Muffin Tin Monday

We are kicking off our week with another Muffin Tin Monday! This one is extra fun because we used the new muffin tins that Grandma and Grandpa sent the kids. We could use a little bit of spring!

Contents: Easter candy (they never really get sweets, so it's an extra special treat. Robbie poured them into the tin and covered them with the flower cup so he could eat them as dessert - Lyssie followed his lead), string cheese circles, grapes, wheat crackers, turkey and sauteed carrots.

The kids were extra excited about this tin - not sure if it was the new liners, the candy or the food in the tin... but regardless, they are eating it!

Be sure to check out Her Cup Overfloweth for more muffin tins. No theme this week, but next we are supposed to take our tins on the road! I've done this once before when we were on vacation - I'm not sure what to do this time. Perhaps that'll be the day to take the kids to the Tulip Festival.

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Look what happened this weekend!

I'm not sure why I can't get this larger - hopefully it'll be clickable. But regardless, you can still see my Little Hoot on the front page of Etsy! It's been over a year that I've been on Etsy (nearly a year and a half) and this is my first time on the front page... at least that I'm aware of. It's not like they notify you and I really don't watch my views or hearts like I used to.

I had always thought the it would be one of my World of Whimm items that would make it first - they are more colorful and they are unique as I design everything myself... of course, kids and kid items don't land on the front page nearly enough. But these little owls are pretty fun, also designed by me and each one has a character of it's own.

Big thanks to Ambika for letting me know - otherwise I would have surely missed it. It's nice to have friends watching out for you.

I'll be back this afternoon for Muffin Tin Monday - I just had to share - it was an exciting moment for me.

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Happy Easter

I'm looking forward to a low key Easter at home. We have the extra special treat of having my husband home for the entire weekend... so I'm hoping to take advantage of the extra help.

Today we went to the Woodland Park Zoo's Bunny Bounce egg hunt with the kids. It was time to renew our membership and Robbie has been asking us for months to go (yes, he even asked when it was snowing). We made it just in time for the last egg "hunt". The kids had fun picking up eggs - and Robbie was proud to recycle them in the end.


I'm having a rough night - so responsibilities for tonight might fall onto my husband. Thankfully, he's great at taking such things over and I'm sure he'll do an even better job than I would do.

I hope everyone has a great Easter! I'll be back this week with my regular blogs as Robbie will be back in school and we won't have any house guests.

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A little bit of this and that

Okay, so I didn't blog as much as I like to this week. I can't seem to have guests and blog. It's one or the other... and of course, my guests win every time. So, I thought I'd do a quick wrap up of my week.

Yesterday after our tea party, we dyed eggs. I'll admit, I normally do not brave this little venture when Easter rolls around... I used to do it with Robbie, but when Lyssie came along, the thought of being out numbered with dye exposed on the table brought me nightmares. But, my friend is staying with us, so I took advantage of the extra set of hands.

We did the traditional dying of the eggs... but the funnest thing we did was the crayon melting. I loved this technique! It reminded me of being a kid when my mom used to put paper onto a hot pad and let us draw on it with crayons as they melted. Such a fun memory! The orange one second from the top is done with crayons... isn't it cool?

While this week hasn't been overly productive as far as my Etsy shops... today I have been able to get quite a bit of sewing done. I have a custom order for a Peter Pan hat with a red feather... so I figured I'd make some extras while I was at it (this is my nee plan of attack for having enough inventory for the summer shows).

I have six hats sewn and ready to be feathered. My feathered headbands have also been selling well so I made a few extra feathers so that I could make a few extra headbands as well. Efficient, yes? I'm feeling pretty good about it all and look forward to hopefully finishing up all my custom orders by the end of the weekend (I have a total of 4 right now - yay!).

I'm looking forward to fun weekend celebrating Easter. We hope to take the kids to the zoo for an egg hunt and then a nice quiet Easter at home... that's the way I like it!

Have a great Easter!

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Tea Time Thursday - Easter!

Today, we celebrated Easter with our weekly Tea Party. It's really fun - the kids talk about it all week... and Lyssie loves to get dressed up in her many polka dot party dresses just for the occasion.


I was disappointed again that it was too cold out to have our tea party in the yard. I think the outdoor pictures come out much nicer - one, the food is all crammed onto a tiny table and it looks like there is more... and two, because the lighting is much better than inside our lighting challenged home.

But, the kids don't care how the pictures come out - they just love the novelty of the tea party and the tea party foods. Today, we served lemonade (Crystal Light) as our tea - so it was extra special. I also made some spice cake cupcakes decorated with flowers on a homemade cream cheese frosting (recipe to follow). I served egg shaped sandwiches (egg salad, turkey and cheese and the good ol' jelly sandwiches that the kids love). I made little appetizers with pesto tortellini, slices of string cheese and chicken. They were good - and Robbie actually ate them as well (I had figured the adults would be the only ones eating them). I also included a bowl of grapes because they are great finger food and I had a feeling it was the only thing my daughter would eat. I was right (she didn't even have an interest in the flowered cupcake or the sweet lemonade - weird child!).

I did a few decorations for our table as well. I cut some bunnies out to go around one of the cake plates and I made orange napkin holders in the shape of carrots. Both of these ideas I found on the internet somewhere... sorry, I really need to get into the habit of marking these things when I find them.

We currently have a house guest that the kids have been enjoying... so my blogging has been a bit sporadic. I'm sure I'll be back next week as I have a few tutorials that I'm working on.

Cream Cheese Frosting (from Slashfood - with the basic directions I used)

8 oz cream cheese
5 tbsp softened butter
2 tsp vanilla
2 c powdered sugar (sifted after measuring)

Mix cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth (I used an hand mixer). Gradually add the 2 cups of powdered sugar... continue to add powdered sugar until you reach desired sweetness. Super easy!

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