Long time. Lot's of changes!

It's been a while since I've stopped by to say hello. I've got a few more little ones to take care of now, I think 4 more to be exact since I last wrote... 4 boys, 3 girls. That's 7 kids. Who'd a thunk it huh? I'm still here. And I'm still working on learning and growing each day. How can I not? I've been  messing with the idea of self-publishing an e-book. Anybody have any thoughts on that?

I'll try to keep in touch on this blog.  In the meantime, how do you like my family?

Little girl reversible apron

I haven’t been on here a lot. I haven’t really made, or cooked a lot. Well, that’s not true. I do cook a lot! And I’ve tried lot’s of new things, just haven’t been faithful with posting on here.

I’m going to a baby shower for a new friend tonight and wanted to give her something homemade (mostly because it’s cheaper… I won’t lie.) I hope she doesn’t look too closely at the sewing job, because I’m no pro- far from it! But, I think it turned out really cute!

The last picture shows some of the imperfections… like I said, I’m no pro!

I copied the idea from this apron that Derek is wearing. I think my mom got it at a little craft fair:

I’m going to give it to her with a cute card with this poem, that I wrote:

From baby to toddler:

We love their tiny toes, their fingers and their nose

We love the way they steal our hearts and wipe away our woes.

But let’s not lie, babies make a mess

We definitely don’t love poop and puke stains on our dress.

And can you guess what’s worse than messy baby faces?

Messy toddlers, who can make messes- in lot’s of places!

So, even though now, she is tiny and precious-

She’ll grow up way too fast, and make lot’s of those messes!

But when the day comes when a bib is not enough.

When she’s bigger and mobile, and eats lot’s of colorful stuff,

When she eats Spagettios, ketchup, grape juice and fruit,

You can put her in this apron, and at least she’ll look cute!

Kind of silly. I hope to get at least a small laugh.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch (or the townhome… I guess…) Christopher wanted to show everyone his dinosaur fruit snack. And Caleb… he’s still one of those messy toddlers!

I love July 4th!

Tomorrow is Independence Day. I decided to make myself an accessory to go with my $4 girls t-shirt that I got from Shopko, it looks like this!

So, I made this:

I know, I know, I desperately need a little girl to model (or wear it!) for me.

But the boys seemed to enjoy it. for about 2.4 seconds.

I need to go find my awesome earrings to go with it too!!!

Happy Fourth of July everybody!

Oh, and I made my own cut-off shorts. Nothing special, but I didn’t want to pay $18 for some that were a bit too big! (yea!) I just cut off my pants, and made a new little decorative hem! I’m ready for tomorrow!

Rock candy suckers

Another Pinterest find!

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2011/10/how-to_homemade_rock_candy.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+craftzine+%28CRAFT%29

This was fun! It took just more than a week, for the sugar to crystalize enough to make our rock candy suckers! The boys enjoyed checking them each day to see how they were coming along. (I didn’t let them touch them… that would’ve been nice and messy..)

They didn’t taste very good, just like pure sugar. But the boys suffered through them LOVED them!

Burlap Wreath

My wall was bare. I took down family photos, in anticipation of putting our house on the market. I hated it. It needed something…

So I made this:

It’s not exactly the best thing to go on the wall (family  pictures are always way better…) but I like it.

It was easy to make. I had seen a few pictures like it, but figured it out myself. I didn’t even go to any other blog, or tutorial to make it.

Cut the burlap into strips. Unwind a wire hanger (make sure it’s a flimsy one, that works much easier.) Poke the burlap through the hanger, and fold it back and forth…

I glued some little dots of hot glue in between the burlap in some different spots, so that the burlap wouldn’t all fall to the bottom of the wreath.

The flower is just a rectangle of fabric (green burlap in my case.) Fold it over onto itself and do a basic stitch by hand, then pull the thread tight. Sew it closed when it’s how you like it.

I think I like it better on the door…

Freezing strawberries

I just posted about raspberry freezer jam, then remembered that I froze some strawberries earlier, and took pictures so I could blog about it.

It was basic. I just stemmed the strawberries, washed them, set them out on cookie sheets and put them in the freezer. After a while (when I remembered) I put them in freezer bags. One bag full, I cut up into small pieces so I could use them for things like jello salad and such. The others, we’ll use mostly for smoothies.

Raspberry freezer jam!

I LOVE raspberries! Seriously! I love them! We planted some- and then, we transplanted them! So, sadly, they didn’t get any berries this year… just new growth! But, I was elated to hear that my friend, who recently moved in with her mom for a while, was not going to be picking their raspberries and that I was welcome to them!

Sweet and Delicious! Heavenly! That’s what I kept thinking while I was picking them- even stepping in the mud, and getting red stains on my shirt and shorts! Heavenly!

I decided to make some freezer jam with the first batch. Freezer jam is sooo easy! I just bought some fruit pectin, and followed the very basic recipe within the packet. Crush the fruit, add sugar, boil water and pectin, stir together! That’s it! I LOVE freezer jam. I’m not much of a jam person, but freezer jam will make me want to have toast with jam, just so I can have some freezer jam.

It didn’t make a ton, but we’re not a large family (at least not in eating, not yet anyway.) It will be just right. I went out and picked some more today, we’ll see what I’ll do with them. Maybe just freeze them for smoothies? Or I think you can CAN raspberries to use for things like topping cheesecake and such… or maybe I’ll just enjoy the deliciousness of the fresh berries!

Home made choke cherry syrup

We have choke cherry bushes in our yard! With A LOT of choke cherries growing on them. Still tons more, even after I made  a small dent in them for this experiment!

