Pretzel Buns

Pretzel bun dogs...trying to recreate the yummy pretzel bun chili cheese dogs from my all-time favorite eatery, Der Wiener Schnitzel. It's Der-licious!

I made this dough from scratch! And it's very good but I think next time I'll leave out the hot dogs and just make pretzel buns:) And maybe dip them in Velveeta cheese or cream cheese..

Pizza Spaghetti!

Did you know that I HATE spaghetti?? The smell... the sight of it...all make me want to puke. The worst thing is cold spaghetti or smelling it in my kitchen from the night before. Anyway, I found a spaghetti I can eat!!! It has Italian sausage, pepperoni, red sauce, Italian cheese blend and spaghetti noodles. I didn't add the garlic or onions and I strained my sauce to rid it of the dreaded chunks. And this is how you know it's good....I ate it for left overs TWICE!!!! Another thing about me: I HATE leftovers! Except for a couple of things, I don't eat leftovers. I highly recommend this recipe:)

I wanted to pass on this cool thing I found in case someone else needs one of these. We take a lot of trips in the car (I'm talking more than an hour) and needed a place for the portable DVD player. I found this here but had to buy if from bestbuy.com I think because of shipping. I love this thing!!! We used it on our trip to Stuttgart 2 weeks ago. Jon said it didn't get in his way while driving. Before, we used to wedge it between the two front seats but it always fell.

Thanks for all the awesome comments last post! I did not expect that! And thanks for the header love too:)

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Since we moved here Emily has been sick just about every two weeks (really). Always with a very bad cough. So bad she throws up (remember the bus incident?). When she is sick we all get sick. I finally took her to the Dr. yesterday and guess what?? She may have asthma! This poor girl...So she got an inhaler and some liquid steroid stuff to take for 10 days. She is already noticeably better. Oh did I mention that when she gets these coughs I can't send her to school because she throws up and will be sent home and we only have one car and Jon's in the field? So she has to stay home even if she has no fever or seems OK. If she has that cough she'll throw up. Guaranteed. The Dr wants to see her again in 10 days and maybe then we'll find out if she has asthma or not. I don't know how they find this out but we'll see.  And this Tuesday we report to the hospital for her seizure testing! Yippee!

I heart these

I made these right after I saw this post about felt heart pins on the Purl Bee but was waiting to get a little closer to Valentines Day to post about them .  I like the Purl Bee ones but I thought they'd look cute if they looked like conversation hearts. I don't even really wear pins but I needed to make these (needed to) so I made one for each of Emily's teachers, one for my sister who is a teacher and one for Emily although I'm not sure she'd wear it. I used the template from the purl bee project and machine sewed them together instead of hand stitching them. I also used two different embroidery stitches to see which I liked better (or which one I'm better at) and it turns out the AWESOME one is the best embroidery-wise. It's very hard for me to make perfect letters and this stitch helped (back stitch?). I printed out different sized conversation heart words and matched up the sized that worked the best on this size heart. I then used a iron transfer pen to get the wording on to the felt.

Below is my favorite part. I made a little card for the pins to be pinned to so they'll be purty when I give them to the teachers.

the sources for these digital scrapbooking elements:

heart balloon: free from here

scallop border: for sale here

pink strip: tape strips free from here but now I can't find it on her site

"Happy" font: called "dreamed about you" (not sure where I got it)

Banner: is part of my logo designed by Jessica

Two Things

Thing One:

Jess over at insanelycrafty is giving away this AH-DORABLE garland! I'm only posting about because I want another chance at winning it. Because really, I don't want anyone else to know about it!

So back off ladies! IT'S MINE!

