I resolve - 2011...

I am very excited for this year's New Year's Resolution! The idea came a few weeks ago when I was sitting at church. I looked down at my favorite denim skirt that I wear almost every week... Why do I wear this skirt every week? Because I love denim... and it fits me! Yes, my closet is severely lacking in the skirt department right now. I have a lot of skirts/dresses that I wore before I became a mom, but they have just never fit the same since. Well, it's time to remedy this situation don't you think?

My New Year's Resolution for 2011 is to...

Sew a new skirt or dress every other month.

I wish I could commit to every month, but I really want to do this so I'm cutting myself a little slack here. I think every other month is very doable, and I'm sure some months I might be able to do an extra one.

I'm so excited for this! Mainly because when I first learned to sew it was sewing clothes. I used to make myself dresses and skirts in high school and I really loved it. I've sort of fallen away from sewing clothes and really sew more blankets and such now. So I'm excited to get back into sewing from a pattern, button holes, zippers, lining, the whole nine yards!!!

I've already got the first skirt all figured out! I can't wait to get started...

What's your resolution for 2011?

December...

I felt bad that I hadn't bought a cute pair of heels all year... for the husband you know! So I went ahead and got some for December. I'm planning on wearing them out this weekend when we celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary. I think he'll like them...

Well... I didn't quite stick to my New Year's resolution of buying a new pair of shoes every month. While I think it was an awesome resolution, and I really liked the purpose I had behind it, I proved to be true to myself and had a really hard time spending money on myself every month of the year on shoes ;). I did however, end up with five cute new pairs of shoes this year which I am happy about!

Baby Steps - Drink your vegetables!!!

One thing that I've been trying to be better on is getting more fruits and vegetables into my diet everyday. I am much more likely to snack on cheese, bread, chips, than I am to snack on veggies. So I've been trying to find ways to get more green food in my diet.

I've always liked the idea of green smoothies, but the ones I've tried before tasted way too much like spinach to be very enjoyable. I found this simple recipe for a great green smoothie.

Green Smoothie
- 6 oz Pineapple Coconut juice (I use the L&A brand in the glass bottle)
- 1 banana
- two handfuls of spinach
- about 5-6 ice cubes

Blend together the juice and the banana first, then add the spinach. When it's all blended together add in the ice cubes and blend till smooth.

I promise you that this tastes like a banana smoothie. You really can't even taste the spinach. I like the way that spinach tastes, but not really in a smoothie. I love that I get a full fruit and veggie serving in first thing in the morning.

I've been reading up on why it's good to drink veggies instead of eating them. The idea behind it is that when you eat food your body has to make it into a liquid state in order for the nutrients to be absorbed. That's why you chew food and break it down with your teeth and then your stomach acid breaks it down into a liquid form. When you blend your veggies into a liquid form before ingesting them then your body is ready to absorb the nutrients and you cut out the time and energy it takes to break them down. This makes it so that your body can absorb more nutrients than it normally would be able to. Sounds like a good plan to me!

And the best part... this little guy loves it. Especially when I tell him it's dinosaur juice. He drinks it right up!

Have you tried green smoothies? What's your favorite combination?

Stacked Coins Quilt...

I finally got the quilt done for my little boys bed. It's been in the makings for almost a year... but I did the finishing touches on it last week and I'm so in love with it.


When I started it my son was still in his crib and I figured that we would buy a twin bed for him. But somehow my husband talked me into getting a queen. So the quilt sat in the closet for a while, until I decided what I was going to do. I ended up just cutting some of the bottom off and adding the cream borders around the whole thing. And for the record... I'm glad that my husband talked me into a queen bed. Some of our funnest times are at night when all three of us lie in bed and read stories.

Then once I had the top done I took forever to decide how to quilt it. I really didn't want to tie it, I wanted it machine quilted. But I couldn't bring myself to paying someone $200ish dollars to have it done. So after some pep talks from friends/sister in laws and watching lots of You Tube videos, I decided to go ahead and do it myself.

HOLY COW!!! Why didn't anyone tell me that machine quilting was so much fun! It was amazing. I had a blast doing it. And it turned out pretty good. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm so happy with how it turned out.

I love the binding that I made for it. It adds just the right cuteness on the edges. I know that this fancy quilt (well, fancy for me) is just for a three year old boy and that it's probably going to be filthy dirty in a week... but I am so glad that I did it. I started this when I was going through chemo and I would work on it during the times that I was too sick to have my son with me. It was heartbreaking to send him away for a few weeks each time I did, and so to me working on something for him while I wasn't with him was good therapy for me.

I really love his room. Most of the art work/things in there are things that I have made for him. I love making things for my family!! It makes me feel like my boy is always surrounded with his mom's love.

Helping Jenny...

