Baked Beer Brats

To me, summer means grilling, grilling, and more grilling! There's nothing we love more about summer than spending some time outside playing with the kids while grilling out. My husband Patrick is truly the Burger Master, and we have many friends who can attest to that fact.

While try to grill as much as we can, but the summer heat can become pretty unbearable at times, and that means stepping foot outdoors is out of the question. On those days when we still want traditional summer food, we turn to my husband's recipe for beer brats that can be made in the oven. He first made these for me when we were dating, and I've been addicted ever since. They get really juicy on the inside from cooking in the beer and seasoning, and they have just the right amount of snap when you bite into them.

If I got to eat these beer brats all the time, I wouldn't even miss the grill. Plus, this recipe just involves throwing ingredients into a pan and putting it into the oven. It doesn't get any easier than that.

Ingredients: 1 bottle of beer (I prefer lagers for this recipe), 2 tablespoons minced garlic, 1 tablespoon italian seasoning, 2 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions: Combine all ingredients in a glass pan and cook at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, then flip brats over and cook for another 20 minutes.

Sprinkle with your favorite toppings and enjoy! My toppings of choice are ketchup and red onion :) I'm sure this one will quickly become a summer favorite of yours too!

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I'm a scrapbooking failure.

I'm someone who can't get enough of different creative mediums. I've dabbled in a ton of different things: crocheting, painting, drawing, sewing, knitting...the list goes on and on. The problem with that is, I'll go on a kick where I will get engrossed in something, only to get bored with it a few months later. This usually means I end up with a heap of supplies that I no longer use, and half-done projects that need some major improvements.

Case in point: scrapbooking.

I would really love to tell you that I'm a fantastic scrapbooker. I love all the cute little dimensional stickers you can get to embellish your pages, and maybe that's the reason I first got interested in scrapbooking. I mean, it's real-life stuff in tiny form! Maybe that would explain why I like babies so much too?

From all my blog stalking, I've seen so many cute layouts that people put together to catalog important events like graduation, the birth of their children, etc. And, now that I have a Silhouette, I have no excuse right? The only problem is, I suck at scrapbooking. I mean, super hero suck at it.

Need proof? I'm glad you asked.

I have a scrapbook I started in high school. At the time, I thought I made a pretty cool scrapbook. Looking back, I wonder "what the heck was I thinking??" (On the positive side, if you were questioning your scrapbooking abilities, one look at my old scrapbook will make you feel like a pro!)

1. The cover of the scrapbook. What was I thinking with this? Is that a fork with flowers on it?
2. Magazine pages as backgrounds. Apparently a snowman without a nose qualifies as an acceptable winter background. I can hear scrapbookers everywhere screaming in agony. 
3. Sticky labels as an embellishment. The only thing labels should be used for is TO LABEL THINGS. Not as a decoration.
4. Foil, really? This may be the best page in the book. I remember being really proud of this one when I finished it. Now I just wonder why I decided foil would make a good decoration.

I am a disgrace to scrapbookers everywhere. The thing is, it's not like I didn't have materials to work with! I have dimensional stickers, letters, and even scrapbook paper that doesn't come out of a magazine. And I still have them.

Sigh. I have finally accepted the fact that I will never be a good scrapbooker. I guess that's a major step in the right direction. It's probably a good thing that I've accepted that fact because I don't think the craft world is ready for more scrapbooks full of sticky labels and foil.

Spongebob Squarepants dress

A friend of mine (the one I made the Hospital Survival Kit for last year) recently asked me to make a dress for her daughter for her first birthday. She loves Spongebob Squarepants, so of course the party had to be Spongebob-themed and you can't have a Spongebob party without the proper attire. She wanted a girly version of Spongebob's outfit, so I immediately thought of Ashley's tutorial on how to turn a onesie into a bubble dress on Make It and Love It. I liked the idea of using a onesie rather than a regular t-shirt because they're longer and also because I could still incorporate the general idea of Spongebob's outfit but make it girly by adding a gathered bottom and sparkly tie.

I used fabric paint with glitter in it for the tie (not sure if you can see the glitter well in the picture above, but it's there!) and used freezer paper to paint it on the shirt in the shape of a tie.

I also made a simple bow hair clip with some red ribbon that I had.

How cute is she??

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Even princesses need ice cream

My MIL found a couple of Disney princess dresses at a garage sale recently, and Haley got her hands on one and immediately insisted on wearing it and spinning around the living room. She loved it so much that she refused to take it off during a trip to get ice cream recently. How often do you get to wear a big, puffy princess dress out in public?

So that's what we did.

I think we found a new favorite ice cream spot. I tried their "Bittersweet Symphony," which is a heavenly mixture of coffee ice cream with bittersweet ribbons of chocolate running through it. We've been back to get ice cream twice now, and I can't bring myself to try anything else.

 

Haley sat down intermittently for bites of ice cream, but she mostly enjoyed curtsying to passerby's who complimented her on her dress. This little princess had very refined manners. Except for the drips of ice cream that inevitably found their way onto her dress. Her lady in waiting (i.e. me) was called several times to make sure the little princess's dress was properly wiped clean.

