Before I totally go into Christmas mode, here are some pics from my son's first birthday! We were basically celebrating all month!
Cohen's First Photo Shoot
Cohen's LA Birthday Party
Cohen's Sacramento Birthday Party
Cohen Enjoying His Birthday Gifts
glitter-graphics.com
Gosh Decking out my blog is as hard as decking the halls in my home! I decorated just for all of you! Have a listen to my fave Christmas Tunes and check out some silly Christmas posts from the last couple of years while I get to work decorating my home! Merry SITSmas!
Edit: This is what I got done this evening! 
For the life of me I can't figure out why I strung my garland the way I did two years ago! I have to find a special extension cord or something to be able to plug it in. It's probably because I put it on top of the TV console, but I think I did that last year too, I have no idea, but now I am too tired to care! Tomorrow I think I will string some Icicle lights outside when it doesn't feel like there should be real icicles hanging off the rafters! Come on this is California for goodness sake!
I am moving my blog and redesigning it. I am also Grand opening my Etsy (slated for cyber Monday but we shall see). Please bear with me through these changes. I will be hosting a giveaway soon as well! Thanks for keeping on with me!
*Edit: My blog will temporarily be reverting back to http://innergreenfairy.blogspot.com
please follow accordingly.
I made these super cute sushi and shumai dumplings for
I think these are going on my soon to open Etsy! I am also going to make some gyoza and fortune cookies and maybe some wontons to complete the set!
I have not given out an award in a really long time, and I am quite past due I think. I have found some fabulous blogs this year that I pretty much can't live without!
I don't typically blog about giveaways, but this one is just too good to pass up. My sister-in-law really needs a laptop for all of her work she is doing with the Youth group at PRFC. I would love to win her one for Christmas!
I entered Crissy’s Can’t Wait til Christmas Lenovo Laptop Giveaway and hope to win a $799.00 IdeaPad!
You can also enter to win one at MommyPR by making a video on the Lenovo "What's You're Idea of Fun" Website! Here's Mine!
Fun Video 260643911 | What is your idea of fun USA
I went a little shop happy at Michael's clearance yesterday! I spent about $150 but got ALL THIS! (Okay I had some of that ribbon already, and a few of the flowers too).
I reorganized my craft closet a bit to fit in a good amount of my overflow. I got rid of about a box full of SU catalogs and forms (since I don't think I will be restarting that business). You can see pics of the before stash here. It looks much prettier now :).
I am fully determined to get my Etsy shop up and running before Christmas this year! (I know I have said that many times, but this time I have a plan!) Any good shop name ideas incorporating my nickname?
I plan on carrying some pretty jewelry, hand stamped notecards and greeting cards, custom capes and tutu's (like this one - too bad she couldn't stop twirling long enough for me to get a good shot), custom diapercakes, notecards, hairclips, burpcloths and bibs, and maybe some felt toys once I come up with some patterns of my own.
I also plan on selling some crafting supplies I make with my Sizzex Bigshot and my Xyron.
Ooo and I just got a great idea from Penelope's Oasis for something I might be able to make. I really want to use what I have to make a little spending cash.
I bought a couple of shoe clips on the creative seed's Etsy to make these gorgeous pieces tuted by Mrs.Priss (I love the posey ones at the end of the post!)
How have you other Etsy mom-prenuars fared lately? Do you find that having a varied inventory is good or is it better to stick with one type of inventory? I have so much stuff and I feel like I need to use it all!
This is a rant... Just a forewarning... I kinda hijacked my friend Kari's status update on FB...
Kari: voting time!
Me: Ugh do I have too? I am going to but I am sooo not excited about it...
Kari: Be excited about it girl! Our feminist forebears fought for the right for our vote to count:
http://www.encyclomedia.com/video-women_s_suffrage.html
Also, vote for Jerry Brown and piss your husband off. :)
Me:
#1 I know... that is why I vote even though I hate it
#2 why would that piss Toby off? He thinks Whitman is creepy
#3 can't we just have a Utopian society where every one is equal and perfect? Oh wait I am asking for heaven aren't I? Not sure I am ready for that yet lol...
Kari: oh I'm just going off something Toby said to me recently about being annoyed by liberals and that is awesome that you're voting even though you don't like it! Why don't you like it?
