House Update

So here we are... A month away from our closing date! We had our inspections last week and all went fairly well. A few small minor things that need to be taken care of but nothing that would stop us from moving forward on purchasing the house.

Right now we are just awaiting the appraisal, which should come back today or tomorrow. From there its just a bunch more paper work...we are actually keeping our fingers crossed that we will be able to close earlier then the scheduled date...we shall see...

Micah and I are beyond excited. We have paint samples picked out that we want to try on the walls. Some fabric swatches to recover my favorite chair. And we bought a new front door handle/deadbolt set!

We have a few boxes packed but need to get more serious, moving day will come fast!

Angelika's Baby Shower

My sisters mother in law Amy and I hosted her baby shower on February 21st at The Lost Leaf in down town Phoenix. It turned out really great! Olivia's nursery has a shabby chic theme to it, so I tried to stay with that in the decore of the shower. I went to many many thrift stores looking for dinner and salad plates to set the tables with, I wanted to use china to give the event a little extra importance.

I had help in a few places. Patrick Tipton was on hand to take photos for the big day, he did such an amazing job. I high recomend Patrick for any of your photography needs. One of Amy's friends/co-worker, Mellisa, did the flowers, which turned out perfect (We used left over vases from my wedding)! My good friend Nicole helped me with the cakes. I wanted 3 different cakes for the shower but didnt have the $200-$600 a cake that the local bakeries were quoting so I decided to do them. We baked all the cakes on the Thursday before the shower and made all the buttercream icing and then on Friday we put them together, in all we spent 7-9 hours on those cakes.

I bought the soap eggs in a nest favors off of Etsy, they turned out really cute and the seller was very easy to work with. The Olivia banner and cake plates were all made by some of my bridesmaids on a craft day I hosted, I would have nver accomplished all this stuff with out their help!

Enough gabby, bring on the photos!

Outside the Lost Leaf

Its a Girl

Angelika Arriving! Ryan is such a sweet husband and drove her to the shower!

The room all set up once you've entered the Lost Leaf

The table setting

Decore...

Baby Pictures of Ryan and Angelika

Drinks and Food

I made homemade Raspberry Lemonade and Fruite Infused Iceed tea and also served Izze and Pelagrino sparkling water

Amys amazing food spread!

The candy and cake buffet was a HIT!

Now for the cakes! When I have a chance I will remake each of these and show step by step on how to bake and decorate :) I just didnt have the time this time around. There was a Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting. (And yes I totally taught myself how to do a basket weave! Insane!)

The carrots were made out of marzipan and were a joint effort on Nicole and I's part.

Next up was the Yellow Cake with Strawberry Jam Filling and Strawberry Buttercream Frosting, and the only cake I didnt make totally from scratch. Reason being, if you use a Pillsbury Moist Supreme box mix and use olive oil in it it makes the worlds yummiest cake! You can get the step by step instruction on this cake however, HERE. The Strawberries were also made from marzipan.

Last but certainly not least was the Dark Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Coconut Buttercream

Angelika and Olivia made out like bandits! Olivia is going to be one of the best dressed babies out there! AndI dont think Ang and Ryan will need diapers or wipes for the first year, I held a raffle, the price of a ticket was a box of wipes or box of diapers...the raffled item was a huge basket filled with lotions, candles, wine, note cards and all kinds of other goodies!

My favorite little baby in the world, Miss Mackenzie, Mark and Nicoles daughter...Angelika got this really cute sheep book, poor little Mackenzie really wanted it, Ang let her hold it during the rest of the shower...

I really had a blast hosting Angelika's shower. It went much smoother then her bridal shower did a few years back (actually tomorrow is their 3 year wedding anniversary)! Congrats Angelika and Ryan!

We bought a house!

As I previously posted, Micah and I were very hard at work trying to find our first home.

Well, we found one, put in an offer and it was accepted! Right now we are waiting for the seller signed documents so we can go forward with the inspections! Its all very exciting and nerve wracking!

Here is the front of the house

Entering into the foyerThe formal living/dining room is just to the right when you enter. It is closed off from the family room and kitchen, we are hoping to do a little demo and tear the walls down and make one big great room.

The kitchen has a galley lay out. Which will be fine for right now, we are hoping to eventually tear down the wall between the kitchen and formal living space and have a nice sized island

The family room is right off the kitchen, it has a huge sliding glass door out to the pool and a nice fireplace! The house was built in 1970, and the master bedroom totally has some 70's charm to it, dig on the built in vanity...it will be coming down!

The backyard will be great for AZ summers! Micah and I both have very different ideas when it comes to how to decorate the house, he likes very modern stuff where I like very traditional stuff...BUT we were able to agree that we both liked old world/rustic type decore...I threw this inspiration board together and Micah liked it, so we may have a design concept here!

I've been a bad blogger!

My how times flys!

Micah and I are in full swing with this whole house hunting thing...We've felt like we've gotten really close a few times, but the houses had really crazy really illegal looking add-ons, so on ward we search. Hopefully we find the perfect one soon, because we are just sooo excited to become home owners! No one told us house hunting was like having a part time job, and well I already have 2 jobs, so this is like a 3rd for me!

Angelika's baby shower was this past Saturday! It went off with out a hitch! I cant wait to get pictures so I can get them posted on here! Her little Olivia is going to be one spoiled baby!

ALSO! I cut my hair off! I haven't had it this short in about 7 years???

Before the great chop AND After the great chop

My hair is looooooong gone! Its so nice, it only takes 3-5 minutes to blow dry now instead of the 15-20 minutes it used to take! My hair is extremely thick, so this new low maintenance do was much needed! Just in time for the sweltering heat of the AZ summers!

P.s. if you haven't caught on yet, I have zero blog skills, I type it and it looks one way, I publish it and its all chopped up and garbled looking....I need the hubs to teach me some computer tricks :)

This past weekend was Busy!!

