Meringue cookies

Hubby has a new hobby. He likes to make pudding. last night he made butterscotch. (yum!) He used 3 egg yolks so he had 3 egg whites left over. Some quick internet research later and I had a recipe for meringues. They're just egg whites and powdered sugar whipped into a frenzy and then baked slowly at a low temperature. This is where I love technology. I was able to program my oven to shut off at 3am. Thank goodness, because I didn't get much sleep last night. Bean has a cold and she doesn't sleep well because of it. She's fine during the day but at night she coughs and tosses and turns and keeps waking up. It was so bad I moved D from her bed to go sleep with Daddy so Bean could rest with me in the girls' room. It's kind of a bummer to take a big step back in independent sleeping. Let's hope this cold passes quickly.

Yesterday we went to the mall to do some shopping for Christmas. D did a lot better than i expected. Her favorite part was when a lady at a kiosk selling hair tools grabbed her and started curling her hair. (Literally!! She had her arm and was leading her to the chair before she turned and said, "Is it okay with Mom?") D sat still the whole time and I have to admit, her hair looked so cute. I almost walked away with one of the curlers, but the price tag was more than my impulse buy limit.

Monday was D's big ballet recital. I've been looking forward to this for months. It went better than I had expected. I was nervous at first because she was completely unfocused and playing with her shoes all through warm ups, but when it came time to do the dance, she outperformed the older girls. She even did a bow at the end. I was so proud! She's looking forward to classes starting again in January.

Owl stuffie

Why have I not made this sooner???
Not only is this a quick project (only took me 2 days) but I filled it with rice so it is now a warming toy. I popped it in the microwave for 20 seconds and now D and I have been passing it back and forth. She loves the novelty of it and I love that it keeps my perpetually frigid metacarpals warm.

That said, I now humbly admit that I am an ungrateful winner. Months ago (I'm talking May!) I won a drawing from a blogger whom I follow. I got a big pile of beautiful fabric all in fat quarter size and some big ric rac. The crazy part is, the giveaway was originally posted on my 5th wedding anniversary. Wow. I have been meaning to post about my big win for months now, but I told myself I wouldn't post anything without a photo of something i made with the fabric, in order to show how much I appreciated it. Well, in hindsight, that was a bad idea. Summer was nuts and my Mom and I made all of Bean's sunbonnets with fabric that she had on hand. That, and finding time to sew has been more challenging than I ever thought it would be.

This weekend I made a fox stuffie on Saturday and an owl stuffie on Sunday and I just finished it today. These are my confidence builder projects in preparation for what I hope will be a few Christmas presents.

I made up these patterns. They were inspired by other stuffies I have seen online. I should make more. I'm thinking a smaller rice filled hand warmer owl would be super cute.

So, in conclusion, head on over to 2 Little Hooligans website and check out her cool projects and giveaways.

My saturday Morning

This morning there was a sun over our house.

The girls poked their heads out to see what was up.

They got dolled up to play.

There was a new fox in town.

Bean didn't know quite what to think about it.

At least it didn't eat the apple pie that was cooling on the windowsill.

Now it's time to go visit a friend. Have a fun day everyone!

Post Thanksgiving Turkey Stock

No photos today. My new lens should arrive on Monday. I have now learned that my purse is not a camera bag and that my purse likes to tip over when placed on a bench. We decided to replace the lens with a more powerful non-name brand lens. Let's hope we didn't make a mistake.

Thanksgiving was yesterday. It was stressful to prepare for but was well executed and generally fun. I cannot convey how happy I was that the weather was warm enough for the gaggle of young boys to play outside in the backyard. Of course, playing in the back yard turned into playing in the wetlands and then we had a bunch of muddy clothes and none too happy parents. Oopsie. Good thing we got the parents all relaxed on wine (and lots of it)

We made 2 turkeys. We deep fried a 13lbs bird and then roasted a 20lbs bird. The deep fry bird went rather smoothly. I think what time you save in roasting, you make up in prep work, but it frees up an oven. The roasted bird turned out to be beautiful, but we'll never cook a bird that big again. By the time the innermost meat was done, the outer meat was dry. No one complained, but we knew we could do better.

