Baby Shower Party Favors

Kipp's good friend Lea (her maid of honor 3 years ago) is hosting a baby shower for her in a few weeks.  I volunteered to make the party favors and since I'll be in Hawaii until 2 days before the shower I thought I'd better make them ahead of time...here's what I came up with.

Super easy, but cute I think.  I started with 2 cases 

of canning jars (pint size), 2 big bags of cake mix,

a big bag of chocolate chips, yards and yards of

bias tape in polka dot and check/baby blue of course, 

and cute labels with baking instructions I printed on the computer

you might recognize the bias tape...it's 

leftover from the cradle bumpers

my labels say "thanks for coming" &

"and welcoming baby boy batley"

the flip side has baking instructions

for the cupcakes

{bake @ 350 about 18 minutes

1 egg

a bit under 1/2 C water

a bit under 1/4 C oil

yield 6 cupcakes}

I washed all the mason jars in the dishwasher

then poured 1 cup of cake mix in each

next, 1/4 Cup chocolate chips

I punched a hole in each label, threaded the bias tape through it

and tied the "ribbon" around the top of the jar

all 24 party favors are ready to go

Home from the Bike Trip

We made it home...whew, great trip.  It was divided into three parts...Lake Garda, the biking, Paris.  Each piece was super fun and so different.  I already shared some pictures from Villa Feltrinelli on Lake Garda, now for a few pics from the bike trip and Paris.

Here I am cruising on my bike...we did over 200 miles in 6 days,

not so much for Chris, ALOT for me!

Here's Chris leaving a lunch spot for 

an afternoon of more biking

A pasta making lesson at one of our hotels in Puglia

A mozzarella making lesson 

One of the olive tree orchards we rode through (these are 800 years old)

A little local color

The Puglia coastline

Another lunch spot...a private villa in the hills above Lecce

How cute are these Trullis????

And of course, golf amongst the olive trees

and then...3 fun days in Paris.  I planned a special treat

for Chris, lunch at Jules Verne up on the 3rd level of 

the Eiffel Tower...incredible experience

Lake Garda

We're at the most amazing place...Villa Feltrinelli.  It's where Mussolini was held near the end of WWII...a beautiful old villa surrounded by the most luxurious 10 acres of landscaping right along Lake Garda.  It has only 16 rooms...very peaceful...very elegant.  Our little Ford rental car looks lost among the ferraris and mercedes...the perfect place to get over our jet lag before the bicycle trip.

the view from our room

the front door (Chris posting a pic to Facebook)

the back door!

we're not too far from Venezia...

pretty cool

Ciao

We're leaving for Italy tomorrow.  Another bike trip...so fun.  This time we're biking Puglia.  It's an area in Italy we've not spent much time in, it will be exciting to taste new regional dishes and photograph cool buildings and scenery for future paintings.  Thought I'd leave you with a little watercolor I finished yesterday...very  apropos of the trip (did it for the baby's nursery...his daddy rides a Vespa to work most days)  Ciao!

Manzanita Yardwork

Well, it's finally time to tackle the "outside" of the Manzanita Remodel!  Ryan has been pulling out shrubbery from the backyard for weeks...but Labor Day we all pitched in to start cleaning up the front.  With a giant pine tree looming over the landscaping and dropping pine needles at an alarming rate...it looked a little creepy and a lot messy.  We figured an empty "canvas" would be much easier to work with then a collection of half dead scraggly plants.  Here are before and "in progress" after photos.

and after a day of work

Most of the river bottom rock is going...we're thinking of 

putting a "free" sign on the pile and seeing what happens.

Lots of neighbors stopped by to welcome Ryan & Katie to the

neighborhood...hahaha, they've been there a year

but since the work has all been going on inside no one knew them.

Now the decision...to change the color of the house or not!