Peek in my kitchen window

I'm slightly fascinated with other people's houses!  Wouldn't it be fun to go from house to house, peeping in and taking a look at the way other people live? Okay, maybe I am sounding creepy now...

Here is my kitchen.  You can look...I won't call you creepy.

Bumbo seat, in the seat and don't you love my puke green towel that I didn't see until now

Milk glass and white ceramic...divine!

My seafoam Martha Stewart canisters and beaded board backsplash...Martha may be high maintenance but I sure do love her stuff

I'm convinced that hardwood flooring is the best thing that could ever happen to a home

Every kitchen must have an oversized fork and spoon, otherwise it just isn't a kitchen

More milk glass...eep!

The Caleb special.  I was looking for my eraser last night to do my homework and I couldn't find it anywhere...opened up the dishwasher this morning and lo and behold....that little stinky head

How to Make Your Own Bath Salts

I'm all about a hot bath.  My husband doesn't understand it.  In fact, in the almost 4 years that we've been married, I have never seen him take a bath...he hates them!  I, on the other hand, take a bath every day...sometimes twice.  A hot bath is to me at night what a hot cup of coffee is to me in the morning.  It helps me relax and unwind and sleep better.  So it's no wonder that I really love bubble bath and bath salts and bath bombs and fizzes and bath beads and all those other neat bath things.  I decided to try my hand at making my own bath salts.  I can't take all the credit though.  Back in January when I miscarried, my friend ever since 5th grade sent a box in the mail.  She had made some lavender bath salts for me and topped it off with a Starbucks gift card...the perfect package to help cheer me up...she knows me too well.  These bath salts aren't only great for everyday baths but they are wonderful gift ideas too!

 Sooo, here we go:

You will need a bag or box of epsom salt (you can find it in your pharmacy section at any grocery or drug store and it's inexpensive)

A glass jar with a lid

Some essential oil or fragrance oil (essential oil is great for aromatherapy and for those allergic to perfumes, otherwise, the fragrance oil is usually cheaper and smells just as good)

I found some rosemary mint oil...oooo la la (mint and I have a little thing for each other, especially in the spring time, but don't tell Seth)

 Fill your jar up with epsom salt, add a few drops of oil (about 6-10), put the lid back on and SHAKE!!!

This was a gift for a friend, so I took some glass paint and labeled the front...VOILA!

They smell good PLUS epsom salt is supposed to help with achy joints and bones so it's a win win!

Random epsom salt facts:

Epsom salt can reduce swelling caused by sprains and bruises. It also helps reduce muscle cramps. The next time you experience these symptoms, try adding some to your bath water. According to the Epsom Salt Council, magnesium--one of the main components of Epsom salt lowers blood pressure, increases energy levels and helps digestion.

AND speaking of essential oils, don't forget to enter for your chance at winning some!  Take a look at the website, there's an oil for you or your hubby...or your grandma!  It's a great product and one lucky gal will win :) Click HERE to enter!

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A little bit of good ol' talent

I've mentioned before that I graduated from Liberty University- an amazing school in Lynchburg, Virginia...the largest Christian university in America and the best college in the world (although I may be slightly bias)...but seriously if you are trying to find a GREAT school for yourself or your kids or your niece, nephew, cousin or grandma, this is the place to be...not even joking...like, fo ril yo....okay I'm ready to move on from raving about Liberty.  Anywho, twice a year they have a huge event they call "Coffeehouse".  Students have the chance to try out for it and if they make it through, they are able to perform their "act" for the event.  It's a talent/variety show of sorts and let me just tell you that some of these students are super duper talented.  Here are two of my favorite videos from this years spring coffeehouse.  Just a couple of fun videos for you on your Sunday afternoon :)

If you don't have time to watch the whole 5 minutes of this one, just fast forward to about the 4 minute mark where it gets really good.

Just a little Sunday check in! I hope your weekend has been fabulous.  Sunday's are always bitter sweet for us because Seth has to go back to work tomorrow, but we still have the day off!  Trying to enjoy our last few hours of laziness :)

pigs fly and swines flew

Dear fellow bloggers and followers,

I am in Virginia visiting family. My sister is getting married in less than 2 weeks, so we are trying to get everything in order. I have to tell you that they have dial up, yes dial up, and my posting will be sporatic and almost non-existant until I return home. Please forgive me? Kinda glad I am not at home right now though because they say there has been a case of swine flu on post! Eeekkkk. I am much more worried for Caleb's sake than mine. Wash your hands!!!
Anywhoosle, you guys have a fun week. Don't forget about me even though I won't be around as much. I promise great things will happen when I return!

