Iced Coffee!

Homemade Iced Coffee is all the rage right now... haven't you heard?? The Pioneer Woman had her own recipe, and there are a few others floating around Pinterest. (If you have yet to check Pinterest out, DO IT! If you like to look at blogs for great ideas, but don't really enjoy the rambling on and on... Pinterest is worth your time!)

I found THIS recipe on Pinterest and couldn't wait to try it! Then I realized the method she used for making the actual coffee, and I don't have patience for that... SO, I brewed a normal batch of hot coffee and stuck it in the fridge. I made her "sweet cream" using a can of evaporated milk and a can of sweetened condensed milk. Soon enough I had a glass of AMAZINGLY perfect Iced Coffee! I just poured about 2/3 full of coffee, topped it off with the cream, and then added a few squeezes of chocolate syrup (really healthy, right??). And...

Y'all. Don't ever buy Iced Coffee from Starbuck's again. I kid you not. It's literally better than any iced coffee I've ever bought at a coffee shop. I love that you can make it as strong or as sweet as you want, too! Oh, and put it in a mason jar to drink it. All the cool kids are doing it. Plus, it just looks pretty.

Next up??

Iced Chai Tea Latte. I have made them before using a recipe that has you steep chai tea bags, fresh ginger, and peppercorns in steamed milk, but it wasn't quite "spicy" enough for me. I also saw a recipe basically having you make your own chai tea mix (meaning you would have to buy star anise and ground cardamom... and I've never seen them in a store before..). While it's probably delicious, I thought this mix might be easier! Plus, I've actually heard good things about it. I'll be sure to give you an update...

Until then... I'm off to finish my iced coffee.

Changes...

Changes can be hard. Changes can be scary. Changes can make you anxious. Changes give you pimples or gray hair. After Kyle and I got married, moved to a new town, got pregnant with Parker, bought our first house, and HAD Parker all within a year (as in when we celebrated our first anniversary, all of these things had happened!), we were praying for no more changes for awhile...

...but this past spring we found out that our family would change again! We were not as overwhelmed with changes as we were in the first year of marriage so this change was a little easier to prepare for! Our family of three will be a family of FOUR!

Apparently our family likes a challenge...changes seem to come in groupings of 2 or more. Not only will we be welcoming a new baby to our family, we will also jump into the world of raising a little GIRL!!!!!! We could hardly believe our ears when the ultrasound tech uttered those sweet words... EVERYONE is having boys! We assumed Parker would have a little brother to wrestle with! Kyle and I both secretly hoped for a baby girl, but we were not going to get our hopes up. We have SO enjoyed Parker (boys are so fun!), and another little boy would have been just as amazing! But... we are so happy to have a little pink in our house! :)

Here's her sweet little foot... the little feet get me... we have decided to name our sweet little girl Payton Riley Routh. I love being able to call her by her name... teaching Parker his baby sister's name... we are also impatient, and can't keep a secret... so we can't wait to welcome baby Payton in the world December 2nd! (Or earlier... I would not be opposed to a November baby!)

In other news...

Guess who is getting spoiled this summer?? :) Here he is eating his breakfast dinner (waffles and fruit) while watching Elmo on the computer next to him... sometimes it's just easier...

Park-man has gotten to stay with his grandparents a couple different times this summer while we have chaperoned youth trips, and the spoiled-ness comes from a tired mom and dad that are trying to recover. Our little guy has probably watched too much Elmo and eaten too many snacks this summer... I guess it doesn't help that it's so stinkin' hot outside... and I'm slowly growing bigger...

Here's Parker sportin' a rockin' T-shirt his Uncle Mike gave him! He LOVES his "bi-tar" shirt! He literally was upset to take it off...

We actually have time in town for the next couple weeks so I'm PUMPED about getting to actually cook some dinners for us! I have some new recipes to try courtesy of my sweet mother-in-law (she has a pretty sweet cookbook that I got to drool over...) and Pinterest... hopefully I can blog about some of the yummy-ness!

Until then...

...Payton says, "See ya!"

Everyday life...

The Rouths have a small lull in busy schedules right now... which means I keep forgetting to grab pictures of normal, everyday silliness. And I kid you not, silliness describes life with Park-man right now. From playing sumo, to jumping on pillows (which you saw here), to running in circles like a crazy man, to dumping out ALL of his stuffed animals and diving into them, to singing "Inkle, Inkle Little Star..." at the top of his lungs, to crashing his "choo-choo's" over and over again... I could go on forever! These silly things USUALLY turn into bad things so we are definitely staying busy with Parker. We wouldn't have it any other way... really. Even though we are falling asleep by 9 (and I'm normally an up-until-11-or-12-every-night kind of person...), wondering and worrying about having TWO little ones come December, have Elmo and Super Why songs stuck in our heads all. day. long., and cleaning up messes from a little one that thinks forks and spoons are actually paintbrushes.... we love being parents...

...to this yogurt-eating mess...

...with an attitude...haha... I love this face.

Thanks for listening to my rambling!

"Big Box"

My husband is super cool. He makes things for me. He has even come up with the plans on his own so we can have exactly what we want! I am definitely spoiled... let me back up a little big...

Y'all have heard me talk about Ana White before... she has a blog on which she puts tons and tons of free furniture plans for anybody to use! It's pretty dangerous to look at... I want one of just about everything. :) Just kidding... sort of. Kyle loves to do construction-like projects and I just so happen to enjoy painting, staining, fixing-up, etc. those projects. Which leads us to our latest endeavor...

Parker's room has yet to be exactly what I envision... remember my big plans I have for his room? (You can find it here along with all my other unfinished projects!) We are moving in the right direction now, though! We were in desperate need of a storage system for Parker's toys and books... so Kyle and I browsed through Ana White's plan catalog. We couldn't find exactly what we wanted so Kyle combined a couple different toy box and bookshelf plans to come up with this:

Isn't it great! It's exactly what we needed, and it's the PERFECT height for my little guy. He LOVES his "Big Box"!

I found the paint at Wal-Mart with the "Oops" paint and only paid $7 for a gallon! (If you haven't heard of Oops paint, look around the paint section next time you're there! Sometimes people have paint mixed and it ends up being the wrong shade... so the store will sell it for 50% off!) I had another shade of green in mind, but for half-off I fell in love with this bright green!

So there you have it. Step One in our "Parker's Room Transformation" series... haha. I will keep updating on his room as we move forward! Our next project is to PAINT his room! I can't wait to see the finished results!

(By the way, I found the paint for his room with the Oops paint, too! The exact color I wanted!! I'm serious, you should check it out if you need paint!)