She Knits Shizknits

preschooler levitiation

David Blaine has nothing on Monkey Boy:

"i'd like mornings better if they started later"

I admit it, I'm so.not.a.morning.person.

I HATE waking up at the a$$-crack of dawn every day to take Little Man to school.  He starts at 7:45 so that means I'm up at 6:45am.  I usually don't go to bed till at least 11pm...most of the time I try to be in bed by 11, but don't actually get to sleep till midnight or later.

Needless to say, I'm a bit groggy in the mornings.  Coffee is my salvation...I load up the coffee maker first thing each morning, and have a LARGE cup as soon as I walk in the door from dropping off LM. Often, it's multiple large cups! 

I'm also a slow coffee drinker so I'm partial to travel mugs, or cups that will keep my coffee warm for long periods of time.  Cups shaped like this...





Isn't it cute? A friend of mine invited me to a ceramics painting party at Fired Up a few weeks ago, and this was the mug I did. The mug was originally just plain unglazed white so I painted it green, sketched and painted the owl, and added polka dots. Just because polka dots are happy. And who doesn't need a bit of happy at the a$$-crack of dawn?!



I was also able to write inside the mug...



"I'd like mornings better if they started later!" At first I was bummed that the letters weren't as perfect as I wanted them to be, but then I figured they were just the scratchy kind of writing I'd produce if I tried to write something first thing in the morning.

M-O-U-S-E spells 'rat'

We have a very untidy garage...well 'untidy' is probably an understatement. What's in our garage?  Not our two everyday vehicles, that's for sure!  The Funbus is parked on the driveway, and the Dearest's car is either in front of the house or on the side curb.  What IS in the garage??? The Dearest's non-operational Mazada Miata, all the kids' toys/bikes/etc., the Xtracycle, the kids' little electric Jeep....and just lots and lots of junk.

One corner of the garage holds all our stinky hockey gear. Last week the Dearest went in there late at night to pack his gear for a late ice hockey game. I heard him yelp, "I just saw a mouse!"

UGH

We have had problems with field mice getting into the garage in the past, but from the size of this little critter, it's a rat (probably a fruit rat). Seeing our uninvited guest spurred the Dearest to do some Spring cleaning in the garage.  So he spent Saturday morning and most of Sunday taking everything outside, sweeping and re-organizing. 

The Rat had made itself a nice little nest, complete with pieces torn off a rag rug, and a stash of stolen dog kibble. Quite cozy!  Unfortunately it had to go so the Dearest swept everything up.  He's going to lay traps today, just in case the Rat decides that it would still like to hang around.

Half the garage is still out in the driveway, but the Dearest says it will all (mostly) fit back in. We are giving away some stuff to Goodwill, and a lot of it will need to go in the trash.  But seeing the tidied-up garage is worth it!

What else have we been up to?

I made Orange-Lavender Crisps:

Oh these were GOOOOOD. I like orange and I like lavender....how can you go wrong with orange + lavender + butter? LOL The recipe calls for the cookies to chilled in the fridge, then rolled out and cut into shapes, but I couldn't get my dough to release from the countertop once I cut it. Because it's a shortbread dough, the butter starts to melt as soon as you remove it from the fridge, and it melts even faster as you handle it for rolling. So by the time I cut mine out, they were falling apart.

I finally shaped the dough into a sausage shaped tube, wrapped it in plastic, and stuck it back into the fridge.  After another 10 minutes of chilling, I unwrapped it and was able to slice of thin pieces of dough, which I placed on the cookie sheets and popped into the oven.  The crisps spread a bit in the oven so they were about 2 inches across once they were done. 

Amazingly, everyone who has tried them has loved them.  The small men ate probably a dozen apiece before I snatched away the remaining crisps! LOL  The recipes makes A LOT of small crisps so I was able to give away another dozen and we still had some left over. This is definitely a recipe worth repeating.

hmmm...maybe he's outgrown this...

Monkey Boy found this hiking backpack laying around the other day and wanted to get into it...I think he might have finally outgrown the backpack!

purple maze

We received a huge head of purple cabbage in our CSA basket this week. Our neighbor shares our basket with us, so I had to cut the cabbage in half for her. Look at how beautiful the inside is...

all dressed up

Check out Little Man's Spring portrait. Normally I don't buy school photos (except for the class photo), because they are usually so cheesy.  But this?

