Such a Tart (Tomato Tart!)

If you are looking for a yummy recipe to use some of the tomatoes from your garden, look no further!  This Tomato Tart is a real winner.  My husband stated "it was the best thing I have ever eaten!" and "I could eat this everyday."  He probably could too (I made him this tart last week for when I was away and he ate the ENTIRE THING in one sitting!)

I found the basic recipe on the Sargento Website a while ago and now for the life of me I can't find it... Oh well.

What you'll need:

1 - 9 inch pie crust (bring to room temp)
1/2 cup or so balsamic vinegar
2 medium ripe tomatoes
1 cup and 1/2 or so shredded mozzarella cheese  (or so means I don't exactly measure it out...)
Fresh basil to taste

First put the balsamic vinegar in a small sauce pan on the stove on med/low and let it reduce until you get a thick syrup of about 2 or 3 tablespoons (it will be very sweet and sticky).  Keep stirring and watching it because at the end it goes really quick and you could easily burn it.

Meanwhile, Preheat your oven to 375.


On a sheet tray unroll the pie crust (you could totally make your own pie crust, but usually that stresses me out.)

Put 1 cup of the mozzarella cheese on the crust making sure to leave a 1 inch border.

Slice the tomatoes and arrange them over the cheese in a single layer.

Drizzle the balsamic vinegar syrup over the top of the tomatoes.

Top with the remaining cheese and sprinkle with some freshly torn basil leaves.

Working your way around the tart pull up the sides and crimp them together.

Stick the tart in the preheated oven for 20-25 min or until the cheese is golden brown and bubbly.  (Honestly ours took 30 minutes, but every oven is different)

Once out of the oven let stand 5 minutes or so, until it stops percolating and appears less molten.

Slice into 4 or 8 slices and top with some more freshly torn basil leaves.

 

Enjoy!!

Gonna be a long night

It's almost one in the morning and I am sitting here rocking my son back to sleep for the third time tonight.  Every time I have gotten him back in his crib he has woken up almost immediately. (Guess I still need to master the art of tip toe.)

He's not very happy with me, I am trying to night wean him.  We went to the dr. a couple weeks ago and long story short the doctor pretty much thinks I'm nuts that I usually get up with little Bear two or three times a night (sometimes more... Sometimes less) I may be a little unbalanced but I think that may because of the lack of sleep.  Anyways, I was all gung ho about it right after the appointment and we actually had a couple good nights (after a really bad one...) But then he started cutting a tooth and it was so much easier nursing a cranky teething baby back to sleep...  And here we are back to square one. I realize consistency is the key, and there will always be a reason not to wean him, but at this point there are so many more reasons to night wean him (I am sick and tired of falling asleep in the rocking chair, my neck has had a permanent crick for over a year.)

Tonight I was going to try a variation of Ferber's cry it out but after 20 min I thought I was going to have a stroke...

Any night weaning tips to share out there ladies?  And any tips on overall weaning? 

Going to put him down in his crib now, cross your fingers for me!

Insta What?!

I have a new favorite thing.  Instagram.  I LOVE it! I know the point of it is to be another social media phenom and you are supposed to follow many people and have many people follow you and like your photos.  But I just love all the filters and making my photos look cool.  So far I am only following 3 people and have no followers. 

(If you want to follow me, my instagram name is ebsterling)

Here are a couple of my pics!

My new business card!  

Two new coffee cup sleeves for my etsy shop!

Eminem Showers

Today was my hubby's first day back to school after a two week break. (He's a math teacher) We did not get off to a very good start. Every school day I set my alarm for 5:45 am so that I can make him coffee. This morning I must have turned off my alarm with out waking up. My second alarm did wake me up almost an hour later, and also woke Little Bear (who I was hoping would stay asleep...) Grrrr.
My hubby likes to listen to music while he gets ready though usually the baby is still sleeping so he can't.  This morning we were treated to Eminem's angry rap music... What ever gets him rolling.
So I'm feeling kind of blah so I decided to make myself a cafe mocha. Yum! I put a couple spoonfuls of hot cocoa mix in the bottom of my favorite pink mug, and poured some hot coffee over it. Added a splash of milk (too cool it down) and a sprinkle of splenda.  Four large marshmellows top it off rather nicely!

