For my future scuba diver...

My 6 year old wants to be a scuba diver when he grows up. He also wants to write books about the fish he sees. This week, his kindergarten class was learning about the ocean. I thought it would be fun to dress him in something related. Unfortunately, he's grown out of all his fish shirts. So, like the caring, crafty mom that I sometimes pretend I am, I made this:

It needs something else in the middle. My scuba diver (who doesn't like to put his head all the way under the water) wants me to add a pink octopus. This is the same kid that wouldn't wear the blue jacket I bought him because it had a tiny pink stripe on it.

Amish Friendship Bread

A friend from church brought me some delicious bread that she had made using Amish friendship bread starter. She offered me the recipe and some starter of my own, which I immediately requested. My family loved the bread. In fact, we fought over the last piece. About ten days later, I received my very own starter in a gallon sized ziplock and a page of instructions.

The best part was the handwritten note about the apple pie filling. She doubled the starter, eliminated the oil and added a small can of apple pie filling. That made me curious about other variations that we could try in the future. I googled "Amish Friendship Bread" and was amazed with all the recipes and advice I found. My favorite was a blog entry that explained how to keep up the starter without ending up with extra starter every ten days. It's nice to have extra to share with friends, but how many friends does one person really have?

I made it through the ten days of caring for my starter. It was like having a new pet (although hubby compared it to a baby). I played with it every day and let the air out whenever it accumulated (which hubby compared to burping a baby). And then our little baby's due date arrived. My husband was as excited as I was and helped turn our baby into bread.

Arm Chair World has a ton of recipe variations, if you're interested. It makes it hard to pick what to make next. I think hubby said something about chocolate. If you can't get a hold of a friend giving away starter, you can make your own, just google "Amish friendship bread starter recipe."

Beets

Growing up I think I ate beets just once at an all-you-can-eat buffet. My mom didn't like them so we never had them. Spinach was the same way. My mom only knew one way to cook it and she didn't like it like that so she never made it. Some of you are already thinking that I really lucked out as a child. Don't worry as a picky eater, I was extremely grateful. However, I married a man that likes both spinach and beets. Crazy, I know.

So, I sent him into a farmers' market by himself knowing that he would probably have way too much fun. And I was right. He came out with plenty of fun fruits and vegetables and a bag of beets. He was really excited that he got beets. I wasn't so much, but I try to be supportive so instead of commenting on his choice, I asked him if he knew how to cook beets. He claimed to know how. Guess who wasn't home when it was time to cook the beets, not that he would have been all that helpful since I later found out that he didn't really know that much about cooking beets.

I panicked a little and pulled out my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook which I love. Apparently beets take a while to cook. I should have looked that up before I left it to the last minute. I ended up peeling, slicing, and then steaming them. Next time I think I'll start much earlier so that I don't have to peel and slice a raw beet. Have you ever tried it? They're tough to peel and cut, not to mention the color bleeds all over the place. It's a mess.

In the end they turned out just fine (fine for a beet, that is). They were a little late getting on the table, but my cute beet-loving hubby liked them. My vegetable lover wouldn't try them, but my picky eater thought they were okay, although he refused to eat more than a tiny taste.

Craftiness

In case you wonder where my love of crafts comes from, it's inherited. My mom often had projects going on while I was growing up. Mostly sewing, but she also knits and crochets and will pick up other random crafts just to try them out.

Despite a 16 hour drive between us, my mom and I still manage to connect fairly often. OK, we talk a lot. It's weird to have a full week go by and not have talked with Mom. In addition to catching up on life in general, we share our current craft projects and browse the web together. Yes, we check out craft sites while talking on the phone together.

I thought I'd share one of my mom's recent projects. When my daughter turned three, Nana gave her a tea set complete with a quilted picnic blanket and a family of rabbits to have tea with. The rabbits match the quilt, which didn't make it into the picture. It turned out really cute and my daughter was thrilled with it all. So thanks, Mom.

Valentine's Day

I realize that Valentine's Day was a couple months ago. I just never posted this and I want to because it's such a cute (and easy) pattern. I made two to go with the stuffed animals that we gave our kids for Valentine's Day. My kids are constantly turning shoe boxes into beds for their stuffed animals and then go in search of blankets and pillows to make them comfortable. I hoped that these hearts would make good pillows for any future animal beds.

The pattern is from Owlisyly and can be found here. And check out her Etsy store too.

