Growing up, slow cooker recipes were reserved for winter.  My mom would make huge batches of Chili in the slow cooker for those cold winter days.

In my Pinterest adventures, I’ve found that the slow cooker can be used year round for absolutely everything!  Before Pinterest, I never knew you could make a cake in a slow cooker!

Last year I shared my “slow cooker recipe” board on the blog, which contained about 100 recipes at the time.  Now, it has over 340 pins, with a total of more than 700 recipes!  To make things easier to navigate, I’ve put the recipes in text form right here on my blog.  Be sure to bookmark or pin this page to have these mouthwatering recipes right at your fingertips!

Aaand it’s Christmas time!  In the past 9 years, we’ve put up our tree maybe 5 times.  Most of those times also involved throwing it up like a few days before Christmas.  This year, we already have our old tree up in the loft area and are going to pick up our Habitat ReStore tree this weekend to put up downstairs.  We’ve bought stockings for the fireplace and put up wreaths on the door. I honestly don’t know who we are anymore!  Before this year, our Christmas decorations literally consisted of that tree and one bag of ornaments.  I’m just excited to actually have room to put things up and store things until next year!  Our old place was so small and had absolutely zero storage.  This year, we bought a 9ft Christmas tree!

We’re also hosting Christmas this year for my parents.  It’s going to be overwhelming and fun at the same time.  I’ve never made Christmas dinner before so I’m totally unprepared!  I should’ve taken better notes at Thanksgiving dinner!  What recipes should I make?  Are cold cut turkey breast sandwiches out of the question?!

Here’s what I picked up last week at the Habitat For Humanity ReStore:

I’m a huge wreath fan and I found 3 wreaths last week.

I picked up two of these wreaths with the bow to put on my front doors.  They’re simple, yet elegant!

I put this wreath outside on the house.

I found another photography board!  For 75 cents, I couldn’t pass it up!  The glass was also purchased from the ReStore earlier this year.

We also purchased our Christmas tree last week, but are going to pick it up when the ReStore is open again next week so no pics yet!

Past ReStore Finds // 01 // 02 // 03 // 04 // 05 // 06 // 07

We’re finally here!  It’s Thanksgiving eve and the last of my drink recipes! 

I raided the liquor cabinet for this set of recipes.  While they definitely won’t be winning any awards for originality, I used my ingredients from the past drink recipes to create some incredibly easy cocktails!  They’re an easy last minute addition.

To make each recipe, I took a shot of alcohol and poured it into a solo cup.  Then I added my second ingredient and finally finished with a splash of the third ingredient.  Feel free to mix up the amounts according to your taste!

Jack/Coke/Cranberry Juice

Seagram's 7 /Cranberry Ginger Ale/Cranberry Juice

Bacardi 151/Vanilla Cream Soda/Apple Cider

Seagram's 7/Vanilla Cream Soda

Remember how I said I thought my Caramel Apple Punch would make a good float?  It has actually outdone itself with how good it really is.

So good, in fact, that I drank that entire glass after the photoshoot.

Aaand I even made more of the punch so I could make even more floats!

I really hesitated in calling my Caramel Apple Punch a “punch” because, in our family, a punch isn’t complete unless there’s sherbet on top and my punch had nothing like that in there…until now.  How amazing would this be in a punch bowl with the ice cream on top, acting as the sherbet?!

Hold on, I’m digging out my punch bowl right now!

Also, there’s no actual fruit hanging out in there this time!  With a drink this good, I figured trying to drink around the fruit would ruin it!  Who needs distractions when there’s ice cream?!

To make this drink, all you need to do is mix some of my Caramel Apple Punch and add ice cream!  Easy peasy!

Floats forever!

1 year ago today, my husband and I became official homeowners.

Of course, we had to do things our way, and purchased a foreclosure in serious need of repair.

You know it’s bad when the actual real estate listing says so:

It took so much to bring this house back to life.’'

