Apple pie with fun decorative cutout…

I know I am late posting some of my baking recipes… we were passing an apple orchard and they were selling apples at the store… I wish I had the camera with me… It was amazing to see all kinds of apples… my son was at school and my little one was sound asleep. I had the luxury to walk around while my husband was in the parking lot…

Inside the store it was divided into two sections one was where they were selling all apples pies and all kinds of items from apple cores to slices and even toddler knitted apple hats…
On the section they have stored the apples and it was freezing cold… bins filled with apples… I learned if you want to extend the shelf value of the apple you need to keep them in the refrigerator… and you can keep it for a long time…

Anyways here is my favorite recipe for a apple pie it was so good I didn’t had the camera to take a picture of the very first pie I baked from the leftover dough I made a small deep dish pie with cut outs… it was cute and yummy with ice cream my son gobble it down as soon as I took it from the oven…
It was very simple but delicious…

Here is my link from the William & Sonoma kitchen…

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/apple-pie.html

Quote of the day “Develop the talents you have inherited”

Enjoy!

Much needed walk…

Free picture collage personalized with Smilebox We had a lot going on I did my finals, and stress… so we all needed to tune in with nature, I know we didn’t dress up or the whole family was present. But this is the closet I could capture of FALL 2010… may be next year it will be better… We enjoyed the last bits of fading the summer of 2010… birds are busy eating and packing up to fly south… change of colors and cold air… was great to feel… Quote of the day “plant evergreen” Enjoy! 

Red Velvet Cake

I am not that crazy about this but my son is. He LOVES it I have no clue… I don’t know what your take on it I do not find it that tasteful. Presentation could be beautiful. I can’t find my round cake pans but the Bundt pan works the same… so it was the baking day… I baked a red velvet Bundt cake it was GREAT I liked this recipe because it calls for vegetable oil instead of butter… I did like the texture but I am not a big fan of cake… but kids are…

Fun part was I had the cake on the stand and placed it on the buffet all of a sudden my daughter was very quiet she was able to climbed on to the chair and reached the buffet and was helping herself to the Bundt cake early in the morning… and frosting was all over her face… not using her hands but her tiny mouth… I have not experienced this with my son when he was a toddler but I do enjoy wiping her frosted face early in the morning…
I was amazed to see the amount food coloring that goes into this cake and the vinegar I have not made anything bazaar…

If you are up to red velvet cake here is the recipe…

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sara-moulton/southern-red-velvet-cake-recipe/index.html

Quote of the day “look at something and say, yes I can make it better”

Enjoy!

I am thankful and grateful to you…

I started this blog as a creative outlet for me… I have to admit I do enjoy it very much… not only that through this blogging I was able to visit many blogs and find about other talented and creative people. After clicking the next blog tab several times I would crawl back to my blog to make entries… sometimes when I watch other blogs I would get intimidated by its followers and I would simply say to myself oh my gosh those people are talented… and when I am all cozy in my safe heaven I would look at my blog’s subtitle FOLLOWERS and that empty space… and use to think will someone will ever follow my blog…

Yes, there were a lot of questions I would question myself and I would worry about it a lot and some days I thought I wish I have just one follower… I remember numerous times I use to check that empty space first as soon as I log in… after a while it faded… Yes, just like that it faded it never bothered me because I really enjoyed posting what I did with my kids…

If I post something that I did especially with kids I would send an email to our family members and would ask to check on it… and sometimes they would leave a comment and it was such a huge deal to me.

Then I started to leave comments on others blogs… instead of sending e-mails to the family members. I was so happy for the very first time www.thesleepytimegal.com left a message on my comment section. Yes, I literally jumped up and down… I was thrilled… (I really liked her blog because she did a lot of work with her kids… and I loved her blog… and that’s the first site that I started commenting) I have no idea how to explain it or to put that into writing when I received a comment from a person which I have not met (I am sure all of you went through this one point).

And then one day when I was going through my blog I saw ONE follower that made me so proud of myself… and then I saw my second follower I am elated with the fact that other people like my ideas… my craft, my activities I get to do with my kids… I really like my blogging and very GREATFUL to have my followers…

I am very thankful for all of you who leave comments on my blog… It’s going to be almost a year that I started my blog it’s getting close… but at the end of the day what matters is that we all have something in common… as mothers we wants to give the best to our kids, nurture, guide, show the correct path… or simply show them to appreciate what is around us… or enjoy just being with our kids and watching them grow and mature is scary but FUN…

I do enjoy this load of work…

Quote of the day “curiosity inspire creativity”

Enjoy!

Welcome Baby Gift…

I am very happy with my new lens… as you can see… I want to play more but I am waiting till my finals are over so I can really play with my new lens couple of more weeks then I get about three weeks no school. I am so excited to tackle my to- do list… any way this entry is about my new pink and white hat collection for newborns… I have not put them together yet but I decided to give some away for a little girl… this was a little baby who was born to one of the team members at my husband’s work… I was simply elated to assemble my hat collection box… most of all I get to add my pink hats…

I even had the joy of making a card which came out really cute. I liked it so much… little chickadee… I love creating little things for little babies… why not create something beautiful to a beginning of a new life… that’s how I look at it…
So what are you up to…?

Quote of the day “enjoy a special time with your child”

Enjoy!

I do enjoy photography…

While I was walking towards the kitchen I found my camera bag on the living room floor… without much thought I picked it up and place it on the table… after couple of days basically 2 days I took the camera to take pictures to a post on my blog. Those who are blogging know how you look through lenses to capture the moment.

In other words it is the third eye which is not physically located in your body… I did invest on a good camera before I had my little one because I did want quality pictures. I may still not producing quality pictures but I do love my camera.

What I found after placing it on the table picking it off from the floor was devastating… due to the impact the lenses were not working in other words the zooming was jammed… it is easy to type now but I was practically handicapped without my camera. I used my phone camera to take pictures. I am not complaining but writing posts were in halt for a while.
I am in the process of getting a new lens which I am going to be very happy with due to zoning. It does have a larger zone that allows not changing the lenses very often which I love … it is great weekend camera lens you can survive. You can just take this lens and will work on many situations with lighting…

This is a topic I love learning because again it is a skill and an ART…
I did found the culprit for this damage… can you guess… she was too cute… but I did learn my lesson keep my camera bag reach out of children…
So we did decide to take the lens apart now we are stuck because we cannot put it back together… I hope including myself and everyone else learned keep the camera bag reach out of children…

Quote of the Day “redraw your view of the world with visualization”

Enjoy!

Happy B’ Day Aththamma in other words Grandma…

Aththamma is how we (Sri Lankan’s) call grandma; it pronounced like ath-tha-amma… very phonetic but mixed with speech sounds… Challenge yourself and have fun…

My little one works supper hard in coloring I love the pictures she makes. It is big time ART for me and I do collect them… yes; www.Thesleepytimegal.com had this cute idea of making them into thank you cards. Which I loved… I want to create a Birthday card and this was our version of the thank you card turn into B’day card (I will post them soon)… I hope Aththamma enjoys these as much as they did creating them…

I know I did show my collection of knitted hats to Aththamma when she was visiting us… I have no idea what happen after that… well I guess you can say rest is history…

I did gather her some B’day goodies. I am going to let you guess (but you can take a peak)… she is also a quilter perhaps I can say a patch worker… and something in between… she is a very talented lady with a kind heart… most of all she taught me and introduced me to patch working and quilting that I am very thankful to her… which has helped me a lot in creating for my kids, myself and family… I do owe her for that…

However I couldn’t get the thank you cards on this blog may be another time… we will show you our version of thank you/ B’day cards… I did want to show the gift box we did for Aththamma… we had a GREAT time assembling it together…

We wish her a wonderful B’day and may all your wishes come true… even though we are states, countries, and continents apart from each other…

Quote of the day “take advantage of opportunities to expand your friendship base”

Enjoy!

