FGK Halloween Swap

Recently, Susan over at Five Great Kiddos hosted a Halloween/Fall Swap and I participated. It was the first swap I have been a part of and I loved it! It was so fun picking out what I was going to give and putting the whole thing together. And then getting the package in the mail was so exciting. Susan and I actually ended up being partners and I thought I'd show you what I sent and what Susan sent me.

Here's the package I made up:

 I added a magnetic to-do list, "Emergency Chocolate", a cute little ghost bowl, some glittery chipboard letters, ribbon, cupcake liners, spider web cards, a tiny ceramic pumpkin and some Halloween magnets that I made.

 When I received Susan's package, I was so excited! So many cute things -- like these adorable Halloween plates and napkins.

My oven got a mini-makeover as it went from this:

To this:

I got the cutest apron ever. =] 

Susan also sent these beautiful fall-themed cards.

How jealous are you over this necklace? I love it.

And she also sent these super cool notebooks.

I got really lucky!

In addition to this swap, Susan has been considering hosting a Christmas swap. If you're interested, you can hop on over to her blog and leave her a comment. =]

Thank you Target

For quite some time now, I've been on the prowl for a new TV stand to replace this:

It's the coffee table that I got along with the end tables from Craigslist. Yeah, it's been realllly good at hiding the cords and all...

After searching Craigslist/yard sales/thrift stores, I still hadn't found anything. I started stalking Target and found the beautiful Avington TV stand for $170  I loved it, but didn't want to throw down that much on the spot. I checked each week to see if maybe it had gone on sale and finally it did! So I snatched it up for $130.

Sure, it had to be put together, but that was no big deal.

Voila!

I love it and couldn't be more pleased. The PS3 and Wii fit perfectly and all the wires are hidden. Yay! I also love the drawers. They are perfect for hiding DVDs and Wii games.

I love the color too. It goes really well with the floors.

 Another mission accomplished.

Baked Ziti

Last week I wanted to make a quick and easy meal and as I've mentioned before I'm not one for measuring precisely...so I just threw some ingredients together to make baked ziti.

Boiling water for the pasta is always a good first step. ;-) 

I realize most people would use mozzarella cheese, buuuuuuuut I didn't have any so I just used cheddar cheese.

I just kept grating until I had a pretty nice pile going there.

Once the pasta was done, I strained it. Next, I drizzled some olive oil in the bottom of a clear baking dish. Then I poured some of the ziti into the bottom.

Then I poured some of my Ragu Super Vegetable Primavera sauce over the top of that and then sprinkled some of the cheese over it.

Then I kept layering the pasta, sauce and cheese. I then sprinkled some basil over the top and baked it at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes.

The final product came out like this.

 

 I had the aforementioned parmesan green beans as well.

Pretty good for a 30-minute meal. =]

Modem Stand

Ever since I got a dsl modem for the house, it’s been jutting out of the wall on an ugly foldable stand that I got when I moved in the house, and I haven’t really known what to do with it.

I  thought about moving the modem, but this is the only phone line in the house, and it would have cost waay more than I cared to pay for to put in a new line. So one day, I happened to find this lovely table:

I put that in place of the ugly foldable stand and it looked much better.

However, it still wasn’t enough. It’s true that the table looked a lot better, but I still didn’t like having the modem in plain sight in the entrance between the dining table and the kitchen, so I grabbed this box from Walmart.

After opening it up and cutting out a hole in the back, I put the modem in the box and ran the cords through the hole.

And finally, once that was done, stuck the box beneath the surface of the table so it blended in nicely and kept the modem out of sight.

I've been wanting to do this for a while now and I'm glad it's finally taken care of. :)

Beadboard Love

Ah, beadboard.... I don't have any in my house, but I sure want to. I have so many inspiration pictures saved that I drool over and hope to at some point DIY some beadboard in our half bath downstairs.

I don't know if I would want it to go up halfway or 3/4 of the way. I think both ways are beautiful and I definitely want a pop of color on the top.

This is closer to how the bathroom is, but the bathroom is not as big. I love the contrast of gray and white.

This picture is so enticing. I love that beautiful blue color on the walls against the beadboard. So many options!

An example of beadboard running higher up the wall. I like this too.

This one is a little dark for my taste, but I still think it's quite lovely.

One last picture! I like the shelf they added on the left. Nice and functional. I probably need something like that since I only have a pedastal sink for storage.

Anyone else with a love for beadboard? Or wainscoting in general? Do you have any in your home?

(All pics from Google)

Asian Food Night

So, I threw all of the following (including my computer) into a pot and out came dinner! OK, maybe not. But it was still really easy.

I used Pioneer Woman's recipe for Sesame Noodles. And they are pretty amazing! And easy to make. I used angel hair pasta as I couldn't find Japanese style noodles.

For those of you who don't like tofu or are afraid of tofu, the next recipe probably isn't for you. However I love it and it's so easy to make. I used this Lemon Pepper Tofu recipe and I really enjoyed it. The tofu really soaks up the flavors of whatever you put on it and I love that.

To round out the meal, I heated up some veggies and tossed them in a little soy sauce and pepper.

And that's it! This meal takes about about 45 minutes to make and is really easy. =]

Chocolate-y Goodness. Sort of.

Well after painting non-stop for about 4 days, the house was looking quite gorgeous if I do say so myself. And then Monday and Tuesday of last week, the hard-working men from the floor company came to install these beautiful chocolate brown hardwood floors. I absolutely love how they turned out and could not be more pleased. After putting the room back together, I snapped these pictures to capture the progress so far. There's still more to be done, but I feel like I've reached a major milestone here!

The company that I chose to do the floors was a local business called Kemp's that my uncle who flips houses recommended. He's used them before and rates them highly. I went there first, but also decided to check out other places including Home Depot and Lowe's. The two big guns couldn't come close to Kemp's.

The prices included installation which was wonderful and they did such a marvelous job. They took up the old carpet in one big piece which is now being donating to the local Habitat for Humanity. That was something very important to me and I'm glad they did that.

I chose to have the hardwood go all throughout the first floor and it looks amazing. I wanted to have cohesion between all the rooms since the floorplan is so open.

As far as caring for the floors goes, the first thing I did was stick felt pads to the bottom of every piece of furniture in order to prevent scratching.

Also, Kemp's recommended using Bona hardwood floor cleaner and a microfiber cloth, which could be found at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I told her that I hadn't heard of that before and that I was planning on getting something eco-friendly and she informed me that it was "green"! I did some more research and then we made the trip to BBB and found a Bona starter kit that came with a spray bottle, mop with microfiber cloth, cleaning pad and all in a reusable bag for $20. I had a gift card so I just used that for the kit.

After the flooring had been installed, there was dust EVERYWHERE so I vacuumed really well and then broke out the Bona kit to get started. The mop came together with ease and then I stuck the microfiber cloth on the bottom and went to town cleaning the floors.

It doesn't take much of the spray to get the job done so I'm glad to see that it will last a while and also, Bona has coupons on their website for when I do have to get some more cleaner. =] Yay coupons!

All in all I'm super excited about the new floors and if you're interested, here's a close-up of the floor next to the window:

I was attempting to capture the "essence" of the floors in this photo. I'm not sure that I did that, but I tried. ;-)

I'm off to bask in the chocolate-y goodness!