sneak peak: pete's quilt

finally...the quilt is pieced, sandwiched and pinned, ready for quilting! i've had the fabric for over a year, just waiting for attention. and of course, in typical sarah fashion, i've decided that its imperative to finish this quilt before our third baby arrives sometimes in the next....5 weeks. i know that seems like a big window but the "welcome baby" sign goes up at 37 weeks and extends to 42 weeks, although i'm expecting he will be timely to somewhat early. we'll see.
back to the quilt.  i got some inspiration about making a strip quilt after looking through some ideas on pinterest. it seemed quick and easy and painstakingly NON-precise, exactly what i needed. it is momma made with love and cozy and gorgeous, with organic fabrics and a delicious organic fleece for the backing. he asked me again today, "is my blanket all ready, mom?" (he calls me mom now, stop growing up child!)...i told him it was almost ready for his bed. its a twin bed size quilt, meant for his bed. i chose a little more grown up fabric, hoping it would grow with him and someday make an excellently oversized cuddle quilt for two (imagine my little man, someday snuggled up with someone special - yay!). i am hoping it lasts the test of time and is a tangible gift of love from his momma that he will always keep close.  so...let the quilting commence and fingers crossed that baby and i time it just right to finish this one last project before he arrives in our world.

Nature Walk ORGANIC Collection, Cloud 9 Fabrics - plus additional corduroy from my stash to make it the right dimension.

reading nook cushion

i posted awhile ago about a new little nook we created in front of the fireplace....the kids and dog have been cuddling up there for a rest or to read a book ever since i covered the bricks with a soft blanket and put big throw pillows in front of the fireplace glass.  i figured 3 inches of foam padding might make it even more enticing to spend some time there so i followed this wonderful tutorial for seat cushions and just changed the dimensions for the big cushion i needed to cover.  other than my own silly procrastinating due to a fear of zippers, it didn't take too long to complete.  it just FELT like it took forever because i only got an hour or so here and there over the course of a few weeks during the evenings. some nights i didn't have the energy to get all the sewing stuff out of hiding (man do i sure hope someday to have a space for sewing that just gets to stay out and at the ready all the time), let alone for sewing.  tonight i just needed to finish the gusset, add the zipper and sew the top and bottom pieces to the gusset (i cut it all and made my own cording over the course of the past two-ish weeks). it was late when i was finally ready to pin and sew the top and bottom but i just couldn't stop myself...i wanted to see a finished product (and be done with getting it all out and putting it all away), not to mention there are halloween costumes waiting to be created, so i needed to finish this project so i could start the next!  here is the finished cushion (with awesome zipper, not pictured, so i can remove and wash it as needed).  the colors match the new valence i made for the front window of our livingroom (to replace the very boring cream ones i bought when we first moved here - to coordinate with the accent wall i randomly decided to paint blue during reid's last deployment).  i will make throw pillows to go along the back that match the solid brown and red fabrics as well as the blue of the wall and the pattern of the valence.  i think i'll probably use 24x24 inch pillows (or bigger) so its really a cozy spot to lounge.  i know its silly to be this excited about a little cushion and cover, but its really lovely to have something tangible to show for your efforts at the end of the day. :)

with just a blanket and some pillows from our couches (which will also be replaced with color coordinating homemade pillows, i have always disliked these...not to mention, more beige!)

made the cording...was easier than expected

baxter was not amused when i asked him to test drive the cushion...it is the middle of the night, afterall, and even sweet adorable baxter looks a little bedraggled at this time of night!

a view of our desk/sewing table - with the blue wall and valence i made awhile back. finally getting some color into our very tan and beige living room.

closer view of the pattern.

peyton's baby quilt

my first solo attempt at a quilt is complete, packaged up and heading off to virginia in the morning! i'm so thrilled to have the finished product all wrapped up in tissue paper and heading to its sweet little baby girl owner. can't wait to see a photo of her lying on it - what fun it is to create a gift for a special recipient, knowing each second you spend putting it together that someday, whenever that day comes when you finally finish it, you'll be able to give that beautiful, handmade gift - but its more than just the gift, its filled with so much love! i was so honored to meet miss peyton as a new new baby, and i'm so looking forward to seeing the lovely lady she'll someday become. enjoy the quilt, little one!

the top fabrics are an assortment of fabrics i selected for my own little lady's bedroom and she'll soon have a coordinating twin bed sized quilt of her own from these very same fabrics!  the batting is bamboo, found on etsy. the backing is hemp/organic cotton found here. the backing is soooo deliciously soft!

black out curtains

yes - these were important to make for my little man who has oh-so-much-trouble winding down for sleep lately. he IS tired and he DOES need a nap, momma knows....but when he gets tired he gets hyper busy crazy and is a little tazmanian devil who takes forever to wind down (queue naughtiness/room destruction....reid calls it "rock-starring his room"). the bright sun pouring through at nap and bedtime (and so so so early in the morning) was not helping. so momma made these black out curtains (lined with black out fabric) to set the mood a bit more.  (the valences were already there but they were out of that dot/bubble fabric so i stayed with the ocean theme of the room and got some fabric that looked a little like sea weed to me in a coordinating color - i think it looks better in person than the photos show).  we've had a quilt over the window for the past week and it has significantly aided the wind-down process. in addition we've tweaked our timing on naps and bedtime, resulting in (generally) an easier going to bed process and also sleeping a bit later too! but i will not be too proud, every day is different. one day he goes right to sleep at naptime. other days it takes him an hour or longer to finally get there with lots of management and stress from momma in the meantime. learning lots of patience, creative thinking, self-control and child development information. i actually stayed up late "studying" last night, enjoying the insight this new book, "positive discipline: the first three years" has to offer. i even took notes. seriously.  i needed some new tools in my parenting pocket to feel empowered to face the day today (yesterday's naptime stress involved me crumpled in a heap on the hallway floor feeling completely lost and like a parenting failure). and absolutely, without a doubt, i learned a great amount of wisdom from just the first chapter and felt calm and centered and focused and empowered about how i was going to interact with and react to my little man today. much improved on both accounts.

naturally food dyed easter eggs

i'm on the hunt for making simple changes in every nook and cranny in the name of "green" and "natural" and safe and also cheap (although i'm finding green/natural/safe alternatives are anything but cheap most times).  this easter egg solution was so fun and easy! the recipes for these colors and several more were listed on lakewinds' website.

tumeric = yellow, red cabbage = blue, red cabbage + tumeric = green, red beets = pink

and about those cracked eggs....that's called too much happening at once; woops! how do YOU cook your hard cooked eggs?  i do the betty crocker method: bring water to a boil, add eggs (that's where my woops happened), off heat and cover for 18 minutes.  when i took my cooking class with my favorite chef jesus, he laughed and said i boil the eggs for 5ish minutes and then spin them to see if they are done (he literally took one out and spun it on the stovetop like a dreidle and if it stood up, that was your sign that all was well. i tried it; didn't do the same neat little spin for me. huh. must consider chef school. lol).  pete wasn't too interested in the process and i was ok with it grateful because one flailing arm and we could have had a bright red beet stained petey. he did like to check in on them occasionally throughout the morning, declaring the "o-ster eggs pretty". thanks, bud.

is this how they dyed easter eggs in the "good old days" before they had the little dye kits? or were they so busy milking cows back them they didn't dye easter eggs? i'm curious!

jam fest 2.0

last year i made jam with my bff two weeks after i had a baby, and days after my hubby deployed. this year the chaos surrounding the event was a little less intense and my mom was here to share the excitement this year. interestingly, it felt like this second time at making a big old batch of jam was really my first time....felt like a total rookie all over again.  but - we have a lot of wonderful jam to show for it. and we were done by 9:30 at night, so we call it a big success!

cinnamon maple almond butter

yes. it IS as good as it sounds. i found the recipe here via my sweet friend sarah who dabbles in these types of things and shares all her finds with me.

preheat oven to 325
mix 1 c organic almonds with 2.5 T real maple syrup
spread onto baking sheet covered with paper
bake 15 minutes stirring 3 times to avoid burning
let cool 2-5 minutes (if the cool too much it'll be hard to cream them)
stick them in the cusineart and let it do its thing for at least 15 minutes, scraping the sides when you need it.
add 1/4 t salt and 1/2 t cinnamon (and drizzle in a tiny bit of olive oil if its too dry).

viola!


