"Liberty Ball"

easy patterns/tutorials, that's what I like
I have been given scraps of fabric from here and there. I sewed some together to form this patriotic specimen.

Happy Independence Day!

baby food making

Recipe for Brown Rice Cereal

I made one batch and froze most of it in a silicone ice tray. In my opinion, the consistency after freezing/thawing was equally as good, if not better, than the first day.

Averi's room

Averi's giraffe room is finally feeling finished
the little sign on the door was from Averi's bassinet at the hospital

the giraffe theme was inspired by the picture above which I saw and liked before we were pregnant. here it is more clearly

I liked "gender neutral" giraffes for our gender surprise baby...

... and the nursery letters, changing pad cover, etc. help make the room more pink for our Averi girl

my favorite part of the room (=

tastiness

I was recently sharing my feelings of silliness for wanting to share recipes because sometimes I so loosely follow them. This is a great example. I make "it" pretty often and/or have some in the freezer. The only thing is I don't really measure much, use like a #10 of tomatoes from Sam's club that I puree (sans juice), don't use lemons, dump in some-odd packets of peppers from a pizza place, don't use that much EVOO...

it's a great recipe. (=

These next suckers are my, "I want chocolate in the form of bread but don't want to eat 'real brownies'" satisfy-er.

After making them multiple times slightly differently, I liked the outcome of my last batch:

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup ww flour

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 5 tablespoons cocoa

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 cup nonfat plain yogurt
  

• 2 eggs

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1. 1

Combine sugar/salt and wet ingredients, add cocoa, add flour

1. 2

Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes in an 8x8 or 9x9 pan. (though I went for a double recipe/bigger pan)

I like frozen/cold desserts so I cut them and wrapped them individually in saran and stuck them in the freezer.


And...
Applesauce: so easy and so so yummy
my mom got a killer deal here on apples so we ended spending about $2 for about 30 cups of applesauce

and it's so easy!
I looked at this for guidance but we did not use exact measurements, it didn't need sugar, and we waited for the cinnamon till we topped off our individually servings.

baby carriers

This carrier (by Heather) was so nice for Averi to fall asleep in when she was smaller and we were on the road. I got such comments from strangers as, "She looks like an Anne Geddes baby" as well as, "Is that a baby in there?". I need to hone my skills in using it now that Averi is bigger

I liked the bjorn pretty well until I got to use the next one....

the mei tei (also by Heather) is easy to put on, easier on the back, and feels cozy too!

I like carrying Averi around! (=

tasty tropical treat

Our wonderful neighbors took us out to Vietnamese food the other month and ordered us something similar to this for one of our desserts. Beans for dessert you may ask? Yep. Different but good. Honestly though the beans were not the highlight for me. It was the coconut milk. Deliciously creamy, icy cold.... I want some more.

While at Trader Joe's I spotted this:

I purchased it.

I like about 1 T. of white sugar per cup of coconut milk served over Sonic ice. The whole can is about 250calories (excluding the sugar) and is rich enough to share with at least one person (that is enough sharing for me).

chicken noodle soup for the sick (soul)

I was sick

my wonderful husband made me this
I took some pictures and ate

it was very good though extra salt was added while we ate

he did not add the flour at the end (per my request)

it was also very good to be so nicely taken care of (=