Vacation!

I’m on vacation from work for two glorious weeks!!!  Yes, you heard that right…TWO WEEKS!  Can you tell I’m excited??  ;)  Part of the time we’ll be on a trip and part of it I’ll be kicking back at home.  When we get home from our trip (details to come later) I’m hoping to get some craft and sewing projects done.  I’ve got so many things I want to make and just not enough time to do it. 

This weekend, I spent a lot of time at home finishing up a project for my trip.  I was sewing like crazy on Saturday morning, but I took a break when my mom stopped by with some donuts.  It was 11am and Lauren was still in her jammies watching cartoons (ugh).      

 

Lauren went straight for the one with frosting and covered with mini M&M’s.  She picked off all the candy first…

 

Then went in for a bite…

Today was another sewing day to finish everything up and tonight I got my project all packaged up and ready to go!  It’s a great feeling to be finished and I think everyone will love them…

 

Catching up…

Lauren started her 2nd year of preschool last week and she loves it!  She’s going four days a week now from 8:30am-12:30.  It’s only because Joe isn’t working full-time right now that we’re able to have her in a curriculum based pre-school.  If we were both full-time, she would be in daycare.  As much as I miss not having two full incomes, sometimes it’s a blessing.

 

Today I was off work so I gave a half-hearted attempt at a bento lunch with what I had on hand.  Certainly not Wendolonia, my bento idol!

My tomboy girl, who is starting to tolerate an occasional dress, wore this “ballerina” dress today.  If I can convince her that it’s a “ballerina” dress, then half the battle is won right there.  She loves to twirl!

  

Yes, she is holding Perry the platypus (if you’re a mom, you know who he is).  No dolls for this tomboy.  It’s Perry love in our house.  When his leg is squeezed, he makes that strange platypus sound from the show…oh goody! 

I’m working on a big assembly line style sewing project right now.  No, it’s not beach robes like the one I made here, but they are made from beach towels.  I’m making ten of them so I’ll be BUSY for a while and covered in little towel fuzzies until I’m done!

Hot Dog!

Hot dog fans rejoice cause these are the yummiest dogs you’ll ever sink your teeth into!  These bad boys are sonoran style dogs.  I say bad boys because they can’t be much less than 1,000 calories each, so it’s definitely an every once in a while type food.

Here’s the low-down.  You take a bolillo (Mexican sub roll) and toast it up.  Then you add pinto beans, a fat hot dog (we used Hebrew National dinner franks from Costco) wrapped in bacon, shredded cheese, chopped tomatoes and sweet onions, salsa verde and mayo sauce.  Then you take a big bite and go straight to hot dog heaven. 

 

The salsa verde was SOOO good, so I’m sharing the recipe.  

This recipe makes a bowl full of salsa, so you’ll have LOTS of left-over for chips, tacos, etc.

Salsa Verde

1 lb tomatillos, husked and washed
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
3 fresh serrano chilies, seeded
1 cup chopped sweet onion
2 cloves of garlic
pinch of sugar
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
sea salt to taste

Put the tomatillos in a saucepan and cover with water.  Bring to a boil, then turn off the heat and allow them to soak for 5 minutes. 

    

Remove from the heat, drain and puree in a food processor.  Add the cilantro, serranos, onion, garlic, sugar, and lime juice and pulse to combine.  Season with salt to taste. 

The mayo sauce is just 4 tablespoons of mayo and a little more than 1 tablespoon of hot sauce (Tabasco or equivalent) and juice of a little more than half a lime.  This sauce would also be delicious on fish tacos. 

Give it all a try…you won’t be sorry!

What a mess!

This is enough to make a grown women cry…

Okay the room was a mess to begin with, but this is how it looked after Lauren disappeared and was suspiciously quite for a while.  This was last night and it still looks like this now and probably will until I get the energy to do something about it.  Ugh.