Site Title

 Umbrella's in the car 
Mama's pajama bottoms
Life is so good.  

Henry's been practically begging for a Jedi Robe for, oh I don't know, about the last six months. His friend Jake had a birthday party on Saturday and so we decided that semi-matching Jedi robes were the way to go. They absolutely could not be the same color because (shame on me) they wouldn't be able to 'duel' each other.
 I googled "Jedi Robe Pattern" and found these instructions. They seemed pretty doable. I did a test mock- up and had completely cut the arms too close and he ended up looking like a wizard instead of a jedi. So round 2 was Jake's robe and I cut the arms much wider and they turned out pretty good. Henry is pretty tall for his age so I ended up getting about 2 1/2 yards for each robe and just cut Jake's robe a bit shorter. 
 That's 100% polyester baby! I could never get the hoods to match up exactly to the neck holes (which I didn't measure- just eyeballed) so their are pleats on both robes. The instructions say you can cut the hood 12"x24" or if you want a bigger hood you can cut the hood 16" x 32". Jakes robe is has a 12"x24" hood and Henry's (the black robe) has a hood that is 16"x32"; you can see the difference on the top picture. I like them both for different reasons. The brown hood is a great fit for a child's robe and the black larger, oversized hood looks more like the evil emperor (or so I am told.) Henry has also decided he would like a brown one so I will probably make that one with the smaller hood. All in all, an easy pattern to follow and you can sew one of these up in about 2 hours or less making it the perfect nap time project. Oh and the polyester was on sale for 50% off at Joann making this robe less than $10 to make. I always print off the Joann 40% off coupon on-line before heading into the store just incase the fabric is not on sale. 

Henry insisted on wearing his robe to bed. My heart melted.

 Homemade Fish Taco's from this months MS Everyday Food (on the cover.)
Quick and easy, only about 10 minutes to make.
 You should totally make them for dinner tonight. We might just have them again!

Happy Monday!

xo

 and we celebrated by making fish taco's and going to the beach. I finally got Charlie to the Dr. and this monkey weighs about 14 lbs 10 oz. I can't remember the exact height. It was a beautiful day until we actually got to the beach and it was chilly and overcast. 
 Much too cold for anxious little toes to jump in the water, so we moved to plan B:
 playing in the sand and
 collecting sticks. Oh well, there's always next time.
 

My sister & her husband (we'll call him Rick) are in town for a few days. They knew how badly I had been wanting to get our little backyard in order (weeded, cleaned-up, and finally move the bucket of wheat that has been sitting out there for 3 months, etc.,.) and took it upon themselves to start today while I had Charlie & Henry at the Dr's office. They worked their little tails off, I tell ya. In between nursings and naps I tried to help out where I could (read: I wasn't much help at all.) This is 1/2 of the backyard.  The other half includes a 12' x12' space  which is dirt, along with a walkway. I contemplated putting sod in, but I don't think we get enough direct sunlight for it to really thrive. So much better, isn't it? I'll try to get some pictures of the other side. I can't wait to get some color in there. We are going to get the children a wood playhouse next month for their birthdays which will take up some of the 12×12 space but I don't know what to put down- maybe those wood chip things? I need some recommendations for plants that do well in shade. We only have a few hours a day of full sun back here, so I think something that will thrive in shade. I'd love to get lots of flowers in so let me know if you have something that you like & that works. I'm excited to expand my gardening horizons beyond this:which I can't even take credit for, it's Henrys! 

I got a bunch of home depot gift cards for my birthday and I'm planning on heading there on Thurs. to get flowers/plants to plant over the weekend so if you can pass along your gardening advice (working with the partial sun I have) I would be ever so grateful. I'd love to know what works for you. Thanks in advance!! 

Have you ever bought something based on it's awesome packaging? I did this week. I couldn't resist this green vintage ice-cream meets it's-a-small-world packaging. And I don't even like ice cream.But it's a week full of birthday's, didn't you know? This little blog here turned 4 on Tuesday. 4 years I've been blogging. wow. I remember it like yesterday. So a celebration was in order. It's such an interesting combination, these ice-cream sammys. I would have never thought to put mint ice-cream with oatmeal cookies- but it's so good. The dark chocolate is actually what sold me. We are die-hards when it comes to dark-chocolate.  

And because today is my birthday, Henry & I took the last ice-cream sandwich out to the patio and split it while Charlie & Kate were napping. Henry has chosen a place for us to eat tonight where I have been promised there will be no shortage of mile-high chocolate cake! Happy 4 years, and ahem,…Happy 34 years to me! (34?????)

