happy easter weekend!

have a wonderful easter weekend!

love, laurie

clever easter ideas

easter is just a few days away, so here is a little round up of some clever ideas for easter

> shaving cream dyed easter eggs
> crescent roll carrots filled with egg/ham salad
> bunny cut up cake
> bunny paw print cookies
> lolly pop bunnies

love, laurie

blast from the past

over the weekend i was doing some spring cleaning and i came across this picture.  talk about a blast from the past.  since easter is this weekend, i thought i'd share this gem from three decades ago.

love, laurie

cuddle bunny

i can't resist an opportunity to cuddle with my little cuddle bunny!  having him fall asleep on my lap with his head in my hand is about as good as it gets!

love, laurie

kicking off the first day of spring with free rita's

even though it doesn't entirely feel like spring, it is!  we kept with tradition and celebrated the first day of spring last week with free rita's.  i'm very much hoping that spring is here to stay and that winter is over!  (although, we did wake up to a dusting of snow yesterday morning!  i certainly hope that is the last of the snow for the year.)

love, laurie

neighborhood watch

this guy doesn't miss a trick.  a few days ago, he was sound asleep on my lap.  someone walked by on the front sidewalk (not making a sound) and he sprung up to check it out.  nothing gets by this guy.

have a great weekend

love, laurie

ryan's helper

ryan had some paperwork out on the dining room table recently in hopes of getting a little work done . . . leko had other plans.  needless to say, leko won.

what a cutie!

love, laurie

kinky boots

broadway tour season continued this weekend with the national tour of kinky boots.  ryan worked the load in and the show, and we both worked the load out.  i got to see the show on saturday with my parents, and after the show we got to meet some of the cast for a talk-back.  we capped off the night with some thai for dinner before ryan had to be back to the theatre to work the evening performance.

love, laurie

happy "spring"

today's the first day of spring, although the weather forecast is a bit iffy and it doesn't exactly feel like spring yet.  after the ridiculous winter that we have had this year, i am certainly ready for some nice spring weather!!!  in the meantime, i will be dreaming about the day we spent walking through the cherry blossom trees last spring in brooklyn.

go out and celebrate today with some free rita's!

love, laurie

happy birthday!

happy birthday today to ryan's mom!!!  she's in north carolina today so we won't get to celebrate with her, but we'll take a rain check and be sure to celebrate as soon as she's back home in pennsylvania!

happy birthday!

love, laurie

a rare occurrence

our little fur baby is obsessed with one particular bright pink ball that he has.  almost every day like clockwork, he picks up the ball in his mouth, yells at it, and plops it down in his water bowl.  we reset it every night so that he can redo it the next morning. 

a few days ago, i came home from work to find not only the pink ball in the water like usual, but leko's green ball was joining the pink ball for a swim in his upstairs water bowl in our bathroom!  it was such a rare occurrence that i quickly snapped a picture on my phone and texted it to ryan.

what a silly kitten!

have a great weekend!

love, laurie

it must run in the family . . .

for as long as we have had leko (over 6 years now) he has been fascinated with licking ryan's hair.  we can't explain it, and we're really not sure how it started, but he does it on a regular basis.

my mom keeps saying that when i was little i used to lick my brother's hair.  i only vaguely remember this and absolutely could not even begin to explain why i did it.  for years, my mom has been saying that there is a picture somewhere of me doing it and she finally found it this past weekend.  when she texted me the picture i could not stop laughing.  i had to show it to leko to tell him this weird habit must run in the family!

love, laurie

snapshots of life lately . . .

a few photos of . . . the cutest vintage subaru displayed at the philly flower show, waving goodbye to the camera man as our tour bus pulled out of the tv station parking lot on our way to the flower show, a much-needed car wash which i had to wait in line for over 40 minutes which i'm sure won't last long, and saturday evening snuggles on the couch with my favorite kitten.

love, laurie

d.i.y aromatherapy lavender rice bags

growing up, my mom always had aromatherapy rice bags and bean bags.  i remember popping them in the microwave and giving them a zap to put on sore muscles.  they always felt so good and smelled so good too.

