"House Hunting"

My sweet dad is kind of known for bringing home things he finds off the curb.  Bless his heart, most of it is junk and mom sneaks half of it off to Goodwill.  I really, really, really hate to admit this and cannot even believe I am blogging about it but I think his problem may be hereditary.  The difference is that what I find is NOT JUNK...  kid's water table, tri-cycles, outside play slide, pottery barn chairs on the deck, brand new wagon, t-ball tee, kids rocking chair, croquet set, along with a few other odds & ends... SO NOT JUNK!  Can you tell I am trying to convince myself that my problem is really not a problem?  What's sad is that I am pretty sure Charlie has acquired this trait as well.  She LOVES to go on treasure hunts with me and gets just as excited about it.  She calls it "house hunting." Of course Chuck is not so thrilled about this genetic trait so I thought he was going to kill me when I brought this home.  I was surprised at myself for even picking this up...

Lol. Looks AWFUL but it was screaming at me, "Take me home!" I don't even know why I put this nasty thing in my car but I felt bad for it.  Bless it's heart, it just needed a little bit of love!  When I got it home I noticed there was a tag on the the bottom of it (ya know, one of those tags that says this can only be removed by the consumer or you are pretty much going to jail...)  that has dates in the 1920's.  The padding was pretty much rotted but the rest of the chair was in amazing shape.  I cleaned it up, repainted it, re padded the cushion and recovered it.  I already had the paint so I just had to buy the padding and fabric, which was a remnant piece I picked up at my fave store, Hobby Lobby.  For less than $10 I have a new favorite chair.  Here is the finished project!

Love!!!  I'd like to find three other chairs I can redo and have them coordinate with this one and put them around my kitchen table.  Oh, and Chuck loves the chair too!

Meeska Mooska, Avery Turned TWOska!!!

And I bet you already know the theme of the birthday party...  Minnie Mouse!!!  I did, however, do the red & white Minnie as opposed to the new modern pink Minnie simply because I have a ton of red dishes (Hotty Toddy! ) on hand.  It made things much easier when getting my food table ready.  :)

But really, could it be true?  My sweet Avery is already TWO!?!?  I can already tell you that Avery is going to be my wild child.  Whether she is running around the house chasing us growling or I'm finding things in the toilet (bottles of baby shampoo, hair bows, oranges...), or she's climbed her way up on the shelves in the pantry and can't get down... the girl is just wild!  She is totally and completely obsessed with shoes (every body's except hers, of course), boats and eating.  The girl loves to eat! 

So back to the party.  I've never done a character themed birthday party before.  Charlie has never really "loved" a character so we've had parties like a ladybug party, princess party and a Halloween party in the past. My friend was doing a Mickey party for her little boy and as I was looking on Pinterest (obsessed) for ideas for her I saw the cutest things so it didn't take much for me to be sold on a Minnie party. 

So here is Avery's Minnie's party!!!

My sweet Avery!!!  A friend of mine made her cute shirt and I made her tutu and hair bow.  I tried all day to get her to smile for a picture but she just wouldn't give me one. This is the best picture I was able to get.  Also, it was raining the day of her party so that's why her hair looks like I've styled it with mousse.  She and the other kiddos decided to go play in the rain. 

Walking up to the party I had signs along the walkway saying: Messka Mooska, Hot Diggity Dog, Say Cheers, Oh Toodles and Avery's Clubhouse.  I already had the wood, canvas and frames and I found the balloons at Hobby Lobby, which I had blown up at Kroger. 

This was probably my favorite thing of the party.  Charlie wrote on her chalk board easel "Welcome to Avery's Birthday Party" and we put it by the front door.  So sweet!

My ribbon wreath!!!  I went back and forth thinking of what I was going to put on the front door.  I forgot I had this wire wreath in my craft closet and I just used a ton of scrap ribbon that I also already had and tied it all around it.  I loved the way it turned out!  So EASY!

On my table by the front door I had ears for everybody.  Thanks to my friend Amy, I was able to use the leftover ones from her little boy's party and glued a red ribbon on some of them for the girls to wear Minnie ears.  I also framed an invitation and got pinwheels for favors.  The pinwheels were 99cents at Hobby Lobby (but of course I caught them on sale for 40% off!!!). 

