v.2

My friend Pete trekked out to our house this past Sunday for a visit. Sienna hadn’t seen him since summer and was super excited to see him! Thankfully we were smart enough to not tell her too early in the day that he was coming because once we did, she kept looking out the window and saying “Where’s Uncle Peeder? Where is he? I don’t see him!” He arrived for lunch where we were having cold cut sandwiches and I actually made a potato soup, a relatively easy recipe I cut out from the newspaper last week (minus the celery and added extra potatoes not on purpose). I also made these parmesan cream crackers (they were good but the middle parts were more doughy and needed to be baked slightly longer). And Pete presented us with some awesome donuts from our neighborhood shoppe.

Sienna took her nap and we were able to play some Boom Blox 2 on the Wii. Pete brought the Wii Fit Plus with him. That was a lot of fun and am considering getting it. Time to dust off that Wii Fit board! Sienna woke up while we were playing on the board. Since there were multi player options, we were taking turns doing stuff on the board and Sienna wanted to join in. It was funny watching her on the board! We all kind of worked up a sweat on the games we were playing so Yves took the opportunity to put on football. Sienna happily played with Pete; doing puzzles, dancing in her room and having stories read to her.

And I want to thank Pete for wearing her out. She didn’t give us any trouble going to sleep that night! She recently started this (hopefully short lived!) trend where she doesn’t want to go to bed. I knew that was bound to happen sooner or later (I was hoping for later!). We would do our usual routine, read her stories and she would climb into bed (she’ll climb in but won’t climb out.) Not more than 5 minutes later she is crying. As soon as we walk in there, she stops crying and informs us in her sheepish voice, “I don’t wanna go to sleep.” She is even started to tell us that the back of her mouth is hurting (we are beginning to think this is a ploy to get tylenol drops, which she loves!) Anyway, we don’t take her out or anything but try to reason with her and have her lay down and go to bed. We walk out of the room. 5 minutes later the show starts again! Monday night it happened for about the 4th time maybe in a week. By the 3rd outburst, we ignored her and she finally fell asleep. Argh! I wish Uncle Peeder could come over every night until this phase is over! (noted to add: it didn’t happen last night! Woohoo! Cross fingers that it’s over!)

Sienna’s turn on the Wii Fit board

Pete showing us the marching game

Puzzles!

(I know this one is blurry but I like how I caught Pete’s butt sticking out and Sienna in mid twirl while they were dancing!)

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Back in early December, I met up with my friend Rachel and we hit up the Handmade Cavalcade craft fair and Martha Stewart’s craft fair. It was a rainy and cold day, not the most ideal weather for trekking in the city but it was fun regardless! We went to the cavalcade on Mott Street first, right when it opened but boy, it got crowded pretty fast! It was hard to resist all the fun goodies and I tried not to be selfish and buy just for myself. I think I did ok! I managed to snag myself a beautiful handmade Betta Fish screenprinted journal from fisk and fern. I recognized her name from her participation in my gocco postcard swap I hosted. It was great to meet her as her card was one of my favorites in the swap. She’s super sweet too! I also met Simone of craftevolution and whose etsy shop is Groundsel. I actually was introduced to her via facebook from a Bay Ridge mom who said that we were the 2 craftiest people she knew. It turned out that I was already a reader of her blog! She was really nice and I had meant to go back to her booth and buy her super cute hair clips but like I mentioned above, it got crowded really fast and I forgot! I did pick up some pretty hand soap from Nordea’s soaperia and picked up a present for my father in law. Peppersprout had these cool wooden coasters with the names of the 4 boroughs of nyc on each one (Staten Island was left out, hmmm, wonder why?) I thought he would appreciate the hand craftness of it. Sadly I forgot to take any photos of the fair. Then we headed to lunch at brgr, which is right down the block from where Martha’s craft fair was. I was actually there in November and while the burger wasn’t bad, the onion rings were the reason I wanted to go back! MMM, red onions sliced really thin!

Anyhow, I digress! Turns out there was a bit of a wait to get into Martha’s craft fair. A line outside of the building and then another line once you get inside! The wait wasn’t too bad and it was definitely more spacious once we were inside and also included lots of displays from MS Living Holiday magazine spread. It was fun to look around but I didn’t buy anything.

I parted with Rachel after that and did a quick stop for some Christmas shopping. The reason I called this post Inspiration was because of the last store I passed before jumping on the subway. Beads of Paradise is a store on 17th street full of beads (duh) and lost of other fun stuff. I didn’t go inside (too tempting) but the window display was enough! So amazing and inpirational! Really, these photos do not do it justice. I just loved how it was filled up with so much fun stuff! I love the colors! I love the little dolls and the button eyes! I love it all!

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Yes, I realize I am really behind in my posts and in wishing you all Happy Holidays. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves and got lots of great presents and spent time with the ones you love! I have the Jamaica vacation to write about as well as lots of swaps but wanted to start off with Christmas.

My parents came over on the Eve (as per tradition) and we all got our red envelopes. We gave my dad a OXO chopper and a melon slicer device. My mom got a calendar of Sienna photos. Sienna got a bunch of presents! She got some a new frog animal (she named Ribbit), wood blocks, a Winne the Pooh computer (which she promptly said that she was going to check her e-mail!), a vest jacket, fleece and sweatshirt with Tinklebell and some Tag books (she didn’t open the actual Tag device until Christmas morning since that was from us.) Then we went to eat at the East River restaurant in the Brooklyn Chinatown. It was all good!

Christmas morning Sienna woke up at 6:20 with excitement to open presents. They usually let me sleep a bit but Sienna came into the bedroom to wake me up! Well, how could I say no? Originally we were thinking of holding back some presents since Yves bought her a bunch of stuff and I bought her a bunch of stuff. We decided to just hold back one present (to save for her birthday) after spending 10 days with a certified brat of a toddler, it made us appreciate how well behaved Sienna is (for the most part anyway, she still is only 3 months shy of being 3!) And the fun begins! Yves got her a bunch of Melissa and Doug wooden toys. She got fake wood food, wood pots and pans and a set of instruments for her “band.” She also got the Tag Reader and another tag book from us as well as 3 more wooden puzzles and a tool set and bench from Santa. My brother sent her a Curious George write your own book set and from Jamaica, a ballerina wooden puzzle and some crocs. I gave Yves a diver’s watch, an F1 driving game, Boom Blox (2nd version) and sports set for the Wii. I also gave him the Christmas version of It’s Almost Sunny in Philadelphia. Yves spoiled me as well. I got the Hello Kitty sizzix that I wanted (for cutting fabric and felt! woohoo!) with a bunch of the dies. I also got a new pocket camera! Mine broke earlier this year and Yves was tired of me asking to borrow his (actually the one that broke was his too! He bought that one when Sienna was born to take quick shots of her!) We ended the fun by having a yummy breakfast of homemade buttermilk waffle and bacon. Later on we went to Starr’s house for a fun party that I will write about tomorrow!

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It’s been a month since my semi-regular lunch date at Shopsin’s with Pete. It’s been so long that I don’t even remember the names of the sandwiches we got. I want to say one was gihadboy. They both had tahini in it. I’m sad to say that while these sandwiches were good, they definitely are on the bottom of the list of my favorite things at Shopsin’s. The very bottom. Well, it was bound to happen at one time!

Pete’s pick and the tastier of the two. This one had pignoli nuts in it and really added a nice touch.

My choice, had eggs in it.

Pete made this origami suit out of dollar bills and left it as part of the tip.

After lunch we headed over to try stuffed Artisan cannoli’s. I’m not a huge cannoli person but I had to give these flavored treats a try. We got 3 mini ones. Of course I picked Mint Chocolate Chip and Pete picked the peanut butter and chocolate one. And we both agreed on the pumpkin pie one as the 3rd choice. I think the pumpkin pie was my favorite. I did enjoy the other two as well. I’m glad they offered mini ones as I don’t know if I can handle a whole one. (Who am I kidding? I can handle a whole one but I would be more satisfied just eating a chocolate bar!)

Pumpkin, chocolate mint and Reese’s

A couple of their other flavors

Stuffed and Satisfied

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As I mentioned in the previous post, I met up with Brenda for dinner before the surprise baby shower for Robyn in October. We went to Kampuchea restaurant, they make Cambodian street food. It was quite tasty. We got the Num Pang (sandwiches) and did the tasting, a choice of three sandwiches. I’m afraid the photo of the sandwiches don’t really tell you much. Once I start eating, I forget about taking pictures! We got the oxtail, the pork meat balls and the house made pork pate and headcheese terrine. I was most excited to try the oxtail and sadly, I was disappointed in it. It was good but just didn’t have that oomph I expect from eating oxtail. Surprisingly, my favorite was the pork pate! MMMM!! We also ordered a side of bacon fried rice and drank fresh watermelon juice. I’d like to go back and try the crispy pork belly! MMMM!