We kind of happened upon this house by accident.  Sure, it was in our hometown, but neither one of us was really interested in it.  We were working with a realtor and I had just emailed her a list of things we were looking for in a home and absolutely none of those things are this house.  Usually, I’m all over foreclosures and want to immediately look at them, but I waited probably 2 weeks before I talked my husband into driving us over to take a look.  We peeked in the side door, which was the only area you could see the house.  Because our house sits up so high from the ground, that one door was the only view we had of the entire house. 

And what a view it was.

We scheduled a showing because you couldn’t see much of the house from that one door!  Because our house is a “special” foreclosure, certain measures were taken to secure the home and contractors were called out to look over the issues.  When we got in contact with our realtor to schedule a showing, there was already a stack of paperwork showcasing some of the problems and repair cost quotes.  After looking over the property, we decided to put in a low offer and honestly wasn’t expecting much.  If we got it, great.  If not, then it became someone else’s problem!

So spoiler alert: after a slight counteroffer that we also thought they wouldn’t accept, the bank accepted our offer!  Now that we had this house with soooo many problems, what were we going to do?

We were going to wait until closing.  Now, I’ll never win any awards for being the most patient person ever, so that wait was atrocious.  Because the home was not technically ours yet, we couldn’t begin work or even clean up.  We weren’t even supposed to be on the property.  Talk about buzzkill!  The only time we entered the property with our realtor before closing was when we were allowed to get rid of some water that accumulated in basement from the sump pump being turned off.

When closing day finally came and we entered the house on the first night, I had one of those “what have I done?!” moments.  Sadly, that was the first of many.  The road to rehabbing a house is not an easy or pretty one.  Because my husband and I both work full time, it was extremely difficult to find the time to work on the house.  My parents helped out a lot too, but my dad also works insane overtime, so no one was available to dedicate 24/7 to this project. It was nights and nights of getting off work at 7pm and rolling over to work on little stuff for a few hours and all day on weekends when we weren’t working.  It was about 100 trips to the home improvement store and truckloads upon truckloads of materials.  When you don’t do this as an occupation, it can get kind of intimidating.  Luckily, my husband had remodeled houses in his previous job, but working with a small, part time crew is tough!  I wouldn’t recommend such an intense remodel for a primary residence!

Because we didn’t move in until the renovations were officially completed, I have to also mention the two sets of utilities we paid to keep both residences afloat.  Paying two electric bills is tough, especially paying for electric at a place you don’t even live at! Power tools aren’t the most energy efficient, so our electric bill wasn’t super low, either.  Luckily, our house insurance was split up enough where we paid at different times on both places and we received a credit for the old place once we were moved out.

After all of that real talk, I will say that remodeling this house was definitely worth it.  We ended up hiring a few things out, like the roof and countertop, but the majority of it was done ourselves.  It’s true, we did save an insane amount of money by cutting corners and doing the work ourselves.  If we had to hire every single thing out, it wouldn’t have been worth it…but the house would have been done a lot sooner!

Even though this house is something I didn’t think I wanted, I have such a pride of ownership.  I can look back and remember the day my husband and I spent on the ground, sanding our upstairs bedroom floor.  I remember the hundreds of times I spent sweeping the floor and cleaning up construction debris.  The day my husband said he was going to his job and I found him over there laying the floor and yelling at it every step of the way!  He still refuses to lay any more click together flooring. He even threw his floor tool away! 

It has definitely been quite the learning/growing experience.  There’s still a lot more to do, but the house has come such a long way in the year that we’ve had it.

After a super busy day on Saturday, my husband and I arrived at the ReStore about 30 minutes before closing time.  Since you never know what you’ll find at the Habitat ReStore, I knew even arriving late would still be worth it…and it was!  Here’s what we found last week:

I really wanted a tall, skinny pitcher for my drinks and this one didn’t disappoint.  It also holds less than my other pitchers, which is fantastic for those times when I don’t want to make so much! I used it this week when I made my White Cranberry Peach Apple Cider!

