Play food.

As in, I am making some play food, not playing with your food. :) My AP group is doing a handmade play food swap. You make enough for everyone in our group, then we all trade. I am really excited. The kids like play food and I love hand made stuff. Most people are doing felt food or knitted projects.

I am doing ice cream cones, ice cream scoops and orange creamsicles. As usual I got my pattern from an etsy shop. Here is the link: PATTERN You can see what it will all look like. I have a picture of what I have done so far.

I am making one pink (strawberry) scoop, one brown (chocolate) scoop, one cone and one creamsicle for each person in my group. I am almost done with the pink scoops and have started on the cones.

I made pants!!

You seriously don't know how excited I am. I am an idiot when it comes to reading patterns for clothes. Especially the ones that have several size choices. So I took a chance on an E-book pattern. It is amazing and wonderful and a big slice of heaven! First thing I made was these cute PJ pants for Gioia. I love this Yoga Monkey fabric. Michael Miller of course.

Next I am going to make a pair of PJ pants for Dominic. Then the pattern also has two variations, one with cuffs on the pants, another has ruffles on the bottoms. I am going to make those as well (cuffs for D, and ruffles for G). A couple pairs for Luca too of course. I will probably make the next few pairs for Christmas gifts. It is getting close enough to start saving gifts for that occasion.

Oh yes and I didn't even mention that you can also make shorts and capris out of this pattern. Just adjust the length! WOO HOO!!
You can buy your own pattern here:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30060639

Presents from grandma.

Between my mom and grandma someone has been in the hospital almost none stop for the last month. UGH! But they are both feeling much better. My mom is doing great. Grandma L is on the mend. Hopefully home to stay this time. Little over a week ago she got a helicopter ride back to the hospital. A little stressful on everyone to say the least.

Anyway, my mom came to visit this week and stayed the night. She brought the boys their birthday presents. She was recovering when we had their party. Luca got a cute giraffe ride on toy. He much prefers to push it all around the house. Dominic got his dream present DRUMS! Not just one drum. He had that already. No, no a whole trap set. He is in love. He played them until bedtime, then first thing the next morning. And no we aren't mad! LOL! We actually encouraged my mom to get them for him. SO thanks grandma elaine! He loves them!



And here is Luca. Climbing on his present with a giant carrot in his mouth. How you doin'?

Tooth Fairy

Gioia lost her first tooth about a month ago. We put it in a cup but never did the tooth fairy thing. She was pretty insistent this weekend about needing the tooth fairy to come. DH and I however have a problem with lieing to the kids about that kind of thing. But on the other hand I want to let her have some of the fun and mystery of childhood things. So finally we decided to put the tooth and cup on her dresser and let the tooth fairy come. The next morning she was excited to find a quarter. She asked DH if he was the fairy he said no. Then she asked me if I was. I said Do you want me to tell you if I am, or would you rather keep it a surprise? She said she wanted to know. So i said Yes I was your tooth fairy. Then I received a scolding because I didn't take the tooth. The tooth fairy is supposed to take the tooth. She got a baggie and put the tooth in it. Then i asked her what the tooth fairy does with all the teeth. She said, The tooth fairy saves them all. Then she makes a necklace out of them and sells them to other tooth fairies.

HA HA! Ok. Good to know. SO all you other tooth fairies out there. In a couple years I will have a human tooth necklace for sale. Not to be confused with a shark tooth necklace or the like.

Pasta with Vodka Sauce

Ok. So really this is the recipe for the Vodka Sauce. YOu can serve it over regular pasta. It is phenomenal! I think we will be making this again this week as soon as I get some more sausage.

OR you can serve it over Spaghetti Squash. Just place the whole squash in the oven and bake for about an hour. Cut squash open, scoop out seed part (throw away). Then scoop out squash part to eat.

Vodka Sauce (with our without sausage)

Olive Oil
3 sausages (brats, Italian sausage or even chicken sausage)
2 cups crushed tomatoes
5-6 cloves garlic
onion flakes (or small onion)
½ cup vodka
1 cup cream
½ tsp red pepper flakes


Cook the sausage in a little oil until browned and not longer pink. Add garlic and onion sautéed for about 1 minute. Add crushed tomatoes for about 2 mins. Then add vodka. Cook for about 3 minutes until reduced. Add the cup of cream and cook additional 3-5 minutes until thick.

For spicier use Italian sausage.

Makes 4 small servings. For my family I will double the recipe next time.

As usual Dominic ate all the sausage and left the squash. Gioia ate all the squash with sauce and left the sausage. Then Dominic ate her sausage.

Random things.

It is Fall officially. The leaves are slowing starting to turn colors and fall off. The spiders are out in full force. My policy is if they stay outside they are fine. If they come inside they are dead. LOL! Here is a beautiful web a spider made of our deck. I couldn't believe how big it was.


Second and totally random is some purple potatoes. I wanted to post this for my mom who says she has never seen or eaten purple potatoes. Well, I hadn't either until this week. They taste and cook the same. The kids though it was great fun to make potato salad with purple potatoes.

Gioia's new room.

So now I will bombard you with picture of my other project I have gotten finished. I told Gioia when we were buying our house that we could fix up a room for her. Despite my attempts to do a girly princess type room, she insisted that her favorite color is blue. Ok. So Blue it is. I guess it will be fine if the boys ever want to switch rooms with her. Anyway. I think it turned out awesome. We painted. I made the curtains in the picture (see how I snuck in some pink! LOL). Then I put one of those Expressions on the wall. It is tall stemmed flowers in two tones of brown with her name on top. Then she put her hand prints on. I love it! You can click on any picture to make it bigger and see more details.

Turning corners table runner.

I finally finished a project that was not slings! HA HA! It is good to have people wanting slings, but sometimes i want to work on other fun projects. I did the Turning Corners Table Runner that was feature on Moda Bakeshop. LINK HERE

I had been wanting to do a quilt or other project with purples and browns. I think it turned out really well. I made it a little shorter than his, but I think it will work well for any standard size table. If it is too short it can just be a table topper. I used a cream colored fabric for the backing and a cute purple polka dot for the binding. It is a gift for a wedding I am going to in a couple weeks. Now I just have to find some more things to go along with it. I might look for some matching cloth napkins and napkin rings. I think that would go nice together.

Luca pictures.

http://smilestore.picturepeople.com/my/images?tk=69118ee2-e41d-4d15-af59-0e6c89cce310&CMPN=EmailAlbum

Here is a link to check out the cute pictures we had taken of Luca. I am also posting a few more that I took of him recently. I can't believe he is one year old on Saturday!

My clothesline!

Finally! My clothes line is up and functional. It isn't quite 100% yet. The lines are too loose but we are working on it.

In other news just as exciting, we had the birthday party for the boys this weekend. My sister and her hubby came, my dad and stepmom and our friends Brian and Marcela. It was a nice little small gathering. Everyone had a good time. I made this hungry caterpillar cake. I got the idea from this website. HERE


Luca eating his first cupcake with icing. He of course wore more of it than he ate. We also went yesterday to get pictures of Luca taken. Plus I got some really cute ones today in the yard. After they send me the link, I will post the pictures we had taken.