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Speaking of babies, we had a surprise baby shower for Robyn during the October mixer. (Hmm, I guess you can’t really call it a mixer since no cd’s were exchanged!) We went back to the Magician, since it worked so well for the surprise shower they gave me back in January 2007. I was so glad that Robyn was surprised! Whew! Such pressure to keep it a surprise. Of course, we also bought a dozen cupcakes from Sugar Sweet Sunshine. Robyn and Eric both loved all the gifts, the cupcakes and the surprise (well, just Robyn since Eric knew about it!) It only took 2.5 years for another CDMOMer to get pregnant, who’s next?!!!

I met up with Brenda before the mixer for dinner. I suppose I should keep that post separate and will write about it next.

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Saturday was Halloween and we went to the festival at Owl’s Head Park. It started at 2 so we opted not to give Sienna her nap. Of course she fell asleep right when we got there! She woke up when we tried to put her in her stroller and looked around and realized where she was and voila! She was awake!

I wanna ride dat!

The Maze ride

The short bouncy ride

Sliding down the maze ride

Got a ‘babboon’

I’m ambivalent about how the day went. Nobody’s fault but my own. I had delusions of grandeur. Last year she was sick so this was really her first Halloween (plus I think she would have been too young to really get it last year anyway). I was picturing her getting so into it. There were bouncy rides at the park and she went thru one and actually liked it! It was a maze and at the end you go down the slide. I was amazed because the last time a bouncy ride was involved was at Sesame Place and that didn’t go well. Ha, well I spoke too soon. She wanted to go on a jump up and down bouncy ride next and that didn’t last. At least she didn’t cry. Then there was the slide one that you could go on 2 times. She didn’t want to do the 2nd turn even though she said she liked it. It was really kind of an up and down day for me. I guess me and Sienna were both overwhelmed. We decided to enter the Fairytale Forest and encountered hunchback Minnie Mouse, Winnie the Fooh and “Kookie” Monster. LOL. I think you’ll know what I mean when you see the photos below. She really liked that and it made no difference to her that these fellows were a little ‘off.’ HA! Plus ske kept asking where Mickey was!

We ran into Geneva and Layne with Phoenix dressed up as a zombie bride and Starr with Nico as a firefighter and Sylvie as a little ladybug. Earlier we saw Liz with her dinosaurs Henry and Nora. Kerry was also therewith Rory as Spiderman. I’m sure there were lots of other people I knew there that we probably passed without noticing. We opted not to do trick or treating since I wasn’t sure how Sienna was going to hold up without her nap. We ended up having an early outside dinner at Yellow Hook Grille and I’m glad we did because it started to rain near the end of our dinner.

Sienna woke up crying for me at about ??? I don’t remember now. Oh,maybe 1:30 in the morning. I wasn’t surprised because of no nap and the excitement of the afternoon. (Although she did do this Thursday night but that night her nose was bleeding, a lot!) I tried to calm her and she tried to get me to sleep on the floor in her room (also a repeat of Thursday night). Another repeat is that she wanted to get up and out of bed. She eventually woke up around 6 and Yves got up. Later that day, she had a fever of 100.3. She seemed better after tylenol but then it went back up later that day and we ended up putting her to bed at 6:30 (which is technically 7:30 for her since we had daylight savings.)

She’s better today (cross fingers!) and she slept through the whole night last night (cross fingers again!)

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Time for some Halloween fun! First and foremost, I want to note that I indeed finish the skeleton stuffie I started at Etsy Labs earlier this month!

I opted to do the face features with fabric paint instead of black felt. I like him!
These are the handmade items I made for the Harajuku Girls Group Halloween Swap on swap-bot. I included other Halloween related items but didn’t take photos of those. The black cat and pumpkin keychain are made of felt and I got the pattern from a Japanese craft book I recently purchases. The black and orange towels were blank from Kohl’s and I embroidered matching cute skulls, an image I got from a Stampin’ Up catalog! I used Saral transfer paper for this, which worked out really well although I initially bought it to transfer images onto felt, which does not work so well!

