Author: Raptor Mama

I’ve been intrigued by the whole crock pot phenomenon for quite some time now, but have been reluctant to jump on the band wagon for 2 reasons.  1, most crock pot meals center around a hunk of meat and I’m a quasi-vegetarian (I do eat seafood.)  2, most recipes have a bunch of processed canned foods and we try to avoid them.  Beans though, beans can be cooked in a crock pot, right? Enter this recipe.

Now, it should be clear by now that I’m not great at following directions.  😉  First off, Michael cooks beans all the time and he scoffed at the recipe calling for boiling the beans for 10 minutes and letting them soak for an hour.  We soaked them overnight instead and cooked them longer.

Next up the veggies.  It called for 1 carrot, but I used about 3/4 of a cup of baby carrots.  Likewise, I upped the celery from one stalk to 4.  Hey, veggies are good right?  Onion and garlic, check.  We used one orange bell pepper instead of 2 green ones and I left out the jalapenos because Kate’s not a huge fan of spicy foods.  I’m not entirely sure how that can be since her amniotic fluid was probably 90% salsa, but it is what it is.  🙂  Michael and I added salsa at the table.

I used 5 fresh tomatoes  in place of the can of tomato.  The other big change I made was to add the veggies at the beginning and let them cook all day instead of just the last 3 hours because, I’ll be honest, I had no intention of pulling half of this out and pureeing it.  Seriously, people do this?

Spices, check.  🙂  I started it at 9AM, all of the veggies were in by 10AM and the crockpot switched from High Heat to Warm (All on its own!  How cool is that?) at 3PM.  Oh, and I subbed quinoa in place of the rice and lentils.  I added the quinoa at 5PM and we ate at 6PM.

I served it up with a bit of cheese, salsa, avocado and fresh lime.

We both agreed that it needed more salt.  Seriously, even Michael added salt.  Next time I’ll replace the celery with zucchini as Michael was not a huge fan of the celery.  Michael wants the onions sauteed, but I’m too lazy busy to add another step.

Now this wasn’t exactly the super easy crock pot meal I had been envisioning (it took me an hour to cut up all of the vegetables and stuff) but it was nice to get it done in the morning instead of scrambling after work.  Also, it made a ton of food.  I think we could get another 15 meals out of it.  (Not quite, but 2 more easily.)  In the interest of full disclosure, we have a larger oval crock pot.  I’m not sure that all of these veggies would have fit it a smaller one.

On the 22nd, we went over to a gingerbread decorating birthday party.  So much fun!

I added this Party Time charm that I’ve been hoarding for years.  I was always saving it for some super fantastic page and then it went out of style.  lol.  Into December Daily it goes.  🙂

   

Some washi tape, ribbon and rubbons later and I called it good.

Here’s the back.  I left it blurry on purpose because I forgot to ask the kids mom’s if they minded me putting their kids on my blog.

Kate and I tried had a little Christmas tree photoshoot that evening.  The pictures didn’t turn out quite like I wanted, but it did serve the purpose of distracting Kate from the elves who were assembling a playscape in our backyard.  🙂

   

I added some journaling and washi tape on the back.

On the 23rd, we went to look at the Christmas lights in my parents’ neighborhood.  It was freezing, but Kate loved it.

2 more days!

I’ve made aprons for Kate before, but never for myself.  Time to change that!  I got this awesome book for Christmas and have been totally inspired.

Incidentally, I also got a subscription to the magazine and I am thrilled.  It’s seriously the best magazine ever.  Go subscribe now.  🙂  Back to aprons though, I have been wanting to make one for a while, but it seemed way too complicated.  Enter page 29.

