Half the Year Has

Gone and my lil manapua is 6 months old. Where has the time gone seriously? Can't he just stay this little but be able to feed and clothe himself...oh and wipe his own butt?

Where the Heck....

Have I been?

Geez, I haven't posted anything in here since May!  It's been a ghost town on my blog since then.  Well I'm alive and well and a whole lot has happened since I last posted.  I've been meaning to share some news that is quite exciting for us but haven't had the time to post it. 

The BIG announcement is that Ancheta & Co. is EXPANDING!!  Baby #2 is on his/her way this coming February 2012.  I'm so far 17 weeks along and we get to find out the baby's sex in about three weeks.  The Lil Booger is excited that he gets to be a big brother and can't wait to help out with the new baby. 



Finding out that we're expecting Baby #2 happened a day before our 4-year wedding anniversary and it was a great present to the both of us.  Now I can't wait to have enough energy and time to start making some baby craft items.  We're home in Hawaii right now so I've already gotten some really nice Hawaiian print material and before we left Oregon I scored some cheap diaper cloths. 

Our summer has been pretty busy with the Lil Booger in some sports camps offered through our city and parks recreation.  Adding with me feeling completely exhausted and finally experiencing "any time of the day" sickness during my first trimester.  We've had a fun filled summer I must say though with camping, sports, days at the park, and now to end it with a trip home to Hawaii.

That's pretty much why I've been M.I.A on my blog.  Now that I've gotten most of my energy back and not taking 4-hour naps in the afternoons anymore, I should be able to blog a little more now. LOL! 

So I'll see you all soon.  Here's a pic to end the blog with that I took the other day.  I was telling my hubby that I took a similar pic like this when the Lil Booger was six months old on our first trip home with him.  Just to think in a year we could have Baby #2 doing the same post ^_^.



I Want Candy!

For the baby shower I mentioned just a bit ago I made some candy favors to giveaway.  I made White Chocolate Pretzels that have a good balance of sweet and salty.  I used to make these back home in Hawaii once in a great while and before I became a SAHM here in Oregon I used to make these as Christmas treats for my co-workers.  Since I hadn't made these in a while I figure what better time than now.  They are really easy to make and inexpensive too.  I used to eyeball the amount of ingredients but found a much better recipe from one of my local Hawaii cookbooks "Local Style: Cooking With A Mainland Flair" that was a Project Graduation 2006 for Moanalua High School.  Here's the recipe and a few pictures of the making process. Enjoy!

WHITE CHOCOLATE PRETZELS
Ingredients:
1 lb. white chocolate (I use 2-12 oz. packages of chocolate since 1 lb. seems a little dry)
10-ounce low salt, buttered pretzel sticks
2 cups Rice Krispies

Directions:
Melt chocolate in microwave bowl 6-8 minutes on defrost setting (be careful not to burn; chocolate will still look solid).

Break apart pretzels and mix with Rice Krispies.  Pour melted chocolate over pretzel-cereal mixture.  Mix well, making sure treats are covered well.  Scoop mixture, while chocolate is still hot, into baking (cupcake) cups.  Treats will harden in 10-15 minutes.

Recipe says it makes 2 dozen cups.  This last batch I made was 30 cups, it all depends how much you put into the cupcake cups.  After putting them into the cups I like to add colored sprinkles, it's all up to you what kind you put depending on the occasion that you are giving them for.

2 pkgs. white chocolate



2 cups Rice Krispies



10-ounce Pretzels broken up

White chocolate already heated in the micro...see how it still keeps it shape? Don't worry it's fine, the chips underneath are the ones that were really melted in the process.  When adding them to the cereal and pretzel mixture the rest will melt.

Everything all mixed up.



Ready for consumption.



It's A Baby Shower!

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of throwing a friend's baby shower.  They already have two adorable boys and baby #3 was going to be a SURPRISE!  I've been used to knowing what gender I'm working with when I create baby shower gifts so it makes the process simpler with the specific pink for girls and blue for boys.  Not this time since I had to work with gender neutral colors and I found it to be a little more challenging to keep the color and print selection in the middle.  Nonetheless I like the challenge since it allows me to think more openly and I got to peruse more of the fabric section at Joann's, which by the way made my eyes go O_O in delight LOL.

Since I've been making alot of the onesie cupcakes and washcloth lollipops for recent gifts, I wanted to make another diaper wreath in addition try my hand in making fabric panelled burp cloths, a diaper pouch, and a blanket.  I can't remember where exactly I found the site where I learned how to construct a diaper wreath, all I did was Google "How to make a diaper wreath?" and a plethora of information came up.  I learned how to create the simple to do diaper burp cloths from the blog Chickpea Sewing Studio and she has other great tutorials as well.  Here's the tutorial link.

