knitting news

This is my current knitting project. I started it on Wednesday night and have been knitting away at it since. It is going to be a bag that I am planning on felting. I have been feeling guilty about not using this yarn. I originally bought it to coordinate with the brown felted bag that I did a couple of months ago (that I still need to sew the lining for!) and decided that it was too bright of a color for my liking on that project. So now it is going to live happily ever after with this yellowish, green color. I can't wait to get it done because it changes so much after the felting process.

When the bag is off the needles I am going to start on dresses similar to these for the girls. Aren't they adorable?! I saw a Baby Gap ad with a sweet little girl in this dress in a magazine this month and loved it right away. I remembered seeing a pattern of similar style in my Knitting For Baby book so I'm going to give it a try. What better way to try out knitting clothing since you only have to knit part of it!

favorite moments from today

- Celebrating with Thomas when he got every problem on his math test correct.

- Watching how excited Ava gets when she sees the Cheerios box. Her favorite snack.

- Listening to Elle make up stories during rest or reading time. One story included this sentence, "Another name for water is H2O, another name for ice is H2S." She's kinda getting science! :)

- Cuddling with Elle when she was tired of reading and then falling asleep for 40 whole minutes!

- Ava putting her thumb in her mouth as soon as she saw her bed each time I laid her down for a nap.

- Hearing Thomas laugh while he was reading and then him telling me every joke there was in the Boxcar Children book he was reading. "Hey Mom, where does a 2,000 pound elephant sleep? [Long pause waiting for me to guess] Anywhere he wants to!" Ha! Ha!

- Kissing baby toes.

- Knitting with my new turbo needles.

- Staying home and not going anywhere. It's overcast out and feels cozy in the house.

My next favorite moment will be my hubby coming home! I wish everyday went this smoothly!

works for me wednesday: leftover easter ham

Today I thought I would share a couple of my favorite recipes to use up that leftover Easter ham after the mashed potatoes are gone and your family has had it's fill of cold ham sandwiches. Both recipes freeze well so if everyone is getting tired of ham you can make these up and pop them in the freezer and wait to have them on a day when you haven't had time to cook. These kinds of meals to use up leftovers works for me!

Ham and Vegetable Casserole

2 c. ham, cooked and diced
2 c. potatoes, cooked and diced
2 c. carrots, cooked and diced
2 c. peas, cooked
1 1/2 c. milk
4 T. flour
4 T. butter
4 oz cream cheese
salt and pepper

Combine ham and vegetables in a casserole. In a saucepan, make a white sauce by melting butter and stirring in the flour. Add milk and stir until thickened. Add softened cream cheese and mix thoroughly. Mix in with vegetables and ham and season to taste. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. This casserole can be topped with shredded cheddar cheese and Durkee onions if you'd like.

Cheesy Ham and Rice Soup

4 celery ribs, diced
1 large onion, diced
1/4 cup butter
4 carrots, shredded
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 cups half and half cream
8 oz Velveeta, cubed
4 cups cooked wild rice
3 cups fully cooked ham, cubed
3 cups cooked brown rice
3 Tbsp. chicken bouillon granules
8 cups water

In a saucepan, saute celery and onion in butter until tender. Add carrots; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes. In a large soup pot, combine the flour, salt and pepper. Gradually stir in the cream. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat; stir in cheese until melted. Stir in the wild rice, ham, brown rice, bouillon, celery mixture and water. Return to a boil. Serve with a big, crusty piece of bread!

For more Works For Me Wednesday ideas visit Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer!

catalog shopping

About a week or so ago we got a Hanna Andersson catalog in the mail with the new spring/summer line of clothes. They have adorable, girly clothes. I gave the catalog to Elle to look at and told her that she could take a pencil and circle all of the clothes that she liked in it just for fun. Tonight I found the catalog laying on the counter after the kids were in bed so I sat down and looked at it. I thought it was cute to see all of the things that she had circled. Of course, majority of it was pink and she had circled almost all of the shoes. Typical girl!

Here are some of the items that were circled. All of them were things that if I saw them while out shopping for her I'd think to myself, 'Oh Elle would love this!'

another missing tooth

This morning at breakfast Elle was taking a drink of her milk and one of her top teeth fell out into her glass. We got a good laugh from it! She is now missing 5 teeth and there is no sign of the permanent teeth yet. Hopefully they come in soon because she has a big gap on the top and bottom only they are on opposite sides of her mouth so taking bites of things is becoming hard for her. We are cutting stuff up for now but eating tacos and pizza just isn't as fun with a fork!

saturday

Today has been a laundry day here. The kids have been playing outside a lot lately and everything is getting muddy. Makes for lots of stain treating and soaking! Thomas and Elle played baseball and in the treehouse most of the afternoon with a neighbor girl. We are loving this warm weather!

