Valentine Gift for my Girls

We love reading together, so for Valentine's Day I made the girls these little dragons, to go with the My Father's Dragon book set

Sparky on my computer.

The pattern (and idea) is from Susan's blog. I used Lion Brand sock-ease yarn in the cotton candy colorway on size 0 needles. She offers some modifications for making the little dragon in single ply sock yarn, but once I got started on the pattern, I just stuck to the pattern for the most part.  The dragons were pretty quick to knit up, but seriously fiddly to add all the little appendages - ears, arms, feet, wings, tail. I did most of this knitting at the kitchen table so that I could follow along with the pattern.  It was not a knit while watching a show kind of project.  

Audrey and Sparky

The girls LOVE them - which is always nice when you spend time making something.  Audrey named hers Sparky, Meri named hers Jenkins (she was trying to say dragon, but I thought she said Jenkins and it stuck).

The book was a huge hit too.  The illustrations are fun and the story is a quick read with action in every chapter.

Valentine's Day activities

One of my neighbors came up with a fun idea of doing a progressive dinner for Valentine's Day.  We were assigned dessert and I made molten chocolate cakes with a good dollop of whipped cream.  This is one of my favorite easy, fancy desserts.  (I use the microwave instead of a double boiler to melt the chocolate, so it is really very easy.)

I thought it might be fun to try a game with the whole group of kids and older kids.  After we put Meri to bed, I taught everyone how to play Mafia.  Back in my college days (it feels old to say that), we used to have Mafia parties *every* Thursday night starting at 9pm.  It was awesome.  I forgot how much fun that game is.  However, one of the kids was a little too young to play (though I did check with her parents before I even suggested it to the group) and her feelings got hurt when the other kids accused her of being the mafia (she was mafia and they were detectives and got that right during the night, but that is neither here nor there to a 6 year old who feels picked on).  So we only got to play that for one round...

Then the night ended completely when we heard Meri crying and found out she had thrown up.  That was the beginning of a very long night for me.  She only slept when I was holding her and even then she was throwing up every 15-20 minutes for several hours.  I was glad to be holding her so that she got some relief and sleep.  Plus I just love her cuddles even at 3 in the morning.  She finally fell asleep and felt better around 5:30am.  I also went to sleep then, and slept all day and all night, with my own stomach bug in the midst of that.  Then it was Ryan's turn.  Luckily Audrey seems to have managed to avoid getting the bug (KOW).

Laundry soap

I enjoy doing laundry these days - and I cannot believe that I am writing that.  It is true though, I enjoy the snap that wet clothes make, I like seeing all the clean clothes on the drying racks, and I like folding them into stacks by person.  (Meri thinks that she is also the biggest laundry helper in the world as she puts all of the socks on the lower levels of the racks - super cute.) I try to follow the flylady idea of doing a load a day and if I do that, I can usually line dry everything.  I love the feel of crisp clothes right off the rack and it is a nice way to add a little moisture back into the dry winter air.

Meredith is "helping" with laundry by unfolding the folded stack of kitchen towels and laying them neatly on the couch.

Since, I do laundry everyday, and I hang and fold clothes everyday, I have a bit of time to think about the process.  I have thought about how strong the laundry detergent smells and I don't really like strong smells.

I've also had a chance to try the old-fashioned method of soaking my laundry to see if it actually gets things cleaner - you know what - it does.  For now, I soak two types of laundry - Meredith's diapers and Ryan's shirts each get overnight soaks in the washer and then I just launder them as usual and they get really clean without any extra work.

I fell for the marketing a while back and bought a big container of the "baby" laundry detergent before Meri was born.  That was over 2 years ago now.

We used regular liquid laundry soap from Costco until it was gone and then I started using the baby laundry soap for all of our clothes to try to use it up.  I would say we are still several months away from using it all up.

In the meantime, I also tried making my own laundry soap powder using Rhonda's recipe. I started using it intermittently with the baby soap for our clothes - just to make sure that we don't have any allergies to it before it is all we have.  So far, it is working really well.

My homemade laundry soap

It was super simple to make the powder.  I grated a couple of bars of soap - I actually shredded them in the magic bullet, but I wouldn't recommend that because it took a really long time. Then I measured the amount of soap flakes I had and divided that amount in two to get the correct ratio of borax and washing soda.  So I had 2 1/2 cups of soap powder, and added 1 1/4 cups of borax and 1 1/4 cups of washing soda to the container and gave it a good stir.  According to Rhonda, I should only need about 2 tablespoons per load of laundry.  However, I found that 2T is actually a bit much and 1 heaping tablespoon is working well for this batch of laundry powder.