AHHmazing

So sorry it's been so far between posts.  My hubby is on break from school!  It has been nice to have him home, but he sure does use the computer a lot!  (it's that Fantasy Football time of the year again, it's this season, fall through February that I wish I had my own lap top, but I am extremely happy I have my smart phone!)  Eh, it's all good, I've been busy with a couple million projects!

In honor of the start of football season.  I'm gonna add this cozy to my etsy shop!

Yarn crafters do you ever start a project with full intentions of giving it to someone else (or in my case selling on etsy) and then you fall in love with it and don't think you can bear to part with it?  I found this yummy yarn in the clearance bin at Joann's.  It's Lion Brands Amazing in Vineyard, normally $6 or $7 per skein, on sale for less then $2.  Yes Please!!  It's a blend of acrylic and wool fibers and with its subtle change of colors (purples, pinks, greens, oh my!) I thought it would make a perfect circle scarf!

It worked up quickly with my K hook, each one of the beautiful vineyard colors merging into the next.  The fabric it created was so light, but warm at the same time.  When I was finished I knew that it had to be mine.

Thank goodness I bought two skeins!

Finished!  

I think it suits me!  

Here's a Toast

Funny how things change isn't it?

I remember when I was little and my parents burnt toast, they would take a butter knife and scrape off the edges over the sink (we are not talking charcoal here, just a bit too crispy around the edges)  For some reason I never liked when they would do this.  "Why don't they just make me another piece of toast?" I thought, "I will never do that to my kid's toast!"

Well one day I was fixing breakfast and got a bit distracted trying to do eight things at once, and the baby was yelling, and the edges of the whole wheat toast in the toaster got burnt (which really doesn't take very long as our toaster is about as hot as the sun....) I quickly pull out the toast and guess what I found myself doing?  Yup, you guessed it!  I scraped off those burnt edges, cut it up into bite sized pieces and served them to Little Bear, which instantly stopped his yelling.

I get it now.  :)

Nap time is cleaning time...

At least today it is...  Usually it is nap time is craft time.

It's hard to believe but today is my husband and I's four year anniversary.  We decided no flowers, no gifts, and no cards.  I still want to do something nice for him so for the past couple of days I have been chipping away at the mess that is our bedroom.  I know that the mess drives him crazy, and it is pretty much all my fault.  (In my defense I am hardly ever in our bedroom for longer than 2 or 3 hours at a time...) It is slowly but surely getting better though, at this point it only looks like my closet exploded.

I also crocheted us matching turquoise coasters (the ones we use now have seen better days.) and I made a set of crocheted bowls one to put spare change from my pockets in, and the other to keep the jewelry I wear most often in.  (I also made a coaster for my cell phone to sit on, I HATE the sound of it buzzing against my nightstand when someone texts me or the alarm goes off.)

Little Bear is napping now, lets hope it's a long one!!

Wish me luck!

Coasters!  The big one is for my cell phone (or a giant mug of coffee!!) 

Little bowls!  

Oh so stack able, aren't they cute??!!  

Oh dear... I hope my neighbors weren't looking...

I got Little Bear down for his afternoon nap and wanted to change my clothes, so I  tiptoed down stairs to get my shirt, on my way I noticed that something needed to be thrown out, from there I noticed that some dirty laundry needed to be put in the hamper, after that I noticed something needed to be put away.... Every time I got something straightened up or put away I saw something else that needed my attention.  Then I noticed I still had not put on my shirt and that I was in fact walking around in front of the windows with the shades wide open....

We Have Lift Off!!

Oh man, have I been a busy Mama the last couple of days!  I like being busy though!

Little Bear has started walking, he's not completely done with crawling but he's getting better and better at balancing.  Last Thursday he walked the longest amount, though I couldn't tell you how many steps he took.  When he fell forward towards his Daddy he started clapping for the first time.  (Can you tell how we were cheering him on?!)  I was so proud of him!  And he certainly looked proud of himself!

