We really, really, really love Veganomicon. Omg. This is Herb scalloped potatoes, roasted portobellos, and roasted green beans. All 3 of us really loved this dinner. We've made these potatoes a few times already, they are unbelievably good and so easy! I love easy! Shae's a huge mushroom fan, so he was insanely happy about the portobellos, I like this marinade a lot better than others I've used. I added some oregano, basil & thyme. I have no idea why it didn't occur to me earlier to roast green beans, but let me just say Yuuuuuuummm! So much better. Screw steaming.

A few nights ago, Shae went into his bedroom and I, teasingly, locked his bedroom door. I expected him to giggle and demand to be released. Instead he got really, really quiet. We listened at the door and nothing! No response. Then pushed this note, wrapped around a crayon, under the door.

Another obsession, foreign money. Except you cannot call it money, you have to say "currency" and if you mess up his sorted piles he'll look at you like the world is ending. Unbelievable how much enjoyment he's getting out of this. Comparing coins to each other, converting them to US money to see how much they are worth, pondering what the countries cultures are like. This is so much better than video games!

Some awesome vegans are offering to send him coins & bills from other countries and he is downright thrilled. Yet another reason why

Shae <3's Cozy Inside

Ever heard of an 8 year old boy obsessed with food? I use the word obsessed because Shae's very all or nothing. When he gets excited about something, he gets really, really full-force into it.

Today he came home from school and spotted Joni's book- Cozy Inside open on the counter (to the fluffy omelets) and started oohhhhinng and aaahhhhing over everything. Screaming "mom! come look at this! we have to make this!". Getting more and more excited with each page and picture. He was downright giddy. He's begged for corn fritters, easy cheesy sauce, breakfast burritos, potato cheese soup and curried cashew chicken salad.

And get this! He saw garlic in one of the ingredient lists and he said "That's okay. I'll still eat it!". Yeah. He agreed to knowingly ingest garlic.

Something strange is going on here.

We heart etsy!

We are so in love with etsy! First of all, we sell lots of pins and things there, so yeah, we love that. Actually, let's just get that out of the way first...

Etsy Buy Handmade teenytinytantrums

Check out our shop! And see that adorable little robot vegan kids pin? That's Shae's. He asks every day if he sold any or not and gets so proud of himself when he has. He's saving up right now to go to the skatepark, he says. He's working on a vegan themed coloring book thingy that we'll be selling before long, so keep your eyes open for that.

If Shae sees me on etsy, he'll run over and question me about his pin & his profits, then he wants to search for pirates and bikes and animals and stuff. I've caught him searching for different types of foods before and giggling over the fake food toys and jewelry. Then of course he launches into his next entrepreneurial plan to get rich and famous. He's always entertaining.

I stalk all of the crafters who are by far, more talented than I and try really hard not to buy everything! For jewelry, I am obsessed with BlueRoo, of course, but also brookadelphia and lilikoi designs. My favorite artist of-the-moment is Unconventional Ida, by K Smith. But the shops that I browse the most often, who literally hurt me with their product photos are the vegan bakers! Vegan Honey and Vegan Propamanda.

We're trying really hard this year to give handmade gifts. We're making photo albums for some people, scarves, jewelry, ornaments, pins, cookies, muffins, etc. Etsy has been a great source for crafts outside of our realm of creativity. I'm way more excited shopping for and giving handmade gifts than I've ever been buying the same old stuff from the box stores. Handmade is where it's at! Support crafter and the love of craft!

basketball season!

First basketball game! Shae's been playing baseball and soccer on teams since he was 4, but we hadn't found a good place for him to do basketball at until now. We got really lucky with a great coach through the ymca. Shae's loving it! He's picking up on everything really quickly and doing a great job listening to his coach's feedback. He played point guard for the first game, they won 14-2!

So long, VeganMoFo.

This post was from November 30th, the official end of Vegan Mofo, the Vegan Month of Food. Course I didn't post it that day, why would I? We didn't actually stick with VeganMoFo we well as I would have liked, but it did really get me in the habit of updating this blog and also discovering loads of fun vegan blogs. I hope everyone keeps up with them now that we are off the clock.

On our last day of the month, we baked a cake for my parents for their anniversary. it was a quickie cake, as I wasn't feeling too great and we had to be done before basketball practice, but it was yummy! Just ask Shae....

Haha. Totally drunk off chocolate cake mix! We used our favorite easy cake recipe from La Dolce Vegan, and topped it off with Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World's Fluffy White Buttercream. Tinted some of the frosting pinkish red and flavored it raspberry and threw some letting on the cake. My first time, so yeah, that's kind of obvious I think. It was good though!

Things we love:

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade bleuroo.etsy.com

This is the start of something new I'll be doing, linking to various things that we love. Starting off is my friend Amanda's etsy shop! She makes really great earrings and the cutest hand embroidered onesies & baby shirts, ever. I almost always am wearing her earrings, I'm so in love with them. I'm really, insanely picky about earrings too, most are so overdone. Too many details, too frilly. Amanda's are just simple and pretty! And my super-sensitive ears like them, which is nothing short of amazing. Check her out, it's not to late to buy for christmas!

ps- Bleuroo has a great article up on the North Florida Craft Revolution blog about crafting moms. read it!