Summertime

Well, it has been quite some time since my last post. We are still here in Nashville, trying not to die from the heat everyday. Not really, but kind of. It's been hot, and only getting hotter. So, we stay indoors for the most part. We are getting a little stir crazy, but hopefully Fall will be here before TOO long.

We have had a little bit of excitement since my last post. My little munchkin lost her first tooth a couple of weeks ago! The toothfairy came and brought her some glittery money! It was a pretty special day!

Our little man got his first haircut! I loved his curls, but it was getting too long, and he was all hot and sweaty all the time, so I let his Daddy shave off all of his adorable baby curls. He is still way to stinking cute, but he looks like a big boy now!

CMA Fanfest week was a couple of weeks ago in Nashville. There were free shows, meet and greats, autograph signings, CMA Fest, and the CMT awards. Basically everyone in the county music industry was in town and performing somewhere. We didn't go to CMA Fest, but I vow to go next year. It sounds like the most amazing thing ever. A 4 day festival of ALL of everyone's favorite country stars. We made it down to Broadway street one of the nights of FanFest, and it was AWESOME. Broadway was shutdown for a few blocks, and there was a giant stage right in the middle of the road. Beer stands everywhere, people giving away free swag, and country music fans everywhere just having a good time. The night we went we saw Thompson Square and Lee Brice, who is one of my favorites. His "Love Like Crazy" is a great song, and you should download it at once.  Rodney Adkins played later that night, but the kids were over it by that point so we didn't catch that show.

I'm looking forward to the 4th of July! Once again, Broadway will be shutdown and Nashville will be celebrating in the streets. Craig Morgan will be playing, as well as the Nashville Symphony, to which the fireworks are choreographed. I think it will be awesome.

We are making friends! Nothing like our friends back home, who we miss SO much. But, our neighbors are pretty awesome. We have had tons, TONS of issues with our apartment, but living around cool people has made it bearable. Luckily one of those new friends is a mechanic. It's always good to have a mechanic in the crew.

Anyway, we are pretty much settled here, and just living our lives like normal. Sometimes I look outside and I can't believe that we actually left Ventura, and live in Tennessee right now. It's a trip. I don't know if we will stay here forever, or where we will end up, but it is an experience. It's cool to live in different places, see different things, and meet different people. I never thought that I would leave Ventura. Ventura just seems perfect in so many ways. But, there are a lot of other cool places out there too! I used to think that the ocean was the only thing that made a place beautiful. SO not the case my friends!

Poor Ambs.

Teen Mom OG, Amber Portwood went to court today, and in very interesting turn of events told the judge that she wanted to serve out her 5 year sentence in Prison rather than go to rehab. Apparently she has never stayed clean and said that she will never be able to stay clean. She is now in jail until her next court hearing next month to see where it will go from there. If she does serve out the sentence, Leah will be 8 when she gets out.

proud

As you all know, my husband is a drummer. We have been together for 8 years and and I have seen him evolve into an absolutely amazing musician. I have watched him go from strumming a borrowed guitar in his living room, to playing in the worship band at church, and now, he is in a great band, that is on the road to something great. 


I am so proud of him, words can't even explain it. Every time I see him play it, I am blown away. He is good. REALLY good. And now he is going to the same events as really famous musicians. This is Brad and Kristian Bush of the one and only Sugarland:

I still can't really wrap my mind around this. It's just crazy. I mean, what if the band really does make it big? I know it won't all be easy. He was gone for a week this time. And it was really hard. I missed him like crazy. I'd venture to say that if and when Softsilence goes on tour he will be gone for a lot more than a week at a time. But, we have made it through so much already, I know that we will survive anything else life dishes us. I am just so proud of Brad for not giving up on his dream and continuing to work for it, and showing our kids that you can do anything you want to do. 

DIY

This is the first time that I have had a dishwasher while living on my own. Prior that this, my only dishwasher was my husband. He did a good job, but I am happy to have a real one. I decided to see what making my own dishwasher detergent would entail, and it was surprisingly easy, cheap, and according to the reviews works as well, if not better than expensive store bought stuff so I decided to give it a try. It only takes 4 ingredients.
    