Too cute to pass up!
(and yes, he picked this outfit out himself)

crafty zen

A few weeks ago, my friend Jennie talked me into trying out a new yoga studio that opened up in the town center.  I have been practicing yoga on and off for a few years, but haven't attended a studio class in a long time....probably three or four years at least!  The previous studio I tried had great classes but it was difficult to attend on a regular basis because it was a bit of a drive.

The local studio is less than 5 minutes away by car (and about 10 minutes if I ride the Xtracycle...which will probably happen during the summer). They have a deal where they allow you to take unlimited classes for the first week for free. So Jennie and I got out our yoga mats and headed down to try several different classes.

After that first week, we were hooked! We both signed up for a month, and we've been going to at least a couple of times a week. Sometimes we go together, sometimes we go separately. Jennie even got me to take a "hot" yoga class (where they raise the room temp to 100F or so), which I wasn't so sure about, but have grown to enjoy.

As it happened, Jennie was also my Secret Sister at our MOPs (Mothers of Preschoolers) table. So when I had to find a gift for her during the Secret Sister exchange, the first thing I thought of was a yoga mat bag. She had been carrying her yoga mat back and forth to class without a bag, which made for a bit of juggling, what with the water bottle, wallet, keys, etc..

I did some fabric stash-diving, dusted off the sewing machine, and a couple of hours of later, I had this:

The pattern came from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing book.I LOVE this fabric!!! And I think the bag turned out really cute...

I made the bag a bit larger than the pattern calls for, so Jennie could put her towel or water bottle in the bag with her mat.  The bag was so quick and fun, I made another for myself (photos to come).

Oh, and Jennie?  She saw the bag and guessed right away that I was her Secret Sis...and she's been using her bag for every class since!

monkey boy draws a portrait of his big brother

easter goodness

The weather yesterday was GORGEOUS....a slight ocean breeze and lots of beautiful sun. Perfect for spending the morning engaged in our neighborhood Easter Egg hunt. This year we split the kids up into "big kids" and "little kids", so that the toddlers would have an easier time picking up eggs. We started the big kids on one side of the cul-de-sac and the little ones on the other. The big kids lined up in the middle of the street and had to hop to the lawn to start their egg hunt:

Monkey Boy was quite sure that he was a 'big kid' and not one of the 'little kids'-

He did a good job of finding lots of eggs:

Little Man got quite the haul of eggs- he had one of the fullest baskets! After the kids had found all the eggs, it was time to sit down and see what was inside...

Lots of yummy candy, lots of quarters, and fun stuff like lip balm and bouncy balls.

I got the small men to sit down for a quick brotherly portrait....I love how they hug each other when I ask them to smile for me.

One of our neighbors was kind enough to take a family photo for us...

My mom, stepdad, sister and BIL arrived not long after the egg hunt was over. We had planned to have brunch here at the house so we wouldn't have to hassle with going out and dealing with buffets and crowds. My mom brought a HUGE Honeybaked ham (which I still have tons of- I foresee lots of split pea soup and ham sanniches in our future LOL). Sis and BIL brought along a bunch of different beers from a micro brewery in Carlsbad. I'm not much of a beer drinker, but the Dearest said the two beers he tried were very good. My contribution to brunch was this delicious fruit tart:

My knitter-friend Karen had served a tart like this at a spinning-meet she hosted a couple of weeks ago, and it was soooo good! I knew I had to make one for Easter...I followed the recipe pretty much except for using 1/3 fat cream cheese for the filling instead of full fat cream cheese.

It looks really complicated but it incredibly easy to make. The most time-consuming part was cutting and arranging the fruit!  The whole tart disappeared, down to the crumbs, once I brought it out. Yum!

After brunch, Sis and BIL had a chance to sit and talk for a bit before driving back to Vegas. It was nice to just sit on the sunny back patio, chatting and enjoying the weather.

I hope your Easter was just as lovely!

orchids

A friend of the Dearest's is an orchid fanatic-he has a greenhouse in his yard where he keeps all his precious 'babies'.  When we visited his house a few weeks ago, he gave me a small potted plant. It was an orchid that he had propagated himself. Last week the orchid started blooming and now it's covered with tiny little blossoms:



Isn't it pretty?