I know, I know...

Life has been moving so quickly lately.  I  haven't felt like blogging at all lately.  I have been working on tons of projects around the house.  Between that, Spring break, baseball practices and games x 2, and Easter, I just haven't been able to keep up with anything.  Thankfully, things are slowly getting more organized and I find myself being less stressed out.

Surrogate journey #3 is officially in full swing.  We signed the contracts last week and now the lawyer crap is over.  I fly out to San Francisco on 5/9 for my consult appointment with the RE (reproductive endocrinologist). I will leave early that morning and come back on a red eye flight.  My awesome IPs (intended parents) bought me a first class ticket for the return flight so hopefully I will be comfortable enough to sleep.  Aren't they great?!  As long as everything goes smoothly at the appt., we will likely schedule the tentative transfer date.  My guess is that it will be in late June, which happens to be around the same time we transferred their first baby (7/6/08). Their birthdays will be really close.  Anyway, I can't wait to start injections and get this party started!

Kitchen Backsplash

I have been going crazy trying to find the perfect tile for our kitchen.  So far, this is the closest that I have gotten.  I love how the colors blend with the granite.  The cracked glass tiles are really pretty too.  I would love to have a little more shine though.  I tend to lean toward iridescent tiles but I can't find anything that I love.  I may just be ordering these tiles soon and be done with this.  I am sick of getting grease and food spatters on my wall, lol.  

You can see how it ties the stainless appliances with the granite and the black cabinets in this photo.

Advanced Gumpaste Class with Wilton

Briar Rose

Over the past 3 weeks, I have been learning how to make numerous flowers out of gumpaste (sort of like fondant but dries quickly). I am glad that I have had this experience but I don't really see me doing these kinds of flowers all too often.  They are a little tedious and it would take a million to decorate an entire cake.  I prefer piping icing to molding fondant/gumpaste but I can at least do it for a client now if it is requested.  Next up is to finish a big Stargazer Lily in class.  It's going to be so pretty.  I will post it here when I finish it. :)

Gerbera Daisy

Sweet Pea

Gumpaste Flowers-Part 2

Stephanotis 

Ivy Leaves/Lily Leaf

Aunt Judy's Apple Pie

Apple pie doesn't get any better than this.  My Aunt Judy has been using this same recipe for as long as I can remember.  It is super easy and doesn't require a lot of spices.  If you make this, do yourself a favor and make your own pie crust.  Store-bought is not of the same caliber as homemade.  I have a really good recipe for pie crust that I posted on my blog a while back.  If you want simple step-by-step instruction on how to achieve this buttery, flaky, out-of-this-world pie crust, go check out Joy the Baker's blog post about it at: Pie Crust Tutorial

Recipe for the apple pie can be found here: Aunt Judy's Apple Pie

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

These cupcakes are ridiculously good.  Seriously, I kid you not.  The chocolate cake is perfect and the peanut butter frosting is oh-my-gosh.  It's the best stuff on the face of the planet.  I could eat a bowl of the frosting all by itself and be happy.  Trust me on this one.  Make these today.  You're welcome. ;)

Recipe can be found: http://allrecipes.com/personalrecipe/62417099/chocolate-peanut-butter-cupcakes/detail.aspx

Baked Doughnuts

These turned out pretty but they weren't the best recipe.  I am now going to scour the web to find a better way to make them.  The stupid thing is that I bought one of those special Wilton pans that shapes the doughnuts and yet I ended up cutting them out instead.  Oh well, live and learn.  

Valentine's Day-2/14/12

 

I was too lazy to do a fondue dinner this year so we opted for heart-shaped pizzas from Papa John's.

Hayden being silly (age 9)

Emerson being silly too (age 7)

Valentine's Day-Part 2

Fondue Dessert-We do this every year.  It is a Valentine's Day tradition.

 

The boys brought home lots of valentines and candy from their classmates.  They were getting sugared up in this pic, lol.

