So Proud of Myself

I've always wanted to make a window pane painting. My mama's had a few of these in a storage building for years and I just decided one day with the help of my friend, Jodi, to do one of Greenlee's room (everything now days is all about Greenlee~ and that's OK). So I went and bought a bumble bee stencil, paint, and traced out how I wanted it to look. Then, we got a better idea... use fabric to back it and put her pictures in it as she grows~ kinda like a big picture frame...

Here is the old distressed window...

We were going to paint it, but once seeing it in Greenlee's room, we decided to leave it alone.

This is the fabric I chose... It has the colors of her nursery, but a different pattern...

I bought a vinyl monogram from a great store in Griffin, Serendipity... I have the Cricut that will do this, but I'm too chicken to try it right now...

And here is the finished product... Under her mongram will be all of her birth info (date, time, weight, length) and in each of the empty panes will be her newborn, 3 mo., 6 mo., 9 mo., and 12 mo. pictures.

It's going to be hung by picture hangers to make it steady, but it will really look like ribbon that I will attach is holding it up...

I must say that I am very proud of myself these days, getting to be so crafty and domestic... I've always had a crafty streak running through me, but it wasn't until I found out that I am going to be a Mama that I've really started to use it... Hopefully there will be more to come!

Simply Southern

OK, So, like most Southern Women, I absolutely love getting my Southern Living magazine in the mail every month... Well actually, it goes to my Mama's house and I get it a few weeks later after she has read through it (but I don't mind). With it being Summer and all the fruits & vegetables are ripe for the pickin', I couldn't resist making this recipe that was in this month's magazine (along with several others)
BLUEBERRY SALSA


Start off with 2 cups coarsely chopped blueberries & 1 cup fresh whole blueberries...

Add 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, 3 TBSP chopped fresh cilantro, and seeded and minced jalapeno peppers (be careful~ your hands will start burning)...

Add in 1/3 cup red bell pepper and 1/2 tsp kosher salt...

And here's your finished product... You can either serve immediately or chill for 8 hours or more. I put mine in these decorative jars... Trust me, the longer it sits the better it tastes. I served mine with baked flour tortilla chips (we are trying to watch what we eat since one of us can't gain but another 8 - 18 pounds until September)

I hope you take the time to try this...

This was one receipe that my sister-in-law wanted me to try to make, so I did... I figured that if it looked good enough, I'd share it with people... It's not a copy cat of anything else... there's nothing else like it!

So for those of you that have seen any of our status updates on Facebook over the past few months, you know that Justin is undergoing some medical "mystery" that no one can seem to diagnose... He says that the pain that he's been having has been going on for about a year & a half. In April, he had had enough... He went to the doctor where she proceeded to do blood work, an EKG, & a chest x-ray... Results were all normal. Nothing was found. Two weeks later he was still hurting... an ultrasound of his gallbladder was ordered; and guess what? It was normal too... One hot Sunday afternoon, he gets extremely sick and I meet him at the doctor's office, where they seem to be able to narrow it down to 3 conditions- gallbladder, hernia, or an ulcer... So up to this point, he has seen a gastroenterologist for the HIDA scan to check gallbladder function (NORMAL) and has had a endoscopy to check for an ulcer (NORMAL~ just a little gastritis)... So, this Friday after our 31 week OB visit, we get to head back to Southern Regional for a CT scan... Hopefully this will rule out anything else or at least tell us what's wrong... The only thing not ruled out as of yet is a hernia... Not as serious as the gallbladder, but a longer recovery. We just need all the thoughts and prayers sent our way that we can get... After this scan, there's pretty much nothing else to do...