every time ryan and i go to local craft fairs, we see vendors selling homemade aromatherapy rice bags and bean bags.  we always contemplate buying one and then decide against it because they are so darn expensive.  like broken records, we end up walking away saying "we can totally make one of those ourselves."

fast forward several years later, and we keep saying this over and over each time we go to a craft fair.  it has now become a ridiculous running joke with us whenever we see these bags.

this past weekend we had a few hours free before work in the afternoon.  i turned to ryan and said, "oh my gosh, do you know what we should do?  we should finally make one of those bags!"

out to the craft store we went to pick out fabric and pick up dried lavender flowers, followed by a stop at the grocery store for a very large bag of white rice.

we spent our sunday morning doing this project and are so thrilled with way it turned out (and how little it cost).  by no means do i think i'm an expert crafter or sewer.  i have some basic sewing skills at best, but if i can figure this out with no pattern, then anyone can do it.  here's what we did . . .

we picked out two fabrics.  we chose plain white for the inside lining and a cute pattern for the outside of the bag.  since we are so cheap, we bought fabric that was in the clearance bin.  we found two bags of dried lavender flowers at our local craft store and used 50% off coupons on them.  at the grocery store, we bought a 10 pound bag of plain white rice.

we eyeballed the fabric to see how big we wanted the bags to be.  we knew we wanted one that was a long rectangle big enough to fit across our broad shoulders.  we also wanted two smaller squares too.

we put the outside lining facing itself sandwiched between two pieces of white inside lining fabric.  we sewed all four sides, leaving a little hole in order to turn the fabric back right-side out, and cut off the excess fabric.

we turned the fabric right-side out and used a dull butter knife to push the edges out to make right angles.

we used a funnel to pour the rice into the bag through the opening that was left.

after pouring in the rice, we used the funnel to pour in the dried lavender flowers before hand sewing up the small hole.

in total, we made three bags.  the long rectangle is 20 x 8 inches.  it's long enough to drape over our shoulders, to run down the center of our backs, or to fit around our lower backs.  this bag used 5 pounds of rice and 0.4 ounces of dried lavender flowers.

the smaller square bags are 9 x 7 inches each.  they are perfect for a little body part that is sore.  each of the smaller bags used 2.5 pounds of rice and 0.2 ounces of dried lavender flowers.

all together, we made three of these aromatherapy lavender rice bags for a total cost of $12!

once they are all done, all you have to do is pop them in the microwave to heat them up.  the smell of the lavender will make your mind relax and the warm rice will help any aching body part.  (they're also great as little heating pads to keep you warm in the cold weather too!)

love, laurie

lunch at the reading terminal market

while we were in philly last week at the flower show (here and here), we went across the street to the reading terminal market to grab lunch.  i've heard so much about the market for years, but have never been there before.  it was incredibly crowded for lunch since the flower show was going on and there were several conferences happening as well.  we had to wait in some long lines, but scored a great slice of pizza with mediterranean salad on top, burgers with seasoned crinkle fries, a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie, and some great (and inexpensive) produce.  i'd love to go back to the market on a much-less busy day.  there sure were a lot of interesting booths and vendors.

love, laurie

a trip to the 2018 philadelphia flower show - part 2

a few more photos from our trip to the philadelphia flower show this week.  we had a great time and were pleasantly surprised to take home some fun freebies too, including: sunflower seeds from the show, pansies from one of our tour guides, and some tv station swag from the folks who organized the trip.

love, laurie

a trip to the 2018 philadelphia flower show - part 1

it has been 6 years since ryan and i have been to the philadelphia flower show.  we weren't necessarily planning on going this year, but my dad entered us into a contest run by our local tv station, and my name was chosen as a winner for 2 free tickets!

we went to the tv station bright and early on monday morning and met the other winners for a tour of the station before boarding a bus bound for philly.  my parents drove down and met us in philly so we could spend the day together walking around the flower show.

the theme of this year's show was "wonders of water."  after the very rough winter that we have had this year, it was so nice to see all of the brightly colored flowers!  even though the flower show was incredibly busy, we had a great time walking around the show with my parents.  (thanks, dad, for entering us into the contest each and every day!)  here are a few photos from the flower show . . .

love, laurie