1. Friendship Bracelet Valentines from Dandee 2. Princess and Super Hero Peg Doll Valentines from Crossing the Bugger-Dixon Line 3. Lucky In Love Scratch Off Valentines from BHG 4. Envelope Valentines from Nest of Posies 5. Peach Prize Ball Valentine from The Sweetest OccasionTweet
Pin ItIt occurred to me yesterday at lunch that TOMS has truly penetrated the market. Our whole party was wearing TOMS (not on purpose), our waitress was wearing black sparkle TOMS and when we left the bistro (after my daughter threw up mussels and escargot on her TOMS) the friendly homeless man outside was wearing TOMS.
I figure that if the movement has reached this man, wearing a tacky Christmas sweater in Palm Springs heat, it has truly been a success. This makes me happy. We gave our delicious doggy bag to him and went home, invigorated to buy new TOMS. I love them for my daughter–they make great everyday run around shoes, but it was really time to look for a new pair for myself.
Imagine my glee when I spotted the new Ballet Flats that TOMS offers. Yes, ballet flats. They come in all different fabrics: burlap, linen, leather, chambray and suede. TOMS has been successful not only because of the pure goodness of the cause, but also because their design and marketing teams rule. They have kept us on our toes (pun not intended but left in) adding new colors, fabrics, styles and entire collections on a regular basis. A great business model for a worthy company.
Brand new for Spring 2012 (and some available now) – TOMS Ballet Flats. See the current collection – more on their way.
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Does your morning breakfast routine need a little help these days? I know mine does. In the morning while rushing around getting ready for work, the last thing I want to do is make breakfast let alone a little packet of instant oatmeal that is never as good as it looks on the box or in the commercials. When I stumbled upon this genius recipe I could not wait to share it with all of you busy women. On-the-go oatmeal is also a great snack for after a workout, in the middle of the day or even at night when you are craving something sweet. You can even customize the recipe with your favorite dried fruit or even bananas.
Enjoy!
Ingredients
Optional: nuts
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray cupcake pan with cooking spray and set aside.
In large bowl mix together oats, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
In a separate bowl whisk together milk, coconut milk, applesauce, and egg whites.
Add wet ingredients to the oat mixture and mix until combined. Carefully fold in apple pieces and raisins.
In prepared muffin/cupcake pan, fill each cup about 3/4 full. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until tops are browned
Remove and let cool for 10 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.Tweet
I’m noticing this trend in all aspects of my life, which is the over-engineering of things. I’ve noticed that a lot of the baby food recipe books are completely over done. I think it’s wonderful for the parents who have time to make a 5 course puree meal for their baby using extremely fancy items, but for me, it’s unrealistic. That all being said, when a new parent, or even a parent of several kids who finally decided to try to make their own baby food goes to make their first batches, it’s not an easy task. Not only do you have no idea where to really start, but a lot of the recipes out there are extremely involved. When my daughter was born, we all rushed to this blog with recipes by age. My first recipe was a complicated broccoli cheese soup that took forever to make and gave her so much gas! Apparently Liza Huber, author of Sage Spoonfuls, thought this exact same thing.
Not only can you buy all of the accessories needed to create, store and travel with your own homemade purees, but her book, Sage Spoonfuls, is the holy grail of all baby food cookbooks. Sage Spoonfuls is truly the only book you’ll need because she breaks down everything you need to know in one handy book. You’ll learn all about the benefits of going organic, Allergies and food intolerances (and what to look for), nutrition basics, herbs/spice knowledge, foods to avoid and even choking and infant CPR techniques. Then she goes into detail about the tools you need, shopping lists, preparation of the foods, how to puree, how to serve and store the purees.
