Yummy Food and Yummy Weather

It has been a beautiful couple of days here in W.Tex. 72* with a slight breeze...perfect for sitting out on the patio! We've been working on installing a drip irrigation system for our potted plants, so we've taken advantage of the weather as far as getting that all set.

With the beautiful weather has come a great week of harvest for our container garden.

We've had a ton of okra as well as quite a few jalapenos. We've used our bounty in a number of dishes including some crunch jalapenos in taco cups. Of course, we have to make homemade fried okra. 'Cuz that's what you do when you have fresh okra!

Fried okra (and the fritters below) are great frozen and reheated in the oven at a later date. This makes for really easy meals later in the week, and you get to use all the okra you don't want to eat right away. However, as great as homemade fried okra is...we needed a change! I found this amazing recipe from pinterest here for okra fritters with grilled corn and goat cheese.

You must go print that recipe and make it ASAP. These fritters were uh-mazing. Seriously. Smoky grilled corn, fresh okra, and tangy goat cheese all melted together is about as close to heaven as food gets. Pretty sure.

We're totally going to try modifying the recipe next time. We may try these with a sharp cheddar and add in some jalapenos (from the garden)!

Getting Ready for Fall Football!

I think this poster on Pinterest pretty much sums up the football season. Of course, I love my husband more than anything. College football Saturdays are pretty fun, though. Love seeing lots of people and enjoying food, fellowship, and football.

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In preparation for football season I put together this awesome wreath!

To make this wreath, I used the tutorial for a red burlap wreath found here. The only modification was that I didn't cut the ends of my squares and instead used a technique for folding more like the book page wreath tutorials out there. I also left some of the stray "hairs" from the burlap on. I like the rugged look.

For the letters, I painted the edges white and the tops got a coat of black and a coat of glitter black paint. For those of you who watch Texas Tech football, you know the famous helmets - I call them "black sparkle helmets." These letters are "black sparkle helmet" inspired.

Perhaps I'll make another similar one soon and take some better pictures as I go. For now, Enjoy these few pictures with my awesome camera!

Summer Break and Back to Blogging

Whew! Again...didn't mean to take that break from blogging. Oops!

This summer has been quite eventful for us. We've had some uplifting moments and some heartbreaking ones.

May: Travis and I traveled to my Dad's hometown of Ozark to visit with family. It was wonderful to visit with family, and we got to watch my beautiful cousin graduate from the University of Arkansas!

June: My family gathered to remember my beloved grandfather after he passed away. This was a difficult time for us. We are so glad to know that this is only temporary, and we will meet him again.

July: Travis and I traveled to his parents' hometown of Centerville, Iowa to visit with family. This was my first trip, and I was treated to my first official pork tenderloin and the rows and rows of Iowa corn.

August: (Well, end of July) I turned 26 (gasp) at the end of July, and I've decided I'm gonna hang out at this age for a while. My present was a new camera! A fancy one! I was so happy to get my new Sony NEX-5. Travis actually has this camera for work, but I wanted one for my hobby photography. I get to take beautiful pictures like this one without worrying how they'll turn out on a point-and-shoot!
(Find the original post for the succulent garden here)

 I think the roller coaster of emotions kinda kept me from wanting to create. I am so thankful that I have a wonderful support system! I'm now back in the mood...so get ready!

Spring Bunny Baby Shower Part 4: Wishing Tree for Baby

I love Spring. Only slightly more than Winter. There is absolutely nothing like a cool Spring night. I also love all the new growth. I also own zero Spring decorations. I have enough Christmas decor for three houses. Go figure.

Thankfully, one of my wonderful co-workers offered to host the shower at her lovely home. She has Spring decorations. Beautiful ones at that. In fact, she made a super cute rag wreath for her front door just this year. Anyway, add some fun touches with a beautiful home and you end up with a beautiful shower.

I just love this wishing tree for Baby W. My co-worker had a "less-than-living" tree in her front yard that she "borrowed" a branch from. Add in some silvery spray paint, rocks, and a cute vase...voila!

The instruction card is worded like this: "Please take a moment to write a wish for Baby W... on the back of one of these birdies. Then, place the birdie on the tree for A... and A... to read now and Baby to read later."

