Pink Confetti

I'm officially hooked on Pinterest!  I love finding items that others have cut up and repurposed into better, more likely to wear items.  So I decided it was time to take some scissors to some clothes and see what I could make. I started with solving a problem:  Nursing Shirts are super expensive. This is how I solved this problem. Tank turned into easy access nursing tank I started with an Old Navy maternity tank top I held up a string to see about where I wanted to cut, while wearing it, and marked it with safety pins since I couldn't find the fabric pen.   Note to self buy fabric pen. Safety pins make the cut line Since these tanks are pretty cheap I decided to sew the elastic on first and cut second.  I took some elastic lace off a pair of underwear that I never wore and used that for the top piece. Elastic Lace above the cut line Elastic below the cut line With both pieces sewn on, ...

Instead of writing about my stories, I'm going to write about my mom. Mom and Cash Today is my mom's birthday.  Yes, she was a December baby and so am I, we are 30 years and 2 days apart.  I was a bleated birthday present. There are so many things I have learned from my mom. When I was little she gave me the love of learning.  Since my mom was a librarian she loved books and learning new things.  We were always making trips to the Mukilteo Library to check out books.  My mom loved to read to me and even taught me how to read.  Over the years reading and learning new things has been a constant in my life.  I still love to go to the library and check out a stack of books.  I am doing my best to pass this on to my children. As I grew older she helped me find my creativity.  There were always lots of crayons and paper to color with and fabric to hide under.  We would decorate cardboard boxes and she would make me cute ...

It was time, time to clean and organize my closet.  I've been meaning to organize it since before Charlotte was born and yesterday it happened. I should have taken a before but it was really bad.  There were piles of shirts, sweatshirts, work clothes, jammies, sweaters, hangers full of skirts, dresses, shirts and jackets.  I'd say I only wear about 25% or less of what's in my closet. I had pre-Samuel and pre-Charlotte clothes as well as some pre-Tyrone clothes.  Halloween costumes, my wedding dress, dresses I wore to other people's weddings, and more. Because of my new obsession, Pinterest, I looked at each item coming out and tried to figure out if I could save it.  I tried almost everything on and thought outside the box.  I now have some great ideas and will be attempting to repurpose as much of my wardrobe as possible. I have always loved playing with fabric, it's genetic.  My Grandma B sewed lots of her own clothes, and my Grandm...

Last week my sister finally explained Pinterest, and I am hooked. I have always been kinda crafty and I like to sew but lacked inspiration.  In less than two weeks I have completed 5+ projects I found on Pinterest. Today I'm posting my Truffles. Candy Cane Peppermint Chocolate Truffles 3 cups Chocolate Chips, melted 1 8oz package Cream Cheese, softened 3 cups Powdered Sugar 2 tsp Peppermint Extract 6 Candy Canes, crushed Melt the chocolate on low heat.  Add peppermint extract. Blend cream cheese and suger until smooth. Stir chocolate into cream cheese/sugar blend. Place in fridge for about an hour, take out and form balls, roll balls in crushed candy canes.  I crushed mine in my Pampered Chef Chopper and it worked great. I popped them back in the fridge to have them set. Peanut Butter Chocolate Truffles 1 cup Chocolate Chips 2 T Peanut Butter 2 T Coconut Oil 2 cups Powdered Sugar Microwave chocolate, peanut butter and oil until melted. ...

My Stories, Part V On Tuesdays I'm answering questions from  My Mom. Her Stories. Her Words. Today's Question Mom, when you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? The first thing I remember wanting to be was a nurse.  I think it was cause I was given a nurse kit at some point.  I would diagnose my stuffed animals and wear a nurse hat.  That didn't last too long. I also loved to play with office supplies, granted I still do.  New pens, and a new notebook are just yummy.  I loved the start of every quarter cause it ment new notebooks and school supplies. I'm sure somewhere in there I wanted to be a mom too. When you were a teenager? This is a tough one....  I started college at 16 doing running start with a math and science emphasis because I wanted to be a Veterinarian.  Mostly because I loved my dog and liked learning about animals.  I stayed on this track for about a year until one our cats died and ...

My Stories, Part V On Tuesdays I'm answering questions from  My Mom. Her Stories. Her Words. Today's Question Mom, who were your favorite pets, and what made them special? What a great question.  I have had 6 cats and 1 dog, and each as has been an adventure. Pepper I and Pepper II I don't remember which was first but one was from PAWS and one was from a neighbor's cat. We went to PAWS to pick out a kitten and found Pepper.  She was black and white with white socks.  I don't think she lasted a year.  Sadly our neighborhood backed up to woods and coyotes lived there. The next Pepper looked about the same except the socks.  We tried to keep her inside but she escaped one day. Maxi-Cat, Marshmallow and Cinder These three cats were litter mates.  We had originally wanted their mother but she wasn't available.  Her kiddos were lots of fun. Maxi-Cat was the oldest and the biggest but...

My Stories, Part IV On Tuesdays I'm answering questions from My Mom. Her Stories. Her Words. Today's Question Mom, what where some of the best presents you received when you were a kid? Part II Since I only mentioned one gift last week, I decided to do a part II. The other best present was my Cabbage Patch Kid.  Since this story takes place when I'm 4 the details might be fuzzy.  This story was triggered by watching home movies last weekend at the cabin. In 1984, there was a lot of change.  I was getting a baby sister, turning 5, my parents added on to our house, and I wanted the most popular toy.  My friend had gotten one for her birthday and she wouldn't even let me touch it. One day my friend and her cabbage patch were over for a playdate.  I was so upset that I didn't have a Cabbage Patch that I started crying.  My mom said we should stop and pray that I would get a cabbage patch.  It would take an answer to prayer for ...

