Around the Yard

Well, just like everyone else, we too in KC are experiencing warmer than usual weather. It is forcing all of our spring flowering trees and bushes bloom about 4 weeks ahdead of scheduled so I thought I would share some pics of our yard with you.



Here are pics of the lilac bush in our front/side yard. Its a younger plant so its not very tall yet but it gets a good amount of blooms. I just {LOVE} the smell and want to cut fresh flowers to bring them in but I'm afraid I will hurt it so I don't cut any. LOL

This next picture is of our Cleveland Pear tree. It was in full bloom a week ago and I was hoping it would last a few days longer but we got a lot of ran and it washed a lot of the petals off the trees....but they were so beautiful when they were in bloom! I love that we have one right outside of our dining room window too. Kudos for the man for placing this tree in that spot! :)

Then of course there is my birdbath. There she sits! Alone ready for a makeover! I think this is the year she gets one too! Last year I wasn't sure about what I wanted around it but this year I have something in mind, so we'll see. I may post pics later of this one. Maybe do a before and after. :)

I also want to add some landscaping to this side of the yard as well. It is partially sunny/partially shaded so there is a lot we can do with it and I'm itching to get started!

Then of course last but not least...my absolute favorite....RED TULIPS! Love em and every year when they bloom they make me happy with their upright bright red flowers, dancing a round celebrating Spring. My favorite by far!

So there is a little trip around our yard. We have a lot of work to do on our landscaping and pretty soon we will be starting our garden. I'm so glad Spring is finally here!

Jennifer

Easy Mexican One Dish Casserole

The man and I had both worked late and it was that awkward time where you're in between visits to the grocery store but we were hungry and I wanted to cook something fast and good but knew I had to work with what I had (until going to the grocery store later in the week). In our home we love mexican food and it seems to be the thing we turn to when we want something easy and good so I grabbed the ingredients I had to work with and got busy making dinner. Here's what I used:

2 boneless/skinless chicken breasts
1 roll of croissants
1 bag of frozen "southwest mix veggies" (corn, blackbeans, red peppers, oninon, etc.)
1 pkg of chicken taco seasons.....this is important-must use the seasoning specifically for chicke but any taco season would do if you had to
Jalepenos
Shredded cheddar and motzerella cheeses
Garnish with sour cream and/or salsa

To start, line your baking dish with the croissant dough.
(no need to be fancy just use your fingers to cover the bottom and form the dough into a crust so that it goes a little bit up the side of the dish and can hold your mixture you are about to make)

Then cut your chicken into small cubes and brown in pan. Once the chicken is fully cooked add your seasoning packet, the frozen veggies, some jalepeno, and mix together so that your mixture looks like such:

Once everything is mixed and warmed up just fill your dough lined baking dish and spread mixture out evenly:

Then pop in the oven at 375 until the dough is browned around the edges and everything looks done. Then take out and top with cheese and put back in for about 10 more minutes to melt the cheese.
When its done it should look like this:

After that just cut it out in squares, like you would serve a piece of cake, an top with a dallop of sour cream and add more jalepenos and salsa if you like a kick, and dig in! It was mmm, mmmm, good!

I am pleased how this turned out considering I was only using what we had and making it on the fly. We {LOVED} this casserole!....it turned out to be one of our favs so I hope you give it a try!

Jennifer

The Thrill of the Hunt

Most girls love to go shopping and buy things;things they see in windows, on display, things they think would look good on them or in their house, but for me, shopping is more about the thrill of the hunt. It could be described as being similiar to a pirate searching for long lost treasures as sea. Sometimes I know what I am looking for and other times (most of the time) I don't. And that my friends is the funnest part of the hunt. I love being out and about and stopping at garage sales, thrift stores, antique malls, etc. on the fly and then discovering all sorts of things that spark my creativity. This weekend my BFF and I took a road trip to small town about 2 1/2 hours outside of KC go see a friend and celebrate her bachelorette party. Small towns are notoriuous for the best antiquing so once we arrived I had to hit the downtown square and visit the local antique mall. Here are some of the fabulous finds that were inside:

An old pink phone I couldn't resist getting a picture of. I was tempted to buy it but we don't have a land line so I passed, but I think this phone would look great in a shabby chic bedroom or in a young girls room.

