Little boy hair, no more... At least in the Summer.

Posted by Hope Zoll on Thursday, April 21, 2011.
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I loved his hair because to me it was a little boy hair-do. I knew as soon as we cut it he would morph into a 7 year old that doesn’t want to cuddle mommy anymore and gets embarrassed by me kissing him in public. But it’s getting hot out and my little B-ster loves nothing more than running and playing outside all day. Getting as dirty and sweaty as possible. I love this about him… but quite frankly I don’t want to be embarrassed when I take him to the playground anymore. There. I said it. You see, after about 5 minutes of playing in the heat my little petunia ends up looking like this…

Truth be told, kids these days are turds. I don’t want to give the bullies on the playground any ammo. AND you best believe, I certainly do not want to have to throw down with any of their mothers. What! Dramatic, I know. But this is what I picture happening in my head with this sweaty cow hair-do of his. So I let go and had Hubby take Brody for his “big boy” haircut. I’m so glad we did it because look how stinkin cute this boy is! (note: the before is SO not the sweaty cow hair-do I was refering to :))


This was his reaction when he saw his transformation…

Who is that? Is that me?


o.m.g. what did she do to me?!


Hey, I kinda like this. Yeaaaah.  (model pose)


P.S. He still likes to cuddle :)



My Little Sophia Loren

Posted by Hope Zoll on Monday, April 18, 2011.
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If anyone asked me to my face, I would tell them that Lily has been crawling for weeks now. After all, she is nearly 10 months old. The reality is that the break dancing worm technique, that only got her traveling at a pace of 6 inches every 5 minutes did not (as much as I wanted to lie to myself) constitute as crawling.

Well my little Sophia Loren found her motivation… the meatball. Me being the nervous cautious mother that I am, have been afraid to give her any meats so far. I have no good explanation of this fear other than my doctor telling me to not give her any until she turned 9 months. So obviously there’s some scary reason of why you have to wait, right?  Maybe it would make her choke, hurt her belly, make her grow a tail and crave grass, I'm not sure… I don’t ask these questions on the well check-up appointments. I just listen intently with my mouth and eyes wide open and try to write a list in my head of what to do to keep her healthy, happy, and human ;).

Yesterday Lily wasn’t down with this idea.  I swear, I could hear the eye of the tiger song in her head as she made her first (real) baby crawl steps toward big brothers meatball on the floor. Brody thinks the sight of her crawling is hilarious by the way. My first instinct was to grab the meatball and replace it with little puffs but then I realized that it’s time to relax. And I realized how cute and happy she was eating this little meatball. My little girl is growing up! The easy days of the vegetarian worm are over.




(Brody laughing at her shoving the meatball in her mouth)


(happy, crawling, meat eatin girl)


THE BEST Monkey Bread Recipe

Posted by Hope Zoll on Friday, April 15, 2011.
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Oh. My. Goodness.

Normally I don’t eat much of what I bake or cook. I usually do too much tasting throughout the process that by the time I’m actually finished cooking, I’m sorta over the whole thing. And then there is monkey bread. Or what my 3 year old (so classily) calls…. um…well, monkey balls. Ok moving on. These babies make me forget how to blink.

Pretend the best cinnamon toast ever had an affair with a cream cheese bagel and then they made little ooey gooey brown sugar and butter covered babies. This bread is that baby.

They’re even better the next day when the sugar and butter has had a chance to make itself known. You can also swap out the cream cheese for Nutella, because let’s face it Nutella rocks. I can seriously devour these bad boys. Keep an ice cold glass of milk nearby for the full Nirvana effect.




Monkey Bread Recipe

Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese
  • 2 (12-ounce) cans refrigerated biscuits (10 count)
  • 1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts (optional. totally just as good without em)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Spray a bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray. Mix the granulated sugar and cinnamon. In a saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar over low heat, stirring well; set aside.
Cut the cream cheese into 20 equal cubes. Press the biscuits out with your fingers and sprinkle each with 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon sugar. Place a cube of cream cheese in the center of each biscuit, wrapping and sealing the dough around the cream cheese.
Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the nuts into the bottom of the bundt pan. Place half of the prepared biscuits in the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, pour half of the melted butter mixture over the biscuits, and sprinkle on 1/2 cup of nuts.
Layer the remaining biscuits on top, sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon sugar, pour the remaining butter mixture over the biscuits, and sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of nuts. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Place a plate on top and invert.




My Etsy shop opening and a discount for ya!

Posted by Hope Zoll on Wednesday, April 13, 2011.
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Allo Mates. So I know I have been slackin with the blog lately, but I’ve been busy starting an ah-may-zing Etsy shop. I’m selling all of my homemade goodies there, so click on the shop tab in the header above or in the side bar and check it! I’ll be adding new things ALL the time so make sure to add it to your daily website stalking repertoire J Here’s some of the things I’m selling.

