i have to say...

small things

My days are filled with small things:

***Making granola

***A watermelon-lovin' dog

***Aubry's plans and designs for a store called Fresh-Squeezed Flowers

***Cleaning--but not quite spring-cleaning

***Weeding the garden (it only takes me a few minutes at this point in the year!)

***Baking bread

***Sewing aprons with a friend

***Josiah telling me all about the exciting book he is reading

***Organizing things for my fabric store (I haven't even gotten the fabric and I am unorganized!)

The small things are where memories are made...

...and I wouldn't have it any other way!

setting him loose

My son loves to bake, among other things.  For the longest time he has been asking me to let him do something in the kitchen all by himself, but my perfectionist nature hesitates to let children in the kitchen by themselves due to messes and mistakes, but I decided to set him loose anyway.

There was much mixing and scraping and laughing and I stayed on the sidelines when the eggs were cracked.  He took it upon himself to check for shells in the batter which made me very happy.  Is anyone else grossed out by the texture of egg shells left in food?

The pouring was perfect and he even remembered to spray the pan with oil to avoid sticking.  Aubry was selected to lick the potato masher, a utensil I wouldn't have chosen, but it seemed to do the job just fine.

"Mom, do you have to take my picture eating the bread?"

"Absolutely, Son!  I want to post your handsome face on my blog for all to see!"

I love his "smirking bite" in the photo!

Here's to lots more time in the kitchen for him!

nothing says "love" like a toilet

I can be a cynic when it comes to Valentine's Day.  All it takes is being in Walmart at 5:30 tomorrow afternoon where the check-outs will be crammed with men carrying chocolates, stuffed bears and cards, all in an effort to keep their ladies happy.   Temporarily, anyway.

I do love Valentine's Day, in my own way.  My world is made better by the 6 people who surround me on a daily basis, and I enjoy letting them know that they are special.  I do, however, make sure they know it all year long, and I am proud to say that I am teaching my kids to do the same.  My boys in particular know that giving from the heart is always better than giving from the credit card.   They know that girls appreciate feeling loved.

In no particular order, here are the boxes that my kids have crafted for tomorrow's festivities:

Aubry, of course, sees this holiday as a day of love and loveliness.  Life and love are gardens of sweetness and light, ready to picked and enjoyed.

Micah views Valentine's Day as an opportunity to flex his man-muscles.  You see the car?  You see the man.

Josiah, well, I am not sure what Valentine's Day means to him, and I suspect we have a long way to go with this kid lest we end up with a distraught daughter-in-law someday.  Poor girl, I think she will have to work long and hard to make my boy into the man of her dreams.

My hope is that your Valentine's Day is filled with much love and happiness.

Until tomorrow...

some valentine's fun

You would think that Christmas is coming again with all of the excitement around my house.   Valentine's are made and we are almost ready to go.

Each year our co-op has a party and a valentine's box contest, and after last year when one of the kids made a box that looked exactly like The Black Pearl, the stakes have apparently been raised.  We have boxes that look like a flower garden, a Corvette, and a toilet.  Yes, you read that right, a toilet.  (BOYS!)  I will post pictures of their completed boxes when they are done.

This year we have decorated the windows with Crayon Hearts, and they look lovely in the early morning sun.

You can find the how-to here.

 

some crafty stuff

It has been a while since I have had time to sit at my sewing machine and make something and my mind is full of ideas and projects.  This always happens when I am unable to find time to craft---my craft-wheels get to turnin'!

The first must-do was a little bag for Aubry to take to church.  Each week she sits there with a pile of loose papers and pencils and crayons and books, and she tends to get a little cranky when it comes time to gather her goods and go home.  So I made her a "church-bag", as she is calling it.  It is a messenger-style bag made with the adorable Heather Ross fabric that I received from Sew, Mama, Sew a while ago.

My favorite part is the pocket.  There is a tiny Volkwagen van on it:

I also made a little baby blanket using "Dick and Jane" fabric that I bought, not because I was making something for a specific someone, but because I thought the fabric was way too cute!  (Sorry for the wrinkly photo!)