Here’s the recipe I followed:

http://www.food.com/recipe/chokecherry-syrup-134061

I thought it seemed like a TON of sugar, so I used a tiny bit less than that. But, still almost as much because I was worried that it wouldn’t thicken if I didn’t use enough.

First, we picked the cherries. I paid Aaron $1 to fill a bucket. Plus, the boys went and picked some every time they were bored. There are seriously still soooo many out there!

Then, I washed them, then put them in a pot and barely covered them with water, and set them to boil. Here’s where I made the mistake of leaving it on HIGH boiling, while we went out to pick more cherries.

I came back inside to this (all over the floor too.) and Derek screaming because he had woken up from his nap. Oops. Oh well, he was ok, and the mess cleaned right up.

So, then, I made a make-shift juicer out of pink tulle taped across my big bowl.

It worked like a charm. I only had to empty the juice once or twice out of the bowl and clean off the tulle with water. I got 5 cups of juice out of one bucket of chokecherries. It made 2 small jars and 1 1/2 big jars of syrup.

I canned the smaller jars in my pot as a boiling water bath for 12 minutes or so. The big one sealed on it’s own, and wouldn’t fit in my small pot, so I figured it was alright. The syrup is pretty yummy, especially with whipped cream on top. I liked it on brownies too- made it like chocolate covered cherry flavor.

Not too bad for my first canning experiment. AND, I am excited that I got a pressure canner at a yard sale for $1! It’s only a small one, but just big enough to do six or seven jars. I’ll try green beans this year, and peaches. Maybe with my tomatoes I’ll make spaghetti sauce and can that? Any suggestions and hints would be greatly appreciated!

Home made Granola Bars

I like to make these! They are yummy. They fill your tummy. And they are way cheaper than store bought ones that are filled with nasty preservatives!

Here’s the basic recipe I use:

I’m lazy, I know… but it’s easier than typing it all out right now. Anyway, I start with these basics and add a bunch of stuff.

I add: craisins (more specifically, raspberry craisins because they are cheaper at WinCo.)

mixed nuts

sunflower seeds

flax seed (I accidentally bought the whole seeds the first time. You can get it all ground up and I guess that’s better, but for the granola bars, I think the whole seeds are ok… I still use them anyway.)

wheat germ (sounds nasty, I know, but it’s really healthy for you, and you can’t even taste it at all, all mixed in with everything.)

So, you mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. When I do this, I usually see that I have a lot more than the original recipe calls for, so I double the peanut butter, karo syrup and brown sugar. It just makes really big, a bit more gooey granola bars!

After you push everything down into a greased pan, let it set for a while, then cut it into bars! You can save it in plastic bags, like I do, or just leave it in the pan and cut one when you want it.

They’re pretty easy, quick and delicious! Plus, a healthy snack too!

Peach Pie

For Relief Society tonight we had a Pie and Hi get together. It was a lot of fun. They said we could bring our favorite pie to share. Peach is not my favorite, but we had a lot of frozen peaches, and the ingredients for the crust, so I decided to try it out.

I don’t know that I have ever made pie before- really. Sure I’ve tried banana cream, or cheesecake flavored pudding pie, but actually baking a pie? This was a first!

Of course, I had some help…

Please disregard the fact that Caleb is still in his pajamas. We made this pie right after breakfast, um, lunch.

Cool trick for transferring the crust to the pie pan…

Probably could’ve used more filling- but I didn’t want to thaw out and deal with anymore peaches. It kind of all turned to peach mush anyway….

I wanted the cute little heart for the middle- Christopher decided we needed another heart too.

It didn’t bubble over, but the pan was ready, just in case.

It was a big hit tonight. One lady asked the whole group, “Who made the peach pie?” I said, “Which one?” since there were two. She said the one with the heart and that it was “soooo good!” I said, “Good, I was afraid to try it.” Everyone got a good laugh. It was sort of true, but also, I just wanted to try all the other kinds that were there. Pumpkin and Lemon meringue were my favorite! Yummy!

And here’s how my little helper ended up, shortly after we finished:

Breast Cancer Quilt

I never posted this! I can’t believe it! I made this quilt last year… finishing in December, for my mom! She celebrated 10 years cancer free at the end of November, and we had a Pink Party at Christmas time, to celebrate!

I found this cute quilt, and decided to go along these lines… however, it quickly got twisted, and became my own design! I was very happy with it, and Mom loved it!

I especially loved the extra flowers that I added- that I learned how to make at a Relief Society activity. For the party, I made a bunch of these, and put them on pins and hair clips for everybody to have one.

For the party, my sister used iron on paper to make t-shirts for all the boys, and my mom, and herself. (I just bought a cheap pink shirt from Wal-Mart…) She also made a movie with pictures from the past decade of my mom’s life- things she didn’t miss because she beat cancer!

Something I learned from doing the quilt- check front and back often when machine quilting! :) I made a nice big pucker! Oh well… the front is cute enough that nobody will ever see that part!

Maternity Jeans!!!

I only have 2 pairs of pants that fit me right now- for the next 7 weeks! So, I did a bit of googling and found this website:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Maternity-Jeans-Using-Regular-Jeans-an/

Why not try it out? I decided to use some jeans that have holes, that I won’t wear after baby is born anyway, because I never wore them before… I didn’t want to waste any of my good “non-pregnant” clothes.

I followed the instructions and came up with this:

I think I cut the back too short, because it feels like they’re always falling down… but when I tried the pants on they were rather tight, and I wanted to make sure I could pull them up.

I’m rather pleased with the results!

Do you like the cute goofy kid in the mirror? He wouldn’t move for the picture. Oh well…

Now I have 3 pairs of pants to last me 7 weeks… or maybe less… hopefully less. :)