This past weekend we headed down to Northerly Island in the city for Polar Adventure days. There was birds, snakes, dogs, hot chocolate, stories, and snacks! A small event but a lot of things to see and do and not too many people to get in the way.
Here is my highlight reel, courtesy of Google Auto-Awesome #ThroughGlass
That’s me, the house that gives out full sized candy bars for Halloween. Not only full sized but king sized!! A lot of planning goes into it but I love the look on a toddler’s face when they get a Kit Kat bar that is bigger than their head! Truly epic!
We keep a spreadsheet so we know how much candy to buy, what is popular, how much we ate, etc. It’s important because an 8 year old has no qualms telling you Snickers are disgusting and can she please have something else. We also have to have enough extras for the “Cheaters” usually teens who come back a few times. If I catch them I call them out, but honestly all the kids look the same to me so sometimes I miss the repeats 🙂
So let the festivities begin and if you’re in the neighborhood stop on by!!
Pretty princesses!!
Brutus assuming his ultimate form
Here he looks more like a bull.
Here he is asking if we can be done.
Brutus turns 1 year old today – yay!
I decided to advanced my nail art skill over the long weekend by attempting to raise the bar and try some of the more detailed designs in my book.
I started with this one:
Which I think turned out pretty good
However I was using (what I assume) was low quality polish. The white and black went on a gloopy and thick and I ended up smudging every nail at the gym (even after giving a couple hours to dry).
So I removed that and while contemplating my options I put on some nail stickers so I wouldn’t look like a total scrub.
I am hard on my nails. Most polishes don’t last me more that a week. Even the gel manicures start chipping at around the 7 day mark. I thought though that with a gel system I could do intricate nail art without it smudging. Looking into that though its an expensive option (it’s on my wishlist though – hint hint). My next best choice was the CND Vinylux line which drys in about 10 minutes. Its actually pretty great and much cheaper than a full gel system.
After picking a design and ordering the colors I would need (and waiting the 1-2 weeks for shipment, stupid non-prime items) I got my polish and tried my next design
OMG so excited I love strawberries and I thought this would be an awesome design! The Vinylux did a good job although it does dry fast (that’s the whole point) so toward the end the polish got a bit gloopy. I think working faster is the main key here but overall I am super happy with how they turned out. The only think I want to improve is a thinner brush or maybe a darker green for the leaves – right now they just look like smudges.
The strawberry tips with the Vinylux went so well that I ordered some additional Vinylux colors. The Vinylux lasted about 5 days for me so while I wait for the items to arrive (stupid non-prime) I decided to attempt a free-hand design with my regular polish. My idea was to do a V at the tip but I am still getting used to my nail art brushes and the brush I choose was too thick. I turned it into regular french tips to salvage it and I actually love the way it looks. Bonus – the super sparkly glitter polish hides my smudges!
If, like myself, you are the mother of kitties it becomes important that you take mother’s day into you own hands. Kitty paws just aren’t gonna cut it! This year I help my fur babies pick out some really great gifts for me – assorted Frango Mints and a kitty necklace! They are so thoughtful!
After trying all the mints, I decided the Milk Chocolate Mints are still my favorite and informed the kitties I would like only those next year. They looked disinterestedly at me in what I assume is agreement. The Other all got me a gift – Starbucks Chai! I didn’t even have to help with this one – he is a lot more capable than the kitties.
To further treat myself, I decided to give myself a manicure utilizing the new book and nail tools I got from my Reddit exchange. Overall I think it turned out pretty good for a first try! I choose an easy one – Dots and went to work.
I didn’t have the exact colors suggested in the book so I decided to utilize my set of Coach polish.
Started with a base coat
Then my base color coat. The book suggest light pink so I used that color from the Coach set. I think this nail polish is getting a bit old (I did get it 3-4 years ago) because the pink went on a little gloopy.
Now the first dot color. The book suggest blue, which I assume is because its the darkest. For this reason I decided to start with the purple.
I waited a while in between each coat because I didn’t want to smear the dots. Luckily its easy to turn Kindle pages with wet nails. For the second dot coat I used the dark pink, since it was the second darkest color.