Me: I hate all the mud slinging... it makes me anti politics... to me, the only good thing about election day is the end to all the negativity... lets face it, all politicians are people, they all make mistakes, do I have to hear about all of them for three months straight?
Me: Also... because they are all people, they are all going to disappoint me in some way or another so why should I care who makes it in? Ugh I sound so much like my dad... I know my vote does count and that is why I use it but in the end I feel like it doesn't because I do not really care for any of the nominees. I always feel like i am choosing the lesser of two evils. Can't I just write in Jesus for every office?
Me: Toby is really only annoyed by the liberals in his family because they are always trying to tell us to vote the way they do... he doesn't like anyone telling him how to live his life...
Me: OMG just asked him if he is voting and if he has even looked at his sample ballot and he said "yeah my Nana gave me one" it was already filled out for him!!! he will not be voting that way!
This weekend has been a total whirlwind!
Saturday morning I made a dirt cake for the party we planned to go to on Sunday night after trick-or-treating. I showed Cohen the joy of making dessert at home is getting to lick the beaters at the end.
Saturday night was The Nana's 80th Surprise Birthday Bash hosted by my fabulous mother-in-law. Family came from as far away as Scotland (Toby's brother lives there with his fiance) to celebrate all of her accomplishments.
Cohen met his Uncle Simon and Auntie Monica for the first time when we "picked them up" from the train station (they actually got in early and had no cell phone so we went to the mall and were going to look for them in an hour when the next train came in and we actually ran into them there). We kept them busy all afternoon at the mall trying to hide them from Nana.
The party was a hit! Nana was totally surprised to see everyone there and even cried a little when she saw Simon! It was a great time.
We also got to meet baby GT, Cohen's newest cousin and see lots of family we have not seen in a while.
On Sunday morning we got up (too early) and went out to the same restaurant we had the party at the night before (if you live in the Sacramento area, check out The Terrace at Marconi and Fulton in the Arden Arcade area. The food is to-die-for) with all the family. It was nice to see them again before they went back to the bay area.
We took a long nap and then went over to my mother-in-law's to show off our costumes.
Then it was time for church in the park.
This is our band of Superheroes: The Oaks of Righteousness (OR!): Sarcasmo, Hyperbole Man, Mr. Cohen (Disguised as Super Panda), Pastor Girl, and Hapa Girl.
After church we drove to East Sac to trick or treat near Sacramento Friends church and we collected canned food for River City Food Bank that burned down about a week ago. Cohen passed out on the short drive from the park to the church and we put him in the wagon before trick or treating.
After about an hour and a half (to get down one block and back up again) we went to Pete and karen's house for a little party. Bella and Cohen dug into the candy (he was just playing with it lol). In my family we alway had some kind of get together after trick or treating (usually to celebrate all the October birthdays, my dad's is the day before Halloween). It is fun to start that tradition with my family and friends too :).
Looks like I will be regularly posting at "Dreaming of an Orange Christmas" throughout the holiday season (they gave me my own blog!) so I will link back here for every post so ya'll can stop by and read :).
In other news, we are dressing up as superheroes this Halloween so we can trick or treat grown up style for canned food to refill a food bank nearby (River City Food Bank in Midtown) that burned down last week. I am going to be Hapa Girl (Part Asian, 100% Awesome!), Toby is going to be Hyperbole Man (the absolute greatest since...FOREVER!), Becky will be Pastor Girl, and Clint (if he chooses to dress up) is going to be Sarcasmo. Cohen is going to be a Super Panda (but in our crew we call him Mr. Cohen - picture him in a pin stripe suit little mustache and fedora - and he is our boss). We got a little carried away one day on a trip to San Fran with Becky and decided we had to dress up as our comic book superheroes this year. This is my costume.
I am guest blogging today at "Dreaming of an Orange Christmas" which goes live tonight at 11pm! For those of you who are not yet in the know, Orange Christmas is a modern abolitionist movement started by Midtown Friends Community pastor Rebecca Tucker. The goal is to bring awareness of modern day slavery and give some helpful hints on how to have a slave-free Christmas (hint, it is something we bloggers tend to love anyway: buying and making handmade gifts). My post is on my foray into felt food crafting! It is not a how-to, just a "hey, here is something anyone can do, even an ADD mom like me!" Hope you'll check it out at 11pm tonight!
