Christmas Gift Idea for Pets

I've been trying to get this post together for weeks. Sorry it's taken me so long! I wanted to share this little idea in case any of you are looking for gifts for pet owners. :) 

This is going to kind of spoil the surprise for a couple of family members, but I wanted to post this while the supplies are still in stock. 

Isn't this personalized ornament darling? 

Okay, so at Christmas, we usually exchange little gifts for the pets in the family. This year, I'll get something for my aunt's cat, Chris, and my mom's "twins" Trixie and Cecil. 

While browsing the Dollar Tree website the other day, I spotted these cute cat and dog ornaments. The pic is a little blurry, but hopefully you can get the picture. 

Dollar Tree cat and dog ornaments 

They come in two versions of a cat holding a fish (on the ends) and two versions of a dog holding a bone (in the middle) 

I bought one for each cat, including my own Holly, and I thought it would be cute to personalize them. So using a paint pen for the names, here's what I came up with...

Aren't they cute? I just wrote each of their names on the front of the fish. :) 

Here's the type of paint pen I used. Be sure to let the paint dry for a few minutes before handling them. 

Then you can just package it up along with a bag of kitty treats (or dog bones if you're making it for the canine variety) and you're done! Easy peasy and only a couple of dollars for the ornament and treats. 

Every year, I feel the need to share this cute pic of little Holly climbing the Christmas tree on her first Christmas...


She was such a sweet baby kitten!

Do you buy things for your pets at Christmas? I'd love to hear your ideas! 

Enjoy your day!

~Lisa 

Waking Up The House

Do y'all have a morning routine? I've probably talked about mine before. I love the idea of "waking up the house" by opening blinds, turning on lamps, making coffee, etc. It's just a nice way to start the day. 

I thought I'd take you along with me as I wake up my house today...

The first thing I do is make my bed. Every. Single. Day. 

And no, I don't normally have a tray on my bed like that. Lol! Some of my friends were holding a special hashtag party on Instagram, so I styled it a little more than normal before I posted. :) 

Right about now, Holly hears me stirring around, so she runs to my bedroom, weaves between my legs, and INSISTS I pick her up. She then proceeds to immediately turn over on her back (so I'm cradling her like a baby) and she stuffs her head into my warm neck. Lol! She does this for a few minutes and please note that NOTHING else gets done until she gets her fill of morning snuggles. :)

Sweet baby girl. 

Next, I make my way into the kitchen and start turning on all the lamps...

Ironically, I had to turn the lamps back OFF in order for these pics to come out right, but you get the picture. :) 

Now for the living room lamps...

And finally, I make my way into the dining room to turn on one last lamp...

Holly follows me around as I open the blinds in the kitchen...

And living room...

Then finally, I make my way back to the kitchen to fix my first cup of coffee for the day.

FYI...my beloved Keurig started acting up recently. The screen would just go blank at random times, preventing me from using it. I've had it less than a year, so I called customer service this morning and they're sending me an entire new brewer, just like the one I have, for FREE! Now, THAT'S good customer service! 

Oh, and of course I have to feed Holly breakfast too...

Speaking of breakfast, I wanted to share a little info with y'all. Lots of my friends my age (45) are low in iron. Did you know just one cup of Frosted Mini Wheats cereal contains 90% of your daily iron requirement? Just thought I'd put this out there. Several of my friends started eating it for breakfast every day and within a couple of weeks, their iron levels were back to normal. Okay, that's my PSA for the day. :)

I hope y'all enjoyed tagging along with me on my "wake up my house tour" today! Enjoy your week!

~Lisa

New Family Members...Twins! And a Day In Rosenberg, Tx.

Hi there! I wanted to introduce you to our newest family members. My mom and stepdad adopted two sweet kittens! Twins, in fact. Just look at this adorable brother and sister! 

I made up a little birth announcement for them. :)

We couldn't wait to see them in person, so we made a last minute trip to visit my mom. 

Just look at little Trixie stretching below... 

See how tiny they are? That's Cecil below. And yes, he's named after the lion. :) 

These pics are kind of blurry because they move lightening fast. They definitely keep my mom on her toes! 

After we played with the kittens, we decided to travel to the very small town of Rosenberg, Tx. for lunch and some antique shopping. Rosenberg isn't very far from where my mom lives and is filled with fun little shops.

This is where we ate lunch. It's an old time soda fountain and was such a little gem of a place! 