Avery's Sweet Treats table included goldfish, and chocolate covered strawberries, marshmallows and pretzels.  There goes my diet!  Yummy!!!

My sweet friend, Abby, made the cupcakes for us.  Half were chocolate and half were strawberry. She did an amazing job and they were super yummy too!  Found those cute black & white polka dot plates from Hobby Lobby.  I needed something to hold spoons for ice cream so I used a can of corn (cleaned of course!) the girls had eaten the week before and glued a red ribbon on it.  Voila! 

I had the most fun decorating the food table!  I prepared everything the night before except the corn dogs and I picked up the sandwiches the day of.  Here was my  menu.

Mickey's Clubhouse Sandwiches:  Lenny's club sandwiches (thanks Mom!)
Goofy's Garden Veggies:  Celery, Tomatoes, Bell Pepper & Ranch dressing
Donald's Dip:  My corn dip recipe:  1 can rotel drained, 1 thing of cream cheese, 1 can of white corn drained, stir it up, warm it up & serve!  I tripled it for the party.
Hot Diggity Dogs:  mini corn dogs (Kroger brand)
Clarabelle's Cheese Puffs: so yummy! Someone told that these were the best thing on the table!  Now that I think about it, I'm questioning if that meant they didn't like anything else.  Lol. 
Minnie's Bow Tie Pasta:  I couldn't find any bow tie pasta that I didn't have to prepare from scratch so I made my good ol reliable Suddenly Pasta Ranch & Bacon found at my Kroger. No one questioned me that it was shells and not bow ties!  Made 3 boxes for the party.
Pluto's Popcorn:  found little popcorn holder things at Hobby Lobby and filled them up for the kids.  I think I'm still cleaning up popcorn!
Daisy's Fruit:  Cantaloupe, Grapes & Strawberries with Fruit Dip:  1 big thing of Marshmallow cream & 1 thing of cream cheese.  Mix it up with a blender.  I also had chocolate graham crackers to dip in it.

I made little Minnie's out of styrofoam balls I found at Hobby Lobby, stuck them together with wooden skewer things (also found at H.L.), spray painted them black and glued a bow on them.  I had these on a few of the tables around the house.  I wasn't too happy with they way they turned out.  A couple of them had a very smooth finish and the others were very rough looking as if the spray paint was eating the styrofoam!!! Yikes!  Oh well, I wasn't about to start over and make more since these were probably the most expensive things I made for the party.  These were also the only Minnie's I had around.  All of the other decorations were just red, white & black.  I made a bigger Minnie for the food table centerpiece along with a glittery 'A' and '2.'  

Charlie and I had been practicing singing Happy Birthday to Avery for a few weeks.  She normally would smile, laugh & clap but of course things went completely the opposite at her birthday party.  Poor thing got a little scared with a room full of 35 people staring at her singing.  She jumped into Chuck's arms and Charlie blew out her candle for her.  

Avery absolutely loved opening her presents.  She was so cute getting so excited opening each gift. 

It was absolutely an amazing day. We had so many great friends that came to celebrate Avery's second birthday.  Even though we have our terrible two "moments" I really do love this age when she is discovering something new everyday and can be the sweetest most loving little girl then being a monster five minutes later. Her actual birthday was the next day, May 5th (cinco de mayo baby) and bless her heart, she had come down with some sort of stomach bug and was SO sick.  Maybe she just partied too hard with Minnie and her friends.  Now that it's all over and done with, is anyone having a Mickey or Minnie party?  I have decorations for you!!! 



What's for Dinner???

When I first became a SAHM (stay at home mom), I really thought I'd be able to have a spotless house, work out every day and have dinner on the table when Chuck got home for work.  Could I have ever been more wrong?!!? 

