urban craft fair

last weekend was the urban craft uprising at seattle center!  it's a great thing to go to before the holidays.  it's all handmade crafts from the northwest.  most of the awesome stuff is totally beyond my price range, but i was able to find alistair a present there so it will be from maya and i.

this year i went with grace, miss maya, dawn, jane and jane's daughter hannah.  it was totally fun!  i thought the doors opened at 10, so we all got there at 10, but they didn't open until 11. oooops.  sorry!  it was really cold out so i'm pretty sure i apologized like 50 times.  it was really crowded in there, so i didn't actually take any pics inside the show, i just took these two:

i did a lot of staring at our feet while we were waiting in line.

grace and maya were trying hard to be mad at me.

it was super fun and even though i saw a lot of the same vendors from last year, there was some new stuff and it was all really awesome.  it was also great to hang out with dawn and jane outside of work and to hang out with hannah.  maya and her are the same age, but had never met.  they seemed to get along fine and a good time was had by all.

it's sunday baking day...

well, it's maya's birthday tomorrow (13, already!!!) and i'm also going back to work after vacation, so today was baking day.

i figured that maya's mom will get her cake and she'll probably be caked out when she gets over here, so i made her some mini tarts instead.  blueberry strawberry ones to be exact.

i randomly got this cookbook from the library and i liked it to much i got a copy off of amazon.  $6 bucks new!  (grace...you should get this cookbook, you will LOVE it!):

so i made the mini-tart crust and put it in 6 muffin tins:

filled it all up:

and 18 minutes later...

these smell really good.  i hope they taste as good as they smell.  i'll stick whipped cream on top before we eat them.  i'll see if i should have browned the edges more or not after i shove one in my face.

i also made myself some chocolate chip granola bar thingies to eat at work.  i gotta cut down on the sugar so....

oats, choc chips, dried cranberries, pecans, cashews, condensed milk and butter!!

i wasn't sure how hard these were going to be after they cooled down, so i didn't roll them into the pan with a rolling pin, i just pressed down with a spoon.  if i make them again, i'll roll them in. they're pretty soft.  but pretty good!!  i'll share with people at work.  yes, jane....this means you!!

and the baking was all made better with tea that i got from this great shop in eureka, ca.  

so far i like the plum berry white better than the peach.  we'll see which i like better when i make iced tea again.  y'know...for summertime.  when it's hot out.  hopefully that will happen this year.  yeesh.

but this song is why i wanted to go to eureka...this is for you sally!!!

i'm so lame...

it's inevitable...if i go to some kind of social function, i will take pictures of the food and nothing else.  i'm always happy when i actually take shots of something other than the food.  yet today was not the exception.  it was paul and kimberly's baby shower at work this afternoon and all i did was take shots of the treats:

om nom nom nom nom nom...

cake balls:

these cake balls were DELICIOUS!  except jane and i made schweddy ball jokes ALL DAY!  it was especially bad when i was sitting next to her in our friday morning meeting.  no more sitting by jane in friday meetings at work.  i get the giggles too bad.

oh, and this guy sat behind me at the baby shower and kicked my chair THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME:

so i took off his shoe and threw it.  note to self: also do not sit next to andrew at anything.  get giggles so bad i cry a little trying to hold them in.

but kimberly looked beautiful and paul looked like the happy papa he's going to be.  it's really too bad i didn't take any pictures of them or ANYTHING else except the food and andrew.

live and learn, alon, live and LEARN!!