Sweet Tomatoes

Ah Sweet Tomatoes, why oh why aren't you in Michigan? The closest location is in Illinois, but that's not nearly close enough to get a regular fix. With your delicious salads, lots of fresh veggies, great soups, and freshly baked muffins, it's the perfect place to bring my whole family. Where we can each create our own perfect meal and eat our fill. I can still taste my last bite of Won Ton Chicken Happiness Salad and the sweet crunch of the broccoli, cashew, and bacon concoction called Joann's Broccoli Madness. Oh how I love lining up with my plate and piling it up with all the salad fixing's I love. More carrot, fresh peas, red onion...yes please. Hold the olives, jicama, and squash...no problem.

Since I love Sweet Tomatoes so much, it only seemed fitting that we ate there on Valentine's Day, last month while in Florida. Once I knew we were going to Disney World, I hopped on line to see if any would be on our driving route or near the parks. Luckily for me, one is and I made sure we planned to go there. I know, you're all thinking that sounds real romantic. However, heading where we could skip the long lines and waits everywhere else with a hungry and tired crew from a long day at Animal Kingdom, made it the best choice we could've made. And it WAS very busy and crowded but the staff did a great job of moving people along and getting every one seated and fed.

The love affair with Sweet Tomatoes began when we lived outside of San Francisco, one was in the very next town to us and we went there, A LOT. When we moved to New Mexico, it was a little harder to go to, as it was an hour away in Albuquerque, but when we still got there pretty often. It's an awesome place to eat at and great for families because everyone can get exactly what they want and it's priced right too. Plus there's usually no waiting, which means not having to deal with crabby or fidgety kids at the table. It's one big healthy and fresh buffet where all the peeling and chopping is all done for you. You start by making your own salad from what is literally 55 feet of farm fresh fare of vegetables, premade salads, and every topping imaginable.
Now that I have ER I miss being able to go there whenever I want even more, because she loves fresh veggies like cucumber, tomatoes, corn, and carrots. A couple of scoops of that along with some cheese, plain pasta, pickles and she's good to go. Then give her some mac and cheese or rice and she's in heaven.
Add a slice of bread or seriously delicious muffins, and I am usually NOT a big muffin fan but these are great and baked in the right proportion, and everyone's happy. The absolutely yummy honey whipped butter they have is good on, oh just about everything. Brad almost always gets a baked potoato that you can load up. There are even fresh cooked veggies you can pop on top, not that he does, I'm just sayin' one COULD skip the sour cream, bacon, and green onions.

Let's see salad, pasta, breads, oh yes and we can't forget their soups. Several are available every day, and my mom really liked the Golden Yam Bisque. These rotate all the time, right now the featured soup is Classic Creamy Tomato, which I've had before, and it's one of my favorites. You can get another limited time item, grilled cheese focaccia dippers to go with it. Delicious!
Alas, every great meal must come to and end, but oh what an end! No one needs to ask me twice to make my own sundae and cover it with hot fudge sauce, all of this piled on top of the most wonderful hot chocolate lava cake!!! Yum is definitely not adequate enough to describe the whole thing.

Tell me I'm not alone with my obession over certain places to eat...what's yours and why do you crave it?

PS: I think I should credit Brad as my photographer for all the photos in this post except for the top two. I made him go around and take pictures, because it was crowded and I didn't want to look weird taking them☺ Good thing I have a husband who doesn't mind getting stared at.

Scrapbooking: Baby Faces, Valentine's Day, and Girls Night Out

I haven't been too productive with scrapbooking lately, seeing how I've been working on several scrappy gifts, but have managed to finish these three pages. This first one is an example of a summary cover page for one of ER's baby scrapbooks. I used little leftover chipboard frames to highlight several extra pictures, that might not otherwise have gotten scrapped, from the time frame that the scrapbook covers.

