Posts made in May, 2009

Happy Mothers Day and Antique Store Find!

Posted by Lindsay on May 13, 2009 in Bedroom, Decor | 0 comments

This year I got to celebrate a new holiday: my first Mother’s Day! The photo below shows some pink roses that some friends got for me. They are so beautiful, I just had to put them next to my side of the bed on my new side table that we picked up at our local antique store! Glenn has a matching one on the opposite side (as you can see, we moved the baby bassinet out of our room as Harper is sleeping in her own crib, in her own room now! I can’t believe she’s 9 months!). We scored this matching set of side tables for $15 each!! Not exactly what I would have chosen otherwise, but they’re really growing on me. And I can’t stop thinking about some other great deals we found there…hmmm…

Now all we need are some matching lamps for each side of the bed. I think we need something substantial as the side tables are rather skinny. I’m trying to decide if I want table lamps or plug-in swing-arm wall sconces. I love, love, love Nicole’s bedroom lighting over at Making It Lovely and I would love something like these wall sconces:

Hers are Pottery Barn, but I don’t think they sell them anymore. I couldn’t find them on their website.  But I’ll keep looking. Maybe it will come to me in a dream…

(Image via Making It Lovely, linked to source).

Testing "Blog by E-mail!"

Posted by Lindsay on May 12, 2009 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

Just a quick post to test WordPress’ new “Blog by E-mail” feature. So if you’re reading this, I suppose that it works!
xo, Lindsay (and Harper )

{Likely Favorites} Tater Tot Casserole!

Posted by Lindsay on May 10, 2009 in Likely Favorites, Recipes | 2 comments

A dinnertime staple around here in Likely is a Christensen family dish called Tater Tot Casserole.  Now who doesn’t love tater tots?  Tater Tot Casserole is an easy-to-make, quick all-in-one casserole dinner, which happens to have foods from every food group (except fruits!).  We have the recipe hand-written in the front of a recipe book, but we actually rarely even look at it because we make it so often.  Everyone we know loves it, so I thought I’d share it with all of you!

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground beef (the leaner, the better, and I’m sure you could substitute whatever type of ground meat you like to use, i.e. turkey, etc.)
• 1/2 medium white onion (diced)
• 1 can cut green beans (drained) – we actually use 2 cans sometimes to get some extra veggies in!
• 2 cans cream of mushroom soup
• 1 2-pound bag of frozen tater tots
• cheddar cheese (grated) – we’ve also used pepper jack, yum!

Step 1:  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Brown the ground beef with the onion and sautee until the onions are clear and the beef is browned.  Drain the fat from the mixture.

Step 2: Spray a 9″x13″ casserole dish (we use glass ones) with some cooking spray, and then add the ground beef mixture to the bottom of the dish.

Step 3: Add a layer of green beans on top of the meat.

Step 4:  In a medium bowl, mix the 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup with a little milk to thin the soup.  Add that to the top of the green beans.

Step 5:  Lay the tater tots on top of the soup as shown.  Pop it in the oven for 35 minutes.  During this time, my husband will be busy washing the other dishes as he is a PRO at simultaneously cooking and cleaning!

Step 6: Take the casserole out of the oven.  Grate enough cheese to cover the tater tots.  Pop it back in the oven for about 10 minutes, until all of the cheese is melted.

Step 7: Enjoy!  It’s also great as a leftover for lunch!

Do you have any great (quick, easy and yummy!) recipes you’d like to share?  And don’t forget to let me know if you try our tater tot casserole!  I promise you it will be a family favorite very soon!

Quite a "Duh" Moment!

Posted by Lindsay on May 10, 2009 in Kitchen, Organization | 0 comments

This is probably hardly “blog-worthy” but it was such a simple thing we’ve done in our kitchen, and it has had such a huge impact on the ease of our kitchen that I just had to write about it!

Want to know what the big deal is? Ta-da! We switched our “pantry” cupboard with our cupboard that housed our plates, bowls, and “fancy” glassware. Told you – so simple, but making life much easier for shorties like me. The cabinet that used to hold food was waaaayyy too deep to keep that job. We could never find anything, we couldn’t see anything, and I had to stand on a stool to even get in there. What a pain in the…anyway, one day a light bulb just came on for us! We kept our plates, bowls, pasta bowls and nice glassware (champagne flutes, martini glasses, wine glasses, etc.) in the most obvious cabinet to keep those types of things in. The problem is, our kitchen is so teeny and lacking major storage space, that we kept our pantry food in a deep cabinet above the microwave. Since we rarely ever use the “fancy” glassware these days, those got stored in the back of the deep cabinet behind the plates and bowls which we use daily.

Now the food is stored in a shallow cabinet, and although it is still hard for little me to reach a few things, it’s a lot easier than it was before. I can see everything, which is wonderful! It isn’t the best set-up…I would love a real pantry someday soon, but for now this will have to do.

Aren’t those light bulb moments just amazing?? It’s crazy how such a small adjustment can make such a big impact…I really can’t believe we didn’t think of it before! Now if I would only quit opening the food cabinet when I want a bowl…

Blah Half Bath

Posted by Lindsay on May 1, 2009 in Bathroom, Creativity, Decor | 5 comments

These lovely pictures I have below are of our teeny tiny half-bath (or powder room as some like to say!). It is located in our daughter’s room, actually! Lucky baby, has her own bathroom! We haven’t done much to it since we’ve moved in, except for new flooring. It had a piece of carpet just laying on top of old linoleum tiles, and my husband put new faux-tile laminate in to replace it!  Here it is with the carpet:

Sweet sink and medicine cabinet shot…

This one shows the linoleum tile that was underneath the floating piece of carpet.

And here is the new flooring that Glenn installed a few weeks ago!

As you can see, it is a teeny, tiny room, so I think it would so fun to do a fun wall treatment in here.  Wallpaper?  I’ve never done it, but I know people who can help me and this might be a good room to practice on!  Wall decals?  Maybe, but I think something textured would be even better.

Design Public has some really fun (can I stress enough that I want something FUN in there?? ) wall applications that I’m loving.  Any other resources for textured wall applications?  I like these, especially because you can paint them, but I think I want something a little less juvenile…

These are pretty cool, but I need to do the math.  Each panel is 18″ x 18″ and you get 10 panels for $84.  Maybe I could do just one wall??  Maybe two??

These are fun, but I want more coverage.  I saw something that was overlapping, multi-colored raised squares, but now I can’t find them anywhere!  Can anyone help?? Any other suggestions for my search?