Graduation Night

 Our oldest (well my Step Son) Justin graduated last night. He was extremely happy as we were. He will now move on to become a Combat Medic in the Navy. His bootcamp starts July 13 and from there he will take big steps in becoming a man. From being a little pain in the butt sometimes to this is just amazing to me lol seriously the last 4 years have been very emotional and trying for all of us. We are very proud of the person he has turned into and hope to see him accomplish great things. I got emotional last night, Justin has been "my son" for 17 years..... my husband said "Oh man just wait till Kason Graduates your going to be a full on crying mess!" lol Being that Kason is my/our only biological child together who is 14 right now.

 My babies are growing up and its sad and thrilling at the same time. Soon we as well as them will move into a new phase in life. So proud of you Justin, I truely am very proud of you.

Summer Va-Ca planned!!

 Sorry guys I haven't been crafting or painting this past week. Things get a little crazy as school comes to a close! Like planning the summer family vacation! This year will be.....

 Last time we planned to go there Hurricane Dolly hit 2 days before we were to arrive. So lets pray no rain and no hurricanes the last week in July!
 We have rented a 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 2 kitchen and 2 living room house. Why so big? Well it will be our family, my sisters family and my brothers family. We definately needed the space! Snorkeling, deep sea fishing, parasailing, dolphin watch cruise and a pirate ship cruise. Plus sightseeing and shopping! We are all excited!
 My 15 yr old son will be the only kid above the age of 7. So we decided to let him bring a friend to pal around with. Now I guess I have to go bathing suit shopping :/ I love swimming but hate shopping for a bathing suit!

What are your plans this summer?

Movie Review- Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides

We made a trip to the movies last night and seen the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie On Stranger Tides. The plot kept you interested and over all it was good. I didn't find it as funny as past Pirates movies. Maybe because we have all become so familiar with Captain Jack Sparrow and know how he will react to things going on around him. Don't get me wrong Johnny Depp delivers a great performance as always its just the 4th movie and its becoming predictable.

 This time some new characters are introduced Black Beard (Ian McShane) and his daughter Angelica (Penelope Cruz). Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) returns as does Captain Teague (Keith Richards) who is Jack's father.  Everyone wants to find the Fountain of Youth and of course there are snags in the plans. Plus some challenges in finding items needed to make the water from the fountain actually work. Like a mermaids tear... the mermaid scene was rather good. So pretty and enticing are the mermaids until they turn into piranha.

We also seen the 3D version, let me tell you I use to hate 3D movies. Mainly because it really bothered my eyes. But now with better 3D glasses and the 3D effects in the movie getting even better it was really good. Instead of things coming out at your face you now feel as if your walking along with Jack Sparrow thru a rain forest or standing in the rain. You feel more "in" the movie it works and was great effects.

 Over all we liked it. I give it 5 stars out of 5 stars.

Summer time grillin'

Yes its Tuesday and yes we are grilling today! With the hubby having rotating days off he is off this week Sunday thru Wednesday. So its his weekend so to speak. To begin with the grill wasn't used at all last summer and was stored in the shed. So hubs drags it out and we open it up to find a nice rats nest. Yuck! We got it all vacuumed out and cleaned up but will need another trip to the store for more propane!

We have chicken breast, ribs, sausage and fresh corn on the cob to throw on the grill. I'm making potato salad and fresh fruit cookie pizza to go along with it. The cookie pizza is simple to make and its just really good!

Fresh fruit cookie pizza
You will need:
1 roll sugar cookies
1 pkg cream cheese (softened)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Your choice of fresh fruits. Here I've used strawberries and kiwi's (grapes, blueberries, raspberries, mandarin oranges or whatever you like will work too)

Sprinkle some flour on your work space and unwrap the sugar cookie roll. You might need to knead it a little to get the dough to work into a ball for you. Then using a rolling pin dusted with a little flour roll the dough out very thin but just thick enough that you will be able to roll it up to be moved to the baking sheet. You can roll it up or fold it over and transfer to to your baking sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 7 to 8 mins just until the top is lightly golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely (You have to let it cool completely or the topping will melt off) Don't worry if it puffs up during the cooking process. As the giant cookie cools it will flatten back down.