Finding therapy through beading…

Jewelry making was something I stared when I was working fulltime but didn’t get a chance to make a lot as I wanted to. I did taught myself some techniques through books. I have to admit I am getting better at learning through books. I did bought some books that helped be along the way.
I did bought some beads when I see them on clearance and had them in a stash which I have come to discover with LOVE/. Purely the reason I can make use of it now…

Since I have finished the quilts for my daughter and still have some blankets to work. I find myself navigating around my bead box and creating…

I have few ideas that I love to create. Additionally I enjoy mixing media… which I find fun, interesting, and hip. This FALL my goal is to make some necklaces that I could wear or simply be a GIFT for someone special…

Quote of the day “celebrate life's little accomplishments"

Enjoy!

Hand me down Jewelry… with a Twist to it can be a Knockout…

I got this necklace from my mother-in-law while ago… actually it belong to her sister… this was one of my projects from my -to- do list. All it needed was a little oomph or in other words a face lifts… I love the colors and works well with FALL outfits. I do remember buying the beads long time ago but never had the time to work on it… now that I needed something to wear for an outing. I thought I will give it a try to fix it so actually I can wear and use something that has passed down.

I did add in some gold plated spaces to add something to it and it worked GREAT… I used the old clasp since it was still in working condition. Did add new string… what I loved about this is its irregularity and inconsistency in the pattern didn’t change it a bit but did add few extra beads to give some statement to it…

Actually the lady at the bead shop loved it and said I did a phenomenal job. I love the feedback as you might have notice. I was able to get it done in few minutes… I was happy it was done… one project done from my -to -do list…

I cannot wait to try this with my fall outfit… so what are you up to or how is your to do list looks like… do you treat yourself with some fun… I am sure you do… life is too short you got a love it…

I would love to hear what you are up to…
Matter of fact I had a very productive week so far, was able get done some projects and that’s always fun…


Quote of the day “cushion your work schedule with breaks"

Enjoy!

78 Degrees Outside, Fall Clean up and Planting Bulbs…

Yes, it was sunny, it’s been a while I wrote a blog entry that because I have been crazy busy… those who know me say that’s my regular schedule… but I was working a little bit hard this past weekend I will get to it eventually during this week…



I have to admit today the weather was great and a perfect day to get your yard work done and plant those spring bulbs since we are still reading books from the library about bulbs I took the opportunity to work on our containers on the balcony… yes, I also got my little one to work on this project she had a blast digging in the dirt… at one point she had the dirt all over the balcony I have no idea how that happen, while I step inside the apartment to fill in the watering can…

Well she learned that the dirt stays inside the container and we plant the bulbs and cover it with dirt. I know spring is a long call but I am excited to pass this winter it will be interesting winter…
We are still reading and coloring about bulbs…

However at the end of the day our tomato and jalapeño pepper plants were replaced with spring bulbs the entire containers were gathers together for that bold spring statement… and finally the bird feeder was filled with seeds for a quick snack for migrating birds…

we enjoyed our dinner outside probably our last dinner for this season… with beautiful weather… what I really like about this clean up was cleaning the glass it is just wonderful to watch outside and the glass looks so clear and clean water +vinegar = window washing liquid with some arm work from newspaper… that’s all it takes… I was tired too tired at the end of the day and was little one with all that planting…

Quote of the day “explore the world through each of your senses"

Enjoy!

A 22 Month Old and Forcing Bulbs…

I love FALL for many reasons one is planting bulbs since we have move to apartment I have been trying hard to keep my love and interest towards with limited space challenge… so far so good we had tomatoes, chilies, chives, rosemary, basil and some lovely petunias this summer.

Now that fall is upon us I have been trying to clean the outdoor space area and this I want to plant some bulbs.

I also wanted to get my 22 month old involve in this project and today we read Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert. This is lovely book to introduce kids into working, and planting in the garden. Pictures are beautiful and have many names of bulbs you can offer to your young toddler.

We read the book, and planted bulbs inside the house. It was a great activity in involved transferring river rocks, pouring water, and placing bulbs inside the vase.

