Taste of Home Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

I often get asked if I miss working since Molly came along... People are often shocked to hear that I do (I'm a little shocked myself actually). Truth is, I had a pretty sweet job. Getting to cook with high school kids all day had its ups and downs but overall it was awesome and I really miss those little rascals. One of the great parts of the job was trying out countless recipes to see which ones fit best with the curriculum but also would taste really good.

I haven't made this in awhile but we would make it in foods 30 for the yeast bread module. It was a bit difficult to do in one class but we used a proofer to spead up the rising process and more often than not it turned out really well. I don't know what made me think about it today but I think I might hafta whip some up soon!

The recipe can be found here

Painting Mania

Alrighty, here are my newest painting adventures.  I am really poor on the before and after pics which sucks because I want to remember how everything looked before but I'm trying to get better.

First off our coffee table project.  I found a wood table stored away in Dads shed.  It had been there for about 2 or 3 years and had some bird poop and cob webs on it but after cleaning, sanding, priming and painting, here's what it looks like:

Colour: Benjamin Moore Blue Nose

I've never really been a fan of blue so I thought it was a pretty bold move for me.  After a tiny freak out after the first coat I've gotten used to it and I think it adds a lot of character to our fairly neutral living room.  

Next, we headed to the bathroom upstairs where I had picked out a reddish orange colour.  Again, really excited but i am a huge fan of neutrals so I was scared... especially because the wet paint looked a bit more bright orange than I hoped for.

Here's a few before shots of the bathroom colour (not the greatest pics, i know):

and here are some after shots... i LOVE this colour.  I'm trying to think of everything I could possibly paint this colour:)

Benjamin Moore "Rust"

I thought the colour matched the orangey red colour in the curtain so good which is what I wanted to happen.  The second pic you get a bit of an idea of how the colour looks with the countertop

and here's what these two were doing while I was taking pics of the finished projects... aren't they cute:)

Did it!

So, we got the door in the kitchen painted (Benjamin Moore, thicket).  It took me awhile to love it (as it does with anything i do) but now I'm all about it.  I'm even thinking of doing some stencilling with the rest of the green paint on the opposite wall in the kitchen

Here's a close-up

... and here it is from the other side of the room.  kinda hard to get a great pick with the sun but you get the idea

oh, and here are the colours we bought for a few new projects.  'Blue Nose' for the coffee table in the living room (which is done by the way but I just have to get around to taking some pics).  The other colour is 'Rust' by Benjamin Moore and it is going in Molly's bathroom tomorrow:)  We've also got a few random stepping stools that might get painted along with the bench in the pic below.  

Just to keep up with my New Years resolutions I thought I'd post some stuff we've been doing on the house

I love our little "labour of love home".  We have so much fun dreaming up things to do to it and I am so lucky to have a husband who encourages and helps me paint and decorate and organize and re-purpose old crappy furniture over and over again.  

Mason jar candle holder


We decided to have a bit of a "do it yourself" Christmas decoration year.  Basically we weren't aloud to spend any money on Christmas decorations.  I have a rule that I'm only aloud to buy Christmas decorations AFTER Christmas when they're 75% off so that kinda puts a bit of a damper on the Christmas decorating but it makes you get creative

Here are our Mason Jars that we decorated with some ribbon I got from Costco last year.  Just glued the ribbon with a glue gun and threw a tea light inside and that was that

Christmas paper creation

I'm actually not even sure what to call this but Nelson took some strips of leftover wrapping paper once a few gifts were were wrapped and he rolled them up and stuck them in this glass jar and there you have it... a "wrapping paper jar thingy"

Decorative Clothespins

First of all I did these a long time ago after finding the idea on Young House Love.  They're sweet to hang pics from and I plan on doing them in Molly's play room with letters from the alphabet once I get around to decorating it.  These are currently hanging in my office/sewing room and if the room was even somewhat tidy there would be a better view of where they are but a closeup was the safest thing to do.  

The paper and yellow ribbon are from Michaels.  Clothespins from the dollar store and a regular ol' gluestick was used to paste paper onto the clothespins

Framing the thermostat

I got this idea from Pinterest and it was the sweetest thing ever to jazz up our thermostat.  The frame is from here.  All we had to do was cut out the back with an exacto-knife and throw it on the wall... awesome!

Here's a little perspective of what it looks like in the house.

Wall Gallery

I finally got around to putting up my very first wall gallery.  We love it:)

Here are the 3 lonely frames I had in this space originally:

Here are the frames we added.  The original 3 frames were from Homesense and the black frames are from Ikea.  The extra white frame is also Ikea

Here's a different angle

close-up shot of a few pics developed from Hawaii and some free printables I  developed at Costco

Printables

I've been quite a regular user of the Costco photo centre lately.  I printed out these prints and framed them for the kitchen.  Frames are from Ikea and prints were found on a lengthly "free printable" search on the web and unfortunately I have no idea where the tree came from now but the Subway art is from here

Fabric

Last but not least I picked up this super awesome Amy Butler shower curtain from Bed Bath and Beyond.  It was regular 50$ but on sale for 13$... yeah!!   I LOVE the pattern and I'm going to make it into two small curtains for the openings to the tunnel in the playroom.  

