Yummy Meatloaf!

So I have started posting things on Instagram that Wifessionals and Wifestyles prompt us on each week.  Last week's prompt was something nice for your husband.  I decided that I would make mine meatloaf.  He loves meatloaf and in the whole 4.5 years that we have been together I have never made it for him.  That all changed when I called my mom and got her recipe.  It is so easy and takes no time at all.  He was super excited and loved it!

Mommy's Easy Peasy Meatloaf

Ingredients:

1 pound of lean beef

1 egg

4 saltine crackers (crumbled)

1 Tbls minced onion

1 tsp season salt

1-2 Tbls ketchup

Directions:

Take beef and break up into microwavable safe loaf pan

Mix in egg, crackers, onion, salt and ketchup with beef

Make into loaf shape in pan

Take ketchup and top meatloaf if desired

Place loaf pan in microwave for 7 1/2 minutes at 50% power

Continue cooking for another 7 minutes but at 100% power

If you like it a little crunchier, continue cooking at 1 minute increments until meatloaf is cooked to your liking

I hope you enjoy this as much as my hubby and mommy do.  Her recipe is delicious and super easy!

5 on Friday! 2014 Edition!

Today I am linking up again with the Darci for 5 on Friday.  This is the first one I have done in 2014, which I can't believe!  Without further ado:

{ONE}

I am so ecstatic that it is finally FRIDAY!!!!  This last week - and I mean since last Friday - has definitely kicked my ass.  Work was not fun, although lately I'm not sure it ever is.  Maybe time for a change in the near future?  That is another post for another time.  And who am I kidding, I won't be doing anything about my job for at least another year, if ever, but complain.

{TWO}

I am having a birthday party with my family tomorrow for me and my Grandpa's birthdays :)  Although my birthday was forever weeks ago, we only get together once a month for the adult birthdays in my family.  That way we don't have to reschedule our lives every weekend for the next birthday.  It works out nicely.  I can't wait for the ice cream cake!

{THREE}

I cannot believe we are already half way through January!  I feel as though we just had Christmas and my 25th!  This year seems to already be flying by.

{FOUR}

Ryan and I made some calls and emails yesterday to try and start the process of getting a house! :)  I couldn't be more excited!  Our lease is up in April and I don't want to extend it for any amount of time.  I am hoping our demands wants aren't too much while looking and that it comes somewhat easy for us :)  Fingers crossed!

{FIVE}

I am thinking about going back to the gym next week.  I know, I know..."thinking about it Sara?"  But I am really hoping to do it.  I went 4 days a week while Ryan was deployed and I had success.  I am hoping that we can both get in a routine and still have fun with it.  Ryan will most likely want to start going a lot due to an upcoming test that will require him to be in excellent shape when he passes! :)  Wish us luck!

I hope you all have a fantastic Friday and weekend!  Next week I am going to try and post all 5 days!  I haven't done it since the #12DaysofBlogging and I really want to make that a goal of mine.  Also, I want to finish the wedding recaps and get moving on to bigger and better things that have happened in our lives since then :)

Our Wedding Day: The Ceremony

The Ceremony!  Probably the moment that I was most nervous for the whole day.  I was worried that people wouldn't like our venue, that they would be angry once it happened due to our little secret, that something wouldn't go right.  I am a little bit irrational when it comes to fears and things that will go wrong.  LOL.

Our ceremony was perfect and exactly what we wanted.  We think that people enjoyed it - especially since it was outdoors and it was a horrible 90 degrees outside.  So much for my nice outdoor fall wedding...thanks California!  LOL

Details:

Venue: Orchard Creek Lodge

DJ: Function 45

Flowers:  Blossoms and Balloons

Decorations: My venue is gorgeous so we didn't use much, but what is there I purchased and my family arranged for me. :)

Officiant: Step-brother

The Ceremony Songs:

Bridal Party Entrance:  "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri

My Entrance: "Born to be your Woman" - Joey and Rory

Exit: "Til My Last Day" - Justin Moore

The Ceremony:

We had planned to reveal to everyone that we were renewing our vows on this day instead of first taking them.  Most of our family had no idea that we had already been married for over a year.  We had it all planned out and knew what we were going to do.  We still were going to exchange rings - as Ryan hadn't been wearing one and I only my engagement ring - and exchange some vows.  Well silly me!  I forgot the vows in my purse.  Yup!  I am the one who messed up my own ceremony!  LOL.  We went on and no one noticed the little glitch except for us.  Our ceremony lasted I think a whole 8 minutes - maybe!  At the end of it I couldn't have been more thrilled with the way it went and the fact that now everyone knew that I was already married to the love of my life! :)

I love his thumbs up!

