Life Lately & House Hunting..

I have been seriously slacking on these blog posts. I have about a million and two things I could post about .. but I just can't seem to find the time lately! Now that spring has rolled around......... or should I say supposed to be rolling around? (There are a chance of flurries tonight & freeze warnings until 11 am tomorrow ...??) the real estate market is booming again. I LOVE IT! We have six new listings going on right now, and are working with several first time home buyers, which are my absolute favorite!

But anyways, life outside of work has been a flurry of activity for us also. Last weekend we had our kitchen and foyer painted for the 3rd time in two years... have I ever explained how indecisive I am when it comes to paint? Ha! This time we had it professionally done, and I am absolutely IN LOVE with both spaces. They turned out great. I will be posting finish product pictures on that soon enough!

The following Tuesday we had our backyard finished ... thaaaaaank the Lord! It is so nice to finally have some fresh green grass down there! Now, once it starts to warm up outside, we will have the landscaping professionally finished, and both decks and the fence stained and our backyard will be complete just in time for warm summer nights around the fire pit! (Please excuse my 5th grade photoshop abilities hahaha...)

Speaking of our backyard .. I think this week it finally hit me, what if once it's all finished and we are ready to list our house... WHAT IF we don't get to enjoy it this summer? What if we do go under contract on our house and we find another that we love?! We have been on the hunt here lately because time is ticking. I think we have been looking at our possibilities since the beginning of January and have not really LOVED anything.. Until the past two weeks. All of these houses have shown up on our daily emails, and every.single.one matches almost all of our criteria. How crazy is that?! I feel like things are getting more real the closer we get to summer.. but, we have also agreed, we are only going to sell if we absolutely find something we are in LOVE with, and honestly, between the two of us, and our never ending list of things we want, that may be impossible. I have had several people ask me why we are planning on selling, and what we are listing our home for. The short version of both is.. we need a three car garage, and preferably would like a larger lot (at least an acre) and to answer the other question regarding what we are listing for, probably in the mid 200's :) Let me know if you're interested! Ha!

Current House..

Here is some of our current favorites that have come up recently..

 

Via

 

via

 

via

 

via

I meannnn...  are they all not just darling?! They all have great, large, flat backyards for Cooper, three car garages, basements, and each are in our price range AND an area we would be comfortable moving to .. double bonus. So stay tuned for more details on our moving status :)

We also celebrated the mister's 24th birthday this past weekend with friends and family and had a great time. I always love birthdays :) And not to mention, the weather was perfect all weekend! But, I have to say, it was weird not going down to Atlanta and getting crazy drunk like past years ... signs of growing up I suppose lol. I also spent a good portion of my Saturday with my parents which is always so nice. We laughed about the fact that Cody and I enjoy spending time with our families so much now that we are growing up, but when we were in our late teens and early 20's you couldn't keep us home to spend time with the parental units for nothin! Funny how growing up works! I cherish my parents more than anything, and wouldn't trade the world for the great relationships we have.

But, the weekend ended and it was back to the grind this week. Busy, busy, busy! This weekend we are taking a nice get away to Cherokee, NC for the Darius Rucker concert on Friday and then the Blake Shelton concert on Saturday, with a little gambling and golf action in between! I was hoping that the weather in Cherokee would be nicer than what is predicted here, butttt after looking at the weather this morning, that's a definite NO. Oh well, at least gambling and drinking takes place inside ;)

Hope everyone is having a great week... and enjoying some buffalo chicken sliders -- I am not kidding when I say I am so humbled by peoples reaction to these things lol -- Over 26,000 page views for those things alone! Crazy I tell ya!

Easter Wreath

For once, I did semi-okay with taking step-by-step pictures of one of my projects! I always get a million questions on how I do things, so I am trying to get better about taking pictures along the way! :) Bear with me ya'll.

I knew I wanted a cute Easter wreath, but had a hard time coming up with this one. I had seen a few different wreaths that I liked on Pinterest, but of course when you click on the link to see better pictures, either half of them don't exist, or, the freakin thing is over $100, um no thanks!

So, after deciding on a style I really liked, off to Hobby Lobby I went. Once I was there, I began to run into some issues. I know bunnies have large, cute floppy ears, but apparently Hobby Lobby doesn't understand this. After brainstorming for over and hour a little while, I picked up these overly large oval shaped grapevine wreaths. They are ridiculously dis-proportioned, but oh well, you should have seen my other options .. I'm talking like tiny little ears that come on those headbands that kids wear around Easter, not cute. 

I picked up two "ears", a head, and a body. Then grabbed some wire-edged ribbon, and small pink and white flowers and off I went!

First.. I placed my grapevine wreaths down on a table to figure out how I wanted everything. I always put everything face down because you will be tying the different wreaths together on the backside so it is not visible when you hang it up.

 

Once you have everything positioned how you want it, tie all the wreaths in place using a durable string. My go-to string for all of my wreaths is a jute string that I picked up at Hobby Lobby months ago and has never let me down.

 

I wrap the string through the different vines to make sure it will hold. Tie together in a tight knot to ensure it will stay in place. Continue this for each wreath you need tied together. (I generally do two knots per wreath.)

