Homemade Easter Dress

I'm on a clothes making kick.  Here is the work in progress for Charlie's Easter dress...

Not too happy about the first fitting...

Second fitting and only have to hem the bottom to be finished!

My cutie patooties modeling their homemade tie and dress on Easter.

Miss Personality.

Happy Easter!

Easter Craft

Each year I set out to find an easy Easter or Spring related craft. This year I saw this cute banner idea and wanted to try it. Orange flags and chocolate (or white) bunnies hanging from ribbon. The orange makes a play on carrots and the bunnies are cute! Google 'bunny silhouette', find the bunny you like most, print it out and trace on construction paper, then cut out. Cut out a few orange triangles and punch some holes, thread the ribbon through, and you are done!

Homemade Dress

Check out this adorable sun dress that I made for our friend Berkley's 1st birthday!  Charlie was my model to help with sizing.

And we couldn't leave out Berkley's twin brother Carson and their big brother Brady!  Nothing like cute coordinating shirts to match their sister.

I've got a few more of these bad boys to make for my own daughter and a few other lucky ladies.  If you're interested in buying one of these dresses let me know!

Paint and Onions

With the project of painting the office with both latex and oil based paints, our home has become overwhelmed with fumes.  Everything stinks like oil paint, especially because the door is off the office for painting. 

Opening a few windows can help reduce the smell but the temperatures are too low outside and the oil paint won't dry properly.  So after a few Google searches we (my mom) discovered that putting a dish of chopped onion in the room with paint fumes will help rid the smell.  I couldn't decide what would be worse... paint fumes or onion fumes,  but figured it was worth a shot.

12 hours later, the smell of paint inside our home is close to absent.  There is a slight onion scent, but I'd rather smell that than headache giving oil fumes.  I've now gone through 2 whole onions and our house is close to normal again.

There were two different methods I read for onions and paint smell. 
1. Chop an onion in half and placing in a dish with shallow water. 
2. The other was chopping an onion in to a bunch of pieces and placing in a dish. 

I chose to chop the onion and add some water to dish... Figured combinging the two methods couldn't hurt.  The key is to have a large amount of raw onion exposed and to switch it out when it begins to dry out.

Give it a try the next time you paint inside!

Skinny Girl Disappointment

I'm not afraid to admit this.  I watch the Real Housewives of New York and Orange County.  I also watch Bethanny Ever After and have been intrigued by Bethanny's 'Skinny Girl Margarita' since watching her order it over and over on RHNY.  This week I looked up the pre-mixed beverage online and found that it was available in our local liquor store; and then made Tony pick up a bottle on the way home from work.  Yes, my poor husband had to walk in to the manly liquor store and buy a $15 bottle of Bethanny Frankel's Skinny Girl Margarita.  Not a very masculine task if you ask him.

I was uber excited to try the cocktail that contains a quarter of the calories of a typical restaurant margarita, and to find a margarita that was so easy to make that all I needed to do is twist open a bottle and pour.  I even went the extra step of shaking the drink with ice before pouring in to two glasses. 

First sip reaction?  Hmmm, this isn't too bad. 

Second sip reaction?  Maybe a slice of lime will help.

Third sip reaction?  I don't think I like this and it tastes tinny.  A slight 'diet' drink after taste. Severly disappointed.

Final outcome?  Tony drank his because it was a margarita.  He agreed it wasn't good, even with a half a lime squeezed in to our glasses.  I was disgusted by it.  I really wanted to love this drink because sometimes I get tired of juicing 20 limes for my killer margs.  But, I'd much rather make a Costco trip and stock up on limes than need to drink this premade margarita again.

I'll admit.  I tried it again today at dinner.  Even worse the second time around.  It killed me to pour out a margarita.

I won't hold it against you Bethanny.  I like that you came up with a margarita that is so low in calories (who knew restaurant margaritas were SO bad for you!?), the label is cute, and you made a few bucks off of me.  I think I'll just stick to watching your show with my own margarita recipe.

If anyone wants to try this marg let me know.  I've got over half a bottle left and I refuse to drink it.

Ugly Pie and Goop

Our neighbors gave the kids a great book called Ugly Pie for Christmas.  Its a story about a bear who is itch'n for some Ugly pie and collects ugly ingredients from his friends (green apples, walnuts, raisins...).  The story is very cute, and at the end of a book is the recipe for Ugly Pie.  Blake has wanted to make this pie since he received the book and today was the day.

Before picking him up at school, I did as much prep work as possible.  Even though Blake loves to help bake, 4 year olds only have limited attention span... So I premeasured the sugars in one bowl, and the raisins, walnuts and flour in another bowl.  B would help me measure the molassis, cinnamon and nutmeg.

I also peeled and sliced all the apples prior to him coming home, and made the pie dough and let chill in fridge until we were ready to roll out.

The counter was all ready for my 4 year old chef.

Once we were home from school, Chef B rolled out the crust.

Meanwhile,  I had a batch of Gwenyth Paltrow's Turkey Ragu from her website Goop on the stove.  This sauce was really good with nice flavor and a hint of rosemary, but not my favorite.  I've got a go to recipe that hasn't failed me yet.  But, I do recommend trying this one out if you want a great pasta meal.  You could easily freeze any sauce leftovers for a future meal. Click here to go to her recipe. 

While waiting for dessert of Ugly Pie, the kids got restless!

While the recipe doesn't create what I'll call my favorite pie... I'm not a huge raisin-in-my-dessert fan, but Blake scarfed it down and loved every bite. If you'd like a copy of the recipe you can email me or borrow the book from us.  Or better yet, go check it out for you and your little one.

Vacation

I was so excited to go on our family 'spring break' trip last week to sunny San Diego.  That meant no cooking for mommy!  In case you're wondering, I eat at home for every meal except for maybe once a week.  Thats a lot of breakfasts, lunches (sack lunches for B), and dinners for a family of four.  So this was something I was really looking forward too. 

But after the third day of eating every single meal out, I was ready to be back in my own kitchen.  My poor children were starting to get sick of the usual kid menu options of grilled cheese, chicken tenders, and cheese pizza.  Do need to give a shout out to the wonderful Vigilucci's on Coronado Island as well as The Fish Market on the waterfront in downtown San Diego.  Both these establishments had a great variety of dishes that weren't all deep fried - huge varieties of pasta dishes, fresh fish, etc.

Now that we're home we've cherised the home made meals, and they've been very basic...

- BBQ'd chicken with steamed broccoli and roast spaghetti squash (dab some lemon and light sour cream, salt and pepper on squash)

- BBQ'd salmon with roast asparagus and lemon noodles (add some lemon zest to light alfredo sauce)

- BBQ'd steak with rosemary fries (Alexia Foods brand in freezer aisle)

Are you seeing a trend here?  Super easy and all main courses made on the BBQ.  But stay tuned as I've got a few recipes that I've been wanting to share!