Summer To Do List and a FREE Printable!!

Summer is my favorite time of year, for sure! I love the all the bright colors, flowers, flip flops, ice cream, s'mores, grilling...I could go on and on! It always goes too fast, though. It seems like hardly any time goes by and I find myself back in Walmart stocking up on markers, crayons, glue sticks, folders, colorful storage crates, and tons of other school supplies I'll need to get ready for a new school year. It's always around that time that I find myself wondering what I even did the last couple of months. So, this year I decided to make a summer to do list to make sure we enjoy all kinds of summer fun (and to make sure that I have memories of this summer other than watching every season of Army Wives on Netflix...not that I would do that or anything). ;)

I saw all kinds of summer to do lists and summer bucket lists on Pinterest. I looked at several of them to get some ideas for our summer list. I also added some other things that we always talk about and totally say we're going to do but never get around to it. Here's what our list looks like for the summer. It may or may not revolve heavily around food. ;)

I printed it out and framed it in an 8x10 picture frame. I'm keeping it in our kitchen so we can just look at it for ideas when we're trying to think of something to do on the weekends.

You can get a blank copy of this summer to do list by clicking the link below. I've made it as a PDF if you want to print it and write down your ideas and I've also made it as a JPEG image if you want to add text to it using your computer. To get some ideas for your list, check out my "Summer" board on Pinterest. :)

Summer To Do List - PDF

Summer To Do List - JPEG

Here's to tons of summer fun! :) I hope y'all have a great week!

How are we doing on our summer to do list? Keep up here:
Outdoor concert
Mini golf and milkshake date
Watch fireworks
Steel City Pops
Make homemade ice cream
Outdoor movie

  

Three Years

"I have found the one whom my soul loves."

Song of Solomon 3:4

These last three years of my life have been such a gift. A precious gift from the Lord. I'm so grateful. I could never have imagined that God would bless me with someone who so perfectly understands me and loves me unconditionally.

Sweetheart, you are are my love, my partner, my best friend, my everything.

Thank you for loving me so perfectly.

I've had the most amazing three years ever. I'm so glad I get to spend forever with you. I love you!

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Frosting is one of my favorite things to make. I absolutely love watching butter, sugar, and whipping cream come together and get all fluffy and beautiful! Really, those three ingredients can make anything taste amazing! Yesterday, I posted a recipe for my favorite white cake that tastes almost exactly like the cake we had at our wedding. Today, I'm sharing the recipe for the vanilla buttercream frosting I always make with this cake. When I was on the hunt for a copycat cake recipe, I found this frosting recipe on the same blog. In her description, she said that it reminded her of the frosting at Olexa's in Mountain Brook. That was all it took for me to try it. If you're in Birmingham and you've been to Olexa's, you understand what I'm talking about. Oh my goodness, their cake! They serve it warm and it is SO delicious! And the frosting...it's perfect. Well, this frosting is pretty darn close.

Make the cake, make the frosting, and pray for some self-control.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Printer Friendly Version

1 cup butter, room temperature
6 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract (optional)

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes. With mixer on low speed, add 6 cups sugar, whipping cream, and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy. If necessary, gradually add more powdered sugar to reach desired consistency.

Source: Plain Chicken

White Almond Sour Cream Cake

Since our anniversary is this week, I'm doing some posts that are wedding related! :)

One of the most fun things about planning our wedding was cake tasting. We *may* have been especially indecisive about this particular decision just so we could taste more cakes. Some of the bakers only gave us a teeny, tiny piece to taste...and then we found "the one." This particular baker just made wedding cakes as a hobby because she loved it. When we went to meet with her, she sent us away with a dozen full-size cupcakes. Definitely made a good impression on this cake lover, that's for sure! I remember taking them straight to my sister's house and she, my brother-in-law, my niece, Daniel, and I all stood around the kitchen counter testing them out. They were amazing! We realized a little too late that we didn't save any for my parents. Oops. I had to order another dozen so they could taste them, too. I wasn't mad about it. ;)

Anyway, when we placed our order with this lady, she told us to go ahead and eat our top tier whenever we wanted after the honeymoon because she would just bake us another mini cake for our one year anniversary. We ate our top tier after one month and were already looking forward to getting another cake for our anniversary. We did and it was just like we remembered it.

When our two year anniversary was coming up, I e-mailed her to see if I could order another mini cake only to find out that she wasn't making cakes anymore. I was devastated...okay, maybe that's a little strong, but I was really sad about it. It became my mission to recreate this cake for our anniversary. It was serious business.

I scoured the internet, Pinterest, and some of my favorite blogs and kept seeing the same recipe come up time after time and it had great reviews everywhere I looked. I decided to give it a try and it. was. awesome. It wasn't an exact match, but it was so incredibly close. Definitely a worthy replacement.

I'm pretty sure that I started a tradition last year and will be making this cake every year for our anniversary. It just makes us happy and brings back so many memories of that wonderful day. Hopefully, as I continue this tradition over the years, my cake decorating skills will improve. :) Definitely not as pretty as the pictures above, but it sure tasted amazing.

Check out this post for an amazing buttercream frosting recipe!!! I could eat it with a spoon!

White Almond Sour Cream Cake

Makes one three-layer cake or 36 cupcakes

Printer Friendly Version

1 box white cake mix
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups water
1/8 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract (This is optional, it's delicious with or without the almond!)
1 cup sour cream
4 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 325.

Place all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir together with a whisk to get rid of any lumps. Add remaining ingredients and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes until batter is smooth and fluffy. Pour into three greased and floured cake pans or cupcake tins. Fill about halfway full.

Bake for 28-31 minutes for cake or 18-21 minutes for cupcakes.

