Round Two of Orange Juice

So I was just kinda sick most of last week and thought I was feeling better Friday and Saturday for the shower I felt a bit tired but mostly good. But seriously I typed my all better note in my last post too soon because last night after I posted that I just felt bad again. Today I took a long nap because I'm just weak and tired. But I'm definitely ready to feel better. I'm thinking of trying the apple cider vinegar bath because I've got things to do.

What's for Dinner: Week 23

For those of you are new  to my blog I write these weekly plans to help me spend less (I kinda of love grocery shopping, yea I know I'm weird), to save time and to try and help us eat in more often. Also I love knowing what other people eat so I thought it would be fun to share. For a while I'll be adding my plans for what greens I'll be eating since one of my resolutions is to build a habit of introducing more green veggies into our diet. Maybe some day it'll be so normal for us that I won't have to mention them any more.

Last week was kinda a flop. I was sick for most of it so most of my meals consisted of chicken and stars from the can. I'm feeling loads better and ready for some yummy tasting food. And I know I've said it for weeks but I will start a batch of bread dough, it is long overdue.
 

Day	Main Meal	Goals (Veggies, Whole Grain, Fish)
Sunday	Swedish Meatballs with side salad	Grains: oatmeal, WW pasta Veggies: green beans with basil dip, asparagus, salad Fish: Shrimp
Monday	Chipotle Chicken and Fancy Mac and Cheese
Tuesday	Pork Costelleta (Cheesecake Factory Fake Out) w/asparagus
Wednesday	Use Chanon Thai Gift certificate
Thursday	Homemade Pizza (feta, pine nuts, asparagus, chicken?)
Friday	Shrimp Mushroom Pesto pasta
Saturday	Cream Chicken Enchiladas

Rose Cupcake Mini Tutorial and Announcement

I'm super happy with how these cupcakes turned out and it may all be common sense to others but it took me a while to figure out that getting beautiful rose topped cupcakes is a snap. I've long had variations of rose topped cupcakes in my picture folder labeled "special treats" mostly in awe not really thinking I could do it. But let me tell you it's as easy as buying a 2D cake decorating tip. Yup seriously.

What you need:
-Wilton 2D tip
-pastry bag
-delicious frosting of your choice (I used a basic ganache recipe)
-some cupcakes

How to do it:

1. hold the cupcake upright (you can just stablize it on the table if you want)
2. squeeze the frosting through the tip starting from the middle and making a circle until you've covered the whole thing. The key is working from the inside out.

Yup that's it. I tried holding it sideways, turning the bag all fancy, but no it really is just point down and make a circle. The tip and pulling it around the surface of the cupcake will make it twist without you having to tdo anything. Couldn't be easier for such prettiness. If you do use ganache work fast or in batches because your hand will warm up the chocolate fast.

Any ways these will make an appearance at tomorrow's shower.

On a totally different note, I realized that I have a good amount of raegun stuff that I've created but just forgot (I don't know how) to list. So, I'll be having an official shop update with lots of new goodies next week, March 4 (oh my gosh it's already going to be March!?). So if you're looking to purchase the lovely showers set it will appear then, as will a couple new retro rufflers. I know I'd sold out of most of my rufflers so I'm trying really hard to buy enough fabric and get some good new options to start the warm weather off on the right foot.

And don't forget there's a ruffle diaper cover gift set giveaway open.

GIVEAWAY: Lovely Showers Ruffle Diaper Cover Gift Set (closed)

It's baby shower week here. My very good friend is having her first baby soon and the shower is this weekend. To celebrate I'm giving away a set that I think would make a splendid baby shower gift but feel free to keep it for yourself ;) . This is my newest creation (yeah yeah I know, now that I'm in the house I really need to make more new goodies, it's on the list). But I absolutely love the yellow and grey combo, I think it's perfectly girly without contributing to the flood of pink that I know mama's of new baby girls experience. Anyways I have onesies that go up to 24 months. I'll base the size on the onesies sizes since my bottoms fit more of a range. So you can chose from 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-9 months, 12 months, 18 months or 24 months. I'll add both of these items to my shop when I find a moment. 

(p.s. do you guys think people would buy sets if I listed them together in my shop? I will for sure list the ruffle bottoms by themselves but I'm going back and forth between whether I should list the onesies as stand alone, or sets, or both. Anyways if you have any thoughts on that I'd love to hear them.)