The wishing birdies were cut with a Silhouette in some cute pink paper. They were too cute!
PS- I love those bunnies with the tulips. Too cute!!

Spring Bunny Baby Shower Part 3: Diaper Cake

So, I feel like I do the same thing for every baby shower, but diaper cakes are stinkin' cute! You can see my first official attempt at making one here.

For this cute spring bunny shower, the color scheme was pink, grey, and white (to make sure our decor matched Baby's room). My co-workers and I made this diaper cake in about 45 minutes from start to finish (not including the sock-flowers that were made by another co-worker).

We started with a 14", 10", and 6" cake round. We used Size 1 and Size 2 diapers and a ton of rubber bands. There's tons of tutorials out there, so I won't bore you with the details.

Tips for a Cute Diaper Cake

• Use labeled diapers (like swaddlers) or mark your diapers with different colors of rubber bands (e.g., reds=size 1, blue=size 2). This takes the headache out of Mom's task of unrolling.
• Carefully roll your diapers. I've found that rolling from the open end to the closed end results in a more uniform roll. 
• When forming your cake, make sure the "seam" of the rolled diaper is on the inside. This makes for a much more uniform cake.
• Lots and lots of rubber bands to hold groups of diapers together.
• Squish it until it looks right. Keep pushing on your diaper groups until they make the shape you want.
• Fill in the middle of your cakes with anything you want: extra diapers, baby gifts, tissue paper, etc.
• Use tulle by the roll to contain your diaper layers. They sell super cute sparkly, lacy, and shimmery tulle rolls at that HobLob place.
• Use paper shred as "filler" on top of each layer to hide the diaper tops. This also helps hide any cardboard from the cake rounds. Plus it's cute.
• Add cute baby stuff.

Spring Bunny Baby Shower Part 2: Food

For my friend's shower we decided to go with everyone's favorite meal...brunch! I mean, who doesn't love breakfast food all day long?

Seeing as how this shindig was a Spring themed shower for ladies we wanted to keep the food fun! We opted for some standard brunch staples like sausage balls. The hostess (who hosted us at her beautiful home) created a wonderful twist on standard pinwheels-- Green chile bacon pinwheels. YUM.

Chiles + bacon + cream cheese = I'm there. Add crescents, and I'm stealing the whole pan.

Next up came the mini pancakes. These were just too terribly cute! I stumbled upon some teensie forks at that PartyC place. I knew I had to use them.

With the pancakes, we served some berry butter. You can find the awesomely easy and fool-proof recipe here at PW. Not the prettiest thing to look at unless you have Ree's awesome food-stylin' and photographin' skillz, but absolutely delish none the less.

To balance out all these yummy brunch-carbs, we decided to add in some yummy strawberry yogurt parfaits. I'm not the biggest fan of yogurt (texture aversion), but I'll eat these any day of the week. Simply layer strawberry yogurt, a sprinkle of granola (or that JustBunches stuff), and some berries. Include one of those teensie spoons found next to the teensie forks at that PartyC place. Ta da!

On to the sweets! Of course we had some sugary snacks, too. My super-talented co-worker Jessica of JB Cakes and More made the beautiful nest egg cupcakes. Love me some malted milk speckle eggs!

Along with the beautiful cupcakes, I made Round 2 of Peeps Pops. See Round 1 here! I paired it with a cute little watering can. So very Spring!

The food was all so delicious! In the future I think I may try some mini cereal shots or something of that sort, too. Little shots of dry cereal and shots of flavored milk to pour into them. That sounds yummy, too.

Happy Spring!

Spring Bunny Baby Shower Part 1: Invitations

A lovely coworker of mine is having a little girl soon! I am so excited for her. Three of us at work got together and hosted a fun, little work shower for her. I was in charge of the invitations. We decided to echo the colors from her baby's room. Pink, silver/gray, and white.

The shower theme was a mix of spring, bunnies, and chicks. The invites were 6x6 squares (to make the most use of the back silver paper), and all the paper was purchased at HobLob (50% off of course!).

I used my Sillhouette SD to cut out the bunny shapes at the top of the invite. How cute are those bunny-tooshies?