it's giveaway time!

Would you like to receive this lovely heart shaped pan in your mailbox?

This adorable pan is perfect just in time for Valentines day!

I would probably bake some brownies in this cute pan, or maybe a strawberry or funfetti cake!

All you have to do is leave a comment below on what your favorite type of cake is.

You can also leave additional comments(for additional entries):

1. saying that you are now following my blog(click the google link on the side that says "follow"

2. Follow me on twitter @hilarysurratt

***Just remember that every comment is an entry, so don't leave all your entries in one comment***(You can leave up to three comments!)

Good luck to everyone & I will close comments on this Sunday night (January 31st) at midnight! SO hurry and enter!!!

If you don't want to participate in this giveaway, you can purchase this cute heart shaped pan here!

yummy mateys

Only 4 more days until I can eat these delicious Marshmallow Mateys again. They are just like lucky charms, & I love them! When Mike & I first got married I would buy these because they were cheap & I love eating cereal. Last week I bought a bag of them while I was at the grocery store & I can't wait to open that bag when I get off this fast! During the summertime or when I had early classes I would put some in a ziploc baggy and take them to work or school to eat for breakfast. I don't like Milk, so I just eat them dry & it's easier that way! Some people might say, "well, I can tell the difference between MM & Lucky Charms," but seriously, they taste the same!!! Plus they are half the price & come with a lot more marshmallows!!! You should definitely try some! :)

Are you one of those people who will pay extra to get the real brand name?

in 90 days...

it will be April 25th.

And my goal is to read the entire Bible by then! Yes, call me crazy & say I'm not going to finish it, but I am committing myself to it! Our lifegroup that Mike and I are in together are going through the Bible in 90 days, in chronological order. I start tomorrow and will be reading Genesis 1-16. It is A LOT of reading everyday. No, it is not an in-depth study of the Bible, but it will be good for me personally to do. I'm excited about this because it will be very structural for me & I have a feeling it will be easy structurally to do because I know exactly what I have to read that day & I need to get it done. I'm using youversion.com to go through it because they have a complete reading plan for people who are reading the Bible in 90 days. It displays your completed percentage to, to visually see how much progress you have done!

For myself, I have a hard time sitting down to read the Bible daily unless I have a plan, or devotional that I do. I try to find devos that work for me & some of my favorites come from Beth Moore's Bible studies. I just love her and her cute passionate self! I'm sure I will keep all of you posted on how I'm doing with it too!

* Hopefully by then I will have this extra 10 pounds off as well! (our biggest loser competition will be over by then too!)

looking back...

Today, please head over to my father-in-law's blog. He posted what he said during our wedding when he married Mike & I. It was so special going back and reading it. Of course I cried! :) It made me remember exactly why I married Mike & I love the part when he told me that Mike needs to know that I believe in him & that I'm his biggest fan. :)

http://geoffsurratt.typepad.com/inner_revolution/

I love my husband & I am his biggest fan.

an eventful friday

Today was such an eventful day!

Here's how it went:
*Woke up not being able to breath out of my nose. YUCK!
*Took a shower, which made me feel so much better
*Started cleaning up the kitchen & started the laundry
*Decided it was lunchtime
*Mashed potatoes, greenbeans, & pineapple {Daniel Fast}
*Mike is making us fruit smoothies to drink
*Peeled the potatoes & put the peelies in the disposal
*The disposal got clogged!!!! THE WATER STARTED TO BUBBLE {not going down} AND LITTLE PARTICLES WERE ALL FLOATING IN THE WATER! gross.
*Mike tries to unclog it with his hand.... doesn't work
*then a hanger..... didn't work
* we used the other side of the sink to rinse all our dishes...
*Made mashed potatoes in my NEW kitchenaid stand mixer!!!!
*Played Mike on our new nintendo Wii that we got yesterday!!!! {Mike had best buy gift cards from Christmas!}
*Then we went for a bike ride & I about died!!! My legs were like jello when I got off the bike and I was so worn out! I meant to drive the route that we biked, and I know it's at least 2 miles; we were in this neighborhood down the street that has a lot of hills!!! (Picture above is me after the bikeride!)

After all of that, we called our apartment clubhouse and put in a work order to get our disposal fixed. When I was at work, the guy came & fixed{unclogged} it. Mike said it was the funny guy. He looks just like Chris Farley! I see him driving on the golf cart everyday around our apt & I laugh every time! The best thing about living in an apartment is that we have maintenance guys to come and fix our household repairs!!! AHH-MAZING!

***Other great news is that in 2 weeks I have lost 5 pounds! Mike and I are being more active, working out, going on bike rides, playing tennis, & being active on the wii this year! We are both entered in this Biggest Loser competition to help raise money for an orphan school in Kenya called Christ's Gift Academy. There is no way that we would be able to win because some people are losing A LOT of weight, but it gives me a goal to work for to lose weight! I set my goal to lose 15 pounds, so I only have 10 more to go! I would have to lose 12 more pounds to be at my "wedding weight", which is also another goal to go for! {getting married made me a little lazy & I hardly ever worked out} I've probably just lost these 5 pounds from not drinking so much sweet tea like I normally do every day, because being on the fast, I have given up sweet tea. It's so hard too because at work the lunch lady always makes pitchers of sweet tea for all the teachers!!! SO tempting!

