One more thing!

Ok, so I had to add one more thing to my list for Christmas. ;) I usually try to avoid commercials (except the funny ones of course), and I especially try not to be persuaded to buy something from seeing an ad or commercial. But when I saw the Dremel Trio the other night, I just couldn't resist. So many ideas for projects from using this one thing started popping in my head! It's the neatest thing!!You can cut, sand and rout with it! :) Plus you can cut all kinds of stuff with it, including wood, plastic, drywall, sheet metal, wall tile and more without switching tools. It has some pretty good reviews on Amazon, even though a few people posted that it doesn't work well on larger projects, and they've broken the bits, but for my smaller crafty projects I think this will do just fine. And I love it's cute little case! haha ;) Anyways, just had to share! This might be my Christmas present to myself!

Some of my favorite things that made my Christmas list this year!

Alright, I thought I'd post some of things that I love this holiday season! I'd love to see what all of you want for Christmas too! So be sure to leave a comment! :)

Ugg Boots! I have wanted a real pair for forever! I have 2 fake versions, which don't get me wrong, they are great but I always have issues getting my jeans comfortably tucked into them. They just aren't wide enough to fit my calves and jeans very well. So I've always held off on a real pair since they cost so much, but this year once I saw the Bailey 3 button version, I was sold! I can unbutton them, stuff my jeans in and then button them back up! No more struggling to get my jeans out of sight!! So I'm hoping there will be a pair of these lovelies under our tree this year!! :)

Next on my list is of course a Silhouette SD Cutter! My mom and I have been looking at these for months and I'm so excited about all the fun things I'll be able to make with it once I get one!!! :)

Next would of course be a gift card for Bonefish! I LOVE this place! The Bang Bang Shrimp are our FAV!! Adam and I could probably eat here once a week if it didn't cost so dang much! I think everytime there is a special occasion we want to go here. Stick with what's good right? :)

Donkey Kong for Wii!! :) I am so ecstatic that they brought this game out for the Wii!! Every year when I was little I'd always be so excited to get the latest Donkey Kong game for my Super Nintendo. I'd be locked away in our spare bedroom for several days until I beat the game, then be ready for the next one! :) I did have to take breaks from time to time when my mom got tired of me yelling at the game when I wasn't playing well. But hey, I wanted to beat the game! :)

And last but not least, SATC 2! :) I LOVE these ladies, and I just can't get enough! I watch the seasons all the time! :) haha They always make me laugh! Plus it combines 2 of my favorite things! NYC and fashion!! LOVE them both! :)

There are plenty of other things I want, but for now, those are the top choices! :) I hope everyone gets exactly what they want from Santa this year!

Upside Down Christmas :)

Even though we are putting up our normal tree, I'm still thinking I want an upside down Christmas tree for our bedroom. :) It would go nicely in the corner, and I'm thinking the 5' one from Home Depot is perfect. :) Adam isn't too keen on my idea, and says he's going to tattle on my to his Dad who is all about traditional Christmas stuff. His Dad won't even give us any ideas as to what he wants for Christmas before Thanksgiving, and refuses to even look at Christmas things before December. haha :) And Adam says I can put in the office, not the bedroom. He just doesn't have any imagination! Oh well, what do y'all think? Upside down or not?

Plus, look how cute this one is! I have no clue where this pic originated from! I found it in a google image search on another blog. :) I'd LOVE to have this in my house along with the person who put it together!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

So Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful other than having to take one of our cats, Nigel, to the emergency vet at 10:30am Thanksgiving Day. He was out in the yard walking in circles, eyes darting back and forth super fast, and acting like he was having a seizure. Adam hopped in the car and took him straight to the emergency vet. We were expecting the worst, but thankfully it was just a major ear infection! I guess I knew that ear issues could affect your balance, but geez he scared us! So after $550, Nigel is at home resting in our laundry room, and we're on day 9 of 14 days of giving him meds. Hopefully he'll be back to normal soon! :)

Other than that, Thanksgiving was lazy lazy. :) We went to Adam's parents about an hour and half late (because of the vet), then headed to my parent's house after that. :) I made my normal stuff, Grandma's potato salad recipe and then maple glazed carrots for mom. haha Those 2 items are becoming yearly requests. Oh yeah, and I made a super simple chocolate pie that I took to Adam's parent's house! I got the recipe from Kraft Kitchens. It seriously took like 10 minutes to throw together. Here it is below if anyone wants it! It turned out sooo good! (Side Note: We used regular cool whip topping, because I couldn't find the chocolate kind, then again I got the ingredients the night before Thanksgiving so that could be I couldnt find it. But it turned out Yummy still!) ;)

Heavenly Chocolate Layer Pie

What You Need:
2 pkg. (3.9 oz. each) JELL-O Chocolate Instant Pudding
2 cups cold milk
1 OREO Pie Crust (6 oz.)
1 tub (6 oz.) COOL WHIP DIPS Chocolate, thawed, divided

Make It
BEAT pudding mixes and milk in large bowl with whisk 2 min. (Pudding will be thick.)
SPREAD 1 cup pudding onto bottom of crust. Whisk half the COOL WHIP DIPS into remaining pudding. Spread over pudding layer in crust; top with remaining COOL WHIP DIPS.

