Easter 2010

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful and Blessed Easter! We had a wonderful time with family and lots of good food. I decided to set up my dining room as the "dessert room" and we all ate lunch in the sunroom, since it was big enough to fit all 12 of us comfortably.

Here is my dining room table. Please excuse the wrinkles. My iron must still be packed because I looked for it AND my garment steamer forever with no luck. Anyhow, we had cupcakes, chocolate candies and petit fours that my mother-in-law Jackie made, "pink stuff" that my mother made, a fruit tray my sister brought and cream cheese sugar cookies and a homemade carrot cake that I made. Oh, we were loaded down on the sweets!

My nephew Matthew LOVED this room!

I made these Jelly Bean Topiaries for table decorations. I saw the tutorial on Crafty Sisters, you have to check them out...they have wonderful ideas!

You can kind of see my new table runner - it is so precious. Pale pink with polka dots and little bunnies at each end. Darren bought it for me, when we were at Home Goods a couple of weeks ago for $9.99

My mother-in-law made these cute bunnies from a 3D Wilton Candy mold. It's hard to tell but they attach to little Easter baskets that you can fill with an egg, or candy (like we did). We surrounded them with Easter grass and thought they were a perfect addition to the table!

On the buffet, I used my tiered server to display ceramic Easter eggs and more grass! I used two of my glasses to put out some colorful spring m&Ms and then we had some strawberry lemonade. Don't you just love my little buffet runner? I found that at Marshall's for $7.99

This is one of the bookcases in the living room. I put a little Easter scene out and then put some eggs and carrots on the shelves. These decorations were my mom's that she passed down to me. She painted those eggs and carrots many years ago!

This is probably one of my favorite decorations! I just love this little bunny. Another one that my mom gave to me. I just finished him off with Easter grass and a few of those ceramic eggs.

Friday, when I was out running errands, I stopped by Williams Sonoma and picked up some cute spring colored towels since I couldn't find the Easter ones that I had bought at Ross.

While I was there, I splurged on this cute little spatula! I paid too much for it, but I thought it was cute!

We ate a great lunch of pork roast with carrots, celery and onions, honey ham and hickory smoked ham, okra & tomatoes, black eyed peas, mashed potatoes, white rolls, buttermilk cornbread, deviled eggs, pea salad, and a garden salad. Oh, everything was so delicious but now I have so many leftovers in my fridge!!!

After everyone finished lunch, we headed outside so that Matthew could hunt for Easter eggs!

Of course, he had so much fun!

The loot! He is a professional egg hunter now. He has hunted eggs at school, church, Aunt Morgan's house, at his great-grandma's house and then at home on Sunday. This year, he got 5 Easter baskets! I guess it's nice to be the only grandchild sometimes! :)

Coco also got an Easter basket. Hers was filled with a frog toy, a giant flower toy, a cute little shirt, a cute spring jacket and a couple of Greenies. Here she is in her Easter dress. A couple of weeks ago, Darren dropped her off to be groomed about 10 one morning and I didn't get to go pick her up until about 5:30. She was shaking and ready to go home but they said that she was wonderful and well behaved, so I splurged and bought her this cute dress! She LOVED it!

Coco and Matt together! They LOVE playing together and completely wear each other out. They both sleep REALLY well after a day together. And my Easter wreath! Ok, this is after the door had been opened and closed about 100 times. I forgot to take a before picture. As you can tell - there are a few places that didn't get enough hot glue! I will have to go back and fix that before I put it up. I saw similar wreaths that I just loved for about $50 and I couldn't bring myself to spend that much. I wanted a cute wreath for about $10, and guess what...I did it! I got enough materials for 2 wreaths but only had time to make one. Nonetheless, I spent about $21 so each wreath cost me a mere $10.50! Isn't that wonderful? I'm not that great at tutorials so I will let you go on over to Crafty Sisters and read about how to make it over there. I told you they had great ideas!

We had a wonderful Easter celebration and I am already getting ideas of some new things I want to make for next year! I hope you all had a wonderful one and were able to spend it with family and friends!

The Tour

I know I've been saying I'd post pictures of the house, here they are...



The (circle) drive up to the house.



The front of the house



The living room, from the front door.



The living room, from the sunroom.



From the hallway, looking into the kitchen.



The kitchen



The dining room



The Master bedroom



The guest bedroom



The office



The laundry room



And the back of the house!

