It's Wedding Season

Well I've been on hiatus with school, finals, essays and presentations. I'm all finished now and made that A I was hoping for!
So know back to normal life, well, that is until May 23rd when I start Intro to Psychology.

 I'm back in the game of wedding invitations. This is my latest look for a friend, she wanted it simple and elegant and close to Tiffany blue. I apologize for my bad picture, I really need a new camera. The blue background is bright and the black is embossed so when it hits the light it has a shimmer.
This wedding is going to be a beautiful occasion.

I'm making wedding favors as well, will upload pics when done!

Real Marriage Interrupted for Softball Season

If you're married with children, you can relate to my 15 year anniversary. Our 13 year old daughter plays softball  among other sports. So for our 15 year anniversary we were at our local ballpark. My husband got off work early to coach the game and I left work to come out to the park at a later time. In between all this going on, I stopped at Kroger to get 15 helium balloons to go with the 15 pictures I had been collecting over the week (us over the 15 years). Can I just say what would we do without pinterest these days?? I found this cute idea on pinterest (see picture). We agreed that we would not do presents this year, just a card and dinner at a later time,so my balloons was my 3D version of a card. So while he was coaching I went home threw the balloons on the bed and raced to the ballpark. Did I mention there were a dozen red roses waiting for me at home, barely got to smell them and run out. Our daughter hit a triple and a homerun for our anniversary present!

Over the course of these 15 years, I have realized that real marriage is work. My husband and I were young when we got married, 18 & 21. You go through spurts of jealousy, work lay-offs, tight budgets, late nights with kids and a plethora of other things. We have grown over the years, changed, but at the end of the day I couldn't imagine being with anyone else.

The Box Lunch

I'm sure you have all heard of Bento Box lunches or other quick portioned lunch containers. These containers create a fun and healthy way to fix lunch on the go. I have read and wanted to purchase some myself but just have not sat down to do it. Well.. my wonderful husband brought me a coupon, I love coupons - I am in no way an extreme couponer but who doesn't like to save money on stuff they purchase.

So the coupon was for 1.50 off of 2 ziploc containers. I went to Kroger for my shopping trip not really thinking about buying Ziploc containers until I seen these "Bento" type containers - 2 to a package - so 2 packages would be perfect for my family of 4!

This is what I bought, I am on the 2nd day of making my family lunches and so far so good. Seems like cute containers create the want to eat healthier - somehow makes raw carrots and broccoli more fun!

I found the following site on pinterest with tons of lunch making combos:
http://easylunchboxes.smugmug.com/The-Best-Lunchbox-System/Yummy-Lunch-Ideas/10136835_YSuyb#!i=696914291&k=YxmUd

Here's to healthy, portioned eating on the go!

Todays lunch was pb&j on Hawaiian rolls, goldfish and lemon bar in a cupcake liner, apple slices and celery with peanut butter. 

Sweet Creations

I was so excited to  be chosen from House Party to be a Duncan Hines Frosting Creations hostess. If you aren't familiar with House Party, check it out! House Party is the place where you can register to become a hostess for several different products - share with your friends and give the company your feedback.

On with the show... I invited several friends to taste the new Duncan Hines frosting flavors. I started baking at 8:00 Saturday morning and finished the last icing around 2:45p.m. just squeaking by before my 3:00 guest.
I made 3 dozen cupcakes, 2 dozen sugar cookies, icecream cake cones, and 2 cakes. It smelled so delicious in my kitchen.

So here is my take on the flavors, along with my guests. Our favorites were the strawberry shortcake, orange creme(probably my most favorite - taste just like the orange cremesicles), caramel, chocolate marshmallow and 2 got mixed reviews - mocha and mint chocolate chip: some of us loved it and others said it was ok. Personally I thought the mocha smelled the most delightful and was yummy and my sister-n-law agreed!

The frostings gave us a bright and beautiful color and didn't taste artificial, they were creamy. I have posted some pics from my party below. Hope you enjoy!

                                                    What the frosting and flavors look like

        My daughters favorite to create, mint chocolate chip cake cones with Duncan Hines devil food cake &                                                   frosting creation mint chocolate chip

 This was the overall favorite: white cake with strawberry shortcake frosting and I added some actual strawberries to the mix -yummy! The pink was so vibrant.

                                 Our table of Duncan Hines goodies~ We had a blast tasting everything!

No Boil Lasagna

I love this lasagna, mainly because it's simple to put together and then throw in the oven for a quick dinner. You don't have to boil the noodles ahead of time. It's extremely cheesy, which is our favorite! I found this recipe in a church cookbook I purchased and cook this all the time, it's a big hit!

The cookbook is called The Fruit of the Spirit and was purchased from Bible Baptist Church in Savannah, GA. I love church cookbooks, something about church ladies and their cooking that is sooo good.

My picture is not the best, but believe me this is really good! I typically put the broiler on for about 5 minutes after I bake for that bubbly cheese effect. (picture taken before the broiler). 

Recipe for No Boil Lasagna

1 -15oz. container of Ricotta cheese

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 eggs

2 -26oz. jars of pasta sauce

1 -1lb. pkg. of uncooked lasagna noodles (this is where the no boil comes in)

1 lb. ground Italian sausage or lean ground beef cooked & drained

4 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine Ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese and eggs in a bowl mix well. Grease a 15x9 baking dish and spread 1 c. of pasta sauce on the bottom. Top with half of the uncooked lasagna noodles, ricotta cheese mixture, cooked meat, pasta sauce, and mozarella cheese. Repeat layering until all ingredients are used. Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake 1 hour. I will broil mine on low for 5 minutes to get the bubbly cheese. 

Youth Fundraiser

If you have teenagers and you go to church then you know where I coming from in this post. You must have DOLLARS to send them to events, and programs. We are 4 strong at our small church but we're in the process of growing as we now have a new, full-time priest -YAY!
So on to the fundraising idea.... As a scrapbooker, I have tons of leftover paper, stamps, ink, ribbons, etc. So with little out of pocket money we decided to host a card making class. The youth charged 10.00 to make 4 cards. They raised over 200.00 for this event.

This is a picture of the cards we made. We found cute templates online and asked our church scrapbookers for their extra paper, inks, ribbons, etc. Not much out of pocket, and not a lot of extra work for a small church group. The pinwheel card was our favorite to make (a big hit with the kids). The die cut for the pinwheel can be found at LilInkers. http://shoplilinker.blogspot.com/p/pinwheels.html
Hope you enjoy the cards!

5K Here I Come!

I was posed a challenge by the women on my church board. Run the 5K in Indiana for our conference. Because I'm young they think that constitutes a runner - LOL - I'm not a runner. My personality however can not withstand a good challenge. So 2 months ago I started training to run a 5K using the Couch to 5K program - which is great and I had 2 great coaches - my kids! You start off alternating between walking and running the 3.1 miles. Which brings another thought why do they call it a 5K when it's only 3.1 miles (I'm sure there's a good mathematical kilometer answer to this question) - I'm not a mathematician either.
So after using the couch program I decided it was time to put my training to the test. I entered a local hometown race. I finished in 33 minutes and 32 seconds my best time to date. I won the 1st place trophy in my age division. Let me tell you though, there were only 2 of us running in that age division - SMILE!
It felt so good to finish and I'm looking forward to running that race in Indiana - bring on the 5K! It's never to late to start a new goal, the feeling of the moment may surprise you.

Link to couch to 5K program  http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml