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Where to  even start? For starters, this is Henry’s "Best Smile". Chris says "Henry, show Mama your  BEST smile!" and this is what I get. Squinty eyes, teeth clenched tight, grinning as hard as his little cheeks can. It’s good to see this smile today because it was a pretty hairy weekend. Henry caught some bug and threw up for the first time on Saturday night. Actually twice on me, and not wanting his Papa to feel left out, twice on him. Once he went down, I started to finish up my apron for this month’s Tie One On (more on that below). I must of been in some funky zone, because before I knew it, it was 2 a.m. I had completely lost track of the time. Quiet, happy sewing time, with no sweet little hands tugging at me to come and play. It’s the only time I feel like I can work on things and sometimes, if I didn’t make myself go to sleep I feel like I would stay up all night long. Then I remember it doesn’t feel so good when those sweet little hands are tugging at me at 7 a.m. wanting to play. But on this morning at 7 a.m. I felt sheer misery. Nausea, the whole bit. The kind where your whole body just aches. So we chilled out on the couch, Henry & I,  flipping channels, watching various bits of movies (Daniel LaRusso’s gonna fight?? Daniel LaRusso’s gonna fight!!) Henry & I took a nap, snuggled like spoons for a few hours which started a weird time warp kind of thing which made my internal clock feel off and still does. Late Sunday afternoon, it really got worse. The kind of worse where you can’t even move. The kind of worse where just the mere thought of food makes you want to barf. There I was, laying there…."butter… oh no! not butter…I think I’m gonna…". And I did. I barfed. Who barfs at the thought of butter? I felt so much better, the only upside to barfing, I guess…that and the very small hope that one of the aforementioned cheese balls also made it’s way up. Fat chance, I know. 

Henry was able to keep everything down yesterday,  so we were very proud of that. I stayed up far too late, till 1 and 2 o’clock..not tired from my long nap and totally glued to TLC.  And feeling a little sad. They have amazing and sad stories on that channel. Wondering why some people have to live with such life altering disabilities. Feeling sorry for them, which I shouldn’t have. They didn’t feel sorry for themselves and I suppose if I were in their situation, I wouldn’t want people feeling sorry for me either.  I digress. It was getting late and so Chris & I decided to call it a night. He’s been working furiously day & night to get his screenplay finished for class and is now soo relieved to finally have it done. Once more semester left. It was perfect timing, because Henry started to wake up too. Kind of moaning, not feeling good. And then it happened. He barfed. Again. All over our sheets.  At 2:30 in the morning. Eigh-yei-yei. A quick change of the sheets and we all snuggled up  like 3 little bears. What a night.  I think it’s all behind us now. We finally left the house today for some food after being barricaded in for the last 2 days.

This months apron theme over at Tie One On is…Valentines Day! I was thrilled because I bought this red vintage polka-dot fabric over the holiday that I was aching to use (it’s the third fabric down from the top). Amy  has really done a great job at  putting this together so if you are a fan of aprons and like making them, you can submit everything to her. They do have to be handmade… so whip that sewing machine out! I just love aprons. They make me think of the old South. Wrap-around porches. Screen-doors. Baking in a hot summer kitchen. Bowls of cherries. Watermelon. Biscuits. Little ones tugging at your apron strings. I love that song "Apron Strings" but haven’t a clue who sings it. I’m royally embarrassed for this total crap picture. Iron fences don’t make me think of quaint little aprons. We have no direct sunlight in our place and a gynormous Christmas tree blocking the one big window in our living room. "Um…Chris, can you come outside to take a picture of me in my apron for my blog"…. to my horror, my neighbor was out there…I must have looked like a total moron…I chickened out & wouldn’t go past the gate… "Hurry, just take it right here! Now let’s scram!" This is as good as it gets for now. Will definitely send a better picture over to Amy.

