Archive for July, 2008

If you think this post is a lesson in knitting, you’ve come to the wrong place. Turn around now, save yourself. This will be however, a lesson in patience, fine motor skills and my quick fire temper. You see when I write about things like I’d like to learn to knit, I don’t really expect people to take me seriously. Like, of course I’d like to learn to knit, but now? Like right now? Oh shoot. My mouth sure does get me in trouble some times.

So sweet, sweet Courtney… my new bloggy friend and local Austinite sent me a lovely email telling me she’d like to teach me to knit. Well isn’t that dandy. She decided to call my bluff. I’m a terrible gambler. And an even worse knitter. It all seemed fine… the idea of knitting that is. Sitting around with my new friend, looking cool with my new fancy yarn and sticks. And I would say to people “of course I can knit, I’m one crafty mama.” Ha. Blah.

It all started out okay. I was instructed to get good yarn, not the cheap stuff at Michaels or the Lobby, so we ventured down to South Congress for a little afternoon soiree at Hill Country Weavers. And look at that, a cupcake stand across the street well we have to get one!

Fancy yarn in hand, vintage knitting books by my side, I’m ready to knit. Shoot, look at her face. If she can knit, surely I can figure this out. She looks confident right?!?

And then with this book, this kid screaming at me like that. Bring it on baby, bring it on!

I have all of my supplies and then the pattern arrives via email. We’re going to make a baby hat (not for me by the way). Well, I was feeling confident until the pattern was in Japanese. Not really, but I can’t read a pattern so it might as well had been in Japanese. So now I’m feeling deflated. I can’t do it. I’m feeling short of breath. Getting lightheaded.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

Why is my son wearing an Easter bonnet and a tutu? Sorry. I got distracted. The life of being the younger brother. Ironic since this is a post about our Disney World Bippity Boppity Boutique, they slip you crack, experience.

So back in May when we took the family to Disney World we considered all of our ‘extra’ options. What character dining meals to purchase, what events to attend, what park to go to each day… What we didn’t consider was that no amount of pre-planning can prepare you for all that Disney throws at you.

We got there and were immediately immersed in the culture, wearing our mouse-ears and singing It’s a Small World. I even considered purchasing Mickey Mouse head shaped plates. Because, you know, you need a plate like that to separate all of the food. Crack. I guess I forgot to check my sanity at the entrance gates because upon entering the Magic Kingdom I immediately felt that Makena would be missing out on a major part of the ‘Disney experience’ if she did not get to do the Bippity Boppity Boutique. One quick phone call later, a last minute cancellation answered my prayers to the Disney Gods. We were booked for a Boutique experience.

Want to see what we got ourselves into?

A little bit of this.

And a little bit of that.

And even more of this.

Just add water and you too can have your very own princess.

To make matters worse when Makena met The Fairy Godmother, she said “why you look just like Cinderella in a Snow White dress.” Then I guess at Disney training the worker mice are instructed to address every little girl who had the boutique experience as ‘princess.’ So for the rest of the day, it was ‘well, hello princess.’ All. Day. Long.

I’m still picking the glitter out of her clothes from that day. And wondering how on earth they suck you in and spit you out.

Note: Please don’t let any of this Disney banter fool you or discourage you from the experience. Like a good addict, we will return to get another fix. Probably sooner rather than later. Peace out.

My favorite little dress.

I made it this weekend for a custom Etsy order. If only the adult dresses were easier to come by I’d have a shop full of them.

A little something to take you into the weekend. Consider it my little mid-summer happy hour gift to you.

chikaustin margaritas

• 1 can limeade
• 1 limeade can full of tequila
• 1/2 limeade can full of triple sec (orange liquer)

Get out your trusty blender. Pour entire can of limeade into the mixer. Pour tequila into limeade can until it reaches the top. Pour into blender. Pour triple sec into limeade can until it reaches half way. Pour into blender. Mix. Now pour out half of your mix into another pitcher/cup. With half the remaining mix, fill the entire blender with ice. Blend. You will now have one pitcher of super yummy margaritas. Put the rest of the mix in the fridge and blend it with ice when you are ready for another pitcher. You might want to label the container so that other family members do not mistake this for juice. This has happened at our house and was caught just in time. It makes apx. 8 margaritas! Concentrate.

You can add strawberries, mangoes or fruit of your choice, before the ice, to your mix to make flavored margaritas.

Have a great weekend friends!

