February Rewind

Here are all the things that I never got around to posting:

For starters we had the Make-A-Wish Gala.  It happens to be an emotional but fun night where money is raised to grant wishes.  The initial estimate was that about $150,000+ was raised at this year's function.  I recommend checking out their site if you'd like to learn more about what Make-A-Wish accomplishes for these amazing kiddos and their families.

 Cookies By Design donates the center pieces each year.

Keely & Aaron at the event... looking sassy.

Ok, moving on to the Smokinator's BIG 10th Birthday.  Yep, our sweet baby is 10 stinkin' years old.  He shares a birthday with my Brucey, but since Bruce lives so far away we could only cook a birthday steak for Smoke Dog.  Bruce however was the recipient of some snazzy fleece airplane themed footed pj's with a rear-end flap.  I'm not sure the pj's are as appreciated as they should be.

Yes, he gets one of these every year.  Usually grilled to perfection but this year it was just too darn cold outside. (Side Note - Ryan doesn't want to sound like a pansy (aka Nick) so I need to clarify that it was too cold for the tiny amount of charcoal that we had in our possession that night.)

Keeping with the cooking theme I feel the need to share a recipe that we stumbled across while watching 5 Ingredient Fix.  Why this sounded good to us is beyond me, but it has to be the yummiest way to eat a pork chop - EVER.

It started with our attempt at lemon infused olive oil.

Prunes.

Then you take goat cheese, slivered almonds, and dried plums (yes, those are prunes) and mix them with the lemon infused olive oil.  Stuff the chop with the mix and then sear/pan fry in the remaining olive oil.  Sounds gross, tastes delicious.   Of course I didn't think to take a pic of the final product.  Here is Ryan's grill squirt bottle instead.

Think Alton Brown.

We also went to my company's annual Trivia Night fundraiser for the United Way.  I think the pictures speak for themselves...

Are YOU smarter than a rubber chicken?

Oh, yeah and I'm pretty sure that the dresser I rehabbed in the earlier posting is haunted, so we moved it back to my in-laws' basement this month (love you guys!).  I'm ready for March!

Fun Visits!

Last weekend Ryan and I went to STL to visit our friends/family.  Sweet Anna let us crash at her casa and the talented Dorothy gave me a sewing lesson while the boys pictured below were up to their usual hi-jinks.  I wish I had more photographic evidence, but here are some of the shenanigans involved in just trying to get a nice group shot.

Yep, that's right.  Not one cooperative shot.

However, Dorothy is an absolute rock star in the creativity department and I think she might have given me a new hobby.  I'll have to post my future sewing attempts and you can be the judge, but her first lesson was this tote.  It's sitting on a stool that we bought from Walmart  in STL and drove all the way back home only to find that it's too tall... so if you know anyone in the market for a new stool...

I wish we could make it back for the chili cook-off next weekend (and also to meet some adorable new additions to one of the greatest families ever), but we'll have to take a rain check.  We'll be back to wreak some havoc soon enough.

Dresser Rehab

This sad little dresser once belonged to Ryan's Grandpa Herbert.

As you can see, after many years of neglect this little baby needed

some love.  Seriously, ewww.  Check out that water damage.

So we stripped it down and replaced some parts...

Picked out some new hardware...

And now it is living happily ever after in it's brand new home...

This is what we did during our snow day!  

Well maybe the sanding happened awhile ago. 

OK, so I started this project 3 months ago. Whatever. 

Here is a good before and after for you...



Before



After