Topping;
In a mixer blend together softened cream cheese and 1/2 cup powder sugar till smooth and creamy.
Slice up your fruit - you can toss with a little lemon juice to help keep browning away.
Ice your giant cookie with the cream cheese mixture and arrange the fruit all over the top.
Keep chilled till serving.

I forgot to get a picture before everyone dug in.. but you get the idea :)

We then ended the night with a bon fire. Its been a great Tuesday! :)

What I've been up to this week...

 Hello! Hope you have been having a great week. I've been up to my elbows in paint, yet again. I finally tackled the extra bedroom which use to be my step daughters room and looked like this..

She moved back to her moms so now I have a craft room again. Since she had decided on purple "Barney" paint I had to primer then paint. The room is a big mess I've been using it to store just about everything so I moved all the junk to the center of the room and got busy. This is the color now..

  

I got the peg board up on the wall finally to help me organize things better, Lord knows I need it!

The drop cloth canvas curtains I made are up..the patio furniture cushions are in there due to it raining outside among all the other junk everywhere!

This room doesn't have a closet, so I installed a closet organization thingy with some shelves and room to hang winter coats. The black curtain back there hides the A/C system since we haven't built anything to cover it yet. And this room is on hold until I'm finished with the dresser I'll use as additional storage. 

Here its soaking up the Citristrip

Let me tell ya this piece hasn't been easy. There are so many layers of paint.. black, pink, purple and white UGH!! But its coming along. You can spy in the picture above a white chair thats part of the kitchen table set that I'm painting white. I also patched holes and painted the ceiling in the kitchen finally. 

Its been a very productive week so far and its only Wednesday! I'm ready for summer vacation! 16 more school days left for us, which I'm glad because I love summer! Cheers :)

Hard wood flooring for the living room, Hallelujah!

Meet "The Blue Monster" for years it has mocked me with the dirt, stains, smell, worn and torn filth! It was extremely bad, so the next few pictures are not for the faint of heart.. please be advised and look away if you just can't handle something so disgusting!

Remember I did warn you..

I can not believe we have lived with this for so long! 

My Mother's Day present.. New hardwood flooring!!! 

Its sooo pretty!

I think it really makes the room seem bigger. Before your eyes would just stop because of the ugly carpet but now you just want to follow the flow of the wood all the way to the walls.

Thank you to my husband for this gift which took us about 5 hours to complete. We will never fear the Blue Monster ever again! hehe! :)

I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day 

Edit Note--  This was laminate hardwood flooring, yes it was simple to install. We went from one side to the other and made our cuts on the same wall. Total cost was around $350, that included 9 boxes of flooring, 3 rolls of under foam, 7 sticks of border and 3 packages of the flat pieces to divide kitchen floor and the new wood floor (can't remember what its called lol) Will for sure be installing this down the hall and into the master bedroom!

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Monogrammed Plate

At a recent trip to Hobby Lobby I spotted small squarish monogrammed plates for $9.99. Of course they were out of the letter "S". Oh well I thought and ended up at Goodwill and their 50% off everything day and behind a woman with 3, yes 3, carts full of jeans which came to a total of $800 then half of for $400!! Wow, it was crazy in there that day! But while there I looked at the dishes and spotted this little plate and loved the details of it...

So I whip out a black paint marker and went to town 

I used my Cricut and cut out a stencil then filled it in

Here is how it turned out

I had found a few months ago a plate holder $2 at Burke's Outlet it was white so I painted it black

For $2.25 I have a nice addition to the kitchen!

My motto is there is always a cheaper way. It may not present itself that very day but eventually it will!

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Water for Elephants...

I just finished the book "Water for Elephants" and to tell you the truth it was good. It was also fairly easy to read and I finished pretty fast. I can see how they made this into a movie it has a really good story plot and the characters come to life in your mind as you read. Hopefully later this week we can go to the movies and watch it!




(Edit- We ended up watching "Fast Five" and me with a migraine.. needless to say I didn't enjoy it much, but still love ya hunny!)