Coffee Is My Friend !

So I have a thing for coffee mugs. I cannot control myself when I see one that I like. I simply must have it. Usually this is not a problem. Unfortunately lately I have been WEAK! Thus my LOVE of the internet !!! You can literally find ANYTHING. Some of my favorites are :

This Bambi mug that we bought on vacation at Disney:

 
This Mary Poppins Mug that I did see while we were on vacation at Disney and did not buy for some reason and then had to hunt it down and purchase it on Ebay for waaaaayyyyyy more than it would have been at Disney... But can you blame me ?! Boots just finished Mary Poppins the play so my house is full of cockney accents and spoons full of sugar so of course we had to have it!

 And then there is this HUGE mug. Target people, Target.

Good morning! Recently in life, my family has discovered that they are in LOVE with musicals. A few years ago my son was in Shrek the Musical. Since he was not the biggest fan of the movie I was not sure how a musical would go over. So in preparation we looked for the Broadway musical on Netflix.

If you haven't seen it, watch it. It's utterly hilarious. It's sweet and the level of talent is incredible. The songs, story line, and flow of the musical are almost completely different from the film version. If you have a chance, at least Youtube-  Morning Person https://youtu.be/E_TcJdzbHvo. 

Last April I took the children to NYC to see their first true Broadway performance in person. We saw Aladdin. It was beyond Magical. If you have a chance, see it.

  In a few weeks Wicked is coming to our city. We have tickets and cannot wait !!!!! I will take as many pictures as my family can stomach and post, post, post!

In other news, recently, in the last year or so I have lost about 55 pounds. I have yet to wrap my head around this. However, lately I am making my peace with buying a few new things due to the fact that nothing in my possession fits properly. Including but not limited to shoes and underwear. I was aware of the underwear thing, even though it seemed strange. However I would have never guessed my feet would change size. But they have so lately I am buying shoes, shoes and more shoes.

I bought these this morning :

Can you stand how cute they are ???!!!

Well, well, well. I have found my way back to you. My children have grown and I have shrank. I am ready to create and bake again and document this next year. My little P is now a senior.

A SENIOR. Ahem, no, no of course I am not crying, there must be something in my eyes.  She is still my Little P but she is now getting ready to leave for college. Be still my pained heart. I love that she is ready. I really do, and in some weird way I feel like we should be thrilled as parents that she is fearless. She is so excited to spread her wings and learn new things, meet new people. Again, I LOVE this. I am just not ready to be away from her yet.

But we do have a bit of time before she leaves so I am going to fill it with fun. We have had a few losses. Brody my beautiful little black bear left us, sweetly and quietly a few years ago.  Somehow, magically a long while later, I have fallen in love with this sweet, crazy puppy whose name is Chewy, for the obvious reason of looking like Chewbacca. But in true ironic fashion, he does indeed CHEW on everything !

 He was a 40th birthday present from the family. And I couldn't be more in love. So for now , stay tuned, we will be doing some more fun, creative things with lots of pictures and notes about my days. Baking, sewing, updating my house, crafting and enjoying my life in general.

Sweet Valentine

Little P wanted to make her Valentines for her class this year. So we came up with these:
We used Dove Milk Chocolate hearts for the nose. We used pink for the girls along with a ribbon and silver for the boys. She loved them!
Mr. Fantastic spotted this for me a little while back. I almost think the eggs tasted better simply from being heart shaped!
Hope you all have a great Valentine's Day!

TIny Hamsters and Sewing Lessons

So Little p wants to learn to sew, I have been teaching her the basics for a while and now she wants to try them out on these:
I found this book on Ebay:
I have wanted to buy one of these books for quite some time, but seeing as though I don't speak Japanese or read it for that matter, I have always been leery of being able to follow every last detail that I would need to know to complete these super cute crafts.

But since this one was a really, really, inexpensive one and it's shipping was free, all the way from Japan I couldn't say no.

As you can see, we had no problem with very clear pictures!

Boots loves his! And his little hamster has lived quite the adventurous life so far, including piloting a helicopter,
Boots has had it easy, while he had momma to do all of the work for him to produce such a fun little playmate,
Little P is slaving away, pricked fingers and all to make one of her very own. That's my girl, sometimes effort doesn't mean as much until blood is shed, then it is a real accomplishment.
She is sooo my kid.

Well Wishes for a Happy New Year

I came home the other day to this:
It contained all of this:
Note: There were two pieces of chocolate, but...
Need I say more?
There was note, and this is what it said:
How sweet is Jennifer, over at The Felt Mouse? I feel very honored to receive such warm wishes from you! All the best this year right back at cha'!
This was lovely to look at! And so much fun to put together. And how incredibly considerate you are to send the batteries needed with it! Did you know that my supply of AA batteries was almost completely depleted from the holiday season?

Public Market Thursday

My friend and neighbor Sue and I have decided to make a little time to head to the public market each Thursday morning. It's getting harder and harder for us to find time to see each other, and both of us are very careful about the freshness of the foods we purchase. So this idea fills both of those niches. How very sad it is to have to double schedule things to be able to make time! But it works for us.

So today with the temps in the low twenties, we grabbed some gloves and our canvas shopping bags and set out to find some homegrown goodness...

Our first stop is always this enclosed market that sells fresh and dried herbs, and all sort of extracts. Today I needed vanilla, and I love the fact that is is made right here in Rochester.
Then it's on to the pastry man, he has these HUGE cinnamon roles for $ .50 each,
is there anything that is $ .50 each anymore??? But aside from the price, they are INSANELY good!!! Today he also had this bag of three small focaccia breads for $1.00.
I see sauce in our future!

We also found some local honey,
Some veggies, Little P has been asking to try parsnips.
This looked so funky I had to ask what it is,
It's celery root. I have to say that I am not so sure I could eat this. It doesn't look very appetizing!

This looked funky too:
But I didn't ask about it! That's an interesting phrase on the outside of a place that makes fried dough. For those die hard Soprano fans, this is for you.

I didn't buy any of these today but how beautiful is this to look at?
We did stop at the cheese dude and I bought some pepperoni sticks, for Mr. Fantastic to snack on, and some parm cheese, about a pound and a half for... $3.00. Gotta love that!
Last but not least, we stopped at this hole in the wall place called, Juan and Maria's Empanada Stop. They have breakfast sandwich and a drink for $1.95.
We stop every time we go and I think that I look forward to that way more that I should!