Finally on to the gold dots. I tried to fill it any remaining gaps but overall I think the gold was a little light compared to the other colors. If I did it again I would make sure the dot colors were closer in intensity.
Once I gave the dots a bit to dry I put on a super shiny top coat. As I said I think I did pretty good for my first time. I can’t wait to try other ones in the book. I’m thinking either Strawberries or Ladybugs next!
I’m not big in to celebrating Easter except for the obvious reasons (food and candy). This Easter there was no big family get together so I decided to enlist The Other to make a lamb soup. Lamb, I have learned, is traditional on Easter but soup is not. This would be my first foray into a more adventurous soup from my Cook’s Illustrated Soup and Stew book.
The soup – officially called Irish Stew in the book – consisted of Lamb shoulder, and potatoes. There was a variant which included turnips and carrots which I decided to try. I thought this would add a little more variety to the soup. Although I love potatoes, my results with lamb have been mixed about 50/50. Brutus on the other hand was just excited meat was being cooked and decided to jump on the counter ( a no-no) and photo bomb while I was taking photos #throughglass
The bad news was that since it was Easter weekend and people like to eat lamb on Easter my butcher didn’t have any lamb shoulder and the Jewel had only 1 package left. I quickly called The Other to see if we could sucessfully scale down the soup from the required 4.5 pounds of lamb to just 1 pound. He said it could be done and was not worried.
My two tiny lamb shoulder chops
All that’s left after removing from the bone and trimming – it doesn’t look like enough!!!!
We successfully scaled down the recipe and made enough for about 4 servings of soup. It was awesomely delicious. The lamb was cook perfectly and so tender and flavorful it was by far my most favorite part of the soup (again just making me sad I didn’t have more lamb!) There was a weird aromatic in the soup which I think came from the turnips that I didn’t care for. It wasn’t enough to not eat it but if I made this again I would leave out the turnips and just do potatoes and carrots.
The cook book also listed a complimentary quick biscuit recipe which was supposed to be easier and faster than traditional biscuits. We did not scale down this recipe….
They turned out pretty good even though I forgot the salt during the mixing. They were easy to work with and cooked in about 15 minutes and for those doing Weight Watchers were about 3 points each. I am definitely going to keep this recipe on hand for get togethers and parties. I also liked that the biscuits were small (2.5″ round) so a good option for finger food or hors d’oeuvre.
Last week I turned 35 – whoo-hoo! It was an awesome week. I ate junk food, I got presents, I did what I wanted! I have been celebrating Birthday Week for as long as I can remember but this by far was the best one yet.
On my birthday-birthday, The Other got me a Starbucks chai for breakfast. We then went out to Bulldog’s (A local burger joint) for lunch. It was good – my new second favorite local burger joint :). We then went to Cacao Sweets and Treats for a smores bar – which is literally what I think heaven tastes like! (check them out!: www.cacaosweetsandtreats.com) The Other and I made our way down to the local game shop where he bought me a Unicorn figure. This was an ultimate gesture of love since The Other is team pegasus. Love knows no bounds…
My family and birthday-buddy were all variously out of town on my actual birthday so we celebrated on Saturday by going to Medieval Times. I dressed up like the princess I am and had a wonderful time! Our knight didn’t win, but I was asked to pose with a little girl for a picture – so yay ego boost!
We were generally rowdy and misbehaved but we had fun and that’s all that counts. Can’t wait for next year!
)
“The Other” and I love an excuse to celebrate. We celebrate good days, bad days, and days where nothing happened. We are always buying each other little gifts and treats so although we don’t celebrate “Valentine’s Day” in the traditional sense, we do use it as an excuse for a celebration! This year I think we did pretty good for each other:
Backpack Tote from Love41. This is absolutly amazing and will last for a million years. I will probably do a separate post on this awesome company.
A chocolate box with chocolate pretzels inside! The Other wants all future storage containers in our house to be made of chocolate.
Dinosaur planters – they are real plants!
Deep fried peanuts – surprisingly delicious! (but what deep fried thing isn’t delicious…)
Some gifts for the kitties!
Brutus asks “Won’t you be my Valentine?”
It’s that time of year again….
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