The pictures are of Ava modeling one of Elle's headbands and Thomas's snazzy haircut I gave him today. I wanted to do a before and after of the haircut but he said no. He was lookin pretty shaggy! I do not enjoy cutting hair at all and he really doesn't like getting it cut so we wait until it just can't be put off anymore. Doesn't he look handsome?! :)

dinner tonight

Grilled T-Bone Steaks (Thanks Dad and Mom!)
Grilled Potatoes Packets with Cheese
Grilled Asparagus

Scott couldn't have grilled them any better. Everything tasted so good! No, I did not eat all of this steak....just fyi! :)

My favorite thing about this kind of meal is that there is pretty much no clean-up. The potatoes and asparagus were both grilled in aluminum foil. Just throw the plates and silverware in the dishwasher and go sit on the couch to enjoy a movie!

headbands that don't hurt

This week I made 5 of these headbands for Elle and I to wear and have 2 more cut out waiting to be sewn. They are great because you can wear them all day and your ears don't start hurting with them like they do with plastic ones. They tie in a knotted bow at the back of the neck so they look super cute with a messy bun if you don't want to wear your hair down. I found the free online pattern here. They sew up very quickly and are a lot of fun to work on!

BTW, I think Elle looks a lot like her Aunt Nikki in this photo....lucky girl! :)

little swimmer

Today we went swimming at one of the waterparks in town for a friend's birthday. Ava even got in on the fun!

works for me wednesday: fluffy pancakes everytime

I used to always use a boxed pancake mix to make pancakes and they usually turned out ok but then I found a recipe for 'Perfect Pancakes' in a favorite cookbook of mine so I gave it a try. We didn't know what we were missing! The recipe calls for you to separate the egg whites from the yolks and to beat the whites until they are stiff. After you've mixed up the rest of the ingredients in a separate bowl you then fold in the beaten egg whites. They make the fluffiest, lightest pancakes and they get gobbled up in no time!

It is definately worth the extra effort and really only takes a few more minutes. To speed up the process have one of your kids beat the egg whites for you with an electric hand mixer while you mix up the rest of the recipe. Get your griddle heating up when you first start and it will be ready when you are. I usually make a double batch and then the kids have them for breakfast during the week. Perfect Pancakes works for us! :)

Perfect Pancakes
(from Cooking With Confidence by Eunice Naomi Wiebolt)

3 eggs
2 1/2 cups low fat buttermilk
2 Tbsp butter, melted
2 tsp granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt

Preheat griddle to 375 degrees. If you're using a stovetop skillet, make your batter before heating the pan.

Separate egg yolks from the whites, placing the yolks in a large bowl and the whites in a small, deep bowl. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form; set aside.

Add buttermilk, butter and sugar to the egg yolks; beat well. Stir in flour, soda, baking powder and salt. Do not overmix - a few lumps are all right. If you need to heat a skillet, do it at this time.

Gently fold in beaten egg whites, being careful not to overmix. Your batter should be rather fluffy, with some of the egg whites still visible.

Test your griddle or skillet to make sure it's medium hot. (At the right temperature, a few drops of water sprinkled on the surface will sizzle and dance.) For each pancake, pour about 1/3 cup batter onto hot griddle and spread into a circle. Flip to cook the second side as soon as pancakes are covered with bubbles and edges are slightly dry. Serve immediately with butter and warm syrup. To serve an entire batch at the same time, cover the pancakes loosely and keep warm in a 200 degree oven.

For more Works For Me Wednesday tips visit Rocks in My Dryer!

lessons learned today...

If you happen to get a rock chip in the windshield of your vehicle, especially in the winter when it is so very cold out, be sure to get it repaired asap. The bitter cold temperatures and the heat from your defrost fan are prime conditions for the little chip to turn into a crack across your entire windshield. Cracked windshields are expensive to replace, especially when it has a rain sensor feature! Trust me.

Also, this is what happens when you have a curious baby and you leave out a basket of clothes that needs folded. She decides to help!

