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.

Bedroom finally done!

A while back we got Lauren some “big girl” furniture at IKEA but we never really got her room done. Everything on the walls was still set up for her old furniture and her room has been a mess.

Today, we spent some time getting her room cleaned up and re-hung all her wall stuff. As you can see in the pics, she LOVES her big girl bed and Tinkerbell comforter set.

This vanity and chair work out perfectly as a little desk and it’s so cute. There are two top drawers and a big pencil drawer for stashing stuff. I’m thinking when she gets older she can use a laptop here and have a quiet spot for homework.

The picture that looks like it’s hung too low is actually a growth chart and I really LOVE it. It’s a painted canvas. I only have today’s height marked right now (39”) so I need to back track and fill in the rest.

This picture is one of the first we ever saw of our sweetie. We fell in love at first sight!

Beach Robe Done!

I had a day off from work today, so I decided to be productive and sew the beach robe I cut out last weekend.  The pattern was done very well and it came together perfectly, but it took me quite a while to pin and sew ALL that bias tape.  That just may be the first and last project with lots of bias tape I’ll be doing in a long while. 

It was well worth the time because Lauren seems to really like it and had no problem humoring me with a little modeling... 

 

This robe, made from a Tarjay towel, is going to work out so much better at the pool than a big bulky beach towel that is usually falling off of her.   She’ll be able to sit and eat her after swim class snack and be cozy and warm. 

Beach Robe on the way and Disney disappointment…

I decided to try the Beach Robe pattern that Dana from Made just put out.  Lauren is always having a hard time keeping her towel on when she gets out of the pool and then she complains that she’s cool.  This robe, made from a towel, will be the perfect solution!  This evening I got it cut out.  Time will tell if I’m motivated to sew it tomorrow or if we’re heading out to the pool. 

Today we headed over to the Disney store for a Winnie the Pooh story-time, which was a promotion for the new movie coming out on Friday.  By the way, we can’t wait to see Pooh’s new adventure! 

I was disappointed with Disney today…and I’m a huge Disney fan, so that’s saying a lot.  Not because of the storytime, cause that was very cute.  Before storytime they handed out little plushes of Pooh, Eyore, and Owl to the kids waiting in line, then after storytime they collected them back!  They handed them out like it was a little gift for attending storytime and let the kids hold on to them for a good half hour.  Afterwards, they brought out the bags and back they went.  I heard one little girl ask if she could keep her Pooh bear and the cast member said “only if your mom would like to buy you one”. 

I think if they were going to take the plushes back, they should have said something like this as they handed them out…“our Hundred Acre Woods friends are going to visit while we read the story and you can hold on to one, but then they have to go back to the Woods afterwards”.  Oh well, I left the store without buying something after that, and anyone who knows me knows that rarely happens.  ;)