Taking Pictures

Blogging has me taking more pictures than I have since Nature Girl was a baby. During April I took over 500 pictures. Since I'm dragging the camera around with me everywhere we go Nature Girl has become interested in taking pictures too. So I've handed over the camera and let her take a few. It's pretty interesting to see what she wants to take pictures of.

The picture of this dance bag was taken by Nature Girl this afternoon during her dress rehearsal for dance. I've volunteered to be one of the backstage moms for Nature Girl's class. This means caring for thirteen 3, 4 and 5 year olds in the basement of an old local theater for 3 hours. After the busy week we've had what's 12 more kids to watch, right?! The rehearsal was fine so now were ready for the full dress rehearsal on Monday. By the way this isn't even Nature Girl's dance bag but she does take a pretty good picture. At least it equals my picture taking abilities.

My sister picked up my nieces this afternoon so we're back to having just one child. After having to share my attention with her two cousins for the last four days Nature Girl is in need of a girl's day. We're planning to spend the day together tomorrow. We hope to visit her favorite petting farm & ice cream stand. They just opened up and we're looking forward to our first visit this year. We also have a project in the works for tomorrow. We hope to make some stepping stones for our garden. They'll be a mother's day present for me. Of course Nature Girl wants one for her own garden so we'll do that too.
Our weekend is shaping up to be busy but I'm hoping that by Monday I'll be back to my normal boring old life. I'm really looking forward to it!

My Old Boring Life!

When I decided to start blogging I worried that my life was too boring to write about. I have a great life but it's not very exciting and no one will ever write a book about it. I'm not complaining! It's a good life and I'm glad I don't have a lot of drama. For the last three days I've been watching two extra children. My sister had an emergency and needed to someone to take her girls. My other sister has the oldest daughter and I have the 4 year old and 5 month old. This is the great thing about living near my sisters we can help each other out at the drop of a hat.
After three days of the flurry of activity that has accompanied caring for three children and the numerous adjustments to our normal schedule I'm looking forward to getting back to my old boring life! I greatly love my nieces and have enjoyed having them with us. Of course having three children has changed how we navigate through our day. Nature Girl is an only child and has gone everywhere with me since birth. As a result she has very good behavior in public and can go anywhere without an issue. We regularly head off to run errands, go on outings, play dates or whatever we need to do. Having three children makes it difficult to do the these things. You should have seen me trying to take the baby and two four year olds to pick out flowers and terracotta pots for our teacher appreciation gift. After loading flowers and pots into the car we headed off to pick up a friend's child from school (We do this every Wednesday before going to play at the children's museum and heading off to dance class.) Add in a stop at the Dollar store and a trip to McDonald's for dinner and you have our day today. I'm tired just thinking about it!

So where do these rusty old milk cans come in? These are on my list of projects to complete this spring. I bought them last October at an auction for $13 each. I think it was a great deal, my husband didn't agree. I'm planning to paint them, then use them as a decoration in font of our house. My husband is not a fan of my milk cans and will be happy to see them finished and out of the garage. When I get back to my old boring life I might have time to paint them or to catch up on the other projects I haven't had time to do! I love my old boring life!

I Need a New Apron

Nature Girl has been enjoying the goodies from our swaps. All the swaps to date have been for her, so I thought it was time to do a couple of swaps for me. I signed up for the Miniature Booty Swap, then the Sassy Apron Swap and the Summer Fun Apron Swap. I wanted to do something for me but even more I'm in desperate need of an apron. I'm forever getting wet or dirty in the kitchen because I don't wear an apron. I have an apron but it's really bad so I don't wear it. You're asking how bad can it be? Look at the picture of me with my current apron and you'll understand why I signed up for two apron swaps.

I should have had my husband zoom in on the pattern so you could see the details. It's little rabbits wearing brightly colored clothes. It's perfect for Easter but not for any other day. I'm hoping one of my apron swap partners is checking out my blog planning an apron for everyday! Preferably something that doesn't have little Easter rabbits on it!! By the way the title of this post could have been I need a new apron and a haircut. My bangs are so long that I'm ready to cut them myself. I have an appointment for Thursday and can't wait!

Today was Teacher Appreciation Day. This was perfect since Nature Girl had school today and we love her teacher. Her teacher is a wonderful lady who has come to our house for lunch twice this year because Nature Girl invited her. To show our appreciation I made 4 reversible cloth napkins and one almost sandwich bag size reusable pouch. Her teacher has commented on Nature Girl's napkins and pouches so it seemed like a good gift. I love the fabric! I have a bunch of it left calling out to be made into skirts, napkins, bags, aprons and who knows what else.

Here are the napkins folded and tied with ribbon. Are you tired of seeing napkins and reusable pouches yet? I promise I won't post any more of them!
I'd like Nature Girl make something by herself for her teacher. I think I'll take her to the new garden stand in town and have her choose a plant. Then Nature Girl can decorate a pot for the plant and give it to her teacher on Thursday. There's a project for tomorrow.

Everybunny Needs A Sling Bag

This wonderful little bunny showed up at our house today. She came from Becky who I had as a partner in Plush Swap 3. Becky sent this sweet little bunny to Nature Girl. Look, the bunny even has her own little sling bag proving that. . . .everybunny needs a sling bag! Really she is the cutest little bunny complete with a sling bag and a sweet little bird. The bird has an elastic at the bottom. It can be stored in the bag(Nature Girl prefers this) or wrapped around her wrist twice so the bird can sit on her arm(I love this.) Nature Girl is loving the swap mail. She has even added it to her vocabulary, proudly telling her aunt and our wonderful neighbor MB that she got swap mail today!

