High Five for Friday

1. I made this Pinterest inspired wreath for my mom for her birthday!

 2. I had a craft day on a rainy, chilly Sunday. This is my Valentine's Day creation made out of red burlap!

 3. Today is my mom's birthday! Her sweet grandcorgi's wanted to give her special birthday wishes for her special day!

4. Tomorrow is our little man Tuck's first birthday. Since we won't be able to spend it with him, we had a birthday party for him the other night. I can't believe he is one!

5. We just made it to Denver for the National Western Stock Show. Looking forward to a great week at the stock show. 

Saving the bouquet

Toss the bouquet?

Since Drew and I got married in 2010, my wedding bouquet has been hanging in a bag "drying" at my parent's house. I didn't know what to do with it. I absolutely loved my bouquet. 

So it was sad that it was just sitting in a bag. Then one day I was at my best friend Salena's house, and saw what she did with her bouquet from 2011. Her bouquet was in a jar from her grandmothers house sitting in her bedroom. I loved the idea. It was simple, contained, and displayed. So...I stole her idea. 

2 years later. 

I didn't have a jar from my grandmother's house, so instead I opted for a jar from Michael's

I filled the jar with all the wonderful flowers from the best day of my life. I was left with the ribbon which held my great-grandmothers pin on our wedding day, and was featured on all of my bridesmaid's bouquet. So I used it to decorate the top of the jar. 

Now I have a wonderful keepsake of my wedding bouquet that is displayed in our home. What did you do to save your flowers from that special day?

High Five for Friday

Whoa! When did Friday happen?

I have been bad at the High Five for Fridays for awhile now. Plus my brain has been all out of whack with my days of the week since the holidays. So I am going to attempt to get back in a routine!

1. Pinterest inspired me to do a few different things this week. Including this new recipe I tried while my mother in law was in town this week. Chicken A La Gloria is the name and it is pretty yummy. I didn't have parsley for the top, but it was still good.  Recipe found here.

2. I like these bracelets from Apricot Lane - Dallas. If you don't follow them on Facebook, you should. They have some super cute stuff.

3. Pinterest also taught me this week how to clean my stove top. Check out the blog post here that tells you the easy-as-pie way to get all the gunk off!

4. My corgi babies were waiting on their dad to come home. I thought this was precious!

 5. I'm not much on getting older. So instead of a birthday I am having a Day of Celebration. My day of celebration isn't until later in the month, but it makes warm-fuzzies when someone gets in on it early!

How was your week? Have a spectacular weekend!

Keeping up with the Hatmakers {2012 Version)

If you are a regular reader (thank you!) you might remember back in 2011 when I started a Travel Journal. Since we are on the road so much, I thought it would be fun to document where we stay, where we ate, and just how long we were gone.

Take a moment and look back at our 2011 in review of Keeping up with the Hatmakers so you will be ready to compare and contrast the numbers in 2012. I was quite surprised by the numbers in 2011. Not sure why - I was gone for all of them, but its really different when you see EXACTLY what the it says. The numbers don't lie! Neither does my dry cleaning bill. :)

drum roll please........

Geesh!

2012 Totals: 
Nights in hotel: 130
Hotels: 49
Restaurants: 251
  This did not include any meals that were furnished to us by sales, owners, state associations, or friends who felt sorry for us eating out all the time.

After I added up all the numbers I thought I would look back in 2012 and see what were the highlights and some of the reasons our numbers jumped so much! 

1. As usual, the National Western and the North American add a lot of nights and meals to the list. 

2. We went on a real vacation during the summer and then took a Christmas vacation to Vegas. It's good to focus on a little downtime!

3. We ate at some good places in 2012! 

• Seagar's in Destin, FL
• Spencer's Steakhouse in Omaha, NE
• All Vegas Restaurants!
• Texas de Brazeil in Denver, CO
• McCormick & Schmidts in Columbus, OH
• Smith & Wollensky's in Columbus, OH
• Eskimo Joe's in Stillwater, OK
• Deken Kemme's barn party (food provided by Julie Kemme)

4. Attended Crystal Young's Wedding in Iowa (www.crystalcattle.blogspot.com)

5. Attended Christy Collin's Marketing Seminar in Stillwater

6. Dove more into our photo and video business HImaging. 

Boy as I look back 2012 was a great year! I look forward to trying to top that in 2013! Like I said in my blogpost about 2011, if you travel a lot a travel journal is really fun. It is a great keepsake and a great way to look back at what you've been up to!

