Home With My Babies

Davis and the kids came home from grandma's house today - yippee!! But they are all very sick, which is sad. Amelia has been asleep since noon - it's now 4:30 (I have no idea what that means for tonight, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to be good). I made her this dress last night (this is before I hemmed it - I wanted to try it on her first).

She said she doesn't like it, poor little crabby girl.

Sophia loves her pillowcase dress, though you can see she's kind of pitiful looking - they all have dark circles under their eyes.

And Henry.

Poor Henry. He slept on my chest all afternoon and woke up very, very crabby. Until Sophia gave him some straws to play with.

She's such a good sister!

So, we're a whole family again, and I couldn't be happier. Even if it means no more Bagel Bites and wiping a LOT of snotty noses!

Just an Old Sheet from Goodwill

I got a $2 sheet at Goodwill and made Sophia a little pillowcase dress.

It is the softest (it's obviously been washed a million billion times!) and sweetest fabric. It's also very light-weight - perfect for the summer!

I decided Elizabeth needed one too.

I think she likes it.

Let's Party Like It's 2010!

If you haven't joined the Ultimate Blog Party, I hope you'll join me in the fun! I've been looking forward to this for weeks, because it's such an awesome and fun way to make new friends. In fact, I "met" many of my current blog friends through last year's UBP.

If this is your first visit here, WELCOME!! I'm so excited to meet you!

My name is Vera

that's me. You can learn more than you ever need to know about me here. Really, all you need to know is that I am thankful.

I have a husband, his name is Davis. But he doesn't really like being blogged about. So you'll just have to take my word for it - he's handsome and funny and, in my humble opinion, the best darn dad in the world! Sometimes I blog about marriage.

We have three children. This is a humongous, HUGE blessing and something I praise God for every day. We struggled with infertility and miscarriage on our journey here, and I've written about it in the past. Reading these posts now, with a baby on my chest, overwhelms me - I try to give credit where credit is due.

This is Sophia. She's four and a half (the half is VITALLY important!). We've been through some medical issues with her, and I've blogged about that too.

This is Amelia. She turned three in January. I love birthdays!

And this little guy, he's Henry, and he's nine weeks old. I had him at home, and I blogged about that too.

I love to cook and bake. I love cooking healthy, delicious things for my family. And on my blog I share recipes - often about simple, simple ways to prepare vegetables. I call them my Vegetable of the Week posts, although as it turns out, I'm not really great at sticking to weekly blogging obligations, so really it should be Vegetable of the Every Few Weeks. Psst... Stick around if you want to know more about asparagus this week.

I also love sewing. I haven't done a sewing tutorial before, but I decided in honor of The Ultimate Blog Party, I'm going to do a tutorial of my very favorite sewing project - my ten minute skirt and a shirt to match. If you have a sewing machine YOU CAN MAKE THIS.



I promise.

First, cut your fabric (one great thing about this pattern is that it works with just about any fabric - I'm using a light knit fabric here) into a long rectangle. You can adjust this pattern to any size, and it's also very forgiving, so no need to be a perfectionist - I'm certainly not!



I made this outfit for Amelia, who is somewhere between a 3T and a 4T right now. My dimensions were 14 inches by 44 inches.



Next, fold the rectangle in half so that right sides are together, and pin together



Then sew the two ends together where you've pinned.

Next, fold the top of the skirt over about an inch - this is where your elastic will go in



and sew. I did this so quickly, I didn't even pin it (though ironing is never optional when you're sewing - trust me on this and just do it!) Again, this is a super forgiving pattern because of the gathers.



Stop before you get all the way to your starting point, so that you have a gap between the two seams



Now, pin a safety pin to some elastic - I used 3/8th of an inch. Usually I just use what I have on hand, the thicker the elastic the tighter the top of the skirt will be. You will guide the safety pin into the gap in the seam



and just continue to pull it all the way through



Then, lay the elastic ends on top of each other, and hand sew across using a strong thread



Hey - it's suddenly starting to look a lot like a skirt!



All that's left to do is to hem the bottom. At this point, try it on your model if possible, then hem the bottom by folding under (ironing!) and sewing. Turn right side out - and you're done!



Now there are so many things you can do with the top. I just start with a plain t-shirt or tank top (Old Navy, Gap, Children's Place, Target, Lands End, whoever has them on sale!) and then decorate - sometimes I applique on a letter or name, like here. Or just coordinating shapes like here. I've also had the top monogrammed in a thread that matches the skirt. Or in this case, a ribbon and a circle cut out of the skirt fabric.

