My husband is a very inside the box thinker -- he's practical, calculated, deliberate, purposeful...you get the picture, he's a very 'type A' personality -- which makes him perfect, in my opinion, for the military and as my husband! Sometimes, I think he is so far inside the box that he is actually outside of it! Which is why I shouldn't have been so dumbfounded by the genius of this: It's so simple, so obvious -- poke a straw through the foil of a yogurt cup and voila! no mess!!! Why didn't I think of this!? Why would this have NEVER, in a million and one years, even crossed my train of thought!? I thought I was supposed to be the creative one!? Even more concerning was the matter-of fact way my husband took out the yogurt and plopped in a straw....as if we had been poking straws through yogurt foil our entire parenthood! Quite the contrary actually, before this stroke of genius swept through our kitchen, I literally planned my kids' yogurt consumption around 1. what outfits they were wearing 2. how close we were to bath time 3. whether or not there was any chance someone from the public might see my kids after they ate their yogurt....
I just stood there, with my jaw on the floor, stunned. My husband just cured my yogurt heartburn!! It was as if I fell in love all over! And him, none the wiser, stood there with a giant grin on his face, loving the the fact that he, in the blink of an eye (and probably, oddly, without much forethought) just became my hero, again! ...It's not often he's able to out 'McGyver' me :) And who knows, maybe you all are reading this right now, and saying 'duh, i've been doing that since the beginning of time...' But to me, it's news! Wonderful news! Now, I will bravely walk up to the dairy case and grab 'regular' yogurt, breaking my strict Danimal/Gogurt policy (because they are the least messy of all the yogurts). I will confidently poke that straw through the foil of a Yoplait and leave it in front of my toddlers, no longer having to hold the straw in the cup or spoon feed it to them. Heck, I may even start taking yogurt with me in the car as a snack! Yes, I am THAT excited about this :)
Now, if my husband could contrive a way to get spaghetti from the plate to the mouth without half of it ending up on the floor, walls and ceiling....
Here is my latest project! A handmade, cotton canvas, growth chart! My mom gave us an adorable handmade growth chart from an online store after my daughter was born -- it has been the greatest gift! The gift that keeps on giving, if you will :) I decided that I could attempt to duplicate the chart my mom gave me, with a few style/design changes to make it uniquely 'The Spotted Lamb'....
Unlike a lot of retail growth charts, the chart I made is longer, (records up to 60 inches) more user friendly, (the cotton canvas easily records measurements/dates with a quilting/fabric pen) and perhaps most important for our constantly moving, military family, they roll-up in a snap and are easily transported from one place to the next!
This was my first attempt at making a growth chart...I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out! I recently gifted this one to my brother and sister-in-law, who are expecting their first child in a few short weeks!!!
I am now excited to make two more charts for my boys (eventually...) and am very glad to have another idea to add to my 'what to give for a baby shower gift?!' stash! The good news is, that I have enough fabric from this project to make another! Visit the listing for this adorable handmade growth chart in my Etsy store if you are interested! Have a great weekend!!
My love for houndstooth runs deep. Something about it just mesmerizes me...
Here's a sneak-peek at a quilt I am working on.... I am using this absolute show-stopper houndstooth fabric I found in grey, coupled with a solid grey cotton.... to create these equally mesmerizing double hour-glass quilt blocks.... I am only about a third of the way through making these blocks, so I hope I am not jinxing myself by saying.... that I'm so happy with how well it is coming together! The corners are aligning like no one's business!
Stay tuned...
Ok, brace yourself for what I am about to confess....ready? I had never tasted a lentil until last month.....yes, yes, I know. In this era of healthy eating and super foods, I wrote lentils off as being one of those 'health nut' foods that surely was not going to taste good or be easy to prepare....kind of like how I still see quinoa, flax seed and all of those other 'odd' grains/legumes/mystery foods....
Surprisingly enough though, lentils were on a normal rotation for my boys when I prepared their baby food....I guess I just never took the plunge and tasted them myself...Anyway, I had a bag of lentils left over from the boys' baby food days and needed a way to get rid of them. I turned to my trusted food site: allrecipes.com and found a hugely popular/highly rated recipe for lentil soup. The ingredients sounded delicious and I had everything on hand -- great! There was just one problem....convincing my husband that lentil soup was not going to kill him....My husband, like a lot of men out there, thinks that meatless meals do not quite classify as 'real' meals, and this lentil soup recipe was not only meatless, but made of.....well, lentils. So that night, he walks in and says 'it smells great in here.' To which I said 'thanks, I made lentils soup for dinner!' ........(chirp.....chirp.....) Husband: 'oh, that sounds good' (as he's trying to hide the confusion on his face) We sit down, in front of a giant bowl of steaming hot lentils, and my husband takes the first, hesitant bite (I already knew it was a great dish because I had taste-tested during cooking :)) -- and what was his response??? 'Thanks babe, this is really good.' Sure, he could have been giving me the party line, but a few more bites, and the sentiment was repeated -- after his second go-back I was convinced he really did like the recipe :)
So the other night, I decided to make the lentil soup recipe again, only this time, to throw my husband a bone, I decided to add some crumbled sausage.....hooray!! It was great! I actually preferred the soup without the meat, but it tasted great with it too. Here is the recipe I used -- and as the description says, it is easy and completely flexible. Again, I didn't measure any ingredients, just eyeballed it both times I made it, and both times it turned out great. Some changes I made though: 1. I left the lentils whole (did not puree at the end)2. I used double the amount of lentils, but kept the broth measurement the same, I wanted a more stew/chili like consistency. I did need to add a little water while cooking to keep the lentils from drying out...so keep a eye on that.3. Try not to look at the picture on the allrecipes site...to me it was pretty unappetizing. Yours will look better...I promise.
Since I am no lentil expert, I have no clue if these are 'red lentils' or not?? I'm guessing, not, since they appear to be green and not red ... :) they still tasted great!
As you can see, I don't have any pictures of the finished product....it was gone before I remembered to snap one! This recipe has won a coveted spot in my recipe binder (enveloped in a plastic sleeve cover and everything! ...the greatest award for a recipe in this house) -- Hope you give this one a try, have a great weekend!
Ok, so my last post got me really excited about making hair bows again...I know, it doesn't take much to get me excited these days! :/ Anyway, I made a quick trip to Michaels yesterday to scope out what they had to offer in their clearance bins, hoping to find some things I could turn into hair bows. I ended up leaving with an arm full of discounted scrap booking 'trinkets' (sorry to any of you who scrap book...I am not sure what the real term for 'trinkets' would be???) and fake flowers covered in glitter -- perfect!
I spent last night, plopped on the living room floor in front of the TV with my husband and all of my finds, gluing hair bows and catching-up on the last two episodes of The Amazing Race. After an hour of mindless work (it was actually very relaxing) I ended up with 15 new bows (3 of which I am passing on to my daughter's friend, so they can match!). I'm pretty excited!
My daughter chose this one to wear first
This was a very easy project -- just glue and stick! The hardest part of the whole thing was trying to get the flowers out of their packaging! Here are some of the other bows I made last night.
I have had a love of art my whole life -- I've always been drawn to anything involving imagination and creation. But, I attribute my latest 'artistic flare-up' to my daughter. When I found out our first child was going to be a girl, I immediately went into a tailspin of ideas thinking if all the wonderful things I could make for her room, her clothes and....her hair bows! My neighbor at the time, was also expecting her first child, a girl, around the same time I was due. She was actually the one to fuel the fire, by cluing me in on how to make baby hair bows, and for that I am forever grateful, because that is where it all began....hair bows turned into burp cloths and blankets, which turned into rompers, which then turned into quilts....
Now that my daughter's head has grown, it has become the perfect backdrop for the most obnoxiously girly hair bows you have ever seen!! Here is my latest creation from a scrap of tule I found in the fabric store's discount bin and a giant decorative rhinestone (also from the discount bin). When my daughter first saw this bow she said 'oh.my.gosh. I looooove it!' Ah, the things that make me smile :) This was the first bow I had made in a long time. I stopped making hair bows when my daughter was about 2 years old because she was in the 'I'm going to do what I want to do just to make you mad' phase and would rip all her bows out of her hair and stick them right into her mouth and proceed to chew them to shreds.....yeah. So now that that phase is well behind us, and my daughter is actually excited to wear things in her hair, I think I might get back on the bow making train!
Babies, babies everywhere! It seems that there has been a population explosion among my friends over the past 2 years, which is wonderful because I love seeing all of their children's gorgeous faces, swapping war stories and knowing that I have trusted back-up when one of those 'what the heck am I supposed to do about X!?' moments pops up!
One of my closest friends, not close because I talk to her all the time or know what's happening at that exact moment in her life, but close because I feel like no matter the time or distance that passes between us, we would pick up in the exact spot we left off (maybe just a little less rowdy though...wink wink), recently added to her brood and welcomed a beautiful baby girl to the world!
In celebration, I made her this lovely tumbler quilt! The fabrics I used, are some of my most favoritest (yes, it's a word! ...for this instance at least) I have worked with -- I just love the color combinations and the fabric patterns together! I was so nervous to start this quilt. I had pictured in my mind how I wanted it to look, and I was so worried I was going to goof-it-up and not have enough fabric to start over. Luckily, it all came together as I had imagined :) My daughter couldn't resist -- she had to make sure it worked before we sent it away :)
I mentioned before that I was thinking of making these for Halloween -- and I did! This time I got my husband and daughter in on the decorating and we all had a great time! My husband took some with him to work on Monday and again, they were a huge hit!
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