One of my favorite passions...

With all this free time on my hands, I am just dying to pick up a paintbrush. I have loved painting my whole entire life. I love all things crafty, and I love nothing more than turning something plain and ordinary into something beautiful. Something with a new story to tell. This past year, I have been on an unintentional painting hiatus. With wedding planning, and then our actual wedding, and graduating from school, and moving to a new state with my husband, painting has gone on the back burner, for probably the longest time in my life.

I woke up the other day with this strong desire to just create. With Dylan and I being on a tight budget, and it definitely not being garage sale season, I'm on a limited reach of what I can do. Which is probably why I made a dog bed for Piper, with left over material. Which worked just fine, but I know one day soon, I will get to do something about that itch. For the time being, I will just re-visit my most recent project (from last summer)...

Before:


After:

What to do on a Friday afternoon...

Several months ago, Dylan and I were out shopping for Christmas gifts for our family. We stopped at TJMaxx, and I of course fell in love with this darling bed for PIper. It was round and just truly divine, but in the spirit of Christmas giving (and our budget) I passed on this dog bed, and have regretted it ever since.

So today, I decided I would make my own. I'm a pretty good pillow sewer, so it isn't uncommon for me to whip up some simple square covers to vamp up a room, but why I never thought to make one for little Piper girl is beyond me.

I spent my morning looking at this...


Voilà! I must say, I think she loves it... and of course her little reindeer friend...
Happy Friday!

The Big Things...

Big things could be happening in the Buckingham household. If you get a second, send a prayer up for us, as we try and make the right decision for our family.

*That picture can be found here.

My Little Family...

It's days like today that I am all the more thankful for these two. I love Dylan's off days. I especially love when his off days really are just that, lazy days where we can hang out and enjoy each other. It's no surprise that Piper is a cuddle bug, but it makes my heart smile to no end when I catch them cuddling, just like this.

I love my three person family.

The Little Things...

Let me give you the play by play on what just occurred...

It was about 9:52 p.m.
I took Piper on our nightly walk to go check our mail box.
(Although tonight, it's a blizzard, so we ran.)
Anyway, we check the mailbox, and with my freezing fingers, I manage to get it open.
I looked inside and I saw two letters addressed to "Agnesia Norton"... who by the way, fills up about half of our mailbox, most days out of the week. Clearly I find this annoying.
Then with a closer look I spy a package.
(Now Dylan and I rarely get packages, but when we do, it's like Christmas!)
Only today's package came from my sister.
We ran back to the apartment and began to open it, and this is what we saw...
2 wrapped presents with a post it attached to it, that read:
"Sorry I am so late in getting these to you,
_____________________________________________
Merry Christmas
Happy Kwanza
Happy New Year
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Happy President's Day
Happy Valentine's Day
Happy Mardi Gras
I love you,
Julye."
And what might those two packages be, you might ask?
2 movies. One for Dylan, 1 for me.
I love my family.

Now that single handedly made my entire day, better. Tomorrow is a new day. Let's all be thankful for the little things.

Tomorrow is Monday...

I start my new job tomorrow. I'm feeling tons of mixed feelings about it, hopefully I go and am pleasantly surprised. I feel like for months I have been complaining about my lack of a employment normalcy, and now that I'm going to be heading back to work, I all of a sudden had this burst of "Super Housewife Powers" and am dreading tomorrow morning? What is wrong with me!?

-I have spent the day finishing/catching up on our laundry (which Dylan does for us, but for whatever reason I wanted to do? I hate laundry.)
-I put away all of our laundry. (Again, shocking! I .n.e.v.e.r. do this part, which is why Dylan so wonderfully does.)
-I gave Piper a bath.
-I have a spotless kitchen, empty dishwasher and immaculate floors.
-I hung up and ironed all of Dylan's dress shirts.
-I showered and got my hair ready for the morning.
-Packed both of our lunches.
...I could go on and on, but I'll save you the time...

Honestly, what has gotten in to me? I think I'm trying to prove to myself that I should've been a better housewife, while I had the chance... But oh well, tomorrow I'm off to work... I am thankful to begin the week with a clean fresh home. That is something I love so dearly, but rarely ever happens. Blah. Say a prayer for me... This could be interesting! :)

Wishful Thinking...

It seems I've been doing a lot of dreaming and wishing lately for things that I can't possibly make happen. So why not make my wish list here...

