What's up Chuck? Weekend Recap

This weekend we had plans to go into the city to see the train show at Grand Central Terminal. Unfortunately, it snowed all day Saturday (eep!) and I was battling a cold, so we ended up hanging out at home.  At first I was pretty bummed out, but thankfully everything turned out alright in the end.

Chuck and I played with his cars.... a lot....

We re-enacted scenes from the movie "Mater's Tall Tales..."

Keep on reading below!

What's up Chuck?

You know that line from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times?"

Well, this past week kind of felt like that.

We worked to fight computer failure.  But it's now official, the computer is dead.

We battled illness.  (Chuck had a cold.  Then I caught his cold... and then I caught some sort of tummy bug.  Ick. I'll spare you the details.)

And throughout the week Chuck and I engaged in some pretty epic battles of wills.  (His new favorite word is "No.")

But amidst all these tough spots, we've also shared some wonderfully sweet moments.  As Chuck gets older, he's also becoming more aware of the things and people around him.   One of his favorite things to do is copy others.   

He copies the older kids at the sprinklers

He noticed that I wore a ring, so he wanted to wear one too

He and daddy wore matching outfits to church

He saw some kangaroos on tv and wanted to have a baby kangaroo in his own "pouch" too

Pretending to be a kangaroo from Pink Stripey Socks on Vimeo.


Life is tough, but there are also such beautifully sweet moments sprinkled throughout. 

Have a good weekend, friends.  Stay cool and we'll see you next week!

Gluten free Cocoa Brownie

Last week we celebrated hubby's birthday.  In case you didn't know, hubby is a big, big fan of chocolate.  Me, not so much. But every year I put aside my indifference and try to bake him something chocolatey.

Last year I really struggled to find a good gluten-free chocolate cake recipe.  This year, I tried again to find a yummy recipe that would satisfy hubby's choclatey wishes and satisfy Chuck's dietary restrictions.

After looking around the internet, I found this cocoa brownie recipe and tweaked it.  Instead of normal flour, I used Domata gluten free flour.  (It was so easy.  I just exchanged 1/3 C of normal flour for 1/3 C of my gluten free flour.)

The results?  Woot woot!  Finally some gluten free baking success.  I got a whole batch of dense, fudgy, and extremely chocolatey brownies.

They were delicious.

This recipe's a keeper.  Sometimes it's so tough seeing other kids at birthday parties eating cake and knowing that Chuck can't eat any of it.  Now I know I can bake him something special and chocolatey too.

Hope you have a great weekend.  See you next week!

Hubby makes a rollie pollie chair

A few days ago I shared that hubby and I engaged in some friendly competition.  Both of us wanted to make kid friendly furniture for Chuck.  I came up with the idea to make a chair out of pvc pipes.  Hubby followed these directions and took another route.  He made a rollie pollie chair

This chair may look like a beanbag chair, but it's not.  It's filled with stuffing instead of beads.  (Basically, it's one huuuuuuge pillow.)

 <<UPDATE!  4/8/13-  We un-stuffed the rollie pollie chair and exchanged the stuffing for a laaarge  bag of Styrofoam beans from Walmart.  We noticed that Chuck was kind of just bouncing off the chair whenever he tried to sit on it.  Now he sinks in nicely and it's way more comfy.>>

So who wins?  Well... while Chuck easily sits in my chair,  he'll outgrow it in a year or two.  Hubby's rollie pollie is too big for Chuck to use right now, but he'll grow into it some day.  (I'm getting it ready  for him by napping on it now.  Zzzz...)

So I guess this round of friendly furniture competition ends with a draw.  Admittedly both chairs have their drawbacks, but I'm proud of what we accomplished.

Have a great weekend!

Hubby alters another dress

Last weekend hubby pulled out the trusty sewing machine to alter a thrifted dress.

It went from looking like a long hippy-ish nightgown 

to looking like short nightgown 

to looking like a dress that I could actually wear out

Three cheers for hubby's sewing skills!

He wore it!

Even though the weather was warmer today, sweet hubby still wore a blazer (and my felt flower lapel pin) to work.

Shnazzy!

DIY Felt Flower Lapel Pin / Boutonniere

It's official!  Fall is now upon us.

With cooler temperatures rolling in, Hubby, Baby Chuck, and I are changing up our wardrobes.  We're putting on long sleeve shirts and pants, no longer shaving our legs (oh wait, that's just me- tmi?), putting on shoes instead of sandals (goodbye sandal tan), and wearing jackets.

Hubby been looking forward to fall ever since we've moved back east because he loves wearing jackets to work.  As a serious lover of all things stylish, he's also hinted that he'd love some small flowers to adorn his lapel (as seen here.)  I peeked around the internet for inspiration and then set out to make him some felt flower lapel pins.      

Here are the materials I used:
- freezer paper
- good scissors
- pencil
- felt in an assortment of colors  (*See note below) 
- iron
- hot glue gun
- bobby pin(s)
- needle and thread

*Note:  I bought cheap polyester felt from the craft store.  (30 cents a piece?  You just can't beat that price.) You would definitely get a more polished look if you purchased nicer wool felt.  We initially created these pins as mockups, thinking that we'd create real ones with wool felt later on.  But, the pins came out so nice that we just decided to use them.  How long will the pins last?  Will they quickly look ratty?  I'm not sure.  Let's see what happens once hubby starts wearing them to work.

Step 1:  I created a flower pattern that was kind of Van Cleef & Arpels meets Orla Kiely.  I traced that pattern onto freezer paper and ironed it (waxy side down) to adhere the paper to my felt.  This process make it easier to cleanly cut my tiny felt shapes out.  (Special thanks to Make It Cozee for the tip!)

Step 2:  I cut out my flower shapes, circle shapes (flower centers), and square shapes (flower backs).

Step 3:  I used a hot glue gun  (it was my first time using one!!!) to glue the squares onto the flowers.  I did this so that my flowers pins would feel a bit more substantial, since I used cheapy felt.  Plus, I didn't want my stitches (step 4) to be visible. 

Step 4:  After the glue dried, I sewed a bobby pin to each square, making sure to not sew through the front of the flower.

Step 5:  I hot glued a circle to each flower to complete my little garden of felt flower lapel pins.

Here's how the pin looks on hubby's jacket.  I just slipped the bobby pin through the lapel buttonhole.  (Note:  I had to cut the hole first because it was sewn shut.)

I think the pins came out super cute and add just the right touch of whimsy.  They'll definitely spruce up hubby's work outfit.  Hmm, but why stop at just work outfits?  I bet these little guys would also look really cute as wedding boutonnieres too... don't you think? 

Hubby's birthday

We celebrated hubby's birthday last week.  Baby Chuck and I woke up early to head out to the store and prepare for his birthday, but we ran into a little bit of trouble along the way. 

(1)  It was very windy that day and I had several Marilyn Monroe-esque moments.  I think I flashed everyone in the parking lot.  Luckily, it was pretty empty and I was wearing a slip.

I ended up using two grocery bags to hold my dress down.

(2) Baby Chuck really wanted to get hubby a birthday balloon.  After deliberating for what seemed like hours and hours, we finally settled on a cute airplane shaped balloon.  I gave Baby Chuck the responsibility of bringing the balloon to the car.  As we left the store, a strong gust of wind blew and our airplane took flight.

It's probably somewhere over Lake Michigan by now, wishing birds and sea creatures a happy birthday.

(3) I like to pretend like I know what I'm doing in the kitchen. But, Ina Garten, I am not.  I tried following an online recipe for a gluten free chocolate cake.   The man in the video assured me that it would be simple, foolproof, and delicious.  I don't know what he was talking about.  Here's how my poor cake turned out.

It ended up being pretty tasty... and at least it didn't blow away!

Hubby alters lockers

With only a week left to go, we've been making our last trips to the thrift stores to stock up on furniture before our move back East.  (Sure, they have a lot of great stuff in New Jersey and New York, but everything is just a lot more affordable here.)  

Last weekend hubby spotted two lockers at a thrift store.  Here's what a locker looked like: 

(We didn't bring our camera, so I borrowed this photo of a similar locker from here)

Hubby really liked their industrial feel and thought they could replace for our current television stand.  (Now that Baby Chuck is starting to move around, he tries to grab the books, plates, and wires sitting on that thing.)  I was a bit skeptical about the lockers.  Would they look good with our big green sofa?  Does metal "go" with tufted buttons and curvy white feet?

After lots of back and forth discussion, we decided to get the two pieces on one condition:  hubby would modify them according to my specifications.  Lucky for me, he agreed.

I wanted to soften up the pieces and make them more quirky.  So, I asked hubby to spray paint the front panels white and change the door locks to drawer handles.  Here's the final result of hubby's labor:

Note:  This is hubby's first time spray painting!  He said it was lot of fun and easier than painting with a brush.

I really like how the pieces turned out.  They look modern and playful.
Hubby is a superdeedooper diy-er!

Hubby alters a dress

I've learned something this weekend:  I am a craft planner and hubby is a craft doer.  I have tons of ideas about what I want to make or how I can upcycle thrifted items.  However, I only try out about 10% of my ideas because I get stuck in the planning stage.  My poor ideas end up sitting in idea purgatory.  Hubby, on the other hand, takes only a couple of moments to plan and then he just dives in.  A few hours later, he's done and onto the next thing.

I'm fortunate to be married to someone like that.  I admire his "can-do-what-the-heck-I-will-do" attitude.  Whether he succeeds or fails, he inevitably learns something in the process.  I also rely on him to help bring my craft ideas to life.  For example, he helped me hem a pair of polka dot shorts.

This weekend, hubby helped me resize and hem a thrifted dress.  The dress was initially a couple sizes too large, but I purchased it anyway because I saw potential.  This weekend hubby finally tackled the challenge.  He pinned and sewed and after an hour my dress transformed from frumpy to fitted. 

 I was ecstatic. 

Note: As you can see from the background... we've been delinquent about packing.... eek! 

Shoes Series 3: We've harnessed the power of ice!

If you're a follower of this blog, then you're already aware of our previous attempts to use ice to stretch shoes.  (Confused? Catch up by reading about our adventures here and then here.)
 

Figure 1:  Sandwich bags in shoes

After our initial setbacks, we put on our thinking caps.  And we thought.  And we thought some more.  What were we missing?  Why didn't it work? 

And then we took one final stab at the problem.  Instead of using shopping bags to hold the water, we used sandwich bags.  Although they held less water, they would (hopefully) allow the ice to expand in the right places. 





And you know what?  It worked!  Boy, was I surprised.  Honestly, I'm not sure why the shoes stretched this time and not the last two times.  Below, I've sketched out my best understanding of what happened on the molecular level: 

Figure 2: Arrows and dashed lines make this diagram authentically scientific.

I'm happy seeing hubby wearing some fine fitting shoes.... and knowing that we've harnessed the power of ice for good and not evil.

Will you try out this shoe stretching method?  Let me know of your results!

Shoe Series 2: Is it time to admit de-feet?

If you read my previous post, you'll know that hubby and I attempted a novel shoe stretching method.  We poured water into a pair of shoes, placed them in the freezer, and hoped that the shoes would stretch as the water froze. 

After storing the shoes overnight in the freezer, we moved onto steps 4, 5, and 6.  Here's what we did:

Step 4:
* Tried pulling out bags
* Realized that the bags really were stuck inside
* Let shoes defrost in sink
* Twiddled our thumbs and waited

Step 5:
* Pulled out our miniature ice feet
* Made our miniature ice feet dance
* Tried on shoes

Step 6: 
*  Realized that the shoes were still too tight
*  Debated whether to repeat the whole process again
*  Decided to try again
*  Repeated the process again
*  Placed the shoes in the freezer for three days

After we took out the shoes hubby let them dry out because a bit of  water leaked out of the bags.  Eek.  Once the shoes were dry, he tried them on and....

they were STILL too tight.

Should we admit defeat?  (Or in this case de-feet?  Har har har.)  Well, not quite yet... we still have a few more tricks up our sleeves... 

Shoe Series 1: Are those shoes in your freezer?

Answer:  Yes.  I'll explain

About a year ago hubby purchased a pair of shoes at the thrift store.  They were a tad too small, but we got them anyway because they were a good price.  So far he's worn them just a couple of times but they always end up pinching his feet.  He's tried using shoe stretchers, but they've still remained just a tad too small.  

We were going to donate them until a new idea came to me.  A couple of nights ago, I went on a YouTube-watching frenzy and came upon this video showing a clever gal using ice to stretch shoes.  A light bulb appeared over my head.  It was a crazy idea, but it just might work.

Before you place me into your mental box marked "crazy people to avoid," hear me out.  Water expands as it freezes, right? Living in Michigan, we've seen those huge potholes in the road.  Aren't they partially caused by water freezing inside the cracks in the road?  Let's harness the power of ice for good instead of evil! 

Let's recap:

Step 1: 
*  Find a cute pair of shoes at the thrift store
*  Cringe because they're a tad too small
*  Walk around the store with too-small shoes on
*  Mentally debate whether you should purchase the shoes or not
*  Walk around the store again
*  Convince yourself that they aren't that tight
*  Convince yourself that you can lose weight in your feet
*  Purchase shoes anyway because they're less than 10 bucks

Step 2: 
*  Look for food storage bags that don't have holes in them
*  Realize that you don't own large enough food storage bags
*  Debate whether you should purchase large food storage bags
*  Feel cheap
*  Decide to use grocery store bags instead
*  Look through your hoard of ancient grocery bags
*  Finally find two that don't have holes in them
*  Mentally curse when you realize that you just ripped one bag
*  Find another bag that doesn't have a hole in it
*  Place bags in shoes
*  Pour water into shoes
*  Cringe because you just poured water into your shoes
*  Gather courage and remind yourself that the shoes were less than 10 bucks

Step 3:
*  Place shoes in freezer
*  Make sure that water will not seep out
*  Double check that the water will not seep out
*  Convince your wife repeatedly that the water will not seep out
*  Cringe because you just placed shoes next to your frozen baby food
*  Triple check that the water will not seep out
*  Close the door and wait for the water to freeze 


Have you done this before?  Have you heard of anyone doing this before?  Did it turn our well?

I'll let you know how it all turns out.  We're currently on Step 4:  defrosting the shoes in our sink...

Click here to find out what happens next!

A spread for the Lozzie in you

Lately I've been making hubby Vegemite* sandwiches to bring to work.  I take two slices of bread, spread margarine on each slice and then spread Vegemite on top of the margarine.  To finish, I place both slices of bread together and boom, instant lunch.

Hello sandwich ingredients!

After a couple of days of sandwich making, it suddenly dawned on me.  Instead of spreading the margarine on the bread and then spreading the Vegemite, what if I could spread them both at the same time?!?  And so, dear reader, I came up with this idea:  premixed Vegemite and margarine spread... for the lazy Ozzie (Lozzie) in you.

Ooh.  Someone should mass produce this stuff.... and then send me a jar.

*Never heard of Vegemite?  Australians love the stuff.  It's a super salty spread that all Ozzie kids grow up eating. 

Secondhand chic

I realized I haven't been recording hubby's sartorial choices.  Here's his outfit today:

Can you believe that the shirt, blazer, and bow tie are all secondhand items?  Shnazzy!

Sicky Poo

Everybody is sick over in this neck of the woods.  We're coughing and sneezing.  Our eyes and noses are running like faucets.  And, I think our internal thermometers are off because one minute I feel like I'm overdressed and the next minute I feel like I need to wrap myself in a warm blanket.   Fortunately (for me), Baby Chuck and I caught the bug first and then we passed it along to hubby.  (Sorry!)  We're slowly getting better and now it's hit hubby full force.  He's taking it all in good stride, though.   Just this morning he commented, "I like being sick because I feel skinnier.  Must be because I'm dehydrated."

Stay healthy!

PS- It doesn't seem like anyone wanted my Tim Gunn book, so I shall give it to a friend here.

Similarities?

I'll let you decide.

If Italians wore bow ties...

they may look like this:

And look, they come in different colors!

First seen here on Foodiggity

Surprise ties

This weekend hubby received a surprise gift from a friend:

Don't you just want to run your hands through these beauties?

Sunny days and pop of color

Even though it's well and truly winter, the weather is still relatively mild and sunny.  Hooray!  We're going to drink in as much sunshine as we can.

**Update:  Can you believe it just snowed this morning?

 

Sunny days celebrated with sunny clothes