First, I sewed the ribbon onto the shirt



I just folded over the ends of the ribbon and sewed across the ends at the armpits



I then used some fusible interfacing like this



to attach my applique - you'll just want to follow the package instructions on that, it's super easy



and that's it! Easy as pie!

Pretty much everything I sew, craft, cook, bake, etc. on my blog will be quick and easy - because I have three kids and a full time job and I'm not very patient!

My blog started with a Psalm two years ago. Ever more so than ever, I want to say:

Come and hear, all who fear God, And I will tell of what He has done for my soul. Blessed be God, Who has not turned away my prayer Nor His lovingkindness from me.
Psalm 66:16,20

I'm very excited about meeting new bloggers this week, and I'm so glad you stopped by! I'd love to know who you are and to go check out your blog, so please leave me a comment.

If you're one of my regular readers and you have not checked out UBP - go! Check it out! Along with all the blogging fun, there are lots of prizes. And in order to win them, you have to list what you'd like to win, so here are the prizes I sure would love:

US6 – Hand Stamped Personalized Necklace valued at $48 The Double Stacked A Lot Of Love.
Provided by: Kristen’s Custom Creations
Follow here: KLA Custom or Visit Our Fan Page: Kristen’s Custom Creations

US39 -Be My Guest certificate ($250 value) for one lucky winner, (2 night stay for a family of four) at any Hilton Garden Inn.
Provided by: Hilton Garden Inn
Follow here: bloggin2noggin

US11 – A $100 gift eCertificate to Restaurant.com, immediately redeemable online at over 13,000 restaurants nationwide.
Provided by: Amy LeForge of Earnest Parenting

US71 – A $50 Bear Bucks Card to Build A Bear Workshop.
Provided by: Liza Schwab
Follow here: mamaschwab

US49 – $25 gift card to Starbucks
Provided by: Janice Yurek

Easter Outfits

I made the girls cheap little imperfect outfits to wear to their school Easter egg hunt last week

They came home with bunny ears and cute little Easter baskets filled with eggs. I LOVE the basket they made for Sophia - it's a plastic gallon-sized milk jug with the top cut off and the handle still on it. I need to take a better picture of it, because it's awesome! I love their school.

Anyway, that fabric was like $2.99 a yard, and I think I bought a yard, or maybe a yard and a half. I even re-used the ribbon from Amelia's Halloween pillowcase dress to put in her Easter pillowcase dress. Sophia's skirt took like ten minutes to make, and I just appliqued the dots on her shirt with some scrap fabric. So it was a fun, cheap project and they'll probably never wear those again - they have cheesy little bunnies on them. But they made the girls SO happy.

For Easter, I fell in love with some toile outfits I saw on Kelly's Kids. But by the time I added monograms and shipping, the total for all three was like $300. I LOVE Easter, it's my very favorite holiday, but I couldn't bring myself to spend $300 on Easter outfits. So I got some drapery fabric (very Sound of Music of me, huh?) from Hancocks, which was 50% off $19.99, and made them myself.

They're far from perfect, but I'm happy with them and the girls love them. It makes me feel so good that they love things that I sew for them - I imagine some day they won't feel that way anymore! I think I'll go ahead and monogram the girls' dresses too (they'll wear these all summer - they are all three still a tad big), I just ran out of time.

I didn't make the shirt under Henry's romper - I borrowed it from a friend, after driving all over town trying to find one! Speaking of driving all over town, I had to take all three out shoe shopping today. I didn't even know what sizes the girls were now (8.5 and 10) so I had to drag them with me, and it was a pain. Thankfully now they have church shoes for the summer too. Henry's little booties are ridiculously adorable, but they probably won't fit him for long - his feet grow SO quickly!

Off to paint eggs to hide in the yard now!

Stash It

You know what I love, almost as much I as I love fabric stores? Personal fabric stashes... especially my own, because each piece of fabric reminds me of some project from the past or dream of a future project (or just plain giddiness at finding some incredibly adorable or gorgeous fabric). Up until recently, my fabric stash lived on shelves at my mother in law's house, because I just didn't have space at our apartment or house. I've slowly started keeping my fabric here, and even re-claiming some of my fabric at my mother in law's house. But it was accumulating in bins and baskets and shelves and other random places and was always in mortal danger of being discovered by the kids. I just didn't have a good place for it, and I wasn't motivated enough to do anything with it.

