My Desk

Trey and I live in a tiny house. It is a cute house, it totally fits our needs at this point in our life, and it is very affordable for us right now. But it is a tiny house. This past summer we almost bought a house. However, as we got into the process, we decided this wasn't the wisest decision at the time. The house was a great deal as a foreclosure, but we discovered more and more work that would need to be done once we moved in, and we decided this wasn't the best we could get for our money right now.

Through that home buying process, we walked away from the experience more content and thankful for our tiny house. A few things we love about it are the closeness we have as a family, since you are never too far from the family physically when inside the home; the low rent and utilities; the cuteness of our home (I do love how it is laid out); and the location, right near downtown Canton and across the street from Trey's work.

But one great frustration for me has been that I don't have a workspace. Since I'm a stay at home mom, I handle things like paying bills. I also am on the planning team for our area MOPS group, which means I have things I work on at home. Not having a space means that my work gets spread throughout the house. Bills are left on the kitchen table, coupons sit out on the counter for days until I can get around to sorting them, and our laptop sits on an end table in the living room so I can work when Kate is sleeping. This has been so frustrating for me. I decided I needed a desk, and I found the perfect little spot in our bedroom. The only problem is, every desk I looked at was $100+. I did not want to spend that kind of money!

Today, I am pleased to say, I found my desk!! I went to First Monday, a HUGE marketplace/trade days event our town has every month. This is also where I found Kate's dresser for her nursery. I got the desk for $40, and it is just what I wanted!!

The coolest thing is, I have been praying for the Lord to provide a desk. This is exactly what I'd envisioned, and I had some birthday money to buy a desk, but I didn't want to pay a ton for a desk that isn't well built in the first place. I am thankful to the Lord for providing this desk, which is built well and just what I had been looking for.

Where do you do all your mommy work? I can't wait to get my stuff settled in and get to work at my desk!

A Day at the Museum

A few weeks ago, Trey and I loaded up our little girl and headed to the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science for his birthday. What a fun day we had! We ended up joining the museum for a little bit more than we paid that day, and it has already paid off to do so. 

That day, we stayed at the museum most of the day. We watched the Imax on whales. Kate did...ok during the movie. She was interested at times and wanted to climb around and play most of the time. They have a special exhibit on sharks right now, which was fun to walk through. But the play area for kids was by far the highlight of our visit. Kate had a blast. Plus, as a bonus present to Trey for his bday, she slept through lunch so we could eat in peace, then we woke her up at the end so she could eat. It was fabulous! Enjoy the pics!

Summer Travels

It has been one wild and crazy summer for the Holmes family. At the end of May, our little family piled into Trey's truck and drove to Odessa for Memorial Day weekend. What a relaxing time that was with his family. In the beginning of June, all of Trey's family and my family came to Canton to celebrate Kate's first birthday. My sister and her fiance also got engaged here. Big week! Kate and I then traveled back to Georgia with my parents. When Kate and I flew back to Texas a week and a half later, Trey was already at his second youth camp! We drove down to South Texas to visit with him and the youth for a day.

We were home for a few weeks, then the second week of July, our little family (dogs included) loaded up and headed east again. We stopped for the night in Georgia, picked up my mom, dropped off the dogs, and continued on to the northern part of North Carolina. We actually drove into Virginia to get to our destination at Lake Gaston. My aunt and uncle live there, and I grew up vacationing there with family, so it was fun for Trey to see and experience this place. As a matter of fact, the first time I'd ever been there was when I was just 11 months old...pretty close to my daughter's age when she first visited!

Our time at the lake was so blessed. My aunts and mom watched Kate a lot for us, and Trey and I spent our days playing on the sea doo, skiing, floating on the pontoon boat, swimming, reading, and napping. Just typing that sentence makes me want to go back. We drove back down after a few days, spent a couple days with my parents, then drove back to Georgia.

We've been home for a couple weeks now, and this Thursday my mom flies in. Kate and I will pick her up and we will all head straight to Arkansas to celebrate my cousin's wedding.

All in all, this summer has been filled with much traveling and, most importantly, much time with family. I am so thankful for this time. I am also thankful that Kate is a good little traveler!!!

Beating the Heat

I don't know about where you live, but it has been hot here in Texas. Our poor little AC can't even keep up with the heat by mid-afternoon. Lately we've had all our fans on high, all our blinds closed and our blackout curtains drawn by lunchtime just trying to keep our poor little house from heating up to 80 degrees before supper time! Thankfully the floor fans and ceiling fans really help the AC out, and overall we've been able to keep the house cool.

This has, however, brought about a major change in our eating habits. We do not eat out often, maybe once every couple weeks, so we cook at home a lot. But with the heat the way it's been, turning the oven on has not been an option, either. We have, therefore, turned to two alternative forms of cooking: crock pot cooking and grilling out often.