Another Time Soda Fountain and Cafe is on the right and the Old Main St. Bakery is on the left of the pic above. 

Don't you love the ceiling in here? 

Most of us had milkshakes with our lunch. My boys had butterscotch and chocolate and my mom and I had creamsicle. Yum! When you order a milkshake, they pour it into that glass and also give you a little silver pitcher with the remainder of the milkshake. See the two creamsicle ones in front? That's ONE milkshake that my mom and I split. :)

Their fried chicken sandwich was divine!

We visited a few antique shops (I didn't get any pics) then made our way over to the bakery next to the soda fountain. 

So many delicious things to choose from...

Cupcakes...

Kolaches, brownies, cinnamon rolls, etc.

But this is the real reason we came...those apricot kolaches on the right! They are the BEST! My Czech heritage cannot resist a good kolache. :)

I thought this chocolate peanut butter cupcake looked so good and I'm regretting not getting one.

So, that was our day in Rosenberg, Tx. We had such a good time and I'm so glad we got to see my mom's kitties before they get too big. I call her every morning to check on the "twins" and hear the latest story of their shenanigans. She told me this morning they discovered their water bowl can double as a "pool" and they can splash water at each other. Lol! 

Y'all have a great day!

~Lisa 

Barbie Dolls, Holly, and a Pedometer

Hi there!

Can y'all believe it's almost the end of July??? The summer needs to slow down. This mama isn't ready to start getting up at the crack of dawn again. :)

I thought I'd show you a pic I shared on Instagram the other day....

One of my friends asked that we share a pic of something nostalgic from our childhood, so I scooped these up out of the garage so they could have their IG debut. On second thought, maybe I should have at least brushed their hair first. Lol!

I loved that case I had to tote them around in. Do you recognize The Bionic Woman? The skin on her right arm rolled up to reveal her bionics! Then we have Superstar Barbie and last but not least, we have Tuesday Taylor. Her scalp rotated around to reveal either blonde or brunette hair! Did y'all play with any of these when you were little?

Oh Miss Holly...this is what she does every time I go to put clothes in the dryer...

And don't worry, I always check to make sure she's not in there before I start it up. She loves to nap on anything wet. That's weird, right? My son washed his car the other day and put the damp towels on the side of the tub and Holly jumped right up on them and took a very long nap. 

Oh, and y'all will be glad to know that Mee-Maw here finally got herself a pedometer! Walmart didn't have the one I talked about awhile back, so I picked this one up (still at Walmart) for a whopping $5! Lol!

It even gives you directions on how to measure your stride length so you can input in into the pedometer to get a more accurate step count.

I set my daily goal of 10,000 steps and you can see with a quick glance how close you are to your goal. In the pic above, I was at 38%, so I still had quite a few steps to go before reaching my goal that day. I've been known to walk in circles around my living room to reach that goal some nights. :) 

You can see your progress in steps or in miles, which is nice. I'm starting to get obsessed with how many steps I've taken. For instance, I can tell you that I took 1563 steps on my grocery shopping trip the other day. Ha ha!

I guess that's it for now. Y'all have a great day!

~Lisa 

Tropical Storms, Beetles, and Diy Projects

Hello, everyone! 

I've been a little absent on social media lately because we've been furiously working on our Restoration Hardware inspired bookshelves. I posted this pic on IG this morning that pretty much sums up my days lately...

Lots of coffee, picking out stain, measuring, painting, and trying to placate little Holly Joaquin who, according to her meows, is not getting enough attention lately. ;) 

Here's a little sneak peek of our shelves (pre-staining) I'm probably going to start the staining process today and I'll be sure to share finished pics soon. 

One more quick thing...look at this cute FREE summer printable I got...

Wouldn't it be cute in a boys room too? 

You can get yours right HERE. It's only available at no cost for two weeks, so hurry if you want one. :) 

If you remember, it's from the same sweet blogger (Lucy at Craftberry Bush) that offered this Christmas printable...

And of course, this matching Christmas pillow...

I apparently went a little crazy with these cute VW Beetles last Christmas...

 

:)

We're hunkering down for Tropical Storm Bill for the next couple of days, but hopefully I'll get a post up soon with our new bookshelves. 

~Lisa

Couch To 5K App

I've been a little absent this week due to a horrible experience at the dentist. Ugh. Hopefully I can get caught up on blogging soon. So, on to happier thoughts...