I play the pick up game everyday a million times a day and I try to clean at least one room each day and usually it takes me ALL DAY to clean that one room.  So my entire house is never clean all at one time. Ugh.  I may give off the appearance that I work out everyday considering I wear leggings or yoga pants and a t-shirt and have my hair pulled back on a daily basis and though I have the best intentions to go, I have a hard time going consistently.  I could go when Chuck gets home from work but by that time I feel like I have already run a marathon taking care of the kiddos.  Ha!  I try to cook us a good meal a couple of times a week for dinner other than a Stouffer's Meatloaf, chicken nuggets or turkey sandwiches.  But if I'm going to cook it has to be minimal ingredients, cheap, quick and easy.

 I came across this recipe the other day on Pinterest.  I already had most of what it called for so I thought we could give it a shot.  It ended up being SO yummy and couldn't be any easier.  The only changes I made to it was that I doubled the recipe and eyeballed the cheese  Who doesn't like a little extra cheese? ;)  What's more important is that the fam loved it, even the kids!

http://www.kuzakscloset.com/blog/recipes/low-carb-dinner-with-room-for-a-special-treat/

I decided we needed a side item.  I had some bacon in the fridge so I found recipe for bacon wrapped asparagus (Pinterest, of course) and it was supper yummy!  I didn't have any sesame seeds, sesame oil or garlic and I wasn't going to buy any for a one time dish so I just added more olive oil and brown sugar and sprinkled the mixture on top.  Chuck said it was the best asparagus he has ever had!  The kids, however, weren't too thrilled about it.

http://www.howsweeteats.com/2012/04/bacon-wrapped-caramelized-sesame-asparagus/

Back to Blogging!!!

Chuck asked me a couple of weeks ago why I haven't kept up with my blog.  I guess you could say we have been quite busy over the last almost TWO YEARS since the last time I posted anything.  I told y'all I was a terrible blogger but come on, two years is just plain awful!  So I decided to give this whole blogging thing another go...

Busy you say???
Why yes, we have!  My last post shows Avery just a couple of months old (if that).  Well since then, we have welcomed another sweet baby into our family and become a Party of Five!!!  Charles Hayes Trayal, Jr. was born August 2nd, 2012.  If you do the math, he and Avery are only 15 months apart.  He is now 8 1/2  months old and is the sweetest thing.   He started to crawl this last month and is all over the place.  Avery will be 2 on May 5th and has a head full of blonde curls and right now her current obsessions are with boats and shoes.  She loves going to MDO every Wednesday at St. Louis and I can already tell you that she is going to be our wild one.  Charlie is 5 1/2, has lost TWO teeth and is still taking dance lessons and playing her first season of t-ball.  She is a wonderful big sister and still entertains us on a daily basis with her new songs and dances she makes up.  She goes to St. Louis pre-school and is getting way too big way too fast! 

My Three Little Birds

On the River


What mom & dad have been up to...
The day after Avery turned 1 month old Chuck began a new position at his work, McKesson, and travelled Monday thru Friday.  He has been home since February 2012 and has been working at the Olive Branch location.  We are just lucky to have him here since the other 8 people on his team fly in from all over the country on a weekly basis.   After I got off maternity leave with Avery we decided it would be best that I stay at home with the girls. I quit my job in advertising/marketing at The Commercial Appeal after 7 years and became the Chief Executive Officer of the Trayal Household.  I have also started selling Premier Jewelry, which is one of the funnest things I've ever gotten involved in.  By doing that I've been able to pay for pre-school, dance lessons and anything else that comes up like birthdays and Christmas presents.  Not a bad gig!  I'm also in Le Bonheur Club and on the Board of Directors of the Rebel Club of Memphis.  About a year ago we started going up to Camden, TN on the Tennessee River.  We are up there most every weekend and the kids absolutely LOVE it as do Chuck and I. 

Me & My Love

Chuck's 31st Birthday on April 10th, 2013

Here we go!!!

Since Chuck asked me about the status of my blog I catch myself blogging in my head (I know, I'm a bit nuts) when I'm working on a project, cooking, or when me and the kids are up to something fun.  I post things on facebook but y'all know I like to talk so a simple facebook post just won't do sometimes.  Fair warning that grammatical errors will be often.  So here's to blogging again!