Awesome!  It doesn’t even have to be hemmed!  Sign me up.  🙂

Now, those of you who have met me in real life know that I am not generally considered to be in the one size fits all camp, so I changed it up a bit.  Instead of cutting the waist part with a 4 inch diameter, I went with 8.  Let me just tell ya, 6 may have been better.  The apron is ridiculously short and I had to trim it down so it wasn’t quite so wide.  Whoops.  Eh, I still think it’s cute.  🙂

Instead of hemming it, you edge it with bias tape.  Man, where has this stuff been all my life?!?  Apparently, you’re supposed to use double fold bias tape, but that would require me to a.  pay attention to the pattern and b.  remember it when I’m out shopping.  Not likely.  I ended up with single fold so I just folded it over myself, stitched it down with a zigzag stitch and it worked fine.  I considered ironing it, but I only iron under extreme duress.  I like that it added a little pop of color as well.

I actually busted out some pins when I did the waist because I wanted to make sure that there was an even amount of bias tape at both ends to make the ties.  I tried to keep the tape folded over for the ties, but that made it was too narrow to feed through the sewing machine.  In the end, I just left it wide and stitched up the middle of the tape to catch both ends.

Here’s the finished waist band.

And the hem.

Michael even agreed to take a picture of it on.  🙂  Go forth and make an apron for yourself!  Cooking is way more fun when you have a sassy apron.

On the 21st we went to a holiday party with our playgroup.  So fun!Three pictures in a column with a bit of washi tape and some letter stickers.

I added a rubbon to the washi tape this time to mix it up a bit.  Still loving the washi tape.  🙂

On the back I have 2 more pictures and a chipboard strip.  I also have a fair amount of journaling, but it’s not showing up too well in the photo.

The light coming in the window was absolutely gorgeous, so I took approximately 12 thousand pictures.  🙂  I printed 2 4×6 collages with 4 photos each and adhered them sandwiching this piece of paper.  It’s like a transparency, but slightly frosted and a bit thicker.  I think it was from KI.

It has this fun scalloped edge that I love.

I realize that pink flowers are hardly Christmasy, but they are so fun and so girly.

Closing in on the home stretch.  I would love to finish this up this weekend and pack it away.

 

 

 

I know that I either found this on Pinterest or read it on a blog, but I can’t find the link right now.  Whoops.  I think it’s called cloud dough?  You could probably google it if you were more industrious than me.  🙂  At any rate, it’s *awesome* and you should totally make some today.

It’s super simple (my kind of recipe!) and if you’re not a crazy hippy you might even have the ingredients at home.  We, of course, did not have any baby oil at home so I had to send DH to buy it.  That and regular cheap flour.  A few of my friends pointed out that there are some issues with Johnson’s and Johnson’s, but let’s face it, I’m not going to buy organic essential oils for a 1 time sensory project.  Scratch that, I would but only if we had recently won the lottery.  🙂

The recipe called for 8 cups of flour, but the bag only had 7 1/2.  (i’m pretty sure anyway.  There was some math involved so it could really go either way.)

I compensated by using a wee bit less than a cup of oil.  How’s that for precise!  Side note: this might be why I’m a terrible cook.  Luckily children’s craft projects are pretty forgiving.

I’ll be the first to admit that it looked pretty gross when I first dumped the oil in.  And yes it really did turn brown.  Yuck.

It mixed in quite nicely though.  It’s really strange feeling.  Like flour, but if you grab some and squeeze your hand it holds its shape.  Awesome.

As you can see, the girls thought it was the bomb.  It does in fact look like a bomb went off in my kitchen.  Small price to pay for the amount of fun we were all having playing with it.

Shortly after this picture they started throwing it at each other.  Oh the joys of sharing.  🙂

We ended up moving it outside which turned out to be a wise decision.  I would totally let Kate play with this every day if I wasn’t now paranoid about the baby oil causing cancer.  Seriously though, 2 thumbs up.

I’m plugging along slowly but surely.  Anyone else still working on this?  I’m losing steam, but determined to finish.

We did a handprint craft on the 19th and Michael took some pictures of Kate and I.  I did it on a frosted transparency, so you can see the next page and the floor through it.  I added a bit of washi tape, a dymo label and a few jewels.

The back has a scrap of cardstock with some journaling, some more washi tape (love that stuff) and a bit of ribbon.

