31 Oh How Pinteresting & WILW

I love these link ups each week, and honestly I'm fresh out of post ideas for the day, so why not link up? 


Oh how pinteresting: Shower theme

I think I am just dying for one of my friends to get married or have a baby so I can host a shower for them! All my pins on pinterest lately have been about parties and hosting. 


Are you following me on pinterest yet? Find it here

 

 

 

Pink Cake Pops // Cheese Table // Yogurt Bar  // Cake //  Lemonade Jar // Table Setting // Milk & Cookies // Cupcakes

What I'm Loving Wednesday


1) I am loving that my co worker, AKA, my adopted big sister bought me a cheeseburger for lunch yesterday. She's so sweet to me! 


2) That I just heard the new Craig Morgan song This Ole Boy, and I am loving it! 


3) That it is hump day and that only two more days until my parents visit!! 


4) Loving that my Zumba game for the Wii came in yesterday! I am so excited to play it! 


5) I am thankful that we got some very good news on Monday, that will really help us out! 


6) I am loving that Criminal Minds is on every night so I can get my thrills before bedtime :) 


7) I am loving that I am finally getting the home in order and ready for our guests (my parents) this weekend! 

8) And I am so glad it's my half birthday today ! I never get to celebrate it because of leap year, so I am excited! You can imagine as a kid this was really devasting since I only got to celebrate it every 3-4 years?




Link Ups: 

30 Healthy Chicken Enchiladas

One of Joel's favorite meals is Mexican food. He loves it and could eat it everyday if I let him. Since we have taco night at least once per week, we wanted to try something new. So, I found this recipe from She-Fit.com . This recipe was wonderful and so good! It tasted just like the restaraunt, but I know it's way healthier. I did do some things differently than what the recipe called for, but I made sure to keep the original recipe for those wanting to keep track of weight watchers points. I highly suggest this meal to anyone who loves mexican and wants to try something new. It was so good!

Oh, and it's "New Wife" friendly :)

 

Ingredients

Skinny Enchilada Filling

9 Tortillas (low Carb La Tortilla)  * we did 4 large tortillas

1 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast meat

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped bell peppers

1/2 cup Non-Fat Greek Yogurt

1/2 cups Shredded Low-Fat 4 Cheese Mexican Cheese

Skinny Enchilada Sauce

3/4 cup Salsa

1/4 cup Non-Fat Greek Yogurt

1/4 cup Low-Fat Shredded Cheese

* For my sauce, I prefer cheese, so i used low fat velveeta cheese for the sauce on top. As seen in the pictures.

1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2.) Sautee onions and bell peppers till onions are lightly brown 
3.) Mix sautéed veggies with non-fat greek yogurt, chicken, and cheese
4.) Spray pan with cooking spray before adding tortillas. Spread 1/4 cup chicken mixture in the middle of each tortilla and roll into a small burrito. Keep the seam facing down on baking sheet.
5.) Mix Salsa and greek yogurt in a small bowl and spread evenly on top of tortillas, Sprinkle Cheese throughout.
6.) Place foil over dish and bake Skinny Enchiladas for 15-20 minutes.

Place hot chicken strips in mixer, set on low to medium power. Watch carefully and chicken will pull apart!

Perfectly shredded chicken!

 Nutritional Content

Weight Watchers PointsPlus: 4

Recipe adapted from She-Fit.com

57 Outfit Post: Skinny Coral Jeans

Well, my first outfit post, here I go!

Miss Me Pumps from 6pm.com

Skinny Coral Jeans from Forever 21 :: $24.99

Top from Forever 21 :: $17.50

I am trying something "new" today. I have never done an outfit post where I share what I wear or what is currently in my closet. I think I forget that fashion is a big part of my life and I care about it a lot. I aways am seeing how cute other girls blogs are with their cute little outfits, and with the beautiful 60 degree weather, I just had to drag the husband out have him try to figure out how to use my dslr.

This look is one of my favorites! My friend Jennifer over at Haute off the Rack has an incredible fashion blog you should check out! I would have never known about the incredible $24 steal at F21 on those coral skinny jeans. Hence, the inspiration for this outfit and selection.

Both the top and pants are from Forever 21.

 I online shop, because the store overwhelms me. The shoes are from 6pm.com and they are Miss Me. Something you need to know about me is that I am not a jewelry guru. I really have a hard tme wearing rings and bracelets. They bother me a ton. Necklaces I can sometimes tolerate, and earrings are okay. It took me over a year to get used to my engagement ring. I was not fond of that feel for awhile.

I often feel uncomfortable in my skin, so this outfit post was a way for me to get more acclamated with myself. I am a very awkward person sometimes. It took me a very long time to warm up to taking these pictures, but as soon as I did, I immediately started to have fun with it. My husband helped too, of course he made me laugh. He had fun being the camera man!

