The winner of the necklace is...........

Kristine E.

Email me your address and Stephanie will get that mailed out to you soon.

If you still haven't checked out Stephanie's Blog and Shop- Go! Seriously! What are you waiting for? :)

Thank you to all those wrote nice comments and feedback about my blog.

I hope you all had a great weekend and a Happy Easter.

Meet me back here tomorrow for Virtual Coffee!



Are you ready for Easter?

Good Morning!
Happy Saturday!

How is your weekend so far?

The hubby left out at dark thirty this morning to do an a/c job, which seems strange because we woke up to a temp of 34 degrees outside! Burrrrr!

So today I will be cleaning house, getting ready for Easter dinner at our house tomorrow, prepping Easter Bags for my niece and nephew, and hopefully getting in some crafty time.

Here are some pics to show you what else I've been up to......

Some goodies for the Easter baskets.......

The spray painting of the refurbished plastic table is complete and already feeling at home on the deck with some purdy flowers.

I couldn't pass up this little owl from the dollar store. He is happily perched in one of my flower pots on the front porch. Sigh. I love him.

Where does this owl mania come from? It's like all the sudden they are EVERYWHERE!? And I love them. Boom.

I've been in reading mode lately, love that, and this cute little pic was at the bottom of one of the pages from "The Handmade Market Place".

If you are interested in starting your own handmade business, selling your goods online or at craft fairs, I reccomend you go check this book out. I'm all for borrowing from the library, but you might want to purchase this one as it's full of knowledge you will no doubt want to go back to for reference.

You can buy it here.

And of course it wouldn't be right without spending some time doing dishes. Luckily I have jumped on the Mrs. Meyer's bandwagon and splurged on some $4 hand soap. (Anybody else feel that way?)

The lavender flavor. Smells oh so good!

By the way........

Did you read yesterday's post?

You need to.

You might win a necklace!

Go check it out.

Have a GREAT Saturday and a Very Happy Easter!

Guest Post From the Honey Pot AND a GIVEAWAY!!!

Happy Friday!
I am SO excited to have Stephanie with us today. She blogs over at The Honey Pot.






She is sharing a recipe with us today and you are going to start drooling as soon as you see it. Oh my WORD!

Stephanie also has a shop. She is super talented and has really cute things.

Today we are doing a giveaway......... The First Ever Faithful City Mouse giveaway!


But first......

I want you to read about my friend Honey...... :)

Hi y'all! I'm Stephanie.  I'm a southern girl whose married to my high school sweetheart.  I'm a momma to three daughters and a "Honey" to three grandchildren.  I'm blessed with an awesome son-n-law and will be getting another one this June when our middle daughter gets married. On top of a June wedding, our youngest is graduating from high school next month.  So things are busy busy busy over at The Honey Pot where I blog about what's going on in my little corner of the world.

I have been blessed to get to know Rachel through bloggie land and instagram and was delighted when she asked me to guest post on her blog.  She left it up to me what to share so I went with one of the things that brings me great delight...food!  And when you mix that in with my grand kids and husband that I am crazy about well...this is what you get.  Hope you enjoy.

My husband has a green thumb out of this world!  These are a few  pics from our garden last summer.

I cook with bell pepper like crazy!  I put it in everything so I was excited over the bountiful harvest the Lord blessed us with... aren't these beautiful?

This is my oldest grand-daughter, Rosalyn.  She is a big helper and loves the garden.

She loves her Paw Paw Nick even more.  ~sigh...makes my heart melt.

She will quickly correct you if you call it "Paw Paw's garden".

She says its HER garden...and here she is checking it all in HER garden. lol.

We stuffed a bunch of bell peppers last summer.  I tried all kinds of ways.  Even stuffed some and froze them. So I thought I'd share my basic recipe with you.. you can throw a little of this and that into the mix and make it your own.  That's pretty much what I do each time I make some for us.

I'm terrible at writing out recipes and usually skip stuff because I assume folks know to do that step.  Do y'all do that too?  Then I feel bad when I'm trying to follower a recipe when I can't figure out what they assumed I'd know! lol.

With that said... make sure you cut the tops of the  peppers and cut out all the seeds like in the above picture.