For Meredith's diapers, I use plain Tide.  Since it is recommended by the diaper manufacturers and it does not give Meredith any trouble, I am going to keep on keeping on with that.   

Apple Oatmeal muffins

In one of my all-time favorite  books, The Tightwad Gazette, Amy does an article on how to create a breakfast muffin using various leftovers as add-ins (page 466 for those of you with the complete edition).

Isn't this article just brilliant!

For the article Amy looked at lots of muffin recipes and came up with the basics of what most of them call for and what amount.  The article goes into a lot of detail about the types of possible add-ins and how that affects the other ingredients.  I have always thought it was a great idea, but was also a little overwhelmed at the figuring necessary to just try it.

Apple Spice Oatmeal Muffins

But lately I have been on a homemade kick and so, I decided to give it a try.  I made Audrey some oatmeal for breakfast with chopped apples, brown sugar, and our apple spice mix.  I made enough for Meredith to have some too, but naturally she decided oatmeal was not her thing today.  Using the leftover oatmeal and the muffin instructions, I made apple oatmeal muffins for afternoon snack.  They turned out awesome.  Meredith gobbled down 2 1/2 muffins right away. :)

Apple-oatmeal muffins (makes 1 dozen):

1 1/2 cups flour
3 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 t apple spice mix

1/2 c milk
1/4 c oil
1 egg
1/2 c brown sugar
1 cup leftover oatmeal with apples in it (it may have been even more than that, I didn't measure)

mix the dry stuff together, mix the wet stuff separately.  pour the wet into the dry and just mix until incorporated.

bake at 400 for 15 min.

Snow days - the surprise fun

Ryan worked late tonight and then he heard a strange housing sound when he walked in the front door. It turns out the pipe to the sink in our powder room burst.

I don't use that bathroom often, so i didn't notice. However, i am not at all surprised by this. It is a definite design flaw that we mentioned as a concern to the builders... The pipes to the sink run along the outside wall of the house. We winterize the only other pipes that run on the outside of the house - the hoses.

So after we were sure it was water hissing out of the pipe, we turned the water back on long enough to fill the tubs (water for flushing) and a few other water pitchers for drinking.

Audrey was reading so I told her to use the bathroom one more time while the water was on and explained that a pipe burst in the downstairs bathroom. Her response was priceless. "I wondered what that hissing was in the bathroom this morning"... She knew!?! Something was weird and didn't say anything! and the water has been hissing into the wall for at least a day.

Luckily we know a good plummer. He offered to come tonight, but i was afraid the commotion would wake up Meredith, so he is coming in the morning. Should be a fun day. And it's another snow day.

Snow Days

Since her winter vacation, Audrey has had 4 snow/cold days off.  That is a lot in only a few weeks time.  I have loved having her around more often.  It has also made me so glad that I am not working for money right now - because all of these unplanned days off made life very stressful before, but now, are just delightful.  

Afghan season

This time of year, I start feeling the itch to make Afghans.  I have the big one that I am still working on.  It was my new years resolution for 2013.  I made significant progress on it, but then I started to run out of yarn for the various color stripes and I have not gone out to purchase more yet.

I have two lovely Afghans - one from each of my grandmothers.  One is white, the other is oatmeal.  Both are well made and neutral so we keep them out on couches and chairs all year long.  They are a favorite of the fort-making crew because they stretch and breath.  They are just awesome.

When I see pictures of houses with stacks of folded colorful homemade blankets and afghans, I start wanting to make some more for my own house.  I love the colorful patchwork blankets and afghans, but I often lose the courage to just let them happen willy-nilly.

These are my Afghan ideas:
-Leftover sock yarn woven into little squares on a small loom and sewed together with grey sock yarn
-cotton granny squares afghan with the blue, taupe and chocolate brown yarn scraps that i have
-hexagon granny afghan with the pinks and purple cotton yarns
-simple knit baby afghan with pinks in stripes

Christmas 2013

I need to download pictures from my camera.  I should have taken more pictures, but that is always the case. I'll add the pictures in when I get to them, but in the meantime, I want to at least record what we did so that we can do the good things again next year.

