HOLLA! It’s finally May 20th! Oh, I’ve been only waiting for this day for, like, two years! The book process is long (I’ll share more about it tomorrow Thursday, sorry we got busy celebrating by relaxing), but I’m finally excited to announce that Let’s Sew Together is officially out! If you’ve pre-ordered it, you should get it within the next couple of days (or maybe today!), and hopefully it will start popping up in your local bookstores too.

I’m so thankful for my talented friends who made this video possible. The song is “Let’s Make Magic” by Hope Leigh (Me & Mr. Cassidy) and made especially for the book trailer (it’s just so perfect!) and you can purchase the song here. The video is done by my friend Lou Casas (Cakeflix Films) and he did a wonderful job capturing the “magic” I wanted to share. It’s so much fun to create with your kids and that’s what I want to encourage others to do. The outcome doesn’t have to be perfect, but it’s all about spending time together and having fun.

If you’re in Southern California and are free on Saturday, May 31st between 5-7pm, we are having a book release party at the Oh, Hello Friend shop in Fullerton. I would love to be able to celebrate with you in person if you can make it!

The garden is coming together, finally. Last year was full of trial and error (making lots of mistakes), and though they were expensive mistakes, we are so happy where it is all now and all the changes we made are for the better. We did a lot of switch-a-roo placement of things and while we still aren’t done, it’s one step closer the goal. Our Saturdays are spent in the garden and all the girls happily love lending a helping hand (see proof here).

I have more garden posts coming soon, and before the summer’s over, I’ll give you a tour of our backyard. The whole yard won’t be quite completed (about a quarter of it won’t be done until maybe Fall), but we are feeling good about the direction it’s all going.

Read more garden posts here…

P.S. My book will be released tomorrow (AHHH!!!), so I’ve got something special to share and a fun giveaway to go along with it! I can’t believe May 20th is really almost here!!!

Langostino Sopes. This is one of my most favorite things to eat. Ben makes it, and made it for Mother’s Day, and I was happy to have plenty of leftovers for dinner Monday night.

Spaghetti and Herb Filled Turkey Meatballs. I’ve gotta say that these meatballs were bomb dot com. I usually don’t like meatballs, but these were so yummy. I put in a whole package of panko bread crumbs, a lot of herbs from the garden (basil, sage, marjoram), onions, garlic, and salt and pepper. Everyone who came to Dinner Club on Thursday loved them! There were none leftover.

Week of 5/19 – 5/23
Monday: Bossam
Tuesday: It’s book release day, so I’m not cooking and we’re going to pick up sushi from my fave sushi place!
Wednesday: Leftovers
Thursday: Black Bean Rice Bowls
Friday: Tilapia Ceviche

Family meals on the blog keep me accountable. I started it because I wanted to get better at cooking for my family and meal planning really helped me be more efficient. Seventy-four weeks later and I’ve tried a lot of different recipes and feel so much more comfortable and confident in the kitchen. I can work with what we have in the refrigerator and pantry, and my girls have tried so many different things. It has just been a win all around.

It’s been super hot here (over 100 degrees the past few days) and makes me wish we had a pool. I wish we can rewind time to a few weekends ago when it was True’s birthday and we were just poolside all day long.

10 random things about me…

I used to be allergic to Crayola crayons when I was a kid. It would make me sneeze, so I was often the only kid in the class who had colored pencils.

I always have my nails done and I do them myself.

I’m named after my paternal grandmother, Ruby, and my maternal grandmother, Ellen, so together you get Rubyellen. While that’s what my name says everywhere, I go by Ruby.

I’m definitely not slow to anger, but I’m working on it.

Turquoise is my favorite color.

I have one bad foot. I swear I got a bunion on that foot from Ben (it runs in his family). My theory is that you eventually get any ailments your spouse has. He had never had eczema before we got married (and no one in his family does), and now he has it on his leg. I have had eczema since I was a baby, though it’s no longer on my arms and legs, I still get dry patches on my face.

My rule for shopping is that if I want to buy something new, I have to sell some things I no longer wear/want in my closet. Thus, I love our local buy/sell places.

I hate math. I’m not a numbers person.

When I have a bad day, I need ice cream and chocolate. It’s emotional eating and the dietitian husband doesn’t agree with it, but it really does help me feel better.

I was already practicing my signature Rubyellen Bratcher soon after I met Ben, and way before we really became friends. I’m weird like that.

Hope you have a good weekend!

This is what it looks like before I get to tackling it. I was feeling really frustrated (because I just cleaned it last week), so I just snapped one picture, but this is what their room looks like 6 and a half days a week. It’s only clean for half the day after I clean it, so I guarantee it will be looking back like this tomorrow.

The striped mattress (seen above) is for True’s big girl bed. We bought her a vintage French iron bed, and since it’s old and not a standard measurement (almost a twin, but a little bit more narrow), we had to get a custom mattress made to fit it. We did a lot of searching, and decided to get an organic talalay latex mattress for her. There’s not many places we can go to try one, so we read a lot of reviews, and took a risk ordering one online. I decided to order one from Foam Factory, since they were able to make it custom, had the type of mattress we wanted, and were priced reasonably considering (this is the one we purchased). It came in pretty quickly and we had Ben sleep on it for the the first few nights to test it out (he’s picky about mattresses), and he really liked it, so then we moved it on to True’s room. She’s been using it for several months now and has had no complaints, so I take that as a good sign. It’s True’s bed, but sometimes she will invite Soul and Brave in too, and it’s so adorable to see them all cuddled in together.

True’s bed had random sheets on it for the past few months because I wasn’t sure what direction to go with for her big girl bed. Floral? Stripes? White? I just had no clue.  I really wanted to order this cover, but she (and Ben) said it had too many flowers, and I guess with the floral rug in the room, it probably would have been way too flowery. To get the ball rolling, we took a trip to IKEA and I let her pick out something she liked, so she went with the colorful polkadot for her duvet (it’s discontinued at IKEA, so we got a queen sized one and I hemmed it down to fit). We chose a smaller polkadot for her fitted sheet (this one’s from Target), and then we used a vintage floral one for her flat sheet. It’s still kind of random, but now intentionally unmatching is matching, right?!

With her bed having new bed sheets, but the rest of the room being a mess, I was really itching to clean, so while they were working on a history project, that’s what I did. It’s been awhile since I did a room tour (see some past ones here, here, and here), but there’s been little changes here and there. Lamps.com contacted me to see if I wanted to try out one of their lights, and I was pretty excited because I had already been eyeing this one from them. It’s made by Feiss and I love the look of the woven bamboo; it’s perfect for their room. When it’s on at night, True likes to stand under it while acting all pizzazzy and say, “I’m in the spotlight!”

True and Brave are older now, so they have their own likes, and that definitely shows in their room. Each of them have created their own gallery wall of stuff by their bed, their favorite toys are out, and they even have their favorite sports team represented too. There is also a small mattress I pulled out of frame that is usually on the ground for Soul because she sleeps with them too. This isn’t her room as she technically shares with Glow, but I haven’t been ready to put them together yet. I have this feeling they would keep each other up and not sleep, or wake up super early together, and not let the rest of us sleep.

We are now looking for a big girl bed for Brave, but it will probably take a couple flea market trips until we find the perfect one. Then, her current one will get moved to Soul and Glow’s room. I’ve learned to chill back a bit and just let them do what they want with their decorating ideas, so there’s also a lot of random things displayed, but it’s a reflection of them and what they’re into at the moment. It’s a kid room after all, so it works for me. My only wish is that it would stay a bit cleaner most days, but I’m guessing this is normal kid stuff too. By the way, isn’t True and Brave’s note to Ben on the chalkboard, so cute and funny?! Oh my Soul!

Ralph’s contacted me to ask if I knew about their rewards program. I said, “Um… have you been snooping on my credit card?” Ralph’s is our corner grocery store, and their fuel is consistently priced lower than the other 2 on the same corner, so we go with it. Thus, I agreed to be part of their fuel savings campaign along with Holly from Kids Activities Blog, Ashley from The Shine Project, and Summer from The Girls With Glasses Show. Here we are sharing about their fuel program, tips to rack up more points, and the best way to cash out and save more money when filling up.

Here’s a funny story… we’ve been using Ralph’s Fuel for about 6 years now, and you have to input your number to get your rewards, right? Well, when we first moved, we didn’t have a Ralph’s card, and I hate filling out those things to get one, so I would just input my parents’ phone number. I had been doing that up until about a year ago when Ben said, “I thought for sure we would have more points for all we spend” I said, “We? Don’t you just put my mom and dad’s number in?” He said, “No! I signed us up to get our own points.” That was a total ding-bat moment. From then on, I made sure to input our own phone number, so that we would get to reap the rewards ourselves.

It was fun getting to spend the day in Phoenix and getting to know the other ladies (and I got caught up on most my email while waiting for my flight home). They are all so sweet and it’s fun to talk nerdy blogging stuff with others who like that kind of stuff too. I did get jealous though because I learned in other states, you can max out your fuel rewards savings up to $1.00, whereas in Calfornia, you can only max out at 20 cents. Bummer for us, but great for everyone else if you’re in the other states. So if you happen to shop at Ralph’s (or Fry’s and Kroger’s in other states), don’t forget to input the right phone number (duh!) and take advantage of the fuel rewards.

This post is sponsored by Ralph’s. As always, all opinions are my own. I was excited to be able to do something like this to show the girls the result. Just liked I shared in yesterday’s post about True being shy, I used this to show them that even mommy can feel nervous and shy (boy was I feeling nervous and shy!), but I can still meet new people and even be in front of the camera. They were in awe watching it, and after they said, “They let you play like that at the grocery store?!”