     Borax
     Washing Soda (NOT baking soda)
     Salt
     LemiShine


I was able to find all of the stuff at Walmart, except for the Washing Soda which I found at the grocery store in the laundry aisle. But I learned, thanks to pinterest, that you can turn baking soda into washing soda. I failed Chemistry so I can't explain how it works, but I found this explanation online: 

     Baking soda's chemical makeup is NaHCO3 (1 sodium, 1 hydrogen, one carbon, and 3 oxygen molecules). Washing soda's chemical makeup is Na2CO3 (2 sodium, 1 carbon, and 3 oxygen molecules). When baking soda is heated up to high temperatures, it breaks down to become washing soda, water steam, and carbon dioxide.




So, If you bake Baking Soda at 400 degrees it will turn into washing soda. You will know that it is washing soda when it is no longer semi shiny, and is dull and grainy. Or you can just buy it. Either way it works. 


Anyway, back to the recipe. Like, I said, SUPER easy.

I even made a cute label for the container! I love my cricut! 

Mix 
1 Cup Borax
1 Cup Washing Soda
1/2 Cup Salt
1/2 Cup LemiShine (use more if you have hard water.)


Mix together in an air tight container. (MAKE SURE IT IS DRY BEFORE YOU USE IT...Trust me)


Use 1 tablespoon per load. You can use white vinegar as a rinse aid if you want. My daughter decided to dump all of our vinegar out on the grass the other day, so I didn't do that, but my dishes still came out clean and shiny!! 

Lemonade Ice Cubes

Ok, so these are pretty self explanitory, but Brad insisted that I pin these because HE made them. Nevermind the fact that I told him exactly what to do, and he would have never come it with it on his own, HE made them. And he did a good job.

Slice a lemon and put a slice in each cup of a cupcake tin. Pour in lemonade. Freeze.

Easy, and versatile. Mix it up! Use different fruit and juices. The possibilities are endless. And the BEST part- It doesn't water down your drinks. And making them in a cupcake tray gives you bigger cubes that are perfect for a big pitcher of lemonade on a hot summer day!

There you go babe! lets see how many repins you get! ;) 

I got Swag.

Swagbucks.com is my new obsession. I have been a swagbucks member for a while now, but just now am I really getting into it. What is swagbucks you ask? Well, it's a website. Obviously. Through this website you can earn "swagbucks" a few different ways, and redeem them for gift cards or other swag. There are thousands of things to choose from. The ways you can earn them are pretty simple. There are daily polls, surveys, special offers, watching commercials, through special "swag codes" that are put out regularly, and by utilizing their search engine. My goal is to build swagbucks over the next several months and then cash them in around the holidays to help out with Christmas presents. So far I have enough swagbucks to get a twenty dollar amazon giftcard. And it's only May, and I have only been actively trying to build them up for a few weeks. So hopefully by December I will have much more.

So, I really think y'all should check it out! Every little bits helps right? click on my referral code and sign up! You will get a few bucks to start, and I will get some to for referring you! Help a sister out! ;)

 Here it is! Do it! What's the worst that can happen?

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/sloneal21

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/sloneal21

Deals!

I'm slowly getting back on the couponing bandwagon. I showed you a deal last week on Nivea, and today I got a couple other good deals!

Kroger
They had these Country Time canisters on sale for $1! They are usually about 3 bucks so that was a great deal all on its own, but I had coupons for $1 off of 2 canisters of Country Time lemonade! So they ended up being only 50 cents a piece. That's a GREAT deal.

Walmart
Sun drop 2 liters are on sale for a dollar. Supposedly this is supposed to be similar to mountain dew which is my favorite, and there were $1 off 1 coupons on last Sunday's paper, so that made them FREE! I'll try it if it's free. Hopefully it is at least halfway decent.

Also at Walmart, I found trial size bags of pedigree dog food for $1. A few weeks ago a coupon came out for $2 off any size bag of pedigree dog food, so I grabbed that and got a dollar taken off of the rest of the items in my cart. Moneymaker!! Woot Woot!

Tomorrow is Coupon day! Stay tuned for more easy deals!

The OC OG is going to be a grandma!!

That's right! Vicki Gunvalson, the only original housewife left, The OC OG, the First Lady of Bravo, is going to be a grandma! Her daughter Brianna (one of my faves) is prego! Last week we saw her tell mama Vicki that she had eloped at a drive thru in Vegas. Hopefully this was much better news for her. Can't wait to see how she handles this. I have no doubt Brianna will be a great mother, but Vicki is going to drive her nuts.

Woohoo!!

Deal alert!! Nivea and giftcard deal.