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Thing Two:

So in a couple of weeks, Emily will go to the hospital for testing (for the seizure thing). This testing could last from one day to....a week!! Jon will have to take a week off to care for Ava and I will have to stay in the hospital with Emily. Can you hear me crying? This means:

1. Sharing a room with 1-4 other people (??? and could be more from what the TRICARE lady told me)
2. Sharing a bathroom with said people,
3. Eating hospital food (that i have to pay for and it's German food. I eat one German thing besides the bread. Plain schnitzel)
4. Trying to get Emily to eat hospital food (not going to happen. She will be eating bread for a week) 
5. Possibly getting a snorer worse than any man (like when I had Ava and cried and cried till 3 am then finally called the nurse for ear plugs)
6. Most likely have a roommate that likes the room hot and no fan (it's Germany. Germans aren't into fans in general)
7. Mein Deutsch ist schlecht! It's really really non-existent. My fault and nobody else's. But I can still cry about it:) 

So am I crying for Emily that she has to be tested and prodded and has to spend HOURS upon HOURS alone with me? No!!!! I'm crying for me!!!

I will be bringing a lot of stuff to do with me. Computer, movies, sewing, embroidery, magazines. I have ideas for keeping Emily busy but I would gladly welcome more. It's too bad I have one friend here and she'll be out of town that week or she could visit! She's German too! Just when I need her most. How selfish of her to want to be with her family before her husband deploys!!

Big Blue Sailor

I didn't make these Peep, Chirp, Quack dolls for Ava, Kelly did!!!

Ava had her 3rd birthday party this past weekend. We drove down to Stuttgart for the day and had her birthday party at the Store. I really wanted to show these dolls because Kelly adapted them from a tutorial for Angry Birds (angry birds are from a game).

Kelly had asked what she should get Ava and I told her I've always wanted to make a Quack (or one of the other characters) pillow. She told me she wouldn't have time so she'd look for something at the PX. Well.....she did have time!! How amazing are these??? If you don't know Peep and the Big Wide World, you should check it out. It is the cutest show and both girls LOVE it. Ava especially right now will ask for it in the middle of the night if she wakes up or 1st thing in the morning. I personally love to sing the theme song.

They have already been man-handled and loved to death since getting them on Saturday. Chirp (the red one) fell out of the car and into a puddle. Don't they look exactly like the characters?

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 The Sheep below is not handmade but I wanted to show it anyway because it's so darn cute!

It's Timmy from Shaun the Sheep (or Shaun das Schaf if you sprechen). Shaun the Sheep is Ava's other obsession right now and another show I highly recommend.

I'll have Ava's birthday party pictures up just as soon as someone (I'm not naming names, 'cause I'm not one to talk...) needs to send me the pictures. Kelly.

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I can't believe Ava is 3!

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Oh, Emily told me that Martin Luther King was killed by a "white doo doo". Huh? She is totally being serious and not saying doo doo isn't that funny I said doo doo. She thinks that's what the person who killed him is called. "The white doo doo didn't want a lot of changes. So he shot him and that's what happened". Does anyone know how she could have misunderstood the teacher??

Clown Stripe

What's that? Another Hopscotch top?? Why yes it is!

 The fabric is Michael Miller Clown Stripe and I made this in a size 6 instead of a 5 like last time.

I LOVE this fabric and I love this pattern!

In fact I love it so much I have stacks of knit just waiting to be made in to Hopscotch tops!

All of these were bought on etsy from various sellers.

Ava is now entering the "I don't like____" stage. It can be you she doesn't like or her Shaun the Sheep or the TV. It all depends on who wronged her. Today I yelled at her because she took one bottle of liquid Tylenol and mixed it with some cough medicine. Now I have one empty bottle of Tylenol and one bottle of half Tylenol and half cough medicine. I'm not even going to talk about that fact that she did this without me knowing. Scary! That must have happened when I was passed out on the couch with a bucket of chicken on my chest. Anyway, I yelled at her and she started screaming "I don't like daddy!". He was at work and had nothing to do with anything. THAT was funny!

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I'm listening to another book by Mary Roach (she wrote Stiff). It's called Packing for Mars. It's good but of course not nearly as good or as interesting as Stiff! But I still recommend it.

