stuff I made {baby version}

It seems we have had a lot of friends having babies recently, and its more fun and personal

(and better on the budget) to make them gifts.

I am a green girl, so you will see a theme with the fabrics I had on hand.

An embellished newborn onsie for Baby Pearl Jackson.

Is there anything cuter than a baby ruffle bum? I think not.

This one is supposed to be gender neutral for our dear friend Carita Holloway.

I realize that bows aren't very gender neutral, I do.

But I told her I would trim the ends to be cute knots instead of bows. :)

We can't wait to meet the new babies!

Heaven from the Oven

Luke wanted to make a cake together for my birthday. I love cooking in the kitchen with my husband. Recently, my friends and I peeled, sliced and canned several hundred pounds of peaches and I was anxious to use some of them up.

Aren't they beautiful? I certainly think so.

We didn't follow a recipe but just kind of made things up as we went.

We started with butter, brown sugar and crushed pecans in the bottom of a spring form pan. This made it so easy to turn over at the end.

Then we lined it with the sliced peaches. We did it so carefully and made a pretty pattern, but with the pecans on top, you could hardly see the pattern when we finally turned it over.

Oh well.

This was all that was left of the jar of peaches. So I used my fancy new immersion blender that I got for my birthday to pure the rest of the peaches that were left from the jar of peaches.

I used a yellow cake mix to keep things easy and added the pureed peaches to that. Instead of the water the recipe like it called for, I used the syrup from the peaches.

We added some apple pie filling, minus the apples, that we had left over,

along with more crushed pecans.

The inverted cake. YUM!

I found a recipe for Caramel Sauce on Pioneer Woman, and it was seriously the best caramel sauce I have ever made. Luke is obsessed with this sauce.

It is life changing. You need to try this.

Served up with Bluebell, cause that makes everything better.

Some old, some new. Nothing blue.

These are a few pictures I have been loving this week. I don't see how you can not love them. And in no particular order:

Chester Evan is from Heaven and was possibly the sweetest toddler ever.

He's still pretty sweet, if you ask me.

Can someone explain why there is an egg crate on my face? How handsome is my daddy in this picture. I wish you could see my face instead of the silliness that is going on instead.

P.S. I loved this dress from Mexico. Embroidered peacocks? Yes please!

There was a carnival going on in a church parking lot that we drove past. Obviously we had to stop and document these creatures. Mini-ponies painted neon rainbow colors. I am sure they made some children very happy that day. It sure made us giggle for a while.

Grandma & Grandpa Greathouse on their wedding day. I am obsessed with the way he is looking at her. Grandma always talks about how in love they were that they had seven children. I love hearing her talk about how much she loved him. I can't wait to tell my grandchildren about how much I love my sweet husband.

It's a whole lot.

Grandpa Greathouse and Lukie Duke when he was so little.

Apparently he loved his Troll doll.

Good to know.

This picture is pretty much everyone's favorite picture of Grandpa and is prominently placed at Grandma's house. She always points to it to show me what a cute little boy Luke was.

And then she tells me he is still so cute. I, of course, already know this.

This looks like my third birthday? I love the pink tutu and leotard. I love the hanging balloons and crepe paper. The toy in my hands, however, always confused me.

I never really knew what to do with it.

FaceTime with LL for our birthdays makes me happy. He called me the next morning on my birthday and was telling me how he was at breakfast with friends and had been up all night.

I had been up all night too, working on a project I'll post soon.

He sounded very chipper and full of energy.

I was feeling totally wasted, exhausted, woozy, and completely ridiculous.

So I asked him the difference between turning 19 and turning 30.

I was going to point out how he was fine and I was afraid that I was going to die.

Instead, he said: Nineteen is a still a teenager and thirty is OLD.

Gee, thanks.

My husband is 22 days older than me, but we got to blow out candles together this weekend at Grandma's house with Aunt Maria & Abbey in town from California, Sweet Robin who made delish spaghetti, Rebecca, and Luke's parents. It was fun to have a family dinner on Sundays.

I love that my family always does that and I miss it.

Some people's trash

We drove past the dumpster and Luke immediately looked at me shaking his head no at me. He knew what I was gonna do without my even saying anything. I let him think he got his way, but later sent him a picture text that said: Look what I brought home!

Gross, huh?