Added advantage of this activity is it involves up keeping checking the water level and adding water. I am excited to see the results as much as my 22 month old. We decided to force paper whites let’s see how it’s going to work.

Quote of the day “stop rushing around, sit quietly, switch off the world, and come back to earth”

Enjoy!

Gathering Gifts…

 
I recently got hooked with making scarves with sock yarn. I know this does sounds unusual but it is the beauty of ART mixing media and breaking rules creating something new. The end result is amazing and always makes me to create some more…

Back to the scarf; it is very airy scarf. There are four reasons why I like making them. They look airy, finishes up faster, makes a big fashion statement, and great way to gather gifts for the holiday season.

If you are using a bigger needle since the yarn is a sock yarn they makes big holes it gives this airy looking scarf. If the weather is not that overwhelming cold you can wear this wonderful scarf. Additionally if you are working in an office may be straight under fan you can wear it a part of your outfit…

I have to admit it finishes up super fast… I can make 2 in a day if I don’t get distracted from my heaping projects… I have tried big needle such as # 15 and # 12wrks like a machine knits fast…

It does make a pretty impressive fashion statement since its unusual look… it does not look like a winter scarf but functional. When you look at the yarn stock at the craft store… I want to make scarves for all my outfits…
Especially the holiday season is around the corner why not stock up for some gifts…

Gathering gifts could be so much fun if you think outside the box, and invest on quality… but that’s my personal theory...
I had so much fun creating these… because all the features that I mentioned was working in harmony with this project…

Quote of the day “create a committed relationship and keep it exciting”

Enjoy!

Celebrate your child’s meal time with beautiful bibs…

I had a wonderful time preparing my daughters meals when she was a baby. I wowed I am not going to buy any store bought food jars or cereals and I did. I once had to buy her some vegetables when we were traveling long trips. That was only two jars and I have saved those two.

I had fun preparing her meals and assembling it together. I did as much as possible at home because it was worth the effort.

One I know what she will be placing in her mouth has no added preservatives. I personally think we don’t need to consume preservative that much think about all the substances that involves in food from raw stage to process. I cannot and will not have that in her meals

Second reason was I decided to stay at home to make all the changers I did want to live up this standard that I have set. So, yes I will do the best to get her the organic quality in every possible way.

Third and last I did enjoy making food, serving, and presenting whole nine yards. I had so much Fun creating her bibs… So that’s why I think all moms should CELEBRATE the festival of introducing the babies’ first meal.

Did you know in some countries and in cultures it is celebrate with a festive atmosphere? Now think about realistically it is a special moment. Your baby solely depends on you for food. Now that you have made a conscience and reasonable timeline; and the fact that you have decided to introduce a new/ foreign item or a schedule why not make it is a big milestone. Perhaps some of you already do celebrate; but this was my take on it…

This was a gift I assemble together for two new MOMS!

Quote of the day “give your least favorite food another chance”

Enjoy!

One of Many ways you can get your toddler to be CREATIVE…

We had so much fun making crayon cakes and I had so much fun giving them as GIFTS. Thanks for so many bloggers who posted the tutorial if any of you want it please visit thesleepytimegal.com she had a wonderful tutorial on this.

However I want to emphasize on one of many ways you can use these crayons so your little one could be the future Picasso…

I simply use raw paper (it works great on these) and paste it on the kitchen floor. It works GREAT I can still make sure I am getting dinner ready while helping her to stretch her imagination with crayons.

The beauty of these crayon cakes are they are super easy to handle for young kids as young as 4-5 months this fits perfectly well on their open palm grasp and all you need to make sure is your paper is tape to whatever the surface you decide to use. I go for the kitchen floor.

Other lesson that goes hand in hand with this one on one coloring is setting boundaries as young as 4-5 months how. When your little one decide to mouth the crayon cakes you can take them away and offer it again the next day if it goes to mouth again it goes away again eventually they will understand the concept. You may see some tears at the beginning but in the long run it is fully worth the effort you invest on this because you were able to teach setting boundaries, developing, refining, grasping, and introducing ART…

I am sure you may have your own challengers but one way or another doesn’t we all have our own challengers…

The quote of the day “be your children’s best teacher and coach”

Enjoy!

