She's crafty!

Well, we all are!  I wanted to take a moment to share where I got my crafty history!

My sweet Mom is about as talented as they come when it comes to sewing.  She spent countless hours sewing clothes for me as a child.  Sometimes out of need, because I was a stringbean and stirrup pants and bike shorts don't come in stringbean sizes.  And hopefully sometimes out of want, because what are little girls if they aren't your own personal dress up dolls?  

But after I'd passed the time in my life where it was socially acceptable to wear homemade clothes (and also before it was cool) my Mom started quilting.  And she was GREAT!  I mean IS great!  I don't remember if it was the first quilt she ever made, or just the first one she ever made me, but I love it.  I will never get rid of it.  I let babies sleep on it all the time and I don't really even mind if it gets stained b/c that just adds personality (right?) but it will never be "ruined".  Here it is:

Beautiful?

Anyway, my Dad is very handy.  He can fix ANYthing.  I remember him working on cars a lot.  Oh and anything inside a house?  He can fix it.  When I was 9 or 10 he tore off the front entry way of our house and built a much bigger one with a carport attached!  It took forever, he had a friend help and I can't remember if he hired any part of it!  Maybe the concrete.  Maybe.  I wish I had pictures of THAT.  Someone does, I'm sure.  He can also take a sink apart and put it back together in record time.  I know this because about 75% of the teeth I lost as a child I accidentally dropped down the drain.  John and I have had to put sink pipes back together ONCE and it took about a day and I half.  I hope my dear Dad could feel my respect growing for him from across the miles...Now he works at a wood working cabinety type place.  He builds shelves, furniture, all kinds of custom order type stuff for people and he loves it!  I wish he lived closer...so I could have free furniture ;)  He built me this!

Beautiful?  I know!

Anyway, here are a few recent crafty things from my fam.  I love them and and grateful for them everyday!

 Cutie baby PJ's from Mom

 I made these for a dear friend

 Cool box (currently housing choo choo's) from Dad

Oh and I definitely made this cool dude!

And, I will mail a dollar to anyone who catches the reference in my title...

My baby is 2!

It seemed so far away. But last Friday my sweet boy turned 2! He wasn't

exactly sure what I was talking about when I kept telling him he would be 2

soon, but he would hold up both of his little pointer fingers and exclaim

"DOO!" when I talked about it!

When we started preparing for Grandma to come and talking about presents I

think he started to realize this was something to be excited about...I am

amazed at his little memory. The things he tells me really surprise me!

When we were washing the sheets on the guest bed I explained that we were

doing this so Grandma could sleep in this bed. He said "Paul?" That is his

uncle who stops by every couple of weeks to stay the night. He knew that

was Paul's bed and I guess he wondered why someone was sleeping in his bed!

He also tells me repeatedly about my car being in the driveway with snow on

it. "Mama gah, 'now." (mama, car, snow) It's so funny how his choppy words speak complete thoughts to me!

Anyway, so on his actual Bday, he got to have chocolate milk (which he could

take or leave apparently. It's wasn't a smash hit, which I guess is good),

fruit snacks and lots of attention! We had a very small family party at

dinner time with some of our favorite foods and cookie cake for dessert!

Will was really excited about the cake until I pulled out the lighter to

light the candle. He is very aware of hot things. I realized in all my

descriptions to him of what "birthdays" include, I left out a big point,

fire on your cake! So when he started frowning about the "hoh" we told him

it was ok, and he would blow it out like Baby MacDonald from one of his

books! As soon as we started singing he started huffing and puffing, it was

really cute! I was able to get it close enough to him to blow it out, it

was great! After a couple of bites though he lost interest in cake and

started tearing into presents like there was no tomorrow. He got lots of

neat toys, clothes and books. And nothing annoying, which I am always happy

about :)

He got to stay up a little late and went nuts playing with us and his toys.

All in all, it was a blast and I did not miss having a big party. At. All. 

Here are some priceless moments from the last year:

* Getting my first voluntary, non-biting, non-licking kiss.  It was at Hobby Lobby.

* Watching him learn how to walk, run, jump, gallop, climb....

