Moving up to sous chef.

I'm ready! Lets get baking!

Mixing? You need mixing?! I got ya covered mama!

Mmm mmmm, worth all that hard work. Definitely.

A necklace for Leila. Aka- I made a pup collar.

Meet Leila. She's a 4 month old little Labradoodle girl. Such a sweet thing she is, too. She's been with us for a month now and fits right in with the family. And she seems to be loving her new pup collar. :)

I didn't follow a pattern for the collar, but I do think I remember seeing one in Amy Karol's Bend the Rules book, although her's was all fabric.

To make the collar, I sewed a strip of 5/8th inch ribbon onto 1-inch webbing and cut that to Leila's neck size plus ~6-inches (to accommodate for her growth and for threading through the buckle clasp). I did sandwich a little vertical loop of ribbon between the webbing and ribbon so that I could hang Leila's vaccine tags (off a small D-ring, not shown).

I have the collar threaded with the tail on the outside to show best how it's made, but it can also be threaded with the tail on the inside, so that you don't see the underside of the webbing at all. It really doesn't matter either way. Also, Leila wears a harness when we go on walks, so we don't attach the leash directly to her collar. If I did though, I'd add a D-ring vertically next to the un-adjustable end of the buckle before sewing down the webbing. If that makes sense.?

And heck, if you make one, while you're already sewing ribbon to webbing, you might as well throw together a matching key fob as well.  These would make great gifts, too! :)

First birthday- and crowning my little prince.

My littlest one, Logan, celebrated his first birthday last week. Last month when I saw how much Gunnar loved the paper birthday crown that his teachers had made for him, I knew I had to make something similar for Logan.  I wanted it to be fabric though, and ideally adjustable. And then I remembered this tutorial I had bookmarked a while back. Perfect!

The crown should fit Logan's head for a while, too. It didn't quite fit on my head, but almost, so that's promising for longevity. ;)

We had a nice family picnic celebration on Logan's actual birthday, and then had a little celebration party at home over the weekend. Well, we celebrated until poor little Logan got tangled up in fire ants and suffered a pretty bad allergic reaction.  Yep. Not pretty at all. :(

I know, it's blurry. But I still love this pic. Big brother was so excited for Logan. Such sweet boys I have. :)

Happy birthday to my sweet, silly, beautiful little Logan! I can't believe you are ONE. 

Third year birthday canvas.

Okay okay, I promise this will me my last third birthday related post. ;) But I had to share G's third canvas, of course! This year Gunnar was a bit more purposeful with his art.

I secretly cringed a little when he began mixing and muddling the paint colors together. But it's his painting, so I bit my tongue and let him have his way. I'm glad I did, though, because I think he makes beautiful art. 

He calls it "Lots of fish, and a bird." The bird is the purple-ish creation on the bottom right side.

I am so glad he wanted to smash his hands in paint. Those little hand prints are so special to me and really mark him as such a big boy, and still so little, at the same time.

Not a great picture, but here they are together, clockwise from first birthday, hanging on my bedroom wall above my dresser.  Logan's first birthday canvas will fill that fourth spot in less than a month (yikes!).

First Fishing Trip

Uncle Chris flew in to take G on his first fishing venture for his birthday. My brother travels all over the world to fish, hunt waterfalls, hike and the like. G's been asking to go fishing, but hubs held off from taking him because we knew this would be something really special for Uncle Chris to do with G. And then hubs could take over from there. ;)

 The first fish caught of many. :)

Logan and I tagged along to take pics and walk around the park.

Let me just say Gunnar had a BLAST. For those of you Dallas readers, we hit Sunnyvale Town Park. It is absolutely teeming with fish!  

And to close out, here's a fun video Uncle Chris took:

Zippered pouches and my Mother's Day gifts

My mom and grandma are both big fans of cutting coupons, but they carry them around in plastic sandwich baggies.  My mom has mentioned before that she'd like to pull something a little more "attractive" out of her purse.  Hopefully these will suffice.  I tucked in recent pics of the boys, and Gunnar drew a picture for each of them.

 I purposely chose a food related print for my grandma's pouch. I really didn't want her having to search all in her bag trying to remember where and what the heck she put her coupons in. 

And I think the strawberry print is cute, too, so that works.

My mom would never handle that strawberry print.  I chose a more refined, simple black based floral print for her, with a coordinating interior lining.
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 And look what my sweet boy made for me at school.  *love*

He was so excited to tell me about how he planted the flower and painted the pot and dots on the card. And how I need to water the plant and give it sun to make it grow really big. He was so proud of his gift!

 And squueeeeeel!  The husband gave me a pizza stone!! I think going over 6 months without buying a single bread product proved that I was serious about this bread baking thing, worthy enough for my very own stone. ;)  I LOVE IT!  I've made homemade pizza on it twice and a boule so far.  What a difference! 


One happy mama on Mother's Day.  Latin cafe brunch, Artfest, a nap!, Chinese takeout, and good Hawaiian beer.  Awesome husband and the best two little boys a mom could ask for. Great day. ♥

Enjoying the sunshine.

We spent yesterday afternoon at one of the neighborhood ponds and were happily greeted by some feathered friends.  The ducks here are so friendly.  Gunnar was delighted to see them!

"Come on ducks, let go swimming! Over there!" 

Logan didn't care at all about the ducks, but he sure did enjoy touching and pulling and eating and laughing at the grass. I don't think he lifted his head up once after I sat him down.  He was one happy boy.

And the husband and I were quite happy too. We had just received a box of beautiful Meyer lemons my dad picked fresh from his tree (their house was built on what used to be a lemon tree grove in the valley- southern California), so I made Scott and I strawberry-mint-Meyer lemonade cocktails to enjoy.  They were so good!  There is no comparison to home grown Meyers, no way.  

For each glass, I squeezed 3 lemon and 3 strawberries, and rough chopped a small handful of mint sprigs from the backyard.  Added a few ice cubes and 1 tablespoons of sugar, gave it a quick stir, and then floated a little bit of rum atop.  You could let all the flavors merry for a bit and then strain it if you prefer, or not add the rum at all and thin out the lemonade a bit if you don't want it so concentrated.  Or add more sugar.. It's my own concoction, so make it however you like if you do.  I might even write up an official recipe, it was so tasty!

All in all, one gorgeous, lazy afternoon.

What we do for an IPOD.

(Photo taken from the Apple site)

The hubs signed on to participate in the "biggest loser" competition among the teachers at his school. To win an IPOD.  I fattened him up the best I could over the weekend, and we made sure to add in a few DQ Blizzard runs as well to increase his chances of a high initial weigh in, lol. He is all business about this IPOD, um, I mean, lowering his BMI..  Yeah, no, truthfully, it really is all about the IPOD.  But you have to realize, we are those people who live under rocks. Dark ages here. We don't have "I"-anythings, or even knock off somewhat related to "I" things.  So this is a big deal here people.

In honor of his first week of the competition, husband has requested salads. He did not specify that it had to specifically be leaves, so here's what he getting.

The menu:

Monday: Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad
Tuesday: Asian Noodle Salad
Wednesday: Black Bean- Couscous Salad; lavash crackers
Thursday: Warm Bacon Spinach Salad; whole wheat boule
Friday: Greek Orzo Salad; pitas, hummus & tzatziki; Tandoori chicken