To Enter:
Be a follower of this blog and/or a facebook fan. If you're not already a follow/fan see the widgets on the left. (first time followers or fans get additional entries see below)

Then comment here telling me your best advice for a new mom (I'm sure the lovely Heidi will see this :) )

Make sure I have A WAY TO CONTACT YOU (in past giveaways I've drawn person over person but since their blogs and/or profiles are private I couldn't tell them they won so they didn't. So please make sure you leave your email in the comment OR that your profile/blog is PUBLIC ).

If it's your first time following the blog or being a facebook fan post an additional comment telling me that and you'll get an extra (or two) entries.

And of course I always appreciate if you want to spread the word about the giveaway, in fact you can get more entries for that, see below.

Ways You Can Get More Entries:
 Step 1: Posting a link to this post to your blog, facebook, twitter and/or some other internet thingy (ex. forums). Feel free to use the picture too if you want. See the buttons below "if you liked it" at the bottom of the post to easily create links. Or create a link how you normally would.

Step 2. Comment here and tell me where you posted this (give me a link if it's not connected to your comment id). Please leave a separate comment for every entry.

Last Day to Enter: 3/12/10 If it's your first time entering one of my giveaways or for more info on these giveaways and to see a list of past winners see this post. I use a random number generator to pick the winner so enter away.

Winner: Waiting for response.

Naughty Time: Dress Up

Okay I know the picture is totally fuzzy, but that Lanna moves fast. Anyways so first she had a petticoat on. Then she traded that for a tutu. Then she brought me the "no white" cape. But the cherry on top of the outfit were the angel wings. When she brought them to my sister we gave each other looks that said "is she crazy?". We told her how unsure we were that the wings would even work with the cape but silly aunty and mommy were totally wrong.

What's for Dinner: Week 22

(teriyaki steak and garlic mashed potatoes from last week)

For those of you are new  to my blog I write these weekly plans to help me spend less (I kinda of love grocery shopping, yea I know I'm weird), to save time and to try and help us eat in more often. Also I love knowing what other people eat so I thought it would be fun to share. For a while I'll be adding my plans for what greens I'll be eating since one of my resolutions is to build a habit of introducing more green veggies into our diet. Maybe some day it'll be so normal for us that I won't have to mention them any more.

My sister mocked me when I told her I bought chuck eye or something like that for the steak. She took it back after she ate it. That's her above, I'm not sure what's she's doing, probably drooling over my steak and regretting that she casts such judgment on my creation before tasting it. Yup it ended up pretty tasty.

It's finally the baby shower week so hopefully I'll have some yummy food shots for you next week.
 

Day	Main Meal	Goals (Veggies, Whole Grain, Fish)
Sunday	Not sure, I munched late, we'll see if I make dinner	Grains: WW toast breakfasts and oatmeal, brown rice Veggies: salad, green beans, broccoli snow peas in stir fry Fish: Shrimp, fish
Monday	Mixed Meat, Seafood and Veggie Stir Fry
Tuesday	Chipotle Chicken and Fancy Mac and Cheese
Wednesday	Swedish Meatballs
Thursday	Eat Out after sewing
Friday	Fish Tacos (we didn't get to these last week)
Saturday	Baby shower at 1pm, so either left overs or eating out

Show and Tell: Baby Shower Part I

(click on the picture to enlarge)

I have the great pleasure of co-hosting a shower for my good friend Heidi. I just wanted to share the little invites we came up with for the shower. It's my first Cricut project. I woke up at the crack of dawn on Black Friday because I just needed it, but I've been so busy that I've mostly cut out paper dolls with the naughties on it so it was fun to put it to use.

Heidi isn't finding out if she's having a boy or girl so we're having fun with that. We're asking guests to wear yellow if they think she's having a girl and green if we think she's having a boy.

I'm super excited that we'll be having it at our new home, I've been practicing my cupcake decorating skills for the event, as you can see I need a bit more practice. Hopefully I'll have some fun pics to share after next weekend.

Blogging Tips: Link Referral and Bookmarking Bar

About a month ago I added a bar below all of my posts that allows people to link or bookmark my posts. This is helpful for me since when people do that it gives my post/blog more exposure (always appreciated) and it helps readers since they can bookmark post of mine that they like or want to easily find later.

I had been meaning to share the steps to putting an "add this" bar on your blog page but of course with all the move stuff I totally forgot until Shanon from fookaDESIGNS reminded me. Seriously I spent all night figuring it out, searching, deciding which type of link referral to use, figuring how to make it work, etc. One big caveat though, I'm not a programmer at all. I can just tell you what I did and what worked for me. I highly recommend making a copy of your blog template before making any changes just in case.

