Baby sewing projects

Today was just that kind of day.  Many of us felt the need to be productive, but not so much in the normal everyday things.  I've been wanting to get to a quilt I started quite some time ago for baby.  Miss A had fun watching the embroidery machine do it's thing for a while, then she asked to play with the button jar.

I was able to get all of the embroidery done on the quilt.  I'm now in the process of sewing the front, back and batting together.  I hope to get to the quilting before baby comes.  If not....I'm thankful that
my mom is always up for a bit of sewing when she comes. :)

Miss E thought it would be fun to look for some knitting patterns.  Maybe make something for the baby?  Miss A loves looking at the patterns with her.  I love that Miss E has just taken off with knitting.  Teaching herself how to knit and always challenging herself with new, more difficult projects and techniques.

I did manage to finish a burp rag to match the quilt.

fun with origami

Don't forget to check out my virtual Thirty-one Gifts Party on my other blog.  Lots of great goodies for getting things organized in your home and on the go!

Today Mr. R asked me if he could look up origami on the computer.  A little while later he brought this to me....

It turns into this....

Once he knew he could do it he pulled out some construction paper and did it again...

 I may need to get this boy some origami paper.

lemon soap

I've been wanting to try making lemon soap since making the lavender soap. The kids picked some lemons off of my mother-in-law's tree, so I figured this was a good time to make some!

I made it using the same recipe, but instead of making a lavender "tea" I used lemon water for my liquid, and put in lemon peel and lemon essential oil. I should have used more lemon EO, or added some lemon grass EO as well as the scent was quite a bit lighter than I had wanted. I think I'll give it a try again next week, if I can find the time.

I've been enjoying soap making, and each time I try it I learn something new and/or it comes together a bit better. I'd love to try so many more scents, but I'll have to take my time in getting to those!

knitting a baby outfit

I've often thought it would be fun to learn how to knit, but never got around to it until recently. I realized that I was going to have quite a bit of time sitting in my OB's office (he is usually about an hour late) and that this just may be a good time to take up knitting! I've also been able to get some knitting done while watching the kids play outside.

I thought I'd practice on a baby outfit before we find out "who" we are having. Miss E had a fun time helping me pick the colors. Once we find out I'll make a more gender specific outfit, and now that I am done with this outfit I'm thinking that it looks way too boyish to put on a little girl.

Miss J spotted the little leg warmers and wanted some purple ones for herself. I'm working on those right now. We'll see if she actually wears them once they are done.

Crockpot soap with Papa's Lavender

A few months ago we purchased the Homestead Blessings DVD set. We've enjoyed watching them all and have been inspired to try some new things including soap making. Soap making is something I've been interested in for a while, and the DVD made it look so simple and fun! Miss E really wanted to give soap making a try, so the ingredients and equipment went on our list of things to pick up at some point.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a blog post on how to make coffee soap in the crockpot. It looked even easier! I was inspired! Miss E really wanted to try making lavender soap. I realized that the anniversary of my Papa's death was coming up, and that I had a bunch of lavender from his garden just waiting to be used! It was decided that we would be making lavender soap.

We gathered our materials, including safety equipment. I talked to all of the kids about how just one ingredient (the lye) in the soap makes this a "grown-up" job. Miss E was going to observe for the first couple of times we make soap (with eye safety on), and then we would see if she could help a bit some time. Everyone else needed to stay out of the kitchen during nap time and stay quiet so I could give this a go.

It went very well as I added the lye to the lavender "tea" I had made using some of Papa's lavender. Next I melted the oils.

After adding the lye, things just did not progress as it seemed that they should have. After over an hour of heating and stirring my soap never made it to the "trace" stage. Something was going wrong with the soap. I had been avoiding using my stick blender (not wanting to contaminate it with the lye), but I realized that this was the only way to recover my very first batch of soap. The stick blender worked. A bit too well though. All of a sudden my soap was just how it should be! It bubbled up! And bubbled up some more. And more. Soon in was obvious that it was going to overflow the crockpot. I removed the stone wear from the heat to try to stop the cooking process. Fortunately the counter was covered with a towel and I had an extra towel handy so the mess was well contained (sorry, no pictures - I was a bit busy.). My soap progressed very well there without being put back on the heat. I added the last oil, some lavender essential oil, and some lavender buds from Papa's garden. Then I spooned it into the mold (a pringles can; the kids were so sweet to empty it for me!).

I'm going to let this cure for about a week or two and then get these ready to send out to the women in the family as a sweet memory of Papa. I hope they turned out.

Hair bow holders

We have been having problems with hair bow storage for a while now, and adding in a second girl in bows just made things worse. We had been storing bows in a little plastic bin in Miss E's dresser drawer. There were many problems with this, one was that all of her bows/headbands/etc. (as well as Miss J's) just did not fit in the bin, the other problem was that often when it was time to do her hair we would realize the bin was in the room with Miss J that was either trying to go to sleep or sleeping. So this is what I came up with, I had seen this sort of thing before I figured it would work well for us. I had fun painting the faces and figuring out how to do the ribbon hair. I had been thinking I would add some sort of bag or basket to hold the things like rubber bands and head bands, but for now they are going back in the old bin that will be stored in my room. These cute little faces are hanging outside my bedroom door where there will not be quite so much traffic to mess with them, but they will be easy to get to no matter who is taking a nap!

Miss E and Miss J were both happy with how they turned out. Miss J had fun this morning running over to pick out her bows after she was dressed. Miss E is not such a fan of having her hair done, so though she likes this set up better than the old its not quite so exciting to her. I'll have to make one for Miss C eventually, but I figure I've got a good 18 months or so before I need to get that one done!

Miss E's perfect day

Miss E's birthday was this week, and she says she had a "GREAT!!!!" day! It started knowing that she was getting out of many of her chores, and she got to open presents before Daddy had to go to work. She received punch balloons from Mr M (Mr R picked up an oreo carmel apple for her at the farmers market last week, which was quickly devoured, she was sweet to share!), a large tub of "girly" legos from us, and and an apron I made for her (right now she really likes sun flowers).

Miss E LOVES crafts, cooking, working with her hands.... well, just about anything creative and that is what her day was filled with. When she did not have anything better to do she was building with legos, however there were plenty of other activities to keep her busy too. We

made chocolates using molds (some were borrowed from G'ma, and we picked up a couple more). The kids all had fun "painting" them, then choosing a filling (caramel, orange, or just more chocolate) and banging the air bubbles out on the table was quite popular too! They did not turn out perfectly, but the kids sure had a great time, and they were yummy! A bonus was that Daddy was able to come home early enough to have lunch and enjoy some chocolates with us!

I had a small project that I needed painted and she had asked if she could do that portion of the project, so she got to do that. By the time she had finished that her gift from Nana had been delivered by the UPS guy, it was a large clear storage bin filled with clay, tools, and an idea book! That took her up until it was time to go pick up the sub sandwiches she had requested for dinner! The rest of the day was spent doing more of the clay and having some nice family time. Here is a picture of the first things she made with her clay, the horse had a hard time in the oven, but she did do a great job on it!

Cheeseburgers anyone?

My dear friend Kathi came to visit a couple of weeks ago, we had a great time chatting, and
catching up. She mentioned these "cheeseburgers" that she had put together as a fun thing to send to her husband who is currently deployed to somewhere over in the big sandbox. I asked if I could swipe her idea since I thought it would be fun for the kids to make these (the goal was also to send them to deployed friends). This is a picture of us with the kids on the couch.

Before calling the kids down to start putting these together I made up a sample tray of all the steps they would go through to put these together. It helped them to have a visual of what they were doing. They were all thrilled to get to work on these, they had a great time and worked very well together. Miss J just watched and hollered from time to time for a new cookie, it was a bit boring for her (we could not trust her with a job, she would eat it all!), she ended up in the playpen for the last 15-20 minutes as we could not have her free to wander around touching everything! We are sending boxes to a couple of friends that are deployed over to the big sandbox (including Kathi's husband), and to an uncle stationed in Germany. The kids drew pictures earlier in the day to send along in the boxes. Rob is also taking a tray of these in to work tomorrow.