Source: Plain Chicken 

Little Bertha

Favorite FREE Love Printables

Our three year anniversary is coming up in just a few days, so in honor of this event celebrating LOVE :), I thought I'd post a round up of some beautiful, free love printables from all around the web. I've been wanting to do a gallery wall in our house for, oh, I don't know...three years, so I'm hoping some of these will get me motivated to start! :) I hope you find something you love!

This "I Love Us" printable from eighteen25 is so simple and sweet.

They have several different colors to choose from, too.

"Love Abides Here" from 52 mantels.

This one is so true. Find it at It Works for Bobbi.

"I Love You" from Landee See, Landee Do.

Another simple one, but so meaningful. You can get this printable at life {illustrated}.

A portion of 1 Corinthians 13 from Inspirations by D. They have different styles and colors for this one, too.

I love what this one says and I think the design is just beautiful! This one is from Whit Speaks.

"All You Need is Love" from Cupcake Diaries. Love the chalkboard background.

Find "You + Me" at Worthy of the Prize. They have some other cute chalkboard printables, too.

Such a sweet picture. This one is from Kamley Lane.

This is one that I've already printed and framed. We keep it in our kitchen and write notes back and forth to each other. You can print this one in several different colors at Life {Sweet} Life.

I have several fun posts coming up in the next few days, so stay tuned! :)

A Day at the Golf Course

Y'all, we seriously had such a fun day today! Yesterday afternoon, Daniel sent me a text that just said, "Don't make any plans for tomorrow." I was intrigued and texted him back asking if he was going to fill me in. :) He called me a little bit later and told me that he got tickets and hospitality tent wristbands to go to the Regions Tradition PGA Champions Tour. Daniel works at Regions and we've wanted to go every year, but have never been able to make it. The Regions Tradition comes to Birmingham each year and is a huge event that raises a ton of money for charity, mainly Children's of Alabama. It's held at a beautiful golf course called Shoal Creek. I mean, I was in awe the whole time. This clubhouse was gorgeous! I want my yard to look like that!

Having the wristbands meant we got to hang out in the air conditioned Regions hospitality tent which was located on the 18th green. It was so fancy in there! They had all the free food, desserts, snacks, and drinks you could possibly want! It. was. awesome. {Does anyone else have the urge to eat as much as you possibly can when it's free and there's lots of it? Just me? I didn't think so. ;)} At one point, I saw someone with an ice cream bar and I was on the hunt. I must find this free ice cream! They had an entire freezer full of ice cream bars, ice cream sandwiches, ice cream cones, and...

Dibs!! I haven't had these in forever! They're the perfect little poppable bite of chocolate covered ice cream nuggets with just a little crunch. So yummy. They were giving away entire little tubs of them. Happy girl, right here. :)

They also had the famous Regions bike from the commercials on display...a giant one! Daniel said they have it on display in his office building sometimes. They had a sign by the bike that said, "Do Not Climb," and at first I thought, "Who would try to climb this thing?" Then my teacher brain kicked in and I thought of about 15 kids who would try to climb it!

I've never been much of a golf fan, but I could definitely make a habit of enjoying these gorgeous views {and the food tent!}.

I'm so thankful I got to spend this day with my sweetheart! :)

Checking Things Off the To Do List AND a Free Printable!

I have been busy over the last few days! It feels so good to get some stuff done that's been bugging me for a while. I use this great app called Any.DO to store my to do list. It has seriously made my life so much easier. Any time I think of something I need to do, I just add it to my list right then and then it can leave my brain. My brain feels pretty cluttered a lot of the time, so the fewer things I have bouncing around in there, the better! The best part is that when you complete a task, you can cross it off! I know I'm probably really weird, but I get a little thrill every time I cross something off. :) I also put things in the list that I do every day, like taking my vitamins. I really was the WORST vitamin taker before I had this app. I tried everything - I put the bottle in my lunch box, kept it on the kitchen counter, kitchen table...nothing worked. Now that I have this app, I just clear everything off before I go to bed so I can't forget! Once I take them, I just move that task to tomorrow on my list. Ok, that was a lot of info about my vitamin taking habits, but really...this app rocks. I love it {if you couldn't tell}.

Here's an example of how cluttered my brain is and how this app has totally helped. About a month before school got out, I was cooking dinner. I keep my recipe book in a cabinet above the microwave. I have about 15 years of recipes in this binder. I'd like to say everything was hole punched and filed behind the correct divider, but that would not be true. Every time I had to get out this recipe binder, I put myself in danger of dropping it on my head and scattering roughly 200 loose recipes all over my kitchen. It was bad. So finally one night, I grabbed my phone and added "organize recipes" to my list. I knew this wouldn't get done until school was out, so I entered it on the first week of my summer vacation. Then I forgot about it until the day it came up. See? It totally reduced my brain clutter!

You'll be happy to know after that whole story that I did in fact get the joy of crossing that task off on my list this past week. I wish I had a before picture so you could see the mess that was my recipe book. Here's where I had everything before. My mom got me this recipe binder when I was about 14 so it's definitely a keeper.

I hole punched all of my loose recipes, organized them by category, and put them behind the correct divider. Oh, sweet organization! But after three years of serious food blog following and Pinterest recipe pinning, I had outgrown this recipe binder. So I took all of my main dish and dessert recipes out and put them in their own separate binder. Now I know what recipes are in each binder and I have room to grow in both of them. Not to mention, making dinner is a lot less hazardous for me now! Of course, I had to make a cute binder cover. It makes me happy!

Well, I thought that I'm probably not the only one with recipe mayhem, so I've included printables for your own recipe binder covers in three different fonts! :) (Fonts also make me happy)! Just click the link below to get yours.

Click here to get your recipe binder covers!

Here's to crossing things off your to do list! :) Happy organizing!