Texas Trip, Y'all

Aida and I just got home yesterday from our trip to Texas to visit with my family. My mom was coming to Houston for a conference so we decided to make it a mini family reunion. My mom flew in from Japan, my dad drove in from Dallas, we flew in from Denver and we all converged on my brother's house in Austin last Friday.

On Sunday, my mom, Aida, Ethan (my nephew), and I drove to San Antonio to see my aunt and uncle and grandparents. Monday we drove back to Austin and then on Tuesday, the same group drove to Houston. I stayed at the hotel with the kids while my mom went to her conference. We went to the Houston Children's Museum on Wednesday, the Houston Zoo on Thursday, and Friday morning I took them swimming. My mom's conference ended at noon and then we drove back to Austin and then we all flew out yesterday (Saturday). It seems a little crazy when I type it all out like that but it was actually really fun.

It was great to see John and Mia. Their two boys, Ethan (4) and Edward (1), are way too cute. Aida and Ethan had so much fun playing together all week. Darling little cousins. Neither of them wanted to leave when it was time to go. This is definitely one of my favorite benefits of staying at home, being able to travel and visit family without worrying about work schedules and vacation days. Its a different kind of freedom, that's for sure.

What's for Lunch?

Around the beginning of November, I was browsing on one of my favorite sites and I found a bunch of listings for play food made out of felt. I became instantly obsessed and decided I wanted to make some for Aida for Christmas. A couple of the shops just sold the patterns so I bought a few that I liked and decided to start with a sandwich. I am not crafty at all and don't even own a sewing machine so there was a lot of trial and error and trips to the fabric store to get the supplies. I found a couple of tutorials on the web for the different types of stitches and jumped right in. I'm pretty happy with how everything turned out considering I started with zero sewing skills. Aida seemed really happy with it and recognized it as a sandwich as soon as she opened it, so I think that is a good sign. :)

Here are all the fixings for the sandwiches. I decided to make two full sets so there are 4 pieces of bread, 4 cucumbers (or maybe pickles, depends on who you ask), 2 tomatoes, 2 pieces of lettuce, 2 pieces of chedder, 2 pieces of swiss, 2 slices of turkey, and 2 slices of ham.

After the sandwich I started working on a set of felt fruit. So far I've only completed the apple and the banana:
I obviously overstuffed the apple, I don't like that you can see so much white when it is all together and I should of used yellow thread on the outside of the banana peel. I didn't even think about it until it was all done and at that point I wasn't about to cut it out and start over. The apple velcros together for a whole apple or comes apart for slices and the banana can be "peeled".
Seriously, how cute is that banana? I'm still working on the orange slices and watermelon to finish the fruit. My next project will be a pizza with all the toppings and after that, if I'm feeling super ambitious, a tea set. I'll keep posting pictures as I finish everything.

Lunch anyone? :)