I have recently been trying to catch his walking on video, I've got a couple short snippets, but they are all kind of blurry and well, really short...  

A new purpose!!

Huggies baby wipe bin, cute pattern! 

If you are a mom like me you have probably had a couple of these baby wipe bins laying around your house.  (At one point we had baby wipes in multiple rooms, you know, just in case.)  Now that we don't need as many of the boxes I have been looking for ways to re purpose them.  I know in the past I have seen them reused as crayon holders.

I turned mine into a yarn dispenser!  They are the perfect size to hold a ball or two of yarn.  It has a built in slot where the wipes would feed through.  And since it's made for a child's item there are no rough edges that you could snag your yarn on!

I had tried to use a Folger's 29 oz (HUGE) plastic coffee can for this same purpose, but I couldn't get the smell of stale coffee out of it, and I don't want my projects to smell like gross stale coffee!    

There's not really much you need to do to turn the wipe box into a yarn dispenser.  Once you have used all the wipes make sure the inside is clean and dry.  Then just stick the yarn you are using into it, feed the end of the yarn through the slot, close the lid, and viola!  You are ready to crochet and knit away with out having to worry about your yarn balls flinging across the room and being stolen by your toddler/dog/cat/monkey/etc....    

Yarn!! 

Beginnings of a project! 

If you have any great ideas for re purposing these baby wipe bins please feel free to comment below, I would LOVE to hear them!!

Thanks for reading!

Oh Mr. Coffee!

Why hello there Mr. Coffee!

I'm working on a couple new projects to put on my etsy shop!  This is my newest coffee cup cozy design.  I love him...  Kind of 007 esq?  Or for when you want to bring your coffee to a black tie affair?  

Sure wish it was full of coffee and not just my demo cup full of scrap yarn...

Have a great day!  Thanks for stopping by!

  

Cupcakes!

Yesterday I was in the mood for something sweet.  So I hit up etsy.  Keywords: crochet, baby, hats.

AWWWW, so sweet!!  (except for the ones that use creepy dolls as their models, Yikes!!)

I stumbled upon a super cute cupcake hat and knew that Little Bear NEEDED one. I don't know why I couldn't have found it before his birthday.  It would have been an awesome first birthday photo prop.  Oh well...

So I started crocheting, a pattern forming in my mind.  Had to rip it out a bunch of times.  It got later and later, but I had to finish, because if I didn't I might not remember where I was going with it, and it might not turn out right, or I might not finish it at all.

1:30 am.  DONE.  Tired, but excited that it looks so adorable.  (Maybe a little girly...) Tiptoe up to bed, lay head on pillow, cue crying baby... Of course.  Ha!

Please enjoy the pictures of our photo shoot!  It was so hard to choose just one!

The Cupcake hat

Top view

My hat model

A funny blooper pic!  Looks like Ari is trying to eat the cupcake!

Had to make a chocolate chip cookie to go with the cupcake,
gave it to Little Bear so he wouldn't rip the hat off his head, but
he wanted nothing to do with it...  

The hat would look so adorable with pink "Frosting" and bright pink sprinkles, maybe a cherry on top?!  So many possibilities!!

Petition

Hoping you all can help my husband out by signing this petition.  He has worked in  a Title One school for the past 5 years, this means it is a low income school.  By working for a low income school he was led to believe he would qualify for the Stafford Loan Forgiveness Program for Teachers.  He met all the criteria for the Program except that he started schools before October 1998, meaning that he does not qualify for the Loan Forgiveness.

By drawing up this petition we would like to bring attention to what we believe is an injustice, not only to my husband, but also to the countless other teachers who did not qualify for this program based on when they started school.

The link for the petition is here. Thank you so much for your help!!

Olympic Stitches

I LOVE watching the Olympics.  I enjoy hearing the stories of all the different athletes.  And as a newish Mom I am enjoying hearing about the Mom's of the Olympians.

I especially love watching the swimming competition.  Probably because I swam in High School and I actually understand the sport.

While watching I will be working on various projects as I try to build up my shop on etsy.  I do however get nervous for the athletes while they race, and have been known to hold my breath as they complete their final lap.  I noticed this morning during the time trials that as they got closer to the finish, my stitches got tighter and tighter.  (If you crochet/knit you know that if your stitches aren't mostly uniform, the end product could look really wronky...)

Needless to say I had to rip out a couple rows.  I may want to put down my crocheting during the Phelps/Lochte 400 IM tonight!!

Lotion Headaches

I want to write about something that has irked me for a couple of weeks.  Maybe by writing about it I may not be so annoyed anymore.

Two weekends ago I got a coupon for a free 2 oz lotion at Bath and Body Works.  As someone who is trying to live more frugally it is not a store I hit up often anymore.  I had been out to the mall to visit the yarn at Michael's, so I figured I would stop over and get my free lotion.

I get up the counter, with my coupon, and of course the woman wants to sell me something else.  I politely decline. (I understand that the store uses those coupons to get people in the store so they buy more than just the free lotion.  They don't figure there will be people like me who will just get the freebie.)  Then the girl looks me up and down and asks rather harshly 'haven't you been in here earlier today?'  Here manager who was standing right there said. 'No she hasn't.'

I was so embarrassed, I took my lotion and left.  I think it bothered me because I generally consider myself a decent person.  When someone insinuates otherwise it hurts my feelings.

Eh, maybe I'm just too thin skinned and taking it too personally.  What do you think?

I will definitely think twice about going there again, coupon or no.

The worst part?  The lotion's scent makes my head hurt....  

Brownie Mistakes...

I am so mad at myself right now.  I fear I have made a huge rookie baking mistake, and I broke one of my dieting rules.

My husband's work is having a picnic tomorrow, and he asked me to make something for it.  I didn't know what I was going to make until I looked in my cabinet and saw brownie mix, I had seen this recipe for Brownie Mix cookies on Allrecipes.com and thought they looked perfect.

Here is where things went south.  I usually replace the oil in recipes with apple sauce so I used some of my homemade sauce.  I have a ton of ripe bananas and I had heard you can use 1 banana/1 egg in baking.  The recipe calls for two eggs so I mashed up two bananas and mixed everything together, dropped them onto cookie sheets, and baked them up.

They needed to be baked a lot longer than the 9 minutes the recipe said, and getting them off of the pan was a nightmare.  They all got scrunched up and crumbly.  I am not even going to show you a picture of them they are that ugly.

I ate two of them because I didn't want them to feel bad, which is how I broke my dieting rule to not eat when I am by myself.  The idea is that if I have to wait to eat with someone like my son and/or my husband, then I won't mindlessly snack.  I will also be more likely to make healthier choices because I want to model healthy choices for my son.

Ugh, my husband just got home and he didn't even like the cookies.  (and he will pretty much eat anything...) He's just going to have to bring a bag of tortilla chips and salsa, cause this chick is done with baking for the night.

Anyone have any ideas on what went wrong?  Shouldn't have mixed the applesauce and banana?  Not a good idea making cookies out of brownie mix?  Let me know what you think!

        

Peace, Love And Coffee

I have been trying to get better about planning out our family meals for the week.  I do write it down, but I always end up losing that piece of paper, or it is accidentally thrown away.

I saw this neat idea on Pinterest.  Can't find the pin that I saw originally, must not have pinned it myself.  Darn!  But the idea was to use an eight picture frame as a dry erase surface for the purpose of hanging in your kitchen so you can write down what you are having for dinner each night of the week (and a spot for notes!)

Instead of using scrap book paper, I wanted to take my own photos.  I started making shapes as I was cutting up some fruits and veggies, and thought that it would make an awesome photo.  Then I went even more wacky and wrote out words with different foods.  Peace - Peas of course!  Love - toasted oats and strawberries.  And - chocolate syrup and raspberries. Coffee - chocolate chips and a Gerber Arrowroot cookie.

I found the eight picture frame on sale at Jo Ann Fabrics (plus I had a 25% off coupon!!)  It came out to be over 50% off and cost me less than $14!

I got all the pictures together, and stuck them in the frame and fell in love.  I think it turned out pretty sweet.  I think that it looks way to cool to write on, which was the whole purpose of the project!



      

Peace Love and Coffee <3

Frame with the dry erase.

I think that I won't be using it as a dry erase board.  The writing is to hard to see and it is covering up my photos!  I'll just have to think of something else!  

Let me know what you think!      

Northern Lights and Fireflies

Did you hear about the solar flare the other day?  I don't really know the ins and outs of it but apparently because of that flare it could have been possible to see the Northern Lights/Aurora Borealis right here in Upstate NY.  I have always been intrigued by them and wanted to see them first hand.

So last night we packed up our car and headed up to Lake Ontario.  We sat under the stars, listening to the peaceful sound of the waves lapping the rocks in front of us.  Fireflies made the trees look like they were sparkling.  It was a beautiful star filled night, my baby all cozy wrapped in a blanket, sleeping in my arms.  I tried to take a picture of the stars, but it just wasn't working, so I put the camera away and just LIVED it.

The only down side to our peaceful evening was the mosquitoes.  I have a ton of rather large welts all over my body, and apparently, my shirt wasn't long enough and my pants weren't high enough because I have five or six bites in a row on my lower back/butt area.  Awesome.

I am happy to report Little Bear did not get any bug bites!

We didn't get to see the Northern lights.  A little too cloudy?  Too many lights from the neighboring town?  Not late enough?  Dunno.  I do know that I will continue my quest to see the elusive Aurora Borealis.  Maybe in a couple years (or twenty) I'll head up to Alaska.  Something to dream about!  

Coffee and Bows...

I've been a pretty cool cucumber the last couple of days with everything that has been going on.    Part of my lets not get too worked up around the baby plan.  It's been an inconvenience but manageable.  But this morning when I thought that the coffee maker wasn't working, I was on the verge of tears...  Turns out it was user error.  THANK HEAVENS!!  

Ari our dog wanted to say good morning!  He's all dressed up with no where to go.

What a good boy!  

I hope everyone has a great Saturday!

Strawberry Daiquiri and Yarn....

Yup that's what I'm doing on my Friday night after little Bear went to bed.  Only posting about it because I downloaded the Blogger app to my phone and I wanted to see how it worked!!
Happy Friday everyone! Cheers!!

Raining Lemons... And When it rains it pours.

Over the past couple of days life has handed us some lemons.  Most specifically the spring on my garage door, and our water heater.

On Wednesday afternoon I heard a huge loud noise coming from somewhere in our house.  I was slightly freaked out (okay I freaked out a lot.)  Did a check of our house and found nothing amiss, so I just mentioned it to my husband when he got home.  The problem became apparent when my Father in Law came over to get something from my side of the garage, but he was able to fix it with out much of a problem.  I am thanking my lucky stars it did not break earlier in the day our I would not have been able to get my car out of the garage and I would have missed a meeting.

Then yesterday I ran down to the basement to do a load of laundry.  I noticed the floor was wet and when I looked back I saw a trail of my wet foot prints in the carpet.  YIKES!!!  I quick moved everything to the other side of the basement and then called my Father in Law.  The diagnosis?  Our 21 year old water heater is kaput...  Another one was bought and will be installed today, but until then, no hot water.  Meaning cold showers....

I told my husband this morning that cold showers are supposed to rev your metabolism.  He just grumbled at me.

As for me, I am not hopping into a cold anything, or my toes will turn purple (darn you Reynouds Syndrome!)  I will take a proper shower later when the new heater is installed.

Boy I could use a glass of lemonade right about now.  Or another slice of this Frozen Lemonade Pie, from Foodnetwork.com.  I made this recipe for the Fourth of July, and it was delicious and refreshing.  I did make a small change and used a store bought graham cracker crust.  It made a ton of filling , so I put what I couldn't fit in the pie crust into a glass bowl and froze that too.  The pie was a hit, and we just finished the extra filling last night, with some crumbled graham cracker on top.    Yum!!!

I only had a couple rasberries from our bush, but I made sure everyone who wanted one got one!  

