My First Etsy Treasury

If you are a frequent Etsy user, you know that Treasuries can be tricky to secure. I finally played the waiting game and scored a treasury tonight, must be a Christmas miracle haha. Here are my selections, all drawn from my favorites TREASURY.
Here is a screenshot of the Treasury:

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas this year. I'm at home with the rents and so happy to have a white Christmas for the first time in years! I got to see lots of my favorite Maryland people and there are still a few days left of my vacation. Hope everyone is doing well and is looking forward to 2010!

My Etsy Store!!!!!

Well, I've finally gotten everything together and opened my own Etsy store! It's called Ten and Ten (as in fingers and toes) and it's all about little ones. A lot of the knit and handmade items you have enjoyed in my blog are now for sale in the store. Anything baby I can probably make it. I have only a few items up right now, but I'm exploring new options and when my new Singer sewing machine comes in the sky's the limit! I'm very excited and I hope you all check it out and spread the word! My store can be found here: Ten and Ten as well as on the left side of my blog where a few items are featured. Enjoy!

Super Busy Weekend!

Well this weekend was packed full of activities, so I got zero crafting completed. We had a great time at Duck's Tacky Sweater Party on Friday, Jaxon's 3rd birthday party on Saturday, and Club Haven's Christmas Jammies Party on Saturday night. Here are the highlights from each party:

Duck, Me, Tom, and Christine in festive sweaters:


Jaxon in the bouncy boxing ring Troy rented for the party:


Jaxon's birthday is exactly Evan's half birthday, 6 months!


Jaxon blowing out his 3rd birthday candle:



Ryan and I in matching pjs:


Christine in our footed onesie pjs:


So much fun!

Free Money!

This is totally random, but if you were thinking about getting DirecTV, call 1-866-443-8869 and tell them I referred you with this account number: 82876421 before the new year and we will both get $100 credit! Pretty sweet deal. Also, if you are looking for an apartment in the Clear Lake TX area, I recommend The Park at Waterford Harbor. They're really nice and very animal friendly and we have a view! Tell them Jaclyn Wolfe and Christine Furgione sent you!

OMG, Santa!

We took the puppies to see Santa at the Baybrook Mall last night. There were lots of puppies and even a bunny in line to see the big man. Baloo and Bernoulli were so good with kids petting them and adults talking to them and other doggies saying hello! I was very proud of how well they acted and how good they were for the picture. Here is a look at the picture they took:



And this is Baloo and I in line:


The adorable bow ties I ordered from etsy can be found here: Bowties!
Can't wait for the Christmas card!

In the 30s in Houston!?!?

I always ask my friends if they want me to knit them something. It gives me a (sort of) legitimate reason to go out and buy yarn and find a new project to tackle. This one was fairly easy, I made a beanie type hat for my friend Anders. I used 100% organic cotton yarn and a pattern by Woolly Wormhead found here: HAT!. It's actually forecasted to snow on Friday in Houston! So, maybe he'll get to use it before he goes home to Wisconsin for Christmas :) Here's a few pics:

'Winter' is here!

So now that it's getting really cold in all places not Houston I've started amping up my knitting. I've started a blanket for one set of friends and a beanie for another friend and I just finished this really fun hood/scarf project. Lately when I see something knit that is an interesting design or form I print out the picture and try to ad-lib a pattern for it. I saw a really chunky scarf with a hood connected and Christine was really excited about the picture so I decided to try it. I made the scarf part a little smaller and used a different stitch, but I think it turned out really neat and more practical than 8 pounds of scarf. Here are some pics of the project laying flat, I'll have to get Christine to model it for me later.

Dalmatians for Anders

Last year for Anders' birthday I attempted to make a chocolate cake with a cream cheese ribbon through it. That resulted in two cake pans with chocolate cake on the top and cream cheese goo severly stuck to the pan. So for Valentine's day I made another attempt at 'Dalmation cupcakes'. The recipe worked out really well. I make my own dark chocolate cake batter and fill the liners about halfway or 2/3rds full. Then I make the cream cheese mixture with semi-sweet chocolate chips and add one cookie scoop of that to each liner. The cipcakes end up looing like chocolate cupcakes from the outside but they have a yummy cream cheese surprise :) I topped Anders' birthday cupcakes off this year with cream cheese icing at his request. This is what thy look like on the inside:

Happy Housewarming Kristine and Loi!

