The Best Things in Life are Not Things....

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Rylan Turns 5!

Tonight's post is dedicated to my 4th child Rylan James. 5 years ago today he joined our family making us a family of 6. He is a true boy all the way! Loves trucks, Mickey Mouse(not as obsessed as he used to be but still likes him), riding his bike & scooter, getting dirty, jumping on things/off things(scares the crap out of me sometimes lol), Spongebob, Pokemon, his big brother who he follows everywhere), basketball, soccer, baseball, yelling(oh he can be oh so loud at times!), the park, loves to go shopping w/me & is a huge mommy's boy! He has one of the cutest giggles around. Looks just like his daddy, so much that sometimes I call him Mini-Mickey. He loves to sleep in in the mornings which is actually making me nervous for when he starts Kindergarten in Sept. He was my second smallest child weighing in at 6 lbs 11 ounces. I miss him being a tiny little baby & wish sometimes I could go back & visit those times. Time definitely flies by and I wish it would slow down just a little! And now onto a few pics of him over the years...

1 day old

Me holding him for the first time.

1 years old.

2 years old.

3 years old.

4 years old.

And today, 5 years old.

His birthday party is on Sunday so I will post pictures either Sunday night or on Monday!

Have a great night!

Allison

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Cool Whip Cookies

Tonight I am going post one of my favorite cookie recipes. I first discovered this recipe right before Christmas of 2012 off of Pinterest. I absolutely LOVE & am addicted to Pinterest! I have found so many yummy recipes off of there. That year we had decided to start our own tradition of having a Christmas Eve bash! Well I knew I wanted to make a huge tray of cookies for our dessert. We make so many apps, ton of food, plus family & friends will also bring dishes that I figured we wouldn't need a ton of other desserts. People are usually so full that it's sometimes nice to just have a coffee/tea/hot chocolate & a few cookies. I have a sweet tooth so baking is something I love to do. But having 5 kids running around, I also like "quick & easy" recipes! And let me tell you when I saw this 4 ingredient, yes 4 ingredients, I knew I had to try it!

Cool Whip Cookies

Red Velvet Cool Whip Cookies

Prep Time: 15 min.
Cook: 8 min.
About 24 cookie

Ingredients

*1 package (18.25 oz box) cake mix, ANY kind.
*1 cup cool whip
*1 whole large egg
*1 cup powdered sugar

Preparation

Set oven to 350 degrees

Mix all ingredients, except powdered sugar. Put powdered sugar into a small bowl. Roll a spoonful of dough in the powdered sugar. Place on cookie sheet and bake for about 8 minutes.

Like I said earlier, try any flavor you want. So far I have done, Lemon, Strawberry, Chocolate & Red Velvet. My family liked Lemon the best!

Lemon Cool Whip Cookies

Now go on try them you won't be sorry!

ALLISON

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Tag Sale/Thrift Store Finds

     Good evening!

     I've had a pretty exciting couple of weeks as far as some great deals! My husband & I love going to thrift stores & tag sales. There is also a group on Facebook I belong to which is a local tag sale site that I have sold/bought things off of. There is nothing better than the thrill you get when you find a great deal! I hate spending a lot of money on household things when we have 5 kids, I mean why spend a lot when there is a chance of it getting ruined?!
      My first find was our new buffet for our dining room which I did a post about here. The before & after is pretty good for my first time, not with painting but with staining.

                                                                      BEFORE

AFTER

Next was "our new to us" dining room table. The man was selling it for $100, I offered $60 & he took it! I was practically jumping up & down. This table is huge! Which is what I obviously need with our big family. There is a leaf on each end that tucks right into the table itself! No trying to figure out where to store extra leaves. Here it is:

This baby goes out to 9 feet long! Both the hubby & I have big families so this will be great for parties/holidays! Pretty nice huh?! Now I just need to find 8 chairs to go with it....

Next up is this cute sign I found at a local used furniture store. It had no price tag on it so I asked how much and she said how about $12? I said sold! This sign is solid, real heavy. I am in love with the old farmhouse style kitchens so this will be great for my kitchen/dining room!

These were all found at our local goodwill. We didn't buy them all at once. We have been slowly collecting them & found 2 more the other day. We are just trying to figure out what to do/make with them. Any ideas would be great!

