Don't go...

So for a few weeks now, I've had at least one official 'No Driving Day' per week. Typically its worked out to be on Mondays, but I'm flexible on that. It seemed like it might be a drag, but its really great- I don't have to go anywhere- no carseats, no lugging bags around, no getting out of our jammies if we don't want to.... errrr wait. Anyway, there are many places we can walk to if we choose- such as the library, post office, park, many many stores, and of course Starbucks. Since we have a fab BOB jogger from lovely Lisa, its pretty workable with the kidlets. Also, being that its on Monday, its nice to have a day to just chill out after our typically busy weekends. I do housework, and just... you know, just "mom". Its a good day. So, my advice, pick a day and just don't go.....

Operation Gratitude

I have been using True Lemon products for a while now, you know handy little packets of lemon, lime and orange flavoring. I like to add them to water and also have on hand for recipes.
They love to send out FREE SAMPLES of their products- and coupons, too and you know how I love coupons. But- the coolest thing I read about recently was that they sent 1,000,000 packets to troops overseas!!! So, go ahead and pick up a great sample for yourself, while supporting a very generous small company.

Happy Birthday, cute girl!

We've had a busy few weeks- here are the birthday cakes- which came out pretty well. I used a new buttercream recipe, which didn't set up as well as I would have liked, but people liked it anyway. The cake was filled with ganache frosting, dark chocolate, thank you very much and as ever I used this yellow cake recipe, which I adore. I'll admit- this was not my best cake ever- as far as the decorating went. I had grand plans, but in the end, this is what I had. I decided to just use figurines from the Disney store that she could play with aftewards- they were a hit. Hopefully, they are not painted with lead.

You may have noticed

I have added a picture of what we presume to be a ground squirrel carcass. I just wanted to share some of the camping fun we had recently. I also wanted to show you what I *wanted* to throw into the camp of the people we *presume* stole our fire wood the other night. But I didn't. But I seriously considered it. Still, I didn't. And to think that very day my darling husband saved your kids kite from flying away while you were gone. So you stole our wood under the cover of darkness to return the favor. nice. Your kids should be proud.

I so made this sweater

and brilliant Julie made the hat, the periwinkle one. Which I love.

ooooh

I saw these great mom jewelry designs today Lisa Leonard designs and I think they're great. Plus, one of my new favorite blogs- Simple Mom is offering a contest to win one. You really must check it out.

found pretties

The cute girl selected some flowers and then carefully arranged them for me. You know, maybe not the ones I would have chosen, but it came out looking great, even in the BPA leaching nalgene bottle looks good here.

Monkeys, monkeys everywhere

We made from scratch monkey bread a few days (weeks?) ago. Oh dear- very delish. I hear there is some version of the recipe with pop n fresh dough, which would definately take some time off this- but still, its not hard, its very good and well, we like to do things the hard way around here. I feel I should warn you, its a large recipe- we made this loaf sized pan and also a large round casserole type dish, too. What?? I don't have a bundt pan. Sue me. Monkey bread

My oh so brilliant gardening tip of the day

Ok ok, its not brilliant and its not even original, I bet, but you can use old t shirts to tie your tomatoes to the stakes in your garden. Just rip them into thin strips and they make nice gentle stretchy plant ties. That you don't have to pay for. And you are re-using. You're welcome

Perfect pancakes

On Saturday mornings, we usually head out early for a family run/walk at the beach. Its early. The cute girl must eat before we go, so she has 1-4 bowls of cereal. ok, just 1 or 2 bowls.- you know, its exhausting to ride in the stroller for that 28.14 minutes. Anyway, so on Saturday mornings we like to have a nice brunch when we get home. I like to make things from scratch so I mess around with recipes- waffles, pancakes, whatever. It seems I always find some sort of tricky ones, when really, somtimes, simple is just, well, perfect. And while I don't have any pictures of them, I can say these pancakes are just perfect. (even if you sneak in some ww flour!)

paper making

We made these fun paper bowls - great kids project. I can't recomend it enough- cheap, easy, its recylcing, just messy enough to keep the kids happy and you get something useful in the end.

delish

Really. You really need to make this. So good. Frittata I did use fat free evap. milk instead of cream and I also used half eggs and half egg beaters. (oh wait, whats that? Yeah.... you do see some pre-cooked bacon added in there)

Incidentally, that lovely blue platter cracked in half in the dishwasher that night. wierd. and sad.

what kind of idiot...

removes a tiny piece of wire from wired ribbon, about 2" long, with a tight loop at one end..... then proceeds to walk out of the room with other things in hand, places tiny wire into mouth so as not to drop it where small humans will acquire and consume... then one proceeds to inexplicably twist said wire, while on the tongue and thereby producing a small yet excruciatingly effective tastebud tourniquet, if you will. At this point one realizes the idiocy of her ways and at least has a small quantity of neurons firing which tell her to proceed directly to the bathroom mirror to untwist this loop of taste-bud death before ripping it from the tongue.

Today I recomend..

going to allrecipes.com and looking up Belles hamburger buns, Spicy turkery burgers, and Fab homemade bread.

really, go there, look them up, make them. They are great!!!

also- would you look at that, I figured out how to include links correctly. oh happy day.

No yarn in sight

...but I've been really into cooking lately and finding new recipes that are yummy and easy. While doing so, I've seen tons of pics of food and it always looks so great- so I thought- geesh- does mine even look half that good? I don't know, but here they are.

First we have the cute girl making pizza- the sauce is very very serious work as you can see. She tends to lay it on a little thick, but her pizza is the.best.I.ever.had. Of course.

Then we have http://familiabencomo.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/californian-lemon-chicken-soup/ which was perfect timing. Just perfect --because the day before I had roasted a chicken with rosemary, so I used that and carrots and onions- so I used those. I also added a little garlic, because thats how I roll, and I only had minute brown rice, so I used that. Yum.

And to go with it, bread which was from this recipe http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fabulous-Homemade-Bread/Detail.aspx which I would definately recomend- it was so so good. It calls for 6 loaves, and I cut it in half. Didn't want to have 6 yucky loaves, so this was a test batch.

Can you tell I'm *really* trying to dodge that quilt project? (oye)

Oh and this

This is a shirt (and my foot- and yes, I'm wearing pajamas- whatever). I've had it for years. When wearing it, I looked pregnant when I wasn't and when I was pregnant, this shirt was too small. So it made its way to a give away bag, . For whatever reason (Jen!) I decided to poke thru the bag before sending it on its merry way. And the shirt got me again. I actually made a few more changes after she tried it on, but you get the general idea. Its not perfect, but it cost nothing more then about 43 minutes, give or take, so I think it will make a great play dress.

Tags, fuz and fleece everywhere...

So you know that the cute kid would want a taggie just like her baby, so I whipped that out today. Well, not really, in fact I made a huuuuuge mistake putting the ribbons on. Then I thought I could fix it easily (ie- not involving a seam ripper) which turned into a bigger fiasco than I had planned. Whatever. Its done now- maybe not the color ribbons I would have chose, and there are a few quirks, but I guess among the preschool set, this is the bees knees because she loved it.

I also made 2 smaller ones for new babies- also, just for you Jen- the flip sides are repurposed shirts.

It doesn't look like much here...

in the picture, but here is another sling, its a gift and I even eeked out a little stuff sack for it with the leftover fabric. This pattern takes just a yard and its very easy- plus as you can see if you're very frugal (and don't mind some extra seams!) you can get the bag too.

The great thing about the sling is sleeping babies. ;-)

$6, less than one hour

And I made this 'tag' blanket. (do you know these things cost like $20???) Its sooo soft, but what a nuisance fleece is to work with- too slippery, too fuzzy all over the place. (well, ok thats b/c I gave the cute kid a piece of fleece and some scissors) I made one mistake because I was in such a hurry to turn and top stitch that I forgot to trim the seam allowances, so the edges are bit bulkier than I would like, but its still cute, I think, soft and good for a baby- what else matters?

I've been busy...

I've made a few things, but you know I also had a baby, so I've been kinda busy with that and all. So I'm way behind here- I have no idea what order most of these things were done in, but I've made about 4 baby slings- here are pics of 2 of them. The solid brown one turned out really to be too small, but the leaf one works nicely, we keep it in the diaper bag, so it also has a small stuff sack I made for it. I also made another flannel crib sheet and a cute strawberry print, so next time I have that on the *never slept in* crib, I'll get a pic. Oh and also, another changing pad.