Then last week Geneva and Phoenix came over to help carve the pumpkin we got from Lawrence Farms. I never carved a pumpkin before! Geneva was kind enough to do the initial cutting and gutting. She let me and Sienna carve out the face. We even roasted the seeds, also something I’ve never done before!

The Jack O’Lantern barely lasted a week (we kept it indoors). I read that if you put cinnamon powder inside and the cut rim, it would last longer. I don’t know if this is true but it gave the pumpkin a dark and dull look. It started rotting about 5 days after. I was going to put it outside on the patio but wanted to wait until closer to Halloween. Oh well. At least I know how to do it for next year!

I am also proud of myself for making part of Sienna’s Halloween costume and the accompanying piece for Yves to wear.  You’ll understand what I mean when you see it. I’ll post it after Halloween so I don’t ruin the surprise.

Yesterday I made chocolate covered peeps and chocolate covered pretzel rods with sprinkles. I’m not really a peeps person but I saw this idea at Jacques Torres being sold for $1.25! (I thought I saw it for $1.25 but then saw on someone’s blog that it was $2.25) So since someone sent me peeps in a swap, I wanted to try it out. Of course the ones from Jacques Torres probably tastes better because of the quality of chocolate (it better for that price!). I still haven’t tried it yet.  I’ll probably give it away at the Halloween festival tomorrow.

The ones at JT had eyes on them. I was going to put them on but realized I had the gel frosting so it would probably get all gooey in the bag.

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On the 10th we headed up north to Lawrence Farms to do some pumpkin picking upping and meet up with Tammy, Mark and Zack. It was a real nice farm with apple picking and lots of other veggies to pick. They even had a play village, fresh apple cider donuts and some goats, sheep and peacock. A pumpkin was picked and a few apples too. I didn’t pay attention to the pumpkin picking thinking that it was just going to rot like last year’s pumpkin. Now I wish I did as Geneva and Phoenix are coming over to help carve the pumpkin! Oh well. I wish we could have stayed longer at the farm but it was a bit windy and we didn’t dress appropriately (mind you, we did know it was going to be colder and brought sweaters but that wasn’t enough!). Afterwards we headed over to Tammy’s house for some delicious chili and Sienna played next to a bunch of other kids. It was a nice day.

Yves’ got 2 real cute videos on his post!

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(I had to try Jacques Torres ice cream while in the area! It was yummy!)

Etsy Labs moved to their new location in Dumbo in September. They were having some real cool labs in October and I vowed to go to them more often. Well, I’ve gone to every one in October! (The last Monday is open craft night and I don’t usually go to that.) It was helpful to be able to head out earlier and get there around 4. In the past, I usually go after 5 and there are always a lot of people there that don’t even look up when someone walks into the room. Now that I have gotten there early the last few times, I understand why! We are all intent on working on our creations that sometimes we don’t even notice someone has come in! LOL. The first Monday lab was making a paper card called Exquisite Corpse and was being held by Esther K. Smith, who wrote the book “How to Make Books” (among other books). I didn’t really like my creation so much but it could be the fact that my desire to do paper crafts is not as strong (I’m really into felt and fiber related crafts). I also met up with Rachel, co founder of one of my favorite sites, swap-bot. She didn’t like her creation either.

My creation

Me and Rachel’s work (taken by Julie of Etsy Labs)

The 2nd lab was something I was really looking forward to because it dealt with felt! I met up with Rachel even earlier and got some wicked hot cocoa at Jacques Torres. We got to the lab a little after 4 and started pretty soon after. It was making a skull stuffie being held by Diana Schoenbrun and it was a pretty big project so I didn’t even finish it (I vow to finish it by Halloween!)

A sample skull on the left, where I left off on mine on the right!

Rachel’s skull

Suzanna’s skull

Julia’s skull

This past week I met up with Rachel again and we got some more hot cocoa at Jacques Torres. She wanted to check out the ice cream shop next door but it was closed! I wonder if it was closed for the season because it wasn’t even cold out, the temps about in the 60’s, still perfect weather for ice cream! Drat!
This day’s lab was making felt photo pockets with Kata Golda (who just came out with a book, Hand Stitched Felt). She supplied the prettiest hand dyed felt! I loved the way it handled. And I finished my project!

My finished felt photo pocket. I believe Kata says it holds 24 photos!

Me and Rachel’s finished pieces!

These are Chelsea’s bird (top) and Suzanna’s bird (bottom). I really liked them and asked if I could photograph them!

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