Win Wanderlust Lovelies

 One of my favorite Etsy shops and blogs is Oh, Hello Friend.  I have several pieces from Danni's Etsy shop, and now she has a new shop with curiousities, antiques, supplies and more.

 Right now there is a $100 give away to the Wanderlust shop!

 But, I really want some of these things...

 So don't get your hopes up.

 Enter here
(all photos from the wanderlust shop)

Cooking from Pinterest

I've lately been attempting to take back the kitchen.  You know, fewer frozen pizzas, chicken nuggets, meatballs, fries...the garbage you take from freezer to microwave and then consume.  Thank you Pinterest for making everything look easy and delicious.

My first attempt:
Baked Pesto Chicken

I used:
1/2 c. Costco's pesto sauce, so maybe that's cheating, but it's fresh and so much more delicious than any other pesto I've ever had, so I call it good.
Two fresh chicken breasts (from Costco, they're packaged in groups of two, so it's perfect for us.)
1/2 c. Tillmook mozzarella

That's it.

Super easy:

Preheat to 375
Slice chicken breasts in half lengthwise
Spread your glass baking dish with 1/4 c of the pesto
Lay chicken breasts over the pesto
Spread remaining pesto over the chicken
Cover with foil
Bake 25-30 minutes, or until done
Add mozzarella, cook for 5 more minutes (broil if you want the cheese to brown and bubble)

This probably would have been amazing, if my meat thermometer hadn't been broken (which I discovered after about 50 minutes of baking...as it was, the sauce was good, and the chicken was...chalky. 

Fail.

On the side I made these:
Sliced Baked Potatoes

These cook at a higher temp than the chicken, so I tried to cheat the system by baking them for a half hour at the appropriate temp, then lowering it when I added the chicken and cooking them 25 minutes more.  Guess what happened?  Oh right...they didn't cook properly. 

Anyway, the how to:
As many potatoes as you want (I used 4 golden)
Slice from top to bottom, leaving just enough potato intact on the bottom to keep it from falling apart (I cut it like I would for scalloped potatoes, just not all the way through)
Drizzle with butter, olive oil, salt an pepper

Bake at 425 for 40 minutes

But, we got a pretty good idea of how they should have tasted, and we agreed they need more than oil, salt, pepper and butter.  Like...all the stuff you'd put on a normal baked potato.  But mostly, it needed cheese.  So, there you have it.

So, though this dinner was a fiasco, I have since made several more things that were successful.  Stay tuned!

Follow me on Pinterest!

*Pictures not mine - they're from Pinterest

Ten on Ten

Early morning shopping

 Stealing mommy's coffee mug

 Bubbles

 Talking to Daddy through the window

 Trees in bloom

 Girls got style

 Fedora Lego time

 Playing with her new BFF, Jane

 The cutest little guy ever

 Playing with our kids where we used to play together!

An incredible day

Easter

Easter was really fun this year, since  Charlie is now at the age that she both eats and plays.  When she woke up, I fed her and then got her in to her pretty pretty dress.  Once Tim was up, I pulled out her oh-so-cleverly disguised basket.

The blanket didn't fool her...she didn't even bother to take it off.

 Here she is reading Pride and Prejudice, and making Mommy proud. 

She drew pictures with her new markers for the grandparents, and I made a note to myself to thank Crayola for their Color Wonder products that didn't mark her pretty dress as she dragged the markers across it.

 

After a great church service, lunch and a nap we headed to Papa's, where Charlie was lavished with gifts.  Papa got her lots of food to go with her shopping cart, as well as a stuffed bunny, a wind up bunny (my hand is sore from winding that sucker up so much the last few days) and an inflatible chick and carrot. 

Taking a break from all the play.

I wish this shot had turned out better.  She just looks so much like a baby in it, and I miss that.

Eating a "lime"

Watching golf on the edge of her seat.

I just love this dress.  Look at the tulle!

It was such a pretty day.  This is outside our house in front of our flowering tree.  I love that silly grin.

Our sweet family.

Easter "Baskets"

Growing up, we had the same Easter baskets every year.  They were simple twiggy woven baskets, natural wood colored, and mine had a little purple ribbon tied to the handle.  They were always filled with Robins Eggs, speckled jelly beans, a giant hollow Easter Bunny and a stuffed bunny.  It was perfect.  I've looked for the perfect basket for Charlie, but haven't found it yet, so this year I went with an alternate idea.

The last few months, any store we go into, Charlie hones in on toy shopping carts and gleefully extends the length of our shopping trip by half as she maneuvers her goods through the aisles.  Her favorite, naturally, is the crazy expensive, but easy to steer, Melissa and Doug cart.

