Birthday #27

I still cant believe I'm 27. really. No I'm serious....oh wait, you believed me. nm.

Here is a picture of some of the awesome things I got for my birthday!

On the left there is the complete Anne of Green Gables series from Ben, Jennie and Becca! I jokingly posted it on facebook and it just magically showed up at my door the other day! SWEET!!!  I am going to start reading it tonight!

In the center is a cool photo frame from my mom. Now Justin and I need to spend hours picking out pictures to put in there.

Next is Lego Harry Potter from Justin. My first X-Box 360 game, which is finished to 100%. I got all 1000 achievement points for it. I enjoyed playing this game so much, I'm already playing again under Justin's name so he can get the achievement points too!

And lastly, all the way to the right is the COOLEST card I have ever received! Its a got a hand knit square on it that was knit with toothpicks! The card reads, "Do you think this yarn will be too scratchy? I was going to make you some Sunday-go-to-meetin' gloves..." inside, "but pasties go so much faster, and are much more festive." LOL! Thanks Sheryn! I will keep this card forever! 

Thanks to everyone who made my birthday memorable! I had a great day. I worked in the morning and then came home and Justin took me out to TGI Friday's where I had a really yummy dinner with an even yummier Strawberry Daiquiri!

Toddler Room

Quilting, nope, I'm not doing it yet. I'm still figuring out what style I want Violet's room to be. I'm thinking pink and green, since there is already a bunch of green. I'm also thinking about ditching the monkey theme and the canvas I made for her.

Side note: I might make another canvas set that matches her quilt. How cool would that be! Or I found this.

Here is a picture of the current canvas that I made for her nursery. Isn't it cute! 

I came across this website FabricLovers.com and really like their fabric. They have a lot of "modern" fabric. Which is important.

We are also getting rid of the rocking chair in her room and will be replacing it with a toddler size table and 2 chairs for her to play on. (which I bought for Claire when she was a toddler)

I will be making her an apron/table cloth/napkins for tea parties. hehe, aww.

I think that I really want her room to be uber girly though, with lace and chiffon. I LOVE Fancy Nancy so she will be my inspiration! I might even try to make her a tulle bed skirt, but we'll see. With a quilt it might look better with a cotton bed skirt.

My room as a child was just a regular old room. Nothing really special. All I can really remember was that there was crap EVERYWHERE!!  So I'm focusing on organization and not overloading her with toys. (ahem, grandparents) Too many toys to me is just overwhelming. So, as of this Christmas, every new toy means adios to an old toy. (plus, I will be removing toys that she doesn't play with anymore.) We've pretty much put away all of her infant toys.

I also was debating on getting a "toy box" but I find that just creates a lazy child. If you have one big toy box then they don't get used to putting things where they belong. But, if everything has a place, it may create a better habit for your child.  (these are just my opinions, I will not be judging others) Which means less of the parent cleaning the children's room or yelling at the child for having a messy room. I got yelled at ALL the time for having a messy room, but was never taught how to clean it. I dont mean to make my parents sound bad its just the dirty truth.

Also, Ikea has a bagillion things that are awesome and super cheap! So I might be buying stuff from there eventually.

Anyway, whew, all that writing just to post a link that no one is going to go to. lol.

Chicken and Gnocchi Soup

This is something I just came up with today.

You can make it however you'd like. I just altered my chicken noodle soup recipe and added the potato gnocchi in place of the noodles and potatoes.

The list of my ingredients are:

carrots
celery
onion
garlic
chicken stock
shredded chicken
potato gnocchi

seasonings of your choice. I used salt, pepper, sage, and thyme. I wanted something sort of basic since Vi isn't 100% right now. BTW-she ate her soup!

Its very easy to make.

Directions
Bring the stock to a boil with all the veggies (carrots & celery cut in to large chunks for my toddler). When the veggies are mostly cooked add the chicken and gnocchi to warm/soften/cook and then serve. I would LOVE many other veggies for myself though.

This is just a simplified version of my chicken noodle soup, so you could take your soup recipe and just add the gnocchi. Its yummy and different.

I do believe I will be making my own gnocchi from scratch from now on though as the store-bought kind are way too salty and kind of rubbery...weird.

(nothing beats the Olive garden chicken and gnocchi soup though.)

Being a mama

So, I was looking for simple shaped cookie cutters and I hit the mother-trucker-load! I went to Bed Bath and Beyond(which is just really just random crap that no one needs) and I found these bad boys. um, 100 cookie cutters for $10! How could I resist? So, the set has most holidays, numbers and letters. The only down side is that they dont have basic shapes like square, triangle, etc. (there are circles, hearts and stars)

So, for my first batch of cookies using the new cutters I made the alphabet.

