buzzzzzzz

Parker's friend Anna is celebrating her 3rd birthday on Saturday and along with a plethora of Dora the Exporler goodies I continued my felt fiesta by making her a buzzing bee shirt. This felt thing is fun and I'm trying to think about what kind of designs I can add to my clothes that won't make me look like a toddler! Any ideas?

star muffins

With the wind chill hitting in the negative numbers yesterday, Parker and I spent the afternoon indoors and at some point he asked for a muffin. So I pulled out the my new purchase from a recently opened neighborhood thrift store, Housing Works, and we got busy in the kitchen. The New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook from 1971 is packed with some pretty tasty sounding goodies and their recipe for "Fruity & Nutty Tea Loaf" made wonderful muffins in our new star shaped muffin pan. Parker really got into baking this time and was able to recap all of the ingredients to his Dad later that night. Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup blueberries
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup oatmeal
2 lightly beaten eggs
1/3 cup softened butter
1 cup mashed bananas
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup raisins (we also added cranberries)

pre-heat oven to 350*
1) sprinkle blueberries with two tablespoons of flour
2) mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt & oatmeal in on bowl
3) mix together eggs, butter & bananas. Add dry ingredients , stirring until combined.
4) add pecans, raisins ( & cranberries) & blueberries gradually and stir only enough to distribute evenly.
5) if making in a loaf pan - bake 1 hour. we made muffins and baked for 25-30 minutes.
YUM!

I wanted to thank domesticali for the huge shout out on her site and warm welcome to the world of blogs from all of her friends. Gracias!

18 wheels and couting...

My son Parker wanted to create a special piece of art work for his Daddy's birthday - a big truck of course! So we sat down with a piece of paper, orange masking tape and crayons and went to work. He really wasn't satisfied with the way it looked so I offered another piece of paper to start over. He said with a huge smile "Mommy let's connect the paper and make it an 18 wheeler" and the "18 Wheeler Tire Transporter" was born. While the little guy took a nap I turned it into a t-shirt so now his Dad can not only hang the art in his office he can wear it too. Happy Birthday Eric!

Shake it up

My son has an obession with wheels! I swear this love began in the womb...as an infant he would pull and slither himself over to the stroller wheels to play with them. Pretty gross considering their sole responsibility was to transport him through the streets of NYC. 2 plus years later - he is always holding something with wheels and really enjoys removing them. I have found myself retracing steps to search for the lost rubber circles in the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn. He also likes to wear clothes splashed with some sort of vehicle. Here's the latest homemade article - complete with the requested "zig zag" design on the "drum". Made with felt cut outs and some embroidery thread.

911

When I asked my son what he wanted to dress up as for Halloween he said "a firetruck". I said "a fireman?" and he replied "no, a fire-truck". So the instant-on craft function in my brain went into overdrive. I started with 2 cardboard boxes from Fresh Direct and went to work...Basic stuff like cutting out the shape, spray painting the red base and cutting out the wheels then I ran into some difficulty. I was having trouble painting the white & yellow stripes that go all around the firetruck (half way through the process I realized that I could have just bought yellow & white tape and been done in 2 and 1/2 minutes but then I wouldn't have heard this...) I was having a pretty difficult time keeping the lines straight and out of nowhere, my 2.5 year old boy said "Great Job Mommy" and then continued to play with his trucks. I was almost done at that point but his encouragement made me add some extras: F.D.N.Y logos, the "window", crocheted "ladder" straps, working headlights (which his hands are covering in the photo) & red/blue flashing siren stars. Honestly - it was a pretty cool costume and he loved it!

a view from the hood

this is my first post of my first blog. My daily surf list is huge and I get so many great ideas that I thought that I should try to start posting some of my own. Plus - it's helping me break my "celebrity gossip sites" habit and giving me a better place to spend my computer minutes.