I’m hoping someone out there in blog-land can help me out with this fabric. I bought a small amount of it (the last that they had) over the Christmas break and am loving it so much that I don’t want to cut it up, at least not until I know that I can get more of it. I can’t find it anywhere. It says "Merry BonBon" on the trim, along with "Printed by LECIEN". It’s a Japanese import and when I google LECIEN, everything comes up in Japanese… Any help on how I can get my grimey little hands on some of this stuff would be greatly appreciated.

Have a great week!

Happy Friday, dear friends!

I’ve been wanting to make a set of Matryoshka’s for some time now and so I finally decided to give it a go. This is a set that I started working on a few nights ago. It’s actually the 2nd set I’ve made this week. I wasn’t thrilled with the first, but with some adjustments, I think they are starting to come along. I am going to pull it apart tonight and see if I can get to a point where I am completely happy with them.  It seems as though I’m rarely 100% happy with my little creations. Maybe I should work on that. Maybe that should be one of my New Years Resolutions. Anyway, the bigger of the two babes tuck inside a big pocket on the front of the Mama and the baby goes into the green pocket. I think the Mama might be stuffed too much because the babes have a hard time staying in there! When they are tucked inside, they look like little Kangaroo’s or Joey’s, if you will.  It’s a gift for someone who has 2 little ones of her own and so I’m really  hoping she likes it.

Some friends of ours (Kimber & Chad) had us over for dinner back in December and made the most wonderful quesadilla’s. Kimber said the original recipe came from Martha Stewart, but she has since made some changes, and with me fooling around in the kitchen today, I made some changes as well. This is a total comfort food that’s very easy to make. The sweet potato’s are so delicious with the cumin… I could just eat those alone!

Sweet Potato Quesadillas with
Apple Chicken Sausage
makes 8

• 3-4 sweet potato’s (yams)
• 2 tsp’s cumin
• 2 tsp’s kosher salt
• 1/4 cp chopped Italian parsley
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 package apple sausage
• 1 package whole wheat tortillas (or you can use the regular ones)
• shredded cheese (ex: mozzarella, monterey jack, etc.,)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Peel sweet potato’s and cut into thick slices. Place into a bowl & add cumin, salt, parsley and olive oil. Toss to coat. Place on a cookie sheet and cook for 40 minutes until browned, tossing twice during cooking. Remove from oven and turn oven down to 350 degrees. Slice 2 links of the sausage into diagonal pieces. On a cookie sheet lay out the tortilla’s and one one half, sprinkle with cheese then top with the sweet potato’s and sausage. Fold over tortilla & brush top with olive oil. Cook for 15 minutes until cheese has melted.

Enjoy!

and a new fire engine bell!  This was Henry’s Christmas gift from Mama & Papa and so far, we think he likes it. On Christmas morning, Henry came down the stairs and walked straight for his stocking, pulled out the robot and started digging for treasures inside. This was so fascinating to me, because Henry’s never had a stocking before. I kept thinking "how did he know to go straight for the stocking and then to start looking inside for things?" It was totally adorable and luckily for us, we got all the adorable-ness on camera. Henry was spoiled rotten this Christmas by all his Grammies, Grampies, Aunties & Uncles. Its a good thing we decided to just get him 1 gift, because we could barely squeeze all the loot in the car. I guess that’s what happens when you are the only grandchild on both sides of the family. I already feel sorry for all the future grandkids! Ha ha!

For as long as I’ve known Chris (14.5 years to be exact) he’s always wrapped presents with various appendages protruding from them, thus obscuring the shape and identity of the treasure inside. This year, he didn’t disappoint. Don’t be fooled, the hula girl is actually sporting a CD under that ‘grass’ skirt of hers (Diana Krall..whom I adore) and the Mona Lisa work of art was a DVD. Incase you can’t read it, it says:

"To Morgs, From: Mona (Lisa…not the one from ‘Who’s the Boss’)"

For a minute, I was so excited to have received a gift from that Mona…oh well, there is always next year…

It should be noted that I am very scared. Scared to get on the scale that is. I don’t think I’ll be able to muster up enough courage to get on for at least another week or so. I feel like I’ve got a bacon-spinach cheese ball strapped to each one of my thighs…

Henry is growing up too fast, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I was looking at his face today and it’s changing so much. Where has my baby gone??? Over the holidays, he learned 3 new words: ‘meatball’, ‘all-aboard!’ and ‘clock’ which I am sure he will be getting some good mileage out of. And yes, to answer your question,  he loves meatballs. He’s learning lots of letters and on the long drive home today would shout out "O" "A" "T" as he spotted different letters on the signs and trucks that went whizzing by. I am just so in love with him. Egads. I am a such a lush.