Making Cohen Christmas and Birthday gifts out of patterns (like this adorable fishing set) that I bought from Bugga Bugs Etsy! So excited to be doing my part for Orange Christmas!
Midtown Friends is Dreaming of an Orange Christmas! In a movement to fight slavery, we are giving slave-free, handmade gifts for Christmas! In the months of November and December, Midtown Friends will be hosting a space to create handmade gifts before services every Sunday. Tune in for more info!
So I have been contemplating getting a small tattoo on the inside of my right ankle... This is the art that inspired me... It was the image we used on our bulletin for our church launch last October... It reminds me that my relationship with Toby has deep roots that kept us in the ground through the storm and that by putting God first and working together in our church is what got us through it... I don't want it exactly like this... I want the tree to look a little more bonsai-ish and I am thinking about having my maiden name in kanji incorporated into either the roots or the branches of the tree... Maybe... And either get a waterfall (because my last name is a derivative of the Japanese word for waterfall) as the background or save that for something else if I am ever brave enough to get another... I may not get a background... I have never found anything I wanted to have on me permanently until I found this... And I am going to wait awhile before getting it to make sure it is really what I want... Not sure how long to wait though, three months? Six? A year?
So I was tasked with creating a menu for 75 people under $300 for our Easter party at our new location and I totally did it! Well, mostly... A few on the items are being donated...
I have been trying, and to my surprise, enjoying a lot of foods I was never able to eat or never liked pre-pregnancy... I have been able to eat stuff with jalapenos, bell peppers, coconut, etc... Last night we went out for Indian food and it was great! My favorite was the chicken masala... I tried and liked everything! They only ordered medium heat, but I was able to handle it and probably would have been able to take a little hotter...
Cohen and I hung out in Midtown this week, had lunch with Becky and talked about potential non-profit opportunities and possibly getting an office at the Hive... Then we hung out with Kari and ended up in Roseville :), found some cute clothes for the boy since he is growing too fast for me to keep him covered lol...
We also decided to take Cohen with us to the Drive In Theater this week (since he won't take a bottle, we can't leave him with a sitter or his Grandma)... He slept most of the time and we were able to control the volume in our car so it wouldn't freak him out... We saw Alice In Wonderland and it was awesome! I would totally go see it again!
I am having a good time being a mobile mom... Co and I get a little bummed out when we are stuck indoors all day... He seems happy to go on adventures with me so we will keep going this way till it gets too hard...
Went to visit our new Sunday meeting space today and it is so awesome! It's really hip and the owner (?) Brandon was really cool about Cohen coming in with Becky and I... There was a news crew there interviewing people about co-working and we took "hip" pictures for the Midtown website :). I am really excited for the chance to go in with Becky during the week. I am going to start working on generating some funds for Midtown. I am taking up a challenge to get our tithe matched through some sponsors... Since the community we are reaching out to is filled with artists, students, and a lot of other people who tend not to make much money, the incoming tithe is pretty meager... Becky and I spoke about starting a Community Etsy to rasie some funds, which I really like the idea of since the thought of starting an Etsy and supplying it only with items I make is daunting. I did volunteer to take on the responsibility of managing it and shipping stuff... Hopefully that will start soon :) Exciting stuff!
I told myself I would keep on blogging after Motherhood struck me, but yeah, that's pretty naive of me... In recent news, our church got in at the Urban Hive!!! This is really exciting news, I get to co-work with Nanny Goats In Panties and Midlife Bloggers... I. am. so. psyched! I am adjusting back to being an active part of our community with Cohen in tow... It is great to hang out with my new pals, still working on balancing new friends and old friends, I keep singing the old girl scout song "Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold" to Cohen, but I think I am really singing it to myself... I miss Gracie and Karen and Xica and Ashley... I have also been going through a bout of homesickness after a month in LA... I know we can afford to live down there, but I really miss my Mom and Dad, Brothers, Sis-in-law, and my sweet Niece and Nephew... I want Cohen to grow up with them... I know God has a plan for us, and I hope it includes us all living near each other, but I wish it was now... In other news, I have eaten some great food this week: Amazing BLT's a la Spanglish (so good I am going to have them again tonight for dinner with our proximity group) and Goat cheese, pistachio, and orange salad with Blush wine vinaigrette fashioned after a salad I really like at Matteo's... Well that's all I have time for, Cohen is stirring!
