Marshmallow Pebbles Treats

Even though Easter is now past (although my candy hangover is not!) I had to share this fun recipe that could be perfect for spring get-togethers, birthday parties, whatever! I was looking for an easy and fun recipe to prepare for our Easter dinner at a friend's house. I was planning to do the pretty basic Rice Crispy treats cut out in cute shapes but when I saw this box on the cereal aisle, I knew that this would be even better!

I used the Fruity Pebbles Recipe just substituted the different cereal. And they are just as easy as Rice Crispy treats but so much yummier!

1. Melt about 4 TBSP Butter
2. Add in a full bag of Marshmallows (I used a 10oz bag of the regular sized ones) and stir until melted
3. Dump in the whole box of cereal (minus that small bowl I ate late last night when I craving sweets!)
4. Stir to coat the cereal with the butter marshmallow mixture
5. Using a buttered piece of wax paper, press the mixture into a greased pan
6. Let cool completely.
7. Cut into squares or use cookie cutters and cut into shapes! If using cookie cutters, you can smash the leftover pieces back together so you use all of it!

Happy Easter!

We are having a nice quiet day with our little family! I hope that you are all doing the same!

An Easter Look: Army Green & Pink

It's a big weekend in our house with Fia's birthday today, my birthday tomorrow, and Easter on Sunday! We started off the fun weekend with an Easter Egg Hunt this morning. Unfortunately, the weather did not get the memo that spring is here. It was 45 outside when we left!

I had an adorable spring outfit planned for myself and the kids, but alas we needed something warmer...

I turned to my (old) new favorite military jacket, skinny jeans, black tee, and pink striped scarf. Cute and casual Easter look that still lets me chase after the kids!

Here are some similar army green and pink color inspirations that Helped me pull this together. Linking up at Get Pinspired!

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And of course, some pics of the kiddos at their Easter Egg Hunt! Little Man was so sweet helping Fia to find eggs (even though all she wanted to do was shake the one egg that she found.)

Happy 1st Birthday to our Lil Girl

It's hard to believe that our little girl is already a year old! She has grown and changed so much over the last 365 days and has brought so much love and laughter to all of our lives. I knew that she was a mover and a shaker when she made her appearance on her schedule and totally running the show... As I was adding pics to this post I happened to look at the time stamps and there is a happy smiley one of me at 8:30am and then her first picture at 10:25am! Thankfully, I have blocked most of the terror pain I felt thanks to a totally unprepared, un-medicated birth!

She is stubborn, knows what she wants, loves people, LOVES to eat, is a daddy's girl (yet still clings to her momma), loves kissing herself in the mirror, and would follow her brother anywhere!  I am amazed every day at the relationship that she is forming with her brother and it warms my heart to see them becoming best friends.

Happy 1st Birthday Fiona. You are the most beautiful, funny, happy, smart, inquisitive, and most perfect little girl I could ever imagine! I cannot wait to see what the next year has in store for you!

No Sew (or Staple) Headboard Update

I showed y'all earlier this week that made some changes in the Master (the Dining Room!) This left me scratching my head about where I should go with the Master. I had a great moment of clarity at the great mecca.... aka Target!

I was strolling thru the drapery aisle and loving the new Threshold offerings. I was a little sad that none of the longer 95 inch lengths are carried in my store but at least I was able to check out the patterns and styles in store. I love to browse the sale endcaps and dig to see what kind of finds can be had! This day was no exception and I found a repackaged package of these Threshold Basketweave panels in a 95 inch length! I quickly threw them in my cart before someone else snatched them up. Did I mention they were marked at $6.99??? I was thinking that these might work for our windows and heck if I ordered one more set I would still be doing good. 

But once I got home another idea popped into my head! Thanks to laying out all of my finds on the bed, I realized that this panel would look amazing on the bed. I started thinking about Euro shams or maybe recovering the bench at the end of the bed.  But I hated the idea of cutting up this panel since I might rather these used on the windows as I progress with the room design. And then it hit me....

I 'draped' the panel over my upholstered headboard and just folded the top corners. Because the headboard is all the way against the wall, I did not even have to staple, glue, or anything! It took about 5 minutes to get it even and looking right and voila! Such an easy update!

The added bonus was that tossing in this navy & silver fabric really made the Ink pillow cases pop out as being navy (which I adore!) I am still working on some more decisions to the other colors to include but I am already loving the change and loving that I can easily pull it off whenever I want!

And now for an up close before and after shot. The change is astounding! What do you think?

Linking up at The Inspiration Gallery Link Party

Cha cha cha changes....

Late last week, I got inspired to make some changes to the Master, which led to some other changes all around the house! These are the best kind of changes because they were free aside from the hours of manual labor I put in to make them happen!