It’s dinner time and Makena is bouncing around the kitchen saying “I can hip and scop, hip and scop, hip and scop.” It takes me a second, but I soon realize what she means is skip and hop. Aaahhh the mind of a three year old.

With all of this talk about sustainable living and the planet, I’ve started giving some serious thought into what I feed my family. The above picture is not my family by the way. It was just feeding time along the Texas roadside and the perfect family dinner portrait.

I’ve been searching online, asking friends and hitting up the bookstore looking for new recipes. I took a night to myself this week and popped a squat in a comfy chair at the bookstore… all by myself… to peruse some cookbooks. After a few glances at the cost of these cookbooks I quickly got out my composition notebook, I love school supplies, and started copying recipes. Is this legal? Aw shucks, who cares. I’m trying to feed my family here.

I copied a few recipes and then got a few ideas of cookbooks to check out of the library. With my newly acquired knowledge and our recent trip to the library I was able to check out one cookbook by Jamie Oliver :: Cook with Jamie and another by Nigella Lawson :: How to Eat. Both of these books are now full of sticky notes of recipes I need to copy. I would think at this point they are worth purchasing, at a second hand bookstore.

Last night we had a recipe I copied from one of Jamie’s cookbooks and it was delish. In the middle of dinner, Makena leaned over to me and said “you know mommy, sometimes kids just don’t like vegetables,” just as she was putting another snow pea into her mouth. Strange these little three year old creatures are, very strange.

Since I took the time to copy it down, I might as well pass it on. Here is a great, healthy, easy recipe that the entire family will love. Courtesy of Jamie Oliver of course.

Salmon Escalopes with Watercress, Sugar Snaps and Avocado

• 2T. rice vinegar
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 t. sugar
• 2 t. wok oil (I used evoo)
• 4 c. watercress
• 1 c. sugar snap peas
• 1 small avocado

Cook salmon. I cook my salmon with a little olive oil, sea salt and lemon. Whisk rice vinegar, sugar, salt, oil - drizzle on salmon. Drizzle oil/vinegar mixture over watercress, avocado and snap peas. I served this with Rice-a-Roni parmesan and romano rice. They have an all-natural version out. It’s yummy.

So what are you cooking these days? Any great cookbook recommendations???

Thanks to Hurricane Dolly it feels a little bit like fall. We know the cool damp weather won’t last but we enjoy it while it’s here. A welcome relief from the stifling summer heat. I turned to Miles this morning and said ‘you know, if the weather was always like this I could live here.’ Ha. We do live here. All of the time. A woman can dream can’t she?!?

So we ventured out this week to the library. It was our first family trip and it was a hit! I gave Makena the option of swimming in our backyard or the library and she screamed ‘library’! That’s my girl! As we turned the corner and she could see the library she screamed. Serious. Who screams when they see the library?

When we walked into the library both kids made a mad dash to the kids section. Before I could catch up to them they had stripped the shelves of several books and had quite a mountainous pile on a little table. They were in library heaven. I even walked away with some cookbooks that I had been eyeing at the bookstore but didn’t want to shell out $35 for.

Another tiny step toward saving the planet. Now where’s my cape???

A couple of weeks ago I was checking my email when I stumbled upon an email from a writer at Ohdeedoh. It was an email, addressed to me, wanting to feature Makena’s room on their site. What? Stop the press. Me? Little old me from Austin, Texas? I was speechless. Honored. Humbled. Appreciative. I think I even did a little shimmy shake dance around the living room. The kids joined in. The dogs ran circles around us. And we all passed out in a blogland stupor.

Her room was featured today on Ohdeedoh and I can’t begin to tell you how exciting this is for me!! Go on, have a look!

So if you are new here by way of Ohdeedoh… welcome, bonjour, hola, ciao! Good to see you. Thanks for stopping by!

Baby steps to design school. Baby steps.

We were able to spend the weekend in San Antonio with our family. There were lots of grandma and grandpa snuggles, playtime with the cousins and just good ‘ole family time. Picnics in the front yard. Family holiday road trips planned. Cooking. Fishing. Playing.

A while back I commissioned… (ahem) I asked a friend to help me make a new bag. Simply because I can’t sew at that level. Yet. Well, I haven’t actually tried, but it’s the following directions in a pattern that gets me every time. It’s the following directions period that I have a problem with, but that’s a whole other post all together.

