Peaches and Painting.

I was so excited to bring home fresh peaches from South Carolina.

I knew I wanted to make something new with them.

I found this recipe from Giada.

 Fresh cherry and peach frittata

I had never made a frittata before, I am in love now!

It was so easy, fast, and delicious. 

I also made this blueberry banana bread made with whole wheat flour and greek yogurt. 

It was good fresh out of the oven but I don't think I would make it again.

 My very best friend is getting baptized this weekend and I wanted to make her something special that would remind her of the day and how much I love her and am thankful for her.

I inlisted the help of my crafty MIL and we came up with this beautiful sign!

It started with an all black pane from an old shutter that my dad saved me from a project.

We sanded down the center and painted it with some good ole Annie Sloan paint.

It took 2-3 coats.

Next we picked a verse and a font and we made it happen!

I love how it came out vintage looking and distressed.

I can't get over how much I love the "H" on this font. Luckily my last name starts with "H" so I think I will make some other projects with it!

I put two coats of clear wax on it and then touched it up with a medium brown wax at the end.

I brought it to her today and was happy that she loved it!

One of my favorite things to do is plan a gift for someone I love. My love language is gifts and it is so special to me when you can give someone something that matches their personality and their favorite things.

After taking Blake her sign today we spent a lovely afternoon together full of shopping and eating, of course!

We had brunch at the West Egg.

I had heard wonderful things about this place and they were correct.

Og ma gob, I could go back right now and eat the same exact thing.

I ended up with roasted garlic grits and a skillet full of potatoes, cheese, onions, bacon, and eggs.

Those grits were like nothing I had ever tasted, so amazing.

As if a bowl full of carbs and calories wasn't enough we headed over to Sublime Donuts to try it out for the first time. Not the cutest place ever but it was worth it. We had to choose from so many, it was really hard!

We ended up with a peach and white chocolate fritter, strawberries and cream, and peanut butter cup.

As I sat down at the table with Blake she said "just two girls and three donuts." For some reason that made my day.

Overall it was a lovely day with a sweet friend.

We also went to Anthropologie and a cute baby store called Seed Factory.

I am also working on another painting project tonight...will post soon.

Fingers crossed it comes out okay!

Rewind....

I have been a bad, bad blogger.

I think of so many things I want to put on here while I am falling asleep at night. I am not one of those people that will get up at any hour and create something or write something down they want to do, once I am in my bed there is nothing that will take me out of it. 

So...here is what has been going on in my life for the past couple of weeks.

1. End of the school year

I made these blocks last year but changed them up a bit this year.

I order the blocks (they come with the photo holder attached) from Oriental Trading each year.

I painted the blocks with extra paint I had in the garage. I love using scraps and leftovers for projects!

I attached the initial of their first name on the front of the block.

On the back I put an owl sticker and stamped "Owl Miss You!"

My classroom is full of owls this year so it was a special message for my kids this year.

I found this cute free printable on pinterest.

I filled little craft bags with goldfish and tied a ribbon around it, so simple but adorable.

When I gave the kids their gifts I attached a class picture from the beginning of the year.

I attached this little poem on the back of the class picture.

We spent the last day of school signing yearbooks and saying our goodbyes.  It is always extra hard to say bye to kids that will not be returning the next year. I had some really special students this year.

 Each year I try to put together a gift basket for my room mom that goes along with her personality.

This year I found all of my materials at the wonderful Super Target.

I filled the ice bucket with lemon napkins, lemon shaped ice cube molds, fun straws, drinking glasses with lemons on them, and a lemon!

 2. Memorial Day Weekend at the Lake!

If you haven't noticed by now my family eats like champs at the lake.

One of my favorite things about the lake is planning the meals with my mom.

She may not say the same...I love to plan them but she usually ends up cooking them with my brother while I relax!

 For this weekend most of our recipes came from the lovely Pioneer Woman.

Her new cookbook is amazing, go get it!

We had a Berry Bake Off! at school the last week so at the lake I wanted to test out my recipe.

It was a huge hit. I'm pretty sure dad and I ate half of them out of the oven. There is no calorie counting at the lake, right??

These little guys are mini raspberry cobblers.

 Who doesn't love fresh french toast? It is such a treat.

This time we added some berry butter from the pioneer woman.

We made blackberry butter and raspberry honey butter.

It was really pretty and tasty!

 For dinner one night we made these sweet potato honey rolls.

They kind of fell flat....but still tasted good.

All day long I have been craving this pasta dish. 

It was full of prosciutto, veggies, pine nuts, cheese, and a cream sauce.

Caesar salad with homemade croutons.

For dessert we had apple dumplings. Oh. my. gosh.

How cute are these??

Mom made them for one of the bedrooms. 

So after this weekend everything else I ate seemed so boring and plain.

Lots of veggies and fruit.

We are headed back to the lake for Father's Day and I can't wait to try out new recipes.

Most of my recipes are on my pinterest if you ever want to try them!

http://pinterest.com/amynoelhull/yes-please/

Home Sweet Home

Sorry for the long lull.

School ended last Thursday and then I had to leave town without a lot of notice.

My sweet Aunt Susan was very sick and ended up having a liver transplant Friday morning.

My mom and I drove to Virginia Friday morning. What should have been a 9 hour drive took us 11 hours. We were stuck in terrible rain, traffic, and construction.

Once we made it we spent most of our time visiting family and sitting with my Aunt in the ICU.

Sadly I forgot my running shoes and yoga dvds for the trip so I was not able to exercise all week long!

Along with the lack of exercise I ate like a 9 year old boy all week.

I had a week full of pizza, doughnuts, fries, pasta, and more!

I got back in town last night and first thing this morning I went to Publix and loaded up on fruits, veggies, and stuff for my spinach smoothies.

I am so excited to get back to my healthy eating and exercise.

It was so hard to say bye to my family and aunt. She is so special to me and I wish we lived closer to each other. She is so amazing! After having a major transplant and being on a ventilator for days she was immediately asking me about my shirt, purse, and where I had been shopping in Richmond.

After spending so much time in the hospital and seeing how sick my aunt was it was such a reminder to me how important it is to be an organ donar. I am so thankful for people that are organ donors. What a blessing.

I am so happy to be home with my sweet husband and precious pups.

It is now summer around here and I am so excited.

On the way home from Virginia mom and I stopped at a fruit stand and brought home some South Carolina peaches. I plan on making some yummy new peach treats this week!

This week.

The teacher side of me is so happy this week is almost over.

Summer is 5 1/2 days away and I can't wait!

I am so excited to sleep in, cook and bake more, plant new flowers, work out in the morning, drink coffee out of a real mug in my house, lunch with friends, I could go on and on...

Anyway- this has been a busy week at school and here are a few things we had going on:

Dining Hall Appreciation Day!

At our school we have lunch made for us everyday, it is such a treat. It is so nice to not have to think about packing a lunch. The teachers have their own salad bar (much needed). You have to watch kids carefully, they will pick out all the purple grapes for a fruit salad with their own hands and ignore the spoon, my worst nightmare. 

They do so much for us and we wanted to let them know how much they mean to us.

I had my class draw their favorite food. I thought I was being so creative and then when I saw all the other banners I realized we all had the same idea!

It was really funny to read their favorite foods- nachos, buttered egg noodles, and turkey sausage were the most popular. I had to agree with the buttered egg noodles, I can't say no to them.

This one was so adorable!

Sweet first graders!

The teachers collected money to give all the dining hall staff gift cards to say thank you.

I put together this little burlap banner quickly to display the cards.

I just cut a long piece of burlap ribbon I had left over from the baby shower, hole punched the gift card envelopes and tied them on with twine. 

I cut out the brown accent paper on my cricut and had these letters from some scrapbook supplies.

They are a sweet group of people!

I visit my friend that just had a baby a couple times a week after school and always like to bring her some snacks or a treat to munch on. We both LOVE food and I miss cooking with her! This week I tried these chocolate dipped s'mores..

Just bake them like this on a cookie sheet around 350 for a few minutes and then let them set in the freezer for a few minutes before dipping them in the melting chocolate.

I am taking them to her tomorrow so hopefully they will taste good! I am not a s'more eater so I didn't sample any.

At least they look cute!

 Tonight I tried a new brussel sprout dish.

My best friend made these earlier in the week and I had to try them.

Shredded brussel sprouts with pine nuts, red onion, garlic, apple, and parmesan cheese.

I ate a big plate of them for dinner, probably a good thing since I have consumed more cookie cake in the last week than any other food group. 

Tomorrow night we have the baccalaureate service for the high school and graduation Saturday morning. Busy week at school! 

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend! 

Mother's Day!

Come back! This weekend went by so fast! 

Saturday was spent with my mom getting manicures and pedicures together. It was so nice to spend time with her. I am so blessed to have an amazing mom that lives minutes away, I don't know what I would do without her so close!

On Sunday my mom and I went to a wedding together.

It was so fun to see a sweet friend get married.

She was beautiful, as always.

It was also a special day for a great friend who got to celebrate her first mother's day with this sweet baby boy.

So precious!

A few days ago we had Muffins with Mom at school. Apparently I was too consumed with getting everything ready on time and getting my latte before the day started that I forgot to take any good pictures! So I caught a few on my iphone after the event, oooops.

In the years past I made pillow covers for all the moms with their child's handprint. I decided to change things up a bit this year....I have a feeling I may do something new each year!

The boxes were made out of scrapbook paper and the flowers were cut out on my cricut, I just used a glue dot to attach a button in the middle. I sewed leaves out of felt for both sides of the baskets.

Each child brainstormed adjectives/character traits about their mom and then wrote them on various flowers. We laminated them and put a magnet on the back.

Everything fit in the paper basket!

The kids also created little books for their moms. They were all so sweet and creative. I loved reading all of them!

They also filled out this book about their mom, some of the answers were SO funny. I loved seeing what the kids thought their moms favorite food, hobby, and flower were.

One said their moms favorite hobby was to nap!

It was a wonderful day with the kids and their moms.

I hope everyone had a special Mother's Day!