After everything was finished, the tables cleared and the girls were in their bath, we made turkey stock. We picked most of the meat off the bones and threw the bones, 2 quartered onions, some carrots, celery and herbs into our big stock pot with enough water to cover. We then let it boil down for hours and hours. After it had reduced by half we removed the solids and strained the remaining liquid through a cheesecloth. We were left with about 2 liters of stock. This morning we removed the half inch of fat from the stock and fed it to the dogs. We then took the cooled solids and removed all the bones. My husband then put everything through the meat grinder along with some leftover stuffing (The stuff that had burned to the pan) and made dog food. We've taken next to nothing out to the garbage, just some bones.

Home made dryer sheet

I found the original post for this idea months ago. I had an old flannel burp cloth that my mother had made for the girls lying nearby waiting its time to come to be a dust rag, so I rescued it from that fate and gave it eternal life as a dryer sheet. We don't use fabric softener in our washing machine because it makes the gasket around the door stink. I've heard this is not an uncommon problem for some front loader models.
After using a few sheets for a few days, all I can say is, "It works okay." Really, I have no complaints. Suits me fine. 'Salright. It's fine and dandy. Saves money. Less garbage. Clothes are soft.

DIY I Spy

I'm going to start staging little I Spy scenes and we'll make a book of our own. D loved helping put this together. Most of the items to find are crammed together in one location, but hey, she had fun. After I took the picture she went through and found all the matching items and put them together, then we put everything back where it came from. It was the only time she's let me put the sparkly pom-poms away without a fight.

I made these during her nap. The buttons came out of my stash that I'm not yet ready to let the girls know exists.

D made the tongue depressor turkey in class this week and the turkey sticker is from Bean's first ever art and crafts project at school. 

All day apple butter on a beautiful Fall day

My first attempt at Apple butter. It is currently simmering. I'll have to lend an update after it's done. It should be finished sometime around midnight tonight. I have to say, the house smells absolutely amazing. This beats any potpourri or scented candle. Just apples, sugar, cinnamon and cloves.

D was doing her Johnny Appleseed impersonation.

Hubby was spending the day outside doing some landscaping so the girls and I joined him to play. Miranda loved looking through the old brush piles for traces of mice and other little critters.

Patch found an old ice cream bucket and played with that. I forgot how much he loved ice cream buckets. You'll also see some really big grapevines behind Patch. These are a few of the grapevines that had grown wild and killed a few trees on the property before we bought it. Hubby has been fighting these grapevines for over a year now that he's done building the house. I decided to help today and try to rip some down myself. Let me tell you, those things are tough. They climb up all the way to the tops of the trees and reach over and ensnare the trees nearby their host. I pulled and pulled but once I had freed all but the top of the tree, my own weight wasn't enough to bring down the vine. Hubby had to step in and rip it down for me.

Bean found a purple ball which had rolled into the overgrowth that Hubby was clearing away.

The girls loved all the fun things to explore like rotting wood, bug trails, dried grass seed, big and little leaves, branches that were brittle and breakable, etc.

D and Patch really do love each other.

I have to leave you with one last story. I wasn't done trying to help out a little bit with limb and vine removal. I had brought down a few broken branches and some more vines when I went over to the willow tree (here in the background). There was a felled branch that was quite big; just behind the pile of brush that hubby was clearing out. I thought I'd drag that out of the way. I grabbed a big limb and gave it a heave. It snapped right off and I did the classical comedy fall-flat-on-your-butt. Seriously, I don't think one of the Stooges could have done it better. Nothing was wounded, but I put down the branches and picked up the camera. Photography is much safer.

Pinterest Addiction: Washing soap and birdnest necklace

I've become instantly addicted to Pinterest. Finally, I have a place to store all those great ideas that I see on the internet and try to convince myself to remember. I used to tell myself, if it's important enough, I'll remember it. That hasn't been working out in the past. But now I've completed a few crafts that I've pinned.
The girls and I have made our own laundry soap. Easy peasy recipe: 1 Cup Borax, 1 Cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda and 1 bar Ivory soap or Fels Naptha. I use a blend of 50/50 Ivory and Fels Naptha. I think Fels Naptha works better but boy does it stink!

