Cheesy Peasy

Cheese is a HUGE staple in this house.

Mainly because of Kyle. >.<

We all dig on cheese, but Kyle? He LOVES cheese. He's infatuated with cheese. Cheese and him go hand and hand. There's never such a thing as "too much". *sigh*

On the upside, it helps me throw some veggies into food without him making bad faces. So I guess it's a win.

I wanted something easy, simple, and different tonight for dinner. We all love pasta/italian. And pasta goes with cheese well. I debated macaroni and cheese, but I bet I'd never hear the end about how it's not his Aunt Terry's, but it's good.

I'm okay with that, though. Terry makes some bomb mac and cheese.

So, I threw some stuff together in a dish and BAM. Dinner.

I love easy and cheap dinners.

Sugar And Spice And Everything Nice.

It's not just what little girls are made of.

Especially my little girls. Those kids..ugh. I think they got a bit too much of me in them for now. I'm hoping it's getting out of their systems before they hit the teens. Because if not, I'm screwed.

Anywho.

Cinnamon rolls are a favorite in this house. Mainly for Kyle, but I dig them, too. Kyle misses having a Cinnabon around pretty much everyday. If there's something on TV about them, he HAS to watch it. 

He's not obsessed or anything.

So, when I get the chance to, I like to make him some cinnamon rolls. They aren't Cinnabon worthy, but good enough for us.

Also, you'll never get your cinnamon rolls to taste like Cinnabon. They use a different kind of cinnamon. Now, you MIGHT be able to buy the cinnamon directly from them, but no company in the US will sell it.

Truth be told, I'd rather be eating these than paying an arm and a leg for a cinnamon roll.

I figured it out!

Remember that lime green block of knitting I was doing?

If not.

So, I just continued and continued with it, still unknown as to what it was going to be.

It was GOING to be a scarf/cowl type of thing. Like this.

You know, finished, minus the knitting needle, with some cute buttons.

But I decided against it.

This will (soon, hopefully) be a case for my 14" long knitting needles, and I will have to fashion up some polymer clay buttons for it to close. *squeal* I'm excited to pull out my polymer clay again.

Then, I'm going to (hopefully) knit up another one in a different color for my 10" long needles. Then figure out some sort of thing for my DPNs and circulars. 

I'm not sure about knitting a case in the same pattern, though. Because this is kinda time consuming...and a pain.

It was my birthday. :)

On the 14th, yesterday, I turned 20...something. That's not important.

For dinner, Kyle took me to Texas Roadhouse, where we spent $30+. Ridiculous. That much for ONE dinner? Ugh. It ticked me off so bad, you don't even know. And please believe, I ate enough peanuts and rolls to make up for it. And made sure to drop my shells on the floor.

Anywho.

In a previous post, I talked about how badly I wanted to bake tons of bread. Well, I still don't have a deep freeze, so the mass quantities are on hold. But I baked some bread tonight, and I'm HAPPY. I baked Kyle a loaf of cinnamon roll bread, which is the cinnamon raisin bread I posted minus the raisins, and then baked some honey wheat bread.

This is going to go great with our dinner tonight.

And I justify this because wheat is better for you.

Also, the recipe is without a lot of the step-by-step pictures. Mainly because I was SUPER ticked off with the yeast. You don't even know how bad. I almost threw this dough out. But then a SUPER AWESOME BAKING FRIEND of mine, Cat (whose blog is seen here), gave me some tips.

I do more than knit.

I really do. I try to round myself out and try everything atleast once.

Except crocheting. I've tried SEVERAL times. It always ends bad.

Another thing I really enjoy doing is using polymer clay. I make a lot of my jewelry that way. I figured I'd showcase something else aside from knitting. Gotta keep it from getting routine, you know.

Hello Kitty necklace.

Chocolate cake with strawberries. This turned into a bracelet.

Chocolate-strawberry nougat pendant earrings.

Polyjuice Potion necklace in glass, corked bottle. The inside is a mixture of polymer clay and a bunch of stuff.

Big bow ring.

Grenade necklace.

Mended heart ring.

Elvis the teddybear. He's a keychain.

Sushi earrings.

Ice cream earrings.

Tentacle bookmark.

Ella the elephant, for holding my rings while I'm doing dishes.

See? I'm multi-talented. :)

Fingerless Gloves Bug

You know, I think it's a sickness. I went through making 12+ beanies before deciding I was sick of making them.

The fingerless glove epidemic began after making these hats. And it started with...

Kidlet fingerless gloves. But it didn't stop there. Then, I made the ones for my SIL. And now?

These have plans to be Domo face fingerless gloves. And I can't wait to finish them up.

A gift worthy of the sister-in-law.

I'm DIY-ing a lot of things. Some for the kids, maybe something for me here and there. 

Recently, I'm DIY-ing for my sister-in-law.

If you ask Kyle, I'm very much like every woman in his family. Often, he stops and almost screams at himself in fear and realization. Poor guy. "IT'S TRUE! GUYS MARRY THEIR MOMS!" Heh. ^.^

So, Kyle's family is coming the first week of February for a visit from wayyyy across the USA. We don't see them often, and unfortunately my brother-in-law won't be coming with. So, since they weren't coming for a while, we held off on getting their gifts. Christmas was tough as it is, and we appreciated the extra time we had. So, there's...7 people we still need to get gifts for. 

We have a good idea as to what we're getting them, but it's all pretty much left up to me. Kyle sucks at this stuff. So bad.

For SIL, I made her a pair of fingerless gloves.

This pattern can be found here : Button Flap Fingerless Mitts

Now, my flaps don't currently have the buttons on them. I need to find the buttons that scream to me to attach. I also thing I'm going to track down some pins that she could put on the flap part. Favorite bands, humorous sayings, that type of thing. Or Harry Potter. Because we can't go wrong with Harry Potter. Especially since I made these with the idea of keeping her hands warm while reading.

Do you have that problem, too? Your hands get ice cold while reading? Because mine do, a lot, and it's quite annoying.

I've been planning her birthday gift, too. It'll be late, as her birthday was just a day or two ago, but it's going to be totally awesome.

What's this? What's this?

I...really don't know.

First off, I got this yarn for Gabe's hat. It's called "Limelight" by "I Love This Yarn!" -- Hobby Lobby. It's 100% acrylic worsted weight yarn. You can't wet block it without any sort of results, so you steam block this yarn. Don't directly apply an iron, because it will burn. Come on, acrylic IS plastic.

Anywho.

It's this gorgeous lime green. After using it for Gabe, I knew I had to figure out something else to make it into.

The pattern for the stitch can be found here.

I cast on 29 sts, always slip the first stitch knitwise, then always purl the last stitch.

It's soft. Not as soft as ewe or alpaca per se, but it's soft for acrylic yarn. If you were to feel it, then feel Red Heart brand, you'd be shocked that they're both acrylic. I really do love this yarn. Hobby Lobby win.

So, I was going to do a scarf, but this pattern is time consuming. It's going to take me forever.

And then I remembered. I don't wear scarves.

So...what do I make this?

Cooking + Kids = Hard

Gabe's been in and out of his separation anxiety phase. But the only time it kicks in full blown is when he knows I'm making or have food.

Boys. Growing boys. Ugh.

Ontop of that, money's been pretty tight. Christmas put anyone and everyone in a bind when added in with the economy.

(Times is hard...Times is HAAAAAAAAAARD. - Channeling Sweeney Todd)

Needless to say, I've had to try and figure out how to make a good dinner for little monies.

Alas. Soup.

No, I didn't just throw soup in a pot and call it mine.

It's simple. It's pretty cheap. It's chicken.

My favorite things all in one.