The first domino was in my master closet. I have this beautiful painted dresser that was one of my first DIYs. I have always had it in a closet and I have always hated that no one really gets to see it! And I am on a major mission to meet my closet usable and moving this out will give me some. Uh needed space. And here is why it's making it's way out....

My friends, family, and now the entire world can now know that I am an obsessive outfit changer and the results can be seen above. It's a miracle if I walk out the door in the first outfit that I put on. And it wreaks havoc on my closet organization! But more on that to come!

So where could this pretty little dresser go? My initial thought was the kids playroom. I had fuzzy visions of neatly organized drawers of blocks, trains, and puzzles. But alas, I was home alone and I was not even gonna try and get this monster upstairs solo! But I love where she landed... In the dining room! And you will also notice that another couple of items got moved from the Master. I knew that the dining room needed a pop of color and pattern. The emerald green lamps and Dwell pillows seem to do just the trick!

My toddler is Egg-static for meal times!

HappyEaster Monday! We had a very nice relaxing weekend and got ready for the Easter holiday. My kids love going to the dollar store (the Little Man calls it the balloon store - because I always let him get a $1 mylar balloon). So they were thrilled to be getting some Easter goodies from there!

We have an Easter egg hunt on Friday so we grabbed about 1,000 alot of the plastic eggs to fill with treats. I grabbed a few extra bags to use around the house too. Little Man had so much fun helping to fill the eggs with treats to get ready for our Easter hunt... So when I saw this adorable idea on the web I knew that it would be a winner at our house.

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And here is our take on it!

3 very excited mealtimes later, I say with conviction that this was one of my best 'food finds' of all times! Oh yeah and I got to use my adorable ceramic egg holder more than just to hold eggs in the frig! I am thinking about using the egg holder for his meals even after the eggs are retired this weekend. He seems to love the fun presentation of it all!

Linking up at The Better Mom & The Inspiration Gallery Link Party

Lovely lilac: 2 for 1!

It goes without saying that I love my lilac skinny cords. They are a perfect transition color to spring and they work with so many pieces in my closet. Today you get 2 for 1! Apologies that the picture quality quickly declines! Major props to the very talented bloggers who can photograph themselves!

Linking up at Get Pinspired!

First up lilac and navy... 

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And then a quick switch to lilac and yellow....

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Just a quick note on these awesome boots.... that I totally scored a deal on! They are Steve Madden Candence and they are crazy comfortable and cute too right? They day before we flew out to Utah, my mom and I hit up the mall with the kids in tow to get them some new shoes. Of course, I could not resist the Dillards shoe department! And boy was I happy to find these marked down to $33!

Some tough decisions in the Master...

Once I got my inspiration  for my master, things started moving quickly! To refresh your memory...

The desk got moved in,  I was starting to look at paint, and I quickly ordered the shams Dwell Studio Magnus Kelly shams and the Ink Knotted Trellis pillow cases. I was so excited to get them that I had them shipped to my moms house since it would be torture to wait a whole 3 weeks to see them! They arrived before I even got there and my mom reported back that they were beautiful! I was a little concerned that the Ink cases might be more of a navy but they were a very dark gray that could read navy or black. Even better than black!

I then set off to find the embroidered duvet. The one in my inspiration board is from West Elm and no longer sold online but the sheets are still there for a great price. (I actually found the duvet in our local store but no shams are available ANYWHERE!) I was on Overstock ordering the kids snow suits and happened to do a search for embroidered duvet... I found several good options well under $70! I decided on the Scroll Embroidery set (below) in black based on excellent reviews (plus the scroll looked pretty similar to the Trellis design!) I shipped them straight to my mom's house too and then got the kids and myself packed up!

On my second night home, I finally got a chance to check out the goodies that had been delivered. The duvet was just as promised. Clean, crisp black stitching on a white slightly oversized king duvet with matching shams. It was all aligning perfectly. Until I opened the Dwell package. The shams and pillow cases were out of this world. Great quality, beautiful pattern and great thread count! They were just as pictured except one thing..... the background of both patterns was ivory! Maybe even ecru! Holding them up to the very white duvet I realized that it was not going to work with the duvet. I was sad and I started questioning what to do. I decided to return the duvet and bring the Dwell deliveries home to sort it out.

I started thinking about making my own Olatz inspired duvet like Jenny did here. But it seemed like it might be too much going on. So I threw the pillows on with my old duvet that is slightly off white. It's not horrible but it still bothers me! It is hard to tell in the photos but trust me when I say that there is a noticeable difference in shades. So now I am left wondering where to go from here? For now I am taking the night to soak it all in and see how I feel about it.

Ps - do you remember my striped lampshades that the movers dented? 

How awesome would they be in the master now?

Meatloaf is great... Coach's Stack is out of this world!