It sat on the patio for a few months until I could decide what to do with it. Then one day at Target, I saw a stack of gorgeous outdoor tablecloths. And Target always has just the right prices. So I brought home a couple to see how they would do. After a little while making up a pattern and then sitting at the sewing machine, I came up with this:

Pretty neat, huh? Luke sure made fun of me when I brought it home, but we definitely enjoyed watching several springtime thunderstorms Texas is so famous for. Makes me glad for other people's trash.

Its getting hot in huurrrr

TC Ice keeps us cool. And by us, I just mean me. He said he didn't want one, so I got a size larger than normal thinking he would end up eating half. He didn't. I managed to finish it off in shifts. :)

Wanna know something cool I learned by a happy accident? If you pull your bedding out of the dryer when it is still a little damp and throw them on the bed to air dry and then smooth out the wrinkles before it is all the way dry, a miracle happens: the wrinkles are really gone! I was amazed by how easy and totally effective it was.

Also, this is a real conversation we just had:

Him: Can you hear the dishwasher?

Me: Umm....Yes I can. (confused why he is asking because our dishwasher is not quiet)

Him: All I can hear is "Yankees suck, Yankees suck." Can't you hear that with the rhythm it is making?

Wow. That's all I have to say about that. I guess you could say he has a one track mind.

birthdays are so underrated

(Let me tell you my rambling thoughts about this picture: i love all the natural light that streams into our house, i LOVE my green kitchenaid mixer, i love the candlestick above the cupboards that we used for our wedding, i love that the cupcake stand is almost empty but had cupcakes with silly red sox paraphernalia, i love the little black leafed begonia in the windowsill - you should see how much it has grown, i look at it every day and it seriously makes me happy. Please note Luke's hat on the counter. I have been instructed to put it in the dishwasher to clean it. The pile of papers that are my to do list absolutely make me crazy. How do you not have a pile on the counter? I wish it was invisible. The two jars are mango salsa for Luke's parents and I keep forgetting to bring it with us when we see them.)

So we celebrate birthweeks around here. Well, why not? It's only us and it just seems so much more fun to get to celebrate that much longer (read: your vote for dinner/evening activities trumps the other). Its kinda funny though, cause neither of us really want a party. But since it was a BIG birthday, I felt like I had to do something extra, so I made some funny paper garlands and hung them around our house. Luke laughed because he was turning 30, not 3. I love that he humors my ridiculousness. We have had fun celebrating Luke even if his big idea for his actual birthday is to bring Five Guys home to eat while watching the Red Sox. Guys, he LOVES his Red Sox more than most anything else (myself excluded, of course).

Here are 30 things I love about my husband:

(Warning: it gets sappy and personal)

1. He ALWAYS opens the car door for me. Yes, in the rain too. And since its been so hot lately, he will just open it and instead of waiting for me to get in like he normally does, he says "its hot" and then goes to get in and start it so I won't just be sitting in the hot car. Isn't that the cutest?

2. He texts me every day when he gets to work to let me know he got there safely. I love waking up to his sweet messages every morning.

3. He always calls in to check on me, to tell me he likes his lunch, to tell me a silly story, etc. I love that he calls me ten times a day from work.

4. He can fall asleep in 5 seconds flat - as soon as he is in bed and our prayers are said, he is snoring. He is not messing around. I have only fallen asleep before him one time. ONE TIME.

5. He lets me blame everything on the "maintenance man". We are hoping this problem doesn't follow us to our next apartment.

6. He ALWAYS drives. I hate driving. I am really not that great at it. He likes driving (except when we are in Yellowstone and then he thinks we should take turns. Who knew?) This arrangement works out so well for us.

7. He always knows how to make me laugh. Even when I really am mad at him. He knows just what to say.

8. Estop ehh.

9. He actually likes to cook in the kitchen with me. He is the best helper and makes it really fun to do together. Except when he slices his fingertips off with the mandolin.

10. He is never picky about movies. He will gladly take me to a chick flick and even pretend to like it. Quite honestly, I really don't know if he ever likes a movie cause whenever I ask him if he likes it, he just mocks me and how I said I liked it. I have been trying to ask him his opinion before voicing mine, but I guess I'm easy to read when I like it? Whatever. He acts like he is happy either way, and that is always a win.

11. He is trying to help me be better with being on time. Guys this is really hard for me. And let me tell you he is so patient. I hope I am doing better.

12. He grunts "I love you" in his sleep when I finally get in bed and he is snoring. Literally grunts. Like a cave man. It is one of my favorite things.