Target has a deal this week on Nivea lotions. If you buy 3 (and the total of those 3 items is more than 5 dollars before coupons) you get a 5 dollar giftcard. This is what I did:

1- 1.7 oz extended moisture hand cream. $3.27

2- tins of cream. $0.87

Total before coupons $5.01 (generates 5 dollar giftcard at this point)

I used 1- $2 off any Nivea lotion coupon that came out a few weeks ago, but even if you don't have this coupon its a good deal. So my total was only $3.01 making it a 2 dollar moneymaker! Woohoo for free stuff!!

One month down.

So, we've been in Nashville for a month now and we are getting adjusted. It's been hot. But apparently it's only going to get worse, so... I might die. I used to hate when I would complain about heat in California and people would say "at least it's a dry heat." it would drive me NUTS... I totally get it now. Dry heat is so much better then humid, wet heat. So we have been staying indoors most of the time. Between the heat and the bugs, we can't hangout outside much yet. We did go to a pretty awesome park one day when it wasn't TOO hot. The locals call it dragon park. That's probably because it has a giant mosaic dragon statue that people climb all over. It really was quite beautiful. It also had some really nice playground areas and this cool tunnel the kids loved. And lots of shade. Thank god! It's on Blakemoore in Nashville across from Vanderbilt hospital if you are ever in the area with kiddos! I recommend it. But not when it's too hot.
Anyway, it's hot and the bugs are eating me alive, but I'm still liking it here. It's pretty and people are so nice and helpful. I've had 2 neighbors being us food, which I don't think I've ever had happen in Cali. And the thunderstorms are awesome. We had one today and the thunder was so loud, it sounded like cannons going off outside our door. To be honest I was terrified at the time, but since it happened a few hours ago, it's cool. And the lightening has been something else. Usually we just see flashes in the sky, but today we saw huge, actual bolts of lightening. It was way cool. Also, lightening bugs! They are fun to watch.
My inlaws are in town, and they stayed home with the kids last night and Brad and I got to go out for a while. It was nice and much needed. We saw Josh Turner, who was playing in the Opry Mills Mall parking lot for the grand reopening party for the mall! (that whole area was destroyed by the Nashville flood 2 years ago and just reopened.) And we went to Dave and Busters. It was a lot of fun! We played some games and had a drink. Nothing fancy, but it was fun.
Overall, we are doing well! The band is doing great, and has some pretty awesome things coming up! So stay tuned!

Best Ever.

Jurassic Park is hands down my favorite movie trilogy of all time. People find this weird and random. I don't understand why. They are just some of those movies that I HAVE to stop and watch whenever they are on. I have noticed that the first and third installments are on fairly regularly, but the second is very rare. I guess that one is just a little too far fetched. People like realistic stuff. Dinosaurs running a muck on a deserted island is one thing, but once you have a T-Rex terrorizing San Diego apparently you have crossed some kind of line. Even if Vince Vaughn is involved. So sadly, I don't get to see one very often.
I really need someone to start making a fourth installment. Seriously. It's been over a decade. The world is ready. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be first in line to see that. In high def and 3-D with today's graphic capabilities. Just imagine it... It would be epic. So, if someone could get on that, that would be awesome!
I have been asking the Hubs for the trilogy on DVD for a few years now, and I still don't have it. So I'm going to make it easy on him.. Mother's Day is coming up. Here is the link.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0057RCFQS/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?qid=1336197561&ref_=sr_1_1&s=dvd&sr=1-1
Thanks!

Brookies

I've got another recipe for y'all. ( <-----Check me out! I'm getting more and more southern by the day!) Today we made some delightful nuggets of goodness. I'm not exactly sure what to call these, but for now I will call them Brookies. Half cookie, half brownie, and REALLY simple, but super impressive.

Look how yummy they look!

 The original recipe that inspired these is here. (Have I mentioned how much I LOVE pinterest?) I really only made very minor changes.

Preheat oven to 350

Using a cupcake pan, smoosh down some refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough in first.  The kind of dough I used was already divided into cookies, and I used 2 cookies in each cup.

Next, I took a Werther's Original Caramel chew, and put in on top of the cookie dough.

The last step, is the brownie top! I used good ol' boxed brownie mix, but feel free to show me up, and whip some up from scratch. Spoon the brownie mix over the cookie dough, and caramel chews.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure you know the drill. Let them cool before you try to take them out of the pan. I was a little to anxious and had a couple crumble on me. They still taste good that way, but just don't look a pretty.

Finally, EAT! And if you make them while your Husband is at work, like I did, make sure you either save him some, or get rid of ALL evidence that they existed.  He might be upset that he didn't get any. Sorry, Brad!