And then there she was. Out of all the old dishes, frames, and textiles, there she lies....and old chicken coop! I wanted this piece soooo bad but there was no room for it in the car so again, I passed on it but I just HAD to get a picture of it. I had thoughts of using it as a base for a table outside on the patio.......but she didn't make it back to KC unfortunately! LOL

Its funny because once I discovered the chicken coop, the next thing that caught my eye was this rooster. Tall and proud he stood! I envisioned this guy with a new paint job proudly representin' the french country style in my kitchen.

Of course no trip to the antique mall would be complete without being mesmerized by the blue and white transferware. I think thats what these are but either way, the blue and white is always a winner for french country lovers and I thought these worked nicely with Mr. Rooster.

At the end of the day I ended up leaving empty handed...primarily because of lack of space in the car, but what I really had my heart set on this whole trip was getting a new purse. Mine had broken in January and I had been carrying around a standard black purse since then and was SO ready for a new Spring purse and low and behold.....I found her!!! She was there across the street from the antique mall...one lonely turquoise lover in a sea of red and green purses. I had to have her so I snatched her up and got a coordinating wallet too! and I {LOVE} them both!

Spring has SpRung so as you get out and about this month, enjoy the thrill of YOUR hunt and please share your treasures with the rest of us. I am ALWAYS so excited to see what you guys are discovering out there!!!

Jennifer

Oreo LOVE!

Well its no suprise, I {love} chocolate therefore Oreos are one of my favorite cookies. I prefer the double stuffed too! {YUM}! If you are like me you had no idea that there was such a thing as oreo pudding/pie mix in the Jello aisle at the grocery store until recently. And once I discovered this I had to try it so here is what I made....I call it Oreo pie and it is mmmmm.mmmmmm.GOOD!

Its very simple....I like simple because I'm busy and I know you are too so I try to keep the recipies I share with you simple and affordable yet GOOD, and this one is definately all three of these things!

1 box of Jello brand Oreo pudding (no they are not paying me to say this)
1 3/4 C. of milk
(mix box of jello mix with milk and wisk or beat with mixer)

Your mixture will look like this at first then it will even out and start to stiffen up like traditional Jello instant pudding-

In a separte pan or pie plate crumble up your Oreos with your hands(nothing fancy folks) and line the bottom of your pan with the Oreos as such-

Then pour your Oreo mixture over the crumbles and top with more Oreo cookie crumbles then {VIOLA!} Instand gratification!

We got home late from work tonight so I had a bite of this right away but the rest went into the fridge to chill over night and fully set up.

Variations:
You can get fancy with this and drizzle choc syrup over the top, serve in desert cups with a dallop of whiped cream on top, or top with some choch chips. The possibilities are endless with a little imagination and it is SSSOOOO YUMMY!

This would be the prefet desert to make on the fly when you have people coming over this summer or when you're like me and just need a chocolate fix!!! :)

Enjoy!
Jennifer


Im Linking Up To:

Also linking to Ms.Hines Class linky party-
http://mrshinesclass.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/show-tell-no-14/

How to Make A Bird's Nest

As I was pulling out all of my Spring decor, I remembered that I had a birds nest somewhere packed away BUT as my luck would have it I could not find it for anything! So....I did what any thrifty chick would do...{IMPROVISE}!
As I was going thru my craft supplies I found an old miniature grapevine wreath then my creativity was sparked and the rest was history!

So, here's what you'll need to make your nest:


*Mini-grapevine wreath
*Handful of spanish moss
*Twigs from your yard
*Bird eggs/bird/or any other embelishment you desire

First start with your base which I recommend being a deep plate, shallow bowl, or pedestal like the one I have shown here.

 

 
 

Next take a small handful of spanish moss and plop it right on the top of the wreath and push it to the side so that the bulk of the moss curves a long the shape of the wreath.

Then start adding in your filler (the twigs) until you get the desired look, then add your bird, eggs, or whatever embelishments you want to add. I wanted the look of eggs but had to {IMPROVISE} with that too by using the robins egg malt ball candy. YES, I used CANDY! LOL ....and I'm happy how it turned out.

