On Vacation

My mom is getting ready for her well deserved vacation. She's going back home to Italy with my Dad to visit family. My grandma is 93 and my dad really misses her and wants to spend as much time as he can with her. It's so hard to have family so far away. Our shop www.designsbymimiandlola.com will be closed until August. We will have our hair accessories for sale in our Etsy Shop. We are currently offering 25% off all hair accessories so swing by and take a look!

Easter Desserts

We had a wonderful and busy Easter Weekend. We celebrated Good Friday eating strictly fish no meat for the whole day.

On Easter we had a huge spread of food that my mother-in-law served. Like always, I'm in-charge of dessert. This year I have cupcake fever so I served Tiramisu Cupcakes on Good Friday and Mini Blueberry Cheesecakes and Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes on Easter. My sister-in-law out did herself once again with her Easter Bunny Carrot Cake.

All Things Black and White

Here are a few black and white picks from our Etsy Shop.

Hydrating Your Body

Ever since I was small I always had dry skin. The eczema would rotate around my body. My husband has labelled me the chemical queen because I would buy every cream and body scrub hoping one would soothe my skin. Look no more. I found Lovefresh. Their products are made with all natural ingredients. Their scrub hydrates my skin like no other product did. After applying the scrub, my skin felt silky smooth. They have many delicious flavors to choose from. Visit Lovefresh.

More Easter Ideas

As mentioned earlier, I'm not a fan of gifting chocolate to my children, nieces and nephews. So what I do is give them a small quality chocolate along with a gift.

Here's a great idea found in our shop that would be great to accompany with a book or chocolate.

Christmas Eve Dinner

I've been nominated by my family to host Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas Eve is a big deal for us Italians. We eat fish for dinner. That's the problem. I'm not a good cook and to top it off I don't know how to cook fish. Whatever, it's not like I'm not under any stress. We're trying to get all the Christmas blanket orders out in time, try to finish off my Christmas shopping and bake all my cookies. Now I'm nominated as host of this year's Christmas Eve dinner. I know my parents and inlaws are getting older so I guess I have to accept the fact. To make things easier, my family has agreed to pitch in to have our dinner catered in by a local restaurant to make things easier for me. I just have to make the desserts and side dishes which my mom has agreed to help. My guests started off as 7 adults and 3 children it has now grown to 12 adults and 6 children. The more the merrier I guess.

There's an italian saying which goes like this: "Natale con I tuoi; Pasqua conchi vuoi," which means "Christmas with your family; Easter with whomever you wish.

My Son's Birthday Brunch

My children love being with our family. They love to go on family vacations, and spending their birthday with their extended family. This year my son requested a Sunday Brunch with the "Famiglia". I had set up a beautiful buffet, of greek yogurt parfait, french toast, turkey breakfast sausages, and a delicious cremini mushroom and swiss chard quiche (visit marthastweart.com for the recipies or the current edition of her magazine).

What a success. We all ate like pigs and chatted. The finishing touch to his birthday was a delicious tiramisu ice cream cake. Yup, I made it all. Tiring but worth it.

The guests all took home expresso pound cake with two sachets of the new Via coffee from Starbucks.

Halloween Craft Ideas

Last year we hosted my nieces first birthday party. Her theme was Halloween. We created Halloween crafts that were easy, cute and everyone enjoyed (including the moms). Everyone dressed up for the occasion which was really fun too! My sister-in-law is very crafty. She purchased re-usable bags at a local dollar store and had the kids stencil their halloween bags we (they) also made fun pipe cleaner spiders!

How fun! When I was a kid we had to play pin the tail on the donkey - boring!

New Bib Styles

We released some new bib styles just in time for spring. I also want to let you in on a little secret. We will be launching our new e-store soon! Stay tuned~

Visit us on Etsy to view the rest!

My Husband is Obsessed

My husband loves fishing. He says that it gives him peace. It's a hobby that calms him down. Okay I'm fine with that. He watches all the fishing shows (WFN), reads books and magazines. I'm proud of him because he's so knowledgeable about the sport. I find it boring. He supports catch and release and is very passionate about saving our lakes and species of fish.

But....I think he has an obsession with fishing lures. How many lures do you need? I took these pictures of his tackle boxes that he made to house his musky lures. Just musky. This is only one species of fish. He fishes for pike (walleye), rainbow, bass, salmon etc. His collection (obession) puts my shoe collection to shame!

Oh well, I love him and support the sport he loves.

New Blanket Design

We came up with a new blanket design which we were unable to post onto our website until the new year. There's one available in our Etsy Store. We called this one Guitar Solo.

Take a peek we are still running 10% off our pillows. Hurry sale ends November 30, 2009.

Find Candee Cayne!

EtsyBABY is kicking off the holiday season starting, November 7th with their 3rd Annual Holiday Hunt Promotion!!!!!
10% off IF CANDEE IS FOUND in my shop.
Candee Cayne, EtsyBABY's Holiday Helper, loves to play Hide 'N Seek!
EtsyBABY needs YOUR help to find where Candee Cayne has hidden! We need her back in the EtsyBABY nursery by November 30th, to help EtsyBABY members prepare for all of the holiday goodies that are purchased! She has hidden in multiple EtsyBABY Member shops and the shop owners are generously offering rewards! For participating shops, please follow this link: http://shopetsyBABY.com

***********Customer MUST purchase item that the graphic is placed in to receive their reward*****************

Pillow Event

We are having a sale on all pillows! Purchase 1 regular priced pillow and receive the second pillow of equal value or less for 50% off! Hurry! Offer expires October 14, 2009. We will refund you the difference on Etsy.