So the other night I was making PR food and I made my own fresh Sofrito. I have made this before and I love using it in my food but there's no real way to save what's left. I've put it in jars in the fridge...it keeps for a week at best. I've put it in ice cube trays....it makes the freezer smell (there's a lot of garlic and onion in this recipe) and the cubes get freezer burned easily. So the other night I felt so defeated that I just made the best batch I've ever made in my life and it was going to go to waste. :( booooo. If only I had containers that I could put a small few tablespoons in....and then it hit me!

I had a zillion of those little bags that they sell at the craft store for jewelry etc. PERFECT! Every thing fit into nice little portioned bags. Contained and "sealed" this was good enough to at least allow me to save my "secret sauce" for another occasion and it'd be so easy to defrost etc. Horray!!!

Then it hit me....why stop there?! My husband wishes there was a way to take a sandwich to work with mayo mustard etc with out getting the bread soggy! Or a salad without having to get the lettuce all mixed up with the dressing! You can totally portion control it too So now I will never have to deal with the fact there is that "little bit of sauce" that I have no container for....Because now I DO! Yippie!

I really think this could work for other things too....like baking soda, baking powder to measure out a couple of TBS or tbs of anything to have quick on hand (like for pancakes in the morning).

A small little bag of treats for kids? raisins? candy? perfect and ah-maze-zing!

this is a really really smart idea and i hope that all of you can use it :) it has changed my life forever :)

oh hi! i figured out my password! so now i can come back. sorry about being gone.

here's what i did for a Wild Kratts birthday party for boy blue.
I made some creature power suits out of black felt and colored felt.  For the middle of the paw print I made it into a pocket so that the kids could put their discs "in" their suits...so it was just two pieces sewed in a circle and then sewn on the vest part in a 1/2 circle

the cake was just regular cake decorated like a nature scene but I went to the grocery store bakery with a picture of some creature power discs so they could print it out on edible paper. I got two sheets printed...i could have survived with just one...but..anyway yeah. It made such a HUGE difference to just be able to throw them on to finish the design, not worry about needing to peel off the paper b/c you can't eat it etc. It was just the right touch and so much easier for me than trying to do it myself. (only about 7 dollars a page not bad at all!)

For the games we had the kids wear their power suits then we tied streamers around their waists and they had to run around a pull off each other's "tails"it was so much fun we did it a couple of times.  Then for the "fish" powers we filled blue balloons with air and then "trapped" them in the hall so that it would be like water to swim in just...less wet. LOVED IT! We then had the kids eat cookies that were like sticks as fast as they could for their beaver power! They loved it.  The bat powers we did a take on Marco Polo, but we said Wild Kratts instead.

so that was how boy blue turned 4! hooray!

ps...here's the jpeg of the discs just incase you want them too :)

i never buy spagetti sauce in a jar. i always always make it. but tonight i was in the kind of bind you get in sometimes where i needed to have sauce DONE b/c it would take less than 10mins to put dinner on a plate if i did. SO i bought this little jar of liquid gold and i have to say i'm going to go to the store and buy at least 2 maybe 3 more. it was soo good. and it would be good to put together a "make in case of emgency-like-pica-can't-cook-tonight" kind of thing. Yes actually that is exactly why i'm going to buy some more of it. I like thier alfredo one too....but it has wine in it and i dont' think warming it up actually cooks the wine out so....

anyway. delish! and so what we needed tonight with both kids having a fever from who knows where but here's hoping that they are over it by tomorrow....what? i know it's wishful thinking....but if i could have one wish....right now it'd be that....or that we were financially free.....no i think the health thing. yeah. ok better go to bed now for my own health. :) night

today was a good workout and so far we've had a pretty good start to the day.

yesterday we hung the hammock and i have a retractable clothesline now :) horray! and it's been almost an entire year since we've used a dryer....weird. since it's started to warm up (bleh!!) i think that we still might not hook up the dryer and just continue on with the way we've been doing things. also yesterday i made a whole list of things that needed to be done and i got about 80 percent of the list done. It was good to cross things off and also the best part was that i knew that i had done things and not just forgotten about doing them. Here's hoping that i can finish off that other 20 percent today :) LATER

so little boy blue was starting to have hair that made funny shapes so the other day after he woke up from a nap and it was pretty bad i snapped a pic of it and then whisked him off to have it cut. of course there were tears lots of them. It's hard to cut your little ones hair but it had gone on too long. he just looked scruffy all the time and i knew a cut would help him look cleaned up. OH! note the green wall in the background it is the second wall in our house that we have painted and i really love it. it's just the right kind of energizing green that's a little muted that i was going fortada! and even though i have no NO training i think he looks better. and older which is good because he's a sunbeam now! so he should look like he's ready for primary. oh and this is thier "big" gift santa brought them. i debated about getting it or a regular kitchen and just desided that this would be good. i'm glad i did. the only thing i keep thinking about is how i should make some felt food for them :) :) for extra hours and hours of play.

practicing my photography skills or rather trying to develop them. i think the little photo shoot in the back yard came out pretty good! I am slowing feeling more confident and more knowledgeable

a few of our thanksgiving trip out to cali. my nephew took the one of sebi and me i think he did a great job!

more halloween fun we dipped this cookies on a stick in melting chocolate (pretty ez) and added eyes and some other details. I think we'll give them to the Nursery leaders to try and score some points with all of them.

Soliluz LOVED her little pumpkin. It was fun to make jack-o-lanterns yesterday for FHE

We went to the Fair. It was nice but expensive (lame)

sometimes its nice to be a little buzy. hopefully next time i post it'll have some fotos of the back yard!!!! (because it'll be done)