Wednesday, January 27, 2010

A decade ... 10 years

we were just on the cusp of a new century - Y2K had passed by, who would have the first baby of the new millenium? I had a chance... I was due Jan 14th .... 2 weeks early and she could have been the first....but no, she decided to wait 10 more days and make her debut on her uncle's birthday!

It is so hard to believe that she is 10 .. I remember turning ten and thinking it was so cool I could say I was a decade old!

Happy Birthday to my sweetest Eily ... you bring sunshine into my life everyday with your love, compassion and caring for all around you!

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we celebrated with a sleepover - 10 10 year old girls! amazingly enough asleep by 12:10!

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we made each girl a pillowcase as part of their party favor...

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eily is not a fan of frosting so her favorite cake is a tower of rice krispie treats! Regular, cocoa and fruity pebbles!

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paper flowers for decoration

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and ne handsome older brother headed off to his first bar mitzvah!

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Monday, January 18, 2010

Be My Funky Valentine....

I have turned over the photo styling to Eily - she has such a fun fresh eye towards fashion I always love to see what she puts together...

I decided to breakout my valentines day stash of fabrics and put together a ready to ship collection ... styling by Eily! These are available in my etsy shop

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some of these goodies will be given away later this week on a couple of my etsy team blogs... the etsy treasury team blog as well as the blog for the RNEST

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Cool Runnings ....

with the winter olympics on the horizon we thought it would be fun to rent the old movie Cool Runnings about the Jamacian bobsled team



it was a huge hit with our little guy Leo... after the movie finished, he quietly disappeared for a bit...

you know what that means when they are little ... they are up to something! And even though he has hit the ripe old age of 7, he was still up to something!

Leo, king of creations at our house, had tracked down a cardboard box, some packing tape and tin foil and set about making his own bobsled!

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his sister got in on the act and helped him decorate it with sharpies!

with sled in hand, Leo donned his ski race suit & helmet and headed for the course (otherwise known as the hill in the backyard)

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a few steering issues needed to be fixed!

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all in all Leo declared it to be a victory!... note the packing tape covering the bottom of the sled to make it slip over the snow better! this boy has great design ideas ...

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watch our winter olympics - Leo is in training!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

New Goodies on Etsy....

Now that my shows have wrapped up I have begum listing some of my show inventory in my etsy shop - these are all ready to ship and priced lower than my custom designs...

Have fun taking a peek...

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valentines goodies coming soon!

Friday, January 08, 2010

Be careful ....
it's addicting

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Typing Test

Rotten Bananas ......

does this happen at your house??

we go through the banana cycle .... it starts with everyone loving bananas. So much so that I buy bunch after bunch at the store only to have them gobbled up the minute they ripen or even with a tinge of green!

then the winds of change blow through - or maybe it is a secret banana boycott organized behind my back to get me to make banana bread.

Not sure ... but I do know that this is the result!



ugh!

so I decided it was time for banana bread - or rather banana muffins. A little easier to grab and go.

Of course I can never remember which recipe I used last, so I hunted through my cookbooks until I came upon Muffin Madness in the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home Cookbook and pulled out my trusty purple kitchen-aid!



This is a great recipe because it gives you directions for a tasty muffin base that you can flavor in different ways.

-- Basic Wet Ingredients --
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 - 1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

-- Basic Dry Ingredients --
2 cup unbleached flour (I use whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Choose one of the following combos to add to basic ingredients (the above is NOT a plain muffin recipe, but the base for the following)

Apple muffins: Add 2 cups of grated apple and 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel to wet ingredients and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon to dry ingredients.

Banana muffins: Add 1 1/2 cups of mashed banana to wet ingredients and 1 cup chopped nuts and/or 1/2 cup of chocolate chips to batter. (this can be adjusted to personal preference - we like fewer nuts and use mini-chips)

Blueberry - lemon muffins: Add 1 1/2 cups of blueberries and 1 tablespoon of grated lemon peel to wet ingredients.

Zucchini muffins: Add 2 cups of grated zucchini to wet ingredients and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamom to the dry ingredients. Fold in 1/2 cup of raisins or currants and 3/4 cup of chopped nuts to batter.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine wet ingredients, combine dry ingredients. Add two mixtures together and take care not to overmix. Spoon batter into oiled standard muffins tins and bake for 20-25 minutes standard size muffins or 10-15 minutes for mini muffins

the result was so yummy I made 3 batches in 2 days... and yep, I used up all of those black bananas !

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Etta takes the Big Apple.....

.............. the continuing adventures of Etta the traveling Meerkat! After a successful driving lesson, Etta and I hit th eroad with my sister for the Big Apple and the One Of A Kind Show. We treated Etta to a night in New Jersey near the Holland Tunnel... the drive had been long and tricky with lots of fog through the mountains so we decided to unwind a bit before turning in...

Etta seemed to like the Brooklyn Beer we let her sample

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she started regaling me with tales of her transatlantic journey - via Australia!

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Etta partied a little too much and did NOT want to get up the next morning...

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but she rallied and helped us set up for the show

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she got to meet lots of folks at the show...

my sister Jessie, who helped at the show

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another etsy Treasury team member.. Beth from LilipadCreations

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and other folks who were there with etsy

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while Etta had a lot of fun she did begin to get homesick for Heather of NiftyKnits so we popped onto etsy so Etta could say "hi" to her friends back home...

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after visiting with her fellow Meerkats it was time to send Etta off on the rest of her journey. She was headed to California for Christmas with Sandie, another fellow etteam member. We dressed Etta in her new holiday tutu and carefully packed her up and sent her on her way....

to follow the rest of her adventures, join the fun on Facebook....

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Friday, January 01, 2010

I'd like to introduce ....

Etta... the traveling meerkat! I participate in the etsy treasury team on etsy and one of our members... Heather of NiftyKnits has sent 2 of her knitted meerkats on a World Tour!

We were honored to host Etta back in early December! My youngest was the most excited for her arrival in the mail and promptly demanded that Etta come visit him at school!

Etta and I headed off in the car... I thought it would be a good time to start her driving lessons as we were driving to NYC together the following week and I needed a trustworthy co-pilot!

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When we arrived Leo was already in the cafeteria... he was so excited to see Etta!

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Etta checked out her first american tacos!

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then got a kiss from Sharon ... head of food services

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leo introduced Etta to his friends and showed her around the cafeteria

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then Etta got to stay for lunch with Leo's big sister Eily!

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stay tuned for Etta adventures to the Big Apple tomorrow!