When my parents were here over Thanksgiving, they brought along this great play mat for the kids. It's a fabric panel of a city scene that my mom added a piece of backing fabric to and sewed a binding around. It's great and the kids have a good time driving their cars down the streets from the store to the police station. Or helping the airplanes take off at the airport. The helicopters also need help landing safely at the hospital.
They haven't quite figured out how to play with this for hours and hours, but I'm hoping that day will soon come. :)
Of course, I could just be dreaming of something that might not turn out. (the playing for hours bit) Even so, I'm still glad they enjoy playing with it and that they generally enjoy playing together. That right there is a blessing in itself.
Thanks for the great play mat mom. The kids love it!
For about two weeks now we've been working on potty training the little man. The good news is, he's taken to it pretty well. After just about two days, I could tell he was already developing good bladder control. I must say that compared to his sister, this is going WAY better. But in her defense she was a bit younger and probably not nearly as ready. This time around I held off a bit longer and I think it's really made a difference. In fact, the last few days have been 99% dry! Yay!
The only problem is...he hasn't figured out how to get to the toilet in time for #2. I'm not too worried at this point, because he's not hiding when this happens. But, you don't want to read all the lovely details. :)
Anyway, we've tried to figure out some incentives to help him be successful. We've tried candy, but then we just skipped ahead and offered him keys to a new car.
This one...
Surely he'll get it figured out before he can actually apply for his license, right?
OK actually it doesn't require keys and it's made by matchbox, but for a 2 year old it seemed like a great idea. But it's been on our little shelf in the bathroom for a week now, collecting dust. (Just avert your eyes from the dust though.)
Hopefully, very soon I can offer him an ice cream cone from here...
He loves going to McDonald's and since they have a play area, it's a perfect place for a Juneau kid in the winter. However, our McDonald's is having an interior remodel and only the drive through is open. It should reopen next week, so I'll start offering that incentive soon. Hopefully that will work.
(Actually did you notice the palm tree in the McDonald's picture? Yeah, I'd love to take him to that one! It's actually a restaurant in San Diego. Maybe after he's potty trained I can convince Shawn that we need to be rewarded with a trip to this specific restuarant. Or maybe not.)
For now, we'll just try a few new incentives, keep working at it, and be happy for all the successes that come. Keep it up little man. You're doing great!
Some call them baby legs, and some call them leg warmers. Either way, I think they're cute and had wondered why I hadn't ever gotten any for my little girl before. Then a few weeks ago, I discovered the answer while I was reading some of my favorite blogs. The answer is: because they're stinkin' easy to make yourself! I found a great tutorial here, and followed her easy directions. Seriously, if you know how to turn on a sewing machine you can totally do this.
Here's how I did it.
First you buy women's knee high socks. Then you cut them right above the heel. I used my rotary cutter.
Then, I put the raw edge of the now tube sock into the machine and did a tight zigzag stitch close to the edge. I practiced this stitch on the little footie pieces that I cut off. Once I was confident in myself, I did it on the tubes leg warmers/sock tubes.
I made two pairs of these--Fred Meyer had a buy one get one 1/2 off coupon! See how the ruffle just magically appears with that zigzag stitch? It really wasn't hard at all.
Here's the two finished pairs of leg warmers.
Isn't that a cute ruffle? I liked doing this version better than another I found that just had you sew a straight stitch. The ruffle is so much cuter!
Finished warmers on some legs.
She's worn these with and without tights for extra warmth. After baby #3 is born and starts crawling around, I'll probably make some for that little one too. A little extra cushion on those knees can't hurt. Plus extra warmth while they're on the floor sounds good too.
These pictures are actually from a few weeks ago, but I'm just now getting around to sharing them. We had some sunshine, but a bit too much packed snow/ice for my liking, so we were inside. But my little ones decided they wanted to go camping. So with the camp chair Daddy had brought in the house a few days earlier, they set out to make their campsite. Apparently these two do not travel lightly for camping. I think they'll learn a thing or two about that on their first backpacking trip one day.
Did you notice the essential bag of pretzels on the floor and the telephone? These kids crack me up! But there is also a Bible tucked behind that telephone. I'm glad that was an essential to them too.
One last thing...Isaac kept saying, "This is the best camping ever!" It's true. So we definitely need to take him camping for real very soon.
I have been wanting to make crayon rolls for my kids for quite a while now, but I just never seemed to be able to get the chance. After Christmas (ok, well really after the family wedding), I sort of mentally cleared my plate of all those projects I "have to do". I didn't feel like I was enjoying being creative as much as I would like. So with my new clearer perspective, I dove into making these for my kids. And I had time to complete them as Valentine's Day gifts!
Another reason for my new creative mood has been the discovery of two "mommy" blogs. The Idea Room and Make It and Love It. These are both on my side bar under "...blogs I sometimes read". (Ok really they should be titled, "Blogs I Check Daily for My Creative Fix".)
Anyway, they both have some great photo tutorials on their blogs for these and other projects and I just couldn't help but make these for my kids. My initial inspiration came from this page on the Idea Room blog. It has all the measurements figured out if you want to roll up longer markers or those twisty crayons. But I was going for more of a standard crayon size, so I used this page from Skip To My Lou, which is another blog I enjoy reading and should probably add to my list. These ladies did a fantastic job of showing and explaining each step in the process, so I won't duplicate it here. But if you're interested in making some of these yourself, they're really not difficult and I would highly recommend these blogs.
This is the one I made for Carly. I had the kids in JoAnn's with me a few weeks ago, and she actually picked out the fabric without knowing what I was doing. I used the Skip to My Lou pattern, but made it about 1 inch wider to fit her pip squeak markers.
Then I made this one for Isaac. I found both of these fabrics as fat quarters in the clearance bin for 50 cents each! Yeah!
Goodbye plastic baggie holding my little boy's crayons! We've got a new way to carry our colors!
Valentine's Day was a lot of fun for us--a bit busy since it landed on a Sunday this year, and Sundays are always busy for us. But I didn't want the "busy"ness of the day to override any fun festivities. So we just squeezed it in anyway!
Breakfast started off with heart shaped pancakes and strawberries-sliced sort of heart-like. I found a pancake mold at JoAnn's right after Christmas and tucked it away for today. The kids thought it was fun and I think they just enjoyed having a special breakfast. Plus, Daddy made it home from work in time to enjoy breakfast with us before he went to sleep.
For lunch, we had pizza shaped like a heart--again another crowd pleaser.
While we were waiting for the pizza to cook, I let the kids have a treasure hunt to find their bag of Valentine's Day goodies. We did this last year as well, and the kids loved it again. This year the Little Man understood better what was going on. For the treasure hunt, I went around and took pictures of familiar spots in our house, like this one below. Then I printed the photos and taped them up at the right spots.
Here they are following the clues, and wearing their new kuspucks that Grandma made for them.
When they got to the last spot they were a bit disappointed that there wasn't another picture to find. At first they didn't even see the gift bag. When they realized the game was over, they were only consoled by having a present to open. The Little Miss enjoyed the game so much, she kept trying to set up more photo scavenger hunts the rest of the day and today.
Hope you all enjoyed your Valentine's Day too, and that you felt loved.
So a few days ago, I noticed a post on the blog, Skip to My Lou about easy dinners. I decided tonight to share one of my easy dinners on her blog and with anyone else here that would like to see it. We call it All American Hotdish, and I'm sure my parents are in shock right now. This was one of my mom's go to recipes when we were growing up and by the time I was in high school I was a bit tired of it and proclaimed it my least favorite dinner. But after a few years of it's absence, I found I like it again. I guess absence can make the heart grow fonder.
Anyway, this is a quick, nutritious meal that makes excellent leftovers.
First you take 1 pound of ground meat--moose, venison, you know whatever you have handy. I suppose beef would work as well. :) Chop up 1/2 or even a whole onion. (Unless you're my mom, then you mince up about 1/4 of an onion really finely so my dad doesn't notice it.) Cook these both in a large skillet until the meat is browned. If you need, drain any excess fat.