So far, we're really enjoying being here and Coco loves getting to run around out here!

I love...

I love that I can leave the garage door up without fear of all of our stuff being stolen. I love that no one is going to send me a letter if I have décor in my yard, if my grass is a little high or if I change the landscaping without written notice. I love that I feel comfortable sleeping with the windows open. I love that Coco can run and bark and play and not bother a soul. I love that I don’t have to lock my door, if I don’t want to. I love that in the middle of the day, you can hear birds singing and crickets chirping. I love that I can have people over without fear that their cars will block the street or our music will be too loud. I love that people wave when they pass you on the road. I love that I wake up to deer feeding in my “yard”. I love that we have bunnies and squirrels instead of stray cats and dogs. I love that I don’t have salespeople knocking at my door. I love that I have neighbors that drop off fruits and vegetables from their gardens. I love that at night; you can look up and see stars instead of buildings and smog. I love that a rooster tells me when it’s time to get up in the mornings. I love that I can stand in the bathroom, fresh out of the shower without fear that a neighbor will see me through the window. I love that whether I go to the grocery store, the post office, the bank or out to eat, I’m sure to run into someone I know that’s just dying to tell me all about something. I love that when I make homemade preserves, everyone else is just as excited as I am. I love that even though I’ve been gone for three years, it doesn’t feel like any time has passed at all. I love that people don’t call to check to see if you are home, they already know you’re schedule and stop by just to say hello. But mainly, I just love living in the country (again).

Quick & Healthy Dinner!

In a rush to get out of the house in the morning, I don’t always remember to lay something out for dinner, so I try to keep a few things in the house that I can throw together relatively quickly. A few years ago, I came up with the easiest “quick” dinner and it’s delicious and healthy and a friend of mine suggested that I share it on here, so that's what I'm doing... I pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees, and then I take 4 Tilapia fillets (still frozen) out of their individual packages and lay them in a small casserole dish. I then take Wish-Bone Balsamic Breeze Spritzer and spray them liberally, about 15-20 squirts. Then I take a little bit of salt and sprinkle over the top and then liberally pepper them. Once the oven is heated, I stick them in for 20 minutes. And that’s it! The dressing bakes on to the top of the fish and the extra makes a little sauce in the bottom. I then heat up a Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice, Long Grain & Wild Rice package that takes only 90 seconds! It’s easy and delicious and I have dinner ready in about 20 minutes! Let me give you a quick run-down on the facts: A (4 ounce) Tilapia fillet has about 93 calories, and 1 gram of fat (as stated here). The Wish-Bone dressing has 10 calories and 1 gram of fat in 10 sprays (we used 20, but divided into 4, that’s 5 squirts per fillet). The rice has 220 calories and 3 grams of fat in the entire bag (which is 2 servings). If you eat 1 fillet with 5 squirts of dressing, you are looking at 98 calories and 1.5 grams of fat. Then, you can have a cup of rice for 110 calories and 1.5 grams of fat. Right now, we are at 208 calories and 3 grams of fat for dinner. Pair that with a salad or some veggies and you have yourself a healthy, quick, delicious and filling meal! PS: I normally do not like the taste of Balsamic anything, but this flavor is light - not overpowering.

I hope you try it out and love it as much as we do!

Priorities

Because I am a top-notch prioritizer (and if that isn’t a word, it should be), I have spent this week using my “extra” time, if there is such a thing, to search every corner of the internets for the perfect double curtain rod, with no success. I am a lot sad about that. Mainly, because I am a world-class googler. I mean, I have had compliments on my ability to find ANYTHING on the Google. I. Mean. Anything. So the fact that I can’t find the perfect curtain rod has pretty much rained on my Google parade. I am looking for something that will accommodate a 66” window, that already has decorative finials on it, that will go with my Tuscan décor that is cheap. I mean like $30 or less cheap. I don’t even care what color it is because my new motto is “just spray paint it”. I haven’t actually acted on said motto, but I will. It’s my second priority. You know, right after finding the curtain rod. Or wait, maybe it’s my third. After finding my curtain rod and finishing that Route 44 drink. Like I said, top-notch prioritizer. The rest of my extra time has been spent contemplating my Easter décor. I have pretty much decided that it’s going to start and end with a new Easter wreath, which I am also having a hard time finding. Mainly because I want a gorgeous wreath with speckled eggs and such for the lowly price of about $5.99. I know, I know – I’m cheap. I can’t help it. I didn’t used to be this way, I think it’s a side effect of marriage. So, on the top of my “To Do” list is to make my own Easter wreath. I saw one on the Internets today.

