"Mad Love" Ambigram Logo

Have you seen the Mad Love shoes at Target? I bought a pair about a year ago & found myself staring at the tag, wondering what the brand name was & why was it so hard to read? Then I realized... it's an ambigram!



And they do love their logo! You can find it on the hanger, on the tags, on the insole, sole, and even the metal buttons decorating the shoes.

The ambigram could use a little work, but I do still appreciate finding them out in the wild! For one thing, the right side of the V doesn't need to be short to look like an M... the L doesn't need to be disconnected at the top... the O could be rounder. As I was typing this out I couldn't resist making a few tweaks to the photo above to show you what I mean. (Original on top, changes on bottom)



Very small changes, but I find it a lot easier to read. What do you think?

As for the shoes... I'm not a huge fan. They are cute & cheap, but the back on my flats slumped down so that they are constantly falling off my heel. I'm always having to stop & wiggle/jam my heel back in. Very annoying! I'd be willing to try their boots or something if I wore different styles, but I pretty much live in flats or flip flops, depending on the season. ;)

Have you spotted any ambigrams in the wild?

2014 Halloween - Costumes & Food

I've been so busy posting all of the Halloween cuteness on the kids' blog that I'm a little late sharing it here! This year Orson (4 yrs) wanted to be a "pumpkin, with a little pumpkin hat" ~





And we re-used his old Ewok costume for Pandora (1.5 yr) ~





We were sick the two weeks before Halloween & had to re-schedule our party. Luckily everyone was free for the new date! We didn't dress up on Halloween, but did the day after for the party. I don't know if we will bother to next year though!

I dressed as Ariel (Little Mermaid), when she first gets her legs & wraps up in a sail ~



Reference pic ~



Justin was Heisenberg from Breaking Bad ~



Reference pic ~



I didn't go crazy with the food this year but made a couple of things. Here are the creepy & delicious Mummy Meatloafs. Here are some general directions, and I used her Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf recipe. Yum!



I also made these Pumpkin Dinner Rolls that got bumped off of last year's line-up. They were very tasty & cute, but only a few really looked like pumpkins & the rest were blobs. The recipe made a *ton* & we ate these for days! I probably won't make this one again.



Our friends brought over some Bloody Band-aid Cookies ~



And bloody cake!



Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! And now we are weeks away from Thanksgiving and multiple birthdays. Yikes!

KK Slider Pumpkin

This year we all agreed that I should carve my pumpkin with a design from Animal Crossing, which I'm totally obsessed with lately. I decided to carve KK Slider, who should be pretty recognizable to anyone who's played the games before. Based on this picture ~





And here it is alongside my 4 year old's pumpkin on our front steps (drawn by him, carved by dad). I guess little sis & the cat felt left out & decided to jump in the pic ~

North Georgia Fair 2014

Last month we made our annual trip to the North Georgia Fair with my parents, in celebration of my mom's birthday. I mostly took picture of the kiddos ~









But I did lag behind a few times to snap shots of the long trail of colorful sky buckets.



And before we left I requested a few minutes with the one thing I really wanted to photograph ~ the swing.







I could happily take pictures there all day!

Garlic Miso Chicken Wings

I'm always on the lookout for a good chicken wing recipe! This time we tried the Garlic Miso Chicken Wings from Just One Cookbook. If you've never cooked with miso you are missing out. I love that stuff!



The flavor was good, but a little more subtle than I would like. If I made them again I would probably reserve part of the marinade to brush on at the end (or mix up something similar). But I'll probably just keep trying new recipes for the fun of it!


Last week the whole family had a miserable cold and we're still recovering. I lost my voice for 4 days! And cooked a lot of soup. One night my son got a fever, then my daughter got it the next night, so it seems like they caught something else on top of it. A few days later and now she's barfing from a stomach bug... I can't wait for everything to clear up! This is my son's first year at school and he's definitely been bringing something home about once a month.

Chicken & Bacon Pastry Pockets & Japanese Custard Pudding

Friday nights we always have a family "Snack Night" and watch a movie. The food is usually an assortment of frozen snacky things that we heat in the oven, but I occasionally use it as an opportunity to try out some new appetizer recipes.

Last week I got a little adventurous & tried two new recipes! The first were these Chicken & Bacon Pastry Pockets from Our Best Bites. Every recipe of Sara's that we've tried has been a resounding winner! Unfortunately we haven't had as much luck with Kate's (2 women run the blog), but about half of hers were keepers too.



I've never cooked with the pastry sheets before & thought they were a little pricey until I saw that they really made a lot of food. Of course the puff pastry crust turned out delicious! I wasn't sure about the 'chive' flavor in the sauce, but nothing was overpowering & it tasted similar to what you'd expect from a creamy pot pie sauce. These were very good!



My one warning about the recipe ~ she said to use 2 tsp. of filling for each pocket. I tried that at first & ended up with about 1/3 of my filling left! I pried open the seams of the pockets & shoved another teaspoon in each one & that seemed like a much better amount. So ditch the teaspoon and just use a tablespoon of filler for these (3 tsp.).


For desert I turned to my other favorite recipe blog, Just One Cookbook. I've been itching to make this Custard Pudding for a while now, especially since they use such common ingredients like milk, eggs, & sugar.



Unfortunately every time I try to make anything caramel it ends up a burned mess, and this was no exception. They were not very sweet & would have benefited from the caramel topping, but I had to leave it off. We were not a huge fan of these & found them a little too eggy, but it's always fun to try something new!

Salt & Vinegar Potatoes

We tried these Salt & Vinegar Potatoes as a side recently. The recipe's photo looks so good, but they were *painfully* tart. I'd like to try them again, but next time instead of boiling them in pure vinegar, I'll try half vinegar & half water to see if that mellows them out a bit.