Get Well Soon

So I guess one of the only bright sides of being sick are the flowers. :) And you guys know how I love to do them. So I decided to get some for my mom's hospital room and wanted to share how I put them together.

I went to Food Pyramid and just picked up some of their $4 bunches in fall colors. These are rust asiatic lilies, yellow mums, ivory spray roses and green hypericum berries.

I had a square vase at home (my favorites) and started with the asiatic lilies. I kind of arranged them on three of the corners to make it kind of take up most of the vase as a base.
Next, I added the clumps of spray roses.

And filled in with hypericum berries and mums. Also, I always love to tie up with a bow. I feel like it finishes it off.

I have two tips when doing flowers:

1- It is okay to cut the stems. They need to be proportional to the vase.

2- You don't have to use every flower. If you have extras just cut them and put them in another container like I did with this mason jar. Now my mom has flowers for her room and I have a little arrangement for my counter top.

Thank you all for all of your prayers, calls, emails, texts and comments about my mom. Today was a much, much better day and I am sure with each day she will get better. Her doctor's goal was for her to walk from her bed to the nurse's station. Well, my mom is a go-getter, so she took it one step forward and walked around the floor - three times. The more she gets around the better, so we are so grateful for all of your prayers for healing.

Tomorrow I will share pictures of the cutest Halloween owl you ever did see!

Prayers Please!

Hi all,

I usually don't use my blog as my personal forum, but would really appreciate your prayers for my mom. She had to have major surgery yesterday for a ruptured appendix and is in a lot of pain. I would love it if you could pray for healing for her and a full recovery.

In addition, the doctors did a blood test and found a slightly elevated level of the pregnancy hormone. (For the record, my mom cannot possibly be pregnant. Ha!) They reran the test this morning and it was completely negative. The doctor said he thinks/hopes it is just one ovary that is still producing, but there is a slight possibility that it could be ovarian cancer. I would really appreciate if you could also pray for a cancer-free report.

I really appreciate all of your prayers for my sweet mom, Susie.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that

As I was perusing my blogs today, I came across this adorable way to showcase the next new dessert - macarons - on Party Perfect via dSharp. Party Perfect is a super cute blog if you don't already follow it.

Also, I must have kind of a love affair with Twig and Thistle because I loved her pumpkins yesterday and today I am totally crushing on these cupcake liner trees, which I think would be really chic at Christmas. We'll see if I get around to those....(my guess is no).

Also, I had to share Finley's Halloween costume! (Sorry for the very tiny pictures...these were back and forth texts from my sister, so somehow in the mix they got shrunk to miniscule.)

Allison really wanted Finley to go as the owl from Pottery Barn, which is so, so cute. But, honestly, it was hard to stomach a $50 price tag for a costume the poor baby wouldn't really trick or treat in. (At least in my opinion.)

For Finley's birthday, I did get her the legit trick or treat bag as the basket for her gifts. Well, Allison's mother-in-law happens to be a whiz at the sewing machine and used the bag as her template and made her a pretty awesome costume, don't you think?

Allison got little Miss Finley pink tights, so she will be the cutest owl around! I will definitely share pics of all the nieces and nephews.

Pumpkin Faves

First, I have to say that one of the benefits of a 7 day cough = an all-in-one ab workout. I should have a six pack in a few days.

Next, as I was perusing my blogs today, I came across some VERY easy to do pumpkins. Because, as you know, if I do a craft project, I want it to be easy and fast.

I love this address pumpkin featured on Twig and Thistle. Isn't it classy? She styled this for Better Homes and Gardens. I am still waiting for their call.

Featured today on Simply Creative Insanity were several vignettes of pumpkins that when grouped together make a larger image. I loved these trees. (via Country Living)
Also, Emily from Emily Posts shared these pumpkins that were featured in Real Simple that are wrapped with Washi tape. Um, kind of the easiest pumpkin craft I have ever heard of!
Send me links to your pumpkins! I would love to see them!

Sick Day

I am going on seriously like Day 6.5 of a never ending cold. Really, world, really? So I am going to take a blogging sick day.


But first, didn't my Saturday dinner look yum? Well, truth be told, I wanted to see if I could email a post from my phone. (I totally could.) Anyway, I made a margherita pizza with Archer Farms' Tandori Garlic Naan. Though, I am pretty sure this is not typically a base for pizza, it totally rocks. I topped the naan with petso. Buitoni is my favorite. It is the perfect flavor and I ALWAYS have some in my fridge. (I love to take a rotisserie chicken, steam some broccoli, cook some pasta and throw it all together with this pesto.)

Then I used fresh mozzerella, bagged mozzerella and cherry tomatoes for a delicious meal. Tommy approved :). (Though that isn't saying much...he will eat anything and loves anything I "cook.")

Dinner Tonight

And I say I never cook...

Fall Food Favorites

If you couldn't tell, I LOVE to eat. Cook, not so much. At lunch I look forward to dinner, at dinner, dessert and so on. I also look forward to coffee every morning. It is like my little gift to myself.

Right now I am loving Green Mountain's Pumpkin Spice Coffee. I picked it up while I was in Boston.
It pairs perfectly with Pumpkin Spice Creamer. And would you guys believe me when I tell you this -- I don't really like pumpkin pie.

I also LOVE Williams Sonoma's Spiced Pumpkin Pancake Mix. I am pretty sure I bought this pumpkin spread as well last year, so it was pretty much pumpkin heaven.