 This is the easy version:

1 box of Zatterains dirty rice mix
1 onion chopped
1 bell pepper chopped
2-3 toes of garlic minced
2-3 pounds of ground meat
1 pound of crawfish tails   ( I'm from Louisiana y'all)
1 can of cream of chicken soup
touch of crab boil
cheese for top
1 can tomato sauce for the bottom of pan

I cook the box of  Zatterains dirty rice according to the directions on the box. I add the onions, garlic, bell pepper and crab boil together as I'm browning the ground meat.  I use ground deer meat but you can use beef if you'd like.  After it's ready I add the crawfish tails and cream of chicken soup and stir it all together. Then you stuff the peppers with this yumminess.  I put a little water in the bottom of the pan and you can add tomato sauce too if you want the flavor...not a whole lot of water...you just need some moisture while the peppers bake.  I bake them on 350 for about 25 to45 minutes.  You want the peppers to be tender.  Then you sprinkle some cheese on top and let it melt.  ( I bake them uncovered).

(we also had a BUNCH of tomatoes too so I threw a few on top in this batch)

Well, there ya go! 

Hope you enjoy :)

And thank you Rachel for having me today!

Stephanie :)

Don't you just love her?! I could eat her up!

And see what I mean about the stuffed peppers!? Can't you almost taste them right from the screen?!

And now on to business.

I was browsing thru Stephanie's SHOP and girl does she have some cute things! If you are a Hunger Game's Fan, run, don't walk over there.

I decided to buy something for me. Normally I just browse and browse the cute Etsy shops, but this time I bought! Yay!

And this is what I got.

Isn't it adorable? I LOVE it!

This is her description for the necklace:

This lovely little cuppa with hearts of love seeping out is a great reminder of Psalm 16 where it says, "O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You maintain my lot."

May we always be willing to hold our cup up and let the Lord lovingly pour whatever He has chosen for our portion in this life!

This pendant is antique bronze with a matching 24 inch ball chain.

**Although the pendant is water resistant, it is not waterproof! Do not wear in the shower or while swimming.       

It came in the mail earlier this week.

( The chain looks darker here than it really is.)

And guess what?????

Because I love my readers, I'm giving one of you a necklace too!

Yahoooo!

There are a few ways you can win this.

1. Become my friend on Facebook or Instagram.

(Facebook info above on the right, Instagram is @faithfulcitymouse)

2. Leave me a comment telling me why you read this blog, what you like about it, what you would like to see more on here, would you link up with me if I did a recipe exchange here weekly, etc?

3. Start following my blog with the Google friend thingy. :)

I'm going to randomly pick who wins the necklace and then Stephanie (Honey) will send it out to  you!

Ps. I always want to call her Honey instead of Stephanie. She's just too darn cute!

Stephanie,

Thank you so much for posting today. You have such a beautiful spirit and your family is adorable!

And your peppers look AH-Mazing!

Happy Friday everyone!

Flower Power

I had to say that,  I really did......

Want to know what I've been up to?

I've been filling my flower pots with these vibrant beauties.
Makes me VERY happy!
For those of you following me on Instagram these will be repeats. Sorry.
If you aren't following me on Instagram and would like to, you can find me at @faithfulcitymouse.

Of course these will probably all be fried up in a few short months once summer in Arkansas REALLY shows up. And BOOM! It will be so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk. (No, I haven't tried it........yet!)

And while I was out planting flowers, my little Chalie boy was eating his supper al fresco in the back yard. I think he thought it was quite the treat :)

And yes, I will tell the hubby the yard needs mowing. It looks like we're purposely growing clover.

Come back tomorrow because I have an exciting guest post AND a giveaway.
That's right, The Faithful City Mouse's First EVER giveaway!
I can't wait to share with you!

Found on Wednesday

Earlier this week I was putting the dishes away.

I opened up the mug cabinet and the first thing I noticed was these two, extremely large"His and Hers" mugs neslted together. They were wedding gifts.

I always keep them together like this in the mug cabinet. They keep each other company amongst all the other mugs.

I have to be honest, it melted my heart a little.

I try to serve our coffee in these mugs at least once over the weekend. The weekends are all we have together you know, his job keeps him away during the week. He has great benefits, and vacation time and a nice dental plan and good pay. He is definitely the bread winner in our family. But it keeps him away from me 4 nights a week.

It's hard. Really hard.

But God is good. And HE has provided me with this hard working man that I sometimes take for granted. This man that I had prayed for before I even knew him, or wha a real marriage looks like and feels like. Before I knew what kind of wife I would be (still figuring that out FYI).

Proverbs 18:22         

He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.

God had all that under control.

And it constantly reminds me of HIS awesomeness.

That he put our two lives together from far distances, different backgrounds, crazy families and made it whole.

HE brought us together.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7     

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Linking up with Beautifully Rooted today.