How to Clean your Stovetop!?

Does your stovetop ever look like this?

Mine does! 

So I took to the one site where you can find anything DIY.....Pinterest!

I searched for how to clean your stove top, but most of the results utilized ammonia. First off, I didn't have ammonia at my house. Secondly, it stinks and I didn't like the risk with my four legged babies around. So I kept searching. 

How about baking soda?

If you check out many DIY cleaning solutions, baking soda is used in a lot of household solutions. 

To start the cleaning process, you take all the burners apart except one. Fill a stock pot half full of water and add baking soda. I just dumped into the pot until I felt I had enough. Bring the water to a boil and add your first grease catcher. Allow them to boil on each side for 2-3 minutes per side. Remove from the water with tongs and head to the sink. 

Scrub using steel wool pad and warm water. I added more baking soda to spots that weren't coming clean well enough. 

And hear is the end result!

They look almost new! 

After you finish the other burners, you can take the burner you were using (cooled of course) and clean it. Now my stove looks clean, happy, and ready for cooking! 

Pinterest Inspired Christmas Crafts

Now that the Christmas decorations are all down and put away for the New Year, I thought I should update on my Pinterest inspired crafts that I did during the holiday.

My first craft only involved a few materials.

• Ornamentts (50% off at Michael's) 
• Stick -on Letters
• Ribbon

My Merry Christmas masterpiece hung above our sink in front of a window. It added a little holiday cheer to the kitchen. All I did was spell out Merry Christmas on the ornaments, and one by one string them on the ribbon, tying a knot to keep them in place. 

My second Pinterest project was inspired by one I saw. On our doors that seperate our living room from dining room, I hung ribbon off the back off the over the door hanger. I put a command strip on the bottom to hook it to. Then when the Christmas cards came rolling in, they were secured by clothes pins. Which of course I painted Christmas green for the holiday!

Blessed with two doors full of cards!

Did you make any Christmas crafts?

2012 in review

Happy New Year blog buddies!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year holiday. I, unfortunately spent some of the holiday with the awful stomach flu. Pretty much everyone has had it, haven't they?

As we are only a few days into 2012, I wanted to look back at some of my favorite things that happened in 2012! Enjoy!



1. 2012 got off to a great start as we donated to the ASA Foundation in Denver. Something I had been looking forward to for a long time. View blog

2. Gabby Mae celebrated her first birthday complete with birthday party and dog cake. She is the princess of our house and will always be my special girl. Little did she know her world would completely change in a month! View blog

 3. Our family grew! Welcome Tucker Rae Hatmaker to the family all the way from New York. He was difficult for awhile (still at times), but we love him and are so glad he is in our family! View blog

4. Drew and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary at the place we got married! Can't believe it has been two years, but wouldn't trade it for the world.

5. In May, Drew and I travelled to Stillwater, Oklahoma to attend a Livestock Marketing Seminar with my mentor Christy Collins. It was an awesome experience, and we learned so much from her and other attendees. View blog

6. We took a family vacation to Mexico Beach. See photo below. Explains it all!

 7. We planted our first garden at our house. Since we moved in last year in July we weren't able to plant a garden. Our okra, zucchini, squash, and bell peppers did well, but some of the other - not so much. View blog

8. I started my {Sale Day Fashion} segment on From Paris With Love. Allowing readers to see what I wear on sale day across the U.S. Can't wait to get it started again in 2013. View blog

9. Drew and I visited the Grand Canyon in December while on our Las Vegas Christmas Vacation. It was absolutely breathtaking.

10. While in Las Vegas, we had the opportunity to dine at Wolfgang Puck's Spago during the 20th anniversary. He was in house the evening we were there, and we had the chance to meet and talk to him. It was an awesome experience, and he was really nice!

2012 was a great year to the Hatmaker family. We can't wait to see what awesome things happen in 2013. We are looking forward to an amazing future!