Sorry for the absence, Motherhood takes some getting used to, I wrote all about Cohen's grand entrance here in his blog... ::FOREWARNING:: This will be a Rant post, I really need to get it out and get over it... Yesterday I celebrated my first birthday as a Mama, and it was interesting to say the least... I just got back from a second whirlwind trip to LA (after only being home for 3 days from our 2 week long stay down there) on Monday night and Toby is going back to work today, so we were trying to get a bunch of stuff done (a lot of which should have been done while I was gone for the weekend, but we won't go there lol) before meeting up with an unspecified number of friends for dinner at our favorite Sushi place at 7... I had a plan laid out so we would be gradually heading downtown instead of jumping all over the place: lunch, get Toby shoes, get Toby's hair cut while I went to get cheesecake for the party, get my hair cut, Coffee with Becky, Change clothes and do makeup, then dinner... In the process, I killed my car battery while waiting for Toby to get new shoes, had to get a jump from friends that live nearby (thanks "Guy Squad" Tim and Stewart), found out my mother in law had done the same thing to her Civic and had to pick her up and take her to get her van (that I had borrowed for my trip and was covered in kid goo and cheese-its from the toddler that was traveling with us), took Toby back in the direction we came from to get his hair cut, realized I forgot my clothes and makeup that I was going to change into at the apartment, went back, realized when I got upstairs that I didn't have my key because Toby's friend had it to check on our cats while we were gone, waited for him to bring it because there was no one in the office (lugged the car seat with my 12 lb. kid in it over there to check, which I am not used to yet, Toby has almost always done it these past two months while I have been "in repair," yes, I heal that slowly) while Cohen melted down because the car had stopped and he wanted out of his car seat, had him watch the kiddo in the car while I ran up to grab my stuff, realized my make up was not there because I left it in the van, left and realized I still forgot something (and had to lug the car seat up the stairs with me to grab it), drove over to get Toby, went to get a Cheesecake and planned to feed the boy in the car while Toby went in to get it, realized I forgot my "hooter-hider" and had a mini meltdown because the day had been so bad already, fed the kid, headed over to get my hair cut and the place was closed, had another meltdown because I was going to look like a bush woman at my party and made Toby swear not to let anyone take pictures of me, tried to give up on any expectations of the day and went to Temple Coffee to meet our pastor and a couple of other friends who happened to be there, went to Becky's to change clothes, went to the restaurant a half hour early (and everyone else got there almost a half hour late), nearly "took-the-cake" literally in my heels while carrying my stupidly expensive cheesecake, and then had another mini meltdown while trying to feed Cohen under a blanket in a hot dining room with a bunch of random people looking at me like was crazy (btw, first time I had ever seen Japanese people actually eating there, since it is California style sushi)... I half wanted to just whip out the boob and say "screw you guys, I'm feeding my child" but Toby asked if I could used the private tatami room since no one was in there at the time... But once everyone got there and I got some food in me, things started to look up... I had a good time (even though our fav sushi chef did not come by like he said he was going to because it was his night off, he left a cake for me) and as usual we ended up half taking over the small dining room (16 people ended up coming when I had only reserved for 8)... Good thing we are some of their best (and favorite) customers :-P they put up with us because we have been going since it opened we bring them a lot of business with our crazy, last minute parties (Toby's b-day there were close to 30 of us)... When I got home I tore into my presents like a little kid on Christmas (after feeding Cohen of course, why didn't anyone tell me that all they do at this age is eat, sleep, and poop???)... I checked my voicemail as I was heading for bed and had a message from Becky and my other friends that were at the coffee shop as well as the other 20 people who were there at the time singing Happy Birthday to me :)... I also heard from all of my siblings and my parents (I don't know why I thought they would have forgotten, I just had no expectations of the day I guess)... It made my day much better, thanks guys... Anyway, I decided that I won't let one hard day get me down... I am starting my first day as a full-time Mommy today and I am going to need positive energy, so send some my way! :)