1. I wish to live here-


2. I wish to have two of these for Piper, so she will quit dumping her water bowl and carrying it through our house-


That's really all I can think of for now...

Hope you are all enjoying your Sunday!

Dylan Ross Buckingham...

You're my better half. My source of laughter and most importantly my best friend. I am so lucky you are mine! Happy first (and fourth) Valentine's day, my love. :)

PW's Chicken Spaghetti...

For Christmas, Dylan's mom got me the Pioneer Woman Cookbook. If you haven't seen this, or heard of it... Quit reading this post, and go buy it. Now! Or at least check out her website, here.
It is the greatest thing of all time. It is written by Ree Drummond, a self proclaimed accidental country girl, who cooks delicious food her cowboy (AKA Marlboro Man) will love. Everything I have ever made from her book has been nothing short of divine. Tonight I'm trying her Chicken Spaghetti, which I have heard so many good reviews about! I did change a few things, so here is my version:

Serves 4: Preheat Oven to 350'
Ingredients:
2 Chicken Breasts
2 cans of Chicken Broth
1 2 oz. jar diced pimientos, drained
1 small onion
1/4 cup finely diced green bell pepper
1 can 98% FF cream of mushroom soup
salt, ground pepper, and cayenne pepper to taste
2 cups of reduced fat 2% shredded monterey and cheddar jack cheese
1/2 box of linguini, break noodles in half

1. Trim and cut up chicken breasts into small bite size pieces and place into a small pot of 1 can boiling chicken broth, heat until well cooked.
2. With the same pot, pour in the other of chicken broth, and one can filled with water and boil, then cook the noodles.
3. While your noodles are cooking, set out a medium sized bowl, mix together, chicken, pimientos, onion, green pepper, can of mushroom soup, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper and 1 cup of cheese. Taste to check spices, and set aside.
4. Drain noodles, and mix in with other ingredients.
5. Pour into a small-medium sized baking greased baking dish. Top with remaining cheese and bake until cheese is bubbly.

So Delicious! Definitely will go in our Family Favorites book! :)

YUM-O!

Made these yummy treats by chance, making them again-by choice!

I shall name them- YumBites, Dylan wants to call them- Nu-Bu-mmms. "NuBums". :)...

3/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup Nutella
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour

In large bowl combine softened butter, peanut butter and Nutella. Add in sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat in 1 egg and vanilla. Gradually stir in flour.

Shape dough into small ping-pong size balls, and place on greased cookie sheet. Cook for 8-10 minutes at 375'.

Seriously, Heaven in your mouth!

I've bet you've never seen these...

Many of you have probably heard of "Cadillac Ranch" in Amarillo. It's one of the biggest attractions in our bazaar city. Anyway, it was created by a millionaire mad man, named Stanley Marsh III. He is apparently a crazy man who has more money than he knows what to do with, so he puts a lot of it into random art projects around town. And when I say random, I mean RaNdOm. For example he has allegedly, paid high school students (who are referred to as the marsh pack) to drive around old cars with weird things attached to them, like a chicken, or huge antlers, and he makes moch street signs with bazaar sayings and gives money to people to put them in their yard for others to see. For example, here are some of the weirder signs Dylan and I have found around town (also a good chunk of the signs around town have serious profanities on them. But don't worry, I didn't put those on here ha!)...



"LOVES ALWAY'S BEEN MY GAME"


"DOG'S BARK"


"FLYING WIENIE"


"I ROAM THE PURPLE EVENINGS ALONE"


"AGING, RICH, AND OVERFED"

Weird, huh? So who's coming to stay first? :)

Seattle giveaway...

Friends! Check this out and enter to win a Seattle Vacation Giveaway! :) Good luck!! Just click HERE!

Pure Enjoyment...

There are few things I like better than a perfectly cleaned home, crawling into a freshly made bed after a long day, and going to sleep knowing that the dishwasher is empty and all of the dishes are put away. I'm sad to say this does not happen as often as I wish it did, but when it does, I am in heaven. I took some pictures of our cutie apartment for those of you back home to see. The pictures don't do it justice, but you can at least get a glimpse into our Texas lifestyle...

Here is our living room, you can see the front door to the left, and our bedroom to the right.


Then here is our living room from the other side.


Here's my kitchen.


And our bedroom.


And our guest bedroom/office/Dylan's sports room.