Pandora

Recently I created a Bob Marley station on my Pandora. Today this song came on:

Before I was born Eli was the baby and he was an especially fussy baby. When he would cry my oldest brother Ben would sing him this song. So now every time I hear it I have a mental image of cute little toddler Ben singing this song to a fat little baby Eli. That, combined along with the happy lyrics, I find myself grinning from ear to ear.

Aww :D

Bacon

It seems like ever since I left home it seems like certain food items prices have been increasing exponentially. One such item is Bacon. In software when there is a glitch in a program people invent "work arounds" Its a odd slightly complicated way to maneuver around said glitch.

Recently I have found the work around for bacon prices. It is called Sunny Valley Ends and Pieces.

This is a pork belly:

And after they cut out those nice uniform bacon slices there are leftover chunks and bits. Those bits end up in a bulk package with a friendly sticker at WinCo.

They layer the few strips in the mix on the outside of the package so you think hey most of this will be usable. Once you open it up you find those were the only things in the entire 3lb package that resemble bacon. At first I was very disappointed. It's a grab bag between big ham like chunks the size of my fist and similar sized lard hunks, to little marble sized pieces, to slices so thin you can see right through them. It takes me about half an hour to sort through and make 3 bowls:

Lard:

Solid Meat:

Friable Bacon:

The last group I end up with about 10 slices and the rest 3 lbs is divided between the first 2. I chop the ham like chunks into lovely bacon bits that I freeze in little servings. (I can just toss the little frozen serving into a pan and it thaws and fries up just the right amount of bacon for a two person omelet or to be used on top of a pizza.) Next I render down the lard. When it goes liquid I strain it and refrigerate to use later for cooking eggs or other savory dishes. We just used up the last of it two weeks ago so I've been going through the process again today.

Right now I'm rendering and from the kitchen, to the bedroom, to the laundry room it all smells like bacon! YUM :)

5 Little Pumpkins

A few years ago when I took my very first 3DS Max* class I made this little video. I spent countless hours digitally sculpting, positioning, lighting and timing the project. Its obviously amateur but I was pretty happy with the results. I posted it on YouTube so I could easily share it with my family.

I had completely forgotten about it until yesterday when I got a email from you tube saying there was a comment on my video. I went and watched it again and then I saw... OVER 5,000 people had watched my little video!

Happy Halloween everybody :)

*3DS Max is a 3 dimensional software program that is used to make the characters and scenes in movies like Nemo, Toy Story, and Avatar

Crafty Update

Its amusing that so many of my posts should start out with stories of Eli but he was such a quotable little boy so here it goes :) When Eli was about 4 or so he was pretending to be a little native american brave. He made himself fishing spears and would collect "herbs" and things for his little tepee. His favorite invention though was a little bow he made that could actually send a little stick "arrow" halfway across the front yard. My mom brought out the video camera to record his new invention. She was telling how impressed she was with this new creation of his and he puts his hands on his hips and says in a very self assured voice. "Well, I'm Proud I did it"

So my newest addition to our little etsy shop are these rings. I made them out of a ring base and old watch parts. And yes I'm Proud I did it ;)

X96

So last month on a Tuesday at 6am in the morning you would have found me sitting on a sidewalk in front of a run down record store with about 100 other people. We were waiting in line for this year's $10 tickets. Almost every year the Alt Rock radio station here in Utah (called X96), throws a HUGE concert with tons of different bands, both signed and local, and they sell their first group tickets for only 10 bucks! The prices keep going up until day of the show when they are 30 dollars (still not a bad deal). The line up this year was Panic at the Disco, Anberlin, Switchfoot, Neon Trees, She Wants Revenge, Brogan Kelby, Sleeper Agent, Grouplove, and King Niko. There are two outdoor stages and the show starts at 11:30am and goes until after 8pm.

Yesterday was the show!!!! Wahoo! The bands I was most excited to see were Panic, Anberlin, and Neon Trees. Richard was super excited to see She Wants Revenge, he's loved them even longer than he's loved me :) The pictures I took with my phone make us look way further away then we actually were.

Most of the bands we wanted to see were at the lower stage and we found this great big cement planter rather close to the stage. We could sit up there and be a whole head above everyone else. Plus no getting shoved around by and excited crowd! My favorite find of the show was a band called Sleeper Agent. I had only heard one of their songs before but it turns out they were one of the best bands there! I got them to sign my jacket! Their Bass Player thought I was a cutie :D So ya I probably could have dated a rock star if I hadn't already found my perfect man. Speaking of my perfect man, Richard got to meet the lead singer and lead guitarist from She Wants Revenge. They signed my jacket too :)

Here he is with them:

Here is some video from Neon Tree's:

They put on a great show, they even played some new stuff that hasn't hit radio or CD yet. Their drummer, Elaine Bradley, is one of the coolest female rockers of all time. I hung around after the show and she came out to meet us!!! She is super nice too!

The crowd was so huge for Panic that we couldn't even see the stage :( But they were mostly playing music from their new CD and honestly its not anywhere as good as their old stuff. This is as close to them as I got! haha

They were the last show so we skipped out early, No traffic jam for us!!!

Oh and here is a fun crowd picture:

Where's Waldo? (look hard he's in there)

Here are the web sites of the bands I talked about:

Neon Trees: http://www.fameisdead.com/default.aspx#!all

Sleeper Agent: http://sleeperagentmusic.com/tour/

She Wants Revenge http://www.shewantsrevenge.com/

Panic at the Disco: http://www.panicatthedisco.com/

One Beach

I saw this video and really liked it! Its 24 mins long though, so make sure you have time for the whole thing :)

A quick post called I love The Very Hungry Caterpillar

When I was looking for the picture in my last post I stumbled upon so many more fun very hungry caterpillar baby and toddler stuff. I decided to make a separate post just about them.

First here is a blog about making these onesies

http://kronhaus.wordpress.com/tag/very-hungry-caterpillar-fabric/

Also this clever mom who makes this skirt combo:

http://helpinglittlehands.blogspot.com/2010/04/very-hungry-caterpillar-applique.html

Pottery Barn makes this cute crib set

It would be a pretty easy quilting task though I bet.

They also do these beautiful bedding sets:

This would be a cute mom and baby or sibling costume set:

And who could resist caterpillar toes!

http://pleasegivepeasachance.blogspot.com/2011/07/free-friday-vhc-toes.html

Crafty

We have a home video of my dad making split rails from cedar logs. As usual all three of us are milling around being the peanut gallery and commenting on what we are observing. My mom polls us on what we think of this new found talent of our Papa. Ben and I make various positive comments. Eli however, sees this as a great moment to get right up in the camera, bug his eyes out a bit, and declare in a loud voice "I think he's Crafty!" So that is the theme of this post.

As I mentioned in earlier posts we have been working on Steam Punk gear. We have been selling some of our practice projects on Etsy and we had our 1 of the items sell in less than 20mins! So we will be doing more of that for sure!

Here are the two that we sold:

We also had the chance to be with a "MeetUp" group. They are a bunch of photographers who pick a theme and invite people to come pose for them. We had my costume mostly ready (I borrowed a shirt from a nice theater girl who brought a bunch of costume stuff to the event!) So here are some awesome pictures from that:

Richard made the goggles and customized the Nerf gun. I made the fascinatior and the brooch.

One of my good friends from the daycare is having a baby girl. We both love the Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I found this and am going to try to re-create it.

Also, I've been crocheting baby hats for all my pregnant or new mom friends... I'm still getting the size down right but they are soo cute. So hopefully pictures of those soon