other things on my radar:
-finding organic strawberries for a huge jam-making session with mom
-finally making my homemade deoderant 
-remembering to water and care for our little wildflower patch and garden (carrots, lettuce, beans). its something pete and i really enjoy doing each morning together, although truth be told he much prefers watering the house or fence to watering the little plants that actually need it.
-figuring out the exact perfect ratio of cool rinses and soap and stripping and elastic positioning to get get my cloth diapers whipped back into shape. i'm hoping that line drying them again now that the hot weather is here will help. little lady bug may be potty training earlier than pete if this keeps up!
-scouring to the ends of the internet to find new, non-toxic, safe for everybody to touch and breath personal care products.  am excited for my shampoo/conditioner samples to arrive as well as my new water based nail polish (acquarella). if the shampoo/conditioner is a no go, i am going to try no 'poo method.  either way, washing my hair every 2-4 days has actually been awesome - i had no idea it was possible (well i did, my grandma can go for a whole week! something about wrapping your head in toilet paper at night, hehe-i think that's only for special occasions though, right?).  i always thought it would be greasy if i didn't wash it every. single. day. but like most things with our amazing bodies, the oil production from your scalp is a supply and demand thing - strip it away less with harsh shampoos and hair color treatments and it will produce less oil. washing it less frequently and really massaging the scalp when you DO wash it also seems to grow your hair a lot faster. all good things....all things i wish i would have known y-e-a-r-s ago.
-really getting dressed each day instead of changing out of pajamas into work out clothes and back into pajamas at the end of the day. i need to pay a little more attention to me (for my husband's sake!) in the midst of all the business of my day.
-constantly looking for an "elefuff" (elephant) with pete. his latest obsession. at the park yesterday he pointed to a trail and told me he saw an elefuff so we went in search but never did find him. today twice we heard a squeaky truck that really did sound like an elephant and pete said "hear elefuff???" - once i told him bumpah knew where it was, he talked the rest of the afternoon about going to bumpah's house to look for the elefuff. i told him when deedee arrived (TOMORROW!!!) we'd go to the zoo and look for him there. :)

birthday cake in a jar for my marine

my sweet friend jen discovered this awesome idea: sending real home-baked birthday cake in a jar to your GI Joe. i was all stressed about it not working but honestly it couldn't have been easier. i followed this post at "loving a soldier blog".  they claim these will stay good 2-3 weeks and since the mail is only taking a week it works out perfectly! the process, in a nutshell, is this.  mix up cake batter (i used betty crocker rainbow confetti cake as is reid's annual request). spray non-stick generously inside each jar (grandma, i used the PAM baking spray and it is the same as the regular except i think it is scented to smell like cookies, not joking). fill each jar ONLY 1/2 way. your brain will want to fill it more than 1/2 way but don't do it: these things rise up in the baking process so actually err on the side of less than 1/2 because i had to cut the top of some of my cakes off to get the lids to go on (you should get six jars per box of cake mix). wipe the top of the jars clear of any non-stick spray and batter, you'll need this surface to be clean to receive the lids at the end to allow them to seal properly.  bake at 400 degrees for 33 minutes (that's what it took in my oven, note this is a hotter temp than what is listed on the cake package). i baked 6 jars of cake at a time on a cookie sheet for easy removal and to help them ot top on the baking rack in the oven. while you are baking, boil the lids. have a space ready for your hot jars, i just laid out some kitchen towels in a non-busy corner of the counter. place the jars on the towels, remove the hot lids one at a time from the boiling water, dab dry of water and place on top of lid with seal meeting up with the top of the jar and loosely screw on the canning ring just enough to keep the lid in place.  repeat for the next batch. i made 21. so this was an all evening affair waiting for each batch to bake up. while i waited i whipped up some simple little notes for the top so everyone knew who to "pay extra attention to" that day (yes, its true, the marines may not show their love the same way we ladies do...but i'm sure he enjoyed the extra attention nonetheless).  let them sit until they are cool and sealed (listen for the lids to pop, they say). you can tighten up the rings a bit more when they are cool if you are crazy like me, although i do believe real canners remove them entirely. you have to trust your equipment. i guess i trust that my rock climbing harness will work when i am dangling from the side of a rock face but i do not trust that my canning seal will hold. all in good time, young grasshopper. :)

the final step is delivering 4 flat-rate shipping boxes to the post office WITH your two children in two. and these boxes are heavy. my solution? wore betsy in the ergo carrier. put petey in one side of the wagon, stacked the three heavier boxes on the other end of the wagon and made him hold the light one (the 4th was not for reid, it was a return item). people always look at us like we are the circus come to town when we go to the post office. the look is a mix of shock and entertainment. if only that extra attention translated to someone opening the door for us. if you ever see a mom pulling a wagon full of kids and boxes and wearing a baby on her front, please open the door for her and smile when you do it! we moms really love that!

homemade bread experiment: recipe 1

thank you to my darling friend emily for sharing with me her weekly used bread recipe. i've had the honor of sampling her handiwork so i know this recipe is great. just needed to try it for myself!