One of the most loved recipes in our house is my Chicken & Bacon Meatloaf. I often mix it up by using ground turkey and adding various veggies that you can never even notice. The hubby hates broccoli and I got an entire cup into it the most recent time I made them.... he had no idea! Little Man is a huge fan too and I have no doubt that Fia will love it as well.

So when I saw this amazing recipe at Mix and Match Mama for the Coach's Stack, I knew that it would be a huge hit for our anniversary dinner! I had never even heard of a coach's stack before but I sure am glad that I gave it a try.

I opted for Jiffy cornbread as the base, followed by boxed Mashed Potatoes, topped with my bacon wrapped meat balls and french fried onions on top. My presentation wasn't quite as nice as Shay's but it was 8pm on a school night and we were starving!

The verdict? Amazing! This went over even better than the original meat loaf and both the hubs and I went back for a second stack!

Happy St Patty's Day!!!

Hope that you all had a wonderful St Patty's Day! We had a quiet weekend enjoying our local arts and crafts festival. Oh yeah and taking some pretty adorable pics of the kids!

Not so Gray thanks to Pinterest!

As I mentioned about 500 times, the prospect of packing for Florida and Utah for both me and the kids was a daunting task. I quickly realized that I needed to find multi purpose pieces that could easily be layered. Thank the Lord I did this because the weather in Florida was pretty darn crazy!

On our first day at Disney's Magic Kingdom, I spent the day in shorts and a light jacket (and lots of very expensive Disney sunscreen thanks to the unexpected warm weather!) But at night, the weather turned really cold! Thankfully, we ran back to the hotel for a quick break outfit change prior to the night parades and meeting up with some friends.

This super cute image popped into my mind as I was throwing on my clothes while Little Man was trying to jump off the bunk beds in our room at the Wilderness Lodge. 

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It was a touch too cold to go with the leggings so I paired my gray sweater and scarf with jeans and a navy tank for another layer of warmth but still very much loved the ease and casual look of the outfit! Pardon the horrible iPhone mirror pic :)

Next Friday's fashion post will look at some more of my favorite travel outfits!

The Desk in the Master

Somehow before I left on vacation I got this crazy burst of energy and tried out a couple of lighting options in the master. I had the post all written and I totally forgot to post it! Duh - blonde moment :)

With the new Master bedroom work space, I was left wondering what type of lighting would work best. Initially I was dead set on the green glass table lamps. But my wondering mind got the best of me and I grabbed another option to try out as well.

And here is the other option that I somewhat quickly threw together but I actually really like it. Especially the fact that it gives me so much more desk space and its not as obvious that the desk and nightstand are at different heights. Oh and I get to use that adorable Nate Berkus for Target nailhead trimmed tray too!

What do you think??? Do you prefer the green glass or the task lights? I am holding off on an official decision until the bedding, curtains, and wall color are set!

The Vacation is over

Here we are in the car headed back home. It is bittersweet... I am so happy to get back to our house and to not live out of a suitcase! We are a day shy of being gone for three full weeks which is a really long time for me let alone two little kids!

We had a great time visiting with family, friends, old neighbors, and Mickey Mouse! And both me and Little Man tried out skiing (one of us did really good! Here's a hint... It wasn't me!) And Fia got to see snow for the first time and take her first plane ride!

More details on it all soon!

Wear It Challenge: Lilac Skinny Corduroys

This challenge came at the perfect time for me! We are halfway thru our whirlwind month of travel and we are off to Park City in just a few days. Needless to say, I can't do much in the way of DIY and the big task at hand is packing for me and the kids!

I actually turned to Pinterest prior to this challenge to get some ideas for multi purpose pieces that will help keep my packing to a minimum. Yeah - that will never happen!

Now that I have fully jumped on the colored jeans bandwagon I thought that adding a pair of colored corduroys was the next logical step. A big thanks to Old Navy for getting their spring clothes out extra early and marking these puppies down to $11! The color options were lilac, coral, and green. Lilac was a new color to my closet and it seemed like a great spring transition color. I am thrilled to report that are tons of outfit ideas for lilac skinnies like this adorable lilac and navy option from Classroom Couture.

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Unfortunately, I was already at my parents house and did not have the needed pieces that would make these outfits work (but I am so excited to try these out in the very near future!) I decided to check out what I did have that might work with these cords and I stumbled onto a pretty awesome and comfy outfit! Here is outfit inspiration.

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And here is my take on it - obviously in a different color but the style still translates!

And there is a pretty funny story behind my outfit... I have been pretty vocal about being slow to buy a chambray shirt. Well, since I am home I decided to check out my mom's closet after borrowing a super cute JCrew necklace when we went out on Saturday night. Lo and behold, my mom has not one, not two, but three chambray shirts!!! What??? So i grabbed one of hers and threw this super cute outfit together.

And the moral of the story is that I will be buying a chambray shirt tomorrow!

Linking up at the Wear It Challenge!