Almost Stuffed Red Peppers

I LOVE stuffed peppers! I have only made them a couple of times because they are kind of a pain to make and they take FOREVER.  I saw this recipe on Allrecipes.com.  and thought, YUM!  It is essentially a deconstructed version of stuffed peppers!  (Why didn't I have think of that?)

Of course I am terrible at following directions, so here's my version of the recipe. (Husband and Baby approved!)

1 lb of lean ground beef, browned and drained.

2 Red Bell Peppers diced (Red peppers are my favorite, but you can use what ever pepper you have on hand!)

(I also chopped up a scallion, mainly to outline the heart, but I threw it in anyways.) 

As you are dicing the peppers, prepare 1 cup of uncooked long grain brown rice, as per package instructions. (This takes about 40 minutes...  I know, I know, instant is so quick and easy.  But I really like the texture of long grain so much better.)

Sautee the peppers in the meat until slightly tender.

Then I added a whole bunch of my homemade sauce. (it has the onions and the seasoning, and is slightly spicy.) I probably used the equivalent to a 32 oz jar of sauce, maybe more.  (My husband likes things saucy, I guess that's why he married me??)

Heat the sauce through, then add the prepared rice.

Mmmmm, stuffed red pepper skillet! 

I sprinkled mine with some shredded mozzarella cheese, and I tore a couple basil leaves over the top.

Delish!  

Red, White and Blue

Happy Fourth of July!

"Mommy it's wicked hot out here!" 

Wanted to quick show you the super cute top hat I made for Little Bear!  I crocheted it with Red Heart Super Saver.  It was already really hot out so our photo shoot didn't last too long and he did not want to keep it on his head.  

Top Hat!  And Mommy's matching head band! 

Our Dog Rocking the top hat! 

Coffee in the Garden?

For the past couple months I've been working on my little garden.  I've had a couple brilliant ideas for my garden (well, I think they are brilliant anyways...) I'll share one with you today.

I love the Keurig, but it seems wasteful to toss out the plastic k-cups.  I decided they would be perfect as seed starters.  They are the perfect size and they already have the little drainage holes.  Also they are plastic so when you are ready to transplant to a larger pot or the ground the plant comes out with out much of a struggle.

After my morning cup of coffee (and it cooled!) I took the k-cup and a knife and removed the foil, dumped out the coffee and removed the filter.

Mmmm - Caramel drizzle, one of my favorites

I rinsed these, but I did some other ones outside that I didn't rinse.
(I had heard that coffee is a good fertilizer!)

Later, when I had a whole bunch, I filled them with a little moistened potting soil, planted a seed and placed them in a sunny spot!

Watch them grow!

Best of all I will save these and be able to use these again next year!  

Anybody else have some really great gardening ideas?

The Worst Part

So tonight I needed a break, (my husband is on a vacation from school so our nap schedule is off, and when the nap schedule is off, Mommy gets slightly cranky.) Little Bear went to spend the evening with Grandma, Grandpa and his Aunty.  And I sat and crocheted. Honestly. And I was pretty darn content doing so.  Ok, so we did eat a quick dinner and watched a movie.  Though I never really watch movies, unless I am at a theater, (I find they don't generally keep it bright enough for me to crochet...)  My husband will stop and rewind when there is a part he thinks I should watch, otherwise I just look up from my work every once and a while.

Anyways, I have come to my least favorite part of any project.  Weaving in the ends... it is so frustrating and time consuming!  Most of the time my projects only require a couple ends to be woven in, like my hats or scarves.  But I chose this beautiful pattern from Lion Brand yarn for my Grandmother's birthday present.  I chose it because the motif looks like a dogwood blossom and those flowers always remind me of my Grandfather who passed away in 2007.

Of course I used a different type of yarn and two different colors (such a rule breaker...)

Ugh!  Got to get going, time doesn't slow down for anyone, especially cross eyed crafters...

Cake Dreams

I keep having this weird recurring dream/nightmare.  It starts out happy, we are celebrating my littlest sisters birthday, all my family is there, and my Mom has made her a beautiful cake.

