My Lucky Little Man

We were at a party yesterday during the Preakness horse race.  Everyone decided to start a betting pool and throw a few bucks in.  Tyler got to pick our horse (drew the name from a hat) and he picked the winning horse, Shackleford.  I think he will be picking out my lottery numbers from now on!

The Joys of Teething

Tyler has 2 bottom front teeth now and I was so excited for him to get them.  That is, until I saw this upon walking into his room:



Of course, he has no concept of what he did was wrong or that he is ruining a really nice piece of Pottery Barn furniture so I can't get mad at him.  I should have thought ahead and known this would happen.  I researched teething guards and the aftermarket ones you can buy were rated really low on both BabiesRUs and Amazon.  Everyone said it takes a couple hours in the crib and the baby will learn to just tear them down, throw them out of the crib, and continue to chew on the wood.  You can also see in the corner of the picture that the front rails have a plastic teething guard on them that came with the crib.  He is biting on that side, too.  The wood just under the plastic is chewed and looks just as bad as the sides.  I've decided there is nothing out there that is going to help my cause so I took matters into my own hands and devised my own  teething guards.  I used fabric from crib sheet that matched the bedding set but was too small for the mattress and  put a layer of batting under it just to make sure his little shark teeth couldn't penetrate.  I had to hand sew them because I don't have a sewing machine and I used Velcro to attach it to the rails so they look really awful (and like they were made by a 3rd grader).  Here's a picture of my solution:

I need to make another one for the front rail.  Hopefully it will look a little better since I now have a sewing machine! 

Couponing: CVS Deals

Here were my deals at CVS this morning:

Gillette Fusion ProGlide Razor: $6.99 - $5 coupon = $1.99
CVS GreenBagTag $0.99 - $0.99 Target Coupon = FREE
Trident Vitality Gum on sale for $0.99 - $0.99 CVS Extrabux = FREE

Green Bag Tag Information:

 

Gardening

While Tyler was napping today I decided to get out in the yard and plant some impatiens.

I love impatiens, they remind me of my childhood where every house in the neighborhood had at least one impatien growing.  Most had several, lining the gardens all around the yard similar to this:

Image from here

I loved going around and popping the seeds.  A gentle squeeze of the pod and it burst open and seeds flew everywhere.


Before





After Popping


















I found some at Lowe's, $1.88 for a 6 pack, and planted them around the tree in the center of our front yard. 

I would love to have bought bigger ones.  It would look more finished but $1.88 was in my price range.  It's hard to spend money on plants when I don't exactly have a green thumb and run the very high risk of killing them.

Perpetual Motion

Tyler is the definition of perpetual motion. I take lots of pictures of him but they rarely turn out because he never stops moving.

Here he is in his latest hang out: the dishwasher:

Couponing: Target

Here is my latest Target deals.

Nivea body lotion for $5.04 - $3 Target coupon - $2 manufacture coupon = $0.04
Nivea body wash on sale for $2.43 - $3 manufacture coupon = they paid me $0.57
Aquafresh Travel Size Toothpaste $0.99 - $1 manufacture coupon = paid me $0.01
Aquafresh baby toothbrush $0.99 - $1 manufacture coupon = paid me$0.01
Sally Hanson Nail Polish $1.99 - $1 manufacture coupon - $1 Target coupon  = paid me $0.01
Eyebrow Brush $1.99 - $1.99 Target mobile coupon = Free
Degree Travel Size Deodorant $0.97 - $1 manufacture coupon = they paid me $0.03
GE Reveal Light bulbs$2.99 - $1.50 Target coupon = $1.49

Couponing: Beechnut Baby Food

If you have a little one still using baby food make sure you join the Beech Nut family on their website.  Every now and then they send out coupons in the mail for free items.  The coupons i received earlier this week are for a free box of cereal and any two jars of baby food. 

Tapeña Wine Party - So much fun!!

We had our Tapeña Wine party last night, May 7th at it was so much fun. You just can't go wrong with great friends and great wine! I worked all morning preparing all sorts of spanish tapas. I ordered serrano ham, cured chorizo, and spanish paprika from La Tienda and prepared several of the recipes from the cookbook that Tapeña provided. All of them turned out to be great. I have several spanish tapas cookbooks but this one will get the most use going forward.  They usually have so many ingredients that you can't find in the States but this cookbook was easier. We had empanadillas, fried bread and chorizo, serrano and manchego, patas with roasted garlic dip, dry-cured chorizo, roasted red pepper dip, paprika spiced almonds, and roasted asparagus.
None of our guests had heard of Tapeña wines before and we were all pleasantly suprized by the great taste and the great price! My husband even made sangria using the Garanacha wine and pulled out the porron for the Tempranillo. Lots of fun!! Everyone loved the goodie bags filled with the magnets, wine charms, rebate, spanish clementines, and herbs.

Preparing Tapas

Lots of Party Supplies

Tapeña Wine Proudly Displayed

A Couple of Young Guests

The Sangria

The Perfect 1st Mother's Day

My very first Mother's Day started off by waking up at 8AM.  This never happens, at least not in the last 9 months.  I am always the one that gets up with Tyler so this was a nice treat. 