And JUST because I love it so much, here is the song that I walked down the aisle to :)

Linking up with Meredith and Jordon

Our Wedding Day: The Bridal Party Attire and Gifts

Oh my goodness!  The holidays are all finally over and we can get back to our regularly scheduled program here. :)

I want to finish documenting the wedding and will hopefully only have about 3-5 more posts.  So if you enjoy them, continue reading - if not, then return in like a week?  But please come back, I do love my readers so much!

So today we will be talking about the bridal party.

Making our selections for our bridal party were mostly easy.  I will remind you that Ryan and I had most of the planning done in 1 month's time.  With Ryan getting ready to deploy I wanted him to be a part of the decision making as much as possible.  We chose the venue, cake, attire, bridal party, florist, photographer and DJ all before he left.  I will do a post on how we accomplished that near the end of the wedding recap.

Our bridal party.  We sat there, the day after the big day happened, and wrote out our list of people we would like by our sides.  We went back and forth.  We had decided immediately that we wouldn't have a huge bridal party.  No more than 4 people each, which for Ryan was extremely hard and became hard for me.  In the end, we chose and we couldn't have been more pleased with our party.  We each chose 2 family members and 2 friends.  It was a great combo that we were pleased with.

The Attire:

For my maids :)

Dresses:  I had found the most perfect dresses for my girls immediately!  I think I actually ordered them the week after we decided to have a wedding.  LOL.  I found them from ModCloth and they were absolutely perfect!  I got them each a black bandeau to go underneath as well so that straps didn't show through the lace.  I was so pleased with the dresses!

Shoes:  I also found the most perfect shoes that I wanted us all to wear from ModCloth, but unfortunately they did not have all the sizes we needed.  I ended up searching and searching for something else I liked.  I then decided to just search for the original shoe I liked on Google and ended up finding them on Overstock!  I was sooooo excited!  It was perfect.  I also ended up gifted these to my girls as part of their gift.

Flower:  Since we were going for all black on the bridal party with pops of green, I went with a green flower in each of their hair.  I found these at Hobby Lobby for super cheap!  These were also part of their gift.

For my flower girl :)

Dress:  I searched the Internet for the perfect flower girl dress.  I found it instantly!  I was so happy with it.  I found it from PrettyFlowerGirl.com.  I was so scared that it wouldn't fit her when she arrived in town, but it fit perfectly and she looked soooo adorable!

Flower:  Since she is supposed to match me, I decided to go with a black flower in her hair instead of a green one, which matched perfectly with her little black shoes.  This was also given to her as part of her gift. 

For the groom :)

Tux:  We chose a gorgeous handsome Calvin Klein from Men's Wearhouse for Ryan.  It was all black with a white shirt, vest and tie.  He looked soooo handsome - if I do say so myself :)

For the groomsmen :)

Tux:  The groomsmen were in the same Calvin Klein tux as Ryan but with a slight variation.  Instead of them wearing a white vest and tie, they were in a black vest with a green tie.  It was important to me that they look different than Ryan, but still have some green to match my girls.  It was the perfect look and exactly what I had in mind.

For the ring bearer :)

Tux:  We were worried about what he would wear because Men's Wearhouse does not have tuxes for rent for little ones.  Luckily, Gavin grew over the summer and fit into the smallest size they rent out.  He was in a matching suit as all of the guys and looked super duper handsome!