Project Time! DIY chalkboard paint

This stuff is fun, and there are a million things that you could find to use it on. It's chalkboard paint! You can buy the stuff but I don't think it's cheap, and if you make it you can make it any color you want, and it's pretty dang easy!

All you need is
1 cup paint (the recipe I found called for latex, but I used acrylic)
2 tablespoons unsanded grout

I made this today

I used a piece of plywood for the base. I sanded it a little bit and then primed it with a spray paint primer.

While that was drying, I mixed the paint.

(Sorry some of these pictures are so blurry. I think I got spray paint on the lens of my phone)

When the primer dried, I sanded it again, then started painting away.

I gave it an hour or two to dry, and then lightly sanded it a third time. After that I used the side of a piece of chalk to color all over it, then erased it with a very slightly dampened cloth. This is supposedly supposed to "condition" it. Idk how important this step is, but Martha said to do it. And ever since she went to prison, I always listen to Martha.

Anyway, then I just decorated it with some buttons (I have a HUGE jar or buttons and am trying to use them somehow) and added a few clothespins to hold pictures or notes or mail or kids artwork or whatever.

Caramel Apple Cupcakes

As I promised..

Caramel Apple Cupcakes

1 3/4 Cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 salt
1 cup applesauce
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 vegetable oil
1 egg
3 packages (14 oz. each)
1/2 cup milk
2 1/4 cups chopped roasted peanuts (I actually used walnuts... because that's what I had on hand) 

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl. Combine applesauce, sugar, oil and egg in a large bowl. Add flour mixture; stir until blended. Spoon batter into a cupcake tin.

3. Bake 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into centers come out clean. Let cool completely when done baking.

4. Place unwrapped caramels and milk in large microwavable bowl; microwave on high 2 to 3 minutes or until melted and smooth, stirring after each minute.

5. Spoon caramel over cupcakes and top with nuts!

6. Get some milk and stuff your face!

I have two more cupcake recipes that I want to try soon. Pink Lemonade and Margarita! Stay tuned...

The Band

So, The Band is the whole reason we are here. So maybe I should post a little something about them. They are called Softsilence. There are 4 members in the band, Bryan, Kody, Nathan and Brad. Brad has been in the band for a couple of years now, and loves all of the guys to death. It's a little odd at times, but whatever. I am probably a little biased, but they are really awesome! You should definitley keep your ears open for them. They will do big things!!!

Here is a picture of me and the band at our wedding

Personally, I think this picture should be in the little booklet thingy that comes with CDs. But, I doubt that will happen.

Here are a few videos of Softsilence and their songs

What do you think? 

Like them on Facebook here!

jinxed it!

Well, sure as shit, I jinxed myself with my last post about how perfect everything was. We woke up this morning to Niagara Falls dumping from our upstairs bathroom into our kitchen. Right onto my rotisserie oven, bread maker and crock pots. But fear not, my kitchen aid was out of the splash zone. And I'm pretty sure nothing else was damaged. So we had to call Michael, the maintenance guy, who has a great accent by the way, to come fix it. Which he did by sawing a gaping hole in the ceiling above my kitchen sink. He seems to have fixed the leak. He had to order us a new bathroom sink, that should be here tomorrow, but we are at least dry. The gaping hole is still there, but I was told that will be fixed tomorrow too. I KNEW I was going to jinx it if I said things were going well. And to top it all off, with my kitchen in shambles I didn't get to make my milky way cupcakes. WAHHH! (In my best Snooki voice)  

This was actually earlier in the day. The hole is now twice the size of that.

Everywhere we live has plumbing disasters.

Week 1- CHECK!

We have been in Nashville for a week now. So far I think it has been great. I really like it here. I am almost scared to say that, because I am scared of jinxing it, but hopefully it will be okay. It is just so green and beautiful. Brad is still not feeling the bugs, but he is just going to have to get over that one. He will actually walk through the grass to the laundry room, which is a small victory. We have been sticking close to home for the most part. There are a few things that we want to do, but just getting here was pretty damn expensive, so we are going to have to wait a while to re-coop from that. But that is okay. The kids have so much room to run around and play that they don't seem to mind being home. I have been enjoying having a functional kitchen. I love to cook and bake but it was just so hard in our old house so I didn't do much. Currently, I have fresh french bread baking, and peanut butter and white chocolate chip cookies cooling. People always compliment my peanut butter cookies, and they are super easy to make. I planned on sharing the recipe with y'all, with pictures and all that, but I think my phone charger is in California, and I only have a car charger left, which means that my phone is dead quite often. I probably should just go ahead and get a new one. Anyway, Peanut Butter Cookies..