(Note: My Mom's cake are the absolute best in the world.  They are always so beautiful.  They are so moist and delicious and always have the perfect ration of iceing/cake.  Her cakes are what I use to judge all other cakes, and most of those cakes don't stack up. Yes, I am a cake snob.)

In my dream we all gather around the cake and since it's her birthday my sister gets to cut the cake.  She sticks the knife in and the top layer of the cake flings off on to her shirt and slides off on to the floor.  The cake is ruined! In my dream I always get so sad and angry and then I wake up.  Then I wish I had a piece of my Mom's cake.

As far as dreams go it's not terribly weird, what is weird is hat I keep having it (and it's not even that close to her birthday!)

I'll have to wait till Sunday to get my piece of cake though, we are celebrating my Grandmother's 80th Birthday!!

Been a long time...

Oh my, it's been a long time!  But I haven't forgotten about you!  May was an extremely busy month and it turns out June was too!  I am finally feeling like I can breath again!

We've been enjoying some beautiful weather around here lately!  We've been trying to get some time in the pool every night!  And yesterday we visited Letchworth State Park for a picnic and some walking.  It is absolutely gorgeous there!

Me at Inspiration Point - Letchworth State Park. I bring my crocheting everywhere!  

I used to try to write at night or during little Bears nap (like now!  Thank you Jesus!) but lately I have been having a wicked time getting him to sleep.  We've got a routine (diaper change, jammies, songs or a book or two, teeth get brushed, nurse and then I rock him to sleep.) but now he screams and kicks while I try rocking him and he ends up eventually wearing himself out so that when I nurse him again he falls asleep.   I am trying to slowly wean him and I don't really want to keep letting him nurse to sleep.  

My husband thinks I should let him cry it out in his crib, he figures he would be crying either way...  But I honestly can't bring myself to leave him screaming in his crib, believe me I've tried.

If anyone has any suggestions please let me know, I am completely exhausted!  

Crocheted Flower Hat Pattern

Today I am so tired I accidentally put double the amount of splenda in my coffee.  Waaaay to sweet.  But, I drank it anyways.  Seemed a shame to waste a Green Mountain French Vanilla K-Cup.  And I couldn't wait the minute it would take to make another cup.  The good thing about Little Bear waking up early is that he usually takes a morning and afternoon nap.  (Emphasis on usually.)

And we're crossing our fingers he does!  I would like to finish a couple things.  I've been making these cute hats!

I'll share my pattern for it.  (Disclaimer: to my knowledge this is my original pattern, I haven't seen a pattern that looks like this.  Furthermore, please use my pattern if you would like and feel free to sell the hats you make from it, but please be sure to mention my blog.) 

I like this pattern because it sits nicely on a baby's noggin and it has a tiny flare out at the bottom for a little girlyness.  

This pattern is worked in the round and is not joined at the end of each round, be sure to mark the beginning of the round and move the marker up as you go.  You can find stitch markers in any craft store, but honestly I lose those fairly regularly. I like to use a little bit of a contrasting colored yarn as my marker.  

The pattern below makes an infant hat that should fit a baby 0-3 months old.  I will briefly go into how to make the hat bigger for an older infant.  

Materials:  Any sports weight yarn, I like Loops and Threads Impeccable. (the green yarn I also show, I have no idea what brand it is, my yarn stash is slightly out of control and I have lost the yarn sleeve.  

Crochet hook - I 

Tapestry needle (for weaving in ends)

Leaving a 5 inch tail, Chain (ch) 4, make a circle by joining the first ch with a slip stitch.  

Round 1 - Ch 1, single crochet (sc) 8 times into the circle.  

(Note: I like to crochet over the tail of the yarn as I go around the circle, that way when I finish I can pull the circle closed.  Sort of like the magic circle) Do not join. 8 stitches.  

This is the first round, you can see the hole.

And now you can't.  (I pull it even tighter at the end of the project as I weave in the tail) 

Rnd 2 - 2 sc in each stitch around.  16 stitches

Rnd 3 - 1 sc in each stitch around.  16 stitches

Rnd 4 - 1 sc in first stitch 2 sc in second stitch.  Repeat pattern to the marker. 24 stitches.  