1) I used Add This. Go here to find the one I used. Follow their instructions for which ever service and style (I used the 3rd one) you use/want.
2) Copy and Paste the code into your template. You get to your template in blogger by going to "layout" then "edit html" make sure to check the "expand widgets template". If you have a hard time finding where to paste the code use "ctrl f" while you are on the page with your blog template and it should open up a find bar at the bottom of your page and search for < div class='post-footer'> (but without the space after the <. (note the directions to tell you to post the code below the footer line but mine worked pasted above that footer line)
3) It will only have a few links show up and the share in front of it. 4) I deleted the share part of the code so that the first part of my code looks like this: < !-- AddThis Button BEGIN -->
< div class='addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style' expr:addthis:title='data:post.title' expr:addthis:url='data:post.url'>
< a class='addthis_button_stumbleupon'/>
(I added spaces after all of these < so it wouldn't go into code language, so you'll want to delete those if you want to copy mine)
5) Next I added more buttons by just trying things out, if you notice every button had this basic code < a class='addthis_button_linktospot'/> I just copied the code line and then typed in common places people link to like technorati, delicious, digg, etc. in place of the stumbleupon. There are tons that work.
6) Next I moved them around by copy and pasting above or below.
7) Finally I previewed it and saved it. I hope that helps some of you who have been wanting to do this and hopefully it works for you.

Naughty Time: Chinese New Year 2010

This week we celebrated Chinese New Years at out house, with the whole family. We had 12 people in our house and it wasn't crowded at all :). All I did was string up decorations and ask my mom how many  leaves she wanted in the table. She showed up with tons of food. Oh my gosh it was so good. Wine fish, yummy shrimp, black bean pork ribs, spring rolls, tasty chicken, almond cookies, panacota (we rejected the traditional almond jello so this was my mom's attempt at that), sweet and sour meatballs, bok choi and mushrooms, tea eggs, did I miss anything. Yikes it was so yummy.


We made the naughty girls kowtow for their traditional red envelops and I gave them not so traditional princess pez dispensers. As you can see Lanna got the idea real quick after she saw Tira's present. Fun times.

 I put more pictures on my flickr, you can kinda peek at parts of the new house in the some of them.

What's for Dinner: Week 21

(oven fried chicken and garlic mashed potatoes from last week)

Nothing new to report on the food front, although we had a lot of food activities last week so we're trying to up the veggies this week. Also I'm hoping to get back on the bread making bandwagon. 

For those of you are new  to my blog I write these weekly plans to help me spend less (I kinda of love grocery shopping, yea I know I'm weird), to save time and to try and help us eat in more often. Also I love knowing what other people eat so I thought it would be fun to share. For a while I'll be adding my plans for what greens I'll be eating since one of my resolutions is to build a habit of introducing more green veggies into our diet. Maybe some day it'll be so normal for us that I won't have to mention them any more.
 

Day	Main Meal	Goals (Veggies, Whole Grain, Fish)
Sunday	Wine and Cheese Party Apps	Grains: WW toast breakfasts and oatmeal Veggies: salad, green beans, broccoli snow peas in stir fry Fish: Shrimp, fish
Monday	Big Salad with Chicken
Tuesday	Teriyaki Steak, Garlic Mashed potatoes and Green beans
Wednesday	Fish Tacos
Thursday	Shrimp and Veggie Stir Fry
Friday	Tomato Wine Basil Pasta
Saturday	Maybe Eat out? Try a new recipe?

UPDATED: Janelle asked for the oven fried chicken recipe which I can't find since I haven't looked at it for a while but this is what I did last time and it turned out: 1/4 C biscuit, 1/4 C flour, a couple shakes each of paprika, salt and pepper. Preheat the oven to 450. Put 1 TBS of butter in a pan (you won't need more since the chicken will release oils too) and stick it in the oven to melt. Salt raw chicken to taste douse in the biscuit/flour mixture. Place skin side down in melted butter cook 15 minutes and then flip and continue cooking until juices run clear.  (This is what I did for 2 thighs and I had quite a bit of flour mixture left, if you do a whole chicken I still wouldn't use more than 2 TBS butter max.)

