Unofficially Out of Retirement...

It's been a long 8 months but I think...I'm back! So much and so little has happened.
~Sold our house!
~Moved into the smallest apartment known to man where I constantly thought about cutting my losses and moving to the beach. This precious little face helped keep me somewhat stable..

~Built a new house!
~Went from being an ok mom to being a less than stellar mom.  The tiny apartment and creepy neighbors sucked away what little mojo I had in that field
~Got preggars!!
~Finally opened my etsy shop to sell invitations/cards.  Need something????
Now we are settled(ish) in our new home and I'm looking forward to having a semi normal life again.  Things were starting to look so normal we even considered potty training MR.F.  He promptly picked up a puking bug and put a stop to that crazy notion.  Overall, I'm really excited to start blogging and doing things worth blogging about again. Craftiness is coming up...

Baby Christmas Tree Craft

We had our first successful finger painting activity today! He only licked his finger once, never gagged, and the paint came out of his clothes.  Success! I found Baby's 1st Christmas Craft at No Time For Flash Cards. I have about zero creativity when it comes to new ideas for crafts Mr. F might actually enjoy so thankfully No Time For Flash Cards rocks the whole baby craft thing. 

1. Trace chubby little hands and feet for as long as he'll let you. Cut them out while he's napping because he STILL doesn't understand that he can't have every single thing that you put in your hand :)

2. Draw a Christmas tree on a brown paper bag.  Don't be jealous of my mad drawing skills. You should see my maps.

3. Put some green finger paint down and let him go crazy. If that's something your kid does. 

 4. Once dry, cut out Christmas tree and attach ornaments.  Put on the refrigerator and smile at those adorable little hands and feet. 

Advent Calendar

I love the commercialized idea of Advent calendars.  Gifts every day of December?  Yes, please!  I love shopping (such a girl) and I love picking out the perfect present for someone.  Even if all 25 presents are for Mr. F and he totally isn't going to get it. Most of them are books and fun craft activities.  I did sneak in a few days worth of candy too.  Mom and Dad need a little Advent love too right? I saw this adorable Calendar at Garnet Hill. Love that store.

Unfortunately, for many reasons, I'm not rich.  So I decided to make my own!  I was able to pick the colors, size, and presents (did I mention presents?!?) to put in them.  While these probably aren't quite as cute as the original Garnet Hill ones, they aren't too bad.

1. I picked out the felt and waited in line for 45 minutes while an extremely friendly (or not) old lady cut material as slowly as humanly possible.

2. I drew a few different stockings.  I wanted to have 5 of each stocking but after 4 stockings I realized there are only so many ways I can draw a sock. I did a little tracing and cut out 25 stockings.

3. The next step took a while.  At least two movies worth. I cut out a ton of tiny little details to attach to each stocking.  

4. I had no idea felt glue existed but it does and it saved A LOT of time. Instead of hand stitching 500 tiny details I glued them!  And it was only about one Friends rerun worth of work :) 

5. I did some actual sewing now.  I sewed the front and the back of the stocking together.  Tough work. 

6. Then I glued on tabs and sewed them to burlap ribbon.  Yeah, that stuff is pretty great too. 

I had some placement problems.  I had a little problem looking beyond all the cool presents I could put in these stockings if they were just a little bit bigger than the Garnet Hill Calendar and well...it's really long. With a little finagling I think I worked it out.  I can't wait to teach Mr. F how to rip open presents each morning and then how to share his presents with Mommy :)  

Baked Ravioli

This recipe may actually be easier than "traditional" (frozen) ravioli and it was delicious!  Finally!  A Pinterest project that worked.  Actually, Pinterest is pretty good at the whole semi homemade thing.

Ingredients:
Frozen ravioli (my pack had 16 raviolis)
Pasta sauce (I used an arrabiata sauce...yum)
2 cups shredded mozzarella
Parmesan (as much as you want! I wanted about 3/4 cup)

Recipe:
~Preheat oven to 400

~In an 8x8 baking dish spread about 1/4 cup sauce

~Arrange half of the raviolis on top of sauce then top with half of the remaining sauce and half of the mozzarella

~Repeat previous step

 ~Top with Parmesan. Like I said, yum.

~Baked covered for 30 minutes.  Remove foil and bake for 15 minutes.

~Try not to burn your face off with all the cheese.  Can you have too much cheese?  I don't think so!

The terrible twos already?

Today was supposed to be an awesome day. We were going to go to the fire station for the first time and I was going to get adorable pictures and a laugh when Mr. F came unglued and scratched my skin off when he heard the sirens. Unfortunately, the firemen had to work and we didn't get to go. Saved my skin temporarily, at least.
Sister suggested we go to the Austin Children's Museum instead. This sounds like an awesome idea. How could this go wrong? A place where kids can basically run free and do whatever they want.
Mr. F wanted to crawl up the stairs, climb on the pulley system, run out the front door, and roll around on the floor throwing fits. It was such a disaster that I sent the husband a picture every time he threw himself to the floor. "Such a sweet boy."
To top off a perfect morning we had lunch outside and a bird crapped on me. Awesome day. Can't wait to go back.

Turkey Craft

As always, I'm looking for some crafts to do with Mr. F.  I found a turkey craft on my favorite kid craft website, No Time For Flashcards. This one is going to be a lot more fun next year when he gets over his disgust of all things gooey.  I assume he'll man up soon enough and start digging in mud and eating sand.  Until then I enjoy finishing his crafts.  

Turkey Hands

1. Traced his chubby little hands a couple of times on a brown paper bag

2. Let Mr. F and Cousin go crazy with paint

 3. I forgot to take pictures (because I had paint every where and guess who was screaming?) of a few steps...Let the paint dry and cut out the hands
4. Paint cardboard toilet paper roll.  Let dry
5. Tape/Glue paper hands together to look like feathers
6. Tape/Glue painted toilet paper roll to the "feathers"
7. Draw adorable face on toilet paper roll

8. Adorable!

Good Old Fashioned Banana Bread

Geez, guess I've been MIA lately.  It's that crazy time of year I wish would last forever but unfortunately, time  seems to disappear.  I can't believe Mr. F's birthday party was already two weeks ago! We've been running around like crazy for the last month.  Today we finally slowed down.  The husband spent the weekend at the F1 race so we spent today getting things finished around the house and making banana bread. I love banana bread but can't ever seem to get the whole banana situation right.  I usually have time to make the bread when the bananas aren't ripe enough or are beyond ripe and being swarmed by fruit flies. Today however, the bananas crowding my counter were perfect.  Mr. F was in desperate need of attention (as opposed to every other second of every other day) so I sat on the floor with him and we smashed bananas together.  Perfect little helper until I was ready to use the bananas. Then we went into full of scream mode.  Luckily, I had the baby gemini so I was "holding" him and cooking.  Gemini=Genius 

Banana Bread Recipe (adapted from Better Homes & Gardens)

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 melted butter

As many bananas as you have! At least 1 1/2 cups smashed 

1/4 cup walnuts

Recipe:
~The original recipe has at least 5 steps.  Mine...
~Mix everything together
~Poor into a greased bread pan
~Bake at 350 for about 55 minutes, slather on the butter, and eat up!