The Gifts:

For the maids:

If you know anything about me by now, you will know that I love presents!  And as much as I love receiving, I equally love getting.  While deciding on gifts for my girls, it was hard to stop purchasing things!  As stated above I gifted them the flowers for their hair, their shoes and the bandeau.  I also included monogrammed tissues and monogrammed flask all inside of a monogrammed bag in green!  It was wonderful.  The monogrammed flask and bags were purchesed through the Knot.  The monogrammed tissues were purchased at Hobby Lobby.  All together, I think each girls' gift cost me about $50.  I couldn't have been more pleased with their gifts. :)

These in green with the first letter of each girls' name

I chose to do full monograms with first, middle and last initial

For the flower girl:

I got Maddie the flower for her hair as mentioned above and a few other fun items.  I got her a water bottle from Hobby Lobby, a fun arts and crafts project from Hobby Lobby, a personalized tee from VistaPrint and a monogrammed bag from the Knot.  Her gift cost me a total of $30.  She loved it and felt so special to get all of her own stuff.

I chose to put 05 because that was how old she would be at the wedding

I chose the bag pictured on top

For the men:

Ryan was very torn on what to get his guys.  With the help from me, and oddly enough, the Army we came up with a great gift for all of them.  I ordered them all monogrammed flasks from the Knot, Ryan ordered them ManCard bottle openers from Amazon, and we got them all a bottle of Jack Daniels from the barrel being sold by the 101st out of Kentucky with a medal on it from Ryan's deployment.  Overall, we spent about $80 on each of the men.  They loved it and we were so happy in the end.

For the ring bearer:

Gavin was probably the toughest one to buy for.  He was traveling from Colorado to be here and we didn't want to send him home with too many things, but I didn't want to leave him out.  We got him a personalized tee from VistaPrint, a water bottle from Hobby Lobby and a dump truck from Target.  He was thrilled and was so happy that he got a dump truck.  Boys and their toys!  His gift also cost me $30.

Gavin was 3 at the wedding so he got 03 for his number

I absolutely loved our bridal party and their attire.  I was so pleased with how they all looked that day.  It definitely helped make my day go easier and not stress as much knowing that everyone's stuff fit and looked awesome together!

Thank you all so much!  We love you!!

Cake Decorating 101!

I cannot believe it is the first Tuesday in January already.  This year seems to already be flying by.  We are already 7 days in and I am sooo excited!

I spent my evening yesterday in a cake decorating class offered by Michael's.  My mom got me this for my birthday and I was so excited.  Now, as you may know I love to bake.  While baking is fun and enjoyable for me, decorating is not.  I am not fancy with my baked goods once they come out of the oven.

My mom surprised me with this 4-week class that would teach me the basics to cake decorating with buttercream.  I couldn't wait.  I was so excited.  Yes, it sucked that it was on a Monday night, but other than that I was on board!

I showed up and thought that I was prepared and it was going to be easy breezy!  Well it was easy breezy, but prepared - I was NOT.  My mom had bought me a kit thinking that it would have everything I needed for the class.  Unfortunately, it did not :(  My mom was so kind to go with me on the first night and buy me the rest of the stuff I needed.

While in class it was a lot of note taking and listening while learning how to first make the buttercream.  I was interested but it seemed a little slow pace.  I didn't come to learn how to bake a cake, I came to learn how to decorate the cake.  Once we got past that little boring section we moved on to practicing.  Not going to brag, but I think I had the hang of it pretty quickly.

The class was 2 hours and taught us how to make buttercream, use decorating tips and bags, and bake the perfect cake.  Next week we are supposed to bring in our own cake and we will be decorating the entire thing.  I am looking forward to next week hoping that it will teach me more than I already know.

Now for a little rant on the side.  

Apparently this class is not just for fun to learn how to decorate a cake every once in a while.  Now, don't get me wrong, that isn't what I was interested in, but geesh!  My mom has already spent close to $150 on this class and I guarantee you I could use at least another $150 worth of supplies to get me through the classes.  This class is set up for people who are making the investment and want to really learn how to decorate cakes for possible profit.

I am happy to learn all of this though and I take it seriously.  Remember that really distant dream of mine to own enough land to own/operate a wedding business?  Well cake decorating could come in real handy if that ever happens for us someday :)

So if you love baking as much as me and want to learn how to look more professional with your baked goods, then this class is for you! :)

P.S.  Did you see my beautiful new layout design?  I am so happy to say that it was gifted to me by Marie as part of my CaraBox exchange gift!  Thanks again Marie, I love it!

My Hopes and Dreams for 2014...

