felt playhouse

So for Jocelyn's 3rd birthday I am going to make her a felt playhouse. I'm getting ideas from all over and trying to combine different ideas. I just ordered the fabric from fabric.com so hopefully it will come sometime this week. I already planned what I want on each side. It is going to fit over a card table that Jacob use to use for studying. I'm in the process of planning out how big I want everything. I'm using graph paper to plan things out and to make sure everything fits right. I finished graphing three of the sides, and only have one more to do. One side is going to be the front door with a mail slot and a pot of flowers. The other side will be a window with half a tree which will have apples to pick. Next the other side of the tree will be the next panel along with a dog house. On top of the dog house I am going to put a cat =). Natalie loves cats. Then the last side is going to be the garden. I want to have a corn plant, tomato plant, lettuce, and carrots. Hopefully the garden side will fit all of my ideas that I have. It's the last side that I haven't planned out on graph paper yet. The graph paper is nice because I can see everything in proportion to each other. I am way excited to get this all finished!

here is the site that first gave me the idea that I wanted to make one of these!
http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/2009/10/felt-playhouse.html

Spring Photos

These are the dresses that I made for the girls. It's their new spring dress (made from fabric that I had leftover from me making dresses/ties for my family for a YW project!). The girls were so excited to wear their dresses outside! Here are some of the pictures I got of them... let me know which is your favorite!

Bob the Betta Fish

So this is our new addition to our family, Bob the betta fish. We were sitting around our dining table getting Bob into his new tank and Natalie started to get ready for a prayer... just like what we do right before we eat a meal. She thought that we were going to EAT! LOL... it was funny. But she knows that we don't eat Bob and that he is our new pet! Thanks Jacob for using your birthday money to get our family a fish pet! I made a deal with Jacob... if he wants a fish, he will have to change the water and feed the fish. I will not change the water...

YUMM!!!

Jacob and I wanted some soft pretzels like the ones in the mall... and those are too expensive so we decided to make some at home! It tasted like the ones at Auntie Anns =)

Here is a picture of my Thai Basil Chicken I made last night. It was so delicious!

Jacob's Birthday

So for Jacob's golden birthday I made him breakfast in bed (but we just ended up eating at the table). When he got back from school we had him pretend to be Mario and try to find 26 hidden stars around the house. The stars were glued onto a card that had a picture of one of the girls and one of the many things we love about him. The girls also painted a birthday banner for Jacob. For dinner Jacob requested the dinner we had for Valentine's Day (homemade crusty bread with bruschetta; salad with feta cheese, green lettuce, cran rasins, apple, walnuts, and raspberry vinaigrette dressing; pasta from Rachael Ray: Chicken Parm Pasta Toss). For dessert I made a Mario cake for him. It was so much fun! The Mario and the star was made with sugar cookie and the cake part was mini cupcakes (84 of them!). It was very yummy to eat too!

Mario before I baked him.

This is what the star and Mario looked like after they came out of the oven.

The finished cake. I used about 84 mini cupcakes and just placed the cookies on top of the cakes.

Chinese New Years

These are homemade potstickers. I made the pork and vegetable filling and Jacob helped me wrap all 200 or so potstickers!

These are sesame bread with green onions. Jocelyn helped me roll these out and put on the green onions and salt. We ate these with the X.O. sauce. YUM! The kids loved it too... even with the green onions.

This is the X.O. Sauce that we ate with the bread and the potstickers. This is a must have sauce... too bad my tummy can't handle anything spicy anymore. =(

Strawberry boba drink! This was my recipe that my dad used for his Chinese restaurant. The kids loved this too... so do the adults =)

I also made some red bean dessert.

This is us on Chinese New Years! Thanks Jacob for taking these pictures!

I'm So Lucky!

This was my Valentine's gift from Jacob! He made the pancakes and I plated it =). My favorite way to eat pancakes... with lots of berries! These pancakes are from Alton Brown. They are so easy to make and you make your own dry mix and just store it in a container... so it makes it fast and easy in the mornings when you want pancakes. I am so lucky to have a husband that cooks for me too.

Valentine's Day CAKE!

Jocelyn helped me make this delicious red velvet cake with cream cheese filling. I got this recipe off of foodnetwork from Paula Deen. YUM!

Valentine's Day Cards for Jacob

These pictures are just too CUTE!

Cinderella Dress Up

Jocelyn loves to play dress up. Everyday she wants to wear her Cinderella costume from Halloween and wear her dress up shoes that she got from Grandma for Christmas. She has to have everything right. Her dress has to hang perfectly, her socks off, pant legs rolled up, dress shoes on, and her hair tied back in a pony tail. She also loves to turn on the digital piano and play the song her Baba recorded and dance around the room. What a cutie!