Then I used the coordinating alphabets to make the title. The chipboard frames and letters are all leftovers from pieces I used to create her Meet the Baby Album. I'll share that soon, I just have to get my MIL to tell me a few of her guest's names. I keep forgetting to ask her and that's all I need to finally finish up the journaling. It's a cute idea, for the Meet the Baby party for my side of the family it's a keepsake and advice book all in one. I really love it.

I've had this cute cupcake paper in my stash for awhile and knew I wanted to use it for Valentine's Day 2008. Time flies, can't believe it took me so long to get these done! My parents watched her that year while Brad and I went out to dinner. It was the first time ER tried a cupcake.

Here's a little close up of the cupcake paper and glittery stickers I used, note the rare usage of my own handwriting, shocking I know.

This last one is about a special birthday celebration I had with my best friend Alicia, before she moved to AZ. We knew she'd be moving soon, which of course made us both very sad. What I really wanted that year was just some time with her. So we went to our favorite local Chinese restaurant, rented some chick flicks, and had a good ol' fashioned sleepover. Like all good get togethers there was a late night fridge raid and lots of chatter into the wee hours, ah good times!

Shared At:

Friday Fun Finds at Kojo Designs

Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge

Spring has Sprung at Fun to Craft, Where I was Featured for Last Week's Link Up☺

Weekend Wrap Up at Tatertots and Jello

Review & Giveaway: Calico Critters Card Game, "Who's Missing"

Giveaway now closed, thank you to everyone who entered and congratulations to Kiy, comment #33, who said, "Our favorite fun activity is the coloring pages. Right now, coloring is ALL the rage in our household!"
ER and I have been enjoying daily game time with our new Who's Missing card game from Calico Critters. Featuring the adorable friends from their popular line of play sets, the games are both fun and educational and the cards are the perfect size for little hands.
We've been playing two out of the three suggested games. The first one improves your memory skills and was a totally new concept for ER. That makes it really fun for her. I lay out 5 cards in a row. She looks at all the cards and tries to memorize what's on them.Then ER covers her eyes while I take away a card; I have to watch her like a hawk for peeking☺. She has to tell me which Calico Critters are missing. As the game is played, the row of cards grows, so the game becomes more challenging the longer you play. I think that's a great way to keep older kids challenged and engaged. Right now we only go up to seven cards because after that she becomes frustrated.
The next game is a great one to work on number recognition and counting. She wants to play so badly, because she just loves the Calico Critter families on the cards, that it's gotten her to really start looking at the numbers on them more and more. Which is great to me. I also like how all the cards with two animals on it all have a pink background. It's nice to give kids more than one type of visual cue, they can figure out which cards got together by color and numeral.
To play this game each player gets five cards. To modify and make it a fun and successful activity for ER we play with our cards face up. The rest are placed in the middle and the top one is turned over. Players take turns looking at their cards and either matching up the same Critter family or number. The first player to use up all their cards wins. The last game, Calico Critter Rummy has players collect seven cards with the same number on them. It involves preplanning and strategy that ER isn't ready for. It's nice to know this is one game that can continue to grow with her. We can also continue to make the other games a little harder and challenge her. I know we'll be playing with this set for years to come.
Giveaway!
Would you like to win a set?

International Playthings, the makers of Calico Critters is giving away one to my readers!

I know you'll have so much fun playing, that your kiddos won't even notice they are learning and improving critical life skills.

To Enter:
Head over to the Calico Critter's website and tell me your favorite product there.

Extra Entries:

• Publically follow my blog using Google Friends Connect.
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• Follow me on Twitter. Tweet about this giveaway, link to this post, and include @KTnestingspot in it.
• Tell me which fun activity on the Calico Critter's website your kids would like the most.
• Tell me your favorite Calico Critters Family.

Good Luck! Giveaway open now through April 2nd at midnight EST. Winner has 48 hours to respond to my email before a new one is chosen. Open to US residents only.



Disclaimer: Thank you to International Playthings for sponsoring this giveaway and providing the reviewers set of the game. This review relates my own personal and unbiased opinions and experince with it and yours may differ.