small spaces...

We are always looking for ways to make a little bit more room, as well as getting rid of things that we are not using, whether it's with donation or sharing or just plain throwing things away.

Well, I have a drawer that has been vexing me and since space is a hot commodity at our house, and specifically drawer space in our desk, I finally decided to tackle it.

So it was a small victory but it makes a huge difference to me.

My huge junk draw went from this:

to this:

The drawer is now my "current project" and letter writing drawer.

I am hoping that I can keep it this way...

Hey, I can always hope!

YUM!

We made this recipe for twice baked potato casserole and this recipe for green bean baked fries and garlic dip last night. I got them both off of Pinterest. Man there are some tasty ideas out there and I liked these so much better than the baked potatoes we made last week. We grew up with twice baked potatoes and this is a great version of them, and the garlic dip that goes with the green beans was delicious, we could think of tons of stuff to put it on. I hope you have a chance to try them. Kit said he LOVED them both and is hoping that these become a frequent in our house... hey, that's a great sign right?

I am trying to branch out and make a new recipe every week or so... we will see how it goes.

I hope you all had a wonderful Labor day weekend. I spent saturday and monday at work, appropriately, in LABOR and delivery. Very long and I am very tired.

So it is always fun to catch up with blogs and Pinterest when I have been away from my computer for a couple of days. I am not up from my seat for two seconds and this is what I find:

And then later:

The funny thing is the computer is always on because we play music from our iTunes, and will watch episodes of Sesame Street and Shawn the Sheep and he loves our screen saver with family photos. Plus the computer comes with the added bonus of the mouse and the key board... The poor kid just can't help himself, it's all just too fun!

So this post is to say, if you have gotten any odd emails or comments either on Facebook, Pinterest, or your blog, Ryder did it...

ps: Happy 17 months old little man! We could not love you more!

wow that sun is bright...

I hope you have a wonderful three day weekend, staying as cool as you can and if you do spend it outside, make sure you have a good pair of sunglasses.

(Or you could just steal a family member's...)

Happy Labor Day weekend!

A Homemade Life

I have been having so much fun plugging away through my summer book list, (especially since I've been feeling a little under the weather), so yesterday I started this new book after it had been recommended to me twice. It's a cook book of sorts but the author shares stories about the food and her family and travels and experiences and it really brings the whole thing to life in a really cool way. I am not very far into it, but I am very excited to read it and try out some of her recipes.

Scrapbooking...

As summer comes to a close (though the weather is definitely still in summer mode) I had some fun today doing a little scrapbooking on some of our summer adventures. Between taking the photos, then editing them, then organizing them in my photo albums to look at later, which I really like to do, I have so much fun with the whole process of scrapbooking.

I hope that you have fun doing something today that you really enjoy!

trying out Pinterest recipes...

I got the recipe off of Pinterest and I made it for dinner last night and it was tasty, so I thought I would share it with you.

Sliced baked potatoes :

Method Preheat the oven to 220˚C (425˚F). Put the potato on a chopping board, flat side down. Start from one end of the potato, cut almost all the way through, at about 3 to 4 mm intervals. Arrange the potatoes in a baking tray and insert the garlic in between the slits. Scatter some butter on top of each potato. Then drizzle the olive oil and sprinkle some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake the potatoes for about 40 minutes or until the potatoes turn crispy and the flesh is soft.

The thing that we think would make it better is if you baked it in foil. that way the butter and olive oil doesn't run and I think it would cook more evenly. Even saying that Kit wanted to make it again. I served it with sautéed spinach and caprese salad.