Feliz Cuplianos Madre!

Tuesday was my momma's birthday! The wonderful woman who created and raised me to be the girl I am today turned *bleep*. A lady never reveals her age, and I'm not going to do it for her, so lets just say she turned 21! Yay, 21st birthdays are great! We spent the day down in NB and celebrated that evening.

 I should have gotten a better shot of the card I made her, cats with party hats!

Brendon's gift, obviously.

We ate at a yummy place called Salsalito's in San Antonio. It was delicious and I felt like I was going to explode afterwards. SO good.

 The ladies! This picture is in black and white because Brendon has exposure problems when taking photos. We were blue before.

Of course we had to spill the beans and have them sing to her. It was awesome! They banged together silverware, she got ice cream, and they even showered her with straws, what more could you ask for?

After dinner we stopped and took pictures in some pretty blue bonnets like tourists. Because why not? They're so pretty! We had to hike through some seriously tall foliage (thank you rain!) but I think it was worth it.

 Good picture of me and mom, silly picture of Julie and Brendon. Actually, what is going on there Brendon? Is that blue steel?

We finished up the birthday night with a few rounds of uno (I didn't win once, no fair). It was a great day followed by a great evening. I love my family! I hope my momma had a good birthday, we love you mom. Thank you for being the best mom ever and being there for me 110% of the time, you are an amazing woman!

And this picture is mostly a joke, but it must be noted how pale my legs are:

I clearly haven't seen the sun in a decade. Also, check out that neon orange skirt! Found that baby at a thrift store here in Austin. It's pretty amazing (yes, it has pockets). It also came with a lovely 90's style jacket, complete with giant shoulder pads. Legitimate. Needless to say, I probably wont ever wear the upper portion, but the skirt is awesome.

We've been having great luck thrifting lately. We've had some awesome finds; clothes (Brendon got a sweet corduroy blazer for like 3 bucks), Pyrex (3 awesome bowls!), a bunch of dvd's for a dollar each, even an old ass Sound of Music record cover. Okay, half of the cover. No actual record, just the front half of the cover. It was 53 cents, I couldn't just leave it all alone at goodwill with a gazillion Christmas and aerobics records.

And do you remember ages ago when I found a little black dress at a vintage store but it was too pricy so I passed it up? You don't, but that's okay. WELL, this past weekend while Kristy was here we popped into that store and I told myself if it was still there I would get it since I have been thinking about ever since I saw it. It was there! And I got it! And it is as perfect as I remember. Although I may have to shorten it just a little to modernize it a bit. I am in love. It is the best dress ever. Just wait until you see it!

A couple of Chasaks visit Austin!

Guess who was here this weekend?? Kristy and her sweet daughter Kennedy (who has grown SO MUCH)! Although we missed Mr. Chasak, we had a blast! I loved having them here. It is absolutely not fair that we live so far away. Can they just invent teleportation already, geeze. We tried to show them a good time around Austin, and in the process had a wonderful weekend!

Unfortunately the weather was terrible all day Saturday, but we toughed it out and did some exploring. We had some girl time (how I missed that!) and explored Austin in the rain. We visited the capital and tried to run into Rick Perry and his hair, but I guess he wasn't around. It might have been for the best. Kennedy did however get to hang out with W for a bit.

I know, I know, they're so good looking it's unfair.

We were super spoiled and also got to see Z, his sister Sarah, and her friend Zia Saturday! We were so happy to see them. We seriously hit the jackpot this weekend with wonderful visitors!

Kennedy is a big fan of Z. But really, who isn't?

And once again Kennedy and a young George Jr met up. This time it wasn't on such happy terms I guess.

Brendon and I both have crooked smiles. Kennedy is pretty symmetrical and pretty awesome!

Sunday the sun came out to play! It ended up being pretty toasty outside. We ventured down to South Congress for some pizza and then headed over to Auditorium Shores to enjoy the weather. And it just so happened to be the late Leslie's memorial service/party. There were lots of people in crowns, speeches, and they let off a bunch of balloons. Pretty neat that we just so happened to be there to witness it!

Thanks random dude on a bike for rolling up at the perfect time to snap our picture! And thanks flash for making me look albino.

