Instagram

Hello! Are you on Instagram? I'm pretty new to it all but so far I love it! I take photos on my phone all the time so this app has been fun to edit and collect all my photos in to one place! But I have realized that Instagram is a lot more fun if you have other people's photos to look at!!

If you want to follow me and see tons of photos of my four-legged baby, food, and other random photos of my life then search "alauraorr" click on it, and start following! I would love to have some new friends on there, and follow you back as well! Or leave a comment with your Instagram name and I'll search for you!!

I have had fun playing along with the Photo A Day Challenge with Fat Mum Slim. I sometimes cheat and have to play catch up and then skip some all together but it has been fun!

Day 1- My View

Day 2- Words

Day 3- Hands

Day 4- Stranger (first time for crab legs)

Day 5- 10 a.m.

Day 6- Dinner

Day 7- Button

Day 8- Sun

Day 9- Front Door

Day 10- Self Portrait

Day 11- Makes Me Happy

Day 12-Inside My Closet

Day 13- Blue

Day 14- Heart

Day 15- Phone

Day 16- Something New

Day 17-Time

Day 18- Drink

Day 20- Handwriting

Day 21- Favorite Photo of Myself

Day 22- Where I Work

Day 23- Shoes

Day 25- Green

Day 26- Night

Day 27-Something I Ate

Day 28- Money

Day 29- Something I'm Listening To

I plan on participating in the March Photo A Day starting tomorrow. So follow along if you want, and I look forward to see some of you on there!!!

fatmumslim

Pin It

{Date Night} February

David and I finally had our February date night from his date basket! We would schedule it for one night and then something would come up and we would have to bump it back. But, this past Friday night we broke out our tent and camped out at home!

In the envelope I included an info sheet describing the date, a movie, a "tin foil" dinner recipe, Hershey's chocolate bar for s'mores and a deck of cards for maybe a fireside game!

Before David made it home from work I set our tent up in the living room. It was quite a bit bigger than I thought and ended up having to push all the furniture up against the back wall. (Remind me next time that camping is meant to happen outside!!)

 

I'm not much of a cook and you won't find too many recipes shared here on my blog but this one was too easy and too good not to share!! I found the recipe for Foil Wrapped Chicken on Pinterest and had all (well most) the ingredients on hand. The measurements that I am using is just for one packet- just multiply that by how many packets you want to make!

To start, place a 6 oz chicken breast on a square of heavy duty foil sprayed with oil. My foil wasn't so heavy duty so I just doubled up. I also seasoned the chicken (which the recipe doesn't call for) with salt, pepper, and Rudy's Turkey Rub. The recipe did call for a Chicken Stuffing mix to be added below the chicken but I didn't have any here at home. So I left it out!

Top with 1 cup of broccoli florets.  I tried to measure but ended up eye-ing it!  I used frozen and I think I should have thawed them out a bit more or used fresh! It still worked (and tasted great) but I think the extra "water" made my sauce a little runnier than it was supposed to be!

Top the broccoli with 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese, 1 slice of cooked and crumpled bacon, and 1 tablespoon of Ranch dressing (I eyed it again).

I topped this with another sheet of foil and wrapped it up on the ends, leaving room for heat circulation inside, and then place both packs in a 9x13 pan and cooked at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

After taking it out of the oven, I let it sit for about 5 minutes and then cut sits in foil for steam before I opened it all of the way. I placed the chicken on a bed of rice and then drizzled a little of the "too runny" sauce on top!! Absolutely delicious!!

Super simple and no clean up! It doesn't get better than that!!

For dessert we roasted s'mores over our "campfire"!

Looking forward to next month's date! Be sure to check out all of our dates here!

Love Never Fails Word Art

I am back at a little DIY-ing this week while trying to finish up some projects in my master bedroom. My first project was more "word art". I know.... more word art! There is something about having sentimental or inspiring quotes or lyrics around your house to inspire or remind you of a special day that keep me making more (plus it is inexpensive)!

These words are the lyrics to the song we had sung at our wedding- "Love Never Fails" by Brandon Heath. It is a beautiful song!

I started with these frames that I picked up at my local thrift shop. I paid only $6.00 for each one and knew from the start what I wanted to do with them (just took me about 6 months to get around to it).

I loved all of the detail and color in the frames. The gold ties in well with a few of the other gold accents in my bedroom and the coral color (although it is reading as red in these pictures) look great with my coral euro shams.