The second project this week was a birds nest necklace. It felt good to make some jewelry again. I had to bring in my toolbox from the garage where it had been resting for over three years and dust it off thoroughly. It was kind of gross. Once I opened it I was transported to the way i used to feel when I was creating my own jewelry. I found bags of stones and shells I had collected on my travels. There were pink shells from Key West, purple and orange rocks from Cape Cod and green and white stones from Greece. The prize piece is a chunk of black volcanic rock shaped like a flat triangle from Greece. I have big plans for that. Just looking through my tools and beads, rocks and wire, was a flush of emotion.
Sadly, this is a hobby I need to mothball until the girls are much older. I decided to make the birdnest necklace because it was quick and simple. Very satisfying and I was done in less than 30 minutes. Then everything was packed away and will be stored in the attic until I have time to really delve into this again.

Pumpkin Ravioli

My husband spent all day Saturday working on the roof of his sister's garage. He worked extra late into the night to finish up all the stuff he could help on and then he decided to have a quiet day of doing nothing in the house with us on Sunday. My husband's version on doing nothing involves, "playing around" in the kitchen. He wanted to see if he could cook a pumpkin in the pressure cooker. He did. It took all of 10 minutes. Then he needed to do something with that pumpkin, so he made pumpkin bars and pumpkin ravioli. Oh, and he needed applesauce for the pumpkin bar recipe, so he made applesauce in the pressure cooker. Again, only 10 minutes, start to finish. He used my kitchenaid mixer food grinder attachment to finish the applesauce. Then he had a bunch of leftover apple pulp as the byproduct of making applesauce. He added peanut butter and flour to it and baked it into dog treats.

I made the noodles for the ravioli and shaped the final product. I had some learning to do. My first few turned out enormous. D wanted to help at every step. Hubby gave her her own chunk of pasta and they rolled and shaped the dough and made a little ravioli by hand. I think hers had the best shape out of all of them.
We made a sage brown butter and garlic sauce and with a little grated parmesan, and it was fabulous.

The girls were watching the tree removal company trim the trees around the power lines. I told D that people who cut trees for a living are sometimes called Lumberjacks. She now calls the tree guy, "Jack."

Ear warmers

I started following a blog called Delia Creates. There are so many wonderful projects there. It didn't take long for me to find a post I had to recreate for myself. I took her ear warmer tutorial and adapted it for D.

The dimensions are smaller, obviously. I went with 3.5" at the widest and 2.25" at the smallest points. I tried to make it look Christmas-y with a white poinsetta made from felt.

Hopefully she likes it. She sure had fun posing for pictures.

The following is her favorite pose.

Bean looks like she's rolling her eyes.

Latest project: Sensory boxes

I've been following several preschool activity blogs and trying to glean as much inspiration as possible for things to do with the two girls that doesn't involve TV. Sensory boxes (a box containing several different tactile and color objects for play) have become quite popular. I thought this would be a fun way to occupy some time for the girls and get rid of some old dried beans.

The first box i tried had some lima beans and masoor dal. I threw in a few toys and a toilet paper roll with an orange napkin inserted to sort of look like a fall tree. I eventually added some orange ribbon and other toys but didn't take any pictures.


The second box was black eyed peas and black beans with cows, a cup, cookie cutter and other toys.

The girls loved both boxes. D loved playing with the toys and beans and Beanie loved sitting in the box and spilling beans everywhere. She went really crazy over the orange box. I'd love to say no beans were eaten, but that wasn't the case. I did my best to keep beans out of their mouths but they were sneaky at times.
I'll probably be making more of these in the future, but I'll keep the broom and dustpan handy.

Melted crayon pucks

I've been wanting to try these things since I first saw them floating around the blogosphere about 2 years ago. I'm sure the idea has been around for ages, but it's new to me.

The concept is simple enough. Take crayons that your little artist have broken (or chewed apart in some cases) and put them in a mini-muffin tin or shaped mould if you are in possession of such a cool thing and then melt in a 150F oven until they all melt together.
What I learned: Not all crayons melt at the same temperature. The difference between washable crayons, soy crayons, old crayons and whatever else it is that makes crayons so different will yield very different results in the oven. While some crayons still held their shape, others were starting to separate out their oils.
Next time I will break the crayons into smaller pieces. The fun of these is seeing the colors change as you draw a line.

My little artists were not quite as critical as me. D had fun coloring with these while Bean thought they were much easier to hold and munch on.