This weekend was seriously awesome. We got to see our best friends, eat extreme amounts of yummy food, and do lots of fun things! I did not want everyone to leave. I missed everyone so much, one weekend is not enough to catch up. Move to Austin y'all?

After Kennedy and Kristy left Brendon asked me, "so did that make you want a baby more or less?". I said MORE, duh! Kennedy is awesome, and I can't wait to watch her grow. She's already so grown up already! And I can't wait to hang out with our own little one (one day!), hopefully he or she will be as cool as Kennedy!

Step by Step Sewing Part 2 - Pattern and Fabric Cutting

Okay so I am finally getting to the rest of this little sewing project tutorial thing. Check out the first part here. My apologies for it taking forever, life has been busy lately! Also cutting the patterns and fabric is easily the lamest part of all this, and I always drag my feet when it comes to getting around to it.

We looked a little bit at the pattern sheets last time, but here's what they look like unfolded:

There are usually two of these giant tissue paper style pattern sheets with a bunch of patterns on each. Also, if you're lucky, your pattern comes with a free cat.

Each pattern piece is made to be cut into different sizes, you just follow the line with your size number on it. There are tons of pattern pieces on these sheets and unless you are making every piece that the pattern includes (in this case, a shirt, dress, and skirt), you wont need them all. Each piece is numbered and each number goes to a different part (shirt, dress, skirt).

For the dress, I only needed pattern pieces 1-8 (there are 18 pieces total). I cut all the other patterns out as well, although I don't cut them to a certain size yet (in case my judgement on my size proves wrong). I set the pieces I wont need aside, fold them up, and put them back in the envelope so they're ready to roll whenever I decide to use them.

Above are the pieces I will need in order by number, top to bottom, left to right; 1-bodice front, 2-bodice back, 3-front interfacing, 4-back interfacing, 5-skirt front, 6-skirt back, 7-pocket, and 8-buttonhole guide. The last piece is not actually anything you cut out of fabric, just a placement guide for your button holes. As far as patterns go, this is a pretty small amount of pieces for a dress.

Next up, cutting the fabric! I washed both my fabric and lining so I wouldn't have to worry about my dress shrinking post-construction.

You have a cutting layout guide in your instructions that tells you how to lay out the patterns on the fabric. Some pieces are cut on folded fabric (so you get two pieces), some on the fold (so it opens up as one big mirrored piece), and some on single thicknesses. This is a "guide", I often find a more efficient way to cut my fabric, leaving me with a bit of extra. However, sometimes, you have to do it their way or it wont all fit.

These are my last two pieces, the front and back of the skirt, and as you can see I have quite a bit of extra left. This is almost always the case, but extra fabric is not a bad thing. I save everything for projects later on and in case you have a little sewing mishap and need to re-cut a pattern piece.

I also cut out fabric for the lining of the bodice and pockets:

And for the interfacing:

I thought I might explain what interfacing is. Interfacing is a kind of gauzy material that stiffens/backs your fabric in places you might need more weight. In this case I believe it is around the neckline and where the button holes will be. There are all kinds of interfacing, both fusible and not, in various thicknesses. This is lightweight fusible interfacing, usually if you're sewing clothing this is what you'll use. It's "fusible" meaning that you just press it (iron it) on to your fabric. Super easy and it works wonders.

And we're done! I pin everything together for each piece (pattern, fabric, lining) to try to stay organized. There are all kinds of guides on these patterns that you can either mark with a pencil onto your fabric or mark with pins. For example, dart or pleating lines. I pencil in the circles that mark the dart lines, but I use pins to mark my pleat guides. It's all up to you really, whatever works well for you. Just remember if you're working on fabric that's lighter in color, you probably want to make very light marks. Darker fabric is different, I either use a felt tipped marker or a white pencil.

So that's it for cutting patterns and fabric! Woohoo, we survived the lamest part. Next up is the fun part, we sew this bad boy together. I'm still debating on how to document that. Obviously I can't do every step, or your eyes would fall and you'd die of boredom. We'll see. I have a busy weekend ahead of me (yay for friends visiting!), so we will continue this project next week.

