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The Pool! We all really enjoyed the pool, especially Sienna. She was so confident with her floaties, going in the deep end and everything. Whenever the noodles were available, I snatched it to use and Sienna even used it once.

The Eats! The most stressful part of the vacation was figuring out where to eat. There were lots of options and part of the problem was reading all the reviews online. Every place had both bad and good comments so it was still hard to make a choice. The hotel gave coupons for a few restaurants like Beach Bun and Burgers and we actually went twice. The first time was better than the 2nd but the cook was different so I think that made a difference. There was also Blue Fugu Japanese Steakhouse. I thought it would be fun for Sienna to see the chef cook food in front of her. She really wasn’t that amazed. The food was good but like all Japanese Steakhouses, pricey. We probably wouldn’t have gone if we didn’t have a coupon. Plus we met a woman who recommended Buono Pizza for Italian, which we ended up going to when we saw the Thai place we originally planned to go was too expensive. It was really good! We both got sandwiches (not pizza) and they were huge. Of course there was the Waffle House, an Yves favorite. We went there almost every morning for breakfast. The last standout is a Thai restaurant we went to the very last night and if we discovered it sooner, probably would have went back. Nori Thai which also has sushi. The food was very good. The one place we went to that was a real disappointment to me was a seafood restaurant called Friendly Fisherman. I was bugging Yves to go to a seafood restaurant and we didn’t go to the one I really wanted to and went to this one out of convenience, well, we paid for it. The food was tasteless. There was also Bella Habana, a Cuban restaurant that everytime we passed, I told Yves we should go there. Finally got him to go and he LOVED his dish (fried cow) while I thought my ropa viejo was just ok. At least Sienna loved the chorizo.

Most lunches were mainly in our room.

We only ventured away from the pool and beach a couple of times. One time to check out the Pier, which was disappointing because it really wasn’t much and it’s “aquarium.” I use the quotes because I feel aquarium is used loosely. It was basically a big room with tanks in it. Literally took 15 minutes to walk around and only because we slowly looked at things. At least we ran into a pelican. One afternoon we went to a playground across the street. Bad move. That lasted 5 minutes! It was too hot and no shade. We went back to the pool. HA!

The hotel had a parrot named Houdini and Sienna went to say hello to him every chance she got, which was several times a day!

And somehow Sienna managed to get Yves to buy her a Minnie Mouse doll at Wal-mart.

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Yes, I am finally getting to the Florida beach vacation photos. It’s been 2 weeks since we got back and I miss the pool! We stayed at the Plaza Beach Resort. We were looking for a place that was cozy and not so commercial feeling. This place was it. It is family owned, 2 levels and very laid back. We got a suite, which basically had a little kitchen, living room and bedroom. Now that Sienna is older, we can’t all stay in the same room anymore. She used to be able to fall asleep while we watched tv quietly (like at the Jersey Shore 2 years ago) but we learned last year at Sesame Place that it wasn’t working anymore and who wants to go to bed at 8-8:30?

I didn’t take that many photos (I did bring my holga and 5 rolls of film, which went unused because I FORGOT the extra roll needed to spool the film! ARGH!) since it was a relaxing vacation. Our routine was pretty much breakfast at the Waffle House, beach, lunch in the room (cold cuts), nap for Sienna, pool and dinner. And I was pretty happy with that arrangement. The most stress was figuring out a place to eat. I will say that 75 percent of our choices were good ones. We were really close to Busch Gardens but opted not to go. Sienna is still too young to warrant paying the admission price for that place.

Anyway, this post will be all beach photos! The first few days the water was really nice and calm. And there were a couple of rough water days but Sienna and Yves really enjoyed those too.

The resort had a box of beach stuff you can use so some of the stuff was not exactly in the best working conditions. Like the umbrella.

This was like the fourth shot I tried to take so that is why Sienna was making that face!

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I totally forgot to post about what I made for Craft Challenge May. I didn’t take a photo of all the “ingredients” but they consisted of styrofoam beads, small round mirrors, wreath and floral wire. I didn’t win and rightly so. I literally made my challenge item the night before. But I actually like what I made anyway. Every time the packet comes and I see what we get, I always say to myself “Oh, boy! What am I going to make with this?” So I am always so happy that I actually think of something! Here is what I made:

And here are some things I made for swaps! I joined a faux stained glass swap because I already had the fake leading and little containers of stained glass paint that I got from a kit someone bought me for my birthday ages ago. I was excited to play around with them again and it was so much fun to do! My partner loves coffee and voodoo dolls so I made her two. The photos suck and do not really show how cool it looks in the light. I ended up also using Alcohol Inks to make colors I didn’t have in the paint. FUN!

(the hearts are for me)

The butterfly and Eiffel Tower didn’t actually make it into a swap as I was just doing more playing around with the UV lamp and UV resin.

This Raccoon bookmark (resin) was part of the Woodland Lucky Parcel

Hand carved stamp swap

These last 2 were for the Handmade Specialty swap.

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We finally got a chance to meet Stella at Eric and Robyn’s BBQ on Memorial Day Monday. Robyn gave birth to her back in January! She is such a cutie!

