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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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Sunday we had a playdate with Raya, the 3.5 year old daughter to my old friend Tami. Tami and I were best friends in elementary school. We hooked up again around 2001 because she knows Tommy from college, what a small world. We lost touch after that and then hooked up again because of Facebook. We met at the playground by the Brooklyn Bridge. I love that playground mostly because I love the view of the Brooklyn Bridge, it’s my favorite bridge. Afterwards, we had lunch at Bubby’s.

I love that smile on her face in this shot!

Tami and Raya

Robert and Raya (and my shadow)

Raya kisses Sienna

Going down the slide

Sienna eating a biscuit at Bubby’s. She got a scrape on the side of her face from a fall.

Yves cutting up Sienna’s french toast

Even though Yves cut up little pieces, Sienna grabs the big piece he didn’t cut up!

My smoked chicken salad sandwich

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Saturday was supposed to be Yves and Sienna’s first swimming class but the half marathon that closed off Ocean Parkway really backed up the service roads. Once we resigned to the fact that we were just going to miss it (the class is only half an hour), we went to the playground in Marine Park instead! We were probably more disappointed than Sienna! The park was fun and we ran into Tommy and Maureen at their softball game!

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

The Marine Park dirt run from Lisa on Vimeo.

Having a snack on the bench

We had lunch at the Golden Krust by us and this was afterwards

This was from a little walk around the hood during Memorial Day weekend

A nose kiss!

In the backyard enjoying some sun.

Bubbles!

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On Monday for Memorial Day, we got invited to a family BBQ by my lovely friend Geneva. We had a wonderful and great time and it was nice to spend the time with other parents of little ones. Besides Phoenix, Sienna had Nico, Sylvie, Nico O and Ethan to play with as well! Fun times! The food was great, the company even better! I made Devil’s Food Cupcakes with this chocolate frosting. I had a bit of a mishap (I overfilled the cupcake and they baked up huge and ran into each other over the rim and got stuck) but luckily this recipe made 24 (although I think I got more like 36!) And I also baked some of Yves’ favorite cookies to bring over and some pasta salad. Even getting bit by mosquitos didn’t squash my fun! 😉
Sienna with a chip

Yan Ling holding Sylvie wearing an old outfit of Sienna’s, which I think was a hand me down as well!

Sienna with Phoenix and Nico at the kids table!

Watermelon!

Starr made this awesome cole slaw and told me to put it on a hot dog for a slaw dog, a Southern thing.

The kids playing!

And here is my baking mishap!

They may not look so bad here….

The outer edges of the cupcake that were touching the pan were stuck and I thought I was being clever by just flipping it over. HA!

The tops just kinda crumbled and fell apart!

I baked another batch with the silicone cups and normally I don’t have any trouble getting them out but for some reason, they were sticking inside the silicone cups! But thankfully there was enough batter to make another dozen in some Elmo cupcake paper.

I put the ones from the silicone cups upside down to prevent it from sticking to the rack. Do you notice the kinda glaze that’s on the bottom of them?

And here are the ones I brought over. I had fun frosting them (I did the ziploc bag thing)!

They were a big hit at the BBQ as well as the cookies. I think my pasta salad probably didn’t matter! HA!

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So now that we are equipped with a nice, new, spacious car, Yves was anxious to go on a little road trip. We took this opportunity to finally go up to visit Tammy and see her new house in Cold Spring, NY! The country! It was only an hour and 45 minute drive so it wasn’t really bad. It’s not a straight shot up and exits came by pretty quickly and we actually missed one! Yves was driving and I was the navigator but Yves took that time to tell me the merits of all the gauges on the new car so I wasn’t paying attention and we missed the exit! We are such city people, we were freaking out a bit because we didn’t know what to do and we didn’t know where we were and the road map I have is from 1995. HA! I had the google map directions but it doesn’t help you when you miss an exit! Of course, normally we would just get off the next exit and turn back around and exit from the other side. Ok, did that except there was no exit on the other side! HA! So we ended up having to go back down and around to the road we were originally on and made the exit. It’s just a little more nerve racking when you have a toddler with you. Normally, if it was just us, it would be mildly annoying and we would easily figure it out!

Ok so I can officially say it is indeed the boondocks! Once you turn onto her road, it’s still a ways down the windy road. I can’t even imagine how spooky it would be at night time! We finally made it at about 10:30 and I was a little chilly! I had to borrow a fleece from Tammy. It did get warmer out later when the sun came out (mind you the sun was out in Brooklyn when we left!). Anyway, her house is so very cool and definitely unconventional! Sienna loved running around and going up and down the windy stairs (there were a couple of sets of windy stairs!). There were a couple of kitchens and a couple of bathrooms, so super funky! After a little tour and chat, Tammy fired up the grill and we got our burgers on. Had a nice lunch and after some playing, Sienna said “Nenna go home.” Perhaps she is not ready to be a country bumpkin! HA!

Why is this chick playing in my sandbox?

Check out Zack standing!

The backyard!

First her, now this big dude, I’m outta here!

The look

Sienna is ready to dig in!

One of the windy set of stairs Sienna liked. That’s kitchen #1 Tammy is in.

Awwww! That’s kitchen #2 on the left side in the back there!

Now she’s playing with my inside toys??

Ready to get back to city life!