The bag just arrived and I can’t get enough of it. Thank you, thank you, thank you Sarah. If you haven’t met Sarah, you are really missing out. Go ahead, go and say hello. She’s my friend, confidante, role model, nutritionist, therapist and life coach. She’s one rock star mama! I can only strive to be as cool as her when I grow up.

Another thing that I’m loving right now is this necklace I ordered on Etsy a while back. I first saw this type of necklace on Heidi Klum in an interview and immediately fell in love with it. I found an artist on Etsy and had her make a custom piece for me with the names of everyone in our little family on silver disks. I can’t begin to tell you how much I love this necklace. Adds a little bit of bling to my everyday wardrobe don’t you think?!?

A day filled with a flurry of activity getting ready for daddy’s birthday. Dishes washed, a cake baked, a card made, presents wrapped and colored and decorations hung. A wonderful day spent with my little ones to show daddy how much he means to all of us. Happy birthday love.

Today we are loading up the car and hitting the road for a little road-trip. Have a wonderful weekend friends.

I had a dream the other day. Actually it was a daydream, but for storytelling purposes lets go with the dream. In this dream we packed up and moved to Europe so that I could attend design school. Yes, you read that correctly. I packed up the family and we flew across the pond so that I could go to design school. In say… Sweden. How cool would that be!?!

As a child I was always moving my furniture around, changing the art on my walls and also helping my mom with her interior decorating. I would move a sofa so fast you wouldn’t know what hit you. I’d have the hammer and nails out in a flash to hang new art. Actually it was more like Kirk Cameron and Corey Haim posters from Bop magazine but who’s counting. My idea of a good time was shopping for new furniture for my room. And I was only in elementary school.

Had I only known then that you could make a living doing that I would have followed that yellow brick road. Instead, as life has it, I was led into sports where I eventually went to college on a basketball scholarship. And I went to school in a very tiny Texas town that was all about agriculture and the rodeo. Needless to say I don’t think design was a choice as a major. What’s a girl to do… major in communcations that’s what. You can do anything with a comm. degree. So they said.

So now that I’m into my thirties and have lived my first life as a teacher, I long and thirst for something more. I oogle over design books, blogs and flickr pictures. The stark white design of Sweden is such a long way from where we are here in Austin, Texas. But oh how I love it. The simplicity of it all.

Since I can’t pack up and move to Europe to pursue my dreams I have a tendency to put my mind at work around our house. Pictures, furniture and children are moved on a regular basis. Just until I get it just right, only to find a new idea and move things all over again. Having gotten Makena’s room all done I was ready to move on to Keegan’s room. Since he’s almost two and got a new big boy bed it was the perfect opportunity to turn his nursery into a toddler room. The first thing I did was take all of the pictures off of his wall and everything off of the shelves. I needed to start with a blank slate. Then I got down on the floor, at his level, and layed there for a while. Thinking about what this space should be.

Here is a little tour for you of his space.

The bed we found at Ikea. I know, go ahead and say it ‘it looks like a girls bed,’ but I was immediately drawn to it because it looked like an antique bed. I couldn’t resist. The art above his bed are pages framed from Where the Wild Things Are. On top of his toy chest are his first pair of cowboy boots. This is Texas after all. The quilt was made by my great-grandmother and handed down to us. I think Keegan’s bed is the perfect place for it. Lovingly handmade in the early 1900’s. I’m getting sappy just thinking about it.

His shelves are full of things that I love, but he just can’t play with yet. I’ve collected some of the vintage toys at garage sales, estate sales and thrift stores. Some of the other things like the dala horse and Pinnochio duo were mine. My husband brought the Kremlin model back from Russia when he visited as a kid.

I created a corner for him to play and relax. I put together a basket full of books. Since he’s a book tosser, I can’t have a bookshelf in his room just yet.

Above his play corner is all of his art. His own little art gallery that I can add to as he gets older and creates some of his own art. Yes, that is a stuffed animal buffalo head on his wall. The rocket was painted by a friend. Another friend created his name art on the wall. Inside the letters are all of the details of his first year of life. The other framed items are from vintage books.

Here is his view to the rest of the world. The dresser was used in his nursery as a changing table, but since he now weighs more than his three year old sister there is no more lifting him up there. I’m really happy with the way his room turned out. As he walked into it this evening, his face lit up. He immediately climbed into and out of his bed. Then made his way over to the book basket and picked out his favorite dinosaur book. As he sat in that corner and snuggled the puppy dog with his book, I knew he liked it. And that’s really all that matters after all.