Okay y'all, I did it. I finally got the Couch To 5K app on my phone. It's thrilling and kinda scary at the same time. Lol! 

I did "The 30 Day Shred" last year and also got an elliptical because I was getting bored with the treadmill. Those were fine, but lately I've been wanting to run again. 

So, I brought the treadmill back inside and downloaded the Couch to 5K app. If you're not familiar with it, it does all kinds of things, but basically it's an app for your phone that uses voice commands to tell you when to walk and when to jog and for how long. You start out with a brisk 5 minute walk to warm up, then you alternate between 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for about 20 minutes. The whole workout, including the warm up and cool down times, is about 30 minutes. 

Each week, it gradually increases the jog time and decreases the walk time until after about 9 weeks, you're supposed to be able to run a 5K (about 3.1 miles) in 30 minutes or less without stopping. So, basically, it's geared to helping you get off the couch and able to run a 5K, hence the name "Couch To 5K."

I know a few people who have completed it and now they run 5K's all the time. It really seems to work and I like that it is very gradual. 

 The workouts are set up to be done three times a week for 9 weeks and you're not supposed to do it two days in a row. I like that I can listen to my music while doing it and the voice on the app will interrupt to tell me when to start jogging, etc. 

There are several trainers you can choose from on the app too. They have a very calming female voice, a drill sergeant voice, and even a zombie voice that acts like he's chasing you. Ha ha! Whatever motivates you, right? :)

I'll keep y'all posted on how I'm doing, but so far I really like it.

In case you're wondering, I still haven't gotten my pedometer. My Walmart has been sold out for weeks. I'd still like to get it though. 

So tell me, have any of you done the Couch to 5K? 

Oh, and here's a little flashback Friday funny for you...

I thought y'all would get a kick out of seeing Holly's first (and last) bath. Lol!

~Lisa 

A Few of My Favorite Things

Okay, so like I promised, I'm back with a handful of my favorite things. :)

Let's get right to it with this Enjoy hair straightener.

I buy it on Amazon for about $10-$15. It's a gel consistency. I just wash my hair and towel dry it. Then I put the Enjoy on and blow dry it straight. I'm always looking for new products to help straighten my unruly curly hair and this one works great!

Speaking of hair, I've never spent a ton on shampoo. I usually buy Suave shampoos and conditioners. I guess I'm old fashioned because I still subscribe to the idea that it's good to use a "clarifying" shampoo every two weeks or so to strip your hair of all the product build up. 

So, this is what I've been using...

As you can see, it's still Suave brand. :) You can get it pretty much anywhere for under $2. I just buy it at the grocery store. Sometimes I use a lot of product in my hair and I feel this helps to kind of give it a deep clean. 

Now for the cat lovers out there. Santa brought Holly this spray cat nip for Christmas and she LOVES it! 

We've always used the dried catnip, but this is so much easier to use and less messy. I can spray it on any toy of hers and she goes wild. :) I even sprayed some on her scratching post and she LOVED that! We, I mean SANTA got it at Petsmart for $6. 

The last two are things we enjoyed at Christmas. I know, I know...you're wondering why I didn't share these BEFORE Christmas. Well, just think of it as being super early in planning for NEXT Christmas. :) 

This is hands down the best gingerbread house kit we've used. Here's what the box looks like...

Here's another pic of the one my son made that I put on Instagram...

You can probably see it's made exclusively by Wilton for Michael's stores. My youngest son built it and he was impressed with how well the icing "glued" everything together. Apparently the icing REALLY held the roof and sides together and made it easy peasy for the candies to stick to the roof, etc. In the past, we've had problems with the roofs sliding off, but not with this one. Another thing we liked with this one was the variety of candy. All in all, we gave it 5 stars. :) We bought it at Michael's for $5 (with a 50% off coupon)

Last, but not least is our Christmas ham we bought at HEB this year. If you're not in Texas, they probably have this flavor at other stores too. Or at least something similar.

Did you see that? TEXAS PECAN PRALINE AND VANILLA MAPLE!!! I mean, you can't go wrong with that flavor combo, can you? Yum!!! I'm making a note to try and find this flavor next year too. Everyone loved it (even my picky eater) :) And if you ARE local, HEB has $10 off these hams this week.

Well, that's it for now. So tell me, have you tried any of these things? What did you think?

~Lisa