Bad "back to school" momma - FWF #33

Happy Friday, folks! Did you already go shopping at Unity Stamp Co? Angela's been shaking things up over there, so be sure to go check it out and go shopping before Sunday! And speaking of Unity...

Using this wonderful sketch from Viva La Verve...I used my trusty Everything More kit (OMG, I love that whole line! I wish they would make more of them!!!) to make a thank you card for one of Mika's softball teammates who was leaving (she is going to focus on soccer for the fall). As a goodbye and thank you gift to the coach, the family gave him a brand-new wagon to tow around all the softball gear for the team (if you know softball, you know it is A LOT of stuff - and it's all heavy and bulky!). It was such a generous and kind gesture, I wanted the family to know how much the team appreciated their gift.

As luck would have it, I had plenty of time to cook up a nice supper last night. I made another version of Chinese Orange Chicken (kind of a copycat recipe on Panda Express, from Damn Delicious) and Slow Cooker Garlic Herb Mushrooms (which I did NOT cook in the slow cooker, but on the stovetop instead).

I gotta tell you - I know how fried food all tastes wonderful but WOW, it sure does takes a lot of time. It felt like it took forever to fry all the little pieces of chicken but boy, was it yummy! The whole family loved it and I was left only with three pieces for my lunch today. :) However, I will add that no one in the family thought it tasted different than the other version I had prepared a few months earlier (from Rasa Malaysia). But then again, perhaps everyone in my family simply has a short-term memory.

I used the stovetop (instead of a slow cooker) to make the garlic herb mushrooms and set them on simmer for a long time while preparing my Chinese orange chicken. These were quite yummy but all that work disappeared in mere minutes!

In other news...the girls started back at school on Wednesday. Since the first day is CRAZY, I had DaddyDude drop us off (I walked back home, about 15 minutes). Marika is beginning fifth grade now and she has the same teacher Mika had, two years earlier (by request, she's fabulous). After four minutes, Marika tuned to me and said, "Bye!" And so, I was dismissed...

And why am I a bad momma? After I returned home, I had only a few minutes before I drove Mika off to junior high (she's in seventh grade this year) - and I totally forgot to take a picture of her! As a scrapbooker, I am ashamed of myself! I had to cheat and ask DaddyDude to take her picture later in the evening...

Apparently, she had also changed out of her school clothes as well. Oh, well...at least it was the same day!

Thanks for visiting! Hope you all stay cool! Temperatures out here in SoCal are supposed to be in the triple digits. Yup, it's gonna be a scorcher!

School is just around the corner - FWF #32

Hi, folks! Happy Friday and Friends with Flair! :) Please make sure you go shopping at Unity this weekend - shipping is free for orders over $10 and Angela has put a great selection of stamps in two sale categories (under $5 and $12).

It's hard to believe that the girls go back to school next Wednesday. Where did the summer go?!

 

 This week, I found this lovely sketch from Freshly Made Sketches...

 

 I really love those Wit & Wisdom stamps from Unity! Here I used Candles & Cake...

And here I used Diploma Cap & Gown... I tweaked the sketch a little here, though.

I have two recipes to share this week...

These Herb Roasted Potatoes were a smash hit with the entire family - no leftovers! Amazingly simple and yet the flavor was awesome!

 

I also made an Asian Cucumber Salad - this was quite good, but the red pepper flakes made it too spicy for my kids. It was very pretty to look at, though!

 

 Hope everybody has a wonderful weekend and has the chance to get crafty. Marika and I are commuting to San Diego this weekend for her soccer tournament, so I won't be getting crafty for awhile. Hopefully she'll come back with some "hardware" though! :)

Thank you for visiting!

FWF #31 - Firecrackers...*boom*!

Hello, everyone! It's time for my weekly post for Friends with Flair Fridays but don't forget to check out the Crazy Daze Sale at Unity - hundreds of items for $10 or less!!!

The past few days have been particularly busy, as it is now Mika's turn - her travel ball team (Firecrackers) is participating in their USSSA World Series. But before it began, one of her teammates celebrated her 12th birthday...

I downloaded the "Firecracker Dude" (the official logo of their softball team, which is part of a huge franchise) and printed him out, stamping "Happy Birthday" below it (Balloons To You). I added more Unity stamps on the inside, using You Are {Dyna-Mite}, with a little bit of paper-piecing to add dimension.

For my recipe this week, I made Skinny Fettucine Alfredo. DaddyDude loves alfredo, but about 25 years ago, I tried to wing an alfredo sauce and it went really badly. SO BADLY, in fact, that I haven't eaten it since that time! But, I am trying to get over my fears and found this lovely recipe with great taste and reduced calories. :) It was a winner!

And because I've been mentioning Marika and her soccer team so much, I thought it was only fair to post about Mika this week. She is our softball girl and began training very early. LOL! Here she is, just a couple of months after she turned two years old. She would load the tee up (by herself!) and *smack!* away. Just look at the happiness on her face!

Here she is now, ten years later. She started playing travel ball January 2014, and her team is still building and going through many growing pains. Their World Series isn't going very well, but I am still able to get some good pictures. :) She is a natural right-hander, but as you can see, she isn't built for power. She was converted into a lefty a couple of years ago - as a slapper, she's three feet closer to first base (than a righty) - making it harder to get her out at first (you can click on the image below to see the progression).

So, I'll be at the ball park for the next couple of days still - in the blazing sun,snapping away with my camera. That's my kind of fun!!!

Thanks for visiting! Hope you all enjoy a crafty weekend!

