Another day, another project

Kneaders' French Toast

I really like Kneaders' French toast . . . I love that they offer "all you can eat" when most people never get or finish a second helping of it because it's so sweet and rich and filling. There is no Kneaders in Houston that I am aware of and since I've been on a cooking/crafting kick, I figured it was a good time to try making it.

I made it a couple of weeks ago with store bought cinnamon swirl bread. It was good. How could it not be with Kneaders' delicious caramelly syrup?! This week for my second time attempt I was more ambitious . . . I made the cinnamon swirl bread. I forgot to take pictures of the finished product with syrup but here is my bread.

Can you see the cinnamon sugar all over it?!

Plastic Bag Holder

Every time I come home from the grocery store I am amazed at how many plastic bags I have stuffed under our sink! I decided to do something about it and stuff them somewhere else . . . plus, I have time on my hands waiting for this baby of mine.

I had a very limited amount of the cute orange fabric that was left over from making my sister Jenni's Christmas present last year but wanted to use it. Yes, I do realize that I can buy a yard of fabric for less than $2 and have more than enough, but I guess I like the creativity required to use whatever I can find at our house. That also means I don't feel like I wasted money if my projects don't turn out!

I needed more fabric so I grabbed one of Allen's old T-shirts (when I say old T-shirt, it has actually never been worn, but he got it for free and didn't get rid of it before we moved). I didn't take pictures of it step-by-step because anyone who tries to make it is probably a much more talented sewer than I am and can figure it out on their own.

I sewed the pieces together and the casing for the elastic on both ends.

Threading the elastic through the casing almost ended my project early . . . how can something so simple be so difficult?!

Look at the cute loop and button! You can also see the picture my niece colored for me hanging on the fridge behind it.

I'm sure there are a lot of better ways to make this, but mine is finished and hanging proudly in our kitchen. 

Very Worried Walrus

I am a worrier . . . particularly about things over which I have little or no control. Why? I don't know. I am good at discerning between concerns (something I can change) and worries (things I cannot change) and like to resolve concerns as quickly as possible. However, I'm still figuring out how forget about my worries! 

The children's book Very Worried Walrus can give you a glimpse into my head as I worry about useless things. The walrus wants to learn how to ride a bike but is afraid to because he imagines all of the things that might go wrong. Eventually he gets on the bike and although he does crash, it doesn't hurt nearly as bad as he had worked himself up to believe that it might.

Like the very worried walrus, I worry myself to tears over some things when I really need to just trust that things will work out as they are supposed to if I am doing what is right and have faith in Heavenly Father. Thankfully I have a patient and loving husband who is not a worrier! He holds me while I cry about my worries and then talks through things with me and reassures me everything will work out how they are supposed to. 

While there is a lot I have no control over, Heavenly Father has said, "mine eyes are upon you, and the heavens and the earth are in mine hands, and the riches of eternity are mine to give." He has power over all things and is watching out for me. Things won't always work out in the way I want but the way they work out will always be for my own good if I choose to follow the Lord. 

Recognizing the Lord's hand in my life is easier in retrospect but here are some recent occurrences that are proof to me that His hand is there and I have worried needlessly about little things!

-Allen getting a job he loves in Houston.

-Moving to Houston (driving here, finding an apartment, getting a good doctor) went more smoothly than I ever expected.

-No complications (or cost to us) in getting my car fixed and everything else after getting rear-ended.

-We found a house we love and our offer got accepted out of several other offers on the home! We should be closing on the home by the end of October. (I'll post some pictures later.)

-We were told we would have to pay a penalty of $2000 to get out of our apartment lease contract, which we thought would be worth buying the house . . . but yesterday when we went to the management office, they said a woman came in yesterday who wants to move into an apartment with our floor plan by no later than Nov 30th!

Many people may label these things as nice coincidences, but we cannot help be see the Lord's hand in how smoothly everything seems to be working out. Yes, there are still problems that can come up . . . we have a lot of paperwork to do with the home and bank still before things are finalized and that woman may find another apartment to rent in the next two months . . . but I feel so grateful for the blessings we are given every day.

Now if only Caleb would be born before my parents get here on October 3rd . . . : )

What's for dinner?

A couple of days ago I was looking for a new (and useful)  craft/project to help pass the time while I'm waiting for Caleb to make his entrance into the world. Before going to the grocery store that day I was figuring out what I needed to buy, which meant that I had to figure out what we were going to eat for the next week since I only go to the store once a week.

Deciding what we're going to eat is surprisingly hard every week, which is when the idea came to me to make a menu for my project. I looked up some ideas for magnetic menus and all of them would have required me to buy at least $40 of materials from 10 different stores. No thanks!

So here's my own version of a magnetic menu board. I just did two weeks rather than a whole month like most of the other ones did . . . I already need to make 3-4 more magnets that say leftovers and burritos on them! I can't imagine how many of those I would need in planning food for a month.

I did have some issues with the paper not being flat after gluing things to it and it made the magnets not stick so well to the refrigerator. The strips on either side are magnets covered in paper that helped hold it flat to the fridge for the past couple of days . . . it looks like I may not need them anymore!

I should probably make a few more eat out and Ramen noodle magnets for after Caleb is born and I don't feel like cooking.

Go Astros!