Fun things we did:
-Audrey was in her first production of the Nutcracker.  She was a Chinese dancer and that song is about 2 1/2 minutes long.  So it was a low-pressure, quick performance.  She loved being a part of it and did well.
-Audrey and her friend Maddie (a neighbor from across the street) and her Grandma Margie and I all went to the Warner theater production of the Nutcracker.  It was awesome!!! It was the best production of the Nutcracker that I have ever seen.
-Lights at BullRun Park - it was a drive through a really neat light show.
-making lots of cookies - molasses spice, Russian tea cakes, Christmas cowgirl cookies (red and green m&ms), and of course sugar cookies rolled, cut and frosted.
-Advent calendars - my mom sent the girls a chocolate advent calendar each and they were so excited to open a new piece of chocolate every morning after breakfast; a playmobile winter woodland advent calendar (also from my mom); and a felt tree and ornament calendar
-Patty the elf made his appearance the morning after Thanksgiving and hid around the house.  December 23 Patty was in Meredith's room and December 24 Patty was in Audrey's room.
-The first day of Audrey's winter break we went to the in-laws and did the above mentioned sugar cookies and the girls got to play with all of the in-laws decorations including the train around the tree which they both love.
-Watched Christmas movies - Muppet Christmas carol, Sponge Bob Christmas, Cricket on the Hearth, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, National Lampoon's Christmas vacation (just me - it was awesome as always).
-Decorated the house including the two trees and some out-door lights (candy canes, icicles, and a net light for one of the bushes).
-Listened to Christmas music mostly in the car on the radio because the girls wanted to listen to the Frozen soundtrack more than Christmas music at the house



Christmas Eve
-Audrey made a ginger bread house with Grandma Margie
-I made ham and sweet potato casserole (turned out awesome), Margie brought a homemade cheesecake - yum (and salad and fruit, but those are not as interesting)
-More cleaning than I want to remember (it did make for a magical Christmas morning...)
-We let the girls open one present which was pajamas
-We sang Christmas carols and read the Night Before Christmas
-Audrey wrote a note to Santa and picked out a cookie loaded with frosting and sprinkles and candy on top as well as a carrot for Rudolph
-Nina goes with Patty to the North Pole

Christmas Day
-Opened stockings while skyping with Claire
-opened presents
-Dutch Baby for breakfast and Westfields for lunch/dinner
-Nina grew up!! Meredith got a cabbage patch baby doll named Shelly Sheryl
-After Westfields we went to Ryan's parents house for presents and hung out there into the evening doing a puzzle.

Walking in a winter Wonderland

Now that it is officially winter we are hanging about the house in short sleeves with the windows open...

So much for a white Christmas.

Visiting Santa

We went with our neighbors across the street to take the girls to see Santa yesterday after school let out.  Meredith was curious about this mythical creature named Santa and was excited that he would bring her a toy.  However, she would not stand any closer to him than she is in the picture.  A smile was not going to happen, but we settled for a look of curious alarm.

Declutter challenge update and house reconfigure

My month of decluttering in October went pretty well. I took one load of stuff to the good will and have another load ready to go this week. The amazing thing is that it seems like I could do this forever - there is just that much stuff in this house! Every time I think I am making progress, I notice a new area or corner that has a pile of homeless stuff.
I did make enough progress to start rearranging my house (which is pretty darn exciting!). I am turning the basement (our entry level) into a family room that opens into a big kids play room. It used to be a sports room and an office. That space has been under utilized since Ryan finished school.
The area of Ryan's office is mostly going away as we turn it into the kid area. We are leaving the desk down there for Audrey to use for homework, but the files and other office type things are being added to the library upstairs. I am moving the toys that Audrey likes to play with the most from her room into the kids room.  Eventually we are moving Meredith's toys from the living room too. I am moving my craft stuff upstairs into what has been the toy area of the living room. I am trying to declutter as I move things about and Meredith is still too little to play on her own, so it is a slow transition.
The sports room just got rearranged to make it into the family room. The sports decor may end up staying since we don't really have anywhere better to put that stuff.
Clearly that is a lot of moving about and it is giving me ample opportunity for decluttering. Even though this is a slow process it feels nice to have a plan.

Halloween fun

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I own three Halloween shirts, five pairs of socks, and almost as many decorations as at Christmas time.

Naturally I wanted to have a Halloween themed party for the neighbor kids. The plan was to have the kids over in two batches too correspond to the ages of my two sweet baby girls. We invited two families over for cookie decorating and dinner in a pumpkin and dancing and playing with Meredith early. We invited two other families over for round two later for the same plus a spooky kids movie and game night for the parents. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry....

Meredith got sick the night before and has been sick since. So we canceled the parties and just did those activities as a family.  It was still a pretty good Halloween weekend.

Halloween begins

I took the girls to a Halloween activity at the Disney store tonight. Honestly, it was a bit lame. However the girls had fun in large part because they got to wear their costumes to the mall.  Every one waved and said hi to Audrey as if she really was Ariel.

Me and Meredith

I took this with my poor quality camera phone this morning.

Socks - finding my way

I use Susan's basic sock pattern. However, some where along the way I felt like the pattern needed tweaking to make it fit better.
So I've tried different sizes of needles, more stitches, and short row heels. In the end I have come to the conclusion that Susan's sock recipe is pretty great just the way it is...  And I have a few less successful sock starts to frog.

A maker

I love to make things myself.  Food,crafts, anything. One of the big ways that I am trying to be thrifty is by making gifts for people instead of buying gifts.

I have been toying with various ideas for cousin gifts. My latest idea is ornaments with their names on them.  Today I whipped up a prototype (without any colorwork) using leftover sock yarn.  I love how it turned out and this may become a good way to use up the little bits of leftover sock yarn.

Decluttering challenge

I decided to declare October declutter month. My challenge is to get rid of one thing each day for all 31 days. I can do more than one thing on any given day. 

I am three days in and happy to be doing well so far.  Today I took a load of items to a donation drop. It felt awesome to move stuff out forever.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I love chicken tortilla soup. I used to get it almost every time I went out to eat.

Now that we don't go out to eat much, this is my homemade version. No surprise, I think it is better than the soups I used to buy at restaurants.

Sauté chopped onions and red bell pepper in olive oil and salt until soft.  Add chopped garlic, chopped jalapenõ, cumin, chili powder, and oregano just after the onions soften.  Add: canned (or fresh) tomatoes, canned green chilies, cooked black beans, zucchini, squash, corn, cubed chicken, and chicken broth and bring to a low boil. Stir in some corn meal and simmer for at least 20 minutes.  Squeeze in fresh lime juice and a generous amount of chopped cilantro just before serving.

I like to serve it over some crushed tortilla chips with avocado on top. If I want to kick up the heat, I stir a small amount of pureed chipotles in adobo sauce into my bowl. (We keep this in the fridge as a condiment. ) Seriously awesome!

Cotton wool blend socks finished

I have been really into sock knitting lately. It is easy, portable, and useful.  Triple win.

However there does seem to be an art to it that still eludes me.  There are a couple of different heel types, lots of needle sizes and types, yarn options to make a person spend way too much and then the whole top down or toe up knitting direction debate. 

This pair, with the lovely Opal yarn from my dad, was knit top down on size 1 double pointed needles, one at a time, using Susan's pattern (64 stiches) except for the heel. On the heel I used a short row heel to 10 stitches.  

I like this heel just fine, but I like the depth of the heel with a heel flap slightly better.  So I will stick with that for my next pair.

The colorway of this yarn may not be coming through the computer well.  It is really an awesome yarn. It is a mix of various intensities and shades of denim blue.  Most of it has a slight grey undertone, except the white wash.  It is like wearing a pair of socks with all the good things about acid washed and white washed denim when it was really cool! These socks match blue jeans perfectly. Pb&chocolate.

Bike days

I am still a huge fan of my Costco bike.  I had to change the front child seat out for a rear one half-way through the week. Meredith has a funny habit of playing with my hair and sticking it in her ear or rubbing it on her cheek.  This endearing little habit is often done with surprising enthusiasm and strength (read: sometimes she pulls my hair hard and my head is forced to follow). Let's just say such actions make it more difficult to ride up hills, and the ride to school is rarely flat.

Now she is in a back seat where she can be heard telling me to sit down as I take her up another hill. :) (no idea where she gets her bossiness)

We are loving the bike ride to and from school.  The mornings are easy, there is a bit of a chill in the air and it just feels good to be out and about.  The afternoons are less easy.  In the heat of the afternoon I prefer to hide inside my house, or at least in the shade.  But I am always glad when we get back that we made the effort.  It is getting easier and we are getting faster.

I also recently purchased some upgrades for my bike - a bell and a front basket.  The front basket is awesome.  It is plastic coated metal, it has small holes on the bottom to keep things from falling out, bigger holes at the top, to make it easier to chain up if needed and nice sturdy handles that are perfect for taking the basket off.  It is the perfect size to hold a bag of snacks and drinks and/or Audrey's backpack on the way home from school.