With much lurv,

Kathlini bikini you little ol' weanie

What is that noise?

Saturday night, before I could fall asleep, I heard this really funny noise outside the bedroom. I wasn't sure what it was but after listening carefully to see if I could hear it again, I just blew it off thinking that it was probably the water heater or something. At about 3:00am, Caleb woke up hungry. As I was feeding him, I heard the noise again! But this time I heard it several times in a row. I was very nervous so I shook Seth and told him to wake up and listen. He heard it too and he said that it was the same noise he heard before we went to bed, but he thought it was me doing something in the bathroom so he didn't think about it. We were both very worried because whatever or whomever was making this noise kept on and on! We stayed in our room trying to figure out what it was. I thought it was either an animal or our heat system was broken and making a weird noise. The noise sounded like someone beating on something, but it was the same noise over and over, sometimes it would be louder than the previous time. We realized that the baby monitor was on, so I unplugged it so that the intruder could not hear Seth and I planning out how we were going to get him! After trying to figure it out and having no luck, Seth decided it was time to go get em'. I was so nervous and scared!!! What was out there??? I stayed in the bedroom with Caleb. I heard Seth opening closet doors and checking the outside doors. I had my cell phone in hand ready to call 911. Then, Seth comes back in the bedroom with a helium balloon that had been given to us when Caleb was born. It had somehow made it's way downstairs to the living room and was getting hit by our ceiling fan everytime it drifted up to the ceiling. It had been doing that since we had gone to bed! Hahahahahaha. Needless to say we were very relieved! But we also felt like complete idiots. So now our joke is that we need to keep our doors locked so as not to let any more balloons come wandering inside in the middle of the night.

Today will be productive???

There is something about this baby coming that has made Seth and I decide to change a few things, and I have made my own "resolutions". First and foremost is our budget. We have made these new rules for ourselves:
1. No more Starbucks
2. We can only eat out once on the weekends, instead of 3-4 like we usually like doing
3. No more movie rentals
Number three kinda just got resolved because I discovered (thanks to Josh and Lisa, the ones who were so nice to let us stay with them) that the library on post has a plethora of movies that I can check out for FREE! Granted, they aren't first run, but they have a lot of movies that are still on the new release walls at Blockbuster!
We have also decided on some other things to help keep our spending down.
1. Keep our heat set at 68 degrees (this was suggested by our electric man!) Sometimes it gets a little chilly, but that is when I go put on my big robe and slippers!
2. Turn the water heater down.
3. Cut back on how much laundry I do a week. I could get used to that one, haha. But really we are just waiting until we get full loads of wash before doing it.
4. Keep our fans on. This one was from my dad. There is a switch on the light part of your fan where you can have the fan spin clockwise or counter clockwise. In the summer you want the air blowing down on you, but in the winter you want to switch it to the other direction so that it blows the hot air down. For our fans, that means they need to spin clockwise.
5. Unplug everything that we don't use on a day to day basis. This includes our toaster and coffee pot. I just plug them in when I need to use them.
6. Buy our meat, cheese, toilet paper (sorry to group the toilet paper with the foods, haha) and a few other bulk items from Sams club. We were very careful before we made this decision. But after comparing, Sams meat was way less than the grocery store! I paid $2.88 lb for hamburger meat and $1.79 lb for chicken breasts. It was a big chunk of money to pay at one time, but I have enough meat for the rest of the month!!!
7. Keep all lights off except for in the rooms we are in, and then we only use lamps which we have switched all the bulbs out for high efficiency ones.
We will see how this works when we get our bills next month. Hopefully it will make a difference. Do you guys have any money saving ideas? I am up for ANYTHING!

I also have decided to cut back, way back on the amount of time I spend on the computer. I have become addicted and have found that I can't get everything done in the day that I would like to, all because I can't pull myself away from the computer. Therefore I have limited myself to 1 hour on the computer a day!!! Unless I am doing etsy or ebay, but other than that, I get one hour!!! It is like torture right now,but I will get used to it. PLUS, I have a feeling in a few days here I will not be able to get on the computer very much anyways. But do not worry, I will still be keeping up with my blog.

