An Afternoon. Eating Local.

I love trying new restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, pretty much any place I can have a delicious meal or treat! Before baby, it was much easier for me to plan out a day where I could drive to LA and cross off about 3-4 places from my "restaurants to try" list. I have missed doing that so I decided to look up places that were a bit more local. So now I have my list of places to try right here in Long Beach!

Since Miette (the adorable, mischievous little girl above) decided to boycott her nap today, we needed to get out of the house so we went to the first two places on my list. One is a bakery and the other is a clothing store.

Scratch Baked Goods. A small little bakery, coffee from Rose Park Roasters (who deliver fresh roasted coffee on bikes. I must try this!), tables if you want to enjoy a pastry or two, fresh breads...it was so hard to decide!

Since the bread was just baked I got this loaf of olive bread. I know Brian will love it.

And this vegetable pot pie (I devoured half of it before remembering I needed to take a picture!). So delicious. Parsnip, sweet potato, purple potato, mushrooms inside a puff pastry. Highly recommend trying this. I'm so excited to have a local bakery to get my morning pastries and fresh bread! And I hear the coffee is great, can't wait to try it.

Twig and Willow. Such a cute store. Beautiful jewelery, unique clothing, homemade jams, locally-made caramels, and more. Next time I may leave Miette with Brian so I can spend a little more time perusing the goods.

More bakeries and coffee shops to visit. Can't wait!

Crafting for Christmas

For the past 12 years, as a married couple, we haven't really decorated for Christmas (other than a tree and lights on the house). No stockings hung, no tree skirt, no snowmen or other things decorating the house. And each year we would get a Noble Fir tree.

This year everything is different. We bought our tree the weekend of Thanksgiving (a first!), we bought a Douglas Fir, I decorated the inside of the house, I made a tree skirt, stockings and wreaths. And our house was fully decorated by Tuesday...before December 1st.

I have to say, I love it. And (almost) everything was made from things I had around the house. So affordable and reusable. Love it!

Stockings. I was going with a red, gray and white color scheme this year so I used material from my fabric stash for these. The gray and red ruffle is for Miette, the solid red and gray is Brian's and the gray and white with red flower is for me. They are so cute and I'm excited to fill them all! Now, to figure out where to hang them...

Ruffle tree skirt. Made with material I've had for over 10 years, that belonged to my grandmother. We always had Christmas at her house so it's a great reminder of her and all our wonderful years spent together.

Yarn wreath. I had a wreath making party with a few friends and I love how each of our wreaths was so unique! I made this little one for Miette's room.

I like getting a fresh wreath for our front door but don't like spending much money. So, when we got our tree I picked up a few scrap branches to make a wreath. I got a wreath form for $2.50, Miette and I picked pine cones at the park, the holly is from a tree in our yard, I added some cranberries and a burlap bow. I spent $2.50 instead of $20 and I love it so much!

I'm looking forward to seeing White Christmas, the musical, with my mom in a few weeks as well as lots of time with friends, family and holiday baking!

What's New...

I'll be honest. I haven't had the motivation to blog. I've been busy at home creating. Cooking, baking, making jam, craft projects. But every time I think about doing a blog post, I get overwhelmed.

If I want to take pictures of the food or craft project, I need to think about how I want the finished picture to look. Then get the props out and decide if I want to take the pictures during Miette's nap or if I would rather do laundry, nothing or take a nap myself.

My computer isn't working at its peak so its more of an ordeal to turn it on, upload the pictures, edit them then think of what to write! And when I have a little more time at night I have more decisions about what to make for dinner, cleaning up the dishes, hanging with the husband and how to spend the rest of my child-free evening.

So, I guess at this stage in my life that my blogging with be infrequent. But I'll still try to get on every once in awhile to share a bit of my life.

What's new with me? Well, I have a new addiction. Making homemade jam. My first batch was a strawberry-balsamic jam and it was so amazing I had to try others. This summer in addition to the strawberry-balsamic I also made triple berry and peach-raspberry. I gave so many jars away that my stash was down to only one jar of each! So, I started making some Fall jams. Apple, pear, plum spiced jam, pear-raspberry and pear-orange marmalade are my recent concoctions. And they are all amazing!

My new fall wreath.

I spend a lot of time with this wonderful little girl.

Mini cake donuts. On top of chocolate cupcakes with mocha frosting. Delicious!

This year, I decided to make Miette's Halloween costume. Inspiration from Pinterest, of course. I love how it turned out!

Miette didn't want to wear the mask but I think she looked just as cute without it.


This kid LOVED trick-or-treating. Seriously. She was running down the street and saying "candy" over and over again.
Family pumpkins. My first pumpkin carving, ever. I carved both owls and Brian carved the funny face. It was so much fun.
November 1st. Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner. I can't wait!

Sewing: Messenger-style Bag

The other day I went for a walk with Miette. Just around the block. And as I started gathering my phone, tissue, keys (just the necessities) I realized I needed some small bag to carry these things. Not my big diaper bag. Not my purse. Something that I could throw over my shoulder and have both hands free.

So while we were walking, I designed this bag. I came home that night and cut all the fabric then sewed the next morning.


It's the perfect size and I just love how it turned out. There are a few things I would change next time around but for now this is just perfect for our walks around the block!



Well, I'm off to stuff some cloth diapers! Happy Thursday!