* Words!  Some of my favorite include: doodles (noodles), how dawh (hound dog), didowr (sticker), gee gee (kitty), Paa Paa (his bff's name :), Neenee (Nanny) and of COURSE Mama!  Which he definitely didn't learn until after the age of 1.

*Taking him swimming this past summer, such a blast.

* Watching him try new foods.  He is weird about textures and messes, so he won't try foods that look too sticky or messy!  Passes up donut holes, powdered sugar coated cookies and other yummy things I am ok with not sharing!

* Getting to hold him while he sleeps...now that he's a big boy, I rarely get to do this!  Maybe 5-6 times in the last year??  I know that is something I'll always miss, so when he's sick or something, I take advantage.

* Holding hands in the car.  Sometimes when he's tired he just wants to hold hands.  It melts my heart.  I'll let my arm cramp up anytime he wants b/c I know that these days are numbered.

I'm sure I'm missing things...but time has flown!  Enjoy the pics, here's a look back!

 

 His 1st birthday, note, he is not getting his hands dirty.

 His real birthday, are you melting at the sight of that sweet face??  I am!

My due date (predicted bday was Feb 8th)...that seems forever ago!

I just wanted some bread!

So here's the story of a girl and a bag of goo...

note: If you've never heard of or received any Amish Friendship bread, read about it here.

1. A dear friend of mine agreed to come over for lunch, actually she brought lunch and stayed past naptime for some good conversation.  She also brought dessert...Amish Friendship bread.  Along with a starter.  To which I eagerly (and genuinely) said "yes please!"

2. I diligently followed 10 days of instructions.  Well, sort of.  The one day you are supposed to feed the goo bag I forgot.  But I did it the next day and changed my baking day to day 11, not 10.

3. Around day 7 I realized that in addition to the yummy bread I would be getting to keep for myself, I would also have like 4 things of starter that I would either have to keep making, or find homes for.  I mean, heaven forbid I throw it away.  It's like, $0.86 worth of groceries in a sandwich baggie.

4. So I googled for a solution.  No dice.  I asked my loyal FB friends...some luck.  I was sent an alternative where you basically double to recipe at the end and have half the amount of starter left over to deal with.  That was not the ideal, but it was the best option I had.

5. Baking Day.  I looked at the doubled recipe and realized that not only did I NOT want to use the half dozen eggs required to make 4 loaves of bread, I also did not have 4 loaf pans..I have 2 mismatched ones.  So I decided I need to go back to the original recipe, not this shortcut version and just end up with too much starter.

6. Then after measuring cup after cup of drippy fermented goo, I realize that I will only have enough for 1 loaf of bread!  This is actually good sounding news to me.  So I proceed to cut the recipe in half (mentally as I go along) and hope that I am not screwing up the amounts too much.

7. Now if you know me well, you know that multitasking while doing math in my head is not on the top of my "talents" list.  But lucky for me, I am actually really good with fractions thanks to my profession.  So I am measuring and dividing when I realize that I did my COUNTING wrong at the very beginning and I indeed DO have to make 2 loaves of bread.....

8. So now, I have to go through the recipe one more time and add back the other half of the eggs, baking soda and  so on that I subtracted out in the first place.  Did you catch all that?  Count, divide, add, recount, dived, add.  

9.  In the end, I baked 2 loaves of bread, socked away 2 starter bags in my freezer (which will each produce 4 loaves of bread when thawed(hopefully not by me)) that are up for 
 grabs.

Delicious Discovery of the day:

Amish Friendship Bread + Snow Cream = bliss!!


Lessoned Learned:


Just say NO!

Things that make me go "mmmmm!"

So we've had, umm, a LOT of snow today!  I don't recall the totals, something in the neighborhood of 7".  That's amazing for this area!  Now if you have read any other posts about snow or weird things my son does, you may recall that he is afraid of snow.  Yes, afraid of fluffy white flakes that fall gracefully from the sky.  I think he gets his fear of normal, yet new things from our dog...

