Picnic

Holiday Citrus Garland

My kids are a bit gaga for citrus but with a son who has reflux, we are all on a 1-orange-per-day diet.  Since I somehow ended up with a bit of overabundance of the fall fruit, I decided to make a citrus garland for the holidays.

To Make:

Preheat oven to 225 degrees.

Slice the oranges into 1/4" rounds and place in a single layer on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake for approximately 2-1/2 hours.  Some ovens may require as little as 2 hours or as much as 3.  You can burn them (as I found out) so I recommend checking them every 15 minutes after the 2 hour mark.

For the last step, stringing them onto twine, I encourage you to enlist the help of your crafty kids.  It will hopefully buy you enough time to grab a 10-minute uninterrupted hot shower.  A total luxury!

Painting Pumpkins

Bijou and I decided to mix things up a bit this year and paint our pumpkins and break our pumpkin-carving tradition.  She had helped me with a few spray painting projects over her summer vacation and we both discovered, we love spray painting!  I love the instant gratification part of it, and she apparently, "loves the smell."  I think I might be in trouble with this one.

We decided on gold for the stem and black/silver for the pumpkin.  We actually used chalkboard paint for the black one so we could write something on it the day of Halloween.

How will you be decorating your pumpkins this year?

Embracing Fall

Fall is my favorite season and not just because the kids are back in school ;) I love all the cozy soup recipes, morning dips in our hot tub, s'more roasting on our fire pit and decorating the house for the upcoming holidays.  

To continue with our tradition, the kids and I visited Crystal Bay Farm in La Selva Beach to pick up our heirloom pumpkins, visit with the horse and pick a few organic apples.

Apple Chips

Preheat oven to 225 degrees.  Slice apples into 1/8" slices and remove seeds.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Bake for 1-1/2 hours.  Flip the apples and bake on the other side for 1 hour more.

This year, we bought white pumpkins and took a Pinterest-inspired approach and spray-painted them gold/black and gold/silver.  They've made a nice addition to our living room decor.

Photo Highlights from our Holidays

At Christmas, we were enjoying the snow in the Sierras at our cabin. And one-week later, we were enjoying the 68-degree weather at the beach in Santa Cruz where my family lives.  Life in Northern California sure is sweet!

{Bijou}

{At the tree lot}

{Doug and his boys}

{Me and Sweet E}

{A view from the tub}

{I totally appreciated Bijou's Christmas Day artwork}

{Bijou and her cousin Alistair at Manresa beach}

{twin photo shoot attempt, always an action shot}

{Me & Eero}

{Bijou}

A Holiday Tea

As you can see, I'm playing catch-up this week here on Picnic.  My excuse... one of my little guys broke out in hives and a double ear infection Christmas Day making my relaxing holiday... well, not so relaxing.  So although my blogging intentions were good, I have not found a good time to sit down and share some of my holiday highlights until now.

A mother-daughter tea was decided on among myself and 3 of my close girlfriends to celebrate the upcoming holidays.  Bijou was delighted that I had come up with a good alternative to taking her to the San Francisco Nutcracker.  I had taken her last year and she desparately wanted to go again but I told her that I needed a year off to recuperate from last year's experience which involved a few threats and a lot of whining.

The girls enjoyed their tea sandwiches and scones and we indulged in champagne and some traditional English fare.

Bijou had good manners (for the most part) and has earned the opportunity to see the Nutcracker in 2012. 

Yummies from Crown & Crumpet.

Bijou's Cookie Party

This post is a bit belated, but as I like to say, "better late than never!"

I'm couldn't be happier that my little 6-year-old has caught my entertaining bug.  When she asked if she could have a holiday party with her friends this year, I knew I couldn't say "no" even though our calendar was filling up quickly and I wasn't exactly in a good position to take on any more.

We decided on a cookie decorating party and found the perfect Evite invitation with the details scrolled out onto a recipe card.

My Mom was kind enough to mix, roll and bake the cookies for me during her weekly visit.

The kids got to work, frosting and sprinkling the cookies and licking their fingers, of course.

Advent Calendar

Each year I like to come up with a new advent calendar.  And last year I was so busy with colicky babies, reflux, breast pumps and night nurses that I skipped my annual tradition and bought a fair-trade chocolate one from Bittersweet instead.  Fortunately, times are much easier this year so with some muslin pouches from this shop and some red embroidery thread, I went to town making this year's calendar myself.  Now the true test... can Bijou tolerate having this thing hang above her bed without peeking in on what the next day's treatmay be?  I think not.

A baby-proofed Christmas.

As soon as Thanksgiving is wrapped up, I love to quickly indulge in the Christmas spirit and start decorating for the holiday.  This year, I had to get a bit creative since our two little ones would certainly love to get their curious hands on the lower branches of a Christmas tree and pull off the fragile ornaments.  And since "no" means "yes" in their world, I decided to avoid the traditional tree altogether this year.  The lights and gold tinsel puffs (99 cents for a strand that I just cut into small pieces) are from IKEA. 

Blowing off the dust

It has really made me sad that I have only managed to post on my blog 4 times in the last year.  It has come to the point that I think about getting back to it daily, I miss it SO much!  Well, today is hopefully the start of some more regular posting.  Fortunately, I have been able to get my hands dirty with some craft projects recently.  I love nothing more than some paint dried up under my fingernails.  (okay, seriously, there are a lot of things I love more than that, but you get the point.)

Today's project is simple and useful and can in fact be completed while one boy waddles around with a remote control pointing at things and making that button turn red and another boy chews on a wicker basket in attempt to relieve some teething pain.  

Supplies-

Japanese masking tape

brown craft tags 

* both items can be purchased in abundance from Etsy.

Directions-

Lay the tape in whatever design you'd like and trim the excess with scissors. I choose the classic and currentlytrendy chevron design.

voila!

I'm sure the recipient of your gifts this holiday will appreciate this handmade touch.

 

Valentine Gifts for the family

For Doug- A personalized wood tree slice/candle holder.

Bragging Bags

For Olive- A fuzzy felted love bowl for little earrings and things.

The Fuzzy Monkey

For Bijou- Five-years-old is the perfect age to master the yo-yo.

Something's Hiding In Here

For Wilder- What 5-month-old doesn't need a mustache on a stick?

Something's Hiding In Here

For Eero- A collection of stamps.  Now I realize he won't be able to use them for probably another year and a half but I figured it's never to early to start the art supply collection.

Happy Doodle Land