REFRIGERATE 3 hours or until firm.

We did not have time to refrigerate it for 3 hours, so I stuck it in our freezer for about an hour, then in Adam's mom's fridge for another hour while we ate. It turned out just fine. :)

If anyone wants the potato salad and carrots recipes, just let me know. They are both super simple and YUMMY! :) My family has been eating that same potato salad recipe for at least 27 years (i.e., my whole life) :) and I'm sure even longer than that!

So, enough about food. Let's move onto Black Friday. So let me just preface this post by letting everyone know that I LOVE Black Friday. I drag my poor mother around every year fighting crowds, crazy drivers, etc.; and it's usually not for anything specific. I just like going out then. :) But this year, I stayed home with my sick little child, Nigel. But don't think I didn't shop. As soon as I got him home from the vet, I went straight to Victoria's Secret.com to get my free Tote bag. It came the other day, and I LOVE IT! :) They are usually sold out in the stores by the time we make it there, so I think everything worked out this year that I was able to get one online instead. Plus, it was nice hanging out at home, while it rained like crazy, and being able to just shop online!

So, that was our Thanksgiving. I didn't do any decorating, but I can't wait to start on Christmas stuff. I'll be posting some of that this weekend!! :)

I ♥ ♥ ♥ Pottery Barn Sale items....

So yesterday Adam and I went shopping in Malbis so I could use a coupon I had for Ann Taylor (which turned out to be awesome, because everything I got was on sale, minus 30%, and then I got an additional 30% off the entire purchase! WOO!). We also stopped in Pottery Barn, and I was so excited to find that they still had some Halloween stuff and it was on Clearance! YAY!!

I wanted these glitter spiders the first time I saw them, and was going to make my own but never got a chance. They were originally $19 for 16 of them. YIKES! But yesterday, I got my own set for only $6.99!! SCORE!!

I also picked up 2 boxes of these cute little mice!! :) They were originally $12, but were on Clearance for $3.99! YAY!! :)

And of course when I saw these I had to grab a box. They weren't the best deal, but I knew I needed some, and didn't want to use real ones, since ours in Pensacola are teeny tiny anyways. These were $16 regular I think and I got them for $10. Not too bad. :) And I got 54 of them, so they should fill up the bottom of my glass vase nicely!!

Finally, I got a penguin. He was not on sale, and yes I already have one, but I wanted another so Adam and I could each have one for tree. I just LOVE him. :) haha

Back Porch Redo

Awhile back we finally finished the little extra space on the side of the back porch for our grill! It was so easy to do, and only took us about an hour and a half! Since our patio is small to begin with and our table and chairs take up most of the room, we really needed a space for the grill! Yes, those are shutters leaning on the wall. We had to take them down when we had our hurricane shutters installed, and they are waiting to be painted before they get put back up. :) We'll get around to that one day. ;)

At first we left a little border around the edge with the rocks, but afterwards decided to go ahead and make it a little bigger by adding another row of pavers. I think this cost us about $20 to do which included the pavers and sand. Oh yeah, we bought a few pieces of sod too, to go around the edges, so that was probably $5 more, so total $25 for this project! :)

First we raked up all the weeds, grass, etc. and flooded sprayed the area with weed killer. Then, we brought in some extra dirt from the front yard, and leveled it out. Once it was leveled out we added plastic and landscape fabric on top to help keep the weeds out. On top of that we added some rocks to make it even more level. Once we pounded it flat with the tamper, it was time to add the pavers. We copied the pattern that Home Depot had laid out, and it helped so much that we took a picture of it to use as an example. I ended up changing it just a little, but in the end it worked out great! :)

Here is the finished product with the sand in between the pavers and the grill in it's new home. I probably need to add some more sand now that it's had time to settle, and water that poor grass. We had a HOT summer here, and my poor grass took a beating. But it's raining today, so FREE water! :)

I wish I had a before of how UGLY this little area was before we leveled it out and put the pavers down. Grass would never grow there for some reason, so it was also muddy, mossy and weedy. ICK!! Plus, the previous owners had this NASTY pile of wood that had been dry-rotting for forever that they left for us when we moved in. I was so glad to get rid of that mess! It's super pretty now! YAY! :)

Just a quick note..