 

 Now that your wreaths are tied tightly in place, flip it over to make sure everything stays in tact and is exactly how you want it to look. I decided to add flowers to my grapevine to give it more of a spring touch. This part is quite time consuming, but is worth it in the end! I bought these flowers because I knew they would be easy to take apart to stick into the wreaths. Here is an example of what I am talking about...

Each stem in the bouquet was individually wrapped wire, so they were super simple just to pull out of the bunch. Once they were separated, I stuck them into the grapevine and made sure they were securely placed in there so they wouldn't fall out...

Repeat this step five million times and you will be ready to hang up your new wreath! I added a pink ribbon between the "head" and the "body" wreaths to add a little more character. The possibilities are endless with this wreath, and there are so many personal touches you could add, mine is just a basic how-to! Hope this has helped! :)

Spicy Hawaiian Burgers

 

Ingredients:

2LBs Ground Chicken
Pineapple Rings (I accidentally picked up chunks, but rings would be much easier!)
6 slices pepper jack cheese

6 whole wheat hamburger buns
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce

Minced Garlic
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp seasoning salt (I use Lawry's)

 Directions:

Combine the ground chicken, soy sauce, paprika, chili powder, seasoning salt, and garlic. Once well mixed, form six patties (or however many you prefer) and place in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Normally, we would grill these, but since it was a cool 32 degrees yesterday, I cooked them inside on the stove! I heated a small amount of EVOO in a medium pan over medium heat. Once the oil was heated, I placed the patties in cooked on each side for about seven minutes or so. 

While the burgers were cooking, I placed my pineapple chunks in a small pan with just enough juice from the can to cover the bottom of the pan, and let them simmer over medium-high heat until they began to brown. Once a nice golden brown, flip them over, and allow the other side to cook until golden brown. 

Once you flip your burgers, place your pepper jack cheese on and finish cooking. Heat up your buns, place your burger on the bun, add your pineapple slices on top .. and enjoy!

**I added a spicy mayonnaise to just mine, since the mister doesn't like mayonnaise, but it was ridiculously simple to make. I'm talking mayo mixed with Sriracha and your done! Ha! So simple and so yummy!

Oh, How Pinteresting!

So, it is no secret I pretty much adore Pinterest. Some of my greatest ideas ever have stemmed from some of the amazing pictures I come across .. for example, my living room stripe wall..

Orr... the gallery wall in my office ...

 

Or, to paint the inside of our front door..

Pinterest pretty much is my home away from home! I use it for everything from recipes, to paint colors, to biulding ideas, you name, I've pinned it! Ha. So, of course, when I stumbled across this little link party on one of my daily reads.. I had to join. So please excuse me while I go a little Pinterest-cray-cray on ya'll, but I have been doing some serious lusting over all the spring pins lately :)

 Loving on these Dolce Vita Flats -- with the pop of pink, they are perfect for spring!

 I adore this Essie color! It has spring written all over it! :)

 Love, love, love these workout capris - Perfect color to motivate anyone to work out!

 Truth!

 

These are more "summery" but regardless, I am obsessing!

 This Tory tote is SO cute! I will be adding this to my collection soon. 

 Loving the denim and hot pink combo!

 Planning on attempting this in our backyard this spring..

 

I just had to with this one haha! This is SO Cooper! 

These colored deviled eggs are perfect for an Easter get together!

 These Tory flats are PERFECT for spring!

 

 And, last but not least ... haha anyone who knows me, knows this is exactly something I would say! hahaha

Spicy Thai Peanut Noodles

 This week is really busy for us.. so I needed some simple, go to meals for dinner each night this week.

Last night I was craving Thai, and considering I have never had thai, I have no idea where that craving came from! So random, I know. But, this girl was on a mission. I didn't get home until 6:30 last night, and the Bachelor started at 8 .. talk about a time crunch!

I threw this dish together in less than 10 minutes, the longest part was waiting for my water to boil to cook the noodles! I just love a simple dish!

Ingredients:

1 Box Noodles (I used Linguine Noodles)

Fresh or Frozen Shrimp

Vegetables (Optional, I added Mushrooms)

1 Tbsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes

1/2 Cup Sesame Oil (or Vegetable Oil)

6 Tbsp Honey

6 Tbsp Soy Sauce

2 Tbsp Sriracha Sauce 

Crunchy or Creamy All Natural Peanut Butter 

Directions:

Begin by combining your oil and crushed red pepper in a small to medium pan over medium heat. Let cook for 3-5 minutes, then strain out pepper and set reserved oil to the side. 

Start your water for your noodles, and begin preparing your shrimp. Since I was using frozen shrimp, I placed the shrimp in a strainer and ran hot water over the shrimp until almost completely thawed. Dry off the shrimp and place in your small pan with fresh garlic and sautee while preparing your peanut sauce. 

For the peanut sauce, combine your strained oil, honey. soy sauce, Sriracha, and peanut butter (I didn't put an exact amount of peanut butter because I just taste tested as I was adding to adjust to our liking, but I think it was somewhere around 2-3 heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter).

Now that your water should be boiling, add in your noodles and cook according to package instructions. Once all your ingredients for your sauce are combined, whisk together until a smooth liquid. Slowly add the sauce in with the shrimp and garlic, stirring constantly. Let this simmer over low heat while your noodles finish cooking, stirring every few minutes.

When noodles finish cooking, combine noodles with sauce and enjoy!