I let it slip out today that I was "so excited for Valentines Day". I know, I know, the tree hasn’t even been taken down yet. I think I am a holiday-addict. I think I may need counseling. It just makes me want to listen to Chet Baker records on the old Crosley Stack-O-Matic, make  Valentines with lots of glitter and doilies, bake cookies and  all the other lovely things that come with Valentines Day. I don’t need a fancy dinner or roses, just my boys. I started making a Valentine yo-yo garland in the car today (10+ hours makes a lot of yo-yo’s!) other than that, not to many Valentines decorations around here…

I’d better run. I started to unpack from our trip and got bored 1/2 way through so I abandoned the unpacking and started catching up on TiVo’d episodes of Dateline (I am a total Dateline junkie… did you say Stone Philips?)

Anyway-I hope you had a beautiful holiday and are looking forward to the wonderful and amazing things that  await you in 2007. 

xoxo

to Grandmothers house we go… after a long journey, we’ve finally arrived at grammys house. We are ready to whip out the cheeseballs, assemble Henrys present, watch "It’s a Wonderful Life" (it’s a Christmas Eve tradition), drink some nog and finish wrapping a few last minute gifts. I hope you are spending a warm & cozy night with your families and loved ones and have a wonderful Christmas & New Years.

Don’t forget a peppermint stick for Old Saint Nick!

Merry Christmas!

Just a quick post to say I was able to sew up this
little ‘bot for Henry yesterday (in between  nap time, play time,
dinner time and I don’t want to go to bed time). It’s a miracle I was
able to sew anything at all. It was actually a lot easier than
I thought it would be (I consider myself your average basic sewer). I decided to keep the
embellishments on the control panel to a minimum so Henry wouldn’t keel
over from ingesting some robot part. The great thing about these patterns is that you can really customize them so they turn out exactly how you want. There was a little bit of  surgery that had to take place to fix a split seam (my fault entirely…I was to anxious of a stuffer), but aside from that, this little ‘bot is recovering nicely and I think he turned out great.

I know there is a group
on flickr where you can see everyones ‘bots & space-boys (haven’t
conquered the spaceboy yet). So head on over there & take a look-
there are some really adorable little ones. 

If you are interested in making one of these cutie pies (who wouldn’t be?) for yourself, head straight on over to Hillary’s
site and pick yourself up a pattern from her on-line shop. I just know that Henry is going to love having this guy for a pal. I think
I’m  going to have to make one of these lil’ bots for every boy I know.

Regarding Flicker- I am still not totally (or at all) familiar with
the phenom that is Flickr.  This was actually the first photo I’ve
uploaded there.  I understand you can view other peeps photo’s &
comment, but is that all? I am kind of creeped out how it knew what kind of camera I took the photo with and when..but am  I missing something? I’m still not
sold…

Anyway, hope you are gearing up for the holidays. We drove around last night and looked at all the Christmas lights which really got me in the holiday spirit.  Happy gift-wrapping, christmas-making, holiday baking Thursday (and rest of the week)!

Not really (but don’t you just love that song?) It was a ‘balmy’ 67 degrees in LA today. We baked this igloo cake in hopes it would feel a little bit more like Winter. If you get real close and sort of squint your eyes, it really does work. It’s a Christmas miracle! I can’t believe Christmas is one week away… We are on track..well sort of. Still no cork-board, but I have high hopes for that tonight and Hillary’s pattern came in the mail today, so I’ll be sewing up one of her darling robots for Henry’s Christmas present.  I told Hillary that when Henry saw it on her site, he went "WHOA!!!! and then signed to me "More! More!!" He is going to go absolutely crazy for it.