After Thanksgiving I will be in full crafting mode for Christmas.  I am hoping that a certain friend and I will be having some sewing-dates to make the time more worthwhile.

Anybody else want to join us?

Happy sewing!

collecting

The longer we are a family, the more I notice the patterns and repetions, as well as the changes in our days.  It is something to be savored to send a child off to college or stand with your husband, looking at the Christmas tree, knowing that you have done this together for 6, 11, 13...18 years.  The small moments stack up too: soccer games, science fairs, and summer vacations.  After time it becomes hard to distinguish the memories one from another.

Our annual leaf-collecting walk happened this weekend.  Only three kids in tow left me feeling a tiny sense of sadness, thinking of years gone by, but the yellow sunshine and smiles and laughter kept my heart in the present moment, enjoying the people around me.

I made copies of this leaf identification sheet and gave each of the kids a ziploc bag to hold their finds, but I noticed that my 13 year-old son left his on the floor of the car.  I guess he was trying to tell me that he is too old for things like this.

While we walked I noticed that he quickly took over as Aubry's helper, making sure that she was looking for the right shapes and colors, not wanting her to miss anything on the list.  But it didn't escape my notice that he was also stuffing his own pockets full of leaves, collecting in his own way, on his own terms, making himself a part of our adventure.  Too old for a ziploc bag and identification sheet, but not too old for collecting.

I smiled.

Craig and I collected too.  Memories of another year.  Our pockets are full, bursting almost, but we always find room for more.  Our stash is ready to be retrieved and examined and relived at any time.  We are collectors who will never complete our collection.  There is always more to claim as our own.

life is sweet...

"That it will never come again is what makes life sweet"

--Emily Dickinson

It occurs to me on occasion that a particular moment in time is precious.  I can feel it when it happens.  Almost as if life is perfect for just a flickering moment.

Ice cream and a kid who hides behind his cone and another one who is oblivious to the fact that I am photographing, not her cute face, but her chocolate mustache, were the makings of a moment for me. 

Once in a lifetime are these tiny snatches of time.

Once in a lifetime...

scrabble

Our family goes through phases when it comes to boardgames.  For a while it was Spiderman Monopoly, then it was a vintage game of Life, and now we are stuck in Scrabble-land.  My kids have been playing this for days, and even Aubry is in on the action.

I don't like Scrabble.  I find myself frustrated when I have an awesome word sitting in my tray, but the board has no letters on which to attach it.  In general, words like "bird" and "man" dominate my plays and my points rack up oh-so-slowly.  I always lose.

The other day I was watching the boys play when I noticed that Josiah had the word "toboggan" sitting in his tray.  (The kids like to play with 9 letters, rather than the suggested 7).  Then I popped over to Micah's side and he had "banisters" all scrambled up in his tiles.  Since I had found a great word for both of them, I pointed it out to them and they enjoyed the points that came their way.  It was the best Scrabble game I have ever played.

Aubry is a pretty slick Scrabble player too.  She plays phonetically and uses words like bil (bill) and truk (truck) when it is her turn.  Being the youngest, she gets away with this.   When she put down the word cat, we congratulated her and counted up her points, but before we were done she excitedly added a couple of extra letters:  M & R, as in "Mr. Cat".

Being the youngest does have its advantages in this Scrabble playing family!

like mommy, like daughter--almost

A couple of days ago my gal asked me to show her how to twist a towel on her head after the bath.  She wanted to do it like I do it.

Today she came downstairs to show me her new look. 

Just like mommy, but with a bit of flash!

today's post is brought to you by the letter "b"

As part of Aubry's school this year she is creating an ABC book.  Basically there is a page per letter and she cuts and pastes and draws and tapes to fill her page with pictures, letters and words.  She is a creative gal so this seems more like fun-time than work-time to her!

Our letter for this week is "B" and here is Miss Smarty-pants' word selection:

She's a crack-up, isn't she?

a tutorial of sorts

My youngest babe is proving to be a crafty-chica!  Already she has a little table in my craft area--complete with her own huge mess!--and her creative juices are always in motion.  As of late she has made a mermaid costume out of newsprint paper, glitter glue and a stapler (clamshell bikini included!) and she is already starting on her own line of DIY clothing.

