slow cooker pumpkin oatmeal

We've had a week of cold, cold mornings here... And with winter's end still not in sight, I wanted to share a new breakfast recipe that's been warming up our wake-ups.

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Weight Watchers Slow Cooker Pumpkin Oatmeal

(very slightly adapted from here)

Servings: 4

Serving Size: 1 cup cooked oatmeal

Nutritional Info: 253 calories, 3 g of fat, 44.1 g carbohydrates, 9 g dietary fiber, 9 g of protein

1 cup steel cut oats

1/2 tbsp butter (optional)

1 can canned pumpkin

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 cups milk (can substitute Lite Vanilla Soy Milk or Almond Milk)

2 cups water

1 heaping tbsp cinnamon

1/4 tbsp nutmeg

Walnuts, dried cranberries, raisins

1. Combine milk, water, pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the slow cooker and stir together. Then stir in oats.
2. Cook in slow cooker on low for 8-10 hours. Serve topped with walnuts, dried cranberries and raisins to taste.

Couldn't be easier, right?  For the past couple weeks, I've fired up the Crock Pot just before bed so that we wake up on Monday morning to hot breakfast.  I've also found it's easy to double the recipe, then just put the leftovers in the refrigerator for the rest of the week.  I actually think it tastes even better the next day.

Enjoy... And Hazel says, stay warm!

the nursery diaries: part 1

I loved reading Erika's nursery diaries series over on Urban Grace several years ago.  So I thought I'd do the same with our nursery decorating projects, except we'll just have to pretend like all of this wasn't going on a year ago, okay?

We knew the old office/ man room/ junk collection was going to be the baby's nursery.  I have a theory that all married couples have that ominous third bedroom that literally serves no purpose (except for parental comments on how "it should really be a nursery by now") until a baby comes along to fill it.  Our first order of business was to clean everything out and repaint the walls. 

I knew I wanted to incorporate fabric from Caitlin Wilson Textiles and immediately fell in love with the coral & mint chinoise pillow cover.  Honestly, I also knew this was going to be on our 'splurge' list.  But I felt like I could incorporate the pillow cover and a couple yards of the coordinating coral fretwork fabric and still stay within our budget.

I wanted to keep the walls relatively neutral and found the perfect shade of pink, with just a hint of yellow, in Benjamin Moore's Opal.  In some light, the walls don't even look pink but more of an off-white.

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In one weekend (while I was out of town, I might add), my sweet husband took our walls from this:

To this:

We also quickly realized that the large doors on the closet took up valuable real estate, given the room they needed to swing open. So in that same weekend, off came the doors!

Jeff also added some new shelving and hanging rods, and he used a level to draw straight lines down the closet wall.  The next weekend, I covered the lines with Frog tape and painted bright blue/green stripes to match the mint color of the pillow. (Note: be sure to remove the tape while the paint is still wet to prevent any peeling!)  It was a small space to add stripes, and the little painting project was much easier than I anticipated.



Up next?  Some Craigslist furniture finds and thrifty decorating!

guess who's back?

After multiple attempts to get things going on my new blog, I realized that I missed posting about home renovations, DIY projects and thrift finds... Basically, I just like blogging about pretty stuff.

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So if y'all can handle some posts on the prettiest little thing (in my not-so-humble opinion), then I hope you'll join me... again!

Stay tuned for tons of nursery projects, as well as updates to a few other parts of the house... It's amazing what two home-project-happy people can do in a year!  Not to mention the projects I have on the radar for the next couple months (like finally DIY-ing our simple headboard into a Colette bed look-alike).

Thanks for sticking around!

new baby, new blog

hi friends!  Hope you all will excuse my recent lack of posting... I do have a good reason!  We're so excited to be expecting a baby in mid-July!

We've been plugging along with home projects, and clearing out the back bedroom to make way for a nursery. I also decided to start a new blog for the new addition.  I'll definitely be keeping this one open, but won't be posting to it anymore.

If you'd still like to keep up with us (plus baby), please hop over and follow us at Wee Whittaker!

exterior update

Jeff has been hard at work on our exterior updates over the last few weeks...  The progress made after such a short amount of time is so exciting!

Our 'Exterior Project To-Do' list currently looks like this:

• Install new living room windows (and centering them)
• Install new guest bedroom windows (making them regular-size)
• Prime new siding
• Hang new siding
• Hang horizontal batten strips
• Paint all siding (including exterior of sunroom)
• Paint storm door & replace house numbers
• Build pretty trellis to cover stone side of house, with flowering vine
• Plan and build covered front porch (plans TBD) 
• Widen natural area in front of house & landscape

We still have to decide on the paint color... and whether or not we'll paint just the board & batten siding... or the entire house, brick included (which is my vote).

But for having made just a little dent in the list so far, the difference is incredible!

Before:

In Progress:

Stay tuned for the rest of our updates... And my best attempt at talking Jeff into painting brick!

the sofa returns

I am so excited that we got our Lee Industries sofa back from the reupholstery shop!  Two short weeks later, and it hardly looks like the same piece of furniture...

To remind you of our 'before'...

 
We worked with Sugar Hill Upholstery and highly recommend them.  Their prices include pick-up and delivery in the area and wrapping the cushions.  They also added casters to the front legs for us, since it appeared that the sofa originally had them.

It's a little hard to tell in the pictures, but the fabric is a light grayish blue color.

I ended up splurging on the fabric at $14 per yard, but really wanted to invest in something that was neutral and durable.  I decided to go with the practice choice here, since we plan to have this sofa for a long time (and it will hopefully need to stand up to some kids and dogs one day).  So I went with a durable commerical-grade.

And considering these sofas retail new for close to five times what we spent, I feel really excited about our find!  Now I'm off to hunt for a few new throw pillows and a rug... Happy weekend!

new living room windows

While I was off celebrating the nuptials of one of my sweet friends from high school, Jeff was working on installing new windows in our living room.  Much to my surprise, I came home to the work already in progress...

Before, with windows off-center & awkwardly placed in the corner...

In progress, with new windows separated and centered...