Attention: Baking Gals

Heather Drive: Attention: Baking Gals
This round is going to my lil' brother's best friend! Please consider joining this team or any other team to support our soliders with baking!!

things I am loving right now...

...personalized gifts! I love giving presents and have been on a mission to give really personal presents when I can.

This necklace from MamaBethBling, become a fan on facebook and you get deals!--I gave my sister for her anniversary. It has their names and birthstones!

Mom, if by chance you are reading this--stop now!

For Mother's Day, I got my mom a necklace like this from The Pretty Peacock! Ours has all the kids and spouses names on the bottom tier, my parents names on the middle tier, and the word love on the top with my mom's birthstone. She is wonderful to work with and her packaging is beautiful too! She has a great blog as well--and has deals of the week!

For my mother-in-law I sent my blogging friend Ashley Brooke this picture of her dogs
and she turned that into this...

Seriously, if you haven't bought anything from Ashley yet you are missing out, her work is beautiful and she is so gosh darn nice!! She just started making sticky notes...

Two of my teammates at school are getting married this summer, so one got a beautiful frame like this from Onkie Bazoobie
.

Another, whose shower I am co-hosting this weekend, is getting a sign like this

(This is mine from our wedding cake table--I get compliments all the time on it and I love giving these at showers, as does my sister, we are arguing over who gets to give one like it at my sister-in-law's baby shower!)
from my favorite seller OffWoodlandLane who has some amazing new shadow box frames in her store!
and some cute luggage tags from A Touch of Whimsy!

So as you can see there is no recession in my household!! Don't tell that to my credit card company or my husband! I love etsy and finding people who make great stuff by hand themselves--I feel a little better spending money that way.

Mini Vacation

Heading to Pagosa Springs via Durango!
Hubby has a engineering test in Durango on Saturday, so we will drive down Friday. I will have to find something to occupy myself for 8 hours while he is taking the test(I have 6 library books and plan on window shopping) before heading to the relaxing hot springs!

Can't wait for a little adventure.

Local Celebrity

I made the local news when I won a grant from Qwest Technology and Teachers! I am so excited I got close to $3000 to buy technology for my classroom--I am getting clickers and an interactive board!! I am about 50 seconds in with my class!

twitter...

...so my dad sent me an invite saying he wanted to follow me on twitter, so I jumped aboard, can't figure out how to get it on my blog quite yet but I am junctionbyrd!

Maturity...

...is harder than it is cracked up to be. I am constantly telling my students about their maturity levels or lack thereof, and yet last night I realized its hard to be mature. Last night I had to admit to my hubby that I know he is not a mind reader and that I (gasp) don't expect him to be. A family situation sent me diving straight into 2 pounds of chocolate over the past few days, and I was waiting for him to realize that something was wrong with me. I mean hello, your normally health conscious wife skipped classes at the gym and is sitting with candy wrappers strewn around her. Instead of doing the mature thing and talking about it, I just waited. Well luckily I had an amazing conversation with my lil' sis that allowed me to express my feelings so I could then say the mature thing to my husband! But with sisters--immaturity rules!! Love ya KK!!

{Happy Easter!!}

Brunch with friends!!
Menu:
Champagne Punch
bottle of champagne/sparkling wine
cup of superfine sugar
1/3 cup cognac
1/3 cup triple sec
1 1/2 lemons squeezed for juice
4 TBSP Tourani Raspberry syrup
1-2 cups orange juice
Mix everything but the champagne together until the sugar is dissolved. Add champagne and chill for an hour or so.

Coffee Cake
Cinnamon Streusel
1/3 cup Original Bisquick® mix
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons firm butter or margarine
Coffee Cake
2 cups Original Bisquick® mix
2/3 cup milk or water (I used sour cream instead)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg


1.Heat oven to 375°F. Grease 9-inch round pan. In small bowl, stir streusel ingredients until crumbly; set aside.
2.In medium bowl, mix coffee cake ingredients until blended. Spread in pan. Sprinkle with streusel.
3.Bake 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown.
High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): Heat oven to 425°F. Use 9-inch square pan. Stir 2 tablespoons Gold Medal® all-purpose flour into the 2 cups Bisquick® mix. Increase milk to 3/4 cup. Bake 15 to 20 minutes.

Egg Casserole
6 eggs
10 ounces evaporated milk
large can of whole roasted green chilies
4 cups shredded cheese

Rinse the chilies and layer in the bottom of a 9 by 13 baking dish, cover with 3 cups of the shredded cheese. Beat eggs and evaporated milk together, pour over chilies and cheese. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, covered. Remover cover, layer the rest of the cheese over the top, bake for 15 more minutes uncovered.