Where have you Found Him lately?

It's Tuesday! Time for coffee!

<

It's Tuesday, so that means grab a chair it's time for Virtual Coffee with Amy @ Lucky Number 13.

What are you drinking this morning? Is the weather gorgeous where you live too?

If you were over today I would invite out to my deck and we could have some coffee. I usually drink mine with milk and sugar in a mug as big as my head. Or something like that.

If were at Starbucks I would order a Iced VENTI Americano, no water, light ice, 4 raw sugars and half and half. Essentially it's an iced latte with a BIG KICK! Do you switch over to iced coffee when it gets cooler or stick with hot? I'm kind of in between. Depends on my mood.

One thing is for sure though......after all my barista years at Starbucks (did you know this about me?) and making frappucino after frappucino, I can't drink them. Refuse to.

Also.........

Today is my 2 year Anniversary.

We actually have two anniveraries.

April 3rd and May 7th.

April 3rd we got married by my grandpa in Chicago. My elderly grandparents were not going to be able to make it to Arkansas for our wedding. I didn't want them to miss out. They are way too important in my life. So my gramps, who is a retired baptist preacher married us. In the family room.

My grandparents on their wedding day.

(I know I've shared this pic before, but I love it so much!)

Our second (original date) May 7th, was a small wedding with immediate family and a couple of friends. Also my hubby's birthday.

And since life is so short, why not celebrate both dates?

Hard to believe that much time has gone by already.

You can read our LOVE STORY here.

(Both pics from our honeymoons.)

Mr. Jeter- I love you so very much and can't wait to spend a lifetime with you.

You are definitely the flip to my flop, the peanut butter to my jelly and the best dang BBQ'er I know.

You also look really cute in overalls :)

Happy Anniversary #1

______________________________________________________

Ok, moving right along.

Guess what?

This past weekend I went to a Pinterest Craft Party at church.

Did you read that?

A PINTEREST CRAFT PARTY!

All the hours I have spent pinning away, wishing I was crafty- it all came to fruition.

And it was a blast!

Here are some of the ladies that showed up.

Sorry about the blurryness.

The theme was based on t-shirts. So girls were making necklaces, bracelets and even reuseable bags from the t-shirts. IT was so cool.

There were some really craft and talented girls at this party.

I neglected to take pics of the sewing machines lined up, or the delicious snacks and beverage there.

I think somebody called the snack a "mookie"?

The combo of a muffin and a cookie?

 I thought it was like a softer cousin to a scone.

It was chocolate chip, so I would have loved it no matter what.

And the drink was water in glass pitchers with strawberries, mint leaves, lemon and lime.

It was so appealing to the eye and definitely my taste buds.

Have I told you that I'm not really crafty? It's true. I have to MAKE myself be crafty.

For so long I have wanted to unleash the craft girl within and get busy.

And here is the outcome.

I made these.

With my own two hands. I was shocked!

I had help with the pink rosette on the green necklace.

Then I went to town and was a crafting fool.

Now all I want to do is make necklaces.

It was SO MUCH FUN!

Thank you BNC girls for putting that event together.

It was awesome!

Have you done anything crafty lately?

Do share!

Thanks for coffee!

Have an awesome day!

Garden of Jeter and Old Photos

Dear Weekend,

You flew by way to fast for my liking. I need a few more days of you. More time to relax and hang out with the hubby and Charlie.

But I do appreciate all that we did do over the weekend, time with family and friends. Thanks for that.

See you soon,

Rachel

Here are some pics that I found while at my parent's house over the weekend. I think I'm one-ish in this picture?

That is my cousin Nathan kissing me and David smiling in the corner with his head cut out of the pic. I heart these boys. We grew up like siblings. They live in Minnesota where they get 97 inches of snow eh. Ok not really, but too far from Arkansas. I don't see them nearly enough. :(

Here is one of our garden beds.
Onions and various lettuces as well as some spinach. I think we will be eating salad from this bed VERY soon. Can't wait!

The neighbor's dog Sheba. She is Charlie's girlfriend. She is about 4 times his size and much older. The wreslte in the backyard and chase each other all the time. When one or the other is outside and the other is not, they act depressed. It's true love. And also a testimony that true love shows no boundaries.

And just so you can feel better about your childhood I'm leaving you with this picture today of me, clearly on my 9th birthday.
The sweater.
The hair. Permed.
The colors of the sweater.
No doubt I thought I was cool.
Oh my.

Happy Monday!

How was your weekend?