Emerson's valentine box that I helped make for school

Hayden's Birthday from 1/29/12

Silly boys

Making a wish

Hayden wanted to go to Red Robin for his birthday dinner.  He didn't want cake so he got a birthday sundae instead.  Considering that I am a cake decorator, that is just pathetic on my part, huh?

For lunch, we went to Hayden's choice of Afton Tavern with my parents.  He opened his gifts while we were there.

BTW-He already has Skylanders for Wii so getting it for his 3DS is a bit redundant, right?  He asked for it though!

Easy Crescent Rolls

I made these rolls recently and received rave reviews so I thought that I would post the recipe here for you guys.  They are super easy to make with a bread machine or mixer but they could easily be kneaded by hand also.  When they come out of the oven, they have a soft center that stretches in large strands of doughy goodness.  When they are completely cool, the texture isn't as impressive but they still taste really good.  Heck, I ate one that was 3 days old and it was still yummy.  I discovered that you can get the original texture back by putting them in a hot oven for a few minutes.  

Crescent Rolls

• 1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1/2 cup warm milk
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 
  

Directions

1. Place water, milk, egg, 1/3 cup butter, sugar, salt, flour and yeast in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select Dough/Knead and First Rise Cycle; press Start.
2. When cycle finishes, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough in half. Roll each half into a 12 inch circle. Spread 1/4 cup softened butter over entire round. Cut each circle into 8 wedges. Roll wedges starting at wide end; roll gently but tightly. Place point side down on ungreased cookie sheet. Cover with clean kitchen towel and put in a warm place, let rise 1 hour. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes, until golden.  Brush additional melted butter all over rolls while still warm.

Our Dining Room

I faux painted the inset of the tray ceiling.  I used the wall color for the base and then rag rolled the light ceiling color (the one around the tray) over top.  This picture does it no justice.  It looks really cool in person.

Looking into the dining room from the bottom of the stairs (love the wainscoting!)

Sorry, I know that all of these photos suck.  I couldn't get get enough lighting and then it was impossible to get the whole room into a shot because of the way that the room is closed off.  I couldn't get far enough away to get a decent shot with my big camera so I had to use my little point-and-shoot.  The colors aren't right but at least you can get any idea of what I have been working on.

I swear that those curtains aren't that bright.  They match the rug better than that, I promise.  I think that they captured my flash too much because they are a shiny fabric.  

I still need to get some artwork up on the walls but I just haven't gotten around to that yet.  

A Funny for You

Emerson-2/6/12

How cute is Emerson with a mustache?!  He made me chuckle as he walked out the door.  He made sure to put his hand over his face before he walked out the door to catch the bus.  I guess he was a little 'stache shy, lol.  I wondered how in the world he would make it all day with only one hand available to actually do anything with but thankfully he got over it.  No, my kid didn't sprout man hair on his upper lip.  That's eyeliner.  He was supposed to be 100 years old for the 100th day at school last month.  I wanted to spray his hair gray too but I think that he would have put his foot down.  Oh well.

***I know I was supposed to post dining room pics today but I had a good reason not to.  The photos suck.  That room is really hard to take photos of thanks to the light from the windows, the glare of the mirrors in the china cabinets, the glare from the chandelier, and the way my door openings are.  Please forgive me.  I will try to take pics again tomorrow but I can't promise anything. 

Dining Room Sneak Peek

I am up to my eyeballs in home projects. Lately, it has been painting. These blank walls have been killing me so I have slowly been working my way throughout the house. I need color in my life, dang it!  Anyhow, I have no time to chat now but I wanted to tease you guys with my newly updated dining room.  This is a terrible pic but you get the idea.  I faux painted the tray ceiling and it is so cool looking.  I will post full pics tomorrow.  Clayton still has to hang my curtains tonight. :)

BTW, ignore that hideous chandelier.  I will be changing that sucker out to a wrought iron black one in the future and you better believe it won't have those terrible fake candle sticks on it, lol.

Surrogacy journey #3 is underway!