Micah and I had a pretty busy weekend... Friday night we ran a bunch of errands and did a pretty good cleaning of the house.

Saturday I had to work at Definitely Debra's, which was fun as usual. We had a really pretty invitation to put together on top of all the brides who were coming in. After work I rushed home because I was having the ladies from a chat site I am on over for a little girl time. It was loads of fun filled with laughs, wine and snacks!

Sunday Micah, his parents and I met up with Christie (www.Ilovetwins.com) Who took us out to show us some houses!!! That's right! Micah and I are in the works to becoming first time home owners! It was a very exciting and educational experience. We toured 7 homes, only 1 was move in ready...we both liked it, but also thought it was a bit small...there was one that I just loved, it was a 1950's ranch home that had a bit of a ginger bread/grandma looking curb appeal which I love and as it turns out Micah HATES....I think this house buying experience will be fun, but trying.

After we parted ways with Christie the rest of us went to 5 & Diner and then onto the Willow District Home Tour...It was soooo much fun getting to see the inside of some of the most amazing homes in the valley.

After the tour, it was about 3 and Micah was feeling under the weather...so he laid down and I hit up the goodwill and Michael's to find some things for my sisters up coming baby shower. I had some success. Got home at about 530 rested a bit and then decided to bake a cake. I had full intentions of blogging about the cake...I took step by step pics all the way up to pouring the batter into the cake tins... I made a yellow cake and made chocolate butter cream frosting from scratch. Then I covered all the chocolate frosting with shredded coconut...I got soooo excited to eat it that I totally forgot to take pictures! haha so no choco coconut cake pics for you :(
sorry. It was mighty tasty if thats any consolation:)

French Onion Soup-First Try

So the other day I found a blog called How To Cook Like Your Grandmother run by a guy named Drew Kime. His blog is really user friendly and there is a forum on there for people to talk about other recipes and what not...I think I will be trying a lot of his recipes and will of course blog on here about them....

I have been dying to try making french onion soup! So this past Wednesday I took a crack at it. I did bastardize Drews recipe a tiny bit. You can see his here

Mine went a little something like this:

To serve 2...

2 large onions, I used Sweet.

1/2 Tsp thyme (I didn't have fresh)

3-5 cloves garlic Minced

sea salt, to taste

fresh ground black pepper, to taste

3-4 Tbs Butter

flour, about 2 Tablespoons

1 cups wine, I used Chardonnay (Ooops at Target, $10)

16 ounces Swanson's Certified Organic beef broth

Croutons to fill top of soup bowl (I used garlic & butter flavor)

Gruyere Cheese enough to cover top

Shredded Mozzarella Just a little bit...


Peel your onions, Chop off the tip, then cut in half.

Next Dice your onions cross wise (So they make a C shape) Not to thin but not to thick...maybe a 1/4 inch wide?? Once Diced "break" them apart so they are loose

Next toss a couple Tbs. of butter into a pan that has already reached medium heat.

Mmmmmm....Butter
In go the onions!

(This is an Action shot! Woot)

Next Dice up the garlic and add along with the Thyme, salt and pepper

Give everything a good toss around the skillet so its all covered in the butter then leave it alone until you start to see some changes, the onions will get a bit translucent and start to caramelize (i.s. get brown....NOT burned however...golden) Once they start to show some brown you can stir every once in a while to let all the onions have some time at the bottom of the pan.

Once the onions get an all over golden looking color, you may notice it getting a bit 'burned' looking in the pan...You will then deglaze the pan with the cup of wine, It will smell sooo good! Now you can really get into stirring around the onions a lot more.

Mmmmm Look at them bubble in the pan!

Once the wine has cooked down a bit you can add your flour. Add a Tbs at a time making sure to stir it until all white is gone and flour is mixed in...It will get pasty

Now comes the Beef broth! DO NOT dump it all in at once. Add just a little at a time...Constantly stirring. You will see how the flour will make the paste grow a bit before it finally gets soup like.

Let it simmer 10-15 minutes, Then into the ramekins they go! I used 16oz. ramekins. Top the soup with croutons, I liked using croutons vs. a slices of toasted french bread because this way when you dig in you get a bunch of little bite sized nuggets of goodness vs the typical bust through the cheese and then the toast slaps up and makes a mess and is hard to get a good bite of...

You don't neeeed to use this many croutons...I'm just a glutton when it comes to carbs...you really just need enough to keep the cheese afloat, that is pretty much the main purpose of the croutons, to act as a cheese life raft :)

Next up is the cheese! Now...the recipe calls for Gruyere, Which is very expensive. For 1 pound it is $17.00, so just buy the smallest bit you can find. If your not willing to break the bank on this cheese (which I HIGHLY suggest you do, it makes a world of difference) You can use some Swiss and provolone together...

Now comes the part I botched up a tiny bit, I've never used a broiler before on an oven..so I was clueless to how fast it really cooks. Put your ramekins O' goodness onto a cookie sheet or whatever will fit down in your broiler. And keep a close eye on them...we have a gas stove, so I don't know if it made a difference, but I SWEAR I put them in for about 3 minutes, and when I looked in on them, one was a tiny bit on ...ummm...fire...EEEEEP! You just want the cheese to melt a bit and brown...

Once I pulled them out, I topped them with a bit of shredded Mozzarella cheese and put them in the regular oven at 250 for about 2-3 minutes, just enough to melt the cheese.

Yes the one in the back is the burn unit victim :( wahwahThe soup was amazing! The cheese was super stringy and fun to eat! The little croutons were nuggets of joy! I will FOR SURE be making this again, sans fire.***Caution the cheese holds in A LOT of heat...beware, you will cuss like no other if not eaten with caution.