I came down stairs and got big hugs from my little guy and a present!  The sunglasses I've been wanting forever!

The weather was so perfect, we decided to go to Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis. It was the perfect spring day for strolling around the park and Quiet Waters has over 6 miles of paved trails some of which meander by the South River and offer picturesque water views.  We had a great time.

Someone carved out animals in a tree trunk

Tapeña Wine Party: Preparation

Lots to do for our big wine tasting party and I am so excited!  Tapeña Wines sent us a great party pack full of goodies for our party.  Included was our mail in rebate form for the wine, AMEX gift card for $25, a great tapas recipe book, wine opener, napkins, decorations, Spanish spices, tasting cards, magnets, and wine charms. 

I prepared goodie bags for our guests to showcase a few of the items Tapeña provided and included a few other Spanish items:

• Tapeña wine charms
• Tapeña magnets
• Tapeña Mail in Rebate form
• Clementines (Spanish citrus fruit)
• Seeds to grow Spanish herbs

I made lists of everything I wanted to serve and everything I need to buy to make that happen.  Spanish foods are surprisingly hard to find.  I enlisted the help of La Tienda - an online Spanish store where we have ordered from in the past.  I needed to order jamon serrano, dry-cured and cooking chorizo, and sweet smoked paprika.  The package arrived 2 days after I ordered it - now that is service!

Here is a run down of tapas I will serve:

• Goat's Cheese with Fig Spread
• Manchego y Serrano
• Paprika Spiced Almonds
• Spanish Olives
• Roasted Asparagus
• Chorizo Empanadillas
• Tortilla
• Fried Garlic Bread and Chorizo
• Potato Wedges with Roasted Garlic Dip
• Roasted Red Pepper Dip

I also had to find the wine, which was much easier than finding the Spanish food.  A local liquor store had a great stock of Tapeña Wines and even had them on sale for $7.99 a bottle.  I knew I wanted a case so I asked if they could offer me a discount for buying in bulk.  They obliged and gave me another 10% off for purchasing a case (12 bottles).  When I got home, I filled out and mailed in my rebate form that Tapeña provided which was $66 off of 12 bottles of wine.  This brought the final price per bottle down to $2!!!  You know how I love a deal and this was a great deal!!  I think it may have even made the wine taste a tiny bit better, if that's even possible.  My husband and I both drink a lot of wine and we really enjoyed the Tapeña wines. 

Here is a run down of all the drinks that will be served:

• Sangria made with the Garanacha Wine (my husband's family recipe)
• Tempranillo Wine
• Garanacha Wine
• Rose Wine
• Verdejo (White) Wine
• Sparking water
• Flat water

New Cabinet and Tapeña Wine Party

Tapeña asked us to host a tapas and wine tasting party using their 4 wines and we graciously accepted.  The party is this weekend and I'm looking forward to good wine (of course we had to taste it first!), friends, and yummy food. 
When Casa Pena first found out we were going to be hosting, about a month ago, I decided we needed a new cabinet for our dining room.  Tyler could stand up and grab liquor on the old one and since it was basically just glass shelves, it was entirely too unsafe for my liking.  Here is a picture of him doing just that in case you need a visual:

It seems he prefers Captain Morgan to wine at this point.  Or maybe it's just that the bottle was smaller? Either way I set out looking for an inexpensive, dark wood, durable enough to hold bottles of liquor cabinet.  After lots of searching online (even on craigslist) I finally decided to just go with Canopy Living's console table.  We already have one in our master bedroom so I knew the quality was decent (it weighs 150 lbs!) and I liked the color of the wood. 

Here it is in our bedroom as a TV console.  We wanted something tall enough that we could see the TV over the bed.  This was perfect for the space and the size of the TV(hubby talked me into a whopping 42" TV).

I bought new knobs from Cool Knobs & Pulls online to dress it up a bit.  I might do the same with the cabinet in the dining room but for now the knobs it came with work just fine.  It actually comes with 2 different sets of knobs - wood that matches the cabinet and brushed nickel.

At the price of $250 I was happy with my purchase.  It arrived via site-to-store at our local Wal-Mart and we picked it up and assembled it ourselves. Here it is piled high with party decorations and supplies:

Blog Face Lift

This blog has needed a serious face lift for a while.  Back in December I contacted Lindsey of Sweet Simplicity Designs.  I have seen her work here and here and really loved it.  I'm a fairly creative person with working knowledge of Photoshop, MS Publisher, etc., however, I don't know code very well and so I felt like I couldn't have done this on my own.  She was booked up and said she couldn't get to my blog until April.  When she contacted me a few weeks ago I was ecstatic!!  We worked together, emailing back and forth different ideas and fonts until we came (really SHE came up with) the new Casa Pena design and I absolutely love it!  She was such a joy to work with and so talented.

Here is a picture of the old design:

Old Casa~Pena Design

Lindsey does great work and is a joy to work with.