Sale for a Dress

Shabby Apple dresses have become my new obsession.

I love all the dresses, I dream about all the dresses, I plot ways that I can convince hubby to let me buy the dresses...

With this dress,

and this dress,

and this dress,

all in mind I am having a sale on everything in my shop in an attempt to raise some funds for my dress needs.

Stop by and check out the shop, help a girl out!!

**all images are taken from the Shabby Apple website**

Musical Monday: Dinosaur Train - Hungry Hungry Herbivore

This week is for my boys.

They love this song and always sing along. It's super cute!

Where I've been

The last few days have been a bit of a jumble of activities...

I've been silk screening...

sewing...

and baking...

my in laws are visiting, we've been play grouping, churching and planning Eli's birthday party.

I'm really excited with how everything is looking for Eli's party (which is tomorrow), and I can't wait to share a bunch of pictures!

I finished the juice cleanse no problem and am planning a post dedicated to my experience as soon as I get a chance to spend some quality time with my keyboard, hopefully next week sometime.

My daddy sent this with hubby's parents and I am absolutely in love!

Isn't it just the cutest?? I think he did such a great job!!

On the Mend

I think I can finally say our little family is on the mend from the bug that got passed around.

Zac did end up getting it and although he didn't throw up, he had a pretty high fever and generally felt like crap. I think he choose to sleep most of Friday/Saturday and started to come around on Sunday.

Eli's birthday party is scheduled for this weekend and my in laws are coming for a week long visit on Thurday. So glad we got it all out of our systems in time to prepare for and enjoy those events!

Musical Monday: Regina Spektor - Eet

Loooooove this one!!!

An Update & Jewelry

My juice cleanse is going quite well. So far I haven't been hungry, unless I'm due for a juice, and the juice seems to be satisfying me nicely. I'm not a huge fan of the green juice, but I'm able to get it down provided I follow it with a chaser of lemon water after every gulp.

Eli is sick. He's got quite a cough that often results in him throwing up all over the place. Which means my house sounds of sickness, smells of vomit, we're out of kleenex and my washing machine has been going for days. Zac just started coughing today, I'm hoping we'll be able to catch it early though and he doesn't get quite as bad as Eli.

In happy news though last weekend I made some necklaces that I'm really excited about!! I wish I could claim them all as my original ideas, but I will admit to being overly inspired by Violet Bella. Since this was my first go at making this type of jewelry I wanted to try and make something I knew worked instead of just going crazy at first. Now that I feel like I've got a good handle on the basics I fully intend to venture out and start making some original creations!

While I love them all, I think this one is my most favourite. It's a globe shaped locket!!

My Vegetarian Menu

As I mentioned here I went vegetarian this week in prep for a juice cleanse I'm starting tomorrow.

I'm quite familiar with cleanses, but I've never done a juice cleanse before and since it is strongly recommended to stop eating meats and dairy before the cleanse I thought I should listen...

But I'm not good at listening so as you will see I only cut out meat... I'm hoping I wont go into dairy withdrawal my first day...

I thought I'd share some of the things I ate this week though, incase you were thinking of dropping meat out of the occasional meal and weren't sure what food was left...

I've had that problem before... there's no shame in loving meat...

Zucchini Lasagna

Cut out the meat in the sauce and add strips on zucchini in addition to, or as a substitute for the noodles. The zucchini sucks up the flavor of the sauce so you can, honestly, not taste it.

Veggies, Hummus & Homemade Tortilla Chips

I get that not everyone like hummus, but I love the stuff and could eat a freaky amount of it. For the chips I just cut round tortillas into about 8 wedges, drizzled with olive oil and cooked at 350 about 10 minutes, until they're crispy.

Leak, Yellow Pepper & Cheese filled Herb Tortellini

I love soups, so when cutting out meat I tend to turn to them... well soups and carbs...

Cut up about 2 leeks and 1/2 yellow pepper and soften in a pot, add some vegetable broth, bring to a boil then add the tortellini until it's ready. Yummers!

(that night I just made the guys their own tortellini, with meat, and put the left over sauce from the lasagna above)

More soup...

this one was store bought (gasp! I know), but I had it with bread and a couple slices of cheese, it made for a yummy meal.