Here's to a fun & busy day and feeling good to be fit!

no more smelly soup

Oh boy! This picture is no way appealing to me! Ever since I have started the Daniel Fast, I have been eating vegetable soup like crazy. Today I had it for lunch and dinner. I've basically been eating it because it is the fastest and most convenient thing to fix because of running from here to there in between work & church, and Work & babysitting. Plus it's pretty good.
I've decided to take a break though, I'm not going to eat any more of this veggie soup. {sorry soup} I know I have a lot more of different fast friendly foods to fix, so that's what I'm doing! I'm also planning ahead to not stress about it, because that's not what the fast is about!! I'm thinking to myself... "wake up Hilary! Focus on what the fast is really about!" As I was reading Colossians today I ran across this verse to remind me of what my purpose is for this fast, which I feel is to grow more in Him!
Colossians 1:10-12 "And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing good fruit in every work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, so that you may great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light."

for the love of cupcakes!

I absolutely love love love anything that has to do with cupcakes, if I could choose I would drive the car that's in Charleston with the huge cupcake on top! (from the cupcake store)

well, I just thought that I would share with everyone the adorable cupcake decorations that I found at Target! Well, my mom actually had these blue towels waiting for me when I came to her house the other day....

I was so excited because the Target here in N. Charleston didn't have these... or they hadn't put them out yet. so my mom said, "Well, we have got to go to Target so you can see all the other cupcake stuff that they have!!!"

See, you guys know what section I'm talking about.... the one that is conveniently displayed right when you walk in that has all the $1 or $2.50 seasonal stuff!!!

That is what I love the most. I could go to Target everyday and be perfectly happy.

i love target!!

I was able to get the little pot holder set, that you see one of, hanging on the wall!

(They came in a 2 pack for $2.50)

I brought my LOVE dishes out to set up for decorations (which also came from target... I looked at the box and they are from 2004)

I think my grandma bought them or something....

I also wanted to add more hooks for all my aprons. I rarely wear them, because I forget to put them on, but I do love them! So, they are displayed so cute! :)

Then to the table decor...
I remembered from a while back that I bought these Valentines cups (target) when Mike and I were engaged, I thought they were so cute.

I filled them with tissue paper and stuck a straw in them to make them look like they have some sort of yummy drink in them!
Then my favorite.... this cupcake rug was only $2.50! I was so excited!!!
The best part about my trip to target was that I had a Target gift card left over from a Christmas gift, that I was able to use to purchase these few lovely things. I was super excited to start decorating for Valentines day with pretty things such as cupcakes!!
I will most likely keep some of the cupcake stuff out yearly because I could have a sweets theme going on in my kitchen!

The last thing I wanted to share with everyone was this new cupcake book that Christina got me when I came to visit!! It's called Hello, Cupcake!
It has the cutest ideas on how to make different cupcakes & ways to ice them only using a ziploc bag!!! It's amazing! I have it displayed with all my other dishes & decor. Those little cupcake doggies on the front of the book are just so cute(and I'm not a big animal fan). I transferred all the candy we have into my biggest candy jar, I could not believe that we actually filled it!
{People always give us candy and we hardly can ever eat all of it!} I replaced all of the other bowls in the house with pretty fruit that we are eating in place of sweets for the Daniel Fast that we are on! (so far, so good)
I am so excited about being on this fast. I feel that God is going to do something huge in my life while I'm on it. I'm praying more daily about specific things, and I was thinking today, "why don't I pray this much all the time?!?!?"
I'm trying to not think and worry about things so much, and just pray....
and God is so good!
My life right now is kind of in a weird stage for me because of how much change is going to happen this year. I've just graduated from college, and I'm not really sure what God has in store for me next. I feel like it is going to be something so big, but I'm not quite sure what it is. That is why I'm praying. I'm so much of a planner, that I normally know what is going on at all times. I like to have every minute planned out so that I know what I have to do.
I don't feel that way though, I'm feeling so relieved and not so much worried about what I have to do during the day, but what He's going to do with me everyday.
I guess I'll just say He's got my back. :)

tulsa trip :)

Mike and I made our way home on Wednesday morning from Oklahoma, and 15.5 hours later we made it home, which apparently is a record, because no one that we know of has made the drive that fast it normally takes 17-20 hours for Kevin & Christina or any of their family that has made the dive to and from Tulsa to Charletson!

We had such a blast in tulsa when we were there! We visited our friends kevin and christina harris, and their two little girls: ella & liv. It was such a blessing to visit them because of how much their friendship has meant to us over the past 4 years that they were in Charleston.

Here are some pics from our trip(in no particualr order):

We celebrated ella's 5th birthday with a huge princess party!

I made her a tutu & hairbow to go with a sweater that I got her from Gymboree! She was so cute opening it!

Liv on the tire swing at the farm Ella birthday cake that I decorated for her. I put her princess figurines on it & she thought that was the best thing ever!
Me & Christina got a little crafty with the decorations... we made this adorable sign!

Making cake balls with the girls

Minnie Mouse enjoying her cupcake

Me & Mike with the girls by the phone booth!

{we kinda look like a little family!}

so cute!

me with my two favorite girls!

Movie night w/out the kids!

for some reason the punch totally overflowed everywhere when we put the icecream in! It was so crazy!

Love this one of me & Liv Happy 5th Birthday Princess Ella Joy! You are beautiful & bring joy to my life!

Ella on the tire swing at the farm!