What do y’all think? I really like it and I think it will be pretty cheap to make. I’m just trying to figure out if making it should be above or below unpacking on my list of priorities! :) Hope your week has been more successful than mine!

Happy Monday!

Happy Monday folks! It’s a dreary, gloomy day here in Southeast Texas. It’s been windy and raining all day and from what the weather man says, should be this way most of the week. Everyone’s moods seem to be mimicking the weather and all I want to do is take a nap! I hope that my energy level increases sometime soon or this is going to be a really unproductive week. I don’t have any pictures to update with. I finally unearthed my camera but apparently didn’t pack batteries in the same box and I can’t find any in the whole darn house and I forget to buy them every time I go to the store which has been exactly zero times since we moved into the new house. Except for that trip I made to CVS last week to pick up a lint roller and that totally doesn’t count as a shopping trip as I spent most of my time in the store, reading how Jake new Vienna was “the one” and other pertinent news stories. I was productive enough this weekend to run errands on Saturday with Darren which included various trips to hardware/home improvement stores while we tried to make a decision about what type of fence to put up for Coco. I don’t feel comfortable putting up one of those electrical doggie fences because she is so small and because that keeps her in but doesn’t keep other animals out and because shocking her every time she tries to “explore” seems really wrong to me. We are looking at wooden fences and metal “fabric” fences and all kinds of nonsense that I really don’t know anything about. I just want a little fence put up so that when she wants to lay out in the sun, I don’t have to stand out there and watch her laying in the grass. I want her to have some sense of freedom, but you know – in a caged in way, where she can’t go anywhere that hasn’t already been deemed appropriate by me – kind of like an outdoor prison. That sounds just lovely, doesn’t it? On a completely different note – we stopped by Sonic to get a drink on the way home from Lowe’s, because what is a trip into “town” without a Sonic drink? And you have to answer me this…why is it that I can never, ever even get close to finishing a Route 44 drink but I can finish a large without a problem? I mean, it’s getting to the point where it’s almost a challenge. I don’t want to go to bed until I finish it, which never happens but it’s not because I haven’t tried! As you can tell, we had a very exciting weekend! It’s not every day you get to write a post about electrocuting your dog and Sonic drinks! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

We're Moving!

I just wanted to let you all know that I am alive and well over here. Well, I can at least say I’m alive. I haven’t been “well” this week. I managed to make it to the doctor yesterday and was diagnosed with a severe sinus infection and two ear infections! Yuck! I believe that the medicine is starting to do its thing and I am feeling some relief today. I’m hoping to be back to normal in the next couple of days, seeing as we’re moving! Yep, The Fountains have packed up and are movin’ to the country! Our “big move” is this weekend. We have tried to gradually move some things in to the new house over the last month, but have waited until this weekend to get all the big stuff and appliances over. In the meantime we’ve had the carpet cleaned and stretched, the propane tank filled, cable ordered and the electric turned on, so we’re in business. We are going to lease this house for a year or two, with the option to buy, if we are interested. It’s a one story, ~2,300 sq. ft. house that was built in 1994. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a dining room, large office with a separate entrance, a sunroom, walk in closets and pantry, a large kitchen with double ovens and a huge island and a large mud/laundry room. It has tons of storage space and lots of solid wood built ins. It also has a 3 car garage with its own storage closet, attic and half bath that all sit nicely on 2 acres. If we are interested, we would have the option to buy more land. But between you and me, I don’t know that our pocket book will allow it. Land is expensive around here and even at a discounted price of $15,000/acre; we might have to pass it up for lack of funds. Anyhow, we are super excited for this new adventure. This house is just a couple of miles down the road from the house that I grew up in. It will be about 35 extra miles each way, to work, but I think that the peace and quiet and the extra room will definitely be worth it. Coco is super excited about all the extra space to run and play. We have taken her out to the house twice, to help her get used to everything and let her run and sniff. She ran and ran and jumped and played, so we think that she will be right at home there. She’s a country girl at heart. We haven’t been up to much else these last few weeks – just trying to get things ready for the move. Wish us luck this weekend!

Coming up the driveway

Past the garage and up the circle drive

Front of the house

I’ll post an update and more pictures once we get in!