Preheat Oven to 325 (I couldn't remember what the actual recipe called for, but this seemed to work out)

Mix
     1 cup Sugar
     1 cup Peanut Butter
     1 egg

I tossed in a handful of white chocolate chips, but you could leave those out, or use milk chocolate, or nuts, or whatever you like.

They are pretty dang good.

Happy Easter Egg

 Yesterday was Easter, and our first holiday away from our families. We missed them, especially Mema and her breakfast, but we had a great day. The band came over and hung out and stuffed their faces with us. It was nice having friends around. I like having people over, I've just never had the room before.I feel like I was cooking all day long, but it was worth it. I made roast chicken, red potatoes, salad, cupcakes, rolo turtles, deviled eggs ( I even dyed the whites of the eggs so they were extra easter-ish.) I also made 2 different kinds of dips, 2 different kinds of salad dressing and cheesecake stuffed strawberries. Most of it was from scratch. I cheated and used funfetti cake mix for the cupcakes. I think most of it came out pretty yummy, if I do say so myself.

Dyed Deviled Eggs

Easter Bunny Cupcakes

Rolo Turtles.... Always everyone's favorite

Before all the food, the kids hunted eggs and discovered baskets and bunny prints left behind be the Easter Bunny. It was all great fun. Easter was always one of my favorite holidays, and it seems like my babies feel the same way! All in all it was a great day. We are diggin Nashville so far!

Seaching for eggs in the backyard

Brother and Sissy

Easter Bunny Tracks!

Checkin out the Haul

The Keeper of the Keys

With everything going on in my life, I haven't gotten a chance to talk about this, but it is something that has been heavy in my heart and mind for a few days now. A friend from High School gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on Sunday. Throughout her pregnancy she called the baby Wyatt, but upon meeting the little man she felt that Kai was a much better fit for him. And I would have to agree. He was perfect and beautiful, but on Tuesday, God had other plans for him, and called him back up to heaven. Kai means "keeper of the keys" and even with such a short time on this earth he holds the keys to many, many hearts.
I can't imagine the pain that Whitney must be feeling, or how she can even begin to think about what to do next with her life. Another friend made the statement that "Kai was too extraordinary for this world." I have to believe that. He was just too good, and too perfect for this world, and is in a better place.
A few of Whitney's close friends have started a fundraiser to help during the unimaginably difficult time. If you are able to donate a couple if dollars, here is the link http://www.gofundme.com/ForBabyKai

Hold your loved ones close. Never take a moment for granted. You never know what's going to happen next week, tomorrow, or even 5 minutes from now. Everyone matters, and every life makes an impact. No matter how short.

In loving memory of sweet Kai.

Home

We made it! We drove through rain, hail, snow, mountains, desert, and narrowly escaped some tornados in Texas. All of our stuff made it too! Even the car on top of the car, the kittens, the turtles Blake and Miranda, and our 2 year old goldfish from the fair. I thought for sure those turtles were goners that first freezing night in Flagstaff.
So far, I think I like it here. It's peaceful, except for thunder and birds. The thunder is kind of crazy. I hope it doesn't scare the kids, but if it does they will just have to get used to it. Also, the bugs. There are a ton of them and they are huge. Brad is determined to get one with his blow gun.

Let&apos;s see America. Part 3

Today is the third leg of our journey. Amarillo to Little Rock. We should be "home" tomorrow! We are really starting to miss those little munchkins of ours.
Yesterday was a looonng day. No disasters or anything like that, but we did run into some snow, which did make me nervous. Brad is a lot more comfortable driving our rig now, which is good and bad. We aren't chugging along at 47 anymore. Now we are barreling down the I-40 with all of of everything we own. And the kitties! They are doing good too!
This morning we stopped at Cadillac Ranch! Woot! But we encountered the same problem today that we had yesterday at the crater. We are just a couple of stupid Cali Kids that need to get some jackets and some real shoes.
But it was pretty cool before we almost froze to death!
So today another 500, or so miles. Brad's cousin, Andy, lives in Little Rock so we are hoping to have dinner or something with him tonight.
Thank y'all for your well wishes and prayers!

And I just want to add that the Blogger app on my phone borderline sucks so my pictures are all out of order. I will try to fix them when we get home.