The Big Announcement!

If you read my last blog post you were promised "BIG NEWS!" that I was intending upon posting on last Friday, however this "BIG NEWS!" has caused us to be very busy so I'm just now getting around to informing the world...

We bought a house!

We are the new proud owners of a craftsman style bungalow with a red front door!

If there is one thing I'm terrible at, it's making sure I get the "before" shots. So, as soon as we got the keys (which was like 2 seconds after this picture) I ran around inside taking pictures to use as a reference point as we decorate, upgrade and make this place our own.

Enjoy

Welcome To Old Abilene Town ( Fort Riley, KS)

Uh, hello there! Remember me? I used to write on this blog and give updates about our life and fun stuff. 

Well, I'm finally back from my in-definite and accidental hiatus. 

We have been seriously busy and crazy excited about something big that we will be announcing to the general public on Friday. 

Alright, let's get down to business...
So, like most good ideas this one came in the shower. I decided that our blog should do something besides exist. It should help people. And who better to help than people we can connect with through similar circumstances. Military families.

Alex decided that he liked this idea so we've set out to help military families get to know an area/ base before they move there.

When we were informed that we'd be moving to the Fort Riley area of Kansas we were hopeful, but just a little dumbfounded. What is in Kansas, I had never thought about it before. So, like most military people do, I turned toward google to find out about the new place I'd call home and here inlies the problem. I read a number of online forums and online group boards about Fort Riley and other bases and the common theme throughout them all was the irrelevant answers and opinions the everyone gave.  A general response on the boards sounded something like....

" I hate fort ____ because it's so hot. It's just stupid and the target is 10 miles away! And the only thing to do there is go shopping or hike nature trails or go to the beach, so there isn't anything you can do with kids."

I'm not even joking, that was someone's answer about a certain base.

Let's just be real honest, when the Military tells you that you get to move somewhere, hearing everyone's negative opinions about that place isn't exactly helpful.

So because of this, we are going to be a family that documents all the fun to be had at every base we have the privilege of being stationed at.   

So please, Enjoy Old Abilene Town....

Old Abilene Town is a recreation of the historic Abilene.

The story is, Abilene was a really rough cow town until the town hired Wild Bill Hickok as their sheriff. And Hickok cleaned up the town and drove off the riff-raff. 

Every Saturday and  Sunday in the summer  from 10am-3:30pm there are funny reenactments of Wild Bill and the "Riff-Raff" by The Gunfighters.

  

You can ride the passenger train (Train information).

On certain weekends a Steam train takes guest out and they are served dinner aboard (Dinner Train Information).

 This historic carriage house was moved from another location in Abilene to be part of Old Abilene Town. 

Old Abilene Town is just one of the many unique places in this area but it's a go-to spot when we have visitors. 

A Few Guilty Pleasures...

First I need to apologize for not updating in so long, we have been really busy with hardly much time for anything else. 

I wanted to add a little somethin' somethin' on this Sunday night.

A little guilty pleasure donut.

We don't often make sweets unless we are getting together with friends (except when I was pregnant, then I made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies every week!). My husband probably wishes we had more sweets around the house but he regularly thanks me for not having them, because he claims that he would eat them all. After eating such yummy healthy meals all week I thought we deserved a super yummy, super easy treat and I've been dying to try out these great grands buiscut donuts. They turned out SO FABULOUS!

I used the Grands Jr. so they were a little smaller which was nice for our small snacks.

Use a cookie cutter or something else ingenious to cut a hole in the center of the biscuits. 

I fried mine up in about a 1/2 of an inch of coconut oil over medium heat.

These cook so fast, literally a few seconds on each side, until they are golden. When golden brown on both sides remove the donuts and place them on a paper towel to absorb excess oil.

Dipping them in a cinnamon sugar mixture really made these a million bucks! They taste awesome! We also fried up the donut "holes" too, no way we were going to let those puppies go to waste!

Enjoy!

Free printable Awareness Day

Lately I've been working on making the rooms in our home more cohesive, adding touches that really bring the room together. In Little Boy's room I'm working on all kinds of projects buuuuut the one that has taken me forever is finding art. 

I love all the sweet little nursery printables that I see on Pinterest and Project Nursery, but most of them come from Etsy and are about $25-$30. I'm not really the kind of person who likes to shell out cash for something I could probably do myself if I tried hard enough. 

Yesterday I decided to sniff out some FREE downloadable printables which means you can either print them on your own computer OR get them printed at Costco, Sam's Club, Snapfish, etc...

So sit back relax and enjoy all these printables and more...

This is a beautiful color and letter customizable printable available at  On To Baby, along with some other really great prints!

Eighteen25 is offering subway art in all these beautiful colors! They also have a collection of framable subway art for every occasion and season available here.

irocksowhat offers these two beautiful prints!

I love this! I am IN LOVE with monograming and these are absolutely perfect! Get you some right here!

This is one that will be hanging on my baby boy's wall, adorable. Find it at Project bambino.

This website is all in french but it's not too hard to figure out. This is meant to be cut out and made into feather garlands buuuuuuut I'm just going to frame the whole thing because it's adorable.

Get it here.

This is BEA-U-TI-FUL! There are two different camera prints available at Design Editor.

Okay, gaddie + tood - Stop it, I'm dyeing over how fabulous this site is! They have ENITRE birthday suites available in a variety of themes and they all have a super sweet vintage, hand drawn quality to them.

The Pretty Blog  offers these fabulous printables for candy and sweet bags, however they would be adorable prints in a kitchen.

Here is another customizable print from On To Baby.

Lastly, Fifth & Hazel has tons of unique printables!

Enjoy,

Dinner for Two Weeks.

This is the blog project that I've worked the hardest on so far and I'm also extremely proud of it, so let's get to it...

I think the most common phrase I hear from moms and wives is "I don't know what to make for dinner..." I too am guilty of making these claims. I've come to the conclusion that this lack of planning and last minute throw together meals lead to unhealthy food choices and boring dinners. 

I like a lot of other moms have browsed Pinterest for meal planners claiming to be healthy meals only to follow a link trail to a list of freezer-meal soup for two weeks- NO THANK YOU!

So here's my solution, I've created a two week meal plan complete with meal list, shopping list and recipes. All the recipes included I've tried myself. A few of them I've created but they all include little notes and helps that I wanted to add in for your convenience. 

The entire project is available Here!

A few notes...

1. I've formatted the project so you can print and add to a binder or folder for easy access.

2.In the shopping list I left out the quantities of items you will need to buy so that you can add the quantities yourself to suit your family.

3. All of these recipes are enough for 2-4 people, some with leftovers, some without. You will need to double or triple if you have a larger group(obviously).

I plan on putting at least two of these meal plans out every month, I look forward to sharing these with everyone!