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For Nico’s 3rd birthday:

Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba and an N pillow where his name is supposed to glow in the dark.

For Elanor’s first birthday:

An E pillow and my first ever stuffie, the Wee Bunny from Wee Wonderfuls

For some swaps:

A pencil roll for a July birthday swap for a 10 year old.

Embrace your Geekness day as part of the Wacky July Holidays swap. My partner loves bowling so I carved this from my clip art book. She also loves to play cards so make her this pouch for Stay Out of the Sun day:

This was for another birthday swap for Cancers:

She is a Texan living in Chicago so I thought it would be fun to print out these shots I took in Chicago with my holga. I bought her the funky purple fabric and included a card. I also made her a Mexican skull wristlet that I forgot to photograph but she has it on her flickr page!

And these were made just because:

Yves humored me and let me crochet him an apple cozy as he brings apples to work every day.

I’ve been wanting to make this crochet bead bracelet for awhile and finally sat down to do it. Summer is here and in the hot weather, I can’t stand to wear necklaces so wanted to compensate by wearing bracelets. I got the pattern from futuregirl’s blog. Her wrists are smaller than mine as I followed her instructions to the T and it was too short for my wrists. Since I already strung on the beads, the last few rows had to go beadless as you can see from the last photo. I don’t mind.

I also made a pencil roll for Sienna using Snoopy fabric that I haven’t downloaded from my camera and a new messenger bag that I haven’t photographed yet so there is still more to come! I just love making things!

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Nico had a birthday party to celebrate his 3rd year here on the 20th of June. It was to be in Owl’s Head park but the weather wasn’t cooperating. Geneva was kind enough to offer her house as an alternative. The kids played pin the tail on the donkey but I think they mostly enjoyed getting tattoos! Starr made birthday cupcakes and pizza was ordered. It was a nice day despite the rain.

Sienna and Phoenix playing ball and not minding the rain.

Phoenix showing off her tats

Sienna getting her 2nd tattoo by Diana, the ‘tattoo artist’

Sienna and Phoenix going to show off their tattoos to the pizza delivery guy!

The rest of the birthday cupcakes

And Nico opening some presents

Leave a comment or send me an e-mail for the password!

The Singing Frog from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Wednesday I had the worst moment as a mom in my 27 months as a mom. The worst! In the morning we were shopping at BJ’s with my parents to get the stuff for the BBQ. She was acting a bit whiney and a little clingy with me and would only spend a few minutes with my parents before running to me. Shopping took a little longer than I wanted it to so the whole schedule was off. My dad cooked lunch and we ate downstairs. When we were finished, me and Sienna headed upstairs and at the same time, UPS came with a big heavy package for Yves. So I was trying to hustle the box up the stairs, get Sienna up the stairs and get Skippy inside as well and since we were behind schedule, trying to do it fast. I asked Sienna to close the door for me since I had the box. Well, she was hemming and hawing (which she is known to do) and just playing around with the door. And I know she knows how to close the door, she’s always doing it when you don’t want her to! Well, I got impatient and told her to come in and I went to close the door. She started crying after that. I thought she was crying because she wanted to close the door and I ended up doing it (which she is also known to do). So I went up the stairs with the box and let her cry it out and told her she could close the door another time, it’s no reason to cry. Well, she just continued bawling and I was like jeez, she must be really tired! What’s her problem? She usually doesn’t cry this long when she finally came up the stairs holding up her left hand. Ended up I closed the front door on her middle left finger!!!! And what I feel the most terrible about is that I didn’t even know it! Here I am scolding her for crying over nothing when she most certainly crying over something! And something so painful! She had a cut on her finger and her tip was all black and blue. She probably got the cut from pulling out her finger from the door jam since I was so oblivious about it. I felt the worst I have ever felt! I couldn’t believe I dismissed her like that and I took her for granted. Sure I feel bad about closing the door on her finger but that was nothing compared to the fact that I ignored her cries. She cried for a good half an hour (at least), the longest she ever cried about anything. After I cleaned it up and put a band-aid on, I rocked with her in her room where she ended up falling asleep. Now with that idle time as I am sitting there with her, I was just replaying the whole scene and I just started bawling myself. Real gobs of tears because I just felt so bad about it. Thinking, how could I have done this to her? I bawled some more when Yves came home (turns out I was PMSing too!) She seemed fine when she finally woke up from her nap. She told Yves that Mommy was crying today. Awww.

I’m never going to dismiss her cries again, that’s for sure!

