Bears and bears and bears, oh, my!

I finished the giveaway teddy bears for lucky winners Jennifer and Angie. There is one extra since I made one for my sister too. Nothin' wrong with a little nepotism.

I asked Chickie to name the bears for me. She came up with fantastic names that I will have to spell phonetically as I have never heard them before. Of course, those of you receiving the bears are welcome to change the names if you prefer more conventional monikers.

Without further ado, may I introduce...

Angie's bear (made of sparkly green felt)

DOE-bee-yo,


Jennifer's bear (made of soft navy corduroy)
Dobe-DUBB-eye,


and Becki's bear (made of fabrics that match her rocking chair pads)
Doe-GUGG-eye.

Interesting names, aren't they? Can we say future sci-fi writer?

I first gave Doguggeye white buttons for eyes. I had to change to black. Only those of you who watch Heroes will get this...but I kept looking at him and getting creeped out, thinking he was about to paint the future.

If you'd like to make your own little bears, download the pattern free at this site. I enlarged the pattern, but smaller bears would be cute too. I filled Chickie's bear with dry beans, but used popcorn for these three, and I like the popcorn better. Lentils or rice are also suggested at the original site.

Ladies, your bears will be shipped this week!

When I am queen

When I am queen of the world (and I'm talking all-powerful monarch, not British-esque figurehead), I'm going to get rid of a few things...when I'm done eliminating war, poverty, and hunger, of course.

1. Daylight Savings Time. The state of Arizona is so rebellious, they don't have Daylight Savings Time. (Betcha didn't know that's why their senior Senator calls himself "The Maverick.") Their time stays the same year-round...imagine that! The whole "fall back" thing isn't even fun anymore once you have kids, because all it means is that they wake up at the same time as usual, but the clock says it's an hour earlier. When I'm queen there will be no more need to reset your clocks twice a year. Of course, that also means you'll forget to change the batteries in your smoke detectors. Sorry. I'll outlaw fire too.
   
2. MySpace. I'm all for Internet communication (clearly!), but, dude, Btween ur craZ spLing & da gr8 bakground on ur myspace page, yo, i can't evN read what ur sayin! And while you may think the pictures of you gettin' crazy with your homies and making out with that girl you just met are funny, your future employer just might disagree. MySpace is outta here when I'm kween of da wurld!
3. Scented diapers. They're gross, and they're gone.
4. Music on blogs. It reminds me too much of MySpace (see #2.) I recognize I may be in the minority here, so until my queenship becomes official I'll just keep using that "pause" button.

On the off chance that you beat me out for the position of all-powerful king or queen of the world, what will you get rid of?

Candy hunt...and a recipe

We didn't really do the whole Halloween thing this year. Chickie (at 2 years 9 months) is in a "scared" phase. My formerly fearless toddler is getting scared by lots of things that wouldn't have phased her a few months ago. So I was a little nervous about the decorations, masks, etc. that she might encounter during trick or treating. We had invited friends over for dinner, and when I found out they don't do trick-or-treating, we decided to skip it this year. Besides, I hadn't put costumes together for the kids, and appreciated the excuse not to worry about it until next October

Instead, Chickie and her friend Z did a candy hunt in the house. (Z is almost five, but he and Chickie are great buddies.) I hid candy in our game room, and the two kids got their candy buckets ready to go upstairs for the hunt....



Chickie and Z searched, crying out, "I found one!!!" whenever they spied candy.



Afterward, Chickie showed me her stash. (Shh--she doesn't know how much more she would have gotten if we'd gone trick-or-treating!)



When the fun hunt was over, we sat down and watched part of Cars since both Chickie and Z are lovers of anything with wheels. It was really a fun night even without costumes and trick-or-treating.

Before the candy hunt, we had dinner. I went with one of my standby dishes, Rachel Ray's delicious and easy Mexican Lasagna (which I make with ground turkey instead of ground chicken.) If you're looking for a simple recipe that will please most people, try it out.

For an appetizer I made a new recipe my friend Deanne shared with me, and it was delicious. Now, I'm not sure what to call this. We ate it with tortilla chips, but it's too chunky to be called dip or salsa. It's more like pico de gallo on steroids. So we'll call it...

Deanne's Dynamite Pico

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 large can diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed (or several fresh, ripe tomatoes, diced)
1 can corn, drained
1/3 to 1/2 red onion, diced
2-3 avocados, chopped
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
Juice of 2 limes
Salt to taste
Garlic salt to taste

Toss all ingredients, and chill. Serve as a dip with tortilla chips or as a topping for tacos, quesadillas, burritos, salad, etc.



Fresh and delicious!

However you spent your October 31, I hope you had as much fun as we did!