*Dslr Camera Strap Covers*



*Pretty in Pink Princess Bracelet for Baby/Toddler/Children*


*My First Pearls Bracelet/Necklace Set*


*Silver Fresh Water Pearl Bird Nest Necklace Pendant* (PERFECT for Mother's day :) I also make a bird nest ring! )



SOOOO for your blog follower discount, all you have to do is click on the follow tab in the right side-bar and follow me. Then go to my etsy shop and enter the code BLOGBUDS at checkout for 10% off your order! If there's something you see above that you like that's not in my shop, convo. me through Etsy and I'll get it re-listed for ya. Happy Shopping!


little miss homemade blog button!

Posted by Hope Zoll on Sunday, March 27, 2011.
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Boutique Wipes Case Tutorial

Posted by Hope Zoll on Tuesday, March 15, 2011.
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These wipe cases are ca-ute, super easy to make, and inexpensive. A little secret confession; when I leave the house (which is about every 3 days... seriously you don't wanna take my son out in public lately. He's going through his 2-3 year life crisis and hates his life and wants everyone around him to be miserable too. The poor guy will be 3 in June and is STILL cutting teeth on top of the life crisis situation. He still has 3 molars to go... Is that normal???) Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah so when I go out somewhere I purposely leave my cute little wipes case on top of my diaper bag. Just so people will comment on it! HA what can I say I'm a proud crafter. Not to mention, 2 Mommas have offered to buy them from me. Holla! Ok on to the Tutorial...


The Stuff You're Gonna Need To Make These Babies-
·         Travel diaper wipes case
·         Fabric (enough for 2- 9x5 pieces)
·         Batting or Foam which I forgot to add in the picture J (Batting is MUCH better but I didn’t have any at the time)
·         Scissors
·         Hot Glue Gun
·         Coordinating Ribbon and embellishments


First of all, I am using the Huggies brand diaper wipes travel case.  (I found mine at Wal-Mart. I can never find them at Target for some reason.) Measuring along the top, down to the middle of each side, I decided that I needed pieces of fabric that were 9 x 5 inches. Soo go ahead and cut out 2 pieces of fabric (one for the top and one for the bottom) that are 9 x 5 inches each.






Now cut out 1 piece of batting or in my case foam that is 9 x 5 as well. Glue your piece of batting to the top of your wipes case and then trim off the excess. The batting doesn't need to go down the sides at all. It serves its purpose of covering up that center opening thingy (you know what I'm talking about?) and makes the top slightly softer. Also it hides the glue marks.



Next, hot glue your top piece of fabric on top of the batting.


TIP: Just glue a little bit at a time so that your glue is nice and hot while attaching the fabric to the batting, creating a secure hold. Trim this fabric as well, but a little longer, making sure that it almost reaches the middle of the sides. Do the same thing to the bottom.

And it's okay if it's not perfectly straight or doesn't line up with the middle exactly. See look, here's mine. Don't try to perfect this part.....it'll get covered up by your ribbon anyway.

Then glue some ribbon around the upper and lower edges, hiding all of those edges of fabric. Take your time and only glue a little at a time, to make sure you are attaching your ribbon to HOT glue. This will help it stay in place permanently. Just don't burn those little fingers. I started and finished at the back to hide the ends.


Now if you want to, it’s time to glue (or you could hand stitch) some embellishments to the top. I added a few little fabric rosettes. I've realized you can stick these bad boys on just about anything and it always makes it that much cuter.



Tada! You're done! And I'm done with my first tuttie! Yay for us!



Oh P.S. This is another one that I made in a different fabric.... The only difference is that I glued a ribbon across the top of the fabric before I glued the ribbon around. And I added a button.




Uh Hum... Allow me to introduce myself

Posted by Hope Zoll on Monday, March 14, 2011.
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My name is Hope. I’m a wife to my hubby and best buddy, Scott. He is a STUD and more importantly a great man and daddy. We have two angels together, Brody and Lily. I’m blessed enough to be able to stay at home with my little cuties. In this glamorous chapter of my life I spend most of my days wearing yoga pants and pimple cream, fussing at my toddler to stop taking toys from the baby.  Allll. Day. Long. And in case you were wondering, no.  I do not do yoga.  

I’m obsessed with what we call late-night Martha-Stewarting in my house. Yep, it’s a verb people. I’ve found that this is what keeps this momma happy. If you’re not familiar with the goddess of all things awesome, that pretty much means making homemade things (sewing, crafts, yada yada). I also love to cook and stalk craigslist for name brand things that I normally wouldn’t be able to afford :).

I started this blog mainly to show my sister Rachel how I make all my little homemade projects and to share my recipes with her. I can’t guarantee that everyday you’ll see some creative masterpiece from moi. Some days might be what’s goin on that day or just things that make me laugh. So since we’re gonna be blogger BFF’s now, don’t be shy- leave a comment and follow me! Oh and grab a button on your way out :)