the dishes are done, man

Today, taxes.

homemade teaser

For a while now I've been making an effort to go the homemade route for gift giving when at all possible.  This past Christmas I was successful with my goal of mom-made gifts for my girls as well as one for my brother-in-law (we draw names on that side of the family).

 

For the BIL I did a custom cocktail kit.  Gin, simple syrup, and grapefruit bitters - all homemade!

 

 

I made a super hero cape for Emma Rose - how cute is she!?!?

 

 

Used the same fabric to make a bow organizer for Annabelle Lee - functional and sweet!

 

 



One of my goals for 2016 is to go further with the homemade gift giving.  More on that to come . . .

full

Had a running around kind of day today.  Did some needed shopping for A's upcoming first birthday party.  Then a lunch date.  And dinner with the in laws.  So not much project time left.  Decided the desk drawer needed a re do.  Have about a million berry baskets from our local pie shop.  No judging.  I save them all and am now finding them to be super helpful with this month's challenge!

sleep, sleep is good

 

Worked my first overnight call shift in almost 3 years on Monday.  I've never felt more old.  Used to be able to stay up all day after my last night in a string in order to get back on a normal sleep schedule.  I made it to about 0830 this morning and hard core CRASHED.  Woke up in time to relieve the nanny and then inhaled some coffee.  So come bed time tonight I was maybe a little wired;)  Thus, tackled my craft shelves.

 

The before was a little intimidating. But the after?  The after was pretty happy:)

 

 

 

power food prep

I suppose I was inspired by our turkey stock making on Saturday as I have spent some significant time in the kitchen since then!  2 new projects for the last 2 days with some additional small cleaning/reorganizing efforts that aren't even really worth detailing.

 

Overnight oats with ground flax seed for me and Greek yogurt with wild blueberries for Em!

trucking right along

When I was reorganizing my baking cabinet the other day I noticed I still had several baby food cookbooks crowding our shelf.  One I used all the time for Em, one was a rec from my sister that just didn't work that well for us, and one was the WORST thing I've ever read.  Seriously.  Think unpasteurized milk and a lot of liver.  Yuck.  None of them are needed any longer as our little Annabelle will be 1 year old in just another month and we really did more of a baby led weaning strategy for her meal times.  Several other cookbooks caught my eye as no longer needed and so they joined the happy pile.  I did however decide that Clayton's 'I Love Bacon' and "Jelly-Shots' cookbooks might still come in handy;) 

The above we'll-call-it-effort took care of yesterday's project and today's is also underway.  Finally getting around to making homemade turkey stock from the carcass we've had in our freezer since Christmas.  Great opportunity to clean out our 'fridge!  AND, it smells amazing :)

xoxo

A little Valentine's Day décor for project number 21 . . . muah!