Then add one 8 oz can of tomato sauce and take a picture. Ha, this is just where I decided to take pictures for the blog.
Add the following ingredients:
one 15 oz can of diced tomatoes, 1- 1 1/2 tomato cans of water, about 1 cup of frozen corn, 1 teaspoon of dried oregano, 1/4 teaspoon of pepper, and 7 oz or about 2 cups of uncooked egg noodles or macaroni noodles.
And this is what it looks like:
Let this come to a boil and then simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the noodles are done and the water has evaporated to your liking. The official recipe that I use as a guide for my measurements says to simmer it for 20 minutes, but it often doesn't need that long.
While your dish is simmering, shred some cheese and set the table. Or better yet, get your kids to set the table!
To serve, scoop onto plates and sprinkle with cheese. Mmmm, look at the melty goodness!
I made the whole meal real easy tonight too. I warmed up a can of green beans and served cottage cheese with a can of mandarin oranges.
And there you have it. My family's version of a quick, homemade dinner. Give it a try sometime and let us know what you think. Hope you enjoy it.
A few days ago, I was working on this cake for some friends. My friend, Beth, had been talking about planning for her kids' birthday party and trying to keep to her budget. So since, I like making birthday cakes, I offered to make their cake as their birthday present. Beth thought that was a great idea, so I went to work.
After I had my idea (thanks to the internet) I made the cakes--Red Velvet, as Beth requested. I originally made two 8 inch rounds and two 6 inch round. But I realized that I was making way more cake than what we were going to need, and that I would have more time to do this cake if I cut it down to just one stack. So it turned into a just a two layer 8 inch cake.
Here's the cakes with their crumb coat of cream cheese frosting.
Then I got a little adventurous and decided to make the top coat of icing out of homemade fondant. I've used store bought fondant before, but hadn't ever made it before. The recipe was super easy, so that's good. The only thing about fondant whether it's homemade or store bought is that it's hard to roll out and then work with. With store bought, it can be hard (time consuming) to mix in any color that you want, and it's usually so dense that it takes some serious muscle to roll it out thin. With the homemade stuff, the texture was at the opposite end of the spectrum--very soft. So I kept adding powdered sugar since it kept sticking to my rolling mat and pin. I finally got it to not stick and pull apart and got it onto the cake. I didn't take enough time to smooth out all the bumps in the blue fondant, but that's ok. It tasted just the same.
Originally, I had planned to make the snowmen edible, but I ended up making them scrapbook-able instead. They are made out of white flannel, some felt scraps, and buttons.
Both Trey and Morgan seemed to enjoy their cake, and I'm glad they did.
Then with my extra two layer 6 inch cake, I used some time the next day during a power outage to decorate a little cake for our friend Orion. His family was celebrating his first birthday that evening, and I thought it was a great way to use the extra cake and fondant that I had from Trey and Morgan's cake. I put the red frosting on to try to make it not look too much like the earth. Try as I might, I couldn't get my spots to stay uniform, so I just went with the blob look. Oh well, it's artistic that way!
I really do enjoy making cakes and this recent opportunity to make some for friends was a lot of fun.
Yesterday was one of those dark and gloomy days here. Clouds covered most of the day and there was a light drizzle coming down. Carly didn't have school and I was watching Isaac wondering if he was truly sick or not. (He had thrown up the night before, but I had my suspicions that he had just gagged and wasn't really sick. I turned out to be right.) So we just stayed home yesterday. And all day yesterday, the kids played grocery store. I was amazed at how long they played this together. Every once in a while they'd drift off and do something else for a few minutes, but they'd always come back to the grocery store. Interestingly enough, the only arguments I heard was when they weren't playing grocery store. Anyway, Momma appreciated their focused play too. I was able to get some laundry washed and folded, dishes put away, bills paid, and more work setting up the new blog look. I could take more gloomy days if they turn out like this indoors!