Every two months in Allen's office they have a blood drive and apparently they give out a prize each time to someone that donated blood. This time Allen was the winner; he won two tickets to see the Astros! I met him downtown after work and brought dinner, so we just ate in his office and walked over to the game.

The Minute Maid Stadium is only about a ten minute walk from Allen's office and when the retractable roof is open during the day, he says they can see soap operas being played on the ginormous HD Jumbotron.

A very nice man offered to take our picture for us. To his credit, he did take a nice picture of us, too bad he didn't get any of the signs or the field in the background  : )

I didn't get it in the picture, but Allen's feet are right on the home run line. Coincidentally a home run was scored right over this railing later in the game! Too bad it was the Rockies' home run

The view from the nosebleeds . . . Section 327

We left after the seventh inning stretch, when we sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame AND Deep in the Heart of Texas! 

When we left, the Astros were winning 5-3, which isn't too shabby for a team with a 54-102 record this season. They ended up winning 9-6! Once we're true Astros fans (as in, when I can actually tell you about the players and how they did in their last game) we'll get Astros gear to wear to the game. Allen at least wore the right colors . . . I, on the other hand, am limited on what fits me since I am ten days from the due date!

Walking back to the car from the game, as we were about to pass the prison, an inmate was being loaded into an ambulance. The guards made us stop until the ambulance doors were closed, so we got to see all of the security and everything that has to happen to transport a prisoner to the hospital. Kinda cool!

Would you like fries with that?

For the record: Old Town Spring, Texas "Historic 1900s Railroad Town" sounds like a lot more fun than it was.

We went on Friday night after all of the shops had closed, so it may be a fun Saturday activity . . . maybe we'll give a whirl some other time. We ate in a restaurant built in 1902, which was pretty cool. Who knows how many old western bar fights there were on the very floor that we ate on?! If movie depictions are somewhat accurate, there were probably at least two fights a night in there : )

We were too hungry before dinner to take a picture before it got dark. 

  When we asked what was good, the waitress said they were known for the burgers, onion rings and chicken fried steak. Allen got the burger with onion rings and fries and I got the steak.

After a couple bites of his burger, Allen realized that there was no burger!

Mmm, mmm good!

We couldn't stop laughing and eventually the waitress came by to see how everything was . . . we stopped laughing long enough to ask for the burger to go in his bun. Her reaction was priceless. With a look that said, I can't believe the guys in the kitchen could be such idiots, she said, "There's no meat? Awesome."

To finish off the evening, we cruised around in our fancy Ford Fiesta, which was the rental we had while my car was being fixed (I got my car back Wednesday afternoon). The video does not do it justice, but we had a little dance party in the car with the color-changing lights. You can't tell how vibrant the 6 or 7 colors are and we didn't find out until later that the lights are standard in most Fords. We thought we got a really special car.

It doesn't look like the video wants to work. Sorry . . .

Fruit Ninja! and other fun things

 I'm just so excited to have Allen back from Chicago that it made everything all weekend that much better; it didn't hurt that we had a three day weekend either. I wish I could have gotten some pictures of us playing in the pool. We had so much fun with our beach ball and pool noodle, making up all sorts of games and getting strange looks from fellow pool-goers who probably wondered if we were really mature enough to be parents soon. It was a blast on Saturday so we had to do it again on Monday!

Fruit Ninja is my favorite game on my i-Touch and so when Allen was cutting our perfectly-ripe cantaloupe, we decided to play the real-life version of Fruit Ninja. It was really fun!

I'm such a fruit ninja that I slice with extraordinary speed, you can't even see the knife!

Yeah, this one's posed.

Notice the two halves of the piece of cantaloupe still in the air over the cutting board. Excellent slice! +10 points

Here are some pictures of projects completed while Allen was in Chicago:

I sewed the edges of a plastic shower curtain to make it double-layered protection to go under my sheet savers and put yarn on the corners to attach it to the crib. 

 This mobile could be much better if there were more planning involved and less "I'll just do this and see if it works." I couldn't figure out how I wanted to do it and so I made it up as I went along. The ingredients: fishing line, wooden dowels, a CD, 2 pieces of cardboard, super glue, old T-shirts, yarn, scrap of Dr. Seuss material, needle and thread. No wonder it looks homemade!

We still haven't hung the mobile, so this is the best picture I could get of it by myself.

 Now entering Caleb's room! Because we still have boxes that have no home in our apartment, they are in the corner of his room cleverly hidden under towels with boxes of stuff on top of them. Thank you to Brynn for the flags that are running along the top of the room! They add a lot to his room!

The changing table was a great buy off of craigslist (it even matches our crib in color and style!), which we had to disassemble in the Wal-Mart parking lot (in 107 degrees) to fit it into the trunk of my car... that's a funny story! And the lady we bought it from also threw in the diaper pail and lots of baby accessories for free with the changing table!

Unfortunately I can't paint the walls of our apartment, so I thought the sticker applique things would be a great idea . . . but they keep falling off the wall, which is why Thing 1 and Thing 2 are on the diaper pail.

And the other side of the room. I'm really excited to use that baby bathtub soon!

And here are delicious cinnamon rolls that I made for our cub scout pack meeting last night. Thanks for the recipe Aunt Sheryl!

I had to take a picture because even though the food I've been making has tasted good, it rarely looks this good!

Covered in frosting!