I am thrilled to be jumping into the world of surrogacy once more.  Surrobaby #2 will hopefully be getting a sibling.  The parents have 2 frozen embryos left from our last cycle.  We hope that at least one can survive the thaw and snuggle into my uterus for 9 months.  Both embryos are girls so baby girl would be getting a sister/sisters if this works.  The intended parents (IPs) need lots of prayers and good thoughts as my IM is flying to San Francisco on Friday for her initial consultation.  I can't wait to begin this journey again with this awesome family and hopefully be birthing a new baby for them around the end of the year!!

Christmas 2011 (a tad bit late, lol)

The boys in their new jammies on Christmas morning
Hayden (age 8) & Emerson (age 7)

I never got around to posting around Christmas thanks to being too busy.  We moved into our new house on 12/23 so things were really hectic.  I managed to put up a small tree (our big one was buried somewhere in the garage).  We were living out of boxes and the house was a wreck, to say the least.  Anyway, I will share this one photo with you guys because all the others involve boxes and random crap in all the backgrounds, lol.

Just in case you haven't followed my blog over the years, we are visited by Santa' elves twice a year.  They come on the 1st of December to leave us our new ornaments and then they drop by on Christmas eve to give us our new jammies.  We never see the elves in action.  They just ring the door bell, leave the goods on the steps, and then they disappear.  It's so much fun.  We look forward to their visits every year.

Birthday Pancakes

Birthday pancakes = 1 happy birthday boy!

Recipe: Cake Batter Pancakes

I can't believe my Hayden is now 9 years old.  Wow, only one year away from double digits.  That's crazy!  I made him some birthday cake pancakes this morning and he loved them.  Clayton did too.  He described them as being like a sugar cookie and I agree (which is exactly why I didn't care for them).  Hayden has chosen to go to Afton Tavern for his birthday lunch.  My mom and dad are coming up to go with us.  I hope he asks for the cookie skillet for dessert because it is sooo dang good.

I have no clue what we will do this evening but it will be something fun.  Hope you all had a great weekend!  

New Rug and Curtains

I found this beautiful rug on clearance at Pier 1.  The colors really pop against my light carpet.  I love it!  I ended up getting some beautiful curtains to match but you can only see a smidgen of them in the top photo.  I tried to take a good pic of them but they all were washed out due to the sunlight.  I will attempt to get a good pic of them at night soon.  Now I need to get some pretty throw pillows to tie it all together. :)

BTW-Those round pillow things are where the kiddos sit when they watch Clayton play Xbox.

Pantry Organization

I learned a quick lesson when we moved in.  Four shelves in the pantry is a joke!  I have yet to do a grocery game shopping trip (where I majorly stock up on items) so I was shocked how quickly the pantry turned into a junk hole.  I don't even store canned food or baking supplies in there (I have cabinet storage on the backside of the island for those items) and yet it still became an insane mess.  I went to Lowe's to see what I could do about it and came home with 2 wire shelving units that had 8 shelves each.  I knew one would fit perfectly on my left wall and I was hoping to put the second unit on the backside of the door since they can hang from doors.  Unfortunately, my door frame can't accommodate the way that the hanger thingies protrude.  Oh well.  At least I did manage to get one to work for me and it holds a lot of things.  I love how easy it is to find oil, baking soda, chocolate chips, etc.  I also added 2 plastic drawer cart to the bottom of my pantry.  The big one houses my kids' lunch items and snack drawer.  The small one stores my onions and potatoes, so far.  In the middle of the pantry, I added a bag keeper so that I can reuse them in my waste bins.

I am not totally done with organizing it yet but I am for right now.  I have a million and one projects to do so I will come back to this at a later date. 

Espresso Cabinet Frustration (For Brooke)

These scratches are hubby's fault and so he vowed to get me a new drawer front.