Roasted Potatoes
I just tossed some potatoes in olive oil, garlic, and salt. Baked at 425 for 40 minutes or so. Sauted some bell peppers and onion with a little olive oil. Mixed with the potatoes and baked at 350 for 15 minutes before serving.

Centerpiece--Snoopy figurine nestled in among M&Ms and Cadbury mini eggs!

Dress--J.Crew final sale find!!!

MHRF--Dating Life

Our second date has gone down in history as one of our best dates ever, see the last post for the details. We always seem to have fun together, we go on picnics, take other people's dogs to the dog park, go out to dinner, and just hang out. We go out every Friday for dinner and always toast to date night. one of the best things about my hubby is that he is in awe of my teaching. He will tell me how amazing it is that I teach 8th graders all day and seem to enjoy it. Just this week he came to our school's track meet and quickly got to work with no complaints helping us measure the triple jump. He came and cheered on my team when I coached basketball and has come to middle school dances with me! That is true love!

Ann Taylor Sale

Up to 60% off and an extra 10% if you use an Ann Taylor Card. I have been waiting for this dress to go on sale...

Makeup Mondays

Anyone else have a little bit of a makeup obsession? For Christmas, our June 08 wedding board did a gift exchange and I got a Sephora gift card(one of my favorite stores) and I bought this mascara kit(which they apparently don't carry anymore). It is very cool--10 mini mascaras of all the top sellers. I feel like I am always on the search for a great mascara to give me thick, long dark, lashes--and so far I haven't found it. The past two weeks I have been trying Cargo's Texas Lash.

According to the product description:
What it is:
A maximum volumizing formula that gives lashes instant volume.
What it does:
CARGO's new must-have for Texas-sized high volume lashes in an instant. The fat, oversized brush allows for easy application with just one coat for immediate impact.

But I have been a little underwhelmed, it might be the small tube but the brush doesn't seem to get coated in mascara and it doesn't do much for my lashes. So next week, I will try the next sample. What is your go to mascara?

Weekend roundup

Things I have found and fallen in love with this week:
Ashley Brooke Designs--check her blog and store! I ordered these Love Birds Notecards and the Easter Urban Cards--she is running a sale and she is so nice to work with!



This shower invitation from etsy seller SassyInk(great name too!) for my friend Courtney's shower--they fit her perfectly!


That OffWoodlandLane is back! She made a beautiful custom name sign I used at my wedding and I just ordered one for a bridal shower I am throwing. Her work is great and they are great personal gifts.

That Shelley from SingleStoneStudios is doing a great giveaway! I have to take pictures of my latest vinyl set!

This dress from Land's End

Cool Giveaway!

Shelley over at SingleStoneStudios is giving away a free decal! I have quite a few around my apartment and she is so nice to work with. Head on over to her blog and enter! Here is my current fave--Trail of Happiness! I have the baroque frame set and Shelley designed a cool decal set for spring for me and I have a little birdie in birdcage!

My Husband Rocks Fridays!

So I found this great new blog--Sometimes It's Good to Be Speechless! And she had this post about celebrating marriage on Fridays.
So I thought I would tag along!
The story of how we met:
We met on eHarmony! I had been a member many times (OK like 3 times) and I met lots of nice guys but never the one. I was approaching my 30th birthday and feeling a little sorry for myself that my life wasn't going quite as expected so I signed up again. Within a few days I was matched with Kevin. We went through the whole process and we started emailing each other. Checking my email became the highlight of my day. I am a teacher and I was teaching web design at the time so I had plenty of email time. Before long he asked for my number and left me this quick message asking me out. He suggested drinks, I said how about lunch and we set up a date at Chili's! He was not what I expected and not my normal type. He had long red hair--I am normally a clean cut kind of girl. But we had a great date and the end of which he says I demanded a hug. The second date was even better--we went out for pizza and then roller skating and then a long night of watching movies and talking. I knew he had to be special when I was still up at 3 in the morning talking to someone. I am usually in bed at 9(hey I am a teacher and a morning person--I was like that even in college!) Before long we were seriously dating and getting to know each other better.

So my husband rocks because he is so much fun to talk to about whatever and for going on "best date evers". Stay tuned for many more reasons.
Love ya Kevin!!

Cute announcements

So I am searching for shower invites for a friend and I came across this gorgeous baby announcement!! No I am not having a baby yet but these are too cute. Check out the seller.