Crayons, Colors, and Imagination…

These are the crayon cakes we made… they were beautiful to the eye and much easier to handle. Especially when your child is developing and refining his /her eye- hand – coordination;

These are the drawstring bags I create to add this beautiful creation. I also wanted to post here the paper to use is raw paper. It works GREAT on it…
They are fun and easy to make on a rainy day…

Quote of the day “wear bright colors on dark days”

Enjoy!

Knitting to go…

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely hate to sit around and do nothing… waiting to pick kids from school, after school activities, helping homework… and in between I don’t like to sit around without anything in my hands writing, knitting, designing, jotting ideas… what not…

My to do list is long I am working one project at a time, getting B’day gift’s and other celebrations in life… I REALLY enjoyed creating something beautiful with a purpose for someone to use instead of giving a store bought present in some occasions it serves the purpose but now that I spent time at home I make sure I use that to the fullest, productively and purposefully and for my fullest potential.

So I came up with this idea to have my knitting scarves in a mason jar. It is easy to take a long with you. If you decide to sit outside and knit your, yarn ball won’t roll over. I love to knit outside when my little one is playing with her friends I can still get few rows while keeping an eye for them…

Tell me ways that you incorporate your creative time while taking care of your munchkins… or how do you fit all to your busy schedule…

Quote of the day “think of unusual strategies”

Enjoy!

Place Mat… Ms. Independent… Self Feeding…

 I guess I have wasted a lot time of time today reshaping my blog… wondering in the cyberspace… designing… adding my personnel touch… creating… playing… goofing… technically I suppose to be cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, baking, meal planning, the list goes on… I don’t care I am happy how my blog looks as of today. I learned some techniques or in other words taught myself to change the appearance of my blog… that’s enough… let’s get to the point with regard to the title… ha… ha…

This supposes to be a simple project I wanted to use some left over pieces from my bib, and blanket project. I have not wasted a single piece of fabric… hopefully I can use everything for this project. My daughter is a very independent eater… I am happy food goes o her mouth not complain about it. My concern is she rubs the food all over on the table now she eats with us at the table. Charger is not working any more I was long due to make a table mat for her, I guess now is the time…

I saw this patter which I am going to incorporate in this project and also add some machine quilting to this project…
I hope I have inspired someone out there to run to bag, box or whatever the container you have; to hold scraps… because it’s worth the effort; at least for me I hope you will find something out of this too…

If you did please feel free to comment …

Quote of the day “tell your children about yourself”

Enjoy!

Sending gifts for a little Cousin who lives far away…

I had joy of making this cute blanket for my son’s and daughters little cousin who lives far away… Ironically he celebrates the same B’day month as I do. I love giving away books for Birth day that are award winning/ well known authors’/ and also a new authors’ who will make a big statement. I love the classics which we grew up reading and fell in love listening. I have a few that I really love. This was for a 1 year old little boy… I hope he enjoys his B’day gift as much as I did making it with limited time, busy schedules, and notes to write but I did it for him…

I enjoy reading books for my kids and they LOVE listening to them over and over… I guess that is the beauty of writing not an easy task to do but skill worth learning… I adore children book writers and illustrators. Also to do both and publish a book I think is an incredible talent…

The reasons I love to give hard books are all most all the time parents would buy paperbacks… but it is nice to treasure a hard book cover books. You never know if you have the storage you might be able to save some for your grand kids… as oppose to a paperback would be torn easily if the book is a favorite of the child…. I have witness this situation and I have ended buying the hardcover books.

This particular blanket was tied down blanket but keeps you warm yet gives you a feeling that you have been wrapped in a cloud. It is wicked soft…

Hope he enjoys it even though he lives in a warmer climate… all kids’ needs to be tucked in during bed time…

Quote of the day “instead of assuming ask”

Enjoy!