And my all-time favorite boxed pie is Mrs. Smith's apple crumb pie with Cinnabon Cinnamon Cream Cheese frosting. At first I thought that sounded pretty disgusting - I mean who puts cream cheese on apple pie? But mark my words, you will never go back to regular apple pie after you try this.

Let me know your fall favorites! I am sure I am missing out on some fabulous sweets...and I really hate to miss out.

Kind of have the cutest nieces

Okay, honestly, do I not have the cutest nieces on the planet? (My nephews are super cute, too, but they haven't recently had professional pics that were emailed to me :).

This is baby Olivia at her 9 month old photo shoot. Love the headband her mom used!

So, so cute!!!
Luckily, we get to see this little face this week! She is coming in for the OSU game and will be cheering for her Cowboys. Her dad on the other hand might be considered a traitor. :)

Finley also had her one year pictures taken as part of her one year photography package. You can see a full sneak peek at the photographer's website here.

When else will rolls be this cute???

Such a happy baby!

Call me Katie Stewart...okay that isn't funny at all.

In addition to making caramel apple ciders this weekend, I was feeling a little crafty. So my mom, sister and I embarked on a little project. It was sort of a hit or miss situation...but since I am keepin' it real, I thought I would share.


I was inspired by these crackled pumpkins featured on Tatertots & Jello's blog. I will be totally honest, though, I was way too lazy to go through the many steps to get these perfect pumpkins. (I may live to regret this decision.)

So I set out to find crackled spray paint. For the record, crackled spray paint is not sold at Michael's, Lowe's, Home Depot or Walmart. Take it from me, I checked. However, it is sold at Hobby Lobby only in the colors shown below.


We started with a bunch of Better Homes and Gardens pumpkins from Walmart and my sister and I had some larger craft pumpkins from Michael's. We sprayed them with the base coat of the gold. I think here is where the problem occurred...it needs a lot of gold spray paint. Like doused.

Then while it is still tacky you go over it with the crackle. I kind of went and saw the movie Life as You Know It (really cute, by the way) while these dried and they kind of dried a little too much, so when I went to crackle the large pumpkins...yeah, not so much.

However, my mom did hers all at one time and they turned out really cute.

I will say the only issue with hers were that they were made out of styrofoam and got kind of stuck to the paper and sort of melted on the bottom, but for her purposes they will look cute.

My garage also still totally reeks of spray paint (yeah, probably should have done this outside). So I guess the moral of the story is to follow the directions on the bottle or use the suggested way from Tatertots & Jello!

Caramel Apple Cider Recipe aka Fall in a Cup

Well, I made my caramel apple cider about a week ago and forgot to take pics, so I am just keepin' it real here with my half used ingredients.

All you need is:

1- Apple juice
2- Cinnamon Discs (or Red Hots)
3- Whipped Cream
4- Caramel Sauce


Just pour the amount of apple juice you need into a mug and dump it into a pot. I add three discs for each cup and simmer.
Once everything is melted, pour it into your mug. (And everyone needs a Dean & Deluca mug. These are so perfect. Heavy, thick and keep your hot drinks warm. They are also super cheap - like $5.)

Next add whipped cream.

Then drizzle with caramel sauce.

You will so thank me. :)

A smorgasbord (pun kind of intended)

Thursday night Valerie (left), Lou Ann (right) and I had plans to go to dinner for my birthday. (Because everyone knows you don't just get a day -- you get a whole month.) Well, Catherine with Sage called and had even better plans for us - she had a last minute cancellation in her class with the executive chef from Wolfgang Puck's. Um, yeah, we were available.

I would say that Lou Ann and I have the same cooking range. Though, since her dad is a chef, I would say she would probably win in a cook off. Val gets a little more credit. She cooks at home. Like every night. Our meal was a Carribean Style Stewed Chicken with Fried bananas.

I ate things I never eat -- like parsnips. And, you guys, parsnips taste like potatos. (Or at least they did to me.)

We had a ton of fun and I think we all want to go back for another class. I am pretty sure that this is like on that A&E Show Obsesessed -- if you have someone do something they aren't comfortable with over and over again, they finally get over their fear. I think one day I may actually be able to make something.

The smorgasbord:

1- In other news, my friend Megan's post today cracked me up and also got me to think, if I was locked in a mine for 69 days, what would I be looking forward to most? (My answer was pretty lame. Pretty sure it included hot food and a cell phone.)

2- As you guys know, I moved into my new house about 6 months ago. I lived in my previous house for five years and Tommy lived there for 7. I happened to run into our former next door neighbors last night. They didn't recognize me. Like at all. Like I had to introduce myself and remind them that I lived within shouting distance from them for years. It finally clicked. Clearly, we were very close. I mean, I got these people's mail, Tommy cleaned out their litter boxes (that one I straight up refused to do), watered their flowers and said "hi" to them at least once every other week (see above - clearly, not that close). I obviously make quite an impression.

3- I am working on some craft projects today and may even make some cider and bring you my super secret -almost as good as Starbucks- caramel apple cider recipe later this week.

I'm so 2000 and late

Can anyone name that song? I'll help you out.

Pretty excited to introduce my new toy! I have so been living in 1997. I have never even had an mp3 player. Does this officially make me the biggest loser? (Does it make it okay that I am really not that into music?)

Okay, so tell me your favorite apps! I need all the help I can get...clearly.

Thanks to my inlaws for my fabulous birthday present (and to my mom who gave me money for my birthday to subsidize my larger data plan). Love you guys!