Ok, if that didn’t sell you, I need to explain to you why I truly love this book. As I mentioned earlier, most recipes books try to impress you with their complicated recipes that they guarantee will wow your child. But when you go to the grocery store, you see basic items on the shelf that your child loves. Liza explains to you all the 
basic foods to cook for your child. By basic I will give you an example of what I mean. She breaks the sections off into age of the child. We’ll use Banana as an example. She tells you how many ounces one banana will make. Tells you all of the vitamins you’ll find, how to prepare it, serve it, take it on the go and everything else you need to know about pureeing your own bananas. Then she tells you all of the wonderful combinations that work well with bananas. Both fruit and vegetable options and how to mix them together. I LOVE THAT! I swear, I haven’t found this in any other book. I’m so excited for my next baby to arrive here this summer because I’m going to be a baby food making machine once they’re able to eat food.
Head over to Sage Spoonfuls here and save yourself some serious frustration by avoiding all of those other recipe books. Look no further because I found it for you!
What little girl isn’t completely captivated by the magical world of Fairies? My daughter even has her own fairy catching jar in her bedroom. She hasn’t caught one yet, but she’s still trying. This amazing party was thrown by Shea for her daughter Ruby’s 5th birthday. Check out the full set of photos here at Kara’s Party Ideas.
A tarte tatin is one of those recipes that always seems to be far more complicated than it really is – when in actual fact, after you have made it once you will be wondering why it hasn’t been on your ‘lets bake this ALL the time’ list for every dinner party, family get together or Saturday night dinner-in. It is that easy and that impressive – not to mention delicious!
But let’s not save our Tarte Tatin for dessert only, we devoured ours after a morning of ice skating in Central Park – it seemed to work well with our hot chocolate. In fact those caramelised apples sitting atop the beautifully buttery, pastry could almost be passed off as a decadent breakfast treat. Whether, it be morning, noon or night and whatever the occasion, this is certainly one of the most richly satisfying and feel good desserts treats I have tasted in a long time.
Pastry Ingredients
141 grams/5 ounces cold butter, cut into small cubes
1 tablespoon aster (superfine) sugar
1 1/2 cup plain (all purpose) flour
3 to 6 tablespoons iced water
Filling
4 medium apples, fresh and firm (Granny Smith or Pink Lady work really well)
113 grams/4 ounces salted butter
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
To make the pastry, combine the flour and sugar in a bowl and place it in your freezer, along with the cubes of butter and your pastry cutter or fork. Leave for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, place a large piece of parchment paper on your work surface and scatter it liberally with flour.
Remove everything from your freezer and begin to cut the butter through the flour mixture, this will require a fair about of elbow grease. Stop when the larget pieces of butter are the size of peas.
Add the ice water a little at a time, processing just until the dough starts to come together and almost looks shaggy. Gather it together and place on your work surface (handle the dough as little as possible so the little pieces of butter do not melt). Lightly flour the surface of the dough and your rolling pin and carefully roll the dough into an 11 inch circle. Using the pargchment paper, move the dough onto a large rimless baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
To prepare the filling, preheat your oven to 190 c/375 f. Peel and core the apples and cut them in half.
Place the butter into an ovenproof skillet or pan, measuring around 7 to 8 inches across the bottom and 10 to 11 inches across the top, and melt over a low heat. Remove from heat, add the sugar and whisk until combined and dissolved. Arrange your apples over the top, cut small pieces if you wish to fill in gaps.
Return your pan to the stove top and on a high heat, boil for around 20 minutes or until the juices in the pan turn to an amber colour. Remove from the heat.
Place your dough onto of the apples, and working quickly, tuck in the pastry into the sides using a spoon. Place in the oven and bake until the pastry is a golden brown colour, about 25-35 minutes. Remove from your oven and allow to cool on a rack about 30 minutes.
Run a knife along the inside edge of the pan, place your serving dish on top of the pan and flip over so your Tarte Tatin inverts onto your platter.
Your Tarte Tatin will last a day at room temperature, and another if refrigerated, heat slightly before serving if not eaten immediately.
Notes: This can be made with slices of apples rather than just halves. And feel free to substitute the pastry with a shop bought puff pastry, although I promise you the homemade one will be a thousand times better!
Yield: Serves 6 – 8Tweet
Pin ItI know “sew do it” is a cheesy title, but I like it and it embodies my relationship with my sewing machine.