Now for the baby update. I went to the doctor yesterday. She said I was 60% effaced and that it didn't look like anything would happen in the next few days, but that babies have been known to prove her wrong quite often. That is fine though. I still have a small list of things to get done and since this past weekend was so crazy with the weather, it would be nice to have at least one more weekend with my Sethy before the madness begins!!! Plus, my parents really won't be able to come until after Friday. My mom has a tooth to get fixed and my dad has a timber sale. So little baby, it would be nice if you could float around in there for about 3 or 4 more days at least (haha). However, if he did decide to come before the weekend, I would be ecstatic!!!

Okay and lastly, I took these pics of our office a few weeks ago but forgot to post them. I figured I should go ahead and do it now. This is the room that was FILLED with boxes. I mean filled so much that I could only take about 3 steps in the door and that was all the floor space we had. This is where I will set up my sewing machine when I get it and this is also where I sit in the floor and do all my crafting. It is nice to have a room just for school and crafts :) The room is nothing spectacular, it is just the accomplishment of getting the entire room finished!!!

One of my new favorite things

On a sunny day, although it is only in the 40's!



Yesterday, which was cold and overcast. I thought it was going to snow!!!

This is the view outside our back door. I feel like I am back in the country when I look out there. The funny thing is that the front door view is completely city! Now I just need me a Town and Country Chrystler van and I will be all set. Actually, on second thought, I will keep my Jetta :)

One big post!!!

Okay, so I have been preoccupied the last few days with unpacking. I have taken lots of pictures of all sorts of things to do with the move. After being in a 400 square foot apartment, living out of rubbermaid containers and being new to a town since July, I couldn't be more excited about being in a new house!!! I wake up every morning and sit at my table with my coffee and I just look around and say, "Thank you Jesus for giving us this place to live!" I am just so overwhelmingly grateful. I keep on telling Seth, Thank you! Thank you! Are these emotions partly due to being pregnant? I might never know, but I do know that I could stay at home all day and be perfectly content. Okay, anyways, the packing is only 1/4 done. The bedrooms upstairs are packed with boxes and odds and ends. We took a load to the thrift store today, I have ebayed some things and several trips to Goodwill have taken place. We haven't organized anything since we got married and Seth says that I am a hoarder, so I am trying my very hardest to get rid of as much "junk" as I can, although I can find a reason to keep everything but it does feel good to have some space. Here are some pictures from our moving adventure!

The movers finally arrived, only 3 days and 1 1/2 hours late!


It was a strangely warm November day. Here I am pretending to be in charge of the check list.


Seth was really the boss behind the checklist. It was actually relaxing just to sit there and have our stuff brought into the house while we checked the list. That was until we went inside and saw all the boxes that took over our once empty home in a matter of 2 hours!


Here is Seth in front of his new pride and joy that he has been wanting to get 17 months now and since our other TV is about to go out (the screen is getting darker and darker)this is what we have! After looking at TV's every time we go to Best Buy, Wal Mart or Target, he finally bought one, and guess what? We are still looking at the TV's just to see if we got a good deal, oh my.


If you noticed the ridiculous height of the plugs in the above picture, you will realize that the people who built the place weren't very smart. Seth and I brainstormed on how we could hide this, and here is our solution, which was not as easy to do as it may look!


So this part was the most tiring. I had to go through my old high school boxes and determine what was worth keeping (because I kept every note, flower, program, etc).


While going through the boxes, I came across the CD I bought Seth for Christmas. He loves Paul McCartney, but this picture is exceptionally feminine of him. It is on the back of the CD cover. I thought it was a joke but every time we look at it, we laugh.


Here is Seth's interpretation. What a dork!


I had to post this picture because Seth decided to get artistic with it! I could hardly believe my eyes!


Here is my 25 1/2 week pregnant picture. This is my favorite maternity shirt so I am trying to wear it as much as I can because I am quickly growing out of it. I have tried to find a bigger size but I have had no luck!


Apple pie a la mode! I have enjoyed having my dishes and cook wear back. I made this apple pie with homemade cinnamon ice cream. Seth loved it! And I made it with splenda and skim milk, so he really liked it when I told him that. Num Yummy!