coming soon!

The results of The Battle of the Healthy Cookbooks are in!

When the luxurious laziness of Mother's Day Weekend is over and the shock of real life hits on Monday, I'll need a moment to escape (so soon? sad, right?) and you can reap the benefits of my recent cooking flops (and successes!! there have been some!).

Look for a full review (or something like it) on Monday or Tuesday of these cookbooks:

The Food You Crave by Ellie Krieger

The Best Light Recipe from the editors of Cook's Illustrated

Consider it my Mother's Day present to you.

There. Now you can't say I never gave you anything.

(My mom loves to say that. I am her. It happens.)

See you then!

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flop, near-flop, flop again

It was just that kind of weekend.

Saturday started with the absolutely fabulous third birthday party of our friend Little Man. There were friends, fun, fire trucks (the Bean was in heaven), fire men (mommy was in heaven), pizza and cake: a perfect recipe for fun. But mommy and daddy forgot to combine our sugar-intake-tallies for the Bean as the party progressed, and the day ended in a massive sugar-induced meltdown. Parenting flop.

We regrouped Sunday morning and made it to and home from church with little event, and even managed to have a pretty good time.

This gave me just enough false confidence to take on a long-neglected sewing project: the Bean's dust ruffle for her big girl bed.

I took measurements, I made charts, graphs and diagrams, I cut, I sewed, I pressed, I repeated. And sure enough, in about an hour, I had a rather simple, but perfect little dust ruffle with box pleats. See?

What is that you say? It's not perfect? Oh I see. The box pleats aren't equidistant apart.

And there are seven inches missing up here.

And there are seven extra inches over here. What just happened? But, but, but I made a diagram, see?

There are no misplaced inches or wonky-pleat-distances on my diagram for heaven's sake!

[heavy sigh]

[regroup]

[unsew, re-cut, re-sew, re-press, repeat]

There. That's better.

That too.

Only a sewing near-flop. And when you put the bookcase back, the wonky-pleat-distances aren't so obvious. Unless you're me. Then the asymmetry makes you twitch every time you walk in the room. But that's my own issue. I'll deal. Moving on.

So no matter how emotionally traumatized by dust ruffle asymmetry a mommy is, her family still needs to eat. And when the recipe is from this fabulous new cookbook from Cook's Illustrated, that is alright with me.

And when the recipe is for Chicken Enchiladas, even better! And since I meal-plan



and make exhaustively researched grocery lists



everything is right here and ready to go!!!!

Except the onions. And chili powder. And cilantro.

And part of my soul.

Thank you Brad. And Dominos.

I'm going to bed now.

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Birthday Party Season Project Fever

We have entered Birthday Party Season! The Bean and I are involved with a Wonderful group of moms and kiddos through our church. All the kiddos' birthdays fall within six months of one another, so right around now another half-year of celebrations begins! Unluckily for the Bean and I, the Bean's birthday comes at the veeeeeeeeery end of Birthday Season, so she has to wait her turn and I have to think of gifts as fabulous as the kids before really knowing what is going to be a hit at the new age. Luckily, that teaches the Bean patience and sparks her mommy's creativity. Win!

This Saturday is the birthday of fabulous K, and I have finally come up with something for this play-set loving darling - A Chef Kit! I was inspired by this book I literally stumbled over at our most recent Barnes $ Noble story time: DK Children's Cookbook by Katherine Ibbs

It is a great collections of recipes for little ones with full color photos of every ingredient and children doing every step in the recipe, and foods I'd actually want to eat! The only draw back was that I think it might be a little too old for fabulous K on her third birthday, and the price point was a little too high for me to be able to add anything else to the gift. So the DK Children's Cookbook was added to my wishlist for the Bean, and the search began.

Our big outing with weekend was to The Flagship Half Price Books Store and boy-howdy, was it awesome. A Walmart-sized store of great books at affordable prices that not only makes great literature available for every budget but has also made being Green profitable and hip is my kind of shopping heaven. While I was there I found: Fairy Cooking by Rebecca Gilpin and Catherine Atkinson

This little paperback gem is simpler and more age appropriate than the DK Children's Cookbook, includes mostly desserts and although it lacks the photographed ingredient list I liked so much, the instructions are illustrated and the design is absolutely charming. I have been admiring it more and more since I got it home, so now I need to find another one for us!

You can't have a Chef Kit without a charming apron, so after some easy googling I came across this clever apron pattern by Meg at SewLiberated. I LOVE clever design!! The neck strap is elastic and the waist strap velcros so the little chef can take it on/on themselves and the whole thing from the lining to the shape fit firmly in the Why Didn't I Think of That category. The Bean and I are headed to Hobby Lobby tomorrow for fabric and a couple of cookie cutters and jars of sprinkles and we will be ready to go!

One problem. SewLiberated led me to JCasa Handmade and this fabulous alphabet craft project and now my list for the Lobby of Hobbies is growing. I am hoping to look into this blog more during nap time today after reading JCasa's response to a question as to whether or not she does Montessori home-schooling. She said "we're not montessori-based, rather the girls participate in a traditional preschool environment and are both really thriving there. at home, i really do appreciate the "follow the child" concept that Meg (above) explains so well on her blog and am trying more and more to move toward child-centered activities in our home."

This Really spoke to me. Since we have recently discovered a local preschool that may be what we want in an early school experience for the Bean AND fall within our budget restraints, I have been trying to balance my desire for the Bean to have a fabulous and fulfilling public school experience like the one I had and my new curiosity in providing a great at-home learning environment. Maybe it is possible to have both. It's a wonderful place to let my mind wander.

I can hear the Elmo's World song, so my blogging time draws to a close. Today I hope to give myself some mental space to think about what I want the Bean to get out of her education, what I can provide personally and where I can find resources to fill in the gaps, and what my priorities are for her education. If I can reign in the crafting fever I can feel coming over me, I might just get to that! Wish me luck!

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