happy birthday mister

it's the mister's birthday today, so we are having a little bbq

and my aunt v's famous 14 carrot gold cake (recipe below) to celebrate.

hope everyone had a great 3 day weekend!

aunt v's 14 carrot gold cake

preheat oven to 375 degrees

mix together:

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups veg or canola oil

4 eggs

then add:

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mace or nutmeg

2 cups grated carrots

1 (130z) can crushed pineapple & juic

1 cup chopped walnuts (i used pecans)

2 tsp vanilla

mix together, place in lightly buttered pans and bake for 30 minutes

frosting for 2 layer cake:

1/2 cup (1 cube) butter

80z philly cream chees

1 box powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

beat well with mixer. if frosting seems dry add a small amount of milk.

enjoy.

what's new?

we have got a new project in the works over here in my

neck of the woods. the mister, little fella and i ventured

out to the home depot today to pick up some lumber for

our new deck that we (actually the mister) are going to build

in our front courtyard. we live in a tiny space, so we are always

trying to make the most of what we have. our last project was

the sandbox and this project will not only add to, but almost

complete our summer additions. we still have one major project

that goes along with this one and my hope is that i

will be able to share it with you soon...

this little van is the best, good for hauling kiddo's,

surfboards, lumber, you name it!

the project site

while we were out and about working on our project

a special package arrived with these...

new shoes for the little fella

he was so excited he marched his cutie patootie

right over to the neighbors to show them off

that's right he's lookin good, feelin good and workin it!

strawberries are headed our way

i love this little strawberry plant right now.

it's blooms and fruit are making me happy!

freeze frame...five

just for fun

i was messing around with the camera while we were

driving home from our camping trip and this is what i got.

i think these kinda turned out pretty cool. enjoy...

the mustard flowers covered these hills. it was beautiful

these are poppies i love them especially in this abstract view

the red balloon

if you know me, you know i have an obsession with children's books.

i especially love classic children's books. so, when i was scouring the

book shelf at the library's used book sale i was beyond ecstactic when

i found this original classic copy of the the red balloon. we have rented

the movie and watched it several times, but this was the first i had seen

on the book. honestly i had no idea that there was a book that went

along with this classic film. it is now one of our favorite books to read

or just to look at and i am very pleased that it has made it's way

onto our bookshelf...

this little fella is obsessed with balloons and now with this book

we brought it on our camping trip and it kept him entertained in the car for awhile

it's also good for playing peek-a-boo

we heart the red balloon

that's camp

finally, i am getting to this post. i have been wanting to do it for

the past few days and it seems that it has just been one thing or

the other around here lately. so, here it is our first camping trip of

the season. we took the kiddo's to one of our favorite spots that

we usually go to every summer - jalama beach in santa barbara county.

this place is a hidden treasure off of highway 1, that since it's publicity

in sunset magazine a few years ago has become somewhat of an un-hidden

treasure. it's still a fun place to go, but because it's a first come/first serve

(no reservation) park it gets pretty packed. especially in mid-july when we

usually go, which we still might do this summer. anyway, it had been way too

long since our last visit and we needed to sneak one in before july.

we had a really fun time. here are some of my favorite pics from our weekend.

ironically enough i have no pics of us on the beach - hmmm go figure...

it's a 14 mile drive from the highway and probably one of my favorite roads

it's just scenic country views until you end up in front of the very blue ocean

my fella's setting up camp

what a nice little set up huh?

the mister trying to catch some wild life (it was a lizard and it was too fast)

little miss having some alone time ( this is the first time i didn't pack a ton of toys, just these ponies, art supplies and books - it was great!)

three things i love about camping...

#1. camping bed-head

#2. camping with these guys

#3. camping breakfast= chocolate waxy donuts (love 'em)

this is the biggest tree in the whole camp ground and it was in our site

this little fella loved to run around it

the little miss and some of the treasures we found on the beach -

a starfish and a whole crab shell

this was the first time i noticed the sound of a magpie.

( i'm totally into birds lately)

not only does he set up, but he tears down too. what a guy!

sadly, we must return home, but we had a great trip all in all.

farewell my sweet jalama, see you in july.

piercing pagoda

we went away for the weekend. we went camping up near santa barbara

and had a great time. (pics of that on tomorrow's post)

while we were sitting on the beach the little miss started to talk

about wanting to get her ear's pierced. she had talked with me about this

a few months ago, but then quickly dropped the subject when i told her that

it might hurt. "no biggie" i thought, "she's not ready." well, this weekend

it was all she could talk about and when we were packing up to leave all she

kept saying was, "i can't wait to go get my ear's pierced." i heard this the whole

way home. so, finally i told her that we would go to get her ear's pierced

after school the next day. needless to say, she held me to it...

before the piercing

getting ready

the right lobe

and the left

one happy kid

she was super giddy right after

i was truly proud of the little miss. she was so brave.

sew fun wednesdays...three

week three of sew fun wednesdays and i really am having soooo much fun.

this week i worked on another project for the little miss.

she's had this pair of jeans that are super cute, but a little to tight

in the booty and thighs, so she hasn't been able to wear them lately.

well, the other day i was checking out some new blogs and ran across this one.

she had done a post about this and so i thought it would be a perfect

project for week three. i tried following her directions on how to complete

this, but it didn't work out to well for me, so i decided to wing it with

the help of my sewing instructor and this is what we came up with...

what you need: pair of jeans, scissors, sewing machine,

seam ripper, decorative trim and thread

first: cut the jeans to desired length and use

the seam ripper to open up the inner thigh and crotch seam.

next: cut two pieces of fabric from the left over

pant leg and place in the open seams folding

the crotch seam over onto the opposite leg (front and back)

then: pin on decorative trim to the bottom of skirt

finally: sew on trim

viola! you have now have a new/reused skirt for your little miss.

flower fields

i have to apologize. i wanted to post this a week ago and didn't get

the chance to do it. but, i wanted to share these photo's with you because

we had such a great time at the flower fields in carlsbad. we went about a

week and half ago, which was the last week of the season. hince my apology.

when i find a good place, i like to blog about it so you can check it out for

yourself. it is open year around, but i am not sure if they plant year round.

you can check it out on their website if your interested.

regardless, it's something to put on your calendar for next spring.

we had a blast! here's what we did...

we took pictures with flowers

the little miss stopped to draw the flowers

we posed like flowers

we smelled the flowers

we ran (literally) through a flower maze

and acted super goofy while we were doing it

the little miss mined for treasures

here's her bag of loot

and we got wind blown on a tractor ride

all in all we had a great time and we will for sure be back next year if not sooner.