By the way I signed up for A Post a Day in May hosted by Jenny at Allsorts, so I'll be posting every day in May. I've been trying to post regularly but this will keep me motivated. The posts are adding up fast, I think this is number 37. It's certainly fun for me and I appreciate all of you who pop by to read the events in my normal every day life. Thanks for the comments. I enjoy reading them and try to respond to all of you because I appreciate hearing from you. It's nice to know I'm not just talking to myself, although admittedly I do that too!

Cuatro de Mayo

Yes this is another recipe post but it's a good one! We decided to have friends over for a Cinco de Mayo party but since the 5th of May is a Monday we changed our minds and decided to have a Cuatro de Mayo party instead. Nature Girl has been referring to it as our Mayo party. To be perfectly honest I couldn't even remember what Cinco de Mayo was other than a great time to have a party and serve our favorite Mexican foods. I thought it was to celebrate Mexico's independence but Wikipedia set me straight on that. It's really a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.

For us it was all about visiting with friends and the FOOD. We made tacos, quesadillas, mufungo(a hot bean, taco seasoned beef and cream cheese dip) and fresh salsa. Hence the pictures for this post. We finished off with our version of fried ice cream. For our version, I butter soft taco shells then sprinkle them with cinnamon and sugar. We bake them for 10 to 12 minutes or until crispy. Then we break the shells into a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Sprinkle on granola and drizzle over the top with honey to create a delicious & easy homemade fried ice cream. Sorry no photo we gobbled it all up!

Fresh salsa is the best! It takes me longer to chop it all by hand but it's worth it in the end! Tomorrow for lunch I'll be eating a salad with yellow corn, fresh salsa, crushed tortilla chips and sour cream. Yum I can't wait! I think I might be eating some more fried ice cream too. Maybe I'll even remember to take a picture so you can see how yummy it is.
Since the rest of the world will be celebrating Cinco de Mayo tomorrow I thought I'd share the recipe I use for fresh salsa. Enjoy and Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Salsa

4 large ripe tomatoes chopped
1 med. onion
1 handful of fresh cilantro
2 limes
4 tsp. sugar
part of jalapeño pepper according to desired "heat"

Chop tomatoes & place in a bowl. Chop onion and add to tomatoes. Chop the big leaves of the cilantro and add. Squeeze the lime into the mixture getting as much juice as possible. Stir in the sugar; taste, then add salt as needed. Put in as much of the jalapeño as you want for "mild" to "hot" salsa. The seeds are the hottest part. Serve in a bowl with corn chips.

*I use roma tomatoes for my salsa since they seem to have less seeds and mush inside. They are smaller than other tomatoes so I use more like 6 when I make salsa.

Pampered Chef sells a wonderful citrus juicer perfect for juicing the limes in this recipe. No I don't sell pampered Chef, I just love that little citrus juicer!

Swap Mail

Nature Girl got swap mail yesterday. I signed up for Plush Swap 3 so she would get a plush in her favorite colors orange & pink. This cute little dolly arrived yesterday from Hope. Nature Girl was thrilled to get the package and see her surprise. She's still trying to come up with a name for her. I think she's sooo cute and I'd love to steal her for myself. Does that make me a bad mom?!

I had to create a plush for Becky, whose favorite colors were blue and white. She is a lover of birds and chickens so this chick is what I finally came up with. I think the the third time is a charm. The birds below were my first and second design attempts.

The white bird was first but attaching the tail was a problem. Then I moved on to the two blue chickens inspired by Swirlyarts Chicken Doorstop But the original was much better & I wasn't thrilled with my version. In the end I decided to send the blue swirly chicken and the chick above. Surprisingly creating a bird plush was much harder than I thought. Enough of regaling you with the plush swap.
For those of you still reading to the end of the post we had three black bears in our yard this evening. I missed it since I was walking the floor with a fussy baby. I have two of my sister's girls overnight. The baby is usually very happy but not tonight. Apparently no one has told her the sleep over rules ... no fussing just fun! Anyway our neighbors across the street saw a mother black bear with her two cubs in our front yard. When my husband drove in tonight the neighbors stopped to tell him. We live in a rural area so it's not a huge surprise. We've just never seen any. Three summers ago a neighbor saw a moose in our yard,. Yeah we missed that too!

Recipe Box Swap

Randi from i have to say is hosting another recipe box swap. The theme this month is cookies & bars. If you're looking for a new cookie recipe you should check here:

I'm sharing a recipe for molasses cookies. The recipe was given to me by my sister. It was passed down from her husband's grandmother. I hope you enjoy them! I don't know if biscotti counts as a cookie but while you're here check out my Pecan Toffee Biscotti recipe from this previous post.

Molasses Cookies

ingredients:
3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. salt

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350. Cream shortening and sugar. Add egg and molasses. Now add the dry ingredients. Cover and chill 30 minutes. Roll dough into balls, then roll balls in sugar. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.



This is the project I worked on today while Nature Girl was at school. I stitched the cupcake from one of my doodles and decided to work it into a mini quilt for my friend Susan. She was kind enough to review my tutorials for me so I wanted to say thanks. I'm new to quilting and wanted to try this small project before heading on to my next project, a mini quilt for the Miniature Booty Swap. I learned a lot from this project so I hope the next one will turn out better. If nothing else I think it will make a great potholder! Susan & Tracy have started a new 6 " mini quilt trading swap group on Flickr and are holding sign ups for the swap.