Here is the finished product-

And the final product with everything put together-

 

 

I hope that you too have fun with this like I did and keep it simple and "cheep". Maybe let your kids pick out the twigs from the yard so they can be a part of it too. I love how these look and plan to make a couple more..some with less spanish moss and more twigs though. Birds nests are essential to Spring decor so I hope you can make them and enjoy decorating with them like I do.

-Jennifer

I'm linking up with the following:



SpRing has SpRung!

I recently used my 40% off coupon at HobLob to purchase a set of two canvases with the intentions of painting them and creating artwork for my bathroom. Well, before I could decide on what I wanted to paint, I decided I would rather use them for Spring decorating. So, I used what I had, which was a few floral stems and some ribbon, and I came up with this:

(excuse the bad lighting-click on image to see larger)

I fell in {LOVE} with it so I am going to suprise you with an Easter themed canvas in the near future too. But for now, I have my spring canvas ready to adorn the rest of my spring decor....as soon as I get it all out and placed...its a work in grogress right now! :)

For this canvas, the following supplies are needed:

Blank canvas
Flor stem (color and size of your choice)
Die cuts, scrapbook paper, construction paper etc.
(I used scrapbook paper an my Cricut)
Hot glue
Glue stick
Wide ribbon and skinny ribbon (color of your choice)
And any other embelishments you chose

Then begin by marking off the bottom of the canas wth wide ribbon. I chose green and white polka dot satin wired ribbon and I cut it so that just a little hung off the edges and I wrapped it around and used gluestick to secure the flaps to the back of the canvas, like so-

Then I cut the floral stem and inserted it down under the ribbon and hot glued it in place.

After that I cut letters out of the scrapook paper with my Cricut, glued them to the canvas in a whymiscal pattern with a glue stick and used a flower petal for the dot above the letter "i" or a little embellishing. Oh, and for your letters....some prefer symetry with their wording, but I prefer whimsy...again, your choice. With a project like this, anything goes!

Then I cut out a little vinyl hot pink birdie with a tiara and attached her to the top for some cuteness and tied a soft pink ribbn around the base of the foral stem to cap it off.

And {VOILA}! Instant spring decor!

Here is aother view with it on top of my mantel-

And here is the canvas in the bathroom on a light green wall.

You can find me this weekend at the following parties:

Candy Popcorn Recipe

Who doesn't love poporn? There are so many ways to prepre it....cinnamon popcorn, cheese, plain, buttered, popcorn balls, kettle corn, etc. You name it you can do it with popcorn! This recipe below is a popcorn recipe that I discovered a few years back that my coworker Vanessa made and brought it in to work for one of our potlucks. I love it so much that I want to share it with you:

Here are the ingredients:

Bag of white Okedoke popcorn (or pop your own)
1 bag of white almond bark
M&Ms and sprinkles

Put your popcorn in a HUGE bowl (big enough to allow for stirring and mixing)

Then all you gotta do is melt the almond bark in a microwave safe bowl for about one or two minutes until all of it is melted and looks like the consistency of cake batter. If you have ever worked with almond bark before you probably already know not to over do it or it will scortch the chocolate.

Then pour it over the popcorn and stir so that all the popcorn is coated with the almond bark.

Then add your M&Ms and sprinkles to your hearts desire, and stir some more, then let sit for 30 minutes while the almond bark cools.

Then VIOLA! Instant {YUMMY} that the hubs AND kids can enjoy!!!! EASY-PEASY!

VARIATIONS:
The best part about this recipe is that if you don't have time to pop the popcorn you can always use the Okedoke AND you can add a special color of M&Ms and sprinkles to fit your occasion.
(red and pink for valentines day,all green for St.Pattys day, red, white, and blue for 4th of July, etc.)
You can also take the popcorn mixture when it is still warm and shape it into what I call popcorn PARTY balls then put the balls on a waxpaper lined cookie sheet to dry. This is my favorite method.

I thank Vanessa for introducing me to this because I really do {LOVE} it, and hope you do too!

Enjoy!

Jennifer

I'm linking up to: