Kitchen Magic

Ok, meet my new favorite kitchen toy, The Magic Bullet: My blender has been dying a slow, painful death that involved the smell of burning plastic each time I used it, so it was time to replace it. I went with the Magic Bullet. Instead of using 1 large blending cup, it has smaller cups that you can drink right from...some of the cups are microwavable, and there are lids so if you have leftovers, pop a lid on it and stick it in the fridge.

And it's all dishwasher safe, a must have in my book!

It certainly wasn't the cheapest blender available, but I LOVE it.

Yesterday we had smoothies for breakfast, and since I HAD to try out something else new with my Magic Bullet I tried my hand at a good old fashioned Capp. I brewed a pot of coffee nice and strong, and per the instructions in the handy little book that comes with the Bullet, I mixed a cup of milk, then steamed it in the microwave for 20 seconds. I poured the thinner milk into my coffee, then spooned the froth from on top into my mug. And it tasted Very Much like a coffee shop capp! Learning to make a good capp...there's one off the bucket list!

Ok, I'm done raving, but seriously, if you're in the market for a new blender, I've been very happy thus far (the whole 24 hours!).

Oh, and Lexi, just for you, Broiler Bacon (per Auntie Andrea :))...take a cookie sheet with a rim (you don't want one of the flat ones), and place your bacon on it. Put your oven shelf on the highest or second highest shelf and broil for about 10 minutes...keep an eye on on it because once it's close to done it doesn't seem to take long at all. I LOVE doing this, since I HATE standing over bacon and frying it!

Curtis is back to work today, Toby started the morning off by emptying his bladder on the bathroom floor (6 INCHES from the toilet...6 INCHES), and I think Lucy is stirring now. God Bless my morning coffee!

My Apologies (again!)

Ok, so I haven't been so good at updating this year! Curtis has been traveling a lot this month, so the schedule is being flipped all sorts of upside down...but I think we're starting to get a handle on things.

Let's see...so last weekend we went to the Botanical Gardens to take a walk...the weather was balmy and beautiful and we took full advantage. I took lots of pics :)

The Gardens are a part of the Community College's School of Horticulture and it really is a lovely place to visit. Here the kids are in the fruit and veggie garden part. Toby actually walked the whole place, while Lucy took a more laid back approach in the wagon.



For Christmas, Toby received a pirate dress-up costume and it has become the costume To Wear around here...so here is the Dread Pirate Lucy, vacuuming. Awesome :)


Last week Curtis was in Yuma, AZ and California for meetings. It was a quick trip, but I sure miss his having Skype when he travels...especially for the kids. But he's at least been able to talk to them on the phone some...Toby always asks if Daddy is on his way home yet :P My bike and the bike trailer came in while Curtis was gone. Since I have little to no mechanical skills, I was able to resist opening the bike (after a quick peek!), but when the trailer came in I tore into it in hopes that it would already be mostly assembled...and to my (and the kid's) delight, it was! The kids were eating dinner when the Fedex truck pulled up, and since I figured they were tied down for once, I opened it up nad assembled it here in the living room. It really is awesome. It functions as both a bike trailer and a all terrain double stroller. I think I'm in love...it should come in handy if we make it to the beach this summer! Here's a picture


Both kids fit fairly comfortably side by side, or one kid can ride luxuriously alone in the middle.

Anyway, so Curtis came home late Wednesday. The bike was here, Curtis's bike was here, the trailer was here...but we owned no helmets. And if we ever want the kids to wear helmets we knew we had to start from day one. So Thursday afternoon the kids and I headed out to Fayetteville, and Curtis met us when he got off work to pick out helmet. When we got home he built my bike in hopes that we could try out the whole kit and caboodle on Friday since the rest of the weekend was supposed to be rainy and cooler. So far so good. We now have a built bike and helmets. All the remained was to see Friday morning dawn.

Curtis still needed to fill the tires, so he went to the garage to fill tires Friday morning. About three minutes later he reemerges in a fowl mood..."I broke my brake" he says.

How? He wasn't even supposed to be messing with his bike, since his was good to go!

But in an attempt to tighten his brakes he broke off a bolt...so 2 trips to the bike store and 1 to WalMart and about 6 hours later, the bikes were all ready to ride. But of course by this time it's 4:30 in the afternoon and time for me to start dinner. I was less than thrilled at the prospect of not riding my bike so we jumped on for a quick trip around the neighborhood.

Result? We love our bikes and the trailer. The kids did some minor territory marking in the trailer (this is MY side! This is MY strap!), and we found one hill that about killed us to make it up, but I think that we will have some fun rudes this summer!

Ok, so biked out yet? Saturday was Valentines Day, which meant I made a last minute rush to the store on Friday for the kid's things...Toby loved his Diego candy and Lucy is in love with her stuffed dog. Curtis bought me a beautiful heart necklace (which, incidentally, I had pointed out to him 2 weeks before. He's a good man), and we picked up Outback carryout for a nice dinner after the kiddos were in bed.

The weather has been cooler the rest of the weekend so we haven't made it back out on the bikes again. Lucy has a new word - Up - and she abuses it already.

Toby is so excited about his birthday coming up...and I'm planning a party for him with his friends this year...I think he's almost drunk on excitement already and it's still 3 weeks away.

Curtis's trip for next week was pushed back so we're so excited to have him around for a few weeks. He was off for PResidents Day today so we really have had a wonderful weekend together.