33 Notice Anything?

Do y'all notice anything different at all? Eeek! I got a blog makeover! Late last night Bee installed and finished the blog design. And y'all she did a fabulous job! I cannot even begin to tell you how much of a joy she was to work with. I found her about a week ago and asked if she should re-create the design I had in mind, and she turned it around in no time into a beautiful masterpiece! 


Let's see, my favorite part of the design are the colors and feminine feel. It describes me perfectly really. I am not a girly girl but I often try to stay feminine with styling my clothes, house decor, and now my blog. This design is perfect! The sketch of the two figures holding an umbrella at the top is a piece of art that Joel hand sketched for me as a little wedding present. I've cherished it since and couldn't imagine not using it in the design since this blog is all about us. I am so happy Bee could incorporate it into the design, and she fitted it in beautifully! I love the little social icons, too. I've always seen them on others blogs and wished I could have them too, and now I do! Now, I still have some work on my part to fill in "our story" and a few others, but stay tuned because I will soon have more additions to those pages! 


So onto Bee! Y'all, she is fabulous! Not only is she an amazing designer, but she is so incredibly sweet. She blogs too and shares precious stories of her and her husband, the books she reads, and so much more. She is so pretty !! If you love vintage clothing, like me, you will adore her outfits and style. She has such cool tastes! Now, go over and check her out! She is a beautiful person and you will enjoy reading her blog as I do! 

The Secret Life of Bee 

Bee, thanks so much again for all your hard work, you are awesome girl !! 

28 It's Just Me Today

First, Thank you so much to everyone who linked up yesterday! I am still getting around to reading everyone's posts, but really just wanted to say thank you. Y'all mean the world to me for linking up.  :)

I have decided to come to a halt for the link ups today. There are so many I wanted to participate in, but really just thought I need some "me" space. I've been thinking about it a lot lately how I scroll through my blog and don't see much of my real self on here. It is kind of fizzling. Lately I have gotten caught up with the fun link ups and etc. They were so great and so fun and I don't regret them at all. But I think it's important for me to stay true to the reason I started this blog in the first place, and that's to share my stories and keep family and friends updated on our life. So that's what this post will be about today. But no worries, I'll still be linking up for many more moons :)

So a few things I wanted to talk about today.

First, is how I am so upset about our puppy Rayne... Our mischievous little pup has been constantly getting into trouble this past week. About 5 months ago we bought her a large fence play yard to keep her in while we are at work. She loved it! We put it right on top of the carpet and she never had any accidents or troubles. Until last week. We came home to a huge hole in our carpet. We rent right now, so you can imagine the heart attack we had when we saw this. We wanted to keep her in the pen so we went to Lowe's and got them to cut up a piece of carpet to put on top of the torn up carpet. I kid you not, the next day we came home to this......

You can imagine that neither me or Papa Joel were very happy. We then kept her crated for the next three days until we could get to Lowe's again. So three days ago we went back to Lowe's and decided to give it another shot. We found some thick/hard plastic flooring that we thought she would never be able to get out of. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.

Yesterday after coming home all excited to take her on a walk, we walked into her room and were in total shock. Yes, the dog chewed through the plastic flooring just like she did the carpet. We were both so upset that we didn't even get a chance to take a picture. And y'all I should have. You would not believe the damage she did. It looked exactly the same as the carpet picture, but with hard flooring.

It amazes me. How did we go 5 months with no problems, to all the sudden psycho possessed dog? What do we do? Seriously, we need help and suggestions!

Is the Dog Whisperer available to come over?

From now on, she is being crated, which we hate since we have to leave her in there for a long time. But unless someone wants to make us a platform of tile, then I think we are fresh out of luck. Really any suggestions would be helpful to us at this point.

Okay moving on....

Can we talk about how frustrating it is to prove I'm not a robot? Word verification YOU SUCK! Go away. I counted one day, I re typed that mumble jumble 13 times on someones blog. I feel really dumb and not smart sometimes. The emotional toll this brings is just frustrating. Up until a week or so ago the words were much easier to distinguish, now I just can't make out the words at all. So no worries my fellow friends, I don't have word verification, never have, and don't plan to ever have it. Spam detection has done a wonderful job so far for me.

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Did y'all know it's FRIDAY? I kind of forgot and it snuck up on me. This week went by really fast (not complaining) and I am really excited about this weekend. There is a rumor that a brewery around here is going to be serving crawfish on Saturday, can you believe it? I may just go a little crazy if this does pan out and hold true. No worries, I'll blog all about it. Cross your fingers for me :)

Have a great day and Happy Friday !!!!

33 Wedding Cake Link Up !

The Cake! I designed it myself by sketching the whole thing for our cake baker! He did an amazing job down to the last detail I wanted. He was a true talent to work with and I am so glad I chose him. 

On our wedding day, we had two rooms rented, and the cake was in the second room. We had arrived at our reception and had been mingling for over an hour before we made our way into the second room where the cake was. When we did, I was in awe and so amazed. The cake was everything I dreamed of and more. 

Below are some more pictures of the details of our cake!

Doves were always something I wanted to incorporate in our wedding. Doves are beautiful, and I have always thought they were sentimental to me in so many ways. I always thought the idea of "Love Birds" was really cute, and even used bird themes for my showers. When it came time to picking a wedding topper, it was a no brainer. I love the Bride and Groom Toppers, but it wasn't necessarily the style/feel I was going for. 

And you know how I first thought to use them for my wedding? I always loved the Disney movie Cinderella as a little girl, and my favorite part of the movie is when the birds help create Cinderella's dress. I just thought it was so magical and lovely. Silly, but it was my first thought when I was deciding. 

The Cinderella theme kind of continues with the drapes on the cake. Remember Cinderella's dress how it had many drapes on her dress? So dreamy and magical. That is where those beautiful blush drapes came from. 

Did you know Southern girls like monograms? Oh and pearls? I know the rest of the world does too, but I've never seen so many in the South. So, I had to have some of those touches on the cake. From the very beginning I had used the letter "R" (our last name initial) through showers, invitations, and more. So, I definitely wanted it to be on the cake. The pearls around the cake were really important to me. I loved how dainty they looked; it completed the look of my cake perfectly. 

FLAVORS {from the top}: 

Traditional Wedding Cake 

Lemonade {Which I never even got to try :( so sad} 

Vanilla with Strawberries in the filling

White chocolate 

Praline flavored cake

Last Tier was traditional wedding cake 

CAKE PULLS: 

I had 16 Cake Pulls, so bare with me if I don't remember them all. One of my favorite parts of our wedding was the cake pulls. Girls get so into it! When you see who gets what and how much they take it to heart is just so funny. I think my 16 year old cousin got the Ring and a friend who's in a serious relationship got the Old Maid, so it just really didn't make sense but was funny!  

Ring ( 1 ) 

Good Luck ( 2 ) 

Life of the Party ( 2 ) 

Fleur De Lis/ New Orleans ( 2 ) 

Life of Style and Fashion ( 1 ) 

Life of Adventure and Leisure ( 1 ) 

Life of Stability ( 1 ) 

Life of Financial Security ( 2 ) 

Long Life ( 2 ) 

A Life with Memories ( 1 ) 

Old Maid (1) 


Now, I'll give the Groom his glory too, because really his cake is adorable too! 

For those who are new, my husband started medical school the day after we got home from our honeymoon. So this cake was very fitting for him. Plus, he's a funny guy and wanted something to show his personality :) 

I cannot wait to see all of your Wedding Cakes! 

Now, GO LINK UP !
It is open until March 1st !

*Have fun with this, all I ask is that you link back to my blog! Thank you to everyone who participates! 

<a href="http://www.themagnoliapair.com/2012/02/wedding-cake-link-up-announcement.html"><img src=http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w381/braborn716/cakelinkup.jpg alt="" width="129" height="129" /></a>

24 Oh How Pinteresting & WILW

Don't forget about the Wedding Cake Link Up TOMORROW (2/23)! 

^ click for details !

Fashion Edition

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Scalloped Shorts = so cute for summer! 

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Love Nude everything!

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                                                  Gorgeous outfit for Spring! 

  

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Love this Boho look on Blake for mid summer! 

 

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Seafoam sclloped shorts= perfect for spring! 

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Blush Pink and leopard skirt = so chic for work! 

& 

Little Daisy May

1. That my husband made me dinner last night since I wasn't feeling so great. 

2. That my Mom and Dad are coming to visit so soon! 

3. That Rayne did not chew up her new flooring that we bought her. 

4. That I am starting to enjoy our new place/city more. 

5. That Spring weather is almost here! 

6. That LSU baseball is doing well so far. 

7. That so many weddings are coming up in the next few months- I Love wedding season! 

Some little things to make you smile :) 

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29 Happy Mardi Gras Everybody!

Today, my heart breaks a little that I am not in New Orleans with my family and friends. Yesterday, my mom sent me pictures of her and my dad at lundi gras with my cousins, I was so sad. I have only missed Mardi Gras twice now in my entire life. The first time was when I was around 10-12 years old and my parents used the school break to take me to Disney World, which, was a pretty fair trade as a kid. This year marks the second time. We would have gone down in a heart beat, but Joel had a big exam yesterday, which he did incredibly well on.. YAY! So really, it is all worth it, because right now we have other priorities in line. But that doesn't mean I don't miss it. 

Listening to these songs today :) 

& 

I found some old photos of my years at Mardi Gras that I wanted to share! 

Mardi Gras 2011- yes that is a wig! 

Mardi Gras 2010 

Mardi Gras 2009 !

Mardi Gras 2008- at the Endymion Extravaganza Ball !

Mardi Gras 2007 at the Endymion Extravaganza Ball ! 

And I'll leave you with the only picture I have (on my computer) from my Mardi Gras as a child! My mama sewed this little dress herself :) 

My very first Mardi Gras of my life, I was a baby pink crayon! Wish I had a picture (on my laptop) of that! 

Happy Mardi Gras everybody! 

& laissez le bon temps rouler !