Speaking of Henry, he is officially 18 months old (well, nearly 19 now) and old enough to go into Nursery at church. He went in about a month ago and the first week was great he made a b-line for the trains (parents? what parents?) The following weeks…not so great. We thought for sure he’d be lured in by all their fun toys and treats…but now he’s on to us. On Sunday they gave him a mini candy-cane and there he sat, swinging his legs, until he had nearly licked the whole thing away. "Maybe nursery isn’t so bad (I’m sure he was thinking to himself) …they do have candy canes after all." We’ll see what happens come January when there are no candy canes to be found.

Have a wonderful, festive week

Happy Friday! I’m here to report on last nights cookie exchange. It was such fun! I’m lucky to know so many gals who are wonderful cooks. I mean, look at that!?! This picture doesn’t even represent all of the cookies that were here. I was one of the last to dish up my cookie plates, (yes, plates) so some of the cookies had already been nabbed, but I didn’t feel it would have been very hostess-ly of me to be elbowing my way in front of my guests in an attempt to be the first to load up my plates. Nudge? I’m not against nudging. Okay there were a few nudges, but I just pretended they were accidents. I’m still waiting for some of the gals who came to e-mail me their recipes and once they do, I’ll e-mail them out to those of you who were interested. Speaking of, I think the furthest that this list will be traveling is all the way to Jolly Old England! Who knew there were so many cookie enthusiasts out there?

I’ve already given away one of my cookie plates to the maintenance man who came this morning to fix our blinds. I think another plate will go to our mail lady, who by the way, is the nicest mail lady ever. We’ve never officially been introduced, but every time she see’s me, she always refers to me as "Mrs. Moore". I’ve always wondered how she knew I was Mrs. Moore…there are thousands who live here in our complex…how does she know?  She’s the mail lady. I guess they  know everything. "Here’s your mail, Mrs. Moore".  It makes me feel so dignified and grown-up since deep down I know I should be the one calling her "Mrs….(I don’t actually know her name)" as she looks to be a bit older than myself. I’m keeping my eyes on the window so I don’t miss her today. Just as I was typing this, I glanced out to see the mail lady here, a whole hour ahead of her normal schedule so I made a mad-dash out to get her, just in the nick of time. She gave me a big hug, followed by a "Thank you, Mrs.Moore". Ahh, the Holidays, there’s just cookie love everywhere.

Work in Progress: Friday: This was going to be my work in progress today, but I’ve been lolly-gagging on this post for far too long now, (and exercizing too, right? Does running out to the mail lady count?) and Henry is due to wake up any second…but…my girlfriend Kim & I were talking the other day about displaying Christmas cards that people send to you. How should you do it, what’s the best way? I usually just tape them up somewhere, like to the back of our front door (classy, I know). This year, I’m putting an end to the tape situation. I picked up this framed cork-board last weekend at the Salvation Army and painted it red…and there it’s been sitting ever since.  This weekend, I’m going to patchwork the fabric onto the board & throw in some ric-rac. Because we all know that ric-rac makes the world a better place. We’ll see how far I get on this project. Keeping my fingers crossed that it actually gets done before Christmas.

This was our bedroom at 1:30 in the morning, a few mornings ago. Henry caught the cold that both Chris & I had, woke up and had a very hard time falling back to sleep. Chris pulled out Henry’s favorite book "William and the Night Train" It’s a book we read to him every night, usually multiple times. It worked like a charm. It’s such a lovely little book illustrated by Alison Jay (we’ve got all her illustrated books- but that’s a post for another time) and it’s got a train- Henry’s favorite. Anyway, luckily Chris & I were both still up; Chris doing work & me catching up on Tivo, which explains why I was up snapping pictures at 1:30 a.m. Who does that?