It is a new year and a new beginning to this crazy thing we call life.  I am on Chapter 25 this year of my book and I am planning on making it the best one yet.

I have a few hopes and dreams for this chapter and I feel as though writing them down will help me accomplish them.  I don't feel as though they are unattainable - but will require some extra work on my part.

1.  Buy a house and make it a HOME.

The hubs and I are tired of renting.  We pay more in rent than we would on a mortgage.  It has never been the right time for us to purchase until now.  We have never been entirely certain where we would be with the economy.  Talk of going Active Duty is always on the back burner as a last resort.  I would go wherever he leads me, but at this time we are secure and happy with where we are.  With that we want to establish a solid ground.  This starts with a HOME.  We currently live in a house and although I have done my best to make it a home it is missing something.  That something where you know that it is all yours and it won't change anytime in the near future.  Our lease is up in April on our current residence and we are hoping to be in our very first HOME by then.  I am so excited to start this journey and see where it takes us.  We have a lot of things that we want in our house and I think that will be the biggest challenge.  The other will be finding a house that our loan will approve.  We will be taking advantage of Ryan's VA loan that he is eligible for after serving our beautiful country.  Let the house hunting begin! :)

2.  Become parents

Ryan and I got married in 2012 right before he was going to deploy.  We decided that it was the best decision to wait until after he got back to start a family.  As badly as we both wanted to start right away we didn't want me to be pregnant and alone for 9 months.  Now that he is back we had our big wedding and honeymoon to the Bahamas.  We have been having a blast these past 6 months of him being home but we are now ready for the littles.  Ryan was meant to be a daddy and, of course, I believe that I was meant to be a mommy.  We strategically want our first little not to be born in the winter.  As much as I love winter and snuggling on the couch with the pup pups and fuzzy socks we both have winter birthdays and they suck!  Ryan's birthday is 22 days before Christmas and mine is 7 days after.  We do not want our littles to experience that at all like we have.  So here is to hoping that we plan it out just right to have littles in the Spring, Summer or Fall :)

3.  Save, Save, Save

So some of you may know that I am a bit of a cheap-o frugal gal.  I refuse to pay full price for any items of clothing and I fully support coupons and secret codes for discounts.  I hate transferring money out of savings and into checking and completely get disgusted when we don't transfer from checking into savings.  While Ryan was deployed I handled the finances - I still do - and got all of our credit paid off.  I built up a beautiful savings account and was so excited for our future.  Well with life being how it is, we have not been able to save as much since he came home as I would have liked.  Now we are in no definition of the word poor or hard off.  We live a very comfortable life and I am completely happy with that, I just would like a little more buffer in case something happens.  So my plan for this year is to save at least $400 per month! :)

4.  Be a better...

I love my husband, family and friends so much.  I don't think anyone has ever doubted that I am all in when it comes to my relationships.  I know that I have high expectations of people and that sometimes when they don't meet those "expectations" I get annoyed and turned off from them.  I am going to try this year, this chapter, to be a better person in every aspect.  I want to be a better wife to Ryan.  I want to go on more dates and be more spontaneous in our marriage.  I want to be a better daughter, sister, niece and aunt.  I want my family to know that I am 100% in.  No questions or concerns.  I am all there.  I want to be a better friend.  Friendships don't come easy to me - and why I don't really know.  I am the girl who has friends for a while and then they slowly - or quickly at times - disappear.  I want to work on the friendships that I currently have and build them to be strong and sturdy.  Just like the solid ground that I want in our home, I also want that in my life.  So here is to being better! :)

5.  Learn to cook

My poor husband...  I am in no way, shape or form a cook.  I am a baker.  Always have been and probably always will be.  But this year, I want to change that for him and me.  I want to learn how to cook good food.  Now this doesn't mean that for the past 4.5 years that Ryan has been starving.  I make a mean frozen pizza and fish sticks.  I can make pasta and tacos just like everybody else.  But I want to make more fancy food.  Food that takes planning and preparation.  I want to dive into a cookbook and get excited.  I have slowly started learning recipes from my mom and make those for him and he loves them.  I just want to do more home cooking for him and make him excited for our dinners at home. :)  So here is to cookbooks entering our house and making me a cook!