Things I learned very quickly

The dough needs to be REALLY cold.
Lay down a piece of plastic wrap
Roll out the dough
Then carefully pick up the cookie cutter with the dough in it still
Let the cookie rest on the baking sheet with the cutter on it still(which makes it attach to the sheet so you can remove the cutter with NO problem.)
Refrigerate the cookies on the baking sheets for 10-15 minutes.

My cookies turned out great! I tried a new icing which is made up of powdered sugar, veg. shortening, and vanilla. Its pretty good. Its supposed to still dry hard but less hard than royal icing. Which is a good thing for me.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is something that everyone can make, right? nope. I'm notorious for ruining them. Over and over and over...sigh, its pretty sad.

Here is the recipe.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chicken Quesadillas

Dinner tonight is going to be quick and simple.

I bought some Lawry's Chicken Taco seasoning in a packet. I'm not too keen on using stuff like that, but figured what the hay.

I'm going to be using chicken thighs, Mission Flour Tortillas(my personal fav), Daisy Daisy Sour Cream-Fresh and Tasty Naturally!, and some shredded Cheddar Cheese.

So, once the chicken is all cooked up I will shred the crap out of it and then season it with my Lawry's stuff.

Then I will heat a dry pan on the stove, lay down a tortilla, and layer cheese-chicken-cheese then the other tortilla. Once the cheese is sort of melted I will fliparoony the Kasadia(how I think it should be spelled in English) and let it brown on the other side. (I dont fold my quesadillas, I just stack them. --Because I usually want 2 and its easier to just make 1 huge one, duh)

I will serve it with taco sauce and sour cream. YUM!  You should eat some. If you're lucky I'll post a pic.

Twilight Box!

So, this is the gift I made for my 12 year old little sister's birthday. (She loved it, btw) I found a thick paper box at Michael's and painted the outside black and then painted the inside a nice blood red. I was torn for days as to whether it should be focused on Edward or Jacob, because Claire cant decide between the two. ::::sigh::::

Anyway, my friend Michelle helped me find the Zephyr font which is used as the title font for the DVD's, since the books dont have the swirly "g." Why? I dunno.

So, I printed out all the text and pressed it into the box so I could paint the impressions with white paint.

I used acrylic paint for all of this.

Then I jazzed up the twilight to resemble the way it looks on the DVD. (more like I just painted some lines in odd places.... The quote around the side of the lid is, "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb..."  I'm sure everyone remembers that line from the book and the movie. After all the painting was done I applied 2 coats of mod-podge in a matte finish. (yes, it looks glossy...its matte, I swear!)

If I was really crafty I would have tried to paint the top of the box to look exactly like the DVD disc, but I didn't even want to go there.

So, here is a pic of the finished project.

Oh, I didn't just give it to her empty, I sewed her a knitting needle/crochet hook holder and gave her a bunch of knitting notions and a book on how to teach yourself to knit and some bright blue Caron Simply Soft yarn. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the finished needle/hook holder I made.

The biz-ness

So, I had some really good ideas while working on the website today. But, then Violet woke up. Yeah, its noon and she's already had her nap and is probably going to be up for the rest of the day. yay. (note sarcasm)

Anywhichway, I printed some envelopes with my logo and I think they look AWESOME!  I'm really digging my logo. (I dont care what all you Lame-O's think) 

Now I just need to have more than an hour to work...but someone keeps getting in my way.

Finalizing!

So, here's the plan, the "business plan" if you will. hehe. yeah, I'm 10, so wut.

The final steps I need to take(this week!):

• Open a P.O. Box...yikes $60/yr. sheesh.
• Buy some nice clothes, since none of my "work" pants fit anymore...sigh... I like this shirt... (not too professional nor too casual. I'm not sure if my ginormous rack would fit though...that model has ZERO chest and it looks tight on her.)
• Set up Website
• Purchase Business Cards
• Purchase Essential Oils
• Convince the lady up the street that she should be babysitting Violet for me...because its uh, UP THE STREET! crap that would be awesome! I'd even contemplate buying her a carseat just for Vi since I know she's got a child in summer pre-school.
• Purchase disposable face cradle covers & waste bags

Final Steps for next week:

• Mail out post cards & flyers (or, have them mailed out...because that's how I'm gonna roll)
• Hopefully start scheduling for a few weeks in advance!
• Announce my business to all Friends and Family (So they can tell me how I should be doing things and so they can make fun of my terrible logo. Yeah, I'm not a web designer, logo designer or anything in between. Yes, I could have paid someone to make it look better. No, I'm probably not going to until I start making money. End of Story.)

 Ok, Stress is REALLY starting to pile up now!