Happy Halloween + Housewarming

After a week of menu planning, last-minute painting, and cleaning, our house was put together enough for a housewarming party! All the food was a huge hit- so here are some links to the recipes I used:

Appetizers:
Homemade Tomato Basil Soup: This was the first time I made homemade tomato soup, and it turned out really well! I ended up taking the whole tomatoes out and chopping them up a bit to make the soup a little smoother. Since we just did little cups of soup with mini grilled cheeses, the whole tomatoes made it hard to eat.
Ham & Cheese Sliders: These were absolutely amazing. I got some super tiny ham rolls, and all 24 of these were gone before dinner. For the sauce, I used fresh finely chopped onion in place of minced onion spice, and spicy dijon mustard in place of yellow mustard. I think they really added a lot to the sandwiches. I think I am going to make some more of them and keep them in the fridge so I can have them as snacks throughout the week.

Dessert:
Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins: Even though, I don't like pumpkin, I knew everyone else did, so I thought I'd give these a try. They look super difficult, but they were actually really easy! The only additional tip I have is to use a hand mixer to make the cheesecake filling. In my first batch, I tried hand mixing it, and the texture just wasn't right. My professional tester (read: husband) preferred the second batch by far.
Pumpkin Pie Dip: As delicious as everything else was, this was by far every one's favorite. I sent extra home with most of our guests, including my mom, who is an AMAZING cook (I was so proud of myself!) We put out fresh orchard apples and cinnamon sugar graham crackers as dippers- they both were flying off the plate. If you want something super easy to take to a holiday party, I definitely recommend this!

For drinks, we had spiked hot apple cider and an array of Oktoberfest beers, as well as some Sprecher Root Beer for anyone who didn't want alcohol. It was overall a great night, and I wish we had more leftovers so I could have some for lunch today!

Budgeting

While looking for inspiration for the empty bedrooms in our house, the discussion of a nursery has come up more than once. However, in order to fill said nursery, we need to save up some money and set a household budget. If you're like me, you kind of guess how much you are spending each month, and pay things off as you can. We go out to eat a few times a week, and buy things for the house as we need them (what, a sweater is TOTALLY a household item!), and try to figure out where all of our extra money went at the end of the month. I tried making a spreadsheet, but since my husband and I just recently joined bank accounts, it was difficult to figure out who owed what, and how much extra we had, let alone figure out what we could save.

Enter www.mint.com. This website is SO cool! I've only spent a little over an hour on it so far, but the ability to enter as many bank accounts, credit cards, loans, etc as we need to so we can BOTH see what's happening is great! It also comes up with a budget for you and tells you when you go over. My favorite part so far (other than the fact that it said I was underbudget on my clothes allowance) is send me tips and tricks on how to save money and improve my credit score. I'm obsessed with this little app-and yep! it's available on smart phones, too!

There are a couple of other budgeting ideas I have seen that I like, but one in particular from todaysnest.com that I think would work great in conjunction with the wonderfulness of mint.com. For the full details (and printable envelopes), check out this link: http://www.todaysnest.com/todays-nest/2010/09/todays-money-budgeting-with-cash-envelopes.html

I'll post pictures of my envelopes once I print them out and get this started!

Our House: Before

I've spent the majority of my morning painting and taping, and taping and painting, so I thought I would take a break to remember how much progress we have made. Here are some photos of our house when it was on the market.

My walls are on their way to being more colorful! More updates to come!

NewlyWhites' Posting Premiere!

Well, Hello! Welcome to my first blog post! To be perfectly honest, it's not my first EVER. There are probably 4 other blogs out there with my name on them, all started with the idea that I would maintain them. But THIS blog is destined to be continued, as it is about home-improvement (and other DIY activities, of course), and as any homeowner knows, a house is a never ending project.
I have never done any tutorials (...or house projects, for that matter), so bear with me while I attempt to take on new projects, teaching, and a household of kritters all at once.