Rnd 5 - 1 sc in each stitch around.  24 stitches. 

Rnd 6 - 1 sc in the first two stitches, 2 sc in third stitch.  Repeat pattern to marker. 32 Stitches. 

Rnd 7 - 1 sc in each stitch around.  32 Stitches.

Rnd 8 - 1 sc in first three stitches, 2 sc in the fourth stitch.  Repeat pattern to marker. 40 stitches.  

Rnd 9 - 1 sc in each stitch around.  40 stitches.  

Rnd 10 - 1 sc in first four stitches, 2 sc in fifth stitch.  Repeat pattern to marker. 48 Stitches. 

Rnd 11 - Round 22 (or desired length) - 1 sc in each stitch around. 48 stitches.  

Rnd 23 - 1 sc in first three stitches, 2 sc in the fourth stitch.  Repeat pattern to marker.  

Rnd 24 - 1 sc in each stitch around. Fasten off.  

Weave in ends.  

Note: Round 10 is the end of the increasing portion of the 0-3 month old hat.  For larger infants you would continue the increasing rows (increase by 8 stitches each round) until it reaches the desired size.  Also make the hat slightly longer.

This is my pattern for the flower.  

Using a contrasting color (or color of your choosing, I wanted to pick up the pale pink in the background of the hat.)

Crochet hook size does not matter.  The bigger the hook, the bigger the flower.  

As with the hat, I also leave a tail on the flower and crochet over it in the first round so I can pull it tight later on. 

Ch 4, join with a slip stitch to form a ring.  

Rnd 1 - Ch 5 *sc in right, ch 3, rep from * 5 more times.  Join with a slip stitch to the 2nd ch of beginning ch.  

Rnd 2 - *(Sc, half double crochet, 3 double crochet, half double, sc) in next ch 3 space, rep from * 5 more times.  Join with slip stitch to beginning sc.  Fasten off.  

Sew the flower on the hat and weave in ends.  

And there you have it! An adorable infant hat! 

The flower is also adorable sewed on to anything, such as this head band.

My New Favorite Thing

This is my New Favorite thing.... Yes it's just a soft terry cloth mitten made to look like a lion, but it is a life saver, or more appropriately a sanity saver.  My son hates having his face washed. He fusses and screams and thrashes about.  This is problematic because he needs his face washed several times a day. (He is quite the messy eater.)

(This is him a couple months ago, ha ha.  Thankfully he doesn't get this messy anymore.)

I saw the lion at Wal-Mart in the baby bath aisle and thought "what the heck, it's worth a shot."

Now after a messy meal, Mr. Lion (that's the name I came up with, I know so original...) gets a warm bath, and talks to my son in a funny voice.  Little Bear's hands get washed, complete with slurping sound effects.  Between hands lion cries "Yay!!" and *claps his hands.*  And then the best part, he actually laughs when Mr. Lion washes his face off.... You heard that right, a kid who would scream and cry just days ago with a normal wash cloth, now laughs as he is having his face washed.  Go figure...

I went out and bought another one and I am thinking of buying stock in the company.

Anybody else's children switch their attitude about something so quickly over such a small change?

Sleep my Little Bear, Sleep...

It's late.  I really should be heading off to bed and not typing this blog.  It is much easier to take care of an almost 11 month old when you have had enough sleep.  Well, it probably is much easier, but I wouldn't know.
There is something so blissful about staying up long past the baby has gone to sleep. So quiet.  So peaceful.  Yes, I probably should be getting some house work done, but why risk making noise?  My little bear did not take a nap today, not for my lack of trying (I wonder how many calories you burn rocking FOREVER).  So I'll just sit here and quietly type.
Most of the time I sit and crochet, currently I have about 10 + projects started and about a million ideas floating around in my head.  I am working on the coolest swifter "sock," so my swifter sweeper can be eco chic.  Once I am finished I'll post a photo and link to the pattern on here (have to figure all that stuff out!).
When I do eventually begin to get bleary eyed is usually when my little one wakes up for his first "snuggle snack" of the night.  Go figure.  He must have some sort of sixth sense...