I wanted to share a couple recipes from the crock pot that we have really enjoyed. The first is a crock pot lasagna I found online. It is so yummy, you won't believe your taste buds! This recipe has a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 by 350 different people, which tells you a lot right there. I always read reviews from those who have already tried a recipe. A highly rated recipe by that many people or more typically means it is going to be a good meal! One thing I did find from all the reviewers was a tip to add about 1-1.5 cups water around the edges of the lasagna before you cook to prevent it from burning/drying out. I did this and 4 hours later, it was the most fabulous lasagna I have had in a long time. Plus it is so easy to make.

Another recipe I made was one I kind of made up when I realized we were out of spaghetti noodles. I was going to make a cheesy chicken spaghetti but had to change things up a bit, so I improvised. Here's what I did. Take 3-4 uncooked chicken breasts and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Put them in your crock pot. Then add 1 can cream of mushroom (or cream of chicken, depending on your tastes) soup, 1 can chicken broth, 1/2 stick butter (for added yumminess), 1 can of rotel, and 1 cup of rice. Mix it all up a bit, put the lid on, and cook on low for 3-4 hours, depending on your crock pot. In the end you will have a lovely cheesy chicken and rice dish. I served it with a side of cooked spinach, but next time I might even toss some spinach in with it to let it cook in with the rest of the meal.

If you have any great crock pot recipes, I'd love to have them to try out!! Email me or leave a comment. We are definitely looking for more variety in our crock pot meals :)

Here are the ingredients for the Cheesy Chicken and Rice:
3-4 chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can chicken broth
1/2 stick butter
1 can rotel
1 cup rice

I is for Investigate

I: Investigate, 7/6/12

Have you ever heard of geocaching? I had not until recently, when my sister's fiance took her on a date to go geocaching. Let me tell you about geocaching. Geocaching is basically a global treasure hunt of sorts; anyone can participate, and the caches are hidden everywhere. Seriously! I visited Trey and our youth at youth camp a few weeks ago, a random small Baptist camp in southeast Texas, and there were 2 caches hidden on the campus. To find a geocache, you need 3 things: 1) A GPS to locate the coordinates and guide you to the general area the cache is hidden 2) A mode of transportation, should the cache be somewhere you need to drive or ride a bike to 3) A sense of adventure. The "cache" is some sort of container that holds a log where people sign their names to show they found the cache, as well as items to trade for if you would like to keep something from the cache. Hence, the treasure hunt!

So, for our "I" date, we went investigating! We hit the road in search of geocaches. Now I will go ahead and tell you before you get too far into this post that we were unsuccessful in finding the caches. We looked at our local park for some hidden caches, and due to the heat and bushy terrain, we gave up pretty quickly on those. We also looked for one in the local graveyard, and I'm still convinced that cache must be missing because, I tell you, I know exactly where it must be hidden and it's not there! But being unsuccessful at locating the caches didn't keep us from having a fabulous time. We have found 2 caches in Canton already, one located in our church parking lot. It is a whole lot more enjoyable when you can find the cache and log your name, but the search is still fun.

Anyway, back to the date. We loaded up our bikes and went to the park first. As I said already, it was much too hot and the bushes were much to thick and prickly for us to try to hard at locating these caches. But it was nice to get a little exercise while on a date! We then went to the old cemetery in Canton and searched for one more cache. When we couldn't find that one, we decided it was time for our picnic that we'd packed, and what better place to have a picnic than an old, old graveyard, right? So yes, we picnicked in the graveyard, and it was fantastic. It was so peaceful, and obviously, when you picnic in a graveyard, that sparks all sorts of interesting conversations. After our picnic, we walked around the graveyard and investigated, looking at all the different headstones and guessing at some of the people's stories based on their headstones. The families with one or even multiple buried babies/children in the late 1800s and early 1900s definitely broke my heart. The most interesting headstone was for a man that was hung in Canton back in the late 1800s. He was a horse thief. He is buried facing North/South, while the rest of those in the graveyard are buried East/West, which Trey explained to me has to do with the religious belief that Christ will return coming from the East. Interesting, huh?

Here are some pics from our date! If you hadn't noticed, "free" has been the theme of our last couple ABC dates :)

 At the park to search for the caches

 All I could think about was being stung by a red hornet the other week, so I was a little hesitant to search in this foliage!

 Picnic at the cemetary!

 Relaxing after a delicious meal of sandwiches, chips, fruit, and Mountain Dew.

 Our view from the ground. It was so peaceful.

Kate is 1!

I couldn't choose one, so here are a few of the many pics we have of Kate eating her first birthday cupcake. More pics from her 1 year session to come later!

That last one cracks me up. I mean, how much more of a fat kid can she be? She is definitely her mother's daughter!

Toilet Paper Mayhem!

Should we be surprised? We knew it would happen one day...I'm just thankful we caught her before things...REALLY unravelled!!! (pun intended)