Not much on the agenda this weekend (besides the cork-board, of course). Chris keeps asking why I never make him broccoli cheese soup, which he says is his favorite, and I’m not completely sure why after over 8+ years of marriage, I never knew that…but I try to give it a whirl. Hope you lasted through this entire post. Sheesh- it’s practically a novel. Happy Weekend!

"My mother was about to make another brilliant maneuver in the legendary
battle of the lamp. The epic struggle which follows lives in the
folklore of Cleveland Street to this very day."

‘Don’t want to waste electricity.’

It finally arrived. I ordered it so long ago, I was beginning to wonder if it was actually ever going to come. 

Tacky? Oh, sure.

Kitsch? Definitely.

Years ago, friends came over for Christmas dinner with a similar lamp. After a hearty meal, I looked over to see 4 grown men (husband included) huddled around said lamp in a chocolate-induced coma, staring glassy-eyed, mezmerized by it’s soft glow.

Another case of life imitating art.

Hi friends, I wanted to post an idea for a quick, delicious and inexpensive holiday gift. This is the easiest (I promise) and fastest
(still promising) fudge recipe that you will ever make. It only takes
about 5 minutes and is really yummy. This fudge also makes sweet
little gifts when poured into holiday shaped cookie cutters and wrapped
up with some ribbon.  It’s fudge AND a cookie cutter…it’s the gift that
keeps on giving. Who wouldn’t want that?

Cranberry Orange Fudge with Almonds

12 oz. Chocolate (can use semi-sweet chips or any other kind of chocolate)
1 C Butterscotch Chips
1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 C of Orange flavored dried Cranberries (available at Trader Joes)
1 C of Almonds

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spray the inside of the cookie cutters with a non-stick cooking spray. Place on parchment paper & set aside.

Over low-medium heat, melt the chocolate & butterscotch chips. Add
the Sweetened Condensed Milk & Vanilla. Remove from heat & add
Cranberries & Almonds. Pour into cookie cutters and  refrigerate for
30 minutes. Wrap in a cellophane bag & tie with ribbon.

*The first 4 ingredients are a base for any type of fudge you want to
make. You can add raisins, nuts or any other ingredients to the
mixture.
The fudge that is pictured above has marshmellows added to it…which I am not sure I like or not. I was going for a rocky-road type thing, but it melted and just turned into a bunch of marshmellow goo. Plus, I think I like the look better of just solid chocolate….Happy Baking!

This soup is very much a staple here (along with the Minestrone) and since it looks like I’ve started to come down with a bit of a cold- I decided that it was time to cook up a pot (which we are eating leftovers of today..Delish!). One thing that I love about soups, is that they are so flexible, as far as quantities go, so use what you have. I think you’ll find that you probably  already have most ingredients on hand. I made this soup up, so I am giving approximates on quantities, if you only have 1 or 2 carrots, it’s fine. I actually didn’t have any celery last night and the soup still turned out great.

Enjoy!

Chicken Noodle Soup w/Dill
10 cups Chicken Broth
1 onion, diced
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
2-3 carrots, thickly sliced
2-3 stalked of celery, diced
2-3 chicken breasts
1/2 bag of Egg Noodles (or you can use whatever type of noodle you want)
1-2 Tbsp dried dill weed

Fill a small/medium saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Add chicken & boil 8-9 minutes until cooked throughout. Set aside to cool. In a large stock pot over medium heat, add 1-2 Tbsp of Olive Oil. Add the diced onion & sautee until translucent, about 5 minutes. If the onion looks like it’s starting to burn, you can add a small ammount of chicken stock to the onions. Once the onions are cooked, add the garlic, celery & carrots and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the remaining chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add the noodles & reduce heat to simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add chicken and dill and simmer another 5 minutes. Sometimes at this point (depending on how many carrots/celery/pasta, etc., I’ve added) I may need to add additonal stock,  a few more cups because the soup is too thick and I want it a little more brothy. Either way- it’s flexible so you can cater it to your own taste buds.

If you have extra soup and decide to eat it as leftovers, you many need to add additional chicken stock as the noodles will have absorbed some of the liquid.