The Cowgirl Butterfly Astronaut Vest

This particular post has been quite a bit of a process!  I'll start at the beginning though.  My little sister N (I'll shorten her name for now) had just started school and was having a rough time fitting in.  She's in some ways an only child (being the only child living at home and so much younger than myself) so she didn't have a lot of social exposure as she grew.  She was shy and just was struggling with the typical just beginning school problems little ones face!

Little N wearing the finished sweater!

One day while she was at school, the other kids began teasing her over me.  :(  She was made fun of and told that Michigan was not a real place and that I wasn't a real sister!  She took it in stride as all kids do and later that night, my mom called and asked if I could send a Michigan postcard so she could prove to her friends at school that I (and Michigan) weren't figments of her imagination.  My heart went out to this little kiddo (I adore spoiling her rotten anyways and this was just another excuse to!) and I set about not only getting some Michigan gear, but wanting to make her something that would make her feel cool and confident.  I searched long and hard for the perfect pattern. 

The bottom of the vest as I was working it

I didn't want to do a sweater because they're so easy to grow out of (the sleeves get too short, ect) and because it was fall in Texas and there is less super cold time and more of that warmish cold time there.  That is when I found the Cowgirl Butterfly Astronaut Vest.  I didn't think the original colors were quite what I was looking for, but I loved the look to the little vest.  (I will warn you now, if you click the link I can't guarantee anything but a cute pattern...from what I've seen of the creator's personal views...they aren't quite aligned with those of this blog).  I set out to Hobby Lobby and gathered supplies!

Working on the arm holes.

The pattern itself was pretty easy to put together and didn't seem to take much time at all.  The instructions were clearly written (at least I understood them well enough).  The author of the pattern did such a wonderful job catching that elegance of being a little girl and blending the rough tough playing hard with the dainty elegance of being pretty and girly.  I truly loved this pattern and enjoyed making it thoroughly   .

The pre cap sleeve and trim sweater!

That was...until I got to the sleeves.  I'll admit that this is the first sweater pattern (even if it is a kid's vest) that I've knitted and completed.  Normally I stick to socks and small projects for knitting, but this was too dang cute!  You would think that with socks being tricky on the shaping scale, some little ruffled cap sleeves would be nothing, right?  Nope.  Nada.  Never.  My first little knitted sleeve took me 3 whole hours just to finish!  At that point, I couldn't turn back and do something else.  Thankfully the second sleeve didn't take 3 hours, but it did take a long time for such a little piece.  I think if I were ever to make this pattern again, I'd skip the knitted ruffled sleeve and substitute some cute crochet ruffled lace cap sleeves instead, but that's just me.

The monster sleeve that took an epic amount of time to finish!

All in all, this is an adorable sweater vest pattern for little girls.  I wish I had one growing up!  I loved this project and wanted to share it with all of you so that you could make your own Cowgirl Butterfly Astronaut Vest (yes that is a link that will take you to the pattern!)  That's it for today!

BzzAgent Review: Yogurt!

Well, I'll be honest.  Yogurt and I have had a love hate relationship.  I've always suffered from a weaker digestive system and yogurt really makes a huge difference!  The problem had been that from the time I was a kid...I've hated (and I meant HATED) that yogurt taste (or after taste as the case may  be).  From the time I was 9 until last year when I turned 25, I avoided yogurt as though it were a plague of the worst sort.  Finally, Mike convinced me that yogurt would most likely help some of my problems and I bit the bullet and prepared to try to eat it again.  When I was preparing myself for yogurt, I discovered that there was a lot of variety on the market these days.  (Growing up I was used to seeing Yoplait in 5 or 6 different flavors.)  During my yogurt avoidance, I had been diagnosed with insulin resistance and read the book "The Insulin Resistance Diet" to learn how to manage it better just by the  foods I was eating (or to be more precise the order I ate my foods in).  I discovered this new type of yogurt called Greek Yogurt and decided it would be a good try with the higher protein to balance my diet.  With great trepidition, I picked up my first pack of Greek Yogurt that was coconut flavored (I'm still terrified of Vanilla flavors...too many bad memories!).  And, I liked it (the taste reminded me of sour cream!) and that's the only flavor of yogurt I've been eating for a year...until now!  I'll admit it.  I was ready to move into the wide world of more flavors!  The problem that was hindering me was that the type of yogurt I was buying (because I was terrified to try a different brand for fear of hating it again!) only came in 5 flavors in the  greek.  They have coconut (what I've been eating), strawberry (not for me! ick!), blueberry (I've considered trying this one), a honey flavor (I did try one of these...and it was a terrible blast of yogurt flavor.  I had one bite before I handed it to Mike), and a vanilla (my arch nemesis of yogurt!).  So, I was stuck in my fear and complacence...until I got the invite to this campaign.  

My initial response was to decline, but I started thinking about the options.  I would get to try some different yogurts for free (and in the worse case, Mike would get lots of yogurt and I would continue to eat the sour cream tasting coconut!).  I accepted and then panicked about what I had just done until the Bzzkit arrived in the mail!  In side my kit were coupons, a gift card (so I could test  for free), and some really neat information!  For example, the Kroger Greek (or Greek lite) have a whole 16g of protein!  That's pretty awesome!  The Carbmasters yogurt is lower in carbs, calories, and sugar than regular yogurt (and they said without sacrificing the taste...I didn't really believe them.).  I loaded Mike up with me (after a couple of weeks of preparing myself to try new flavors) and we ventured to Kroger to pick out our trial flavors.  We started out with 8 different flavors that we both might like (he helped me test out the yogurt :) ).  They were : Greek Pineapple and Mango, Carbmaster Black Forest Cake, Carbmaster Key Lime, Greek Lemon Creme, Carbmaster Cinnamon roll, Greek Peach, Greek Blueberry, and the Carbmaster Peach.   He really wanted to try a strawberry in the initial test (and has since eaten some), but I wanted to make sure that no matter which one I grabbed from the fridge (my method of randomly selecting which ones I was going to try that day) I would be able to at least try it.  Now, some of the  flavor reviews are from Mike, so as I'm going through the reviews, I'll mention which ones he tried and which ones I did.  I guess I should also say that Mike loves the yogurt taste and yogurt in general.  For him, the flavor testing was more along the lines of "how natural does the fruit taste, does it taste evenly balanced, ect".

Greek Pineapple Mango

This was the first flavor Mike sampled and I'll admit he had to take the first few bites of his before I was brave enough to follow suit.

His first comment was at how thick this Greek yogurt was.  He was also surprised by the strong yogurt taste (see, it was good I didn't try this one!) and by how the fruit flavor tasted like real fruit instead of artificial fruit flavoring.  At first, he thought there was no fruit pieces in the yogurt and he was sad, but then he realized that he could feel the fruit pieces as he was eating it, he just couldn't see them.  

This flavor was rated a 4 out of 5

Carbmaster Black Forest Cake

This was the first flavor I tried.  

When smelling the yogurt (yes, I am strange and yes I was delaying) I could smell yogurt and cherries.  I was excited that I could smell fruit so I tepidly took my first few bites.  There were little pieces of cherries scattered through the yogurt and you could really taste the chocolate taste!  I could taste no hint of a yogurt taste (yea!!!).  About half way through the yogurt, the flavor started almost having a buildup of an artificial fake taste ( I was sad :( ) and it started seeming almost over sweet like fake sugars tend to taste.  I did like that the carbmasters had a pudding like texture to them, and I could probably eat this flavor somewhat often, but it wasn't my favorite.

This flavor was rated a 3.5 out of 5

Carbmaster Key Lime

This was a flavor I tried.

The yogurt itself didn't have much of a scent to it.  Once again, I was very pleased that there was no strong yogurt flavor.  This yogurt was amazing!  It tasted like Lime sherbet (need I say more?)!

This flavor was rated a 5 out of 5

This was an Ashley favorite!

Greek Lemon Creme

This was a flavor I tried.

I was excited about this one (I love lemons and lemon flavored things normally).  When I did my sniff test, it didn't smell like yogurt per say, but it did not smell pleasant either.  I was excited by the little lemon bits I could see as I stirred the yogurt up!  I could very lightly (almost non existentially  taste the lemon creme flavor, but to be honest, the entire time I was eating it, I was reminded of the taste of my home made cheese I make.  The taste and texture was so similar to that home made cheese that once I reached the point of I would never eat this much cheese, I couldn't finish it.  The taste was more on the plain scale of what I would expect (or at least had seen previously in the yogurts).  The redeeming quality for this is that I do think this would be a good cooking flavor (I've used recipes that call for plain yogurt and I think this would be a tasty substitute).

This flavor was rated a 2 out of 5

Carbmaster Cinnamon Roll

This was a flavor Mike tested.

This flavor smelled like a cinnamon roll and tasted like a cinnamon roll.  (Mike even made the comment of "Who ground up the cinnamon roll and put it in here?")  Mike was surprised to find that there was no bad after taste or fake taste to the yogurt.  He complimented the milky after taste.  The final verdict was all that was missing from this was biting into the flaky warm crust (he said the yogurt being cold and tasting like it did was very strange).  

This flavor was rated 4 out of 5

Greek Peach

This was a flavor I tested.

I was turned away at first by the ridiculously strong yogurt smell as I pulled back the cover, but the big chunks of peaches I saw made that easy to look past!  The taste of the yogurt was slightly sour (meaning it reminded me more of store bought can peaches than the home canned ones) but it was still really good.  The yogurt itself isn't really flavored, but there are so many pieces of peaches that it really gives a good fresh flavor!

This flavor was rated 5 out of 5

This is an Ashley favorite!

Greek Blueberry

This was a flavor Mike tested.

The yogurt smelled strongly of blueberries and you couldn't really smell yogurt at all.  Mike said that he could taste the yogurt flavor really strongly.  He also said that it was a really tart flavor and that there was no fruit or jelly, just coloring and flavor (meaning he couldn't see or feel the texture of any fruit).  He said that the overall taste was good (if you like yogurt flavor) and that there was a really strong blueberry after taste.

This flavor was rated 4 out of 5

Carbmaster Peach

This was a flavor I tried.

This yogurt also had big chunks of peaches, but it was also very sweet.  It was almost more along the lines of having a peach dessert (like cobbler) than eating a yogurt.  I enjoyed it, but I had just had the Greek Peach and it was hindered by that.

This flavor was rated 3.5 out of 5

There you have it.  Those are the initial flavors we tested and what we thought of them!  I've already switched to buying the Kroger brand of yogurt (and I have to say that a big portion of the ones I've bought are the Greek Peach).  The worst flavor I've had so far has been the lemon creme and it was bad mostly because it was so bland.  The yogurts are a good price (I can only remember the Greek price at the moment and it is 5/$4.00) and are well flavored.  I encourage you all (yogurt lovers and non lovers alike) to at least give them a try!  If you are anything like me, you won't be disappointed!