Also, totally unrelated but I must vent: how can I be breaking out and finding grey hairs at the same time? That's just unfair.

Banana Chocolate Bread

Do you ever have bananas that you never get to eating and start turning brown? And get all smooshy? They are suuuper nasty to eat alone (I only like greenish baaarely ripe bananas), but they are fabulous in bread. In fact, they are the only kind of bananas to use in bread. We had a few that were about to take a turn for the worst chillin' on our counter, and I had a new banana bread recipe I wanted to try. It was simply meant to be.

This bread is good y'all. Real good. So of course I have to share the goodness.

The recipe is from my girl Martha's  Everyday Food Magazine:

Banana Chocolate Bread

You need:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temp
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, room temp
1 1/2 cups mashed overripe bananas (I used 3 bananas)
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate chopped (I used chips)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour a 5"x9" bread pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt.

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy (3 minutes). Then add eggs, beating after each. Beat in bananas, sour cream, and vanilla. Then beat in your premixed dry ingredients (flour etc) and chocolate. Pour into your pan and bake for 50-60 minutes (all while drooling over the aroma), or until a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean.

Once it's done, let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then on a wire rack until cooled completely. Snag a piece (or two) while it's still warm and enjoy the greatness.



When I first tried it I was kinda like, "mehhh?" because I was expecting it to taste like traditional banana bread (like this). But it doesn't (there's no cinnamon, nutmeg, etc) and after the second bite I was hooked. It's like a chocolate chip cookie, banana, and fluffy muffin had a delicious love child loaf. Is that a weird analogy? Whatever it's super yummy. Make it. Eat it. Love it.

Weekend fun

We had lots and lots and lots of fun this weekend. We headed down to NB Saturday evening to have a belated birthday dinner for Brendon with my dad, step mom, step bro, and sister. We ate at one of our favorite places, the Gristmill. The food and company was great, the only low point was me accidentally spilling throwing a glass of water all over Brendon. And then him having a little hissy fit. Whoops! I felt terrible, but really, if you decide to sit next to me and liquids are around it's an understood risk.

Gruene is such a cool place. Even growing up in NB, I still love to act like a tourist and walk around checking out all the shops. Although now I guess I really am a tourist!

After dinner we had birthday cupcakes at my daddio's and then we crashed there because Brendon had a few too many cervezas and I had been up since 5am.

Four cupcakes for 24 years old?

The next day we said hello to all the animals (I swear my dad and step momma are going to be run out of house and home by all these guys!), had a deeeelish breakfast with my dad and step mom, and then headed back up to Austin.

 Super cute young chickens! Check out the front two's hair-dos. They've got fluffy little feather afros! After an experience with a super sweet chicken in a gas station parking lot, I have decided I want pet chickens.

 Turkey bffs. They don't go anywhere without each other. They seriously walk RIGHT next to each other constantly. Oh and they gobble on command.

Hands down, the best lawn mowers around.

Sunday was the Kite Festival in Austin! It turns out this thing is a pretty big deal. I have never seen so many people in one place! And obviously, there were SO many kites. HUNDREDS of kites. It was a little insane, but awesome. And the weather was absolutely perfect. Not a cloud in the sky and plenty of wind. We've been having some awesome weather lately.

Brendon and our spider man kite that we've had for like a year. It almost immediately ended up here:

In a tree. Poor Brendon only got to fly the kite for like two minutes before this happened. He (along with some folks in the snow cone line) tried very hard to get it out of the tree, but alas, the tree claimed the spidey kite.

After losing our kite, we relaxed in the sun for a while. See how PALE I am? Well I am now a lovely lobster color now. My face, chest, hands and feet (??) fried. We didn't even think to bring sunscreen. Next year we'll know better.

They were all kinds of contests for homemade kites. See that GIANT black one? Although it looks like it's close it's actually on the far side of the open area in the middle. It was HUGE. Obviously this was the biggest kite contest. We're going to build a kite and try to enter it into one of the contests next year! We (and by we I mean I) better start researching kite building...

Aside from getting super sunburned, the weekend was a great success. Family, beautiful weather, and time with your husband. Nothing better. I am loving this spring! So much wonderfulness.