Good thing Connor was on hand to "help" finish off the rest of the ice cream. I didn't need any help with mine :)

Bowls were emptied and Princess Haley was happy. I sense more trips to get ice cream in our near future, probably in a Rapunzel dress next time.

On a jewelry kick

I'm sure you've noticed that I'm on a jewelry kick lately. I seem to go through these crafting phases where I get really hooked on a particular kind of craft and lately, it's been making jewelry. It's been nice to put my sewing machine aside for a little while and explore a different medium. Plus, I can kick my feet back and watch TV while making jewelry. With sewing, you usually have to stay glued to your machine until you're done with the project. Since I've been settling into my new home in PA, I've been looking for cute projects that are quick and I came across Bev's tutorial for Stacked Ombre Cording Bracelets.

Bev's blog, Flamingo Toes, is always my go-to when it comes to jewelry making. She puts together great knockoff tutorials for Anthro jewelry that you'd usually have to pay an arm and a leg for and her tutorials are always really easy to follow. I happened to be at a hardware store a couple of nights ago, so after reading her tutorial, I picked up some brass tube and modified her tutorial to make a couple of bracelets of my own!

I didn't have any cording, but I did have suede so that's what I used for mine. I also opted to be really lazy and cut the tubing with wire cutters rather than doing it the (way cleaner and better-looking) correct way of using a saw or other tool to cut the tube. Please also don't look too closely at the fact that I went with silver clasps because I didn't have gold :) My motto is "make it work" AKA "I'm too lazy to do it the right way so I'll use what I have." I bought more brass tubes to make more, and I'll definitely be cutting it with a saw next time.

Thanks, Bev, for the great tutorial (and the new addiction to making these awesome bracelets)!

I'm officially a Pittsburgher.

We're here, we're here! After months and months of planning and dreaming (more like years actually) we're finally in Pittsburgh! My husband and I have been wanting to move closer to our family ever since we had kids, and that dream has finally become a reality. I've been taking a little blog break recently to unpack, recharge, and organize everything because wow, we have some STUFF. When everything is nicely organized in your house, you don't really realize how many things you have. That is, until you have to take it all out of your house and pack it into a 26 ft. truck. And your van. And your second car. And still, there's barely enough room for everything. I still feel like I'm recovering from all of the packing, unpacking, and organizing and it's still not completely done yet but we're getting there.

So far though, I am completely in love with Pittsburgh. What a beautiful city! For those of you who know Memphis, it's pretty much a concrete jungle (and a hot one at that!) Pittsburgh has so many beautiful buildings and such a wonderful sense of community. I'm really enjoying how genuinely nice everyone is here! I love that I can finally say that I'm a Pittsburgher.

There's also a few other things I've been loving about PA:

     1. Pittsburgh is like, a million degrees cooler. And less humid. And those 2 things alone are
     enough to make me want to move here.


     2. People walk around at night outside without fear of being mugged. That would never happen in
     Memphis. The sun goes down, you go inside.

     3. They have diet cream soda in their grocery stores. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but
     to me it's like finding the holy grail.

     4. Great local restaurants. Most restaurants in Memphis (aside from the BBQ joints) were  
     chains. Here, you can walk down the street and have the best hoagie you've ever eaten at a local
     hole in the wall restaurant. I plan on gaining lots of weight.

     5. Did I mention how awesome the weather is?

The one thing I'm having to really get used to are the hills. I'm just hoping I'll have some massive calves after being here for a few weeks :) Thanks for hanging in there while my family and I settle in. I've been giving myself permission to slow down a little lately, but I do have some projects that I plan on sharing with you soon! 

Signing off for now

It's time for me to sign off for awhile! We're making the big move this week, but our internet is officially cut off as of yesterday (I had to preschedule this post) so I will be without internet for awhile and won't be able to write on the blog until we move and get settled in. I'm just glad I have my iPhone to get my Pinterest fix on the drive :)  In just a few short days we'll be hauling a giant truck, 2 babies and a whoooooole bunch of stuff 14 hours away to live Pennsylvania. After that, it's nothing but unpacking and settling in with family until we can find new jobs and adjust.

We've been trying to explain the move to Haley over the past few weeks so that she's prepared for the big change. We've been here since she was only 3 months old, so Tennessee has basically been her home for her whole little life. We also have big plans to enroll Haley in preschool when we get there among other things. Patrick and I laugh about it because Pennsylvania has become this magical place where all fun things happen. Haley latches onto bits and pieces of what we've been telling her, then retells it to us at bedtime.

"We pack up allllll of our stuff into a big truck and we go see Yia Yia and Papa! And no more Haley's house. And we see friends, and go to the BIG screen and see Brave, and go to dance school, and go SWIMMING!"

I love how flexible young kids are, they can adjust so easily. Especially with promises of trips to the pool :) So it's goodbye for now, to Tennessee and to my wonderful readers. And hello to a new chapter in our lives!