spare time to work on it! I did squeeze in two small projects though. For some dumb reason, when we painted the cabinets, I didn’t paint the window frame. I guess it was because I was tired of prepping everything, so I just left it for later. See the ugliness below?

Yeah, that needed fixed asap. Cleaning, sanding, taping, priming & 3 coats of paint later…

… I had a much nicer view of the back yard. :)

 

Ahh, much better. Oh, and see that pretty potted plant on my counter – that’s one of my birthday plants from my sister. I need some better weather to plant the bulbs around the house soon!

I’ve started prepping the window by the table for the white paint too…

But that’s the farthest I’ve gotten on this one!

And remember the big hole left from where we removed the original wall oven? Maybe this will help jar your memory, the kitchen with the wall oven…

The kitchen without the wall oven…

The kitchen without the oven but with white paint…

So we didn’t have cabinet doors to match that opening, and I didn’t really want doors anyway, so I used the fabric I bought to make kitchen curtains to sew a simple cover for the opening.

I like the vintage-ish look it has…

Much better than looking at the microwave & cereal boxes! I may add on more fabric at the bottom to make it slightly longer, but I’m going to wait until I make the other kitchen curtains first.

I also took an updated pic of our hallway & living room, since they’ve changed some too.

Hallway before…

Hallway now…

Still have a ton of trim & doors to paint white {some day}. The runner was onsale for $15 bucks {thanks, Mom} from Lillian Vernon.

And the living room before…

And now…

Don’t mind the dirty floor above. Having new dry-wall work done & tons of rain outside = messy floor for a while, no matter how many times you mop.

Well, guess that was a marathon mish-mash post. I’m working two events this weekend, so it’s highly unlikely that I have anything interesting to post on Monday. Eh, oh well. I’ll just be happy to make it through all this work to Sunday!

P.S. I know she can’t read this, but I have to wish my precious baby niece a very Happy First Birthday! What a blessing you are to our family. :)

My sister’s birthday.

Today’s my sister’s birthday, so here’s a special shout out to my biggest blog fan & reason I started a blog. Happy birthday, sister! I love you & I’m so thankful you were born. I thank God all the time that He’s given me you as my best friend, role model, and the best big sister.

It’s crazy to remember that that last year at this time, she was in the hospital praying for a safe arrival of her baby girl. And today, she’s blessed to celebrate her big day with a beautiful healthy almost-one-year-old {tomorrow is Cate’s birthday}. God is good.

Here’s a pic of my beautiful sister with me on my wedding day…

Happy birthday, sweet friend! I pray it’s full of happy blessings for you today. I’m sending a virtual hug your way through this blog post. ;)

A quarter century complete.

Ohio, along with most of the country, has been a soggy mess this month. We’ve had so much stinkin’ rain – our basement wall is leaking, the yard is full of mud & puddles, baseball games are constantly cancelled, and fields look like this, or worse in many cases…

I even saw a duck in our neighborhood while waking the pup. We don’t have any ponds {other than those caused in our neighbors’ yards by the rain} or rivers near our house, so the duck was not a normal or expected sighting!

 
{This is not my pic, but it’s what he looked like! Image Source}

So Monday was my 25th birthday. I really don’t like celebrating my birthday. I know that’s sad, but I really don’t. Despite the rain, and not really wanting to celebrate, I did have a little somethingone to smile about on my birthday. My sister & her family had a flight to leave on Sunday evening, but because of a tornado that damaged the St. Louis airport they had to reschedule their flight for Tuesday. Lucky me – I got to have my birthday dinner with my whole family {wondrous thing!}

Baby Cate gave me my favorite birthday gift: a dance party with my favorite niece. We laughed and danced to Mariah Carey’s “You’ll Always Be My Baby” haha. She loved it {and so did I!} She also had fun playing with Eugene’s baseball hat. What a cutie pie…

 

We swerved from the birthday cake route and went with pies. {We also celebrated my sister’s birthday which is tomorrow.}

I was blessed with some pretty sweet gifts too. {That’s another reason I don’t usually get thrilled over celebrating my birthday…I’m a much better gift-giver than gift-getter.} My sister & brother-in-law gave me two beautiful plant arrangements for our new house and a fun yellow summery purse. One was pansies {which always make me remember my college roomie…her favorite. I heart you, MK!}

And the other had a mix of daffodils, bright pink tulips, {my love} hyacinths.

