Grammy Clock

The count down to grammy time
or the 40th anniversary present

Nine Years

I have been an aunt for nine years now. Which is totally crazy to me, how did they get so big so fast. But this birthday cake was for a nephew that turned 7. Still a long time! We had a partial family reunion with some of my siblings and their families, which meant we had a mini birthday party for a birthday boy. I decided he needed a theme cake, so I checked out Family Fun. And created this.

My frosting wouldn't stick to the take so it took longer than I expected. Anyway if you had a deprived childhood its a lego brick.

Lentils

(I meant to hit publish on this post about two months ago.)

This is my husband's favorite no oven dish this summer.

Lentil salad

I found the recipe on another site and can't find it again, so I have no idea what the real recipe is, but what we do is. Cook the lentils, cut up two handful of cherry tomatoes from our tomato plants. Dice a half of pepper, and half of onion, mix it all up, and squirt a ton of lemon juice on it, and refrigerate it for a few hours.

We are cheese and tortilla/corn chips family so, we usually cook tortillas and cheese, and cut them up into little 1 X 1 squares and pour the salad on top of the squares.

We can't get our son to eat tortillas usually so he has his on top of nachos, my three year old actually eats this. He actually asks for lentils some days.
I think it looks so pretty with the cherry maybe grape tomatoes.

Popular in the Neighborhood

These were the most popular thing at bring your own lunch to the picnic table in front of the apartment building, among the children other than strawberries.

They are bracelets that my son and I had made earlier in the morning. Since both of his parents bead, he thinks it's pretty cool. (Even though his dad doesn't bead to be cool, he does it to be frugal.) Not to mention I've had a few nursery leaders tell me he is very skilled at stringing beads. He was very excited to make bracelets with me, since I don't let him touch my beads. (These are clearly child friendly.)
They are very easy to make I give him pipe cleaners because then I don't have to tape up the end of his string, and then we just bent the ends of the pipe cleaners around and fed them back through the beads. It was great!

Sleeping Ballarinas

My daughter's tutu dust ruffle for her crib looks much better with the crib on the lowest setting. Now I wish I had antique dresser the same wood color, raised about a foot off the ground, so I could add a matching tutu dresser for the crib. Right now she doesn't have a dresser, her clothes are keep in a sweater organizer that hangs in the closet. Although if I had a dresser, where would we set up the play rug with the trains?

Finished, sort of

After almost three years, I have finished the applique of my christmas craft #???-- my christmas wall quilt.

I used fusible web adhesive (wonder-under) to glue all the letters and shapes on, and then blanket stitched them on the material. It was trickier than it sounds, because the green background is glossy and sparkly so the fusible adhesive didn't really stick, so as I was sewing one letter on, the next one would start to peal up.

But luckily the quilt is almost done, my fingers have now built up nice callouses for hand stitching.

Lemon Birthday

The other day I backed my brother a lemon cake with lemon butter cream frosting, for his birthday. It was said to taste really good. What I was proud about is, the fact that the top of the cake was flat, instead of shaped like a rounded mountain. Here are some pictures to commemorate the cake.

Crappy Picture

This is a crappy picture, but I wanted to post another picture of the necklace I made. I used two different types of turquoise beads, lapis beads, and silver rods.

But as a bonus here is my cute daughter, even if her face is out of focus, its shows her fuzzy hair.

Happy Fourth of July

Yes, I know my cake decorating skills leave something to be desired.

Silver Glass

This is my new favorite bracelet. I'm definitely a fan of the silver look over the gold. I am planning on making a matching/similar one for my daughter, but needed to get a new front post. So that will have to wait.

Ugly but loved

My son sucks his thumb with a blanket. My daughter has started to suck her thumb, so we wanted to get her a blanket she loved. I wasn't having any success, until I realized she liked stringy things and silky things. So I bought some tricot and sewed ribbons coming off of it. I made two she loves them when she is tired, especially the ribbon. Yes I know its ugly, and it will only get uglier in time.

Leftovers

The beading craze continued, even after my mother was gone I made this. The beads were leftover from baby bracelets. My husband thought the necklace looked like a fishing lure.

Blue Necklaces

I told you it was a beading craze. This is not the end.

Beading Gifts

During my mom's and I beading craze. We were beading at my grandmother's house, and my grandma asked why we never made her anything. So I made her this. She said she loved it and wore it around the house the other night, because she never goes anywhere but church.

Then in a previous beading craze at my grandmother's house, one of eleven sister in laws happened to also be at my grandmother's house and expressed a desire to own a bracelet beaded watch. For her birthday my mom and I made one. You might notice an overlap in beads.

The back of the watch-- the toggle, a phrase I think my sister in law will think is cute.

Joy

I recently made this necklace. I picked out joy, to remind me to have joy in motherhood, to not get bogged down with laundry, dishes and noise, but to enjoy my fat fingered children. (I love fat sausage fingered children.) Every time I look in the mirror I see joy, and it helps the day go on.

Just to prove I'm embracing motherhood. Here is the firetruck with an arrow picture.

I really do love my children, I just need a reminder of how fun they are sometimes. I don't want them to grow up and me realize one day I let it all slip away.