I got the idea to use a cart as an Easter basket, and started coming up with ways to make it happen.  Our local kids consignment store carries new M&D items, and the cart costs slightly less there than other places.  So, I sold a bagful of Charlie's outgrown clothes and shoes, and was able to get the cart for less than half the price. 

All that to say, this year's Easter Basket, ready to thrill a little girl:

Another thing I couldn't find was the perfect stuffed bunny, so I just grabbed a sock monkey instead, cause...well...it was cute.

 Also in here:
Twas the Night Before Easter VeggieTales movie from Papa
Elmo color flash cards from the Target dollar bin
Fisher Price Little People - a girl in an Easter dress and a bunny
Pride and Prejudice board book - yay!
Quack Quack Touch and Feel book
Color Wonder Markers (in a Grover cup from the Target $ bin)
Color wonder Paper
Two foam bunny shaped pairs of glasses from the $ bin at Target
A weird spinny light up egg that she latched on to at Target

Now, Charlie isn't the only one who gets an Easter Basket around these parts. 

I found this mug before Christmas, and have wanted to get it for Tim since then.  So, Ron Swanson becomes Tim's basket.  For myself (cause the Easter Bunny tends to forget me) I just got a little mug at Target that looks like a Bunny's hind quarters. 

Throw in some solid white chocolate bunny's, starburst jelly beans and Reece's Pieces carrots, and you have yourself some Easter love.

Easter Eggs

Oh Pinterest, you self deluding, wonderful thing.  I saw these three egg pins, and foolishly thought to myself...I can do that...with a toddler...in an hour.  Riiiiight. 

Pinspiration #1

Baked "Hard Boiled" Eggs

Supplies:

Eggs

Muffin tin

Oven

Check!  So far Pinterest, we're on the same page.





 I baked the eggs for a half an hour at 350.  The house was filled with a cake-y scent, not the normal stink of hard boiled eggs.  However, they had greasy brown spots all over them.

 I immediately put the eggs in an ice bath, and took Charlie for a walk while they cooled.  She killed her first spider while we were out.  Nice.

 One of the eggs cracked in the process, so we sampled it.  Charlie was mildly impressed, I found it a tidge dry, whether because of the crack or the baking, I don't know.  Next time I'll try it at 325.

So, #1 was successful, on to the next!

Pinspiration #2
Kool Aid Egg Dying

Let's just put this out there - vinegar is my enemy.  The slightest whiff of it is enough to get my gag reflex working.  I see (and occasionally re-pin) the hundreds and hundreds of "spray vinegar in any direction of your home and it will be spotlessly clean in an instant" pins, but can't bring myself to do them without a hasmat suit.  So, Easter egg dying was an experiment in having fun while holding your breathe.

Enter, Kool Aid.  Dying eggs to a fruity light scent?  Yes!  Finally! 

Supplies:

The PAAS is not necessary, I just wanted egg cups to put the eggs in.  Probably could have used bowls, but whatevs.

So, add Kool Aid to 2/3 cups of water and stir.  Simple.  So far, I'm with ya, Pinterest.

I cheated and to pump up the colors added the coresponding PAAS color since I had it.  Also, there's no green Kool Aid (that I found at least) so I used lemon juice and water with the green tablet.

It smelled friggin amazing.  Like Skittles.  Mmmm.

 The colors were iffy.  The purple/blue was grayish, which is why there is only one.  I added some yellow to see if it would make a pretty blue green, but it was more like army green.  The yellow was fine, the red was more orange, and the orange was also orange.  But the real trouble was the streaking.

Not so pretty.

Leading us to...
Pinspiration #3

How hard could this be?  Take egg, add glue dots, dip in glitter.  Turns out, pretty darn.

Supplies:
Glitter
Glue dots
Eggs

So, glue dots don't really want to stick to eggs.  I waited until the eggs weren't so cold and finally got them to stick.  I made myself a little pattern and attempted to dip in glitter.  Huh.  There was like, zero glitter on my glue dot.

I dumped a ton more glitter into my dish and was moderately more successful.  Then I used a paint brush to clean off the glitter clinging to the non-glue dot parts of the egg.

Then Charlie woke up, so I decided it wasn't worth the mess to continue to do this to my funny looking eggs, so I started to clean up. 



That's when I knocked glitter over, down my white pants, on the chair and in the carpet.  And I realized that no mom of toddlers in her right mind should be attempting this.  Maybe when I have a sweet teenage girl to help me instead of an impatient non-napping toddler.  We'll see.

Bottom line, I'll bake my eggs in the future, but probably won't revisit the Kool-Aid, and the dots are years from being feasible.  Anyone else try these, more successfully?