Do I just gloss over the five weeks I’ve been absent from the blog? Please? No?

Two super exciting things have happened since I last posted (and a whole bunch of other amazing but less newsworthy things)! First, we moved into the bigger, better, all-we-need-in-an-apartment apartment and a little while after that, one of the besties came down for a visit! We stayed within the same apartment complex, we had been literally waiting for this apartment to become available since we decided to stay past our initial plan of six months. Moving to a tiny apartment from our house in the woods was a serious adjustment and while we are still nowhere close to what we had, this is much, much better and is perfect for us right now. The second bathroom and the backyard really put it over for us. Happy campers over here!

Miss Talea visiting was a glorious and way too fast 5 days. We managed to squeeze a whole lot into those five days though! We did the Aquarium of the Pacific, Hollywood, The Le Brea Tar Pits, Santa Monica, Pacific Park, Redondo Pier, Hermosa Pier and a little Corner Bakery and In n Out for good measure. 😉 We also watched some bad tv, drank some local wine and knitted some puffs. A lovely visit, but of course, too short.

The littles and I have been up to all kinds of hilarity with their buddies. In these last five weeks we have celebrated a friend’s 2nd birthday, made sand castles at Redondo Beach, went out for a mama’s night with some of my ladies, celebrated a friend’s 4th birthday, broke in my girl Jennifer’s Slip n Slide, went adventuring with Talea, finally celebrated Wee One #3’s 4th birthday, celebrated Children’s Book Day at our local library, celebrated a friend’s 3rd birthday, checked out a new (to us) park or two, celebrated a friend’s 1st birthday and prepared for Wee One #2’s first big dance show! I’m pooped!!

Much cooking and baking and knitting and crafting and homeschooling have been going on as well! Tomorrow, back to as close to usual as I can get – with some Red Velvet Cookies!

I have had the most amazing treat of joining a sweet, tight, cheerful group of ladies here in South Bay. Our kids range in age from newborn to adults! The Wee Ones and I have been hanging out with them since last September and we’ve not only explored all over South Bay, but forged some wonderful friendships as well – both with the kids and with the moms! Yesterday, we came together to host a potluck in our neighborhood park and it was as close to perfect as life gets. Everyone brought something delicious to eat or something fun to do and we all pitched in to hire an Easter bunny! Everyone brought one dozen eggs per child and a few of us ran around laying them in the grass for the kids to find later.

I brought the decoupaged Easter eggs I blogged about this morning, three dozen really brightly dyed eggs, traditional Easter egg bread, Cheesy Onion Chicken and Sweet Bunny Buns. I’ll post these tutorials and recipes this week, I promise! So much Easter fun ahead of us still!

So so so much is going on this week and so much fun happened last week! I made a lot of Halloweeny treats in the last couple of weeks and they were all hits with the kids! Wee One #1 is dressing as a warrior skeleton type guy (he’s been picking pretty much the same costume every year in a bigger size for 3 or 4 years now), Wee One #2 is going as Hello Kitty and out littlest is going as ‘The Tooth Fairy’, she is very specific about what kind of fairy she is exactly. Much running around Los Angeles in costumes!

Sparkly gold shoes, ridiculous wedges with an equally ridiculous bow, a really cute necklace and dress combo and some Halloweeny cocktails rounded out my week. We made normal screwdrivers but we used black vodka and then we made Bloodtinis, which were just as delish without any booze in them at all. I really just wanted an excuse to use the shaker. 😉

Oh, and my piggie spatula, which is probably my most prized kitchen possession at the moment. You love it right? Of course you do!

Back in the morning with Menu Monday!!

I am pausing mid-Christmas vacation to announce fantastic news! My delightful husband got me a shiny (and more importantly fast) new laptop for Christmas so I can edit photos and blog and actually get stuff done without having to use his laptop or desktop. Hooray!

There has been so much Christmas crafting and baking going on around here, so many fun things in the works for the coming weeks and months and some exciting news in the near(ish) future (no, I’m not pregnant).

In the meantime, here’s a parade of photos from our Christmas celebrations so far!