Horsey socks

My daughter has an overly developed imagination. Some of it comes from playing with her older brother, but there's a fair amount that comes straight from her three year old mind. One night, while I was laying on the couch, she assaulted my feet, demanding "horsies, wake up." So I moved my feet. She was thrilled. She then got out pillows and a blanket for my feet and put her "horsies" to bed. I'm still not sure why she had to wake them up to put them to bed.

Since that night, my feet have remained her horsies, though they did go through a brief period as doggies. She will follow me around as I make dinner, telling my feet to wake up and bringing imaginary bird seed for her foot-horsies to eat. She talks to them, telling them to eat or saying "good boy." She pets them and keeps them well cared for, giving them money, pillows and imaginary food. She's totally devoted to her horsies. I'm sure you can imagine how excited I was when her own feet became her horsies and she started leaving mine alone -most of the time.

Because I like to feed into the madness, I made her two horsey socks. My husband recommended a nice long mane so that she would stop putting clips in his hair. She loves her new horsey socks. Unfortunately she said her horsies don't like to have their picture taken, so my hand is the model in the picture.

Clips, bows, and more clips...

Until recently, my daughter's hair things had their own drawer in the bathroom. It worked well when cleaning up since I could toss everything in the same place. However, it posed a problem when I was looking for something to put in her hair. Digging through the drawer to find a clip and its potentially non-existent match was a pain. It was time for a better system.

I searched Etsy.com for some ideas. There were a ton of bow holders, but they only held clips. I wanted something with pockets for all the ribbons and hair bands. So I spent an hour at Hobby Lobby trying to find something that would form the base for me to hang everything from. I finally ended up in the Easter section and found a cute little frame with a baby chick in the middle. I switched the chick for a butterfly. The pockets are just a long strip of material that I folded up to form pockets. I put two lengths of ribbon on each side because I found two great ribbons and couldn't decide which to use (pink or purple). It turned out to be a good decision, I didn't realize how many clips she had until the ribbons started filling up.

My daughter is so excited about it that she keeps bringing me clips to put in her hair. She's also discovered that she can force Daddy to put clips in his own hair. She's got him wrapped around her little finger.

One Word

One Word.

It’s not as easy as you might think to use only one word answers!

Change the answers to suit you and blog it!

1. Where is your cell phone? Desk
2. Your significant other? Busy
3. Your hair? Bun
4. Your mother? Jean
5. Your father? Kim
6. Your favorite thing? Chocolate
7. Your dream last night? X-Files-ish
8. Your favorite drink? Water
9. Your dream/goal? Stability
10. What room you are in? Dining
11. Your hobby? Crochet
12. Your fear? Loss
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? ????
14. Where were you last night? Home
15. Something that you aren't? Flighty
16. Muffins? Blueberry
17. Wish list item? Money
18. Where you grew up? Oklahoma
19. Last thing you did? Clean
20. What are you wearing? Jeans
21. Your TV? Quiet
22. Your pets? Lots
23. Friends? Yes
24. Your life? Variable
25. Your mood? Worried
26. Missing someone? No
27. Your car? Silver
28. Something you're not wearing? Socks
29. Your favorite store? Target
30. Your favorite color? Blue
31. When is the last time you laughed? Yesterday
32. Last time you cried? Today
33. Book? Buy-ology
34. One place that you go to over and over? Bus
35. One person who emails me regularly? Hubby
36. Job? No
37. One place you would like to go right now? Bed
38. One person you think will blog this too? Anyone
39. One TV show you watch all the time? Fringe

Here's what you are supposed to do...and please don't spoil the fun...Copy and Paste into your blog!

Cactus Butt

My husband went to a school camp last week. While there, one of his students landed in a cactus and earned himself the name Cactus Butt or CB for short. The young man was really good natured about it and apparently gets a kick out of his new nickname. To rub in his misfortune even more, my husband commissioned me to make him a crocheted cactus. Despite living in Arizona for a combined total of four and a half years, I have never even been tempted to crochet a cactus. I told Hubby he owed me a skein of yarn in return for my services. He even willingly went to Hobby Lobby with me.

There is a free pattern available, but it's more vague guidelines than actual pattern. I made it shorter and changed the pot, doing it in sc instead of dc and put rocks in the bottom for stability.

Cradle Purse

A friend's daughter just had a birthday. After listening to my friend lament how quickly her daughters can rip holes in their pants, I bought the little girl new jeans for her birthday. I know, a terrible gift for a girl turning five. So I decided to add something fun to the present. I bought a little doll at WalMart and made a cradle purse to go with it.

My daughter had a blast supervising the construction and putting the baby in with her blanket and pillow. Her birthday is coming up. Maybe I'll be making another one soon. Unfortunately, I heavily modified the pattern and didn't write anything down.