I learned to sew at a very young age on a very old Singer. We had an affair, this lovely machine and I, one summer sewing what my mom called “hippie tops” and then parted ways. Once I had my daughter, a surge of domestic drive revived my want to sew. It stayed there, a want, for awhile. Projects collected and some even were started, but not much came to fruition (hello tree skirt, curtains, and doll bedding).
Then this little thing called Pinterest infected my life, begging me to spends hours a day looking and pinning everything from hair-dos to gardening tips. I ignored the sewing projects for some time. Then, I gave in and started pinning my “sew do its”. But, nothing pushed me to act and complete until I saw a tutorial for kids pajama pants.
My daughter has a lot of pajamas but it never seems like enough. After all, she does wear them every night and sometimes into the lazy days. And those ever-growing legs of hers–I cannot keep up. I bet many of you can relate. Back to the tutorial–I found this very detailed tutorial by Dana Made It and it just spoke to me. I said, out loud, to no one in particular, “I could make those”. The first thought that came to me was almost a bully reaction of “so do it” (see, title, get it?).
So, I did it and they turned out so lovely we’ve got two more pairs waiting to be created. Being the generous soul that I am, I’m sharing it with all of you who have not yet pinned it. See the full (dummy proof) tutorial here at Dana Made It. Dana really spells it out for you, making this sewing project doable for anyone. And what could be more relevant than PJ Pants?
1. Hopscotch Kids by Scotch $11.99 2. SpaRitual $10 3. Priti Princess by Priti NYC $8 4. Suncoat Girl $8.99 5. Keeki $9.99 6. A Beautiful Life $12
Was that 6? whoops! Have Top 5 requests? Send them to us or tell us in our Cafemom Group!Tweet
Pin ItI have spent my entire life with small patches of itchy irritating eczema on the back of my arms and I’ve never really been able to get rid of the completely. Unfortunately, I passed eczema along to my son, he too gets small patches of it on various parts of his body. Since he started to develop eczema, I have been using every type of natural washes and lotion out there. While these products didn’t further the irritation it didn’t get rid of it, so my son still doesn’t get the relief he so desperately needs! It is especially bad during the dry winter months, I swear we both sat on a 6 hour flight just after Christmas scratching away the whole way home.
When I was introduced to Exederm, my son and I both did a little dance! Knowing that there may be a product out there that could ease our irritation is definitely something to be excited about. Exederm, is an ultra sensitive skin care solution made for both adults and children with eczema, dermatitis and dry or sensitive skin. This one of a kind product contains no fragrance, no parabens, no color or dyes, and the list goes on. Using the only the mildest ingredients possible they have created a miracle in a bottle! I swear after 1 week I noticed my son’s itchy red spots start to fade, not to mention he stopped asking me to scratch his itches. The Exederm baby line includes everything from baby bath to baby oil, anything and everything to clean your kiddos after a long day of being well kiddos. The best part about it – they are all AFFORDABLE!
Exederm isn’t just for the babies either, they offer adult products as well. Think about how many different chemicals we, women especially, put on our faces sometimes before we even leave the house in the morning. I swear I have at least 20 products for my face alone. No wonder most of us have dry red skin. So at the end of the day clean all of those chemicals off of your face and your body with clean hypoallergenic products made specifically for sensitive skin. In my opinion, we all have sensitive skin so every one should buy some!
I think arrows are a very overlooked decor must for Valentine’s Day. Cupid’s bow and arrow are pivotal parts of the love day lore so put down the hearts and pick up some dowels! I think a jar of arrows is the perfect addition to your holiday decor–simple yet interesting. A few have entered my home and become bedazzled with pinks and reds, but others I decorated neutral to keep around all year. To make your own arrows, follow this simple tutorial and get creative!
Integrate arrows into your valentines with DIY Valentine Arrows found at Two Shade of Pink
Oh, and why not throw a few arrows through your Red Velvet Cupcakes from Bakerella?
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