What's Up Wednesday

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And just like that, December is almost over. I feel like this month went by in a flash and that really sucks since December is a favorite month of mine. Maybe it is due to the renovations going on in my house, maybe it is due to the Disneyland trip we took or maybe this month just was shorter (if that makes sense). Anyways, we have been super busy this month.

Onto this month's What's Up Wednesday...
WHAT WE ARE EATING THIS WEEK...
Sunday: Sheet Pan Mongolian Beef with Green Beans and Rice
Monday: Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
Tuesday: Take-out. I have a procedure in the afternoon and I am not sure if I will want to cook.
Wednesday: Out for dinner as the girls have swim class.
Thursday: Out since we have the girls Christmas recital.
Friday: Take-out as I have a facial and massage in the evening.
Saturday: Make something at home.

WHAT I'M REMINISCING ABOUT...

Previous year's Christmas. I love this time of year and it is crazy to think we are about to hit a new decade. Are you ready?

2018

2017

2016

2015

WHAT I'M LOVING...

I haven't bought myself much since I have been in full on Christmas shopping mode. But I love all the items I recapped in the best of 2019 Amazon Purchases. I also love my new H&M white fuzzy sweater and my Madewell Golden Harvest Sweater.

Madwell Belmont Mockneck Sweater

H&M Fluffy Sweater

WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO...

December has been full of renovations to our Hall Bathroom, a trip to Disneyland (the girls first time!), Christmas light looking and doing all the traditional Christmasy things!

Here is a sneak peak at our Disneyland trip. 

WHAT I'M DREADING...

All of these health issues and waiting on the results from each test. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON... 

I am still cleaning, purging, donating and packing our house up. I don't think I will be done with this until end of January or into February. 

WHAT I'M EXCITED ABOUT... 

Christmas, the girls birthday, the New Year and a new decade.

WHAT I'M WATCHING/READING... 

Well our shows have been on a break until January, but a few are still on. I have been watching Riverdale, Botched and catching up on Younger since I don't have TV Land on Hulu live. I can't wait for You Season 2 to come out next week and for all of my favorites to come back!

As for reading, I am currently reading The Last Time I Lied.

WHAT I'M LISTENING TO... 

Christmas music!

WHAT I'M WEARING... 

I have been wearing work clothes, leggings (all over Disneyland and the weekend after), boots and comfy sweaters.

WHAT I'M DOING THIS WEEKEND... Not much. I hope to go looking at Christmas lights again with the girls. I plan on baking Christmas cookies with the girls and decorating them. Watch even more Christmas movies and relax. It has been an eventful month so far. Oh and maybe do some more packing and purging.

WHAT I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT MONTH... A new decade! I hope January 2020 brings good news health wise and life calms down a bit.

WHAT ELSE IS NEW...

Not much. I have all of my Christmas shopping done. I had wrapped most of my gifts by the first week of December and I have three more to wrap as they arrive this week. I just can't wait to settle down into the Christmas spirit and forget about work. Work has been an awful drag lately. Seriously the cause of over half my stress. Ugh.

Our Christmas Card - 2019

We finally got our holiday cards last week and I got them out this last weekend. Not exactly like I had planned. We took our photos on October 25th and still hadn't gotten them the week of Thanksgiving. And when we got them, they were not edited. So needless to say, I didn't even order my cards until Cyber Monday and I had to edit the photo myself. I chose the second best photo for our card and saved my favorite for a canvas for our house. That I still need to edit and create. 

But here is our 2019 Christmas card.

Here is year's past Christmas cards.

2018

2017

 2016

 2015

2014

And here is the photo that I want to create a canvas for.

Friday Favorites and Happenings

* This post contains affiliate links. When you click a link, it is no cost to you and I make a small commission (pennies) from it. Thank you for supporting Sparkles and Lattes.

Happy Friday the 13th! I can't believe we are almost half way through the month of December. That means in about two weeks, it will be a new decade. So crazy to think about. Anyways, onto Friday Favorites and Happenings.

ONE. Last Saturday we went to our last home football game of the season. We brought the girls as everyone in our family was going to the game.....because we played our rival UNLV. We had been prepping for this game for a long time. The tailgate is always fun as it is a chili cookoff. But this game was set to be really cold and start at noon. Everyone still came through on the tailgate and the chili cookoff.

While tailgating, the girls met some of the cheerleaders and took a bunch of photos. Then we all huddled around the fire pits and watched some other games, ate chili, welcomed the team to the stadium and then walked around to some of our friends tailgates. The game was cold, but we were all pumped. Until we lost. And that sucked since we didn't get to keep the cannon or paint it back to blue. Ugh.

After the game, we went home to shower and warm up and then headed over to my in-laws house for some dinner with family in town. Everyone was pretty quiet and just down from the game. But at least we watched it with family and friends!

TWO. After the loss the day before, some of the women from Rory's side of the family headed to Picasso and Wine Sunday morning. We didn't have any wine, but we painted Nevada themed canvases and had a great time. Then we went to lunch at a local distillery. It was really a good time and so needed after the loss the day before!

This was our family and there was about 30 other people there.