My Stories, Part III On Tuesdays, I'm answering questions from  My Mom. Her Stories. Her Words. Today's Question Mom, what were some of the best presents you received when you were a kid? Wow, I'm not even sure where to start.  This could be such an easy, fluff question or a much deeper question.  What's so odd is while gifts is not one of my love languages, I love to give gifts. When I read this question the first gift that came to mind was, Cash.  Not the money but the puppy. My dog, Cash, at my feet I loved dogs as a little girl, my first puppy love was for Rex.  Rex was the neighbors dog, they got him as a puppy when I was about 2 or 3.  He was allowed to run free in both are yards and I have many memories of throwing a slobbery tennis ball for him.  When I was 8 we moved, there weren't any dogs in our new neighborhood and I wanted a dog. So like any 8 year old I asked my parents, and they sa...

My Stories, Part II On Tuesdays, I'm answering questions from My Mom. Her Stories. Her Words. Today's Question Mom, what was your favorite holiday as a child, and how did your family celebrate it? My favorite holiday is actually a month, the month of December. December holds so many wonderful memories.  There are the birthdays, the partys, the family, and Christmas Day. We started out the month on the 1st by turning on the Christmas Lights!  My dad was very specific the lights went on on the 1st and off after our New Year's Eve party.  The hardest part was some years they went up on Thanksgiving weekend and we had to wait to turn them on.  For a few years, we had a huge party and invited everyone, family, friends and neighbors.  December was our month and we celebrated all month long. Our family had lots of birthdays in December, in fact all of our birthdays are in December. Grandpa H starts out the two week cel...

On Monday I went back to work, and our family started a new normal. Going back to work was exciting!  Ten weeks is a long time and there were so many new people to work with.  But I fit back in and had a blast working.  My shifts are only 4 hours and seem to fly by. After my 4 hours I headed home to find my family and see how they were without Mommy.  I walked in the door to find Tyrone and Charlotte sleeping and Samuel quietly playing in his room.  After changing back in to my jammies, we all headed to the kitchen for family breakfast. I've come to realization that as much as I want family dinners, they don't work for our family.  With our schedule dinner together is almost impossible.  Tyrone has club 2-3 nights a week and there are our Bible study nights.  We do eat breakfast together every morning.  Tyrone gets up and makes breakfast, sometimes it's eggs and toast, or omelets or waffles.  We all sit down at the table and eat to...

My friend gave me this cool book when Samuel was born called My Mom, Her Stories. Her Words. I never filled out the pages and now that I have two kids, I thought my blog would be a better way to answer the questions.  This way both kids can read about me.  I'm thinking of answering a question every week. Today's Question Mom, what kind of house did you grow up in, and what was the old neighborhood like? My parents bought their first house in Everett a year before I was born.  It was a cute 1 story built in the 60s off of Mukilteo Blvd.  It had 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and a toilet in the laundry room.  There was a big back yard with a large garden, greenhouse, and lots of fruit trees.  The front yard had beautiful flowering cherry trees. I'm not sure how old I was but my parents redid the kitchen and added on a master bedroom.  My dad built a huge deck in the back yard and painted his old swing set hot pink and black. Mom, Grandma...

I love museums! This is probably due to the fact that my mom was a history major and drug us to tons of museums.  I was also home-schooled for kindergarten and 1st grade as well as 5th and 6th grade, and museums are a great way to learn history.  I probably can't even remember all the museums I've been too. Some museums that stand out are:  Museum of History and Industry in Seattle, The Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wy, The Smithsonian in DC and The Children's Museum in Seattle. When I was little we went to Seattle a lot, or at least it seemed like a lot.  There were trips to UW to see where Mom and Dad had met.  Trips to Seattle Center and The Pacific Science Center. Seattle Center was always so much fun.  The monorail is there, the fudge shop is there, they hold cool learn to dance events there and the Children's Museum is in the basement. I loved going to the Children's Museum.  I don't remember how many time we went but it was so...

This past weekend we were at the cabin enjoying some family time.  Since my mom was there and making lots of smoothies, I thought I'd document how to make one. My mom has two blenders, a Blendtec at the cabin and a Vita-Mix at home.  I use a Kitchen Aid but I'd like to save up for a Blendtec. How to Make a Green Smoothie... Start with some yummy fruits And some greens Today's smoothie had 1 cup frozen blueberries and a mango a banana and Rainbow Chard Put all the ingredients in the blender plus about a cup of water We also added some Spirulina And Blend We added a little lemon after a trial sip Two very yummy smoothies! To create your own recipe use 2 cups of Greens, 2 cups of Fruit and 1 cup of Water.

Tonight, Tyrone took Charlotte to run errands, so that left me and Samuel to spend time together.  First we had to clean the kitchen and pick up toys, then it was time to make cookies. Samuel is Ready! Samuel loves cookies and watching me work in the kitchen, so tonight I combined the two to make Snickerdoodles.  I haven't had very good luck making GF Snickerdoodles, they always seemed to run.  One time I improvised and made them in muffin tins, they kinda looked like reverse volcanos.  Thanks to the yummy ones my friend Megan made, I thought I'd give them one more try. I used this recipe from Betty Crocker,  Snickerdoodles , I just modified it with Brown Rice Flour and Xanthan Gum.  I think the Xanthan Gum was key,  I'd been out for a while and finally had some, what a difference. Snickerdoodle Recipe 1 Cup Butter 1 1/2 Cups Sugar Cream Together 2 Eggs Creamed and ready for flo...