This is Jenny. She is the mom to my dear friend Melissa. I met Melissa 8 1/2 years ago when we were camp counselors for the summer, and we've been friends ever since. Her mom has been battling cancer for a long time, and Melissa is hosting an auction to help raise some money for her family.

The auction starts tomorrow over at Helping Jenny. Please head on over! And if you have something that you can offer or donate to the auction as well you can send your item over to

helpingjenny@gmail.com.

Trees for Christmas...

I've added a new tree in the shop for Christmas this year. This is a little grove of three trees. It can be used for a blended family, or a multi-generation family.

I love how this one turned out, it looks so great in the frame. I used linen for the trunks and I love how it looks with the green!!

You can find it in my shop here.

Also, head on over to Love Luci for a giveaway! You can enter to win one of my family trees just in time for Christmas (giveaway open until December 6th).

Quinoa...

I've been wanting to branch out and try quinoa for a while now. So I bought some and it sat in my cupboard for a week until my husband saw it and got curious. We tried it out one night and are completely obsessed now! It is so good! It has such great texture to it. I'm hoping to get this book for Christmas so that I can try out new quinoa recipes.

One night we whipped up this tasty dinner. It was so yummy! I've been trying to find recipes and meals that I can make without meat and I've been struggling at that. I'm not trying to go vegetarian or anything, but I just don't like being so dependant on meat to make a good dinner. But this is meat free! And it was awesome!


We cooked the quinoa with vegetable broth (2 to 1). Mixed in black beans, kidney beans, tomatoes, cilantro, corn, some cumin and pepper. It really was so good. We put it on warm corn tortillas with sour cream and some Gorgonzola cheese (another awesome recent discovery). It really was amazing.

The popular man of the night was Mr. Tapatio. I've never been a real hot sauce fan (I'd only ever tried Tabasco) but this is really good too. Nice spice, not an overpowering vinegar taste like most other hot sauces... yum!

Are you a quinoa fan? How do you like to eat your quinoa?

Bathroom...

Once upon a time I was taking a bath. My foot was resting on the tile by the faucet and next thing I knew... my foot fell through the wall. Ah crap... this can't be good, and it wasn't. Hubby tore out all the tile in the shower to find that whoever built this place didn't use the special water proof sheet rock behind the shower, they just used regular old sheet rock. So all of the sheet rock in our shower was water damaged and moldy. So gross. So we tore all of it out and this is how our bathroom has looked for the past 8 months...

Well sort of... I didn't get a picture before we put the new tub in. So this is the new tub and the new piping that we had to have welded together... so that's a start! Next up we have to sheet rock in the shower (the sheet rock has been on my living room floor for the past two weeks). I just hope that it's up by Christmas.

Don't worry... we are fortunate enough to have a second bathroom so we have been taking our sweet time at getting this one done. I know that sometimes we all just try to show our homes in their best light. But this is my reality. And we are working on a budget so we will get it done slowly, piece by piece. I think though that since it has to be redone I'm going to have some fun with it. I really love the look of subway tiles like this shower from Door Sixteen...


Anyone seen any great bathrooms lately? I need a little inspiration...

Jack Pot...

My super cute husband wanted to help me start my little Schleich collection. So one day he surprised me with a little Indian to start things out right. He's so cute. I love the feather in his hair...

Then one day we were innocently walking through Target... I was trying to find a new belt for my vacuum. And wouldn't you know it, right across the aisle from the vacuums was a bin full of Schleich toys all on clearance!! I bought one of each... and yes, it felt like Christmas morning. I'm totally okay with it because I got them each for about 1/5 of their normal price. Yay for clearance. Not a bad way to start out the collection...

I love the little detail that are put into each one. I love the blue eyes on this baby wolf.

And the silver horse shoes on the horse feet...

Sorry for the blurry picture, but it's the best I could do. I don't have a separate cabinet for them yet so right now they live on a shelf in my buffet.

It's been so fun. My little guy thinks that it's so to play with them (and so do I...). I'm loving it.

... and no, I never did find the vacuum belts either.

Dragon...

What started as a dinosaur costume turned into a dragon... apparently dragons are cooler than dinosaurs. He loved his wings and it was cute to see him showing his dragon wings off to everyone.

I'm glad that I started it the beginning of October because it took me that long to get it all put together. If I were to do it again I would have just skipped the foot part and just done elastic on the bottom of the legs. The feet would never stay where they were suppose to and he was just stepping on them all night.

Cutest little dragon I've ever seen...

Sick day...

I've been fighting a cold all week... it's no fun. So instead of going and playing with my boys today I decided it would be best to stay home and get some much needed rest and down time.

So I slept in till 9:00 AM which never happens...

I went and got Chipotle with a grapefruit Izze for lunch...

I've been listening to the Ingrid Michaelson station on Pandora all day...

and I was finally able to work on my quilt!!!