THREE. During Black Friday sales, I scooped up myself a Madewell sweater that I had my eye on. It is in the prettiest "Golden Harvest" color which is basically a mustardy color. I got it in hopes of wearing it to my friends birthday dinner and as luck would have it, it came in that day. I love this sweater and see myself wearing it all winter long. Plus I got it $40 off. It is still available, but in the Heather Peach color which is still pretty (and for the same price that I got it).

Madwell Belmont Mockneck Sweater

FOUR. So I have been looking for a cozy fuzzy white sweater. I found one at Express for $69.99 and I could get it for 30% off which still makes it $48.93. Not bad, but I wasn't sure I wanted to spend that much money when I felt the material. The cut was very flattering though. So I searched around and I found a similar option (slightly different cut) at H&M and for half the price $24.99.

 Express Fuzzy Balloon Sleeve Sweater

H&M Fluffy Sweater

FIVE. Weekly funnies.

I am linking up with April, A Little Bit of Everything, Meet @ the Barre and Becky.

Have a great weekend!

Hall Bathroom Renovation

I have talked about our home renovation quite a bit on here, but never really the full details. With our renovation, we (our contractor and work crew) are remodeling our master bath, hall bath, 4 closets, new carpet in the bedrooms, new floor boards throughout the whole house (even the area already renovated) new wood flooring in the living room, dining room and hallway, and new lighting in our house. It is a lot to take on all at once. But we survived a kitchen remodel three years ago, so why not do it again? I say that sarcastically since this has been a process.

But on Monday November 25th, they started the first part of the remodel. We are having it done in phases as we still need to live at our house. First up, is the hall bathroom, then the master bathroom along with the closets being done at the same time. Then we will do the flooring and lighting last.

On Sunday November 24th, I made sure to fully clean out the hall bathroom. This is the bathroom that I use with the girls since it is way bigger. It is also where my vision came to be. Rory picked everything out for the master bathroom.

Here are some before photos to give you an idea of how dated it was.

This is the view from the door looking in. As you can see, we had linoleum flooring, dated vanities and bath accessories.

On the right side of the photo, you see the wall that was between the shower and the toilet. There was not enough room beside the wall to the toilet and that had to be fixed to be up to standard and code. But we had it tore out as we were moving the shower to where the vanity was.

This shower had a header on top of it that was wasted space and no lighting in the shower. Plus that is a plastic tub that was hard to clean.

And here is a better look at the toilet area. That toilet paper holder was on its last legs as the girls use it to sit down and get up from the toilet.

I hadn't seen the bathroom this empty as I moved in after Rory purchased the house. So it was weird. It echoed a ton and was a bit sad, but I was very happy to see what the future held.

The very next day they demoed the entire bathroom minus some plumbing. This is what we were left with.

That piping is our main plumbing line. This posed a problem and we had to have a plumber come out the next day to access it and give our contractor some options.

And we also had this hole in the ceiling which made it very cold in the house.

About a week after the demo, they did a bunch of the electrical in the bathroom and then moved the plumbing around. They have the new insulation for the attic, so I am assuming that is going in soon and the walls will be dry walled very soon as well.

I can't wait to show you the progress as it happens and you can see my vision come to be.

Have you ever renovated your house or a room in your house?

Recipe: Shepherd's Pie

I love a good Shepherd's Pie. I often order it in restaurants and really loved when I visited Scotland, Ireland and England because it was served everywhere. Now traditionally, it is served with lamb or rabbit, but I make it using ground beef. I have tried many recipes off Pinterest and never found one that I loved. I did find one that I liked, but then started tweaking it myself as time went on. I think I have perfected it. It is simple, but really good. Plus, my family loves it.

Ingredients:
Serves 6

1 1/4 to 1/3 lbs ground beef
1 onion, chopped
2 large carrots (or 3 medium carrots)
1 cup frozen peas
3 lbs potatoes (I usually use red or yellow.)
1 stick butter
3/4 cup beef broth
3/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
flour
seasonings: salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika

Make It:

1. Peel and cut potatoes into small chunks (around 1/2 inch to 1 inch). Boil in large pot for about 20 minutes until tender. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.

2. While the potatoes cook, melt 3 tbl of butter in a skillet/pan over medium heat. Saute the onions and carrots for 10 minutes or until tender. Once cooked, take the veggies out and put into a bowl and cover.

3. Brown your ground beef until no longer pink. Then drain the fat. This is important, so you don't have fat pockets pop up when you bake the Shepherd's Pie. Season your meat with salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder to your liking.

4. Add your onions, carrots, frozen peas back into the pan with the ground beef. Add in the Worcestershire sauce and a half cup of the beef broth. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to medium low for 5 minutes.

5. Make a flour paste. I use about 1 tbl flour and 1/4 cups of cold water. You want to make sure the paste is a bit runny. Add in the remaining 1/4 cup of beef broth and then make a well in the center of the mixture. Add in the flour paste to the center of the well and mix it in. It should make a gravy within your meat mixture.

6. Mash your potatoes with butter, milk and pepper. I make these according to how my family enjoys them.

7. Place your beef into a baking dish and then add your mashed potatoes on top. Make sure to cover the beef mixture entirely. Then sprinkle paprika on the top of your mashed potatoes.

8. Bake for 30 minutes until the top is browning and you see bubbling from the mixture below. Enjoy.