Her first piece was made for her oldest sis who mentioned that she loved the pink shirt with monkees printed on it that Aubry was wearing.   Aubry began searching for materials to reproduce this for her, and when I suggested that she use the newsprint again, she said she would like to use something softer, like fabric.  Let me say here and now that my fabric is mine--all mine!  But I also want to let my gal follow her creative energies where they take her, so we rummaged until we found an old piece of fleece:

Not only did my babe cut out a pattern from a t-shirt (she gets this idea from Emily, my resident clothing designer), but she also drew a monkey print on the front of the shirt, just like her own:

I admit to sewing the seams for her since I don't think that unleashing a five-year-old on a sewing machine is a good idea.  Aubry, however, would probably surprise me and sew me up a pair of pants or something like that!

The part of this that puts a smile on my face is my sweet older daughter who takes her job as big-sis very seriously and agreed to let me post this picture of the finished product:

Voila! 

Aubry is most likely hard at work on Danika's fall wardrobe.  Maybe I need to teach her to sew on buttons and zippers?

tie-dye day

Our tie-dye venture was a success!  One thing that I forgot to tell people was to bring extra items to dye because once the kids get going, they don't want to stop.  One little guy pretty much tie-dyed himself and the shirt he was wearing, along with a pretty cool piece of fabric that his mom let him do all by himself.  A friend of mine even tie-dyed the shoes she had on!

My favorite item was a pair of underwear dyed by a little guy who had to dye it after he laughed at his older brother for bringing a pair of his own skivvies to dye.  The older brother ended up dying a t-shirt (undies on the right):

Yesterday while I was driving my oldest daughter to catch her plane for Africa, I told her that we were having "tie-dye day" to which she responded, "I always loved doing that, it was one of my favorites things!"  Precious memories made and many more to come!

a summer-fun idea!

Every year we host a "tie-dye" party at our house!  This is something we try to do a sunny day since this should not be done in the house (unless you want hand-dyed carpet!).  Tomorrow's forecast calls for rain (oops!) so we may move cars out of the garage and turn it into a tie-dye studio.

The supplies are cheap and simple: White t-shirts, Rit dye, salt, rubberbands and marbles.  Follow the directions on the back of the dye box to mix your colors and try these methods for creating great patterns.  Our favorite is the twisted spiral method. 

You can also over-dye by first dying your shirt in a light color and dyeing part of it in another darker color.  This can lead to lovely results, but too much enthusiasm with this can lead to a brownish-purplish shirt, so let the kids know that they need to go easy!

I will be back with pictures soon.  Until then, enjoy the sun!

the friday skirt post

By now you know that I am a skirt wearer.  This is new to me--a little girly but I am not experiencing any bad side-effects, so I go forward.  There are a few good reasons to wear skirts and I will share some of them with you:

--They hide not-so-perfect summer legs.

--You can find them in abundance at the thrift store.

--Resizing is very simple as long as the skirt is a couple of sizes to big.

--Your husband, if he is anything like mine, will thank you for it and overlook the fact that you cut your hair a little shorter this time.

--I said this in my last post, but they do double as dishtowels in a pinch.

Lyn suggested that I share my skirt collection and because she is so very sweet, I decided to go for it:

All but two are thrifted and three of them are resized.    My daughter, Emily, dislikes my "laundry day" skirt--the one on the right--because she says it makes me look matronly, but almost every  Monday you will find me in it.  The matronly look might be because of the fact that I wear no make-up on laundry day and I generally wear my gardening clogs if I need to go outside.  I will put your mind at ease by telling you that laundry day is a stay-at-home day.  I am not running around town scaring the residents of our fair city on Mondays!

Well, that's it.  The Friday skirt post.  I hope you enjoyed it and I will see you all next week.  Until then, be sure to enjoy yourself!

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This is the last day for Nan's Apronpalooza!  The last time I checked there were 16 posts about 16 apron-makers who are just itching to give you some of their wares.  Here is the post about my little apron business, Simple Things.