And this is how happy she looks once she is caught throwing all of those clothes out. I need to go toss them back in the dryer now to fluff them up and get them folded and put away where little hands can't reach!

easter dress shopping

Elle and I were looking around online at Easter dresses tonight and saw this one at Gymboree that we both like a lot. They have the same dress in Ava's size so they could be matching. The description online says - "Our twirly skirt has a cotton petticoat with tulle for fun and flounce." Sounds perfect for a girly girl like Elle! We'll keep looking around before we decide for sure. Maybe Target will have something similar for half the price! (I'm not brave enough to attempt sewing the girls dresses like this yet. Hopefully next year.)

more spring cleaning

Last weekend we had a couple of days around 50 degrees and so I got the spring cleaning itch....then we got more snow yesterday and it's chilly again. Oh well! I've started the cleaning so it must continue! :) Today I vacuumed the rest of the tops of the cupboards and wiped them down. I took down the curtains in the kitchen, dining room and living room since they are all the same fabric and put them in the wash. Before I hung them back up they needed a good ironing and the woodwork on and around the windows got wiped down. After that, I pulled out the refrigerator and cleaned it and the floor. Several Cheerios had found their way under there! That is all the farther I got today. You'd never know I did any of it either. It's all of the behind the scenes housework!

Tomorrow I plan to finish up the kitchen and hopefully get to some sewing. Scott is traveling again so keeping busy with these projects helps the time to go by faster. I want to make some headbands for Elle that I found here. I have found some of the greatest tutorials online that people have took the time to make and put on their blogs. I'll have to do a post sometime linking to them. I did manage to finish knitting the washcloth that I mentioned last weekend. I kept dropping stitches while I was making it and do not know how to pick them up very well so always ended up ripping out rows until I got to the dropped stitch. You can't have a washcloth with holes in it! :)

the next photographer in the family?

Thomas took this picture of Elle and I today. Maybe he will follow in his Grandpa and Grandma's footsteps?! :)

works for me wednesday: 'Now I'm Reading' books

A friend of mine told me about these books when I was struggling to find a reading cirriculum that I liked for my 5 year old daughter. Elle really wanted to learn to read books, not just words, like her big brother but all of the Easy Readers and 'I Can Read' books that you can pick up at Target or Walmart were just too difficult. They always seemed to introduce too many concepts in one book, even in the easiest levels.

The 'Now I'm Reading' books are great because the first book starts you off with only words that have the short a sound in them along with a couple of easy sight words. Another thing that I like about them is that each sentence builds upon the last sentence that is read. For example, the first book is called 'Fat Cat'. The first sentence on page 1 is - 'A cat.' The next sentence on page 2 is - 'A tan cat.', page 3 - 'A tan fat cat.', etc... The book is only 10 pages long so it makes it a quick read. When book one is read and the sound of short a mastered then you can move to book 2 which will introduce a story with words using short o. The first 5 books cover short a, e, i, o, and u and then you start over again with a book with the short a sound only now you will be introducing consonant blends into the words. It really is great!

Elle has now read all 20 level 1 books and just started level 2 which is introducing long vowels. She absolutely loves reading these books. They come with stickers to put on a chart or in the cover of the book for each time it is read independently. She is so proud to get those stickers! The stories are really cute. The illustrations are fun and colorful and we've even laughed out loud at some of the stories. They're perfect for preschoolers and early elementary age kids and very affordable too! Check out Rocks in My Dryer for more Works for Me Wednesday tips!

almost walking

Check out that curly hair! And those cute little toes! :)

time to spring clean

The sun is shining, it is almost 50 degrees out and I am getting the itch to spring clean. My house is telling me that it is way past time to do some deep cleaning too! There are cobweb strings going from some of the recessed lights in my kitchen over to the cupboards and take a look at these apples. They are a glimpse of just how bad the dust is above my cupboards. Yuck! Getting the kitchen done is my goal for the week. I'm dividing it up into sections and will post my progress here....for accountability! :)

This is my catch all junk drawer. Pretty bad eh?!!

This is how it is supposed to look though. Hopefully it can stay this way for awhile.

I admit it....I have a problem. Cookbooks are a real weakness for me. I love to browse through them and imagine making (and eating!) all of those great recipes! :) By nature I am not a collector except for this one thing! The sad part of the drawer in this first picture is that this isn't even all of my cookbooks. There were several that I couldn't fit in the drawer so they were in the cupboard above the ovens. I was determined to only keep what I could fit in the drawer.

This is what the drawer looks like now. All 44 of them in nice neat rows. (Yes, you read that right!)

So this is the section that is done.