This tin can with the fake sunflowers are also from the goodwill. $2.29 is what I paid! It was pretty worn so I just gave it a fresh coat of silver spray paint.

The other day my hubby was walking home from work, (he works down the street from our house) and one of the ladies in our neighborhood was having a tag sale. This is what he found:

This little crate was .25 but she just gave it too us. Isn't it so cute!?

And last but not least was this great piece of furniture for, ready? $10!!

I've already got it all sanded down. It's kind of rickety being that it's pretty old, so my FIL is going to bring me a couple clamps so I can glue it in a few loose spots before I stain it. This will be going in our kitchen and I'm thinking of getting some cute book ends to use with my cookbooks to store on the bottom shelf & I think the top will be our coffee station. What do you think? So, that is it, I'd say we did pretty darn good!
                                              Have a great night!


                                      Linking up to DIY By Design

                                                                    ALLISON

Monday, July 14, 2014

Simple Things Sunday - Morning Walk

Hello all!

Tonight's post I'm linking up Rebecca's blog,

Simple As That

for her Sunday linky party,

Simple Things Sunday

This is my first one since I started my blog back up a few days ago.

I used to faithfully link up almost every Sunday.

This one is definitely one of my favorite parties because of the meaning behind it. Life can be busy and you can forget to sit back & enjoy the simple things.

I do have a small confession though about my picture. It's not actually from this week, it's from a couple weeks ago.

But I just HAD to share this one because of how sweet it is! I hope you will agree!

My kids LOVE going for walks.

This was of my 2 youngest, Rylan & Leah.

A few minutes into the walk Leah reached for Rylan's hand.

And this is how we walked for almost the entire time, she wasn't letting him go.

Moments like this make my heart melt!

Have a great night!

Allison

Saturday, July 12, 2014

My Gallery Wall

Gallery walls are one of my favorite things to see in people's houses. We have been in this house for 3 1/2 years now & have wanted to do one for quite a while now. I actually had one in our apartment before this house. I guess being a photographer & obsessed with taking/displaying pictures is most likely the reason it's one of my favorite things. I knew I wanted to do it on the wall going up our stairs to the second floor. I actually had started it like 5 months ago & finally just finished it a couple weeks ago. I decided to have all the frames be either black or white. We have tan walls so those 2 colors really pop. Most of the frames I already had except for a few which I just picked up at the Goodwill. Most of the black frames were already black but as far as the white ones I had to spray paint those. Have you ever tried to buy white frames? They are definitely not as popular in the stores as black ones. It's ok with me though because I love to spray paint! And now for the pics! I took a lot but it's because of the wall on the other side it can be tricky to take pictures.

I LOVE how it came out! My kids love to look at all the pictures too. Sooo what do you all think? Hope you enjoyed checking out my gallery wall! Have a good night!

Allison

Friday, July 11, 2014

Dining Room Buffet Makeover!

Hello all!

Tonight I will be sharing with you all my buffet makeover. We used to have this huge hutch in our dining room which I loved but it was just way too big. I decided about a year ago I needed a change and decided to sell it. Well we finally were able to sell it about 3 weeks ago. Yay! I was so excited to be able to have more room in our dining room. I immediately started looking for buffets. I lucked out last week & found one. On Facebook there is a group I belong to called Berkshire Tag Sales. It's a group started by a local man for people to buy/sell instead of always having to have an actual tag sale. Anyway, last week I was going through the page & found a woman trying to get rid of an old buffet. And the best part is it was only $20!! I pounced on that deal as fast as I could that's for sure! I picked it up that day. Here it is, the BEFORE.

When I told my husband he was just as excited as I was! I told him I wanted to try stripping the top of it, stain it, paint the bottom white & paint the handles black. He was cool with whatever I decided to do. Here is a pic of the top all sanded down. My FIL brought me an electric sander to use, let me just say I love it! So much easier then doing it by hand.

Sanded down even more & bottom all primed.

I ended up doing 1 coat of primer & 3 coats of white paint on the bottom. For the top I used a red mohagany stain then did 4 coats of poly. The handles were obviously the easiest part because I just spray painted them black.

And here it is the AFTER!

Here are a few more views...

I finished it yesterday morning and the hubby & I carried it last night. Once I got up this morning I filled it right up with my tablecloths, napkins & china. So then of course I needed to decorate the top of it. This is what I came up with: