Dress Envy

MayI just say....did you see this dress?

Um, hands down one of the most beautiful dresses I've seen.  Ever.  Did you see all those buttons?

It's right up there with my all time favorite.  Sigh.

{Almost Easy} Birthday Cake

We celebrated my belated birthday this weekend.  The Bionic Man and our children were off the hook for cake making, because I needed a good excuse to try out a cake recipe I found.  The original recipe and accompanying gorgeous photographs can be found here.  The original recipe, however, seemed a little tricky to me, so I modified it and came up with a somewhat simpler version of my own.

Pretty, hmmm?  And, admittedly, very tasty, too!  This is how I made it:

The cake layers and frosting were made of some basic ingredients

and a very few not-so-basic ingredients.

Spring Decor: Burlap and Birdies Wreath

I made a spring wreath today for my front door.  Want to see?

It was pretty easy, once I worked out a few details.  These were the basic supplies:

1 large styrofoam wreath form

Burlap 

Fabric Quarters

Something Special Saturday - 4/16/11

It's Saturday.  Again.  Seriously, wasn't it just Saturday, like 2 days ago?

There just weren't enough days in my week, this time.  That's the only explanation.  Can I get a refund for that?

Alright, friends, I am going to freely admit that this is kind of a slacker SSS.  I spent the morning writing for The CSI Project, the afternoon trying to be crafty AND supervise bedroom cleaning simultaneously (bad, bad idea), and the evening trying to re-celebrate my birthday (also bad idea: we didn't know it was prom night--all the restaurants were packed).  So, instead of linking you to all the things I had fun seeing this week, I'm going to show you my Pinterest pages, where I keep those fun things.  If you want more, go get a Pinterest account.  (I have a tutorial for you, here.)  Mmmmkay?

Celebrating:

Of Omens and Amens

I woke up bright and early on Tuesday, April 12, 2011, to the beginnings of a glorious day.  The sun was rising in a cloudless sky, the birds were singing, the trees were blooming, and my husband and children were smiling.

It was my birthday, and I had big plans.  I was going to sing, and dance, and make little crafts, spread a little mulch, and bake this beautiful cake.  (I recently discovered the recipe for it, here.)

In short, the day of my--I'm proud to say it--35th birthday was going to be mah-velous, darlings, simply mah-velous!

Something Special Saturday - 4/9/11

I don't know if it is because I just came back from vacation, or what, but I have to confess something.  I've become obsessed with maps.  Specifically, maps used for decoration.

I've been finding super fun ways to decorate with maps, lately, and I'm just about ready to roll up my sleeves and put together a map room.  (We're all about going places, in this family.)  I've never really done anything to decorate our basement rec room, maybe that's because it needs to become the map room.  Check out what I've found, so far:

Vintage World Canvas from Etsy shop LilyGene's

Budget Travel: Details on the Trip to Florida, Part 2

Like I said yesterday, if you aren't interested in thrifty vacations, feel free to skip this one!  This is my second post about

A Trip to Holland's Trip to Florida on a Budget

Yesterday, I told you how lots of planning and some creative thinking help us to keep our travel costs down.  Today, I'm going to tell you about how we find ways to save on expenses that occur during the vacation, like travel, activities, and souvenirs.

It's important to consider the daily expense of food when you plan a vacation.  For any trip we take, one of the ways we cut down on food expenses is to bring a lot of food with us.  It is simply less expensive to buy food at the bargain prices you are used to finding at your favorite close-to-home store.  It's also a time-saver to bring things along.  We usually bring a large bin of non-perishable items with us, as well as a cooler of perishable foods.  Even if the hotel room doesn't come equipped with a kitchenette, we find that keeping a cooler of food in our room  filled with ice from the machine down the hall works well.

 

Budget Travel: Details on the Trip to Florida, Part 1

So, as you know, we enjoyed a lovely spring break roadtrip to Florida, last week.  It's always hard to rejoin real life after a great vacation, but I'm almost there.  (And no, for anyone who needs an update, I haven't found my wedding/anniversary/this-is-the-ring-that-says-I'm-married band yet.  And, as long as I'm following up on things, Hunter the Dog did see the vet, and he is now recovering nicely.)

Perhaps because it's hard to leave a good vacation behind, I'm reliving it this week on the ole' blog.  Cheap therapy is one of the reasons I blog, remember?  I'll warn you that this is a wordy one, so if you're not interested in the money-saving details of our recent trip, feel free to move on!  Monday you got the vacation recovery post, Wednesday you got the oh-man-that-was-fun post, and today you're getting.....

A Trip to Holland's Trip to Florida on a Budget

First, I have some 'splainin to do.  (Say that like Ricki Ricardo from I Love Lucy.)

The Bionic Man and I really, really like to travel.  We've made it a priority to try to see as many different places as we can, since we've been married.  And, we've made it a priority to take our children along with us to most of those places.  It does cost money to travel.  While we aren't financial brainiacs, we have made travel a priority in our budget.  

How do we do that?

The Cure for the Common Cold

As I mentioned the other day, I discovered the cure for the common cold on a beach in Destin, Florida, last week.  We spent most of our spring break there, and it was sooooo nice to get away from the Midwestern chill for a few days.  

Here are some of the pics from our trip.  I didn't take along my shiny, new camera for this trip, because I was a little nervous about sand and water.  Instead, Bionic Man brought along his trusty (NOT!  SO NOT!) waterproof camera.  You know how I feel about that camera.  I let Bionic Man take most of the pictures, this time, because of my grudge with his camera.  So, enjoy these pics in all of their blue-date-in-the-corner glory.  And remember, Bionic Man mostly takes pictures of feats of engineering and nature, so any humans included are lucky to be there.

Speaking of feats of engineering, our first stop was at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Lost and Found

Lost: simple, thick wedding/anniversary band.  Given to me on our 10th wedding anniversary by the Bionic Man.  It is tungsten, which means it is shiny, almost black, and extremely cool.  Tungsten is the strongest metal known to man, which means it doesn't scratch.  Perfect anniversary gift.  Discovered it was missing at a rest stop in Franklin, Tennessee.  Don't remember taking it off.  (I never take it off!)  I'm distraught.  Praying I will find it in my luggage.

Found:  the sweater I didn't think I had packed.  In the luggage.  There is hope for the ring, isn't there?

Lost:  the horrible chest cold I had when we left on our spring break vacation.  It is almost completely gone, poof!

Found:  the cure for the common cold!  The medicinal properties of lying on a beach have not been sufficiently studied.  I tell you, all it took was a day lying in the warm sun on a Florida beach for me to feel like a new woman.  Stuffy nose and cough, gone.  {snaps fingers}  Like that!  Next time I get sick, I'm ditching the Mucinex and going to the beach, instead.