6.  Be healthier

I want this year to be the year that everything changes.  I am now 25 ::mid-twenties crises?::  and am tired of being unhappy with my body and things on the outside as they appear.  This year the hubs and I will go on more walks, exercise more and eat more veggies!  Now we are not some big lazy bums that eat fast food everyday at all.  I, actually, can't tell you the last time that I ate fast food.  But we do not eat as many veggies and fruit as we should.  That is the goal for this year.  Get in the best shape ever and be happy about it.  I have cut out all caffeine and alcohol -GASP- and continue to keep it this way.  This hope and dream will go hand in hand with number 5 and my want to learn to cook.  So here is to the healthiest Hughes family! :)

*********************

I don't think that any of these hopes and dreams are completely out of reach.  In fact, I think that they are each going to come ::hopefully:: easy to us.  I can't wait to see how this chapter turns out and hope that you stick around with me as well :)

Here's to you and your new chapter as well!

XO

New Year's Eve and Day

Happy New Year!  

This is the start to a beautiful new chapter in our book that we call life.  I am so excited to see what it holds for us and those around us.

Before I do a post about my hopes and dreams in 2014 (probably tomorrow) I'd like to tell you about my New Year's Eve and New Year's Day - also known as my birthday!

New Year's Eve:

The hubby and I both had to work that day.  He was "lucky" (in quotes because although it is nice that he got off early, it does mean not a full day's pay.) enough to get off work at noon - I, not so much.  We had planned on going to Round Table Pizza for the buffet for dinner with my mom that evening.  We did and it was fabulous - once the little unhappy b**ches got over the fact that they were working on New Year's Eve at 5:30PM! ::Seriously, it is still early enough for you to serve me my pizza because it is your job and then go have a splendid evening::  Anywhoo!  So once pizza was over we went home to feed Hank ::the puppy:: his dinner and then headed over to our besties' house for some after dinner hang out.  We had a great time with them and ended up staying way later than expected.  You see, the hubs and I had no intention of being out later than like 10.  We are "old" and are totally fine with that.  We ended up leaving and getting home around 11:30.  Although we were so close we hit the hay.  It was fine with me - I was tired after working all day and was ready to wake up to it being my birthday!

New Year's Day:

It was my birthday!  I can't believe it!  I'm now one quarter of a century!  It doesn't feel quite possible.  To think that my mommy was in a hospital 25 years ago waiting to meet me ::which she thought I was going to be a boy - SURPRISE!  A little chubby girl with tons of hair popped out instead:: is insane.  As much as my birthday has always been a pain - sorry Mommy for making you spend a holiday in the hospital - it is great now that I am older.  I don't feel as jipped anymore now that I understand that people love going out on New Year's Eve and hungover might not feel the best on the 1st of the year.  My mom and dad never let my birthday be anything less than amazing and for that I am so thankful.  I now have a husband who does the same.  He lets me have both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day to decide what we do.  :)  I love him so!  

Now to what we did.  We woke up - and by we I mean me - at a whopping 7:00AM and started the day.  We relaxed with the pups for a bit and then Ryan gave me my present.  I was so excited.  If you don't know by now, I love presents!  I really only asked for one thing this year for Christmas and my birthday and I had told it to Ryan back near Thanksgiving - a black peacoat.  I was so surprised when he actually got it for me.  It is perfect and exactly what I wanted.  

Kohl's

 We then went to Perko's for breakfast because I wanted bacon! :) We then went to our local theatre and saw American Hustle.  It was good but a little slow for our liking.  After the movie we went back home and relaxed in the living room.  It was perfectly wonderful.  I enjoy nothing more than spending time with my hubby - especially during duck season when he loves to go on the weekends.  We then got ready for the evening and went to dinner.  It is my tradition, and when it started I have no idea but I thank my parents, that we have Chinese food for dinner every year on my birthday.  There has not been a year I remember not having Chinese.  I love it!  :)  We headed over to P.F. Chang's and enjoyed a lovely evening with my mom, Mike, my in-laws and our best friends, the Parsons.  

It was a wonderful way to welcome in this milestone birthday.  I couldn't have felt more loved and special than I did last night.  I can't wait to see what 25 has in store for me! :)