11 months old today

i love saturdays

Scott got home on Friday night and it is so good to have him home! We've had such a nice, relaxing weekend together. The weather has been gorgeous....in the mid to upper 40's! The snow is melting so the kids got their bikes out and have had fun riding through the puddles. They made several laps around the lake both on their bikes and on foot. Spring is in site!

Yesterday there was a big yarn sale at a shop in town just a few miles away so I stopped in and came home with these goodies! Can you tell I like the color brown?! :) The brown varigated skeins were 60% off so I bought all they had! I want to knit a shrug for myself with big needles and then see how much is left after that project. It would make a beautiful lap blanket or since it's wool I could felt with it too. The other yarn is a cotton yarn and I love to use it to knit washcloths and hot pads with fabric backs. I currently have a washcloth on the needles right now, a hotpad that is knitted but needs it's fabric back and my felted handbag needs new handles. I also have the fabric to line it now too, so as soon as these 3 projects are completed I will let myself get started on that shrug.

Yesterday afternoon I sewed this little smock for Elle. It has 2 pockets across the front for her to carry around her treasures, and she's got a lot of them! She's my child that doesn't like to throw things away and I'm the opposite! :) It has 2 ties in the back that make it very girly and sweet.

Since the weather was so great we grilled for the first time this year. We made blue cheese burgers, potato packets and roasted asparagus. It tasted so good! We call Scott our Master Griller! :) After dinner we watched the 6th episode of Star Wars which made the kids very, very happy. They absolutely love Star Wars now. They've saw episodes 4, 5, and 6. I think we will wait now though until they are a little older before we watch 1, 2, and 3. They are loving movie night so I am going to have to think back about what some of my favorite movies were as a kid and rent them so they can see them too. Leave me a comment if you think of a movie you think they would enjoy!

Well, I need to go make my family some lunch. I'll post a picture later this afternoon of my little Ava who is 11 months old today!!

peanut butter cookies

1 cup butter
1 1/4 cups peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Cream together butter, peanut butter, sugars, and vanilla. Beat in eggs one at a time. In a separate bowl, combine together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir into batter. Put batter in refrigerator to chill for at least 1 hour.

Once chilled, roll into 1 inch balls and put on ungreased baking sheets. Flatten each ball with a fork, making a criss-cross pattern. Bake in a preheated 375 degrees oven for about 10-12 minutes or until cookies just start to brown.

weekend ramblings

This weekend flew by way too quickly. On Saturday I went to town by myself for a few hours and made all kinds of stops at places I've been wanting to go to without 3 children in tow. It was a much needed break! Three of the stops were to fabric stores. I came home with several fun fabrics! I am fortunate to have 2 great quilt shops in town along with a small Joann's. I also stopped at the paint store and picked up several colors sample cards for some painting I would like to get to this spring. The girls room being at the top of the list. Guess what color Elle wants her and Ava's room to be? Yes, Pink, of course! :)

When I got home Ava had just laid down for her afternoon nap so I played outside in the snow with Thomas and Elle for awhile. The sun was shining and it was so nice out! Scott had started to build a snow fort with them so we finished it up and then went for a walk around the lake. (By the way, we got another 10 inches of snow with this last snowstorm. The official count for the previous storm was 12 inches!)

After dinner and Ava was in bed again for the night (she misses out on all the fun!) we watched episode 5 of Star Wars with Thomas and Elle. A friend of ours is letting us borrow the first 3 Star Wars movies that were released so we have been watching them together as a family. The kids absolutley love them. Surprisingly, I am actually enjoying them too even though I usually don't care for science fiction.

Sunday morning we went to church and yesterday afternoon we just hung out around the house. Scott worked on some stuff for work, Thomas had a neighbor boy over to play for the afternoon, Elle played My Little Ponies and Barbies, I cut out a small handbag and started sewing it, and Ava got into everything she could get her hands on. :)

Scott left this morning on another business trip. This week he will be in Kansas City, Atlanta, and Alabama. He'll be back on Friday night and I already can't wait. I'll only get him home for 4 days before he has to leave again for an even longer trip to Las Vegas but I don't want to think about that right now.

Well, I've got a kitchen that needs tidied up and then children that need tucked in. After that I think I will get out my latest knitting project and watch a little 'What Not to Wear'.

the view outside

This is the view outside that we've been enjoying all morning. We are getting more snow....supposedly another foot or so of it! The kids played outside for about an hour in it this morning before we started school and are planning to go back out when we are done. We have not been able to see across the lake for most of the morning so it is coming down at a pretty good rate.

look at what I found in my kitchen