Spaghetti Squash with Lemon, Garlic, Parsley & Shrimp

Sounds weird, but this was freaking tasty! Roast the spaghetti squash at 400 for an hour and then cut in half, spoon out the seeds & go at the flesh with a fork. It goes all spaghetti noodle like... I sauteed shrimp & garlic in olive oil until it was almost ready, added some lemon juice and zest and some parsley then added the spaghetti squash until it was warmed all the way through. Then I covered the sucker with a bunch of parmesan cheese.

I can honestly say I didn't miss meat at all this week!

now on to the juicing... I'm not sure how much I'm going to bombard you with updates, I might do it daily (for the 3 days of the cleanse) or you might just get a summary once I'm all done... we'll see!

I'll surprise you...

It's Here!!

It's here! It's here! It's here!

Today hubby arrived home from work with this

I'm not gunna lie, I totally knew what it was.

That didn't stop my heart from skipping a beat though when I pulled this out of the box!!!

and then THIS!!!

eeeekkkk!!!!

I'm SO excited!!!

It's even better then I had expected.

I waited a long time for this baby too, a whole 3 months!!

not at all at the fault of Jo Totes though, I just wasn't completely sold on the colours available when I first decided this is what I was spending my birthday money on so I waited for my mustardy yellow one to come back in stock.

Seriously!! I can't stop grinning! I'm so excited!!!

You should go here and choose one of your own.

Musical Monday: Neil Young - Heart of Gold

I found this video and I loved it!

It's a live taping of the song in 1971.

Weekend Plans

I bought some beads and jewelry making supplies a few weeks ago and they've almost all arrived!

My weekend plans revolve mostly around trying my hand at jewelry making.

In other exciting news, I bought a juicer!!!

I haven't tried it out just yet but I can't wait to do so... later today or tomorrow perhaps...

What are your weekend plans?

Adorably Reclaimed & So Inspiring!

I recently discovered this artist on Etsy and just about died.

We are having a robot themed birthday party for Eli this year and I wish so much we could afford to buy each and every item in Reclaim2Fame to use as decorations!

I had to share because I am crazy excited about these, I mean seriously how cute are they?!?

And there's dog's too!

These ones are my absolute favourites.

Seriously, you have to check out Reclaim2Fame, there is crazy inspiring stuff there!

**all images in this post can be sourced to Reclaim2Fame's Etsy shop**

An Entire Week & A Cake

I can't believe it's been an entire week since my last post!

Life has continued to be a blur of cake decorating, cleaning, long car trips and sickness.

Last week I mentioned the cake I was making for a sweet little girl's third birthday.

I was a little disappointed with the colours, I was hoping they would be bolder, but overall I was pleased with the cake!

Friday morning I received a call from the children's hospital reminding me of an apt that was booked 2 years ago as a follow up for Zac.

He was born with a heart murmur and although it's not a big concern it is something the Dr's like to keep an eye on to ensure it's only getting smaller with his age.

A reminder on Friday for an apt on Monday made for a bit of scrambling on our part as the hospital is about 3.5 hours away. That trip with 2 kids is not usually a fun time...

This trip though hubby started to feel under the weather on the way to the hospital. He was able to get us there (he was driving) but as soon as the van was in park at the hospital he pretty much crumbled. He spent the rest of the trip in the passenger seat holding his head praying for death while I tried to navigate around an unfamiliar city with less then steller driving skills.

We made it back to the rooms where we were staying around 4pm and he slept until morning. We had some running around to accomplish while in "the big city" so hubs slept in the back seat while I drove and amused the boys. Hubby was able to muster up the energy to deal with the boys while I drove our long trip home.

It was quite possibly the most stressful trip into "town" we have ever made!

Turns out hubby has strep throat.

Yesterday I started to feel under the weather but I think the worst of it was last night and this morning. I'm just hoping with all my might that the boys can avoid catching anything.

All that to be said, I think I should be back to regular posts now!

I'm getting ready to do a juice cleanse later this week and have gone vegetarian in prep. for it, so I have loads to share! but more on that later.

Have a lovely evening!!