Tea Party Dress

Oliver + S tea Party Dress. Made from a cotton/linen blend I think in Navy. The whole thing is lined with navy ric rack detail. Corinnea, if you remember, I didn't care for this dress as much as the other patterns by Oliver + S. And I didn't care for the Jump rope dress or the Music box dress...seeing a pattern here? Dresses! Emily didn't wear dresses that much so I had no need to make any of these. But now that she has to wear a uniform, I have an excuse to make them!!! This is the size 5. I added about 3" to the length (at the smallest part of the skirt) and then ended up cutting off about 2" (after I already put the hem facing on). It looked hideous at first. It went out at the bottom like it had wire in the hem. But now it's  better.

                     

That's mascara on Ava's lips. And food. It's on her tongue too. At first I thought she was eating it then I realized she was putting it on like lip gloss but she must of accidentally brushed her tongue with it too. Nasty! Every Time she does something I think, Emily never did that. It's bad I know but I still am shocked at all the things she does! She repeats bad words, draws on everything she shouldn't, gets in to everything she shouldn't, eats crayons, mascara & old food from the couch cushions, breaks everything she touches and does not take no for an answer!

More Hopscotch

That look (minus the new teeth thing she's doing) is Ava staring off into space which she does all the time. The crazy eyes usually happen when you call her name several times. She won't look at you but she'll start the crazy look and then laugh. Try and look away from the crazy face to the cute top!

So anyway, on to the shirts! More Hopscotch Tops from Oliver + S. This time I used the selvedge from the green polka dot knit for the contrasting neck binding. For some reason this knit comes with a wide white selvage. I really like the look although next time I would cut the neck piece bigger than the pattern piece if that makes sense. Because the neck pattern piece is supposed to run perpendicular to the selvage not parallel to it. Not enough stretch.

I took this Heather Ross Munki Munki tank set and turned it into.....

This top! It's another Hopscotch shirt. There wasn't enough of the shorts material to make this shirt but I have another idea for those. I LOVE this top!! It's sooo soft. My Aunt Karen sent the tank/shorts set. For those that don't  know about Heather Ross stuff, the set was bought so I could cut it up! Thanks Aunt Karen:)

And I cut the pattern pieces so I could take advantage of the lettuce edge already on the tank hem.

See her sleeve hem?

Pink brick quilt: DONE (completely this time)

This quilt is completely done now. It sat with the binding half sewn on for months but it's done now!

 Isn't the back adorable?? I did the whole thing except for actually grow and weave the fabric (or what ever you do to get fabric).

The quilt pattern is Another Brick in the Wall by Carolina Patchworks.

The backing fabric is red Letter Day by Lizzy House.

Why hadn't I ever thought of face painting at home???

The girls LOVE this (why????) and it can be used as a reward.

Here's Emily with her new Toothless Dragon and her face painted. 

  

This is the 1st year in I don't know how many that I spent New Years (the actual clock-strikes-12 part) standing next to Jon. Because I'm the mom I apparently have to stay with the kids and miss the parties. Because I'm not the one who can put away 8 - 16oz beers, I have to stay home with the kids. Because I want my husband to have fun and I just can't seem to ask him to stay home, I have to stay with the kids. But not this year! We don't know anyone here so Jon had to stay home! If I could spell the nasty laugh I just did I would:) Guess how we rang in the new year? Watching Dexter (the 1st season for the 1st time!!). We were so into it that we didn't notice it was about 4-5 minutes after midnight and LOTS of fireworks were going off. I kept thinking, in the back of  my mind, damn the neighbors are loud! Then I looked at the clock and said, oh my god, it's after new years! That just figures, you know? 1st time I can actually kiss my husband when the clock strikes 12 and we miss it.. On the bright side, Dexter is good!! I know we're super late on this but we just never got around to renting it.

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