We're moving and random pictures

We as in the Sangria household.  With the arrival of Lil Cinnamon we have outgrown our current home.  If you are a personal friend and reading this we are only moving about 5 minutes away, not across the country as some have already asked.  And because of this move it has left very little time for creating.  Mostly just purging of things.  Right now I'm purging my kitchen of food that I want to use up and not move and I'm also using this time to just play around with my new (3 months old now) camera.  This past summer I went a little nuts buying berries and freezing them for winter use.  So I made a lemon and blueberry loaf cake courtesy of Martha Stewart.  

Umm, whoopsie?  haha.  I guess I didn't use enough flour on the bottom.  Good thing it was just for Mr. Sangria and myself.  Depite the look it tasted wonderful.  But I don't think I'll make this again anytime soon.  There were just too many steps in this recipe and lately I'm more of an instant gratification kind of girl.

I also made some brownies for a Super Bowl party that we attended.  I have some hard core NY Giants fan friends.  It's always fun going to Super Bowl parties when people are legit fans, not just "well I choose this team just because" type of fans.  They go nuts.  We have an amazing group of friends and they are pretty much split between former New Yorkers and former Boston residents.  Sadly we cannot mix these friends during Super Bowl games.  Mr. Sangria is an Eagles fan as he grew up in Philly but since the in laws live in NY now we got to attend the NY fan screening.  But back to the brownies, another thing to remove from the kitchen.  I'm not sure how the box got into my kitchen as I'm pretty crazy about not using boxed brownies.  Oh well.  With the large amounts of alchol consumed no one noticed.  Who am I kidding, no one cared.

Have you heard about Pinterst?  Of course you have.  Well I stumbled across this pin and decided to take on this challenge.  I'm not going to bore you with every picture this month but just because I think it's fun here are a few.

10am (as well as 8am and usually 3pm)

Dinner - pepperchini tortellini salad.

Cheers,

Cinnamon Sangria

This past Sunday I ran the Tinkerbell 1/2 Marathon at Disneyland.  It was a lot of fun.  My first race post Lil Cinnamon.  30 friends ran for a friends 30th birthday.  Most of them dressed up as Tinkerbell.  We all had a blast.  It wasn't anywhere close to my best time but considering we stopped to have many pictures taken and I've only been back in the running game for a month now I'm happy.  And I have new bling to add to my collection.  Tinkerbell spins - it's more fun than it looks.

Next race is the Hollywood Half Marathon in April.

Cheers!

A week in mobile pictures

Our orchid finally died.  So sad.  I meant to take a picture of it when it had one sad flower bloom left on it but never got around to it.  I received it as a gift after Lil Cinnamon was born and it was so beautiful.  I kept it alive for 4.5 months which is about 4x as long as I've ever kept an orchid alive.  They just hate me, not sure why.  I've heard overwatering is what kills them.  Next time I promise to ignore completely any plant that is given to me.

I'm in "training" for a half marathon next weekend.  Disney's Tinkerbell Half Marathon.  I say "training" because I only started running again 2 weeks ago after taking an entire year off.  I exercised throughout my pregnancy but didn't do any running as it made me incredibly winded.  I can take a year off and get back into the grove in 3 week right?  Probably not.  As long as I'm not the last person to finish I'm ok with whatever my time is.  I run around this lake and it's so peaceful and beautiful.

Last Monday Mr. Sangria, Lil Cinnamon, and myself went to the Staples Center for the LA Clippers vs the NJ Knicks.  Or maybe it was the Nets?  Not sure.  One of my friends had box tickets and invited all of the babies and families from our "Mom and Me" class.  By far the cutest box there.  It was great to go but I didn't watch 1 minute of that game.  Mr. Sangria could not believe we had such great tickets and no one but himself and another dad watched the game.  We were too busy gabbing to be bothered with sports.

Cheers!

Cinnamon Sangria

2012 already?!?

Happy 2012 Everyone!

I hope your holidays were filled with cheer. 

Now that Lil Cinnamon is a bit older (4 months now – wow times flies) I’m getting a little bit more time to do things.  She naps longer and sleeps through the night, well most nights.  Fingers crossed it stays this way!

Also Mr. Sangria had 2.5 weeks off at the end of December as his company was closed for the holidays.  That gave me tons of time to get my house organized and such.  So I’m starting 2012 off with a clean slate, almost.  There is still some hoarding/clutter going on in the Sangria household as I can’t quit cold turkey!  But at least now most of my time won't be devoted to organizing.

I’m normally not one for making New Year’s resolutions.  I find them a little hokey.  But call me hokey this year.  By golly, I’m keeping this place clutter free and I’m doing something creative more often.  I should clairify that my house is not dirty, you can eat off the floors,  the problem is clutter and mail.   I curse the credit card companies that send me pre-approval letters on a daily basis.  I have a huge shredding stack that gets larger and larger. 

Back to the point of this post.  Mr. Sangria bought me a necklace back in November that I wear daily.  It has Lil Cinnamon's initial and a diamond.  Love it!  But it’s a wonder that necklace hasn’t been snapped off my neck by now.  It’s only a matter of time as we’ve had some close calls already.  It’s small and dainty but sometimes something else is needed.   So I made this scarf.  It’s great for year round wear.  Summer or winter.  As this 83 degree heat we are having today has me confused as to what season we are in.  Lil Cinnamon can grab and pull all she wants and she won’t break it.  I think it will look great with jeans and a t-shirt. 

Cheers!

Cinnamon Sangria

Thanksgiving

Lil Cinnamon is taking up a lot more time than I had imagined so I haven't done anything creative in quite a while.  (Don't take that as me complaining because I couldn't be happier being at her beck and call 24 hours a day.)  We finally got her sleeping longer stretches throughout the night so I'm starting to feel like myself again.  A special shout out to Mr. Sangria for helping me get her to sleep.  Let's just say he was consoling two crying ladies in our house this weekend.

Anyway the holidays are upon us.  I can't believe it!  I'm not ready!  Not that I have anything that I need to be ready for.  We are pretty low key around here. 

My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving.  Love it!  It's about being with friends and family and not stressed out about presents, etc.  Which is why it burns me up that they are already playing Christmas music on the radio and every other commercial on TV is a holiday one.  Even in the day of DVRs I still watch the occasional commercial when I can't reach for the remote while feeding Lil Cinnamon.

RESPECT THE TURKEY!! - coming from a vegetarian.  :)
So in honor of my favorite holiday I thought I'd share some Thanksgiving/fall love.

All images taken from Pinterest.

Candy Corn Anyone?

How about if it looked like this?

Honestly I wasn't going to dress up Lil Cinnamon for Halloween.  I figured she will only be 8 weeks and quite frankly she's still a little blobby so what's the point.  That was the sleep deprived me.  Once I had my usual 8 cups of coffee the regular me kicked in and realized I would regret it forever if I didn't dress her up in something.  And really aren't babies the cutest when they are dressed up?  I 100% believe it's perfectly acceptable to dress your baby up in something with ears for no reason at all.  Hoodies with bear ears, bunny ears on a bathrobe, etc.
But I don't have time to come up with an elaborate costume.  A friend sent me a picture of a baby dressed as a candy corn and I knew that's what I had to make. 
Because it was so easy I thought I'd share how I made it with you in case you want to do the same.  It took a little over an hour and cost around $15 if that.  Easy peasy.

First I bought 1/2 yard each of yellow, orange, and white fleece.  I chose fleece because you don't have to finish the cut edges.  You won't need that much white fleece but I always buy more just to be on the safe side.  
Also I purchased an invisible zipper.  A 14 inch zipper should do the trick.

Depending on the height of your purchased fleece you might be able to cut it in half which I did.  Then I sewed the yellow and orange fleece together lengthwise.
I folded the sewn piece over in half and place a sleep sack that I had over it and traced.  If you don't have a sleep sack you can just freestyle this drawing. It doesn't have to be perfect, just try to make it look like the bottom of a candy corn. 

Take one piece and cut a slit about 12" long for a 14" zipper.  This isn't an exact science, just make sure your zipper is longer than the slit.
A lot of people are intimidated by invisible zippers but you don't have to be.  And explaining how to install it is much harder than actually doing it.  **Please note that you'll need an invisible zipper foot for your sewing machine.  If you have one you probably already know how to install one.  If not don't worry, you can use a regular zipper or buttons, ties, etc.  Get creative.

Open the zipper and place it on the left garment piece, on the outside of the fabric, with the wrong side of the zipper facing up.  I lined up the zipper tape with the edge of the slit.  Place the lefthand groove of the zipper foot over the coils of the zipper and sew.

Next, you will sew the other  half of the zipper to your fabric. Line up the top of the zipper and top of your fabric, just opposite as before.  Make sure the end of the zipper tape matches the cut side of the fabric.  Again as a reminder, you should be looking at the outside of your garment but looking at the wrong side of the zipper.

Turn the zipper into the fabric and zip up. If you need more detailed instructions there are countless Youtube videos.  Check them out!

Then place the front and back side of the body together with the wrong sides facing out.  Sew around the body with a 1/4" seam allowance making sure to not sew the arm and neck holes together like I almost did!  Turn inside out and you are done with the body.  Easy wasn't it?

Lastly all we have to do is make the hat.
Measure your child’s head and add one inch to that. For my costume, that was 15″+1=16″. Then cut the fleece with that measurement for the width.  I used 7" for the how tall it should be.  Fold the cut piece in half and sew along the short side.

Now measure the width of the hat (not counting the seam) and divide that by four. For me, that was 8″ / 4 = 2″.   Put a pin this distance from the left and another one this distance from the right. Then I placed a pin 2 inchs up on the sides.  On each side, sew a row of stitches from the top pin down to the side pin.

Pick the hat up and squish the top end so that the gap opens up. Pull the top and bottom flaps so that the gap is closed, and you have what looks like a cross shape. There should be no hole in the top anymore. Put some pins in to hold it in place.

Sew a row of stitches on each new flap, going from the center of the top down to the same point on the other seams (1 1/4" up from the bottom)

Trim the excess and you should have a nice pointed beanie shape.  Flip it inside out and your hat is done!

As tempting as it is, don't eat this candy corn!
Have a safe and happy Halloween!
Cheers!

Latest Creation

I have been away from creating things for over the past month.  It is because I've made the best thing ever.  A new person!
My sweet baby girl was born Sept 1, 2011.

1 very short month later she now looks like this.

It's hard to believe I could love somone as much as I love her.  Even at 2am!!!