Super Bowl Stuff and Such...

We decided to have a few friends over to watch the Super Bowl and I decided to attempt a semi-hard looking recipe for Soft Pretzel Bites from What's Gaby Cooking.  It wasn't that it was really complex, it just seemed to have a lot of steps.  I got to use my dough hook for the first time and there was even a fun step where you poured baking soda into a pot of boiling water.  You can check out the recipe for more details.

My final picture isn't great but they tasted really good and surprisingly pretzel like.  It was a long process but worth it.

We had a ton of other food as per usual.  B made some delightful blue cheese stuffed sliders.

I missed most of the commercials but I had a good reason.....

There was a baby there! It's my new mini BFF, KMU (we will call her that for the time being, I don't want her to get too famous too fast, Suri Cruise style). Beezus5 had a baby on her exact due date and her first outing was to my basement for some football.  I'm pretty sure Hobie thought she was a giant burrito.

"Hobie, this is not food, it's a tiny person."

Look at her pretty hair.

 I'm such a natural with babies....well I'm working on it.

Telling her stories about her mom from the olden days.

So that was my Super Bowl experience. 

What did you do?
Did you bake anything?
Did any new babies attend your Super Bowl Party?

Baby Shower Craft Hour-Alphabet Book

This weekend, my friends and I had a baby shower for Beezus5 who is having a baby in January-ish.  I think that the most important thing about party planning is trying to make it personalized to the individual.  Beezus5 likes reading so we had a book themed baby shower (with some owls and Harry Potter and Fall stuff thrown in there too).

I kind of like making stuff, so I thought it would be fun to force people to make a craft at the baby shower.  We made an alphabet book for B5 and her baby that also doubled as a guest book so one day mini B5 will know who came to her mom's baby shower.

I bought a photo album and made a page for each letter of the alphabet (by adding alphabet sticker).  Then we had each person draw or color a page and sign the back.  I was concerned that some people would not want to draw (or think they were not good enough at drawing) so I found some alphabet pictures at the Dollar Tree that people could just color if they did not want to draw.

Shanzie and my mom were so excited to be getting their craft on...

This ended up working much better than I thought it would.  I have come to realize recently that not everyone loves crafting or making stuff as much as me, but everyone at the shower willingly participated in this craft.   Some of the drawings were realllllly awesome (not my drawing of a jar of jam per se)...

Have you ever been to a baby shower where you had to make a craft?

Don't you wish you had your own ABC book?

Evolution of a Baby Shower Invite

When my friend, Beezus5, told me she was pregnant, I was obviously excited for her to have a baby and start a family and stuff but I was pretty much equally as excited about planning a baby shower.  I knew from the start that I wanted to make the invitations.  Somehow.  I'm not a pro, nor do I have any special software.  Also, I've never actually made invitations before.  But after some trial and error I was able to make something that I deemed acceptable and something I think she liked.  I used colored pencils, paper, a scanner, a computer, Microsoft Paint, Picasa, a printer and my trusty paper cutter.

B5 likes the following things....orange, green, books, owls and Harry Potter, so I tried to incorporate those into the invite (which also goes with the theme of the shower which we can discuss later).  She also likes Christian Bale, Pearl Jam and Liver Pudding but I didn't really know how to work those in.

I started by trying to 'draw' something in Microsoft Paint.  I didn't really like those that much.

Then I made a sketch and scanned it onto my computer.  This seemed like something I could work with.  The sketches started out very rough and evolved over time.

Finally I used colored pencils to draw this.

Then I scanned it on to my computer and saved it in the highest resolution I could.  I opened it up in Picasa and added text with all the shower info.  I printed it out (using the high quality photo setting) onto card stock from Michaels and trimmed them up with my paper cutter.

And here's the final product (ok I altered the text a bit).

And here's a picture of it on my fridge so I remember to go and stuff.

What do you think?

Should I have used pastel colors to be more babyshowerriffic?

Have you ever made your own invitations?

Would you read 'Hedwig Flies Again' if it were a real book?

The Graduate and/or How to Make a Graduation Present Out of Old Emails

This week is a big week for Beezus5.  Yesterday she graduated from grad school and today is her 30th birthday.  But she has a birthday every year so let's focus on grad school.  Three years ago, she decided that she didn't want to spend the rest of her days "making copies and moving commas around in documents", so she decided to go to school for Speech Language Pathology. 

This was a long and trying road for both of us.  For her, it was because she actually had to go to school and do homework and take tests and do projects and stuff.  For me, it was because I had to constantly inspire her with witty emails, quotes, and pictures.  At some point in the Fall of 2008, I decided to start sending her inspirational emails.  At this time she was taking undergrad pre-req classes in order to get into the graduate school program.  She was also still working her day job.  My inspirational emails included....

Song Lyrics......
such as, 'I Believe I can Fly' by R. Kelly.

Pictures.....

Inspirational Quotes

"Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you."

John F. Kennedy
"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."
Vidal Sassoon
"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, just as much to stand up to our friends." Dumbledore

Quotes from TV Shows....
I won't bore you with these but The Office, 24 and Lost all feature their fair share of inspirational quotes.  I even typed out the "Live Together, Die Alone" speech from Lost one day.  I really think that got her through some tough tests.

You might be wondering why I felt it necessary to send these types of emails out several times a week.  It was mostly because Beezus5 went all Hermione (Harry Potter reference) on me and started acting mildly crazy for a few months.  This mostly occurred during 2009 when she was waiting to hear if she was officially accepted into the graduate program.  Here is some background info...she made straight A's in all her pre-req classes,  all her teachers jumped at the chance to write her recommendations, she did volunteer work, she is fluent in Spanish (which made her a hot commodity in the SLP field), etc.  However, she convinced herself she wasn't going to get in based on the following reasons....

"If we are annoying and have bad personalities, they won't let us in"
"I talk a lot in class.  Maybe too much.  Maybe they think I'm a kiss ass"
"I turned my observations in really late"
"I got an 84 on a test"

Amazingly, in mid-March, B5 got the glorious news that she had been accepted into the program and was also offered a Graduate Assistantship (aka money).  I'm pretty sure they only give those to the smart kids.  After that it was semi-smooth sailing.   There was still lots of work (for her) but I stopped having to send the inspirational emails every day.  I guess if I had to add it up, she gets 90% credit for her degree while 10% goes to me.

To celebrate the occasion, I printed out a bunch of our old email correspondences and gmail chats and turned them into a memoir.

I also ordered her this owl picture from Etsy because she likes owls and because owls are wise, like her.

So congrats B5 and oh yeah, Happy Birthday!

PS-And congrats to my brother (who I'm pretty sure does not read this blog) who is graduating from grad school today also!  I never had to send him inspirational emails so I can't really take any credit for his degree.