13. He is the grill man. Turns it on, mans the meat, brings it in. I don't have to do any of it. And that is a beautiful thing. Plus he's really good at it. Nothing is cuter than him looking up cook times and measuring the temperature.

14. He loves watching a storm on our patio. He will say "Its time!" and be all excited and then we go outside and snuggle on our patio furniture I brought back to life. But don't bring a book or your phone. Because he expects you to literally watch the storm and that is all.

15. (Half-way there. Is anyone besides him still reading?) He always tells me thank you for working so hard around the house and making things nice and taking care of errands and making dinner, etc. He is so sweet cause he realizes that I am not just sitting at home watching the Kardashians. Although I definitely do watch them.

16. He is such a good provider and is constantly trying to figure out how to make things better. I am so grateful I married such a hard worker.

17. He is always trying to come up with something to surprise me with, even if its just a spontaneous dinner to the East Side at Golden Chick. Made us a bit nostalgic for high school days when we would meet there for lunch all the time.

18. He has such a fierce love and loyalty to family and friends that he holds as the same. He acts like such a tough guy, but let me tell you, I have never seen a heart so tender. He would do anything for them, to protect them, to help them. I love this about him.

19. He knew and loved my dad and I know my dad loved him too. I miss Daddy all the time and wish he was still around. But it is comforting to have Luke be able to tell me " your dad would say 'My heart pumps pickle juice for you'" or whatever silly thing it is at the time.

20. He is starting to realize that his selling our children joke is not really funny. Or at least realizing that I hate it so much that he has stopped telling it every five minutes. I think the one day that I was super emotional and burst into tears prolly put that one to a screeching halt.

21. He puts up with my spontaneous crying. He realizes that I am easily provoked and that the worst culprits are usually commercials. The one with Billy Ray Cyrus (I KNOW YOU ARE ALREADY CRYING TOO! But it isn't just the mere sight of him that made me cry) and his new show about military surprising their loved ones by coming home when not expected gets me every single time. Luke timed it: less than 5 seconds. Get a grip, Samantha!

22. He loves pillows. When I first unpacked my accent pillows for the sofa, he was baffled. He thought they were dumb, unnecessary, girly, etc. Now he needs no less than 5 to be comfortable on the sofa and I am left with one. (The sofa is big, I promise its not really that crazy to have that many pillows there.) Same thing when he sleeps. He needs at least 4.

23. He LOVES my cooking. His favorite thing to tell is how when I moved back to Dallas he had just lost 29 lbs thereby winning the Biggest Looser competition at work. I started cooking for him and he promptly put it right back on. I think two things need to change about this: one, I need to learn how to cook healthier/better options and two, maybe he shouldn't eat so much of it? I once heard my friend's husband say that he loved her cooking more than any other food and I thought that was the highest compliment. Her husband never wants to eat out because he always likes her food so much more. My husband will often tell me he likes my cooking better than somewhere we are eating and that just makes me beam. I love cooking for those I love.

24. He always asks for a treat, every night. Just like a little kid, its just so presh. So I always oblige. It would be rude not to. Right?

25. He always holds my hand. Wherever we are, whatever we are doing. I love that.

26. He is so frugal and good with managing our money. He has taught me so much in the short time we have been sharing and I am learning to really be smart about the choices we make with our dough.

27. He is always so excited to come home to me at the end of his work day. I love seeing him come back through that door. Then the fun begins.

28. He is so sentimental and sweet. He is such a teddy bear and such a lover. I am glad to get to spend my days with him. I always know he loves me.

29. He is so easy to please. He rarely asks for anything, so when he does, I listen up. (MLB tv has been his only request in months and it has brought endless happiness and we are barely past the All-Star break. That means many many more games to come.)

30. He loves me and is always quick to tell me. He makes it easy to love him back. I am so glad to have a partner who wants to pull the weight with me. So glad he's mine. Lucky us.

143- husband. Always & forever.

Honeymoon Registry

We decided since we already have so many things for our kitchen and home already, a honeymoon registry would be a great idea. We are so excited about it because it is going to allow us to go on the trip of a lifetime, which we wouldn't be able to do otherwise. We are still trying to decide which tropical location we will grace with our presence; we are dreaming about Thailand, Turks & Caicos, French Polynesia. And now we don't have a bunch of toasters and no one to eat the toast!