Adventures in Cooking & Project 12 Layout

This past weekend we were busy getting Nicholas ready to go back to school and preparing for Mike to be down from knee surgery.  The surgery was this morning, and he is in recovery now.  It sounds like he should feel a lot better once he heals.

Mike still did some cooking, but kept it a little easier.  Saturday night he made steak sliders with grilled onions.  He used a rub spice that he made a little bit ago.  To go with them he also made sweet potato fries.  They weren't really crispy like chips, but they were tasty.  The spice mix was yummy a bit sweet and spicy.

We ordered pizza Sunday night, but Monday he cooked up pork tenderloin tacos in the crock pot and made a mango pico de gallo.  The sauce for the pork included cinnamon sticks.  It added a bit of a sweet flavor to complement a mildly spicy sauce with adobo chile sauce.  The mango salsa is about medium hot.  I love the pico type of salsas, I could eat them with a spoon.

With Mike recovering from surgery, I am on the hook for the meals for the next several days.  So we'll see what kind of adventures I come up with next week.

I decided to do some monthly layouts for 2010, Project 12 style.  I just got started this past week.  I made up some picture collages in PSE with my favorite pictures from the month done through June.  I had them printed up at Costco in 8x12 and 8x8 sizes.  I ended up doing the collages myself.  I looked all over for templates, but didn't like what I found.  Costco has a collage tool, but I wanted more control.  It took a bit longer, but as I worked through each month, I got better at it and was happy with the results.

I finally got to use my Studio Calico month stamps.  I made the flower with Studio Calico Fabrips.

Hope you have a great Wednesday!

First Day of Pre-Shcool & the Slice

Some crazy person in Arizona thinks it's a good idea for the kids to start back to school this week.  It was probably 108 yesterday.

We live in a semi-year round school district, so the kids only get 8 weeks off for summer. The pre-school Nicholas attends is at the elementary school, so his schedule is the same as the schools.  He has been super excited for the past week to go back.  He even cooperated for a mini 1st day of school photo shoot.

At least temporarily....I'll take it as progress...

He was telling me he was done.  I am sure one day he will be mad at me for posting his funny face. :)  I went in late so Mike and I could take him to school, so did everyone else.  It was very crowded and lots of cameras with all the "mamarazzi" in full force.  I felt right at home.

I almost laughed when I saw someone else taking this same picture of her kid from behind, must be a fellow scrapbooker.

Sunday we went out school supply shopping for the classroom wish list. I have been eying this for a while, debating if I should get it or not.  Then it goes on sale 40% off at Michael's. 

What's a girl to do? Make a card of course...

Have a great day!  I can't wait to start checking out CHA pictures and videos tonight after the kiddos go to bed.

ScrapTiffany Monday - Black & White Photos

This week at ScrapTiffany the design team challenge was to use black and white photos in our projects.  I have had this photo of my Grandma and Dad for some time.  I recently had my old photos scanned and this one was restored to make it more beautiful.  I have been wanting to do a layout with this for some time.

My Dad is about 2 in this picture. Both of my boys have looked almost exactly like my dad in this picture at one time, and we definitely can see where they get their eyes from. My brother and I have all boys, for a total of 5 between us. My sister recently remarked how all 5 of the boys look like our Dad.

I also love this picture of my Grandma.  She is so young and looks so happy, my Dad was the youngest of her 3 boys. I knew I had been holding onto this Daisy D's product for something.  I like the vinage'y", aged, boyish  papers for this photo.  The paper edges were distressed with my fingernail (I know a real technical tool).

Sunday, Sunday

I love Sundays.  There usually isn't a lot to do.  Mike makes breakfast, and we usually just stick around home.  Today I want to check out some more of the sneak peeks for the CHA show starting this week.  I am loving a lot of what I have seen so far.

I couldn't wait for this weekend.  Last one went way too fast. Life at work is gearing up to be busy for the next couple of months. The days are long but they go fast.  Mike is having knee surgery next week, so we have been preparing for that, since he will not be very mobile for at least a few days.

We spent yesterday hanging out at home.  Mike is working on a big project for his radio stations.  And I have been scanning tons of old photos I have borrowed from my mom.  I finally finished the scanning part, now I still have 110+ scans to crop to individual pictures and do some re-touching.  It will be a process, but to have so much of our family history digitized is priceless. It has been fun to revisit some old memories and I can't wait to start capturing those stories in my scrapbooks.

I spent Friday night scrapping.  I found this sketch on the Studio Calico blog, and used it to do the layout below.  I am almost out of the Basic Grey Oliver goodies I bought, good thing I will be getting some more in my Studio Calico August kit add on's. It is perfect for boy stuff.

Nicholas is talking so much now it is amazing what comes out of his mouth sometimes.  The other day, we had guests, the adults were talking and Nicholas put on his Angels cap and looked at his reflection in the fireplace glass, and proceeded to have a full conversation with his reflection.  We all stopped talking to listen in.  When he was done, he said see you later, tipped his cap and walked away.  It was so stinkin' cute.

Happy Mail and a Layout

 week it was fun to get the mail or hear the UPS truck pull up, because there were lots of good things arriving.  First I received the custom boys hoodies I ordered from Gina's Etsy shop, Baby Fish Designs.  I worked with Gina when she was on our design team and I love how she has taken her talents into the sewing world.  She does custom orders and these are perfect for the little dudes and princesses in your life.  Nicholas loves his Thomas hoodie.  Jackson is still too young to have a preference so I picked Nemo for him.

My crochet skills are lacking (lost with mommy brain cells apparently). I had asked Evelyn (my 2nd mom, I am  lucky enough to have more than one mom in my life), if she knew how to make crocheted flowers, because I wanted to learn how.  Well we just didn't get a chance when I was out in California last month for me to learn.  But imagine my happiness when a little box showed up with these fun, pretty flowers inside. I still would like to learn, but these will keep me supplied in the meantime.

And finally after almost 2 weeks of anticipation, my July Studio Calico kit and add-on's came.  Doesn't this look like fun.

I ordered all of the add on kits this month.  I have several travel related pages I want to do, and now I have enough coordinated product to make a cohesive album.

Oh my look at all those embellishments & all that paper...

Shop extras, including some new Maya Mist colors.

I have been working on a few other things, but I did get this layout done from mostly the Amerigo add on kit.

Have a great weekend!

This reminded me of something very important....

Last weekend Nicholas did something he often does.  Grabbed his mini book from our day at Disneyland in 2008.  A little while later Jackson was in the mix.  He isn't in the pictures (he was just about 3 months in my tummy).  

What it reminded me is that I hadn't made a mini book in a while.  And it reminded me why my Library of Memories system is so worth the effort.

So when I stopped into one of my LSS this past Saturday and saw some older Cosmo Cricket blackboard photo boxes and cigar boxes for $5, I picked up a couple with an idea.  

Saturday night I sat down with Basic Grey Oliver papers and embellishments and in 2 hours I put together this little mini photo box for Nicholas.  I covered the box with paper and embellishments and punched a hole for a ribbon handle.  The interior 16 pages used up 32-4x6 photo's from my 2009 & 2010 photo storage binders. I paired just 4 sheets of kraft cardstock with strips of patterned paper and coordinating embellishments. I kept the pages simple since they were going to be for frequent handling with little hands.

On Sunday morning I handed Nicholas the box and I got the sweetest "aahhh" I have ever heard.  Later I heard him call it "my book mommy made".  He kept looking at his pictures and talking about things we had done and the different family members in the pictures.

Now I need to come up with an idea for smaller hands, because it is time Jackson had his first book just for him.

Adventures in Cooking from the Weekend

This past weekend went way too fast.  Saturday I went to a baby shower, so Mike took the boys to the mall and out to lunch at Kona Grill.  He had planned to make a couple new dishes this weekend, so he picked the easier of the two on Saturday night.  So we ate Chipotle Cajun Pasta.  It was a bit spicy but very good.  It was great for left overs last night and we'll be eating it up for lunch today.  

Sunday he had more time and made Teriyaki Chicken with Pineapple Mexican Salad.  I was busy on the computer when he was in the kitchen, so I didn't realize he made his Teryaki sauce from scratch.  It was the tastiest teriyaki sauce I have ever had.  

The salad was really yummy and pretty easy to make.  It was a chopped pineapple and jicama with some sliced onion and minced cilantro.  Toss in olive oil (2T) and white vinegar (1T, I used white balsamic).  Then top it off with a little feta cheese and fresh cracked pepper. 

I needed a card for the baby shower I was going to.  My friend is not a fan of pink, so I wanted to make a card with lavender (the baby's room color).  Apparently I am not a purple fan, I got rid of every piece of purple patterned paper I had back when I cleaned out my scrap stuff.  Finally I found an old class kit, I took apart the layout that was partly finished and made this quick card.

ScrapTiffany - Brads & Eyelets Oh My!

This week for ScrapTiffany the Design Team was challenged to bring back eyelets and use brads on our project.  This was definitely a challenge for me.  Because in the "Great Scrap Room Clean Out" in January 2010 I got rid of almost all of my eyelets.  But I did keep a small amount in a few colors so I came up with this.

All I can say, is thank goodness for the Crop A Dile.  I hadn't used it to set an eyelet in a very long time (if ever).  With my short supply of eyelets I had to be careful with the practice to get the hang of it again.  But I was happy with the playful look the eyelets and the colorful brads gave the page, and then of course what page is complete without some buttons.

The background white was a bit too bright, nothing a bit of Maya Mist can't fix. I also threaded some bakers twine through the eyelets.

Highlight bullet points with some tiny brads:

Shopping and Trains

Last Friday I hit up the local scrapbook store, Scrapbooks Etc., where I have a big fat store credit from selling off my unwanted supplies.  They had the new Basic Grey Oliver goodies which are perfect for one little train dude in this house.  So I picked up several fun things to play with.

And I started using them to make this page from a sketch from the Camp Scrap class I am taking at Big Picture Scrapbooking.  I don't do many 2 page layouts on my own, so a sketch works good for me on the 2 pagers...I have had these pictures for a few weeks now looking for the perfect home.  I think I found it....

Side 1

Side 2

This Kid Made My Day

Jackson is VERY, VERY vocal, even though he only says about 5 words and doesn't point, wave or make other gestures to communicate.  He was advanced in all his physical milestones so we have assumed that he was more focused on that than talking. Tonight I walked in the door and he started waving at me (which he had never done before).  I was pretty excited because being at work during the week I miss some of those firsts.  It made my day to see this one.

Weekend Cooking Adventures

Saturday was my night to cook.  We had wanted to have a roasted chicken recipe I had made a couple of years ago, again. It was from Cooking Light magazine.  So I gathered my rather simple ingredients....

Did some cleaning and chopping...

And about an 1 1/2/ hours later I had this beautiful bird....

and these roasted vegetables...

along with the best gravy I have EVER made....

All turned into this yummy bowl of goodness, with lots of weekday leftovers...

While I was busy with the chicken.....Mike mixed some peaches and berries....

and put together a little cobbler....

Now time for the true test....

and it tastes even better than it looks....as if that were possible....

Sunday's are for grilling....

Grilled salmon with Adobo Chile Merlot BBQ sauce and tasty rice pilaf.

Who needs to eat out....