So there was no sledding today, that threw him into hysterics last time.  When we all woke up this morning, the snow had just started.  So, I showed Will 2 big bowls and told him we were going to make snow ice cream!  He thought this was really cool.  So we put the bowls outside where lots of snow would fall into them and periodically through the morning we'd go look out the window and see the progress of our " 'no iee ceem". 

When it got to be lunch time, we ate and kept talking about how we were having snow ice cream for dessert.  Still excited.  

 

 

 THEN, I went outside to collect the biggest bowl and the "noooo, noooo"s started.  He didn't want me going in the snow, he didn't like the tracks of snow I left on the doormat and once the snow ice cream was made...there was no way he was eating it.  

But we did!  And it was deee-lish!  I got the "recipe" from my friend Amy, here.  She advised me that she doesn't use eggs.  I agreed, that sounds risky.  But is was really simple, fun and like I said, very tasty :)  I like the picture below, poor hound dog, he never gets ice cream!

 

Make your own sometime!

Up next...the Amish Friendship Bread SAGA...uhhhghhhh.

Things that make me feel old.

I hit 30 back in September.  It was not all that traumatic, in fact in was one of the best birthdays ever!  I had a blast with my sweet husband, baby and friends.  I feel lucky to be so blessed in life...but lets face it.  I'm not getting any younger.  And here is how I know this:

1. I got a Land's End catalog in hopes of finding a sensible swimsuit.

2. I used the word "sensible" in reference to garments that I find desirable.

3. I finally bought a swimsuit...and it has a...gulp...skirt.

4. I saw on a friends facebook post that she was waiting for a class to start at 7:00 pm and made the statement, "7:00?!  That's late!".

5. I go to bed at the same time every night, even on Fridays and Saturdays.

6. I think about my daily fiber intake.

7. I get excited about new appliances, getting to use my warranty on things and needing air in my tires the same week I also need an oil change.  I mean really...these.things.excite.me.

8. I have gray hairs.  Not a ton, but enough to need camouflaging highlights!

I am sure the list could go on.  But as I review, let me assure you that my (sweet and lovable) child did all of this to me!!  He's the best, I mean, he is my sunshine.  But he makes me O-L-D!!  Ha!!  What makes you old??  Or have you found the fountain of youth?  Either way, I'm curious.

[edit: also, I consider it a "good mail day" when the red plum coupons come in the mail!
  Carrying a diaper bag into Wet Seal.  Oh, and I returned the skirt swimsuit, that's one more for me, right?]

New Recipe

I am not what you would call "a cook".  I don't especially love to cook or bake, but I do enjoy eating and we don't eat out a lot so that leaves me with little option but to cook.  I am probably like most people, I have 4-5 standard go-to meals that I don't need a recipe for, that go together quickly and that everyone in my house likes.  One of those is Taco Soup.  Big hit, I've had many other people's recipes as well and never met one that I didn't like!

I found "my" taco soup recipe in a magazine in college.  It looked cheap and easy so I made it!  It has stuck around for quite a while.  But a couple of months ago, a wild thought popped into my head: "Why can't I use chicken in my taco soup instead of beef?  People eat chicken tacos don't they?"  And so it began...I subbed in chicken for ground beef...THEN, I subbed in lime and cilantro for sauteed onion!  CrAzY!  And what I mean by crazy, is crazy good.  I often experiment in the kitchen, it rarely goes well.  But this, was worth writing down.  

So here goes, Chicken Taco Soup.  Feel free to make it your own :)

Poach 2 chicken breasts, cut into cubes. (reserve 2 cups of the broth for the soup later)

Into a BIG pot add:

2 cans pinto beans

2 cans corn

1 large can diced tomatoes

1 small can tomato sauce

1 small can chopped green chilis

1 packet of taco seasoning

1 packet of ranch seasoning

1/2 oz fresh lime juice (or about 1/3 of the lime juice from a whole lime)

1/4 cup of chopped cilantro (or about 1/3 of a bunch)

Add the chicken and the broth whenever they're ready!

This could not be easier and it is delicious with cornbread, chips, sour cream, what ever you want!

[edit: I buy 1 clump of cilantro and 1 lime, chop and squeeze appropriately, use 1/3 of each for this soup and sock away the rest in the freezer for 2 future soups!]