She's pretty small, but she has a heck of an arm - she loves trying to throw the runner out at home from center field! Not too shabby for a skinny twelve-year old!

FWF #30 - Crazy California Weather

Happy Friday! Have you been shopping the fun sales at Unity? Angela is offering great kits, 3 for $19.99! Woohoo! Time to go shopping! :)

I had some fun with the new Sentiment Kit - Butterflies & Sunbeams (August 2015) this week.

I found this CAS sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch blog (#133) and thought it would be a good way to showcase these great sentiments,,,

I made three mini-cards, just using my Gelatos and some sequins. Sometimes less is more!

For my weekly recipe, I made another one-pot pasta recipe, Garlic Parmesan Noodles.

I have to admit, these things still make me nervous (will I end up with a weird soupy mess?!) but I doubled this recipe and it still turned out delectably. I made this as a side dish, but next time, I would add some sun-dried tomatoes with broccoli and chicken, just to bulk it up. Yum! Simple and good!

I don't know about the rest of you folks, but we southern Californians had incredibly weird wet weather over the weekend. Marika had a soccer tournament down in Escondido (1.5 hour drive from the house). There was so much lightning, the games were all delayed and then when things finally started, it poured rain on the girls (who enjoyed it, though). Over the course of the weekend, most areas in SoCal received about 2.5 inches of much-needed rain (but the drive back took over 2+ hours - in pouring rain). Yay! But it was NOT FUN sitting there being a spectator! EZ-UPs had to be held down while rain was pouring down mercilessly. On the bright side - Marika's team won their very first tournament ever (they've been together for 2.5 years and now they're 10 years old) and the coach awarded the trophy to Marika as tournament MVP! She was so surprised but happy, considering she is a defensive center midfielder. She always gives 110% though. :)

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Thank you for visiting! :)

FWF #29 - Butterfly Thanks

Happy Friday! I had a couple of belated "thank you" cards I had to make, for friends being extra sweet...

I really liked this sketch at Viva La Verve (be sure to check out their weekly challenges!)...and thought it was a great time to break out Unity's brand-new sentiment kit, Butterflies and Sunbeams.

Despite using papers from the same MME 6x6 set, I was pleased to have them looking very different.  

Last but not least, I have two new recipes to share with you today... both are from Rasa Malaysia's food blog... the first photo is of her Sesame Oil Chicken (which I adapted to make in a slow cooker - simply by not adding the 1/2 cup of water) and her (Americanized) Hot and Sour Soup.

The entire family LOVED the Sesame Oil chicken and the hot & sour soup really hit the spot for me (I think I love the tanginess of the vinegar, but next time I would add little strips of pork and maybe reduce the amount of dark soy sauce, because it was a little too dark in color for me). DaddyDude just doesn't care for hot & sour soup, but he downed his bowl without complaining. Both were very quick to prepare and quite tasty - a nice dinner when your kid's soccer practice goes until 8 pm and dinner has to be afterwards!

Happy crafting everyone and don't forget to check out Unity's latest promotion!Thank you for visiting! :)

Just Kickin' Back - FWF #28

Hope everyone had a Happy Fourth of July and enjoyed the longer weekend! It was an uneventful week (other than soccer practices starting up again), so I decided to make a "just because" card...



I really liked this sketch from Mojo Monday (#405) - the diagonal strip was eye-catching and I thought it would be a great time to use one of Unity's background stamps.

 

Unity stamps used: A Bit of Burlap (an oldie but goodie!) and Today is a Lovely Day. Love the motivational sentiment!

 

 

 

It wasn't a terribly exciting week in the recipe test kitchen this week, but we tried something I've always wanted to - cakes/cookies in a mug! It sounds like a great idea - you get one serving - but it's hard not to be skeptical. The one on the left was called the 3-Minute Chocolate Chip Cookie and the one on the right is a Chocolate Mug Cake (eggless and butterless). The kids were VERY excited to try making the cookie but one was disappointed by the taste (it ended up feeling more like a cake). The Chocolate Mug Cake tasted much better BUT became an active volcano within less the recommended minutes. My ten-year old started shouting, "Mommy!!! It's overflowing!!!" (See, this is why I don't bake - I hate to have to pay attention all the time!). What you see above is probably less than half of what I started with - I would make it again, but I would split the volume into two mugs! If anyone has a tried-and-true cookie/cake in a mug, I'd love to try it out! :)

Thank you for visiting and I hope you all have a wonderful and crafty weekend - don't forget to check out the latest sale at Unity! You can get three awesome kits for $19.99!

Unlucky = A Get Well Card... FWF #27

Hello, hello! It seems like every week, something comes up where there's a reason to make a card, right? This past week, Mika's softball buddy was at sports camp and did a number on her knee. Time to make a get well card!

I knew I wanted to use the adorable That Stinks kit from Unity Stamp Co, so I was happy to find this card sketch from The Paper Players sketch blog, which I thought would showcase it well...

For the inside sentiment, I chose the "Feel Better" sentiment from the Feel Better Soon sentiment kit (April 2014), setting it off to the left.

I have a wonderful and quick new recipe to share with you, that I found at Rasamalaysia.com - Garlic Shrimp Tortellini. For our family of four, though, I doubled the recipe - and we had no leftovers. I could have eaten more, but well... I let DaddyDude have seconds instead. Next time, I would probably triple the recipe, except for the sun-dried tomatoes (which are expensive anyway).

Thanks for visiting and don't forget to check out the clearance sale and new Phyllis Harris releases at Unity this weekend! :)