I also tried my hand in making a diaper clutch and I found a great tutorial on the blog site Diary of a Quilter.  I followed her tutorial exactly with the exception that I added a small handle on the side to attach a clip if wanted.  Here's the tutorial link.

As for the blanket, all I did was get 1-yard of printed flannel, 1-yard of super plush material, and enough satin binding and sewed the two 1-yard pieces with the binding on the edges.  Here are the results of my baby gifts to Baby Boy or Girl that we can't wait to meet.  Oh, also mommy was very happy to receive these very special gifts and the color of the material was perfect since she likes the color brown ^_^

Diaper Clutch

Diaper Burp Cloths

Baby Blanket

Diaper Wreath



It's Been Nearly A Month...

It's been nearly a month since I've last blogged and that was just for a giveaway I tried to win for.  Lots has happened since then and I have lots to blog about.  Been caught up with planning a baby shower for some dear friends and I got to create a few new things for their baby, which I'll get to post eventually.  I have been keeping up with the most recent meal plan but haven't had the chance to post the recipes/meals.  There aren't much pics of them since my hubbys DSLR is gone on the blink and is in the shop as we speak.  I tried to take some pics with my regular p/s camera and phone camera when I could remember, but of course the quality isn't as great.  I don't even remember where I last left off on the menu, but eh I'll do what I can do in updating it.  As for October's Menu Plan, I'll just continue to work through September's Menu Plan until I run out of meals and create one for November.

During my little hiatus me and my lil booger got to go to Denver, CO for the very first time.  My brother accepted a transfer position from Maui to Denver, so I went there to help him settle in.  There are a few pics that I took of places we went but I missed out taking pics of the Bronco's Stadium and where The Rockie's play at.  I'm pretty sure this won't be the last time we'll be going to Denver to visit my brother, so there's always going to be more picture opportunities.

So enough of me blabbing on, I'll get to work on updating some posts with some recipes and I'm sure some of you have been jonesing for ;o)

Just For Sarah...

As my onesie cupcake gifts are getting better with improvements they have become my go to gift for baby showers if they're being sent out of state.  This particular gift was sent to my husband's aunt on Oahu for baby Sarah.  Sarah is part Japanese so it was only fitting that I made special onesies with Asian printed material cut from my Cricut Expression.  I had gotten the "Pagoda" cartridge last Christmas and it has cherry blossom designs which were perfect for Sarah since it is her room decor theme.  Here are the appliques on the onesies and how they looked after being turned into a "basketful of treats."

"Pagoda & Accent Essentials" Cricut Cartridges

Basketful of Treats

I Think I Got It....

My second try at making those onesie cupcakes turned out cute but I thought they still needed improvement.  I wasn't particularly happy with the shape of the cupcake after I covered it with the baby washcloth.  Then I had an idea when I had another baby gift to send home to Hawaii, I figured that I should use quilt batting to help give it some shape.  Voila, below is the result of what quilt batting did to improve it for the better.  Think I got perfected now.

Iron On Appliques

Don't they look much better?

Off to Oahu, Hawaii they went.

Second Attempt...

This was my second time making onesie cupcakes and since I was going to attempt to make baby washcloth lolliops, I had the bright idea of using some of the washcloths to cover the tops of the onesies.  For the onesies though, instead of embellishing them with the store bought iron on appliques I made my own fabric appliques from my Cricut Expression. 

Making the washcloth lollipops was my first time, I found a pack of 12 baby girl themed washcloth at a retail department store.  I actually used lollipop sticks since I had a bunch on hand leftover from my previous failed attempt to make cookie lollipops but that's for another story.  Here are the creations that went to our good friends in Las Vegas.

Onesie's w/fabric appliques cut from the Cricut Expression

Washcloth Lollipops

Basketful of "Treats"

My First Onesie Cupcakes...

A long while ago I was Internet researching on different baby gift items to create on your own.  One of the cute and easy gifts I found were onesie cupcakes.  They were just plain colored baby onesies rolled up decorated with little embellishments and stuck into a muffin paper cup thing.  They looked simple enough to make and I figured I could do that myself. 

Since I had a baby shower coming up, the mother and father had a very special and specific request on what color clothing they preferred for their baby.  They had a "Nightmare Before Christmas" theme and that was out of the normal baby theme.  I found it as a challenge with open arms to create something as close to that theme as possible. 

Thus this was created and an evolution of onesie cupcake gifts were created.  I dyed some onesies and added cute iron on appliques to each of them, turned them into "cupcakes", and added little embellishments.

"That's How I Roll" & "eat, sleep, poop, cry"

"My Dad Rocks" & "My Mom Rocks"

"So Fresh & So Clean", "Born to Rock", & "AB/CD"

Cupcake Creation

All Packaged & Ready to go