Hummus

Have any of you ever had the Tuscan hummus at the California Pizza kitchen???? It is seriously the BEST hummus I have ever had (although, admittedly, I haven't really tried too many different kinds of hummus). Well, I decided that I just HAD to have some one night and I came up with this recipe that's pretty similar:

Ingredients:

• 1 tbl minced garlic
• 1 150z can garbanzo beans
• 1/4 cup reserved liquid from beans
• 1 15 oz can great northern beans
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 1/4 cup tahini
• dash of ground red pepper
• dash of paprika
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• olive oil
• salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:

Reserving 1/4 cup liquid from the can of garbonzo beans, rinse and drain both cans of beans. Place in food processor along with reserved liquid. Add remaining ingredients. Mix in food processor until smooth. Make sure you stop food processor and scrape the side atleast once during the process to make sure all ingredients are incorporated. Store in a container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Serve with pita bread or veggies

Kelly lost another tooth!

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad that Kelly finally lost this tooth. It is her 4th tooth she has lost, but by far the nastiest looking one!!! lol. The tooth underneath was pushing on it in a way that caused it to twist and stick out in a very funny way. Now she's got the cutest little toothless grin!

Before


** I still can't figure out why my pictures keep coming out blurry. For now I'm going to blame it on the camera and not the photographer.

First try

So for the past month or so I have been a secret fan of a blogger named Candace (Sparkle Power). She's a friend of Keri's (whose a friend of mine), found her website, and have been inspired to try my hand at sewing again. Before, all of my attempts at sewing have cost us more money than it ever would have been to buy -- AND it would look worse! Well, with her inspiration and love for all things vintage, I have been on the pursuit to create something cool and cheap. On her website I found a link to another website called My Half of the Brain. It's this great website where they try to find crafting tutorials on the web. A few peaked my interest:

1. Montessori by Hand -- Children's smock.
   
2. Making a child's dress out of a Men's button down shirt (can't seem to find the link)

I stayed up late last night to try and finish them both. Here's how they turned out:




















This was the children's smock. I found the fabric at a thrift store and got it for 25 cents. Normally I would never buy fabric that looked like that, but I thought "what would Candace buy" (nerdy and weird, I know) and thought "what the heck -- it's cheap." The pattern for the dress was not done very well and since my kids were already asleep, I couldn't have my daughter try it on to see if it was going to fit well. Fortunately for this one I will be able to adjust the dress with minimal stress to fit Kelly. When she tried it on today she just LOVED the colors.

Okay, here's the other one:

This one I was really disappointed with. I was so tired that I was having a hard time following the directions and there was NO pattern to use. Basically, you take an old Men's dress shirt and use the back of the shirt to create the dress front, and then use the front of the shirt to make the back of the dress. However, all measurements and such were basically a guessing game. Once again, since Isabelle was asleep I couldn't use her as a reference to see if I was making it big enough. The dress turned out really cute, but it's at least two sizes too small for her. Oh well.... the only thing I paid for was the pink lace, the shirt was a really old one of Shane's. I'm going to try again and this time not attempt it at 2:00 in the morning!

Isabelle's 1st play date

Poor little Isabelle is so shy that she has really had a hard time making any friends. The few "friends" she has are older girls at church. We finally had one of the little boys from nursery come over to play (along with his little sister) at it went really well. At first she didn't like it. She was confused and didn't really know what to say. fortunately Moses was really good at getting Isabelle involved and doing things that she wanted to do. By the end they were playing together really well and I can't wait to have him over again!

Dish Towel Apron

One of my really good friends' birthday is coming up and I thought it would be fun to make her something. Last year she asked me to make her an apron and, well, I just got lazy and didn't do it. So this year I decided I would actually grant her wish. lol. Let's just hope she likes the final product!
Over the flower I painted "To Mi Amor." My friend is from Guatemala and her and her husband always call each other "mi amor" or "my love." Well, I started calling her "mi amor" just to be funny and it's really stuck. So I thought it would be great to add to the apron. I think it's a lot funnier in person. lol.

I was actually surprised at how fast it was to cut out the different stencils (the flower was done twice -- once in yellow and then in blue slightly offset). I'm excited to try the technique on some shirts next time.

Mets game Labor Day

Getting a bite to eat before the game


It's so blasted hot!


Galvez Clan




Phil wanting me to stop taking pictures so he can watch the game


Visiting my nephew after the game

World Fest