True’s allergic to dairy. We figured this out when she was about 6 months old, since then she’s been a soy milk drinker. We have dairy milk in the house too, but the other girls naturally gravitate to that carton of soy milk that’s sitting in the fridge. Actually, I do too and I have a cup every morning! I add some protein to it and it gives it a thicker consistency that makes it extra creamy (silk soy milk is already pretty creamy!). I used to have a cup (or 2) every afternoon too, but I was going way overboard in my intake of milk products, so I cut back and stuck to drinking it in the morning. Even though I limit myself to drinking it in the morning, it doesn’t stop me from serving my girls with some soy milk in various ways throughout the rest of the day.

I think it’s that little bit of sweetness that gets us. Besides having it with cereal, it is best for mixing in with smoothies or making popsicles (or just pairing it with some cookies!). You’ve got the natural sweetness from the fruit combined with the subtle sweetness in the vanilla Silk Soy Milk, and it’s come out perfect. No added sugar needed! We’ve tried other soy milks and Silk Soy Milk is the absolute best. The other ones tend to have an earthy flavor, but Silk really is silky. My husband thinks Silk is the gold standard of soy milks when it comes to flavor. The yumminess of it all makes my girls (even me!) do a jitter dance.

Silk Soy Milk and Strawberry Popsicle
makes about 8 – 10 popsicles (depends on your mold)

2 cups Silk Soy Milk Vanilla Flavor
2 cups fresh strawberries

Blend and pour into a popsicle mold (this one is ours), let freeze overnight, then enjoy!

Silk Soy Milk, Peach and Strawberry Smoothie
makes about 4 small servings

2 cups Silk Soy Milk vanilla flavor
1 cup frozen peaches
1 cup fresh strawberries (or frozen)

Just blend, pour, and drink!

This post is brought to you by Silk. Take the Tastemaker Challenge on facebook.com/silkUS.
Thank you for your continuous support of this space and my sponsors. I’m really grateful because these opportunities wouldn’t be possible without you! 

These are some recent thrift finds that are perfect for summer. I had one pair of denim cut-offs that I have had for about 10 years and I wear them like crazy every summer (except for the summers when I’m pregnant). They’re getting to the point that the areas around the buttocks are really worn and starting to tear (like majorly to the point of can’t be repaired), so I thought I had better go hunting for a new pair before these completely bite the dust. Luckily, I found these great 3 pairs for about 2 buckaroos each! I did the little stick the fist and length of my forearm check into the waist area to see if it would fit, and lo and behold, they all fit, so I knew they’d fit my waist (and it did!). They were all a bit longer in length, but a pair of scissors quickly fixed that. Then, a throw in the wash and dryer and there you go, I had a couple new (to me) pairs of denim shorts.

So even though I was eyeing a pair of these, I knew I didn’t need to spend those dollars. You could most definitely snatch a few good pairs at the thrift for just a few bucks. Oh and that white, gauzy dress is just perfect too, isn’t it?! Thrifted for just 5 bucks. I’d say I’ve had some pretty good luck lately. We’re heading to New Mexico for vacation soon, so I’m taking all these (and these) with me for sure!

Korean Burger with Kimchi and Egg
My online friend, Jenn Kirk, instagrammed this burger that she was about to devour. It looked amazing so I asked her what was in it. This is my version trying to recreate that yumo looking burger! 

Ingredients (pictured below):
1. 1 cup of kimchi (each burger used about 2 – 3 pieces, but can use more if you love the stuff like I do!)
2. Strips of dried seaweed
3. Marinated turkey patty (I used 3 lbs of ground turkey and mixed in the marinade)
4. 1 egg per burger
5. Whole wheat buns
6. 1/4 soy mayo
7. 1/4 cup sambal oelek garlic chili
8. 1 tbsp sesame oil

For the meat marinade (taken from this recipe):
3 lbs ground turkey
1/2 cup soy
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 sesame oil
1/4 cup sake
2 tbsp minced garlic
1/4 green onions finely chopped
2 tbsp sesame seed
sprinkle of black pepper

Directions:
1. Combine the ground turkey with the ingredients for the meat marinade and refrigerate overnight. Gently form the meat into patties about 3″ wide and 1″ thick, but this size will also depend on the bun size you use. Season patties with salt and pepper. Pan fry the patties until they are cooked through. I cooked ours on a cast iron skillet.

2. Make the spicy sauce by combining the 1/4 soy mayo, 1/4 cup sambak garlic chili, and 1 tbsp sesame oil. Set aside.

 3. Cut your seaweed strips and pan fry your egg and set both aside.

4. Serve the patties on the buns; top with kimchi, egg, seaweed strips, and  spicy sauce. Take a giant bite and enjoy!

I love Korean food, so I was totally all about the burger. Ben isn’t a big fan of kimchi, though he had his with it, he went without it for his second one. He also didn’t like the egg, so he left that out of the second one too. The girls didn’t like it too much, which surprised me because the meat had a sweetness to it that I was sure they would love. I served it again to them the next day for lunch with ketchup, and they ate that up, so maybe it’s just that they’re not quite into fancy burgers just yet. Or maybe it was the ketchup. These girls of mine LOVE ketchup!

It wasn’t their year to win. They came so close. Insanely close. A big swing of emotions played out every few seconds and in the end, though they fought hard, it wasn’t their year. It might sound a bit dramatic and yes, it’s a first world problem, but my heart was (is) a little broken. Those guys are just the epitome of classiness as far as basketball goes and the way they have worked hard to build their team versus buy their team (ahem, yes Lebron and Ray Allen, I’m talking to you!) is just amazing. Even if they didn’t win, I’m proud of those guys. I love them!

I will never forget it was 1999, I didn’t care a lick about basketball, and basketball season had just ended. I turned to my ex-boyfriend and asked him, “So who won the championship this year?” He replied, “The San Antonio Spurs.” I distinctly remember thinking, “Who the heck are the San Antonio Spurs?!! Oh, they must be a new team.”

Just a few years later, said ex-boyfriend was out of the picture, my love affair with Ben Bratcher was just beginning, and with that I was falling hard for that man and the basketball team he loved so much. Thus, my life was forever changed. #gospursgo

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Glow has her own little “baby” (a stuffed bear) and she must have it with her everywhere!

Suddenly, we have a wee bit more time on our hands now that basketball season is over.

We have lots of flies where we live (we live near lots of dairy farms), so I picked up one of these food covers for our dinners outside.

I got surgery on my face this past week to remove a cyst, so I’m looking for wide brimmed hats now to hide from the sun to prevent scarring. This one is cute.

Soul’s shingles are gone… yippee!! Thank you Lord!

I didn’t cook dinner once this week, so Trader Joe’s and frozen pizzas helped us survive.

Crystal Lewis is having a pop-up concert tonight (get info here)! So if you’re in Southern California, you can get more info here! Don’t forget her kickstarter program going on now too.

Hello Monday. You’re off to a slow start, but that’s just the way Mondays go sometimes.

Over at A Beautiful Mess I share how to make a little Halo Light Pendant DIY. It’s a simple way to dress up this hanging light. It’s over our learning table and the girls love it, and we finally have lighting in that room!

I’m also over at Prudent Baby and I show you how to turn a footstool into a felt tea party (with a template)! Right after I was done with the project, the girls claimed it as their own, and they have have already held quite a few tea parties. And the guests of honor for their parties are always the My Little Ponies of course!

I guess I’m all over the place today, which pretty much sums up how I’ve felt this week… all over the place. Here’s to hoping this weekend is a bit more low key, but knowing what I already have on my plate, it won’t be! I guess I’m a glutton for busyness. Anyone else that way too?!

I don’t ever really get to share a proper house tour because I feel like we’re always working on something, so nothing ever feels complete enough to share. Downstairs feels mostly done, but one of the rooms still needs proper curtains, the kitchen faucet and sink need to be changed, and we still never brought our fridge back in from the garage from when we changed out our floors a year ago! You see snippets here and there from what I put up, and can probably pretty much gather the feel of the room from that, but here’s an official sharing of what our family space looks like.

It’s actually a pretty big room with the kitchen attached (it’s to the right obviously) and we spend a lot of time in this room! I’m not sure how your style has changed through the years, but I’m a pretty consistent person. I have had those vintage sap buckets up for 6 years (I’m considering a change but I can’t figure out what) and the vintage, French garden table has been set up like that for 7 years! It’s been the same set up with the iron basket and plant on top, along with our hi-fi speaker at our old place! Once I like something, I stick with it. Plus, since I was in college, I have had a specific article saved of what my dream house would look like and I’ve pretty much used that as a guideline and inspiration (this home had sap buckets on the wall and I loved it so much, I collected and collected until I had enough to do it in my own home!).

I don’t really follow any particular rules, but I pretty much just go with what I like. Metal pieces are my favorite and we love things with a lot of patina. I love white as a base, but we also like a whole lot of color. Oh and pink! I’ve realized I have a thing for pink, especially pink chairs. We used to have an old Ikea couch, but chesterfields have always been my fave, so when I finally found one on Craigslist about a year ago, I snatched it up. If I ever found a grey one for a good deal, I’d buy that and sell this one, but other than that, this piece will be with us for awhile. I also love to use outdoor furniture inside, and I have a hard time saying no to a good midcentury modern chair, so those are littered all over the house (too many!).

The light fixtures are vintage pieces we snatched up at an antique shop in Fredericksburg, Texas almost 6 years ago and we finally had them put in last year. We walked in the shop and they were grouped together just like that, and we loved it so much (obviously) that we said we’ll take it! All of them! We had someone install them and attach a dimmer switch, and that makes having that many bulbs easier on the energy and wallet. Mostly everything in the room is vintage, except the white Modernica rocker and the anthropologie rug (scored on super sale on the day after thanksgiving!).

My biggest advice when furniture shopping, especially when you’re just starting off on your own or as newlyweds, don’t rush to buy lots of things just to fill a space right away. Ben and I lived our first year of married life only buying a couch and bed. The rest of the stuff we used were his old bachelor stuff (and some things from my old room at my parents’ house) and it worked for us. It really gave us time to figure out things we liked together (figuring out your style together takes learning!), get to know flea markets and how much we were willing to spend on pieces we loved, and it gave us time to find things that we really loved! The only slight change from our style beginnings is that we really loved color A LOT (oh and the first baby nursery we had was totally shabby chic floraly!), but we have since toned that down a little, but we still love color.

Here’s another one of my personal furniture buying philosophies… if you buy vintage, you can pretty much sell your piece (provided it’s in good condition and you didn’t pay an outrageous price) for what you bought it for, on the other hand, if you buy big store items, you can’t really sell it at the price you paid, so that is another reason I love shopping vintage. At the same time, some people get creeped out about old things and the fact that someone else owned it (and they don’t really enjoy the hunting), so if vintage isn’t for you, it isn’t for you! No harm done and to each their own.

Hope you liked the little tour! What are some of your decorating rules and tips?

see another one of our room tours here…