 Howdy folks! The days are just flying by here; there are just not enough hours in the day and certainly not nearly enough crafting time. This sad, little rug hasn't seen much progress since just before Easter. If you remember, I was going to make a basket for the children, but it just didn't work and so I have turned it into this rug.  It's actually a nice little project to do, very easy for beginners. I don't know that I would have chosen these colors for a rug, but now I have all these blasted 1 1/2" strips, so I'm just going to run with it. I wanted Kate's basket to look brown, with just a hint of color  (you can see the strip on the top right of the above photo is an easter egg) so I thought this fabric would be perfect. I started with 2 strips of brown and the colored fabric was in the middle. I thought I had a lot of the braided fabric, that is until I started to coil it together. I've definitely got a lot more braiding to do. I think I'll make it just big enough to go under Henry & Kate's play table. I'm also toying around with adding some green- so the brown & green will alternate… I don't know.
Would green be weird? I'll share when I get it figured out- which could well be around Halloween! Enjoy your Thursday! I'm spending the day with my sister who is in town (we are so excited!)

The weekend…already? The weather has been ridiculously good here in LA. We have been to the park every single afternoon for hours on end.  We played Star Wars: We went on lots of walks in our neighborhood: Everything is in bloom! We spotted this tree house (so awesome! I want one!):  and this house (I want it, too!) It's dreamy. I love it so much. There were hot, sunny days where we played in the water with friends and played so late we nearly missed dinner (dinner is totally over-rated! Snacks at the park? A million times better!) Mostly, we are feeling so, so grateful that we live next door to this park. Because hey, if you can't have your own yard (we do have one- but it's quite small), it's pretty much the next best thing. I went with Leah to the "Picturing Food" lecture/exhibit at the Getty on Thurs. night. The crowd was filled with a bunch of liberal killjoys. I got yelled at by a grumpy old man and got a dirty look from the woman who sat in front of me because I was nursing Charlie too loudly. SHEESH! Give me a break. But the Getty- GAH it was so beautiful at sunset.  They have the best views of our town!

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

 Did you all have a nice Easter? Peter & Jean invited us over for dinner, which was scrumptious. The Moores' brought a bunny cake. I made a pound cake the day before, let it chill overnight and then, using Chris' dremel tool, sculpted the cake into a bunny. It's covered in a few layers of velvety chocolatey ganache (Oh ganache, how I love thee.) We were also supposed to bring a 'potato' something so we made the Barefoot Contessa's Potato Fennel Gratin.We eat this annually. It's pretty intense. The fennel is good though, so yummy with the onions & potato's. We went to an Easter Egg hunt with Michelle & Co (who, by the way, gave up looking at celebrity blogs for Lent- LOL) on Friday: Kate used her leftover basket from her Halloween costume because my genius idea of basking making was a complete disaster. Well I shouldn't say 'complete' I'm turning it into a rug, but more on that later. We dyed Easter eggs with vintage silk ties- which turned out super cool, but I was too slow in passing the info along for it to be of any help, so maybe next year. If you care. We are coming off of a major post-Easter sugar high. If I see one more peep, I'm gonna…. Oh and I'm totally kidding about the dremel tool. While I did make the pound cake, it was poured into a bunny cake mold I picked up at Crate & Barrel a few years ago. Call it a late April Fools Day joke. It's not seeming so funny now…

I've been making noodles and thinking about 'ca-noodling' and wondering if that's even a word and if it relates to noodles at all, so I checked. It doesn't. The urban dictionary says, "snuggling, kissing, heavy petting, making out." Maybe I should do a post about that instead. Oh la la!!  When I had Charlie last November, my friend Nicole brought me over this delicious chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles. Let me say it again: Homemade Noodles. It was so, so good. I actually had it last Fall at a Halloween Party and I'm going to admit it: I had 3 bowls. Yes, it's good. I cut the noodles in this soup  into strips but I wanted to mix it up a little and see if these little knots would hold up; plus I thought the kids might get a kick out of them (and they totally did.) And the knots? They held their shape: The kids loved fishing them out of the soup and eating it plain. I should have just made noodles. Anyway, I made Nicole's recipe and I have to say it wasn't quite as good as hers. Probably because I didn't follow her directions. I used chicken bouillon instead of boiling the chicken which I think was my downfall. I'm going to try it again making it her way. Here is the recipe: