Mother-Daughter Time in SF!

I haven't had a chance yet to post about
my little trip to San Francisco with my Little Princess.

We spent 2 days just eating, shopping,
and having fun. It's been awhile since we've
spent time together just the two of us,
so it was kinda special.

Our first night in S.F. we visited Japan Town
and looked for a nice Korean place to eat.

We found a place with a hibachi grill in our table.
Fun! You grill your own meat on it!
We had beef, shrimp and veggies...and many little
dishes of assorted Korean side dishes. It was all delish!

Okay, I admit it...the waiter put the first few
pieces of beef and shrimp on the grill and
then left for me to finish the rest.
I didn't know he wasn't going to come back
and cook the rest...

So the first few pieces got over-cooked...until I
figured out that I was supposed to take over
the cooking!
Told 'ya all I wasn't a born cook!

Then we did a little shopping. You can find
the cutest stuff in those J-Town stores for cheapo!
Here's a little lunch bag set. The utensil case even
has a set of little chopsticks!

The next day was our downtown shopping excursion.
First stop: Juicy Couture, of course!
...then to Bloomies, Pink, Abercrombie-
all just windowshopping of course!

Lunch at the Nordstrom Cafe where we had a
yummy chicken sandwich and dessert!

Summer spent all her hard-earned money,
but she got some great deals- that's my
little bargain hunter!

We cooked our own dinner at the condo so we
could go back to Japan Town for some of
this yummy-ness!

It's a fresh-made crepe with ice-cream,
whipped cream and kiwis!

Only a few small bites for lactose-intolerant Mommy.

The next morning was a little side trip on the
way home for Mommy.

It's a wonderful place called Building ReSources.
Yes, they sell architectural scrap and what not.
I was in Heaven!

Besides oodles and oodles of old doors, shutters, windows,
light fixtures,door knobs, handles, and drawer pulls etc
...they alsosell barrels of colored tempered glass....

old sinks, bathtubs and toilets!
Yah, I'll bet where you were wondering where you
can get your hands on an old toilet!

I just looked and drooled...then
made plans to bring my hubby back one day
so I can get an old beat-up door and
maybe some shutters.

Pumpkin Plaque Do-Over

Found this beauty at 'ole GW.
Now if you're the artist who originally painted
her, I'm not making fun of you...
she's jus' NOT my style, so I had plans for her...

Now, how do you like HER?

The white, smeary lines are glitter.
This picture does her no justice, but I promise you
she's cuter in person!

Have a happy Halloween Everyone!

Pumpkin Package!

Yesterday I was so excited!
I got a package in the mail...actually I got 2 packages,
but one was just flea killer for my dog...
but the other was this:

I saw that it was from my friend and fellow blogger Tricia,
so I knew it had to be something GOOD!

It was one of her cute, crepe paper pumpkins!
Isn't it precious?

I think it's loaded with treats, but I didn't want to
open it and mess up its cute-ness.
Visit Tricia's blog here and find out how to make your own!

THANK YOU TRICIA!

How To Make a Mannequin

One more post on my daughter's crafty doings!

While I was out one morning
my daughter got it in her head that she wanted to make
her very own mannequin to dress up in her own clothes.

So how did she learn to make one??
From again, the handy-dandy internet!

First you find an old shirt and pair of shorts
that you wouldn't mind not having anymore...
Then you put them on and have someone duct tape you
all over the shorts and shirt.
(Do them separately.)

Then cut one seam up the back and take them off.
Stuff them with newspaper, and then
duct tape the two pieces together.

Then cut newspaper shreds and
paper mache' the paper onto the duct-taped form.
(Be sure not the make the glue too watery. Hers
was a little too watery so the paper had problems
with sticking properly.)

After it dries completely, paint the form.

And there you have it!
You're very own mannequin in just your size!
Not bad, eh? For a 12 year old!

Sculpey Teddy Bears

The kids and I are on a 2 week Fall break from school.
Which translates to: find lots of things to keep them busy!

All of these kids aren't mine...
just the precious one with the long, black hair and white shirt.
The rest are friends and neighbors.
They are sculpting with Sculpey clay.

They all decided to make teddy bears.
Here's Josh working on his Polar Bear.

And here's Michael's Brown Bear and Megan's Polar Mom & Baby!

Summer did a Panda Daddy and
Megan did a Polar Daddy.

You bake them in a glass dish at 245 degress
for about 15-20 minutes.

Aren't they cute?!
This best part was that it kept those kids busy for at least an hour and a half!

Our Own Cake Boss

My daughter loves watching the CAKE BOSS show.

He is SO talented.
He makes works of art like this...

...and these. Amazing.

One day my daughter got inspired to do some cake baking of her own. We had a cake mix, but no frosting so she turned to the handy-dandy internet and found a recipe!

What a smart girl!

She mixed, baked, and frosted the entire cake all by HERSELF!

It's her PEACE sign creation.

Preeeetty cute!

And it didn't taste bad either!

(She also won that cute cake stand from a raffle. See, she was destined to bake cakes!)

Childhood Letters

One of my very first friends in the world was a girl named Kelly.
Kelly and I met in kindergarten and lived in the same neighborhood.
Everyday we walked to school together.
We were both skinny and often got teased for being the tallest girls in the class.

I think that's why we formed a bond so early on.
Throughout our childhood we wrote each other letters and notes.
Guess what?
I still have those letters!

All 30-something of them...

The funniest notes are the ones we wrote in junior high.
Kelly was the Bee Gees #1 fan and quite obsessed
with Barry Gibb, I might add.

The movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band
came that year, and we must have seen it
at least half a dozen times!

Then we started writing each other letters as "Yvonne" (Barry Gibb's wife) and "Linda" (Robin Gibbs wife). Is that a riot or what?!!!

Being the save everything-pack-rat that I am, I found these letters recently and laughed my booty off reading them again!

Thanks to Facebook I recently found Kelly again, and decided to send her a surprise for her birthday. Since she has teenage daughters of her own I thought she might get a kick out of re-living some her junior high memories!