The dings look small in photos but they stand out big time in real life.  I know that all cabinets are going to get worn on the bottom due to placing items in/taking items out, but this is only the beginning.  I can see that as we start using the kitchen more, these are going to get way worse.  The few little dings I have now are only from moving things once or twice thus far.  I can't imagine what they will look like after I move things in/out 100 times.  I try to be extremely careful now but it is really annoying.

Miss Me?

The kitchen-we will be getting new rugs, some colored pendant lights, a custom tile backsplash and some decorations for the tops of my cabinets

It has been almost 1 month since we settled on our new house.  We moved in on 12/23, just 2 days before Christmas.  It has been a whirlwind since then.  Time won't slow down, it seems.  Anyway, sorry for the long hiatus.  It is taking us forever to make this house our home but it's all in fun, right?  We have been in Lowe's, Target and Ikea more than I would like to admit.  Over the next few weeks, I will start blogging our home's progress.  You will have to excuse the blue tape for now as our PM will be coming in to touch up everything soon.  I marked everything with the tape so he could easily find dings and marks.

For those of you getting the espresso cabinets and java floors, I can tell you that it is going to drive you nuts.  The cabinets show EVERYTHING and the finish comes off rather easily.  We are extremely careful with them and they still have scratches and dings now.  I may end up distressing them in the future if they get bad enough to warrant it.  They stress me and my hubby to death.  As for the floors, they scratch and dent easily.  I don't understand it.  They are hickory, for crying out loud!  One cardboard box, that was practically empty, scratched the heck out of one of my planks when it got slid across it.  I was very unhappy.  I admit that I cried a little, lol.  Seriously, hardwood floors should be able to withstand basic operations in the home.  I don't get it.  The box took off the top layer and left me with a huge light dent in the flooring.  My PM said that he thinks that is a fluke but I have seen more scratches and dings that shouldn't have happened.  The good news is that the floor is distressed anyway so it won't be hard to hide imperfections, but still, these floors were not cheap and it ticks me off.  We now have a "no shoe" policy because I just can't risk damage to my floors.

Our formal china cabinet doesn't fit in the dining room so it is in the morning room for now.  I will either get rid of it and get a more casual piece or I will replace the table to a more formal looking one.  We will soon get some kind of pretty light fixture to hang from the tall ceiling.  I know the picture makes the table look like we didn't center it but it is.  I am extremely OCD so it is in the dead center, trust me, lol.  

Our hardware-We love it!!  Notice how the espresso cabinets actually look brown in this pic.  They really aren't black like most pictures show.  They are truly a deep brown.

I will be back soon!!!

Sorry I haven't been able to jump on here since we moved into the house. We don't have Internet right now and I cannot stand blogging on my iPhone. Our service is supposed to start on 1/5 and then I will finally be able to jump on the laptop again.

Clear for take-off!

We just got word from our NVR rep that we are set to clear on Friday.  Whoo hoo!!  I still expect them to bug us about something between now and then though.  They seem to have a reputation for that, lol.

So, now I am about to go crazy waiting.  In the meantime, we have been searching for cabinet hardware and tile for our kitchen backsplash.  Can anyone point me to some good resources for either?

Almost there...

I am bursting with anticipation this week.  Have you noticed my ticker?!  We have our final walk-through of the house scheduled for Wednesday morning and then we close on Friday morning.  I can't wait to get the keys!!  We have movers scheduled for Saturday.  Saturday night will be spent with my family in High Point and then Sunday (Christmas) will be spent in our new home.  Christmas evening will be at my cousin Christine's, here in Concord.  I can't wait!

Ahhhh, those floors---*Swoon*

Looking down from the landing on the stairs

Please note that the trim guy hadn't finished the bottom trim on any of the walls.  He did it all last night and it now looks completed.  I took the photos at lunch.

The formal dining room-I wish we would have upgraded the window wall to jut out.  It would have made it an octagonal room.  Oh well, I won't complain though.  I love it!! (BTW-That weird looking pile outside the windows is our rolls of sod waiting to be put down.)

Love our entryway!  The ceiling is so pretty.

I took this pic to show the contrast of the family room carpet and the wood flooring.