Happy Birthday to my Grandpa! He would have been 87 today! He passed away 7 years ago after a stroke, and I still miss him every day. Being an only child with a single mom until I was 9 years old, my grandparents were a HUGE part of my everyday life. We lived right across the street from them, and my grandfather was basically my Dad for many years until Mom met Terry and Grandpa got a lil break. haha :) My Grandpa was a driving force in making me who I am today --after endless nights of spelling practice, I can probably spell any crazy word you throw at me ;)--, and I am forever grateful for the 20 years I got to spend with him. We all love and miss you Grandpa!

He was at every football game, even when it was WAY too cold to be there!

Aww, I always got a pic with them for every dance! :)

Today is also special for another reason! Mom and Terry brought sweet Molly home from the shelter 6 years ago! :) The shelter workers found her on the side of the interstate in Alabama after Hurricane Ivan. We were expecting a bigger dog (since the pictures they took of her made her look about triple the size that she actually was), and ended up with a sweet little puppy. She is the sweetest dog, and we love her so much! We're so glad you're a part of our family Miss Molly!

Baby Molly :)

Dirty Molly (hehe) She loves dirt :)

Hope everyone has a fantastic day!

September...

Just a few things that happened last month since I never got around to blogging about them before September was over! :)

Adam turned 28 on September 21!! :) We celebrated his birthday with his family the night before by going to dinner at Bonefish (YUM!) and then headed back to their house for some presents and cake! Adam asked me to make his cake, and his request was for chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. :) So he got a 2 layer chocolate fudge cake, with chocolate fudge icing in between and on top of course, then I crumbled up chocolate chip cookies and pressed them around the edges so it wasn't so plain. It was a hit! Here are a few pictures from his birthday!

On his actual birthday we didn't really do a whole lot since he had to work late. But I did wait until that night to give him his presents from me. I made his card myself, and my mom and I found some really cool Gil Hibben knives that he doesn't have at an antique store to give to him. They both match so it was pretty cool. I also revealed his BIG birthday surprise as well. In the card I made, I made up a little "Birthday Present" poem, that basically told him our upcoming vacation to Universal Studios was his actual present from me. He was really excited, and I don't think he had any idea that I was going to do that. haha He doesn't get surprised easily, so it's nice when I'm finally able to get him!

Adam was actually off the day after his birthay so we went to my parent's house for dinner and for him to open his presents from them! :) I think he ended up having a nice, low key birthday, which is exactly what he needed I think.

The next week we left for vacation in Orlando! It was so much fun, but I think that deserves a whole post to itself so I'll be back later with that one!

LOTS of Great Giveaways at A Shopper's Quest

Katie at A Shopper's Quest is having 7, yes you read that right, 7 giveways right now for some pretty awesome things!! Plus there are tons of ways to get entries!! Check out her site!! I've listed the giveaways below, with links to each of them too!! :) Good Luck!!!

KT Tunstall Tiger Suit Deluxe Edition

Hasbro Scribblish Game

Millie the Pinkest Kitten

Dreamers Charm Bracelet

Libman Freedom Mop

Nab It! Game from Hasbro

Clinere Ear Cleaners

Finally got some Halloween in our house!

I finally quit being lazy got around to decorating for Halloween/Fall! Seeing everyone else's great ideas for mantles, outdoor decorations, etc. I decided I just couldn't put it off any longer!! :)

Here is a picture of our mantel... I used a lot of stuff that I already have, but a few items were great finds from this year!! And no I did not take down the 3 large prints and replace them with anything yet. I haven't found anything I like. :)

I decided I needed a candelabra after seeing Laura's table decorations at Finding Home.

I LOVE what she did with her table, and I knew that the candelabra was exactly what I needed to finish mine!! My mom and I stopped by a local antique shop right by my house (Franklin's on Mobile Hwy. for all you locals), and after looking through the ENTIRE place (which is HUGE), I had given up on finding one there. Just when I told my mom "Gosh, I can't believe we didn't find even one," she says "Beth, I found one!" I was so excited! LOL It wasn't black, but it was heavy and silver, and ended up only being $10. YES!

I also scored a smaller candelabra for only $1 at the same antique store. I love a deal! :) And I think it works just fine! It's in the 2nd picture below.

Here are a few more shots of our mantel with closeups.

I also found inspiration for cute Halloween letters from Beth's mantel at The Stories of A to Z

and her friend Chris's at Just a Girl.

Plus, after Shelley at House of Smith's posted this awesome printable, I knew I had to incorporate it somehow too!!

The only frame I had to use for the spider printable was a silver one, but I think it compliments my silver candelabra quite nicely, and since our walls are such a dark chocolate brown, the silver stands out better than black would have. So I'm happy with my decision not to paint either of them black! :)

The lime green letters I found, that Adam so nicely got for me at 9:30pm at Target, were only $2.50! And they are glittery, which I LOVE! I think it gives just the right pop of color in the center and they were CHEAP too! :) Hope y'all enjoy our little touch of Halloween in the house! Hopefully my crazy fools sweet cats will leave my decorations alone, and I won't find a pile of chewed items when I get home today!