a few things to stop and enjoy...

I'm really enjoying this song today:

I think the common, not-so-typically-"pretty" images coupled with the uplifting message and relaxing rhythm are absolutely refreshing.

I also loved looking at this school's field trip to Key West! Can you imagine chaperoning a junior high field trip to Key West? Can you just imagine what memories they made and how much they learned? I think it's wonderful the way so many schools are branching out these days on their field trips, as far as funds will allow. There's truly something to learn and experience everywhere.

i've been searching for years...

for a mighty mosquito zapper.

It's so bad, I sleep with Benadryl Cream on my bedside table at night from May until October.

I was fighting them off with garlic and dryer sheets last year.

And last summer, a cashier in the grocery store looked at me and said, "You smell like summer camp!" Which was a much more poetic way of telling me I smelled like I had bathed in bug spray. Which I had.

But this year, I own:

THE THERMA CELL

Husband had the opportunity to use one on a hunting trip last fall and was very impressed.

We bought one at Home Depot on Saturday, and I haven't had a fresh mosquito bite since. It's almost miraculous.

They're on sale here.

cup-a-cake

Bite-Size Sour Cream-Pound Cake Cupcakes

How better to get in the groove of spring than to make some pretty cupcakes
and send them off in school lunches, Husband's briefcase, or in a picnic basket bound for the banks of a lake?

Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes

Friends, Family, offspring or significant others would be overjoyed to find ones of these tasty treats snugly packed into their laptop bag, bookbag, or sitting in their carseat, wouldn't they?

Lemonade Cupcakes

But, even though Southern Living has a special feature on their site for 17 different cupcake recipes, how would you transport your fine sugary creations to those you want to receive them?

Hmmm. What a predicament.

The Solution:

Find these adorable contraptions for $2.99 each or in sets of 4 for $7.99-9.99 here. Aren't they the perfect little cupcake solution?

meet claude... and the champion of truffle cakes

This is Claude Snowman.

And like every Snowman, Claude has a story.

His life was short, but it was full.

It all began in a place where snow-- the stuff that made Claude who he was-- comes like a thief in the night. Only the truly watchful residents of the place could have hoped to design a specimen with the caliber of character Claude possessed.

And the residents of this place were truly watchful. They watched the weather and the skies all day until snow started to fall. Then, while the rest of the neighborhood was sleeping, they made snow angels to ensure it was just the right snow. And it was.

Then, they fueled themselves on adorned pancakes and rest until the morning light seeped in,

And they consulted the secret blueprints that had been waiting for just the right snow to fall.

And it was then that Claude was conceived in a ball of leafy, dirty snow, which the truly watchful residents took great care to purify before Claude Snowman was introduced to the town of Backyard Bliss.

Each piece of Claude was rolled with care,

Given buttons of solid Holly Berry,

Molded down to his very feet,

And patted to a state of perfection that few others in his species have ever known, even if their lives were longer.

And the truly watchful dogs of the neighborhood wondered silently what their humans were up to. They wondered if perhaps their humans needed to fetch a ball-- the good, yellow bouncy kind-- in order to lure them back into reality.

Until,

The truly watchful residents stepped back and said hullo

To the exquisitely amiable

Claude Snowman.

At least 6 feet tall and more stunningly charming than his blueprint suggested he would be.

And suddenly,

Even the dog understood.

So, that's the story of Claude Snowman.

I will not share the pictures of Claude's demise later in the afternoon. I want the world to remember him in his prime.

Our Valentine's Day

consisted of none other than Julia Child's

French Onion Soup,

which I've been wanting to try because of the Farmhouse Kitchen's raving review.

And it did not disappoint.

And for Husband:

the world's Gold Medalist in the Chocolate Truffle Cake event.

I will post this recipe sometime this week. It's one of the few desserts that I have made more than a few times. Husband loves it, hence the Valentine's Day meal.

It's so good that I have to hurry and brush my teeth after dinner so I can say NO to a slab of it right before bed. This isn't the stuff you want hanging out, making itself at home in your gut just before snuggling down for the night, I assure you. It would move in and set up camp in the thighs, chin, and upper arms and only leave by severe force. It's the kind of stuff you want to eat much earlier in the day-- like for breakfast-- so you can burn off at least a smidgen.

It's MMMMMMMMM!!!!!

Speaking of, I think it's time for breakfast :)

I hope you all enjoyed meeting Melissa of Hoot Baby and hearing her career story yesterday!

Welcome to the world of Hoot Baby!

knot tunic sets from Indian Summer collection

I'm so delighted to be here on Scattering Lupines today-- thank you so much for the invitation! I'm Melissa Tarleton, from The World More Beautiful, fellow lover of Miss Rumphius and the face behind the children's brand Hoot Baby. Hoot Baby was born not long after my second son, John-Harper, in early 2009. We're a small company dedicated to creating delightful clothing for little girls and boys, with extra-special attention to comfort and a big dose of colorful style thrown in.

Chinoiserie float set from Picnic collection

When my oldest son, Grady, was very small, I discovered the wonderful world of European children's clothing. The soft fabrics, bright colors and simple, child-like embellishments were so different from much of what was offered in my local chain stores, and I was smitten. I have always loved to create-- and I was bitten hard by the bug of creating for my child. It was so much fun to design tiny outfits for my son using some of the aspects I admired in my favorite brands-- sophisticated colors, classic shapes, and a lack of "frou-frou" that could get in the way of his movement and play. I played around with different methods of seaming-- my goal was to eliminate the itchy, bulky and (to me) unattractive serged seams that hold most children's clothing together.

Peek a Pop of Daisy Dress from Indian Summer

I began to make clothing to give to friends with little girls-- there was so much wonderful fabric to choose from! Pretty soon, people began to ask if they could buy things I made. Well, OK. As I got more and more requests to sew up "whatever you think will look good"-- and began to have lots of smiling customers-- the idea took shape that maybe I should put together a group of clothing for sale. (My background is in Creative Writing-- I have an MFA-- and Montessori education-- I was a Primary teacher for many years-- so this was a big step in a different direction for me.) I spent a few very busy months (when my youngest son was just a couple months old-- thank GOODNESS for the invention of the Moby Wrap!) learning to draft patterns, choosing fabrics, designing, sampling and photographing a small (about 20 piece) collection for girls, called Indian Summer. This was quickly followed by another, larger collection for girls and boys, Schoolkids in Paris.

New School Schoolgirl smock from Schoolkids in Paris

I couldn't believe how much FUN it all was. I was very lucky that shortly after launching my website, Gabrielle Blair, of the amazing blog DesignMom, did a feature on Hoot Baby. This wonderful exposure led to a lot of other great opportunities for me, and Hoot Baby began selling through in-home Trunk Shows in the fall of 2009, as well as through our website. We are slowly moving into retail sales, and hopefully you'll be able to find Hoot Baby in a store near you very soon!

Vroom Vroom Vespa Tee and Old-Fashioned Bike Pants from Schoolkids in Paris

One of the things I'm most proud of about Hoot Baby is how our clothing is manufactured. It's very much a collaborative effort between me and a small group of local folks in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. Our area is one that's taken a huge hit as textile, furniture, and apparel manufacturers have taken their business overseas. My idea was to start small-- and very close to home-- putting one of these skilled tradespeople at a time back to work. I still cut out every single pattern for manufacture, and I spend a fair amount of time behind my own sewing machine producing all of the hand-appliqued clothing in our boys' collection. The rest of the sewing is done by talented sewers in their own homes-- it's very much a cottage industry approach to production. I am proud of our sewers, whose attention to quality and detail show in every piece, and I'm proud to support members of my community through fair wages and sustainable production.

Picnic Shirtwaist from Picnic collection

Our newest collection, Picnic, is arriving right now, and will be available for purchse in the next few days. Thanks so much for taking a peek at Hoot Baby! As an extra special thank-you to Scattering Lupines readers, we'd like to offer you a coupon code to use on any non-sale items you'd like to purchase between now and March 15. Just enter the code lupines at checkout! Please feel free to contact us with any questions at contact@hootbabydesigns.com. We're currently booking our Trunk Shows, which will begin in March, and we'd love to offer our discounted prices and a special thank-you discount to all of our hostesses!

All of our outdoor photography is courtesy of the oh-so-talented Cophia Lee.

for me, it's certainly the commercials

Husband is a big football fan, and (as you probably know by now) I like witty advertisements, so Super Bowl Sunday is the bees knees in our book.

However, we spent the first three quarters at a party, where we saw most of the game but everyone talked and re-filled appetizer plates and wine glasses during the commercials. Ah me, as Julia Child would say. Or, carry on, as Kurt Vonnegut might say.

Since we came home for the 4th quarter, I did see a few. Of those, this was my favorite:

And Husband managed to catch this preview early on in the game, and he is counting down the days till this comes to theaters in May:

Any favorite Super Bowl commercials?

water music revealed... and a few other tidbits

(1)

Husband's Dog-loo was still standing as of yesterday afternoon.

It's turned to a structure of solid ice. We now see why this was considered a formidable-enough structure for Eskimos' dwellings.

(2)

I found the MOST AMAZING website. Very helpful indeed.

You can search most personal and household care products and find not only customer reviews BUT ALSO environmental and health ratings. It will tell you what, if any, harmful ingredients lurk in your favorite products. For example, I discovered that my daytime moisturizer (which doubles as my "makeup") contains a cancer-causing agent-- oh and and I am really struggling. I love my moisturizer and it's taken me years to find one that I love. So now I am trying to decide if I should risk developing cancer or launch my search for the perfect moisturizer yet again. It's a toss-up, I tell ya.

I also discovered that my environmentally safe dish detergent is not altogether environmentally safe, due to the fact that the company who manufactures it is terrible at water and energy conservation. Good to know. So, the search continues in that department as well.

It's a good site to search your products' ratings, for whichever fields concern you most.

(3)

Do you have any subscriptions to magazines that actually require you to sit down and read informative, in-depth articles rather than merely flip through and admire lovely photos and tab tasty recipes?

We do. We like to subscribe to one of those kind per year. This year, it's the Smithsonian. It seems they show up in our mailbox before we're half-way through the previous issue. It's a rat race to keep up.

In catching up on my December Smithsonian reading, I read an article about Handel's music and learned that, "He wrote The Water Music [...] for George I, to be performed for the monarch as His Majesty's barge navigated through a London canal on a summer evening."

Like this or this:

"Ah-ha!" thought I when reading this and considering how I've always wondered at that lovely title: The Water Music. That explains it!

dogloos, watercress soup, and a whole city shutting down

2.5 years ago, Khan lived in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida where a January afternoon often consisted of a merry romp through salty waves and fetching seashells across the sand.

We then moved to Charlotte, where he has often wondered what happened to that place called the beach and why we don't take him there in the afternoon. No matter, he concludes. The Charlotte parks are fabulous havens for a dog.

So that's all fine, but now THIS, the Khan thought early Saturday morning.

What's this curious thing outside our front door?

So the brave Khan checked it out. And determined it was good.


We got barely enough snow to cover the ground by the time it was finished.

But that was enough reason for Charlotte to shut down.


There was hardly a soul out on the road or walking the streets downtown. The entire choir skipped church on Sunday and the lack of their leading voices caused the substitute pianist to cut the recessional hymn down to two verses instead of four to put the the thirty folks in the congregation out of their humiliating misery. We who came to church to hear a sermon and say a prayer just couldn't get the tune by ourselves. It left me very thankful for the choir.
And today, school is canceled indefinitely.


In the meantime, the colors that usually blend to make a harmonious palette of earthy tones and occasional hints of brighter, merrier colors, are popping out like fireworks against the snow.

It feels very wintry, indeed.

I havn't even noticed before now that Husband has not pulled his shriveled peppers from the ground, they blended so well in the dead grass.


Yes, Charlotte's population had a good time with this winter luxury, which the weather channel termed "ice pellets" rather than snow.



It crossed my mind to metamorphosize into a modern-day Laura Ingalls Wilder and pour squashed strawberries and sugar into this bucket for nature-made slushies. A vague understanding of pollution and human filth was all that restrained me.

Khan noticed some things that brought him joy and enthusiasm as well.

He worked long, hard hours to excavate his favorite sticks from the snow.

And soon he resembled a frozen version of that dirty-nosed pup on the beach.

In honor of the cold, I made Julia's Watercress Soup.

And discovered I don't like watercress soup.

So,

I won't be making that again.

I did, however, like the peppermint mocha brownies I made to share at a cookout and a Bible study.

And Husband made a Dog-loo for Khan,

but couldn't force him inside

So he agreed to let him sit beside it and have his picture taken.

I also made a Linzer Torte:

Which wasn't exactly delicious,

But we ate it anyway because we were snowed in :)

It's been fun having a little snow this winter!