Giveaway Alert: Smiles Around the World Dress

I just wanted to let all of you know about a super cute giveaway going on over at Project: Project. This little dress just gives me the same warm fuzzies I get from riding "It's a Small World" at Disneyland, if you know what I mean. If you haven't been to the blog it's pretty cool, she shows off the adorable creations she makes. Beth also has an etsy shop called Lemon Cadet (which I'm sure many of you have heard of, it's filled with all kinds of awesomeness most of which is actually boy appropriate, I know how hard that is to find, yeah yeah I know I don't help on that front). But anyways go show her some love enter her giveaway and peruse the posts.

On a different note it's been a busy week for me with an even busier weekend approaching: Valentine's Day observed dinner with some friends, first 10K eek so not ready, Chinese New Years dinner at my house with the whole family -my mom has gotten really into it, Wine and Cheese shin dig on Sunday and who knows we may even throw in our own Valentine's celebration. The sewing room is finally set up and functional so I will hopefully be working on some of the new creations that have been piling up in my noggin, so look for some giveaways from me soon.

New Issue of Modern Handmade Child is Up

The newest issue of the lovely Modern Handmade Child has been posted. It's a really cool issue, head on over for tips on last minute Valentines, a tour of Purina Farms, some new recipes and loads more. You'll even a few fashion articles by yours truly.

Making It Ours, A Home that Is: First Impressions

Love. I really love our new place, more and more every day. The first night, after our friends and family had left from helping us move, there was this, wow is this really ours kind of feel. We didn't live together before we got married and there was a very familiar post wedding feel to our new home. Something we had wanted for a while, something better than we could have ever imagined, something new and exciting.

Our friend Shawn came over for a Rotten Musicians practice (no more practicing in a friends freezing cold garage) and he hit it right on the head. He said there was just something so grown up about having a real home. Something even more so than popping out kiddos. He said he was almost half expecting our parents to walk out at any second, but we're those people now. No we don't have baby news, but now there's actually room for babies when we decide to start trying. Anyways those are my first, wonderful thoughts about our new place. And of course a shot of our new couch and rug we're on a search for a new coffee table though.

What's for Dinner: Week 20

We are in our new home and I absolutely love it. My MIL commented with how at home I seem cooking in my new kitchen and it's true. It's so functional and pretty and wonderful. I'll post pictures soon but for now I here's my food plan for this coming week as always I'd love to hear if you have any big plans or have tried any new recipes.

For those of you are new  to my blog I write these weekly plans to help me spend less (I kinda of love grocery shopping, yea I know I'm weird), to save time and to try and help us eat in more often. Also I love knowing what other people eat so I thought it would be fun to share. For a while I'll be adding my plans for what greens I'll be eating since one of my resolutions is to build a habit of introducing more green veggies into our diet. Maybe some day it'll be so normal for us that I won't have to mention them any more.
 

Day	Main Meal	Goals (Veggies, Whole Grain, Fish)
Sunday	Super Bowl Munchies	Grains: WW toast breakfasts Veggies: in ramen, salads for lunches Fish: Shrimp in pasta
Monday	Oven Fried Chicken and Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Tuesday	Mushroom, shrimp and pesto pasta
Wednesda	Curry Veggie Chicken Ramen
Thursday	Pie Pizza or Mac and Cheese
Friday	Eating out with friends
Saturday	Chinese New Years Family Dinner

Customer Appreciation Pic: Ruffle Diaper Cover

It's always so fun to work with photographers because you get the coolest pictures. This one featuring my rainbow sherbet diaper covers is from Megan of Tree and Bees Photography in Topeka, Kansas. Look at the cheeks on this little one, oh I love it. Megan takes beautiful pictures. If you're thinking of having some photos done and you're in her area I'd definitely check her out. Visit her website here check out the bridal picture with the red umbrella it's so stunning ... oh and the girl jumping in the puddle and the baby in the toy truck, there are so many good ones.

If you are a professional photographer I do offer discounts for photo trades so feel free to contact me if you'd be interested in that.

Making It Ours, A Home that Is: We're In

We are finally in and loving it. It took a while to sort out the internet and the previous owns let's just say were kind of jerks (leaving food trash in the house, a yard full of dog poop and other annoyances). But we are so so excited about our new home. I love it. We've had loads of fun shopping for furniture and since we've saved up money for this very purpose it's guilt free shopping. Let me tell you if you've never saved up for something it's such a wonderful feeling to buy nice things out right.

Anyways there's still more cleaning (they kind of left dried and not so dried food smeared on multiple surfaces in many rooms). But I will hopefully get some inside shots up soon.

Thank you all for your well wishes, prayer and positive thoughts along the way, I am so happy with this place!