Eugene bought me a very pretty Vera purse. Despite my strong threats urges for him to not buy me anything {a house is plenty!}, he assured me that I’d be proud of the deal he got on the purse. Good deal? Well, alright then. {He knows me well!}

And my parents got me my Christmas wish-list spring form pan & went big with an absolutely beautiful pearl necklace.

          

The pearls are so smooth; they make me feel pretty with these things around my neck. :) I don’t know why, but when I wear the pearls, I feel very classic, stately – think, Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman…

{image source}

Now I just need my gloves & a hat to go with it! ;)

I finished up my b-day celebrations last night with Lib & Scott and my favorite, funfetti cake. It’s crazy how much you grow in a quarter of a century. Been through a lot, learned a lot, loved a lot, lost a lot, laughed a lot, lived a lot. God has blessed me {so much} over the past 25 years. And what’s even better is that His mercies are new every morning {Lam 3:22-23}, so each morning I’m blessed with after these 25 years will be full of new great wondrous things from above. I can’t wait to see what new mercies lay ahead of me for the next 25!

Happy first birthday…Dr. Seuss style.

Okay, so I know I gave you a teaser of Cate’s first birthday party on Friday, but I’ve finally gathered the loads of pictures to share the details. As I mentioned, my sister wanted to go with a Dr. Seuss theme for the party, and she got some great ideas from the internet. We threw in our own flare & came up with this super fun party for my favorite one-year-old. Here’s what the food table looked like…

Some tissue paper pom-poms, {thanks, Martha} just like the ones we used for Libby’s baby shower. I used my red & turquoise Fiesta ware & my glass cake stands my sister gave me for my wedding. Add in some homemade printed labels & tags & some ribbon and you have yourself a pretty darn cute table! :) We also printed some 1 Fish 2 Fish game placemats {see on the blue table above} for the little cousins to play with during the party.

Per my sister’s request, we made “Thing 1” cupcakes for the birthday girl – red velvet cake & cream cheese icing with a little effort & food coloring. I simply downloaded some free fonts to make the “Thing 1” labels, as well as all the other tags, on my computer {I used Microsoft Publisher}.

Can you tell I thought the cupcakes were cute? ;)

We also – in true Seuss fashion – had to have green eggs & ham. So we went with green deviled eggs. {Kind of gross looking, but fit the theme perfectly.}

And my sister made some super delicious ham sliders that I will definitely have to make again.

The Ham Slider recipe she used is below, but I’m not sure where she got the original recipe…

For the sandwiches:
24 slider rolls (mini Hawaiian rolls are also recommended)
24 slices honey ham
24 small slices Swiss cheese
Mayonnaise

For the sauce:
1½ tbsp. yellow mustard
8 tbsp. butter, melted
1 tbsp. finely minced onion (or 2 tsp. dried minced onion)
½ tsp. Worcestershire sauce
Poppy seeds, for sprinkling

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Split the slider rolls and spread the insides lightly with
mayonnaise. Fold a slice of ham to fit on each slider bun, and top with a slice of Swiss
cheese. Replace the top bun to assemble the sandwiches. Place the sandwiches on a baking
sheet.

To make the sauce, combine all ingredients except the poppy seeds in a small bowl and whisk to
combine. Drizzle the sauce over the tops of the slider buns. Sprinkle with poppy seeds. Cover
with foil and bake 10 minutes, until the cheese is melted. Remove the foil and bake 2 minutes
longer. Serve warm.

Okay, moving on. We had to have 1 fish, 2 fish, so we had goldfish & Sweedish Fish candy. We also had twizzlers, coconut kisses, chips & dip, and marshmallow pops {fail in the appearance department, but people still like ‘em!}

I whipped up this print out to reinforce the theme, in case it wasn’t obvious enough already {joking.} Nah, I just love my neice so much I couldn’t help but write her a poem! {again, kidding...kind of.}

  

The birthday girl modeled a cute hat for all of 2 minutes, but rocked the “Thing 1” onesie until the cupcake mess.

My sister also made this sentimental & cute banner with pictures of Cate through the first year of her life.

And there was also a cute banner…

Along with Cate’s favorite item of the party: balloons! How about the many faces of Cate…

 
{Oh love it!}

And her second cousins came perfectly dressed for the theme! Cate even got a new Dr. Seuss shirt as a gift.

Cate’s daddy got some quality boy time. So precious….

     

A birthday wish & some generous gifts…

I’d say Cate really enjoyed her party {and so did her momma…which was my main goal!} It was such a blessing that we got to celebrate Cate’s first birthday together since they live many states away. Such wonderful memories to cherish.

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