I’m always on the lookout for cups and I found this set of 5 at the ReStore.  They worked perfectly for my pink lemonade that was featured in yesterday’s blog post!

How cool is this guy?  Apparently, he’s guarding all of the dust on my stairs! Haha!

I thought this tray was awesome and I’m planning to use it as a cookie tray this holiday season!

Past ReStore Finds // 01 // 02 // 03 // 04 // 05 // 06

I know I’ve been stirring up some great drink recipes over the past couple weeks, but sometimes ain’t nobody got time to be in the kitchen measuring stuff up!  So, confession time…the drink in these glasses is Kool-Aid!  I made my classic lemonade (recipe below) and then when it was about empty, I put in a packet of Pink Lemonade Kool-Aid and made it per packet instructions right in my oversized mason jar!  I still had the lemons in there from before and it looked like I actually tried to make something!  It tastes great and really works in a pinch.

But really, though, Classic Lemonade is the easiest thing to make.  If you have an electric juicer and about 5 minutes, fantastic lemonade isn’t so far away.

I used to be intimidated by lemonade.  More specifically, the lemon juicing part.  I pictured myself in the kitchen, squeezing lemon juice for days.  It was just never something that was for me.  When we moved, I found an electric juicer that had been hanging out in some forgotten cabinet for probably 9 years.  I took it to the new house and gave it a try.  Mind. Blown.  Juicing lemons is sooo easy now. I can literally juice an entire 2lb bag of lemons in just a few minutes.

Before we get to the recipe, I have to warn you…my lemonade is super sweet.  I believe my mom referred to it as “hummingbird nectar”, so you might want to tone the simple syrup down a bit.  But it’s super easy to do because the simple syrup is just equal parts sugar and water, so feel free to use less if all.the.sugar is not your thing.  You can also thin it out by adding more water at the end.  I like my lemonade super sweet and super concentrated, but I know that’s not for everybody!

print recipe

Classic Lemonade

by Tiff @ www.onthecreekblog.com November-3-2016

Extra sweet and tart lemonade. Can easily be modified for taste by adding less simple syrup or more water.

Ingredients

• About 8 Cups Water
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 2lbs Lemons

Instructions

Simple Syrup - Mix 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring until all of the sugar is dissolved. Set aside and allow to cool. Lemons - Set aside 2 lemons for garnish and juice the rest, about 5 lemons. Lemonade - Slice the 2 lemons for garnish and place in a 64oz pitcher - Add simple syrup and lemon juice and fill the rest of the pitcher with cold water. Chill or add ice and you’re done!

Details

Prep time: Cook time: 5 mins Total time: Yield: roughly 64 ounces

Here come the affiliate links.  I just want you to know if you purchase any of these items from Amazon, I’ll receive a small commission from the sale.

This is a fun little recipe.  It brings together all the fall feels.  The peach also adds a last nod to summer before we dive into the winter months.

I randomly saw some sparkling peach apple cider the other day & wanted to try it.  Of course, I could have stopped there, but I wanted to expand on the flavors of the peach apple cider.

To make the recipe, I added white cranberry peach juice cocktail, another drink with all the fall feels.  

Both of these items should be located in the juice aisle of any grocery store.  You just go down that one aisle and you’re done!  So easy!

Last week’s trip to the ReStore was super fast because we were having a cookout later in the day and wanted to get home as soon as possible.  With the cookout in mind, we picked up some grilling/drinking essentials.

Recently, I’ve become somewhat of a collector of pitchers, so I couldn’t pass this one up.  I used it for lemonade at the cookout, but now it has one of my (failed!) Thanksgiving drinks in it!

We also picked up these two pans and placed aluminum foil in the bottoms to put our hamburgers/hotdogs in when they came off the grill.  They’re nothing fancy but they worked perfectly for what we were using them for.

Past ReStore Finds // 01 // 02 // 03 // 04 // 05