Given the Okay

I know at least of couple of you noticed that this blog has had some issues lately, but they appear to have been resolved and I can get back into writing again. 

Dee's birthday is coming up next week and I am still working on getting that put together. She wants a "Dance Party". I think we've agreed on a rockin' cool dance party, over a princess-ey type one, after some persistence and finagling on my part. I think it's gonna be fun! I'm trying not to get too stressed and go over the top about it, cuz' Scott don't like a party planning momma. He says parties make me grouchy. Boo. I told him to suck it up cuz' parties are fun and are supposed to make you grouchy cuz' it takes lots of planning and stress to make it fun. He said okay. And I said I'd try to tame it down a bit, so we'll meet in the middle.

Z is a sweet dolly, climbing the stairs (boo!) and "cruising" all over the house. Goose is a 2 year old. Adorable, but a danadinho (like a naughty stinker head a la Portuguese). Dee is almost 5. Smart, friendly, sweet and obedient. Things are going well and I have a plethora of plans for creative things to do. Now I just need to get these kiddos to leave me alone for a few minutes so I can do something fun! :) Since Scott and I just finished season 2 of the Walking Dead, I can breath a little more and not be so scared to walk into a dark room for another 3 weeks before season 3 starts up.

What are you up to?

Meh

I'm sure, if you are on Pinterest, that you've seen these Lemon Buddies chex mix snacks. I thought they would be amazing, since I love Muddie Buddies and I love lemon.

Meh.

That's what I think about them. 

My two-year-old wouldn't even eat more than 2 pieces. 

What's the big deal? Did you like them?

Must Make This Now

Oh. My. Gosh. 

This skirt is adorable! I have this insatiable desire to sew it immediately! Too bad I just waisted my entire evening online instead of making one of these adorable skirts.

The tutorial and this image is from the blog Sew Together, an Australian sewing blog. 

Therefore, it's all metric measurements, but that shouldn't be a problem...? Right???

We'll see...

Chickens and Cuteness

Blogging on the family blog today... 

Come check out the cuteness.

Monday Must Have: Home Edition

Do your clothes look just as wrinkled after you iron them as they did before? Mine used to! (Notice the use of past tense.) You need to understand, I still hate ironing, however, this little magic spray actually makes my clothes look like they really were ironed.

Yes, this little $0.99 spray can "Makes Ironing Easier"! 

I bought this stuff on a whim one day while browsing around Target, hoping to find a magical cure for my ironing blues. Well, I found it indeed. This stuff is so cheap and lasts forever (well, forever when you hardly ever iron anything). Just lightly spray your fabric to be ironed (read can to see if it is safe to use on your fabric of choice), and iron as usual. 

I use this stuff on fabric I'm sewing with too and it works wonders.

I love it! Definitely a Must Have. 

The Cotton Candy Skirt

I love the site Sew Can She. 

You can sign up to get daily sewing tutorials sent to your email! The tutorials are all free, from bloggers around the web. They vary from children's clothes and toys, home decor, cute accessories, baby items, sewing techniques, holiday decor, and more!

They also almost always have some sort of fabric giveaway going on. You can't keep me away from a fabric giveaway!

I recently volunteered to be a tutorial tester for Sew Can She. 

My first tutorial I tested is being featured in their daily tutorial email being sent out tomorrow, March 15th! It a girls skirt, called The Cotton Candy Skirt, from the ladies at the cute blog Simple Simon & Co. Here is a photo of my version.

Sign up for the Sew Can She email, and you'll get this and other tutorials delivered to your inbox daily. Or, head on over to the website tomorrow to see this tutorial featured, with a picture of my humble version featured on the right of the tutorial page, above the description.

Hope you enjoy making your little sweetie one of these poofy, frilly skirts! 

Dee just loves hers!

Here's Goo, helping with during the skirt's photo shoot...

 I love me a two-year-old!

New (To Me) Music

My hubby is a music lover LOVER. He sent me this video today. Love the song, and the video is awesome. Thought you might like it too...

Monday Must Have: Sewing Edition

I've had this little sewing helper since I took a sewing class at Southern Utah University in 2007. I learned a lot of great sewing basics in that class, and the fire to sew was ignited! We also got to buy a lot of sewing tools for 1/2 off because she had some sort of class deal. It was great!

Our teacher suggested we buy one of these little beauties to help out with ironing your hems. It can do curves, as you can see at the bottom of this picture, and has many, many different measurements marked on it, around all four sides. 

I LOVE this sewing helper and really feel it is a must have. If you love nice even hems, but don't want to spend forever ironing them out, then get yourself one of these! Definitely a Must Have.

Snow Day!

The joys of eating snow. 

(She was warned to avoid yellow snow and all other colors as well!)

I had to run for cover! 

Never mind mommy's camera, get her!

Z

I know, she's dreamy. And that bigger little one is a dolly too. They like hanging out, as sisters should.

Homemade French Onion Soup

We made French Onion Soup. 

It was delicious!

I loosely based the recipe off of two different ones.
Here is one, and the other.

First I sliced 6 large onions with my mandolin, setting it on the thinnest setting.  I love that thing! It made slicing a bajillion onions a much quicker, and non-teary experience. I was done in like 10 minutes.

Look at all those lovely onion slices!

I cooked them in 3/4 cups unsalted butter over medium heat for like 45 minutes. I stirred now and then to keep them from burning. You are aiming for caramelized onions. I didn't quite make it there, so maybe you need to turn the heat up a bit.

Then I added 8 cups water, and enough beef bouillon for 6 of those cups, and chicken bouillon for 2 of those cups.

Also, I added salt, pepper, 2 bay leaves and a few tsp chopped garlic.

It simmered for about 30 minutes.

Then we made "giant" croutons. I just buttered both sides of some wheat bread, and put shredded parmesan on mine, let it melt and topped my soup with it. (I forgot these pics!) Those buttery toasts made it over the top!

Being Featured For The Suitcase!

Hooray! My denim version of the Sidekick Suitcase is being featured today over at I'm Topsy Turvy during her Topsy Turvy Tuesdays Linky Party!
How exciting!


Here is a link to see the sweet little suitcase in action (i.e., being used right up by my 4 year old!). She LOVES it and gets so excited to use it for trips, to play, or just to carry around!

If you'd like to buy the pattern, head on over to Sew Fearless where Jodi is currently hosting a Sidekick Suitcase Sew-Along during March!

Jodi is the pattern creator and she did a wonderful job with it! She is so creative! I was lucky enough to get to be a pattern tester for her and I had a lot of fun doing it. I learned some new techniques, including making my own piping, and feel like a more confident sewist thanks to Jodi!

And The Winner Is...

Thanks to all those who entered the Sidekick Suitcase Pattern Giveaway! 

We have one lucky winner, who's number was chosen at random by random.org

Our winner is...

Connie! 

She said:

"Hi, I'm Connie from http://hotflashncraftn.blogspot.com/, I'm now a linky follower. I'd love for you to follow me, too. I love the bag, I think I'm just gonna go buy the pattern. The grandkids would love it. Thanks."

Congratulations Connie! 

Even if you already did buy the pattern, Jodi from Sew Fearless is going to refund you your purchase price! If you hadn't bought the pattern yet, now you get one for free!

Connie, you have 2 days to email me your email address so that Jodi from Sew Fearless can email you your pattern! If I don't hear from you by the end of Wednesday, your prize will be forfeited and someone else will get a chance to win! So email me, quick!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway! 

I hope to be hosting another giveaway soon... 

Stay tuned...

The Apron Skirt

I saw this cute little number over at lil blue boo, a blog I'm obsessed with right now. Ashley is amazingly talented in so many ways, sewing, crafting, DIY, creativity, honest forthcoming blog posts, etc., all while currently battling cancer. And she posts many times a day, so I always have tons to read and gawk at!

But I digress...

I decided to make an Apron Skirt for the sweet little daughter of my friend. She was turning 1 and I thought she needed something cute to wear. 

I followed the easy tutorial that Ashley made, and came up with this cute little skirt!

 Sorry about the crummy phone in the car photos!

 

And of course, she needed a matching headband. Who doesn't love a giant bow?

 

Truck-Stop Buttermilk Pancakes

Deee-licious! 

My husband requested thick and fluffy pancakes for dinner.

 

That is not what he got.

However, these were still delicious and more my style.

Kind of egg-y and thin.

I found the recipe here. With over 600 reviews and 22,000 saves, with a 4.5/5 stars, I figured we couldn't go wrong. I added some vanilla and about 1/4 cup of sugar and it was tasty.

I used up our homemade buttermilk in the batter, and fried the pancakes in our homemade butter. 

We had some tasty stuff for dinner.

At allrecipes.com, you can change the serving size of the recipe you want to make. I changed it to 8 servings (from 12), and we still came out with this mondo pile of pancakes. 

Our freezer will be well stocked for a while. 

Homemade Butter, like the Pioneers

We made butter today.

Totally easy too! 

I found this on pinterest and felt inspired.

We used the GOOD kind of cream, from Costco.

I read that you should let your cream warm up for a while and it will become butter faster. I did not do that and it took like 40 minutes to whip. Apparently if you wait, it can go as fast as 10 minutes!

 Step 1, whip it up! Set on medium or so.

 See the glorious cream, don't stop though! Keep on going!

 All of a sudden it turned chunky! It totally snuck up on me. See how the middle is still normal whipped cream looking? It was fast!

 Not butter, even better! I love my little Dee. She's a good helper.

 Getting thicker.

 Getting more chunky.

 Curdly. Looks yuck, but keep going until it separates into buttermilk and curds.

 Drain it.

 Whip a little more...

 Drain out the rest of the buttermilk.

 Hoo-yah! Look at all that glorious buttermilk! Some pancakes are on the horizon.

 Butter! Now, a tip I read was to rinse and kneed the butter in ice water, changing the water out once or twice until it is clear. This will let it keep in your fridge for longer and not go rancid.

Now add salt, sugar and cinnamon, herbs, or whatever you like to your fancy butter!

 Slather it on some bread.

And enjoy! 

This kid would eat it by the handful if I'd let her. And she did sneak some later anyway! Sweet little Goose.

Now go make some butter and feel like a pioneer (except for the Kitchen Aid)!




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