The 20th is actually a bit of a cheater picture.  I didn’t take anything good, so I took a picture of our Christmas Card wreath yesterday.  I just made it a half page and added some rubbons and a dymo label.

First I tried to write directly on the photo, but I didn’t like how it turned out so I put the dymo label over it.  I drew in the heart with a white pen.  I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

I left the back of the page plain.  I love how the other pages look peeking through.  🙂  We’re in the home stretch, just 5 days to go!  I have some other fun stuff scheduled to post soon too.

 

I’ll admit it, New Year’s Resolutions intimidate me.  Committing to something for the whole year?!?  Yikes.  Instead of New Year’s Resolutions, I’m thinking January Resolutions.  I do better with short term goals.  🙂  I’ve decided to set 12 goals for myself to accomplish within the month of January.  (Michael thought that 12 was kind of arbitrary, but it’s 12 for 2012.  He’s says I’m in trouble if I make it to 2060.)  I’ll do an update post at the end of the month to see how I did.  Maybe I’ll even go crazy and set some February goals.  I’m not promising anything though.  🙂

1.  Lose 4 pounds.

That’s a pound a week.  Surely I can manage that.  🙂  Really I’m hoping for 6 pounds, but I like to set easy realistic goals for myself.  I’ve been on the dieting bandwagon since late October and I’ve lost 17 pounds so far.  I have a long way to go, but it’s a start!  If you’re wondering about the okra, it’s my go to snack food now.  Salty, crunchy and only 5 calories.  Much better than chips.

2.  Work out twice a week.

Obviously, I would like to work up to 3 times a week, but I need to start with some baby steps.  🙂  We finally got a TV (you can go ahead and welcome us to the 21st century) so I’m hoping to do some kind of workout video while Kate naps.  We’ll see how long this lasts.

3.  Update the blog 3 times a week.

And hopefully manage to keep my 1 week buffer.  (And maybe clean my laptop.  Yikes.)

4.  Finish December Daily

I’m so close I can taste it!  I only have 5 days to go.  I would love to get this finished in the next week so I can put it away with our Christmas decorations.

5.  Make 4 new Mama Crafts.

That’s one a week.  Surely I can manage that.  Ideas include new table clothes for our gorgeous new table, a new skirt, and getting started on Valentine’s Day crafts.  I’m hosting a wee little party for our playgroup and I cannot wait!

6.  Cook 2 dinners.

Michael’s a bit concerned about this goal as he does all of the cooing in our house and is a much better cook than me.  I figure I can manage 2 dinners though, right?  I mean, how hard can it be to follow a recipe?  (Way hard, but I’m determined.)

7.  Do 4 new Kate projects.

Kate loves projects and I would love to do some more with her.  I always have good intentions, but then life gets in the way.  I have one prepped (at least I’ve bought the ingredients) and I plan on doing 3 more of the eleventy-billion things I’ve already pinned.

8.  4 Date Nights.

This one might end up being the hardest since I work 4 nights a week.  Still, I think I can make it happen, even if it’s means we’re just watching a movie at home.  🙂  Michael is awesome and always plans things like this, but I think I need to step up and plan some of  my own.

9.  Edit and Order December Pictures

Including pictures for Project Life.  I’ll admit it, Project Life took a backseat to December Daily, but I did catch up on all of my journaling last night.  Now I just need to find some pictures to go with each day.  I also want to get all of the pictures I want to put in Kate’s regular scrapbook ordered.

10.  Walk Ninja Daily

Our poor puppy.  She loves walks more than anything and we have gotten bad about not taking her out.  Family (or at least Mama and Ninja) walks need to happen every night.

11.  Clean out The Pit My Bedroom.

I’ll spare you a picture.  Let’s just say that it needs some serious organization help.  Oh, and no matter how much weight I lose, I’m not going to start wearing old fraternity shirts or skanky club outfits.  I need to cull the clothes in my closet.