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Ugh! I can’t believe how behind I am in posting! So I will try to do a quickie update. If you have been reading Yves’ blog, you know we bought a car! I actually don’t have any of my own pictures of the car but Yves has plenty! He did take this one of me before leaving my old spaceship…

I’ve had that car for almost 14 years!! Anyway, I won’t really go into detail about our experience at the car dealership. All I’ll say is that sales people suck and they want to wear you down until you can’t take it anymore. But we do have a nice new car and Sienna likes it too! So we bought the car on the 15th and it took longer than we anticipated so Sienna was totally off. She was really good at the dealership and after awhile, all she wanted to do was run around. I let her but kept an eye on her. Her lunch was late and she fell asleep on the way home. I tried to get her to nap in her bed but that didn’t last. We had to go back to the dealership later that afternoon so the plan was to take her to the playground and have my parents stay with her while we dealt with all the paperwork. Which of course took longer than they said it would. UGH. So when all was said and done, we drove away with our new car and went out to the Chinese restaurant in our hood for dinner.

The next day, Yves took the car back in to get LoJack installed, which we also got fanagled (sp?) into getting. At the time, I thought it was a good idea but it ended up being that they told us things about LoJack that weren’t true. UGH! So now we got them on blatant lies and probably should report them. UGH. It ended up being a rainy day so me and Sienna stayed home. She woke up that morning with red rashes all over her body. It didn’t seem to bother her so we figured we’d play it by ear and see how it goes. They seemed to be fading later that morning so I was relieved. So of course, the installation of the LoJack took longer than they said so Yves was gone all morning. Sienna’s rash seemed to be coming back after lunch so we decided to take her into the Urgent Care at her doctor’s office. I was expecting a really stressful waiting area and wait but it wasn’t so bad, thankfully. We might have waited about 20 minutes to get into the doctor. The doctor took one look at the rashes and said it was an allergic reaction to something. Could be anything, most likely something she ate and could be from something she has been eating. Ugh! Not very helpful doctor! So she prescribed some medication to give her twice a day and it will make her drowsy.

On Sunday, there was no sign of the rash but the doctor said to continue giving her the meds for the full five days. I don’t know if it was the medication or the bit of a wacky schedule the past few days and not having proper naps but she was like super psycho dwarf on Sunday! She actually threw a bit of a tantrum! The biggest one she has ever thrown (and she does not do tantrums at all!) She wanted one of her cookies (biter biscuit) and I said no because it was close to lunchtime. Man, she started crying and screaming at me! I continued to read my Sunday paper. She even started yelling at me “Come on mommy!!” I calmly told her no cookies and that screaming and crying was not going to help. Thankfully she stopped the tantrum when she realized it wasn’t working. She had a proper nap that day and now she was been her normal, happy, fun loving self. WHEW!!!

She really is a great little girl and has been wonderful so when these little tidbits of strangeness happens, I try to take them in stride and ride the wave until it ends. Sometimes it’s not so easy because she really has spoiled me with her relatively easy going manner. I just have to remember, it will pass!

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As I mentioned in the previous post, Sienna started getting sick on Tuesday and so we stayed home on Wednesday (I wish the mom whose child was sick on Monday stayed home so that perhaps Sienna wouldn’t have caught her cold! ARGH!) We watched TV most of the morning and I just tried to go with the flow. She fell asleep on me while in the sleepy chair so I took that opportunity to watch some of my TiVo’d shows. Her molars are also coming in and combine that with her dripping nose, she was driving me a bit batty. One second she is perfectly fine and the next she is super whiny child. Then she is fine again. And this was how it was all day. I tried to comfort her as much as I could and give her whatever she wanted. She wanted a cookie, I would give it to her and then she would scream NO! WTF?? So I immediately thought of the term my friend Starr termed: psycho dwarf! She actually termed it for the whole terrible twos but I think it fits whenever you think it should!

Thankfully she was well by the afternoon and Yves even took her outside to the garage to play. We went back to our usual routine on Thursday and went to the Little Gym. She started acting batty again on Saturday and Sunday. More on that later!

These shots were taken at the playground by the Stone House in Park Slope. Yves and Sienna played while I got to browse the Handmade Cavalcade at the Bell House. I managed to keep most of my money in my wallet and only shelled out for a handmade chapstick (I couldn’t resist Mocha Mint!) and 4 mini cupcakes. Yves has a photo of her cupcake face on his blog!

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Once again I am behind in my posts so I will try to catch up in the next couple of days. A lot has happened last week! On Tuesday I met up with Pete for lunch at our favorite Shopsin’s. It’s been awhile since we have gone! We have to get back on going regularly again. We opted to get some sandwiches and share them. We decided on the Rooster, chicken salad with avocado on cheesy garlic bread. YUM. Then also we got High School, turkey and sausage with mushroom gravy. YUM.

The rooster came first and I was pleasantly surprised that the chicken salad was warm! OH MY GOSH! Heaven! I would never have thought something as simple as warm chicken salad would make such a big difference. Then the High School came out. It was in a bowl!! It had bread in there but I guess they put it in a bowl because of the gravy. Thick and gooey gravy. Delicious!!

Pete was on his lunch hour so we started heading back. I got home to find that Sienna has a fever (she had felt a tad warm when I left but I was hoping it would subside). More on that in the next post.

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