Catching on

My daughter, Lizzy, is 15 months old and is discovering the world full force.



She takes challenges head on. The word 'no' drops from our mouths, bounces off her super rubbery Ignore-You shield and falls helplessly to the floor. My husband observed that she takes her age as an advantage. She knows that we aren't entirely sure when she understands. So it's easy for her to pay us no mind and go on pretending that she just doesn't know what we are saying.

These are her two mini-dolls. I made the one on the left, and the kewpie doll on the right is from her great-grandmother. Lizzy looked a lot like a kewpie when she was younger, and this doll was an instant favorite... of mine.

Recently she has begun to realize that these two dolls can play and interact with each other. I play with one while she acts as the other. I make one of the dolls talk to the other and ask for hugs while her doll responds... mostly by just standing there motionlessly in Lizzy's hands while she watches me get animatedly into my part. But I think it is dawning on her what I am doing. The other day we were playing with them and my doll asked if hers wanted to dance. Mine started to jump and dance and she excitedly caught on. It was cute to see how she made her doll dance. She held it in place on the couch and wiggled and swayed her own body back and forth to the music.



If only life were really so simple.

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On an exciting note, The Rusted Chain is having a giveaway on Oh my Handmade Goodness! Go ahead and check it out!

Oh so easy, oh so good!

I was invited to a lovely luncheon this week and when I asked what I could bring I was told that either a finger food or a dessert would be nice. Now 'finger-food' struck no cords in my brain, but dessert I can do. I finally decided to try a new recipe in my book that has made me drool every time I see the pictures. I didn't realize how easy it was going to be until I began the cooking. So easy that I would hardly call it cooking at all.

Basically all you need to do is to:
~ Preheat oven to 325 degrees
~ Melt about a 1/2 cup of butter in the bottom of a 9" x 13" pan
~ Pour 1 1/2 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs evenly over the butter
~ Spread small 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk over the crumbs
~ Sprinkle 1 cup of chocolate chips on top
~ Cover with 1 1/3 cups shredded coconut and press down
~ Add some chopped walnuts if desired (I had none)
~ Bake for 25-30 min. or until golden brown
~ Try not to burn yourself as you begin eating the massive cookie right away



Now what is so wonderful about this awesome treat? Well besides the fact that it is super easy, while making it I realized that it could be changed to fit any taste. It's sort of like a glorified candy bar. The sweetened condensed milk turns out all chewy inside, and the coconut gets just a little crunchy. I imagine you could add a Mms layer in there, or pretzels, or even caramel. Peanut butter chips wouldn't be bad either.

...now only if I could recreate a Twix

Basically I can find no fault with this treat, other than the unfortunate long-term side effects of having downed the whole pan. Graham cracker bottom? Good. Chocolate? Perfect. Sweetened condensed milk? What can possibly go wrong with condensing sweetness?



It will make your house smell divine.

New Toy Box!

We live in a one bedroom apartment, so in the front 'area' is the family room, dining room, by daughter's bedroom (aka her crib), the office, and the playroom. It's really not as crowded as it sounds, we love it here. I have noticed though that in the corner where my daughter's toys are kept is one continual mess. She and I both like to collect things. Instead of buying totally new toys every time she gets bored with what she has I like to improvise and give her things that interest her, like old tins and yogurt containers that she can practice relidding. She in turn loves to snag a box as soon as she sees us set it down, and therefore had quite a few old torn up cardboard boxes full of her toys. Consequently that whole corner of the room was full of old boxes and little old containers... haha, that sounds bad, she has a lot of nice toys too!

Anyway, I decided that I wanted a toy chest. So while out on the grand sale day they had at Michaels a while back I searched for a little unpainted one I could purchase. Unfortunately the only toy chest they had was a little over our budget, even with my 50% off coupon, so I settled for this little wooden crate. $5.00 with the coupon! Booya!

I brought it home and used some of my fun fabric I got for Christmas to make a liner for it. I had just enough elastic left over from the plastic bag holder.

Then I painted up the front and labeled it just in case the contents of the crate wasn't enough.

Our play corner is a lot happier now.



This makes me wonder, how do you handle the "I'm bored with all my toys" dilemma? I've tried several techniques. I think what works best right now is that I only set out about 1/3 of my daughter's toys at a time, the rest reside in the closet. I can round them out every other month and she gets to rediscover what she already has. It also helps to prevent overwhelming her with too many choices.

I'd love to hear what you've come up with!

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On another happy note I finished up a custom order just recently that included a two inch pirate. At first I was daunted because I had no idea how to fit the figure of a pirate in a two inch form. After a little doodling and searching through my fabrics I made this little guy up.

I don't know what it is about him, but he makes me happy too.