Take care and I promise to update more frequently :)

Northern Lights Longies

I may not have seen the Northern Lights, but this is a little how I'd imagine they look :) The imagination is a powerful tool.

These were custom knit capris and I love the way they knit up!

February Finally Sunk in!

It finally sunk in that we're into a new month when I finally uploaded pictures from my camera and had to make a new folder for this month! Feb! Yikes!

Curtis was gone this week - the first time since before Lucy was born. It is very different being on our own with 2 kids instead of one! BIG difference! But, they finished their work early and were able to come home yesterday instead of Saturday! YAY!

Here are some pics from the camera...

Lucy making faces

I made pretzels from scratch a couple weeks ago for snack. They were yummy!
We went to a birthday party for one of Toby's friends a couple weeks ago at the firehouse. Very cool! They let the kids climb all over one of the firetrucks...talk about a winner!!!


So far the monthly meal planning is going well. We've tried some different breakfasts and lunches too. We had baked oatmeal this week - I loved it, very easy and yummy, but the kids weren't really big fans. Bummer. We've been doing quesadillas for lunch too...Mmmmm! And thanks to Auntie Andrea for the tip on broiling bacon - I've always hated cooking bacon because it takes so long, but with this handy tip I'm actually cooking bacon!

We had snow again this week - on Wednesday MOPS too, of course. Curtis's car has the scraper in it and the car was, of course, at the Fayetteville Airport. So here I am, stuck at home with 2 kids and itching like mad to get to my MOPS meeting. We had 4 inches of snow. SO....I ended up taking a broom to the bulk of the snow but was still left with some ice on the windshield. I started the car and let it heat up and thankfully the ice melted off. So we did make it to our meeting. Lucy did better in an older room - yay! We had a great meeting and I NEEDED some mommy time!

No big plans for the weekend yet. It is supposed to be really pretty so I'm hoping we can get out for a bit on Saturday or Sunday. And one of these days I want to get my new bicycle - I just need to figure out which one I want first!

The pics are off the camera :)

Here's what I've been up to lately!


This is my second skein of handspun yarn. It is SO much better than the first (see below). I did the yellow single first, then the red and you can definitely see a difference between the two...the yellow has some thick slubs in it and the red is much more even...so I had more of the red leftover. Not sure what I'll do with that little bit! But overall I am thrilled with how well this came out! It's about 80 yards.Here are the two singles before I plied them together. Oh, I should mention that my drop spindle is really too small to ply well on, so I improvised (hubby is supposed to make me a decent spindle to ply on but he was gone and I was impatient!)...I traced a cd onto cardboard, cut it out, and speared it on a size 11 needle. I then used it as a bottom whorl spindle. I did it, but it took a LOT longer that way...I am a spindler who needs a hook at the top! It worked, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Mittens I knit for a friend's son.
Hat I knitted for Lucy. It matches her sweaterdress.
My first yarn barf. It is now a coaster...need to take pics of that one still. Actually quite decent as a felted coaster...and I really love the felted coasters as decor!

Now I am working on a circular sweater for Lucy, but have put it on the back burner for a few days to work in a pair of wool capris. Fun!

Monthly Shopping

We're trying something new this month. Instead of weekly grocery shopping trips, we made a month long menu and headed out to Sam's last weekend to stock up. I have almost all the dry ingredients and all the meat I need for the month. My freezer is FULL, but it all fit! In the spirit of eating better, I also planned out some new breakfasts for the kids and I...cereal was getting OLD! So this morning, being day 1, we had blueberry muffins and fruit smoothies. YUM!

They are delicious. They use frozen bananas, frozen blueberries, orange juice and a little vanilla extract for flavor...puree in the blender and YUM! It's like ice cream for breakfast. The kids loved them too. I bought up on bananas so I have enough for twice a week, peeled the bananas and froze them.

Several of the recipes for the month used cooked chicken, so yesterday I portioned out enough chicken breasts for those recipes, threw them in the crockpot and cooked them all day. Then after the kids went to bed, I chopped up the chicken and bagged and froze it according to use. It feels so good to have all that work done! And every day all I have to do is look at my calendar to see what's for dinner.

It did take about a week to get it all sorted out. I had to take into consideration the mornings that we have activities planned because I couldn't do crockpot meals those days, etc. But i ended up spending less at Sam's than I had planned, so hopefully this will work well to tone down the grocery bills!

Sorry!

I've been sadly neglecting my blog as of late! But don't take my lack of posts as lack of progress! January has been a busy month for my needles.

1. Baby blanket, hat, booties, and mama socks for a friend were all done and shipped in January. Pics to follow (they are on the camera)

2. Baby socks supposed to be for Lucy but they are too small so they will go to another baby.

3. Baby beret for Lucy - ADORABLE! Done but pics are on camera.

4. Mittens for a friend of Toby's - done, pics on camera (seeing a theme here?)

5. On the needles now - a jacket for Lucy. It's a really neat and original concept and I am excited about it!

6. On the spinning front, I finished my first skein and plied and set it. AND knitted it into a felted coaster (it's all it was worth doing with it, it was the ugliest skein EVER!)...but made a very cute coaster :) It's still drying. Have started my second skein. I have one single of yellow done and am working on a single of orange/red, and will ply the two together. Hubby is supposed to make me a big plying spindle, but we bought all the supplies and he never touched it :( So I am on hiatus waiting for him. I still have to finish my red single though so I will work on that a little every day. I also ordered more fiber today...I really shouldn't, but it was 35% off! Who can resist a sale like that?