12.  Write Thank You Notes.

I’ll be honest, I’m a little embarrassed that I haven’t done this yet.  OK, I’m a lot embarrassed.  I think this might need to be today’s project.

All in all, I think that these are very attainable goals!  I think I’ll start on those Thank You notes now.  🙂

I found thison Pinterest (of course) and knew that I had to try it. Etched sayings instead of wine charms? Cute *and* funny. Also, the perfect gift for my stepsister and her new husband. Michael has etched glass before so he walked me though it. I bought a 6 pack of cheap wine glasses from Ikea to use as the base and then sat down to ponder what should go on the glasses. I decided to go with Tipsy, Lush, Buzzed, Bent, Toasted and Loaded. I used SCAL software and cut the templates out of vinyl on my Cricut. Have I mentioned that I love my Cricut?

Obviously, you want to cut the words apart. Make sure you don’t lose any of the bits from inside the a, e, o, d, etc. Then you need to clean the glasses really well with glass cleaner. Apparently the oil in your fingers can screw up the etching stuff. Since I’m a hippy, we use Method glass cleaner instead of Windex.

Once your glasses are nice and clean, stick on the stencils. If the word is longer than 3 or 4 letters, I recommend cutting it in half. Also, it’s easier to get the vinyl to lay flat if you cut some slits up to the edge of some of the letters. Hopefully the picture makes this clearer. If you don’t want to mess with the curvature of the glass, you could always make your letters smaller and put them on the base of the glass.

Don’t forget to add in the little bits from the inside of the letters like “o.” When you’ve done that check your glass from the back to see if there are any obvious bubbles or gaps. I smoothed them down with a popsicle stick somewhat effectively. Mainly I used my thumb nail and tried to avoid touching the glass as much as possible.

Here’s the actual etching stuff. I think Michael bought it a few years ago at Hobby Lobby. It has a fairly intimidating list of warnings. We’ll just say that this is *not* a kid friendly craft and leave it at that.

You just gunk it on with a paint brush and let it sit for 5 minutes. Mine sat longer than that because I was doing all 6 glasses at once. There was no noticeable difference between these and my test glasses which sat for exactly 5 minutes. Don’t get it on your hands.

After (around) 5 minutes, you wash it off with water and peel off they vinyl. Et voila! (Is that right? I barely passed spanish and certainly never took french.) I think they turned out really nice! 🙂

I love that I’ve gotten back into the habit of regular blogging.  I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep up this pace, but my goal is to have a post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  I’m not going to lie, most of them will probably be Pinterest rip-offs like this one. 🙂

I’ve been planning on making this Christmas tree appetizer for weeks now.  Since I didn’t actually take a look at the directions until I started writing this blog post, I used rosemary instead of thyme.

It was super easy to put together, but looks impressive.  Michael decided to show me up with the tray of extras and make a rosemary tree.  Totally awesome.

Now we’re just waiting for Kate to wake up so we can go share these appetizers with Michael’s family.  🙂

This was a big weekend!  We went down to Houston to celebrate Christmas with my Dad’s family and my Mom’s family.  Lots of pictures!

   

I just chose a few pictures, because I know that I will go back and make full 12×12 pages for Kate’s scrapbook later.  I used a “the first Noel” rubbon to play on the fact that this was the first of many Christmas celebrations we’ll be having this season.

   

I added a wee bit of journaling directly onto the photograph, but the bulk of it is on the back.

   

On the 18th, we went to see Santa!  It’s become a bit of a tradition to go and see Santa with my dad and step-mom.  They are members of the yacht club, where Santa doesn’t drive a sleigh, he comes in via boat.  Since my dad was the one captaining the boat, Kate got to come along for the ride.  She thought it was the coolest thing ever.

   

Here’s another little page that I added.  Let’s all please note the gorgeous dress she’s wearing.  🙂

My goal is to finish up December Daily in the next week or two and then pack it away with my Christmas decorations.  I’m not always great about finishing things, but I’m making this book a priority.  When I pulled out last years, Kate and I both loved looking through it.  Next year we’ll have 2!