I typed up the lyrics again in Microsoft Word and chose a pretty font on my computer. I chose a charcoal gray as the font color and then made the word "love" coral to match the colors in the frame. I then had my 8.5" x 11" sheet enlarged at a print shop in town to fit the size of the opening in the frame.- this cost me only about $1 per page!

Since it was an odd size, it was printed on an 11" x 17" paper. I trimmed off the extra paper to make it the size I needed to fit in the frame.

I then popped the art in the frame and smiled because I finally finished this simple project!

Such a great reminder of the best day of our lives! They are hanging over my nightstand for now! As soon as I finish up a few more projects, I'll reveal the room I have been working on for months! haha!

What is your favorite way to remember great quotes or lyrics? Do you have them all over your house like me? I am planning some actual "art" pieces soon!!


Linking Up with 320*Sycamore- Under $10 and Under 10 Minutes

{Wedding} Say Yes to the Dress

This past Friday we took a girls trip in search of the perfect wedding dress for my beautiful sister!! My sister, my mom, her mother-in-law-to-be, and I all hopped in the car and headed to Brinkley, Arkansas- home of the famous (at least around here) Low's Bridal Shop.

Low's Bridal

Everyone around here has heard of Low's Bridal. It is the place to go for a wedding dress and was voted The Knot's Best of Weddings 2012! We made the trip a couple of years ago to look for my wedding dress and were so pleased with our experience we knew we had to come back for Emily's dress.

Me. Emily. Mom

Low's is a historic 35,000-square-foot building filled to the brim with wedding gowns. Owner Dorcas Prince's mother first opened the shop over a pharmacy more than 30 years ago, and the Low family has been catering to brides from Arkansas and beyond since. The building once was the Rusher Hotel, listed in the national register, near the train tracks in the center of this small town half-way between Little Rock and Memphis. The architecture and finishes are absolutely beautiful!!

Low's Bridal

There are dresses everywhere you look in this huge store!

Low's Bridal

Low's Bridal

And I am happy to say that she found her perfect dress!! It is absolutely beautiful on her!!

Emily and her dress

Danette.Emily.Mom

Yay!!

L.O.V.E.- Valentines Day 2012

Hello!! Happy (late) Valentines Day! I hope you all had a wonderful day with the ones you love!

The husband started off our valentines by bringing me breakfast in bed and a rose (The Bachelor style!)

Of course I accepted the rose! : )

And last night we stayed in for dinner and a movie at home! We watch Lady and the Tramp and had spaghetti and wonderful red wine!

And for desert we had yummy cheesecake-filled-chocolate-dipped strawberries! They were delicious!!

We will have our "valentines date" this Saturday! We are going back to Painting with a Twist!!

Paint or Not to Paint... Or Both?

How do you feel about mixed colors of cabinets, trim, anything wood in your home? We have a keep it or paint it dilemma happening in our house right now.

We are looking at updating our kitchen in the home we rent. (We're renting it from family so our "landlord" let's us do some renovations!) I love a neutral kitchen- white cabinets, pretty counter, great backsplash and I would LOVE gray walls! I'm tired of my "Totally Tan" walls all throughout my house. But we have (what I would call) medium oak colored cabinets, trim, doors, beams on the ceiling... everything. So I don't feel like cool gray walls would go well with our medium color oak trim (?).

Late Night Photos- Sorry!

There are two things holding me back from whipping out a paint brush. One- We don't own the house! If it were up to me, I would have probably painted a while ago.  Second- Once you paint- you can't go back. It's pretty wood... not cheap looking or anything... I just tend to be more of a crisp white trim kinda gal! Eventually (in a year), we will move and our family will move back in. So I have to think about what they like.

There are parts of the oak wood that I think are best being the wood tone- like our mantel; I don't think it would look right painted white on our brick fireplace. Which then makes me think that I don't need to paint the adjoining built-ins because they are so close. Which then means that maybe I shouldn't paint the trim because it is all in the same room. Which then makes me think that I shouldn't paint the cabinets in the kitchen because the kitchen is open to the living room.

Ignore the messy counters- just keeping it real!

BUT... if I paint the cabinets in the kitchen (which I know would be pretty), then I will want to paint the trim and chair rail... which is open to the living room so I will need to paint the trim in there as well. Then I wonder if I need to paint the built-ins and possibly mantel... See where I going. I love the look of white trim so much that I feel it will be like if you give a girl and paint brush... yada, yada, yada!

Right Now (Before)

So what do you think? Can I get away with painting the cabinetry in the kitchen and stopping there? Not paint the trim or the chair rail or the doors.... leaving all other wood safe for a little while? Or is it a go all in kind of thing? Paint it all!?

Help me! I need some advice!