Yesterday I finally got around to painting our door in the kitchen and Nels is at the paint store right now getting some paint for the upstairs bathroom and the coffee table in the living room... Hopefully I'll have time to post pics of those things in a few days.

You know what is lovely?

... staying in a beach house in Hawaii with my family and dressing Molly up in cute sundresses in the middle of winter and playing paddle ball while Molly sleeps and going for day trips to the North shore and going back to our honeymoon spots at Waikiki.

we have a great life.

a shout out to Grandma Penner who has been with Jesus now for 1 year and 3 months and who made this trip possible because she is one of the most generous people i have ever known.  I am so grateful for her and that she met Nelson and that they had a liking for one another.  We will tell Molly all about her when she is old enough:)

money management resolutions

Ok... its New Years Eve and I'm all packed and ready for our trip tomorrow and Nels has Molly at my parents for probably another 1/2 hour:)

So here's my second (and probably not my last) set of resolutions for this year.

First of all I'd like to start out by saying that I think Nels and I have done fairly well this year as far as money goes.  Building a house is EXPENSIVE and its hard not to want to furnish and decorate right away.  To start out I'd like to list the ways we have saved money.  We can pat ourselves on the back for the following:

1. We are not in debt trouble whatsoever and I even managed to finish paying off my student loan this year... Wahoo!!

2. The only new piece of furniture we bought for our house was the kitchen table which we got for a fairly decent deal from Home Furnishings in Olds (same place we got our cabinets which we are SUPER happy with).  

notice the 3 chairs... thats why painting the rest of our chairs is on my DIY resolution list:)

3. Along with building a house, having a baby is NOT CHEAP but we got all of our baby furniture, stroller etc... off of kijiji for a fraction of the price new stuff would cost.  Thanks to great family and friends as well who showered us with gifts (video monitor from Nels' family and the most comfy rocker you ever will sit in from my mom just to name a few) we really didn't have to shell out a load of dough.  

beginning stages of decorating Molly's room

4. Most of the art I have in our house was FREE or super cheap.  Thanks to a bunch of free printables I found on the internet like the one below as well as Costco for their SUPER inexpensive developing for a few family pics I developed.

5. I have even tried my hand at DIYing with this mobile I made for Molly's room (out of paper from Michaels and some sort of twine wire stuff.  Speaking of DIYing, Nels contracted all of the trades out for our house which saved some money b/c we could shop around, he's also currently working on completing the finishing work on the house.  He's done the hardwood floor, tile, kitchen ceiling, railings, hung doors, built the deck, and (mostly) finished the soffits himself.  We also painted the majority of the house ourselves (thanks to Dad and Frank for helping with the tricky parts).   

Ok, now for the things we could do better.  Upon reading this post from Young House Love I would like to keep MUCH closer track of our spending.  I"m talking put cash in envelopes for groceries, spending, household items etc... and when the cash is gone thats it for the month.  

To be more specific I'd like to:

1. Keep closer track of food bills and add of receipts all month to see how much we really spent. 

2.  Make cheap meatless dinners at least once a week.  Plan meals in advance so we know what we need for groceries

3.  Put NOTHING on credit cards... if we don't have cash for it, we don't buy it.  

4.  Finish projects I already have the materials for instead of starting new stuff

5.  Be patient and enjoy the wonderful PROCESS that building our house has been.  Look back at the progress we have made often and pat ourselves on the back

6. Go to Calgary LESS.  

7. Grocery shop locally and stay the heck out of the mall:) (not too hard seeing as how I seem to hate the mall after having a baby anyway!)

8. Enjoy our awesome little family and friends every moment we can by entertaining in our house instead of going out

Is it too early for resolutions?!?

So I tend to get very inspired when I see peoples' houses (like Lori and Tims) or spend hours on pinterest, or just look around our awesome home and dream about things I'd like to do.  The problem is I don't always follow through with my inspirations so I am going to commit to a few things right here and I will also document them on my blog and heck, maybe even start a board and pin them onto pinterest.

1. paint door in kitchen
2. paint door in living room
3. paint outside door (perhaps both sides)
4. spray paint mirror for guest bedroom
5. spray paint magazine rack for office
6. refinish old coffee table
7. hang photo collage
8. sew valances
9. sew curtains for playroom
10. finish painting chairs for kitchen

So there we go, 10 resolutions already.  Can't wait to make the rest of them:)

oh, and here's a pic of my best buddy and I on Christmas day.  he is working very hard to put baseboards and trim up in the house and he lets me dream up all kinds of crazy and awesome things to do to the house.