My friend, Kristine and her boyfriend, Loi, recently had a house built here in Houston. It's everything they've ever wanted because they had it built to their specifications and it's amazing! They did a really great job painting and decorating and I can't wait to hang out there all the time! for their housewarming bbq I made some red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing! I have just one pic of them right after I finished icing them:



Congratulations Kristine, Loi, and Roxy :)

Surprise Baby Shower

At our company people love a reason to have a party. One of the guys in QA is having a baby soon so some of the women in have decided to throw him a surprise baby shower. For a man. Strange, I know, but I'm always up for a reason to make baby gifts so here is what I came up with for his soon to be baby girl: a knit hat of the softest yellow yarn and pink ribbon, a matching pink and yellow tutu as a photo prop for when they get pictures taken, and a pink onesie from the GAP. Here are some photos of the goodies:

Dallas Tourney

In case you didn't know I love soccer. Love love love soccer. I play as often as humanly possible. So when I was asked by one of my Gilruth teammates to play with her other coed team in a Dallas tournament I said yes immediately. Tournament soccer is especially exciting, higher intensity, and tons of fun. The coed cup was held in Plano, TX right outside of Dallas. We did quite well for a first out of town tournament together (especially considering we got bumped up a division for no reason). We won our first two games, lost the third of the round robin play. That put us in the playoffs and we ended up losing our first playoff game to the team that won our division. Not a bad showing! also exciting: this was my first trip to Dallas, or any Texas city other than Houston for that matter. We got turned around on our way back home and ended up driving past the Grassy Knoll! Very fun! Some pics:

Team Dinner at Saltgrass:


Mark and Nathan showing off their impeccable table manners:


Leslie and Steph at dinner:


Team pic of The Zoo:


Silly pic:

Something Chocolaty

Within my group of friends here in Texas, we all usually go out to diner, happy hour, bars for each others' birthdays. I always make the cake flavor of the birthday boy/girl's choice. So, for Christine's birthday I asked her what she wanted and she said something chocolaty. Since it is also fall and fall means pumpkin I came up with: Chocolate pumpkin cheesecake cupcakes. Quite the mouthful, and sooooo delicious. Here's a shot of some fresh out of the oven last night:



Lucky for my co-workers there were 3 that didn't fit in the big Tupperware I had to bring to dinner so I brought them in this morning for a taste test. Tim says they are the best thing I've ever brought into work (and I've brought in a lot of stuff!). They are made by making a chocolate cookie crust, pumpkin cheesecake mixture, and melting semi-sweet chocolate to swirl in the middle. Baloo is a good helper (dish washer):



Hope Christine likes em! Happy 25th Teeners!

My Favorite Holiday

Well I completely failed at picture taking this Halloween. As it turns out, maneuvering a cape, basket, beverage, AND trying to take pictures is rather difficult. I saw lots of costumes this weekend including the stack of money you could be saving with GEICO (with the song playing), a completely painted yellow Marge and Homer Simpson, Billy Mays (too soon?), swine flu, and one picture of a baby in a Where the Wild Things are onesie like the pj's Max wears. Lots of great ideas out there this year. I was Little Red Riding Hood if you remember and here is the only picture I have where you can see my full costume:



Kristine in the middle was a ketchup bottle (her mustard was taking the picture for us), Roxy is wearing a t-shirt reading 'Professional Heartbreaker", and Christine was Tinkerbell. I'm very proud of Christine and her costume because she made the entire thing by hand! Even the shoes! Very nice, most people thought she bought it :)

Little Red

So my favorite holiday is Halloween and I generally have a costume picked out way in advance. This year is no exception! I'm going as Little Red Riding Hood and I have my costume mostly assembled. I sewed up a red cape and hood from satin fabric and attached a satin ribbon for the closure. I am wearing a navy blue and white dress underneath because I couldn't get a good consensus on the stereotype dress for Little Red. All the illustrations are different! I have a basket for grandma's goodies and some red pointy-toed wedges that I'm not sold on yet. Here's the ensemble all laid out:




What are you being for Halloween 2009?

Halloween is Here!

Ben is visiting Houston this weekend so Christine and I decided to get pumpkins and carve out some jack-o-lanterns while he was here. We selected our pumpkins from the Kroger 'pumpkin patch':



Our selections:



I found a design from Extreme Pumpkins by Tom Nardone (book found here: PUMPKINS!). I really like his cannibal jack-o-lantern, although all of his designs are pretty awesome. Since I didn't want to spend the big bucks on a giant pumpkin, I had to modify the design for a smaller scale. I found the biggest regular sized pumpkin at Kroger (Christine and I emptied all 4 cartons of pumpkins looking for 'the one') and got a mini pumpkin for the victim. Here are the results:



Happy Halloween! Now on to the costume...

Race for the Cure

Race for the Cure was this past Saturday. There were about 30,000 runners participating in the Houston run, downtown was madness! Team Bippity Boppity Boobs met at the Houston Library before the race to get our team picture. By the time everyone was assembled and our photos were taken we had missed the start of the Competitive 5K, whoopsies. Start line:



We got to the start like to join the back of the non-competitive 5K. Needless to say there was lots of weaving and dodging involved with so many people, but the race was still fun. I even stopped to pet a baby bulldog who was walking along Allen Parkway, so cute! Here is a team picture after the race:



I want to thank everyone who donated to our team and supported breast cancer research! Team Bippity Boppity Boobs raised over $1400! After the race we decided to go to Crave Cupcakes in Uptown Park because they were selling cupcakes for a cure!



100% of the proceeds from a 6 pack of pink ribbon cupcakes goes to the Baylor Cancer Center. needless to say, I bought a box plus a delicious pumpkin cupcake for the road :)

Bake sale fundraising!

For the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure the foundation asks that you raise $100 for breast cancer research. I did the usual Internet postings on facebook and twitter etc, but I wanted to find a way to generate more funds. I decided to bake treats and bring them to work and ask for donations in exchange for yummies. The first week was cheesecake brownies, zucchini bread, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The second week I made pumpkin muffins, butterscotch brownies, and cherry brownie bites. This is the last week before the race and I decided to make the much loved dark chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate icing and my new favorite vanilla cupcakes with vanilla Swiss meringue butter cream icing. Here's a pic for drooling purposes:



So far my co-workers have donated $125 from treats. We'll see how we do this week! If you want to donate online, visit my race page here: http://www.komen-houston.org/site/TR/Race/General?px=1661165&pg=personal&fr_id=1060

Ol' Dirty HEPAs

Well we finished up our Gilruth summer soccer season as #1 in our Division. Playoffs start tomorrow so hopefully we keep on going strong into the post-season. Here is a partial team pic from the last game of the regular season:

Tutus for Bippity Boppity Boobs!

Last night Christine and I sat down and made a couple of tutus for our upcoming Race for the Cure. We used satin ribbon and tulle in rose, fuchsia, and turquoise. They were really easy to make by simple tying the strips of tulle onto the ribbon. Here is my finished tutu:



Here is Christine modeling hers for Bernoulli:



Now modeling for me:



Can't wait for the 5K in October! Support us or join us at: http://www.komen-houston.org/site/TR/Race/General?px=1661165&pg=personal&fr_id=1060

Put 'em together and what have you got?

Bippity-boppity-boobs! That's the name of our Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure team. In keeping with the Cinderella fairy Godmother theme, we are making tutus to wear during the race (or at least for a group picture). I bought 2 yards of rose, fuchia, and turquoise tulle at Joann Fabrics last night and cut them into strips.



Next step is the attaching of the strips to the satin ribbon I purchased to make the belt of the tutu. Can't wait to see how they turn out! Now all we need are wands and donations! Support us in helping to find a cure: DONATE!

And many thanks to all the people who have already donated!

Bippity Boppity Boobs

I recently accepted the challenge to raise funds to support the 2009 Komen Houston Race for the Cure® on October 3rd.

One in eight women will be stricken with breast cancer in her lifetime and the more we raise, the more the Komen Houston Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure® can give back to the community. The Komen Houston Affiliate funds vital breast cancer education, screening and treatment programs in our own community and supports the national search for a cure.

Please join me in the fight by pledging in support of my participation in the Race or contributing generously to the Komen Houston Race for the Cure®. Your tax-deductible contribution will fund innovative outreach and awareness programs for medically under served communities in Komen Houston and national breast cancer research. It is faster and easier than ever to support this great cause - you can make a donation online by simply clicking on the link at the bottom of this message.

If you would prefer, you can also send your tax-deductible contribution to the address listed below. Whatever you can give will help! I truly appreciate your support and will keep you posted on my progress. Thank you so much for your time and support in the fight against breast cancer! Every step counts! If you prefer to mail in your contribution, please mail to P.O. Box 4317 Houston, TX 77210-4317.

My personal page can be found here: DONATE!

The Bippity Boppity Boobs page can be found here: GO TEAM!

Doggie Day at Minute maid Park

This Labor Day weekend the Phillies were in town playing the Astros. For the last game of the series (Monday) the Astros did a Doggie Day at the Park and we took our pups to take in some of America's favorite pastime :) The pups loved it (especially Bernoulli since he's a Phillies fan)! They met up with their friends Trajan, Stockholm, and Lucy and made lots of new friends at the game. Too bad the Phillies didn't win...

Baloo is the hansomest!

I entered Baloo in a 'Cutest Dog' contest and you all should vote for him!

http://www.cutestdogcompetition.com/vote.cfm?h=23F264D735292E55152FBFFC50B639DE

He's so adorable :)

Addicted to Baby Hats!

So, i love this pattern and I had a ball of chunky yarn in my recent WEBS order so I made another baby hat. I love brown with pastels so I think the hat turned out adorable :)

Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate!

I couldn't find a chocolate ice cream that struck my fancy at the grocery this weekend so I decided to make dark chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate icing. anyone who knows me has tried these babies and knows how delicious they are. Now if they were only fat/calorie/sugar free...




Noodle realllllly wanted one: