Christmas decorations

First of all I am having a HUGE sale on my Facebook page for monogrammed jewelry and gifts.. Christmas delivery guaranteed on the items for sale!! 

Lady Bug Boutique


I'm linking up with Kelly's Korner today to show some Christmas decorations. When we moved down from Kentucky we left almost all of our decorations there so it's just been a matter of building a collection up over the past two years.. 

I like to decorate every room in the house but I just have pictures of the tree and few things that I've made, even though I even decorated the outside this year. :)

The tree.

I made this and it's on a plate stand on the kitchen bar.

Santa's cookie plate and milk cup I made for Ethan and Kaylee. I LOVE this!!

It's a miracle I've gotten anything done this year.. I think I've made 150 monogram watches my Etsy store has been crazy.. If y'all are still interested make sure you get your orders in ASAP! Come visit me on Etsy!

 www.etsy.com/shop/ladybugboutique2313

Playing Catch Up

We've had so much going on lately! 

First, I opened my Etsy store! I'm very excited about that! Come shop with me here. 

Just a few of my items. 

My sweet Kaylee got sick and we had to spend almost a week in the hospital.

She's doing much better now though.

We got our Christmas tree up.

Ethan finished up his first season of flag football last week. They ended 8-2. I'm sure he's going to miss it until next year but thank goodness it's over. Those games were getting cold there at the end!

 

Coupon Code

10% off in my Etsy shop. Today ONLY!!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LadyBugBoutique2313

Enter code: LBB10 at checkout!

New shop

Hey y'all! For everyone interested I have my new Etsy shop opened! In case you don't know I do boutique hairbows and monogrammed gifts.. 

Here's a small sample:

For more go check out my Etsy shop!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LadyBugBoutique2313

Christianity- a moral compass for America?

Warning! This blog is a lot of rambling. It's just random thoughts I've been having over the past few weeks, and I feel like some people need a better explanation of why I'm a liberal and it's not because a once good Christian girl has turned her back on Jesus and Christianity.

I grew up in a small town in western Kentucky and I'm still in touch with a lot of the people that I went to high school with. A lot of people in my later life do not realize like they do that I was raised in one of the strictest of christian house holds. I was raised that a woman shouldn't wear pants, or cut her hair, or wear jewelry, or paint her nails. Like most religions we were taught that sex before marriage is a sin among other things. I think it shocks a lot of people that I'm a liberal but what most don't realize is I'm a liberal BECAUSE of the way I was raised, not in spite of it. 

I believe in separation of church and state because it protects not only people who aren't christian but it protects a church that I was raised to love and support without government interference to tell our pastor what to preach and teach.. 

I was taught not to take part of the bible if you're not going to take all of the bible. If we're going to tell two men they can't get married because being gay is a sin, then we must tell people who have "fornicated" they can't be married because they're sinners as well. If we're going to tell a gay couple they can't raise children because being gay is a sin we must remove all children from divorced homes because according to the bible that's a sin too. 

If we're going to use your religion as a way to tell a woman what she can and can not do with her body, then you need to use the scripture.

 But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering. 1  Cor 11:15

and

“The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.” Deut 22:5

Do you realize how up in arms this country would be if we used Christianity to tell people who they could and could not marry based on scripture?

Do you realize how up in arms this country would be if we used Christianity to tell people what they could and could not do with their bodies based on scripture??

Oh that's what the GOP wants to do, but only their version. If we're going to use religion as law in this country, we're no better than the Middle East. 

As a Christian I was taught love, tolerance, understanding, and rather than forcing my beliefs on others I was taught to live the life and let others see Christ in me. I was taught to help the less fortunate. Jesus was a man who healed the sick, fed the poor, and condemned the greedy rich. He sure sounds like a liberal to me.

Crockpotalooza Part 2

I did a recipe earlier today to link with Kelly's Korner crockpotalooza here and then I remembered a cute little blonde headed boy had asked for potato soup for dinner tonight so I thought I'd put that recipe up here since I was making it anyway. 

Usually I use raw potatoes and just chop them up and put them in the slow cooker raw but I didn't start my soup this morning because I had to go get ingredients at walmart and this was just easier.

*4 cans diced potatoes

*2 boxes fat free cream cheese

*one can condensed cheddar cheese

*skim milk

*ground black pepper (not pictured)

Slightly drain your potatoes. You don't have to get them completely dry, a little bit of that starchy water will help thicken your soup.

If you're going to cook this all day you can just throw all the ingredients in the slow cooker since I was kind of in a hurry, I just put the potatoes and cheese soup in the slow cooker.

I cut my cream cheese into cubes and put them in a sauce pan with a cup of milk to melt my cream cheese. 

Top with a ton of ground black pepper.

Then pour it in the slow cooker.

I have mine set on high for about an hour and a half, then I'll turn it down to low to keep it warm until my husband gets home from work.. This makes a cream cheese potato soup very similar to Panera's cheese soup with far far far less calories.. I top it with a little shredded cheese, bacon bits (or turkey bacon :)), and chopped shallots. 

My entire family L-O-V-E-S this soup especially the kids!

Crockpotalooza

I am doing a link up with Kelly's Korner today for Crockpotalooza, where we share our favorite slow cooker recipes.. I have recently learned to LOVE my crock pot! This is one of my favorite football season recipes. 

There is definitely no better southern dish than pulled pork BBQ, so since we're kinda new to the area we got online and started huntin' for a place to get some BBQ here in Auburn. When I told my husband the price of a pound of  BBQ he quickly informed me that a pound was enough for him, but I needed to get myself and my kids our own, ha! So because I'm admittedly CHEAP I decided to make my own.. I used a boneless pork shoulder. I bought a 4.5 lb one for about 11 bucks which was roughly the same amount as ONE lb at the restaurants here in Auburn. 

I seasoned the meat with cavenders, ground black pepper, and N'Awlins cajun seasoning. Those just happen to be our favorite seasonings, you can use whatever you prefer.

Then I seared the seasoning in on each side for about 5 minutes. 

In the meantime I added a cup of Dale's sauce, and a cup of water to the crock pot and added my meat and cooked it on high for about 6 hours.

I don't like thick "basting" sauce for my BBQ sandwiches and this was PERFECT! I picked it up at Walmart for under 3 bucks.

PERFECTION!!

Football!

These guys aren't giving us much to cheer about this season:

These guys either:

So thank goodness for this cutie!

This is his first season playing flag football and maybe I'm a little partial but he looks A-DOR-ABLE doing it!

His first game! He looks so big with his mouth guard and little football pants!

His first game was so funny to me because I know how serious football is in the south (especially Georgia and Alabama) but I never dreamed they'd take flag so seriously but they had two refs, who did the little signals, they had the down number flipper thing, and they were serious about moving the chains and first downs. When he's played sports at the Y they never kept score and it was just about having fun.. Football here is not about not getting your feelings hurt it's competitive! 

And the score:

32-6 Redskins!! 

So proud of our sweet little boy! 

Here are a few pics I took of him and Kaylee before football practice yesterday.

Our new addition

I cannot believe I forgot to blog about the newest member of our little family.

Meet Aubie!

We got her when she was 6 weeks old and the kids are just soooooo in love with her! I may or may not be getting attached as well.

She is our first family pet, and things were touch and go for a bit. I had every intention of letting someone else have her because it was so overwhelming for me at first but we've all acclimated well and things are great. 

Beauty Products

I am doing a link up with Kelly's Korner on my favorite beauty products.. I am a self proclaimed beauty novice. I love makeup but because I really don't know anything about it I get really overwhelmed when I try to purchase makeup. Not to mention I'm a complete cheap-o and only purchase Wal-Mart/Drug store brands.

Since I usually don't know what colors to use I LOVE these eye shadow palletes that are exclusively for a certain color eyes. This is the Almay smoky-i for greens. I love that it shows you what colors to use and exactly where to put them.

How it looks on my eyes. :)

My favorite lip products.

EOS Lip balm. That is tangerine but I love the Summer fruit one.

Baby Lips lip balm from Maybelline. That is the pink punch. It's a gorgeous color and it smells amazing!

The last one is the liplicious in watermelon from bath and body works. It's glossy and it smells really good. The only issue I have with it is it's kinda sticky.

My last beauty product is the only one I use every single day. It doesn't matter if I'm just running Ethan to school or going to the gym or sometimes even if I've been home all day I might smear some on before my husband gets home. I can NOT live without this little pink and green tube.

Maybelline Great Lash. 

I'm definitely open to makeup tips!