These are a few of my favorite things

The weather has broken and I am happy. I bought a fuscia pea coat for J and the mornings are cold enough for her to wear it. And the adorable mittens I just finished crocheting :) I'm pretty sure there is nothing cuter. Well maybe, her black and white tweed pea coat.

Once, my sister-in-law and I had a discussion on how much we dislike the summers here and all of our favorite things were winter-ish. I have decided to share with the desert rats why I find the risks of driving in snow preferable the risks of heat exhaustion.

A List of Things I Love About Cold Weather

a.k.a. The Absence of These Things Makes Me Perpetually Annoyed May Through October

1) Pea coats (I have every color of the rainbow except green. It's out there somewhere, calling to me)
2) Soup (in bread bowls. Just not the same in the summer time)
3) Matching scarves and mittens
4) Snowboarding
5) Tea (new fav, Bengal Spice. Guilt-free Chai. Add milk and honey and it will rock your world)
6) Knitting and crocheting  they are traditionally known as cold weather activities)
7) Hot Chocolate
8) How often strangers help each other, especially when cars have trouble in the snow.
9) Snow cream
10) Snow Days
11) Jacuzzi's
12) Sweaters
13) Tall boots
14) The feeling you get when you are running and the weather is cold but you are warm.
15) How quiet everything is after it snows
16) Everyone is perpetually late, not just me
17) Sweat pants
18) Fuzzy slippers
19) Hot showers and warm towels
20) Snuggling under warm blankets

Glass Etching

What do you get when you cross a science teacher and a stay at home mom?


Highly toxic chemicals used to make creative houseware.

Here are some wedding presents I made for a friend.

I filled it with green water so you could see it better

Essentially you have a friend cut some vinyl for you (in a few weeks, I can be that friend for you) and tape the negative on your glass.

 Add some stinky etching creme and try not to die. Rinse it thoroughly, and voila!

Sleep Over!

Sometimes my nephew comes over to play.

He is a superman, but he sometimes embraces the dark side.

Tuesday, he and his brothers came for a sleepover. I forot what sleeping does for your hair when you are a kid

Shoot! Or the post where I talk about my camera

The best money I have spent was on a fancy camera. When me and the hubs bought our first camera with wedding money, I saw the SLR's and laughed at the fools who would spend that kind of money on a bulky camera.

It seems the story of my life is me becoming the people I laughed at. Spandex wearing cyclists, ha! Bird watching, how boring! Morning people, what schmucks!

Now I have wholeheartedly joined the ranks of stay at home mommies who get a nice camera and fancy themselves amateur photographers. In all fairness, I've wanted to take a photography class since high school but could never fit it in. But that's what the internet is for right? Providing low quality education to the masses.

I truly adore my camera though and since a couple of you have asked me about it here are the details.

I use a Canon Rebel T2i. I think I spent around $800 on it originally. I know, yikes, that's a lot of money. I struggled with the decision for months. I wasn't sure if I would use it since I thought it would be more work to get it in and out of a case, turn it on and set up, all before I took a picture. (I was completely wrong about that. It stays ready to go on the bookshelf in easy reach) Then I had my incredibly internet deal savvy husband research for me. Here is a great review that helped me commit to this model. Canon and Nikon are fairly comparable but once you buy one brand, you are pretty much going to choose it for life. Canon was a bit cheaper when I was looking so we went this way. My bro in law bought the T3i that came out after I bought mine and it is a little nicer. I borrowed it in Seattle and felt it was a bit faster on the focusing and was overall a bit snappier. It has a flip screen too that wasn't that big a deal to me, but can be useful.

Here's what I love about it:

1) It turns on wicked fast. My old point and shoot takes twice as long to boot up.
2) I can take pictures with low lighting and they still look good
3) I use the flash very rarely so no more red eye and sickly skin tone.
4) I can take lots of pictures very quickly
5) I can get those pretty pics where the background is blurry but the faces are sharp (never could with my point and shoot)
6) It's not that heavy. It has a nice grip to it that feels natural in my hands (I spent a day in best buy holding cameras and literally feeling them out). It was easy taking it backpacking.
7) It is rugged enough I put it in the space by J's feet in the stroller without having a panic attack that it might break.
8) Nice big screen lets me immediately tell if the picture turned out well or if I should retake it.

Downsides:
1) You can't ask too many strangers to take your picture because they get intimidated.
2) It is much bulkier to pack in a suitcase.

These don't downsides don't come into play very often, so I still have no regrets dropping the moola on it.

I originally shot most of my pictures on the preset "no flash" mode, but now I know my camera better I keep it on aperture priority (Av) unless I'm taking motion shots. Then I put it on Tv which is shutter priority. The presets are very user friendly and are easy to mess with or leave alone.

I bought a new lens which is a 50mm 1.8f prime lens and it was well worth the $100. It doesn't zoom at all, so you have to get used to walking back or forward a few steps, but it takes pictures really fast and the difference in the f stop has really kicked my photos up an notch. It is also SUPER light. The giant aperture has also improved my indoor shots without a flash. The camera was a little pop up flash but I don't like how it makes the pictures. The next investment will probably be and external flash, but they run $300 and are even more bulky. So it will probably be awhile.

So if you are looking at a new camera as an expensive christmas present, go for the rebel. It is a great SLR for learning on and gives you a lot of pretty pretty pictures.

Navy Tshirt dress

I was quite proud of myself with J's pumpkin patch outfit. My sis-in-law taught me how to make little baby leg warmers  out of knee high socks and I sacrificed my favorite pair. Long time readers may remember this shot from a spirit day long ago. (P.S. I went and read old entries from the old blog looking for this picture. I used to be so much funnier. I think the lack of adult conversation has made my humor and literary devices decline. I'm glad you all are still reading despite the lack of humorous anecdotes. The pictures have improved at least. Although this post is an exception.)

I decided J needed a navy blue dress to match them but I have this issue with buying J clothes. I don't like to spend money. Actually I really enjoy spending money, just on myself. I've got a $5 limit on any given baby clothes item and that takes lots of searching if you have something particular in mind. So I found an navy blue shirt in my closet in need of retirement. I'm not good with tutorials but I took a picture to give you a rough idea of how I did it.

 This is the bodice. You essentially sew two lines across the top and sew part of the sides together.

Since I kept the edge on the front, I trimmed some of the neckline off the original shirt and added it to the back piece.

Then I cut semi circles out of the original sleeves and added them. Sewing the sleeves was the hardest part. Then 2 seams up the sides of the skirt, attached it, and voila! Special thanks to my friend Charity who watched the little peanut while I whipped this up. It took an hour (should have been 20mins if I didn't mess up a handful of times) since it I didn't have to hem anything. That's the beauty of repurposing. Free and fast.