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I’m way behind on my posts once again. So I thought I would work on the current then go backwards. Saturday was the Toddler Take Over BBQ! I finally decided to go ahead and invite all of Sienna’s playdate friends over to our house. I always hesitate to do that since the majority of our playdates are in Bay Ridge so that means most of them would have to rely on public transportation to head over. But to my surprise, people were saying yes and before I knew it, 27 beings were coming over! (I say beings because the number includes adults, toddlers and babies). Initially I was in shock and started stressing about how we were going to fit all those people back there. And since they have never been over, I didn’t want them to have the incorrect notion that we had this big, beautiful backyard (which we so do not!) But Yves reminded me that these were nice, easy going people that go with the flow of things. Eventually I stopped stressing and got super excited about it. Eventually it ended up being less with some last minute cancellations so it worked out! The kids loved the kiddie pool and the sand/water table was a big hit as well as the sprinkler ball. All the guests loved the burgers (yay Bubba!) and hot dogs. I made homemade ice cream (vanilla with banana and strawberries), black and white cupcakes (in honor of Michael Jackson, solely coincidence!) with either chocolate frosting or butterscotch and blueberry slab pie. We have a lot of food leftover because everyone was so generous with bringing stuff! There was antipasto, guacomole and baked ziti from Geneva! Cole slaw from Starr, empanadas from Diana, fruit salad from Yan Ling, yummy veggie sticks from Michele…I hope I didn’t leave anyone out!

I shot film so I don’t have any digital shots but borrowed a couple from Yves.

Sienna with Phoenix, Nico and Ethan. Dakota, Sophie and babies Casey and Sylvie not shown.

Sienna enjoying her cupcake! There’s the blueberry slab pie!

Eating!

And here are some baking shots:

The Blueberry Slab Pie is from Martha Stewart’s baking handbook. I made the dough too! I had to do it in 2 batches because my food processor isn’t big enough to hold all the flour. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out but people enjoyed it. I think the biggest hit was the ice cream. I don’t have a shot of that!

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It happened today. The inevitable. Sienna climbed out of her crib during naptime. We came back from the Little Gym, stopped and had some pizza for lunch and true to form, she fell asleep in the car blocks from home. She usually wakes up by the time we get up the stairs. I play it by ear whether to put her straight into the crib (which usually doesn’t work) or let her hang for a few minutes before mentioning nap time. She was all whiney, tired whiney when we got up the stairs and asked for froggie and to take her nap. Great! No brain function necessary, nap it is!

I was in the computer room when half an hour after I put her down, I hear her babbling. Great, she’s up but I ignore her hoping she will doze off again or at the very least just tell her to go back to sleep. Next thing I hear is the air filter shutting off! I run over to the door and see Sienna running down the hall into the living room. With froggie. Sigh.

I tried reasoning with her and told her that if she wanted to get out, she should call for Mommy. I told her naptime wasn’t over and put her back in. I told her to lay down and close her eyes and she did and cuddled up with froggie. I went back on the computer but this time, I left the door open. Sneaky devil did it again but this time stayed in her room!

Sigh.

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I can’t believe I forgot to post about seeing Doves at Terminal 5 on the 4th with Joy and Pete! My photos came out on the darker side and at the time was lazy to fix them, which is probably why I forgot about it. The show was good. They have a new album out, that none of us have, so the majority of the show were new songs we weren’t familiar with. Of course the band and the crowd really picked up at the encore when they played a bunch of familiar songs. We got there around 9:15 and they were already playing. I’m pretty sure they just started. We walked out of there at about 10:45.

Prior to the show, we met up for dinner at a Mexican place called Tulcingo del Valle. It’s a small little place but their menu was pretty large. I got overwhelmed and ended up ordering mixed fajitas to get a little bit of everything. It was just ok. Paled in comparison to Joy’s and Pete’s dishes! Joy got tripe soup and chicken molé and Pete got fried pork skin in a green sauce. We also got an order of Texan style nachos that included delicious pickled carrots that were hotter than the jalapenos! (I forgot to take a photo of that!) Would definitely go back there and this time not order the fajitas! And you know it’s authentic when there is no sign of sour cream!

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Here’s an update on my latest crafty creations and swaps!

My first real complicated bag (for me anyway!) A messenger type bag from the New Handmade book. The biggest pain about this bag was just cutting out all the pieces. I just got to be patient and realize it cannot be done in a day!

I was going on a fabric buying binge for a little bit and then vowed not to buy any more fabric until I start to use some of my stash up. So I decided to make gifts for all of Sienna’s friend’s birthdays. Unfortunately for Phoenix, hers was next and I made her this P pillow. It didn’t quite turn out the way I had envisioned it but she seemed to have liked it and Geneva said she slept with it! I also made her a little tote bag to match. I don’t like to handstitch so I try to avoid it and see what happens? I went a little crazy on the inside of the P and then used no fray glue without realizing that it dries a little tacky! So I used glittery fabric glue to cover that up! (I discovered on reading a sewing blog that using the zipper foot to close up gaps is very helpful! Noted!)

This was for a handmade whatever you want swap. My partner is a fan of Lenore and since I have not heard of her, was very intrigued. She’s a fictional character created by Roman Dirge and inspired from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. She is quite interesting and macabre! I haven’t watched all the videos yet.

This was for a Wacky and Unusual June Holidays swap. I procrastinated on this so sent it late but once I got into it, it was fun! My partner likes the Union Jack flag so made these photo magnets with photos from flickr for Flag Day. She likes gargoyles so I altered the gargoyle photo I took from Eastern State for Camera Day. She likes hot cocoa so sent her that for Name your poison day. And then I made her this reversable cotton cuff (from the New Handmade book) for Sewing Machine Day.

Close up of the photo and the cuff. I really liked how the photo turned out!

Wearing the cuff and showing the reverse side.

I put the photo magnets in this altered Sucrets tin.

Here’s a bird stamp I carved for yet another swap!

And a crochet mushroom for the same swap (the top opens but I failed to photograph that!)

And just so you know that not everything I try works out, here is a hat I attempted to make. I had to take measurements of my head and make a template. It was actually pretty easy to do. I know my error tho. Since I wanted to make it easier on myself, I had rounded out one of the measurements I made (and a very important one at that!) and found out that it really messes the whole thing up. I will try it again! Good thing I practiced on old sheets!

(I am smirking underneath the hat)

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After swim class on Saturday, we had our first BBQ of the 2009 season! Start time was 2pm and we had put Sienna down early for a nap. It worked out well as she willingly went to sleep after lunch (also earlier) and swim class helped with that. She slept for 3 hours although I basically woke her up so who knows how long she would have really slept.

It was super fun! Peter made his delicious deviled eggs, Nate and Mari made fruit kabobs and Joy brought over her Wii with Guitar band setup (drums, guitars and microphone!) Yves came up with the brilliant idea of putting one of the extra tvs in the garage and setting up the Wii there. We kept the food simple with Bubba frozen burgers (quite good for frozen!) and hot dogs. I made my Potato Apple salad and a new recipe, a lighter version of Cold Sesame Noodles from Martha’s website. For dessert I made homemade oreo cookies, banana choco chip muffins and at the last minute decided to try vegan vanilla cupcakes with butterscotch frosting. Everything was well received! Yves has a funny video of us during rock band. Apparently, you could hear the singing a bit from the front of the house. I might be getting some funny looks from the neighbors!

There really is no reason I posted this shot, it’s just that Sienna looks like such a grown up here!

Sienna really took to the drums!

Skippy was eyeing the hot dog on the table!

Did I mention that Sienna really took to the drums?

Yves’ drum solo

Grilling is hard work!

Joy cutting up a burger for Sienna. Awww, she would make a good surrogate mom! HA!

Pete and his cuddle buddy!

Sienna tries a vegan cupcake

Nate, Sienna and Skippy looking for ants

Homemade Oreos recipe here. They weren’t bad. Don’t know if I would make it again

Vegan Vanilla cupcake recipe here. I came across the recipe by accident and was curious about it since it got good reviews (if you know me or read my blog regularly, you know I am not vegan). It was quite yummy and you wouldn’t have known it was vegan. I decided to do a butterscotch frosting.

My crack muffins as Pete refers to them and the vegan cupcakes pre frosting.

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On Saturday Sienna had her first swim class (we missed the first one last week) and she loved it! She was a little apprehensive at first but then really got into and probably could have stayed longer than the half hour class. I took like 8 videos on my camera and filled up my memory card! I haven’t done that in awhile. I thought the class was just going to be them hanging around in the pool but they are actually teaching things like kicking and putting your face in the water. I need a class like that! The teacher was really good and really enjoyed being with the children. I wonder if she teaches adults? HA!

First getting in

Not exactly sure…

Really into it!

Please leave a comment or e-mail me for the password!

First Swim Class! from Lisa on Vimeo.

Yves was exhausted after the class and we put Sienna an hour early for nap (also because we were having the first BBQ of the season later that afternoon). She slept for 3 hours and I basically ended up waking her up so who knows how long she would have slept.

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