Three Loaf Whole Wheat Bread

1 c milk
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/4 c sugar
2 T salt
1/2 c butter
2 1/4 c warm water (105-115)
3 pkg yeast
3 c whole wheat flour
7-8 c all purpose flour

scald milk, stir in sugars, salt and butter until melted.  cool to lukewarm. pour warm water into mixer bowl and add yeast, stir until dissolved.  add warm milk mixture, whole wheat flour and 1 c all purpose flour and mix until smooth (i used a dough hook for all the mixing).  add additional all purpose flour 1 c at a time until you have a stiff dough (i added 4 1/2 c whole wheat four instead of all purpose flour).  turn outu onto lightly floured board (again i used whole wheat) and knead until smooth and elastic (10-12 minutes).  cover and let rise 15 minutes.  separate into 3 equal parts and roll each into 8 inch by 12 inch rectangles.  roll up and press ends down.  please each in a greased loaf pan. cover and let rise 2 1/2 hours.  bake on lowest racks at 375 degrees F for 30-35 minutes (i baked mine 30 minutes and they are great - just watch yours, the times may vary based on your oven and whether or not you use all whole wheat flour or use all purpose flour).  Remove from pans and let cool on rack.

enjoy while still warm with butter and honey!!!!!

do you have a favorite bread recipe?  i'm looking for one good staple, make every week or so kind of recipe for sandwiches and serving with meals.  i'd like to try a few so i can actually call it my favorite instead of calling it the only bread recipe i've ever made. :)

wanesta garden project: harvesting

i've actually eaten green beans from my garden. sadly that one tiny harvest of beans was enough for us to share one evening for dinner and no surplus - but they were wonderful and it was fun to actually enjoy something from the garden. its doing quite well, actually - and i take no credit for that. its all mother nature at work back there. all i do is water it.  although i should probably pay attention to my poor leaves, there is a little wormy eating to its heart's content. recommendations on what to use that is earth-friendly?'

so, the dead looking stick thing used to live in my kitchen window and dad and i transplated it and its pot-mates to bigger pots and moved them outdoors. dad said something about it going into sun shock. i think that is maybe what it looks like. however - while i was gone this new beautiful green thing sprouted up from under the soil....so excited to see what that ugly stick was supposed to be and so glad this new guy came into town. to think i almost dug up that dead looking thing. :)

tomatoes are getting pretty big....super excited about THIS harvest. but what will a girl do with all those tomatoes? perhaps i'll make spaghetti sauce again. :)  is canning tomatoes worth the effort?

planted 2 plants of this variety.....each plant got one big fatty pepper on it. :)

planted two plants of this variety.....got a couple tinier peppers coming along, but this one is looking ready to eat!

zucchini is doing fabulous in there. :)  grandma and i actually ate a teeny one on our salad one night during her visit.  so how do i know when they are ready to harvest? anyone?

such a big change from that empty raised garden bed we planted a few months ago!

so, my son is now obsessed with fish. he calls them "eesh". he's also pretty stoked about stickers. his very first sticker was a chiquita banana blue sticker label off the banana the other day. i put it on his hand to see what he would do. well, he walked around all day with that sticker there touching it over and over like a prized possession.  then the lady gave him a sticker at target the next day in the check out line for being so good and cute (and she asked me if he was in preschool.....awesome!). that one didn't last as long since mean mommy took it away as a punishment for insane-toddler behavior syndrome.  today as a reward for being so stellar while running errands i bought him some fish stickers from michaels. needless to say, he is all about it. i'm wondering if maybe these stickers are the way to go for the potty training i think i'm going to try for.  in 2 days he has sat on the big potty 3 times and all three times he has managed to fart on command. that has to mean SOMETHING, right? i mean....he has to get it.  i walked in his room yesterday after his nap and the first thing he said to me was "diaper"...and enough, he had done the number 2 in his diaper. he totally gets it. now i just need to do some research on how to go about potty training a 19 month old. any body have any good resources?

here's a tiny culprit who is eating my leaves. i killed a big brother of his earlier in the day - he was much bigger and fatter. so sad that i want to start quoting "the very hungry caterpillar" in this post.  are those little black things baby worm eggs or poop? and what do i do about these guys? they are really going to town on my tomato leaves. not so much with the rest although they have sampled a little of the pepper leaves. help!

and then there was jam

nothing like having your best gal to help you make homemade strawberry jam, staying up until 1 am to do it.......and especially wonderful knowing your toddlers picked the strawberries you made it from!
(we followed the recipe that came with the ball canning jars!)