It has been sitting in the drawer for the past two months completely untouched. I just haven't had the time to work on it. When I did have time I was sewing a certain little boy's Halloween costume. So now that it's done, it was time to pull it out again.

It's been so nice to have a day to take it easy and do something that I love to do. I love the way that my table looks right now...

Do you see those beautiful shiny scissors? Husband got those for me for my birthday. Brilliant man I tell you, I love them so much! It's like cutting through warm butter. This is the first project I've been able to use them on. And I fall in love with this fabric all over again each time I pull it out.

I still love the quilt pattern I picked, but it's a little time consuming because each piece needs to be hand cut. I'm sure there is a much easier way to do this so that I don't have to hand cut everything, but I tend to do things the hard way so it's taking me a while. But I figured out a good system and hopefully I'll be able to start sewing it together soon.

Chicken and broccoli over rice...

This is my favorite meal ever!!!!!

I would just like to let you know that right off the bat. This really is my favorite meal. It's a family recipe, my mom used to make it for me for my birthday dinners and now that I'm "the mom" I get to make it whenever I want, which is usually about twice a month. This is also a go to recipe for me when I have company coming over for dinner, because I know that they will love it (unless they totally hate broccoli). I'm not saying it's super healthy, it's not bad. I'm just saying it's amazing and you really should try it out because it's that good.

Chicken and Broccoli over rice...

Main Ingredients

2 chicken breasts (or more if you like lots of chicken)

2 bunches fresh broccoli

1/4 c. Parmesan cheese

paprika for sprinkling

Sauce

2 c. milk

2 pkg. cream cheese

1 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. garlic salt

3/4 c. Parmesan cheese

- First boil the chicken breasts until fully cooked, and set aside to cool.

Then steam the broccoli until it's tender and set aside to cool.

- Mix all ingredients of the sauce together in a double broiler. I don't have a double broiler, so I just use a saucepan of water and use a Pyrex glass measuring cup to hold all the ingredients. Heat until the cream cheese is melted and mixed well with everything else. I like to use a wire whisk to mix this all together so that it's nice and creamy.

- In a 9x13 baking dish, lay the broccoli down on the bottom as the first layer. Then spoon 1/2 of the sauce over the broccoli. Then shred your chicken into manageable pieces and layer it on top of the sauce. Spoon the rest of the sauce on top of the chicken. Then sprinkle the 1/4 c. Parmesan cheese and paprika over the top until it looks pretty.

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook the dish for about 25 minutes or until the Parmesan cheese is melty and it's bubbling. Let cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

- Serve over rice.

If you have a small family like me this may seem like a lot of food for 2-3 people, but it makes great leftovers too! Make some extra rice and store them both together in serving size tupperware dishes. I'm handing you gold here... pure gold. Smothered in Parmesan and cream cheese... you can thank me later.

Indian in the cupboard...

photo from Nie Nie Dialogues...

Over the weekend we stopped by the CAL Ranch Store and my little guy and I were both mesmerized by all the little Schleich toys that were there. I love them. I love the little fawn, and the cows, and the porcupine!!! They are so well made and so miniature. Most things are adorable in miniature form aren't they?



It got me thinking about Nie Nie's Indian in the Cupboard collection that she talked about here. I like collections, but I like them to be functional. I love her idea of using toys as decorations, and I'm now on the lookout to find the perfect little {old} cupboard to start my own collection. I'm excited, I can see this as being a fun activity for our whole family. Both in collecting them and playing with them.

Starting with... my husband has no clue what The Indian in the Cupboard is. He may or may not have missed the fourth grade it sounds like. So the movie is on the way via Netflix, and maybe just for fun we will read the book together too. Then let the collecting begin!

Twenty {7}...

Twenty {7} is...

... being thankful for each day that I have to spend with those I love.

... growing out this super short hair.
... feeling better in my skin than I ever have before.

... simplifying my life so that I can be more productive and focus on the things that really deserve my attention.

... filling my body with healthy things and taking better care of it.

... lacing up my running shoes each morning.

... sewing more clothes for myself.

... listening to music more often when I do the dishes (my least favorite chore).

... working hard for my family, but not so hard that I don't have any energy for them when I get home.

... cooking with garlic and cumin (my favorites).

... wearing more heels... for the hubs.

... my budding wooden spoon collection.

... being less frumpy and more put together.

Twenty {7} feels good...

May I Suggest...

My cute friend Hannah from Sherbet Blossom has a May I Suggest series on her blog each month where she invites different bloggers to give their favorite suggestions on different topics and items. Hannah invited me to join in the fun for the month of October.

I had to laugh a little when she did because I am a super simple, low maintenance type of a girl and I'm not really into lots of products or gadgets.... so hopefully I can have some good suggestions this month!

Check in each Friday to see what I and the other fab bloggers suggest! Today's topic is beauty... check it out!