It took the kids about an hour to do this whole project. It made quite a mess (frosting, honey, sesame seeds and five kids will do that you know), but it was easy to clean up. Most of the mess was on the table and not on the kids (except for Mr. S who managed to get red frosting all over his fingers and mouth!). While they were busy with this I was able to make my wipe case pretty! It was so easy to do, and easy to put down when the kids needed help and just pick up again. It matches my diaper bag that I just finished. I'll try to take pictures and post tomorrow.

Oh, and here are a couple of little soldiers-

rainbow cake, tie-dye shirts, and that cat again!

These are some things so rarely seen in our house that I thought I'd take a picture (though the jello pudding does show up a bit more often). You should have seen the looks on the kids' faces as I put packet after packet of kool-aid into the cart! I think its been over five years since I've purchased any. And my poor deprived children did not even know to get excited about cool whip! LOL!

Miss E mixed up the rainbow cake with very little help (I helped her mix the colors, and put it in the oven, that was it). I found the idea for it on this site largefamilycooking.blogspot.com and thought it would go well with the activity I had planed for the day-- tie dying t-shirts.

The kids had a great time planing out their shirts. They all chose where they wanted their rubber bands on their shirts and the older three put theirs on as we talked about the colors we would be using and how some would be brighter and/or mix better with others. Then they all helped me mix up the colors (they loved smelling the kool-aid as they did this!), and get things ready out

side. All but Mr. S took this job seriously, even Miss J inspected all of the colors (shirt in hand) before tossing her shirt in the blue! Mr. S just went bit nuts throwing his into bucket after bucket. His was the first one done. Once Mr. S and Miss J were done they entertained themselves playing with some clothes pins in the yellow bucket, had it been any other color this would have been a problem, but they only liked the yellow. Mr. M went for the simple red and blue, so he was done quickly, but he had given it quite a bit of thought and was sure this was what he wanted. Miss E and Mr. R however had grand plans for exactly what colors they would be using and where (both wanted to use all of the colors). They each took their time and gave much thought to the process. I was pleased with how well these turned out, and I'm guessing we'll do this again some time. The shirts are huge, but they will make great sleep shirts.

As for that cat. I found her sleeping with Miss J when I went to get her up from her morning nap. I think she is nesting. This is the third pregnancy I've been through with this cat,

and around this point in pregnancy she tends to want to sleep in either the crib or some other "baby space" like a bassinet, changing table, or play pen. I find her in Miss J's crib at least once a day now. She will give it up after the baby is a couple of months old. It is funny how she knows these things though, she also knows almost as soon as I do that I'm pregnant. She never sits with me unless I'm pregnant, and then she is always trying to sit on my belly!

More cookies!

I received a set of 3D cookie cutters for Christmas and I'm finally getting around to trying them out. I made up the cookies last night after the kids went to bed, so this was a surprise for them. They had fun decorating the cookies and were excited to see how they would turn out, its always fun when your food will stand up on its own!

Miss J was in on the fun, but once she realized I had served up cookies and "sugar soup" she

was not interested in decorating! I figured this would happen so I just gave her her own bowl

with a little bit of light pink icing in it, she had a great time and even managed to get a bit of icing on her cookie!

I think Miss E, Mr. R, and Mr. S shared the common goal of getting the most icing their cookies could hold on them, while Mr. M paid more attention to the details of the cookie, carefully coloring each area of his airplane. They always surprise me, he is not normally one for details. We had to let them dry a bit before we could make them stand up, so we all went outside to

play for the rest of the morning. After lunch we set them up and then they got to eat them. There were a few extras so Rob got to see some of them when he got home.

Oh and yes, that is Miss J's one legged bear you see there with a tiny bit of pink icing on it. I guess she thought the other leg went well with her "sugar soup".

Finger painting fun

We're on "summer break" for the next month or so, just using the time to rest, enjoy time together, work on projects, and get ready for the new school year, but I've planned some fun activities for the kids and this was the first one...

I made up some finger paint using flour, salt, water and food coloring. The kids helped to mix up the colors and then they spent quite a bit of time "painting" while I cut out bibs for Miss J and Miss C at the kitchen counter. They all had so much fun, but there was really very little mess to clean up (except the light switch and bathroom sink that Mr. S also managed to paint!), but any messes were easy enough for the kids to handle (again, except for Mr. S who had paint up to his elbows!).