Sasha, who is 8, loves to read and was excited to read Green Eggs and Ham to Sienna

Eric, the grill master

Sienna was so happy when it was cupcake time!

We didn’t get a chance to try the ribs!

Sienna sang in the car on the way home. This is what happens when you have a late lunch, no nap and a chocolate cupcake!

Sienna singing in the car from Lisa on Vimeo.

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We spent the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. The rose garden was absolutely beautiful and Sienna was worn out by the end. The warm weather helped with that!

I love this shot!

She’s starting to pose now. There was absolutely nothing she was reaching for!

Such a great tree

The Rose Garden

We found our way to the Rose Garden at the end of our visit, unfortunately! So Sienna was tired.

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Almost all caught up on my posts! Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, we invited the kiddies over for some burgers and dogs. The adults also had Soujuk (not sure if I spelled that right!), a turkish sausage that another guest had brought over during a BBQ last year. So yummy! They had a blast filling up the sandbox with water and the pool with sand. LOL. I made 2 different kinds of cupcakes and 2 different frostings. A banana cupcake and a chocolate cupcake and half had chocolate buttercream frosting and the other had chocolate banana frosting. A note to myself, the banana cupcake was a bit dense while the chocolate one was very light. Both frostings were yummy! Geneva made some awesome baked beans (with meat, beans, bacon and brown sugar! Geneva! I need the recipe!!) And Starr made our favorite, cole slaw!

Sienna thinks Layne is so cute! LOL



The kids were very busy!


Sienna and Phoenix were fascinated with Sylvie’s boo boo!

Eventually Sienna fell asleep in Yves’ lap

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We fly home from vacation tomorrow so I hope to be able to post some vacation shots soon!

Some more swaps, fiber related. I decided to use this Coffeeshop burn action for these set of photos (coffeeshop is a GREAT blog for photoshop tutorials and free stuff!). I must have snapped over a dozen shots of the chicken stuffie I made and was not really happy with the results for some reason. I used this vignetting action and it makes it look better so I decided to use it on the rest of the photos.

Chicken for the Spring on the Farm swap, made with the Chickummyjig Pattern

Yep! Made another drawstring, french seamed bag! I’m telling ya, so easy!! For the Woodland Lucky Parcel swap

Eiffel tower stuffie for the Embroidered Stuffie swap. I used a pattern from the Rainbow of Stitches book and widened it. The grey fabric is cut from a linen shirt the Yves didn’t want anymore. Really loved how it came out!

This is actually a Wild Olive embroidery pattern (I believe it is the March embroidery pattern download in the sidebar) that I made a felt pin from instead. For a mystery pouch swap.

2nd time making this owl bookmark but instead of embroidering flowers, I used dimensional fabric paint to paint in my partner’s initials. Part of the Woodland lucky parcel swap.

Used a Sizzix die to make this heart brooch and embroidered my partner’s wedding date on it. Part of the Wacky, Unusual Holiday-June swap. This one was for National Pink Day!

This is actually the Mushroom from Mario Bros. but I made the stem longer so it wouldn’t look like it. The pattern is here. This was part of the mystery pouch tag.

Lion Brand doughnut pattern for National Doughnut Day! I used dimensional fabric paint for the sprinkles.

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We’ve been on vacation since Wednesday, the 2nd of June but I have my laptop with me to occupy me during Sienna’s naptime and so I can catch up. The Friday before Memorial day weekend was a fun playday at the playground altho a little chilly than expected. Yves got off early and met us there as well.

Sylvie pushes Nico around

We haven’t seen Elanor in awhile!

I think Izky and Hutch were playing the NO! game

Phoenix and Nico sharing snacks

Sienna playing drums

Gabby slides down the slide with Barbie

Phoenix slides down the slide with Mickey in a stroller

And Sienna slides with Mickey too!

Starr plays around with Gabby

Mia is saying Where’s my Mommy?

Sienna playing with chalk

Sienna and her daddy drawing

swing!

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In order to give a fast update since I have so many blog updates to do, I’m combining a couple of posts into one. Did I tell you I won the April ChristyNelson.net crafty challenge? Here is my post with my entry and all the entries here. I won a $25 gift card to amazon.com and some extras from Christy herself. I hemmed and hawed about what to get, honestly, there are so many choices! I finally opted to get a UV lamp to use with some UV resin I’ve been wanting to try (and whenever I wanted to try it, it would be a cloudy day.) So finally, with a UV lamp, I could play with the resin whenever I wanted! All I had to do was pay $5 for shipping.

And here are the extras I got from Christy!

I was really excited to get the birds and birdcages since that theme is so popular nowadays but it turns out that the mandala type stamp in the middle is getting a lot of uses!

Took a Scratch n Sniff card class with the Bay Ridge stampers meetup.

And a couple of Etsy labs! This one is from the embroidered jewelry lab. So much fun!

And Ed Roth held a lab to promote his new stencil stationery kit! I forgot my camera so don’t have photos from the lab so here they are at home.

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Catching up on some posts. Another beautiful day on the 14th with a lovely picnic.

Erin brought flying balloons with her. She became very popular with the kids! Sienna got scared of the loud noise the balloons make so hugged my leg the whole time!

Flying Balloon from Lisa on Vimeo.

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