Really, you need to go check this out!

twirly skirt

I finally got around to using the twirly skirt tutorial!  This tutorial has great pictures and instructions, and it would be a perfect first sewing project.  All I would suggest is that you go slow and read the instructions carefully, and compare the pictures to your own project.  You will find success if you are patient!

The fun part about making the skirt is that you can mix and match fabrics as you choose, to create something fun and stylish for your little gal.  I lucked out and found a sheet for $1.00 at the thrift store and decided to try it with some coordinating fabric that I already had.  Here is what I came up with:

After cutting, the sewing time was only 45 minutes.  I definitely plan on making at least 2 more of these because Aubry loves her new twirly skirt!

She was a little tired out after our picture-taking session:

This post is part of Show and Tell Tuesday!

a great day to fly a kite!

the first installment...

...in Aubry's summer wardrobe.  Handmade by mommy.

Next up is a shirt for me.  Have I mentioned that I dislike sewing for myself because of the pattern sizing?  On most patterns I have to use a size that is at least three sizes bigger than my normal size and I can hardly stand it!  Yes, I realize that I have a hang-up in this area, but I have decided to move forward and just do it.  And if the shirt looks wearable, I may even post a picture, but I certainly won't tell you what size it is!  ;)

popsicles

We were at the library the other day and Aubry came up to me clutching a book and she asked, "Is this a recipe book?"  When she found out that it was, she started jumping up and down and asking if we could take it home.  Since I am not a mommy who says no to kids asking for books, we brought it home and marked it with post-it notes so we would remember which recipes we wanted to try.  Aubry's first choice was popsicles.

This year I have been trying to get into some better eating habits with the kids and one of the things that will make only infrequent appearances in our house during the summer months is Kool-Aid.  Although we have consumed it for years, I have decided to nix it, in spite of the fact that it is cheap and yummy.  Since we usually use it to make popsicles, the kids were disappointed--until we found the popsicle recipe in the book!

To make popsicles all you need is juice and fruit.  You can experiment and add yogurt also.  I simply poured one cup of orange juice into the blender and then I added frozen fruit (bananas, pineapples, strawberries, peaches, blueberries) until the mixture was slushy and then I poured it into the popsicle molds.  Since some of the plastic popsicle sticks were lost, we used tinfoil and wooden sticks as a replacement.  Simply put them in the freezer for a few hours until they are frozen solid.

The kids (and I) loved these and we will be making them regularly.  You can get creative and use a variety of juices and fruits, or you can add yogurt.  If you let the kids pick the ingredients they will be more likely to eat the finished product.  The good part is that they are healthy, good for you and fat-free.   A perfect snack on a warm day, for sure.

dishtowel apron tutorial

 

I decided to break out one of my Martha Stewart dishtowels and make a "Mommy's Little Helper Kitchen Apron". My initial goal was to make it to fit Aubry but it turned out closer to a size to fit an 8-11 year-old girl instead. If you want to make it smaller, you would just need to make it shorter and make the neck hole a bit smaller. If you want to make one, here are the supplies you will need:

1 dishtowel (mine measured 18" x 28")
one package of double fold bias tape--extra wide
thread to match
ribbon or trim (optional)

Lay out the dishtowel with the shorter edge on top and measure 4 inches in from each top edge, and measure 9 inches down each side edge. Draw a line between these two marks and cut on the line using scissors or a rotary cutter. The top of the apron should look like this:

This is when you would add any ribbon or trim.  I added mine at the top and the bottom of the apron:

Now you need to open up your bias tape (Click here for a tutorial on how to use bias tape--see 2-Step Binding) and pin it to the edges of the apron (the picture below this one will clarify this for you):

You will want to pin the bias tape to the apron so that there is a 15-inch neck hole and 22-inches of bias-tape hanging at each edge for ties. Now you can sew the bias tape to the apron:

Now fold your bias-tape over to the back of the apron (the neck-hole and tie bias-tape pieces will be sewn to themselves) and sew

You can finish the tie-ends like this:

Voila!  You are done and ready to bake a batch of cookies with your little baker!