Sewing!!

My mom makes the best quilts in the world, and I love finding new, cute fabric to make quilts with her to take home with me. In my opinion a home can never have too many blankets

Layla was such a good little helper. She would take the pins out as my mom was sewing and put them back in the little pin-cushion. She was having so much fun helping!

Cuddling with the blanket she helped Grandma Bird sew.

Getting the yarn in the patriotic quilt I was making.

I absolutely love this fabric!

These are the two that I got for myself.

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Little Princess

Layla looks so cute in her Belle costume!!!

Lagoon Valley

One warm, sunny day in Nor Cal we packed up a picnic lunch and a blanket and took Layla to see the ducks and geese out at Pena Adobe park. She had the time of her life chasing the birds around and finding sticks to swing around and beat the ground with.

You know Layla loves duckies!!

She was having the time of her life!

Sidewalk chalk + Bubbles!

Since the weather out west was so warm and sunny we took advantage of it by getting sidewalk chalk and a bubble machine and soaked up some rays.

Arriving

I flew into Sacramento Airport on my sister's birthday to surprise her. To get her to the airport my dad told her that he needed to go meet someone who was flying in some important paperwork for a case that he working on. She took the bait and was bored out of her mind waiting on this mystery person.

So while they were waiting I had to sneak passed them and get into a good position to take this picture. I then sent my sister this picture:

She got the pic while I was going down the elevator and when I turned the corner I could see that she was completely confused as to how I sent this picture to her. Layla was very excited and ran to Wendi to give her a big hug. Then grandma bird and grandpa Pete each got a big hug from Layla.

M.I.A.

I didn't give up on the blog again. I'm visiting family and will be home late Tuesday night, so I'll pick up on the blogging again next week. Hugs =)

St. Patrick's Day!!

My famous sugar cookies! I made the cutest Shamrocks for Barb's St. Patty's party. They were a big hit with Layla. She loves her mommy's sugar cookies.

Mama's little "sham-rocker"

Big Girl!

In the fort with mommy watching Destination Truth.

Reading to herself.

My cool little bug on the one warm day we had last week.

Walking to our neighbor's house for a birthday party. She carried her diaper bag for herself.

Spring is Coming!!

Despite the freezing temperatures today and SNOW yesterday, there are signs of Spring starting. My daffodils are starting to grow and soon I will be planting even more beautiful flowers in my yard! We had a nice 60 degree and sunny day last week and I'm looking forward to some more this coming week! Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are going to be nice and sunny and warm! I'm planning on doing some fun outdoor activities with Layla.

SPOILED!!

Well, not spoiled...loved =)

She couldn't wait for it to get put together! The wait was just killing her!

Jer working hard to get it put together quickly =D

It's ready to go, but someone just wants to sit in it, not drive it =)

With some help from daddy she finally got driving. I had to bribe her with cookies to come into the house and out of the cold, but there were still a few tears!

Thank you Grandma Bird and Grandpa Pete!
This was Layla's Christmas present from my parents and we had to wait for all the snow to melt to put it together for Layla to play.

Sunday Afternoon

We all woke up really early on Sunday morning. We all had breakfast and watched a little PBS programming from our DVR (I'm really sick of Curious George!) Then I spent around an hour in my favorite craft store just walking around and getting ideas for future projects. After I was done we drove out to Village Point in West Omaha and had lunch and walked around the stores. Layla got A LOT of cute clothes from the Carter's store. I loooove their clothes! They are by far my favorite. We got Layla some of the cutest Summer dresses I've ever seen! I'm sure I'll post pictures when it's warm enough for her to wear them!


Here's Layla walking around with Jer. She saw me whip out the phone to take pictures and took off so I couldn't get any of her. She's such a little stinker!

Happy Homemaker Monday!

The weather in my neck of the woods:
Cloudy. Cold. Foggy. Yucky. Is it Spring YET?!

One of my simple pleasures:
My runner's high. I got a big one this weekend!

On my bedside table:
A journal, photo box, and Sense and Sensibility.

On my TV:
Chelsea Lately.


On the menu for tonight:
No idea what I'm going to make tonight.


On my To Do List:
Clean kitchen, hallway bathroom, and playroom.

New Recipe I tried last week:
The Fettuccine Alfredo from Rocco Dispirito's book that was featured in Runners World magazine. HEALTHY AND DELIC!

In the craft basket:

Scrapbooking, scrapbooking, scrapbooking!

Looking forward to:
Getting into shape. It's a long road, but I'm chugging along.

Favorite Blog Post of the week (mine or other):
My teapot makeover post. I love the new flowers in there! It's in a corner of the house that is just a hallway that isn't often used and it was quite plain, now it is a beautiful little corner!

Favorite photo from last week:

Lesson learned the past few days:
Don't take anything for granted. Especially something as simple as water. Every 15 seconds a child dies from a water-borne illness. I'm lucky that my family and I have access to all the clean drinking water that we need.

Postcard Exchange and Tea Pot Makeover =)

Go to Sandra's Blog if you'd like to participate in the post card exchange. She's trying to get at least one person from each state!!

My great-grandmother's tea pot wasn't holding water very well. Strange, since it's a tea pot. I guess it's just too old. So I had to remove my fresh flowers and I took a trip to my favorite craft store to pick up some fake flowers and some styrofoam to hold them up. I got daisies and tulips because they're my favorite flowers!!

Healthy and Yummy Fettuccine Alfredo

In Runner's World Magazine there was a feature of Rocco Dispirito's new cook book, and with it there was a recipe that suits runners quite well. When you run, you need a lot of carbs to give you energy, but you need the HEALTHY carbs, not the bad ones! Fettuccine Alfredo is a popular dish for runners, but the heavy cream used in the sauce is not the healthiest thing in the world. We started with whole wheat fettuccine instead of the traditional kind. Then instead of heavy cream for the sauce we used greek yogurt and low-sodium, low-fat chicken broth. It was quite delicious and had fresh garlic, grated Parmesan, and ground nutmeg. The dish was so creamy and tasty, and it would have been better if I let the fettuccine cook a little longer. I think I was really excited for the sauce and drained it too quickly. We'll probably have this again next week some time! Yum!

Served with whole wheat dinner rolls

So yummy!

Jer enjoyed it.

Layla did not. She stuck to grapes and bread.

Daddy's Girl

Getting in a story on daddy's lunch break.

Layla and I went shopping the other night, and while we were out picked up some chocolate bugs for Jer.