steady sewing: girls twirl skirts and matching flower bows

Last month there was a combined baby shower for two ladies in my ward.  I took this opportunity to get better at my sewing skills and decided i would try to make some skirts.  As I was making the skirts I noticed there was some extra fabric so I thought why not make a matching flower head band.  Here's how one of them turned out:

While at the baby shower, a friend in the ward asked me if I would make some for her two daughters for Easter.  I figured what a great opportunity to brush up on those sewing skills and help out a friend while doing it.  So, after going to the fabric store with her to pick out what we were doing, this is how they turned out.  Pretty darn cute I think!!

I used this tutorial as a start for the skirts and tweaked them a little bit for my liking.  I also found the tutorial for the flowers here.

in the kitchen: whole wheat oatmeal craisin cookies

I've been having a lot of cookie/dessert craving lately.  It mostly comes after a good meal and then I feel like I need a dessert to be completely satisfied.  Well eating all the "good" desserts wouldn't work well in my favor of trying to lower triglycerides and losing weight/getting into shape.  So when I get those cravings (which are just about every moment of every day) I have to get creative some of the time to get something that is satisfying, but on the healthy side.  Today I came up with these beauties!  Pretty darn scrumptious for being made with splenda and whole wheat flour. Enjoy!

 















Whole Wheat Oatmeal Craisin Cookies

time: 30 minutes
makes about 2 dozen cookies

 Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter/margarine, softened
1/3 cup SPLENDA Brown Sugar blend (or 2/3 packed light brown sugar)
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats (I'm sure instant would work fine too)
3/4 cup craisins (or raisins)
1/3 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

In large mixing bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar.  Add egg and vanilla and mix until smooth.  In separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together.  Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture.  Stir in the oats, craisins and walnuts (optional).

Bake for 8-10 minutes until center is set. (I baked mine on my pizza stone, so time may vary depending on what kind of pan you use.)  Let cool on cooling racks. 

dangerous

Uh oh! This boy found the bookshelves. This is one of the books he opened the other day. Very fitting...

He's also found chocolate in the cookies I made today. Yum...

my tiny dancer

here is a video of joshie's new things over the past week or so... dancing and walking along the couch

steady sewing: thrift store curtain makeover

I've been really wanting to get some curtains for our bedroom, pretty much since we got here.  It left my mind during the winter months because it was always so dark outside during the times we were in our bedroom that it didn't bother me.  Well now daylight savings has passed and it's getting progressively lighter every day (hooray!!) and the light is starting to bother me at 6am when I still would like to be sleeping, but I'm distracted by the growing light in my bedroom.

So, after that long introduction... I found these drapes at Value Village (aka Savers in other states) for $2.99! And obviously bought them, (even though I realized later that I was allergic to them - some old lady with cats probably had them prior to me - i still went on with it, i'm hoping the steaming/ironing gets that out).





























 

busy boy...

 

 If you can't already tell, I've got a busy boy on my hands, which makes for a busy mom.

Joshie just in the past few days has loved playing outside and has no fear of the grass.

He also has no fear of being thrown around or falling off things.

He's a BIG eater and loves his fruit in the mesh feeder and always makes a big sticky mess!

And last night, he just realized he could climb the stairs.  He just kept going and going on his first time he found them.  Uh oh!  I need a gate to keep this little rascal in.  Ha! :)

This morning he also found a box of baking soda and got it all over the floor.

As mellow as a baby he was, I'm pretty sure he's not going to keep that up the older that he gets.  He's already shown signs of being a little pill just like his daddy.  :)

ordinarily perfect

I woke up yesterday to my husband by my side and the first words mutually spoken were, "I love you".  Not only the sweetest way to wake up, but it was another day where I realized so clearly again that I have the most ordinarily perfect life.  Even though I'm "just" a wife who is at home raising her children, it is for me and I wouldn't trade it for the entire universe!  I have a husband who I love and who loves me more than life.  And we have an amazing son.  We are sealed for time and all eternity and honestly that is the most important knowledge that I have ever received and will ever receive in this life.

Watching general conference this weekend reaffirmed that truth and everything spoken was exactly what I needed to hear. Here are the links to two of my favorite talks...


President Dieter F. Uchtdorf - Sunday Morning Session

Lynn G. Robbins - Sunday Afternoon Session


Even if you are not of my faith, I highly suggest that take a look at these talks as they can be highly beneficial no matter what your circumstance.

Franz...

This is Franz... He is sour and yeasty and has been stinking up my kitchen for a week.  But oh, he made the most excellent Sourdough Pizza yesterday.  I will be experimenting more in the future to make breads, more pizzas, etc.  I got the instructions for him HERE

(we named this sourdough starter because it truly is like having a pet.  You have to feed it everyday and look after it. pretty nerdy, but we found it funny.)

haircuts, dinosaurs, laundry... oh my!

Well there has been a lot going on the past couple weeks, but I'm still not sure why I haven't updated recently.  I had a week off of work for their spring break and so I was home a lot with Joshua, but Jake had test week this past week and so he was pretty busy.

The weather has warmed up here and it's been great!  Josh and I went outside to play with neighbors yesterday for about 2 hours.  I was surprised by how much Josh loved moving around the yard and that he wasn't scared of the grass.  Definitely our boy to love being outside all the time.  We did have an excellent time.  I will have to shoot pictures next time we are out.

Well the things that I did get pictures of are what my title states... So, I will begin with haircuts.

We cut Josh's hair recently because the top was getting SO long.  We didn't get a picture during the process, but he did really well with the clippers on his head which I was surprised by too.  The funny story to this is that Jake started cutting his hair at a #6, because usually that seems like a good length anytime we cut Jake's hair.  Jake took one sweep through the hair and said "Oh NO!!"  Jake really hated that he had just cut off all of his long hair and said for days after, "I miss his long hair!"   For a second I did, but then I really started to like the short hair. I thought it made him look older and so handsome!


































Back at Christmas my mom got Joshie this dinosaur walking/riding toy.  The other day we pulled it out and he was pulling himself up on it while playing with the hat at the same time.  So I put the hat on and put him on the dinosaur.  He loves playing with the dinosaur and I thought he looked hilarious with the hat on because his head is HUGE!!!

I folded gobs of laundry yesterday and not minutes after I put it by the stairs to take up later, this is what I find...
 

Joshie also has found some new tricks... picking his nose and clapping and luckily :) this video caught both!  We are short on camera space and I'm just waiting for my external hard drive to arrive.  Should be here soon!!!