Well my fantabulous friend Ashley went garage sale shopping Saturday, but knowing that I had vowed NOT to leave the house that day, she shopped for me instead of asking me to go along... and brough back a giant trunk of fabric scraps and tassels and cords (which I needed! I needed cord!) for $10. Isn't that awesome? I love her!

Going through that giant trunk motivated me to finally organize my fabric stash, AND we recently replaced my husband's dresser (with another old one), which freed his old one for me to do this

The only thing is, when I painted the dresser, I took the hardware off, and realized in a flash of brilliance that without the drawer pulls, the kids couldn't get into the dresser (I can with some wiggling and maneuvering). I just need to figure out a way to make the dresser look good with no hardware - maybe I can paint some on ;)

So I'm wondering - any seamstresses out there, how do you stash your stash?

This Week's Vegetable...the Egg

Seriously, I get to change the rules because it's my blog, right? In honor of Easter, I'm talking about eggs instead of veggies this week. They are so very nutritious (protein, vitamin A, riboflavin, folic acid, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, choline, iron, calcium, phosphorus and potassium) and yum.

My family is crazy about eggs - Sophia ate seven hard-boiled eggs on Sunday. And there are several so-easy-they-don't-really-qualify-for-recipes recipes involving eggs that we make regularly.

First, the boiled egg. Believe it or not, I didn't really master the perfect hard boiled egg until recently - my husband was the egg boiler in the house. But here's now it's done: put eggs in bottom of pot, cover + 1 inch with cold water, put on stove on high heat until the water comes to a good boil, then turn off the water and let them sit for 15 minutes. Also, if you hit them with a spoon to just barely crack them when you turn off the heat, they're easier to peel.

Here's a weird one...when my kids were infants, I made baby food out of a hard boiled egg yolk mixed with breast milk. Yuck, huh? They loved it.

We often have breakfast for dinner on nights that I feel uninspired to cook - the kids always think it's brilliant! And eggs are always the main attraction - fried, sunny side up, scrambled, poached, they're made to order on my griddle.

When I was pregnant, my power breakfast several times a week was spinach scrambled eggs, served with whole wheat bagels. Whisk together 4 eggs and 1/2 teaspoon fresh tarragon (or 1/8 t. dried) and salt and pepper. Melt butter in skillet and over medium heat and cook a couple of handfuls of coarsely chopped spinach until just wilted (yes, I just said "a couple of handfuls" - welcome to my version of a recipe). Then add the egg mixture along with an ounce of cream cheese and cook, stirring slowly, until the eggs are cooked through.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

And my project for tonight... a superhero girl cape. Sophia's best friend, Zoe, has a superhero birthday party to attend on Saturday, so I made this for her. This girl LOVES pink. I am going to make one for Sophia, but not tonight (it's bedtime!) Sophia loves playing Rescue Girl! Sometimes she's Rescue Something Else... like the other day she was crawling around the floor with her sister and her daddy, and when I asked her what they were doing, she said "we're rescue spiders!" Of course.

Country Projects

Is it just me, or this always an incredibly busy time of year? It just seems like there is always something going on, and it gets a little hard to catch my breath (and blog!) I have a long to-do list for every single night after the girls go to bed this week.

Anyway, first of all I wanted to update about my friend Shannon's son, Sloan, for those praying for him (sweet baby got meningitis and encephalitis and was in the PICU last week). He lost all of his motor skills (he went from running around to not even being able to reach out and pick things up). I went to see him on Wednesday, and he is doing better, but it is so sad to watch and he and his family could still use lots of prayers! He is basically learning everything again - rolling over, holding his head up, etc.) and we pray that he regains all of his motor skills again and his brain damage is not permanent.

Baby Stellan still needs lots of prayers too!

We went to visit my in laws out in the country over the weekend, and it was a nice trip. The girls and I went antique mall shopping and I found some great things for our office/nursery/reading room (which we are re-doing and I will post LOTS of pictures of when we're done!)

My husband loves Coke, and I got this tray to put on top of his dresser (which is also in the office/nursery/reading room - it's a very multi-purpose room, and those of you with small old houses will relate to that!) for keys, his wallet, change, etc.

I got this pail for blocks

and this wire basket for board books

and I just liked this little box, though I'm not sure what will go in it yet

Baskets tend to get destroyed in our house, so I'm excited about the pail and wire basket - they are very sturdy! And I got everything for $39 - not bad, I think.

Oh and we have this memo board in the kitchen, but couldn't find a place to store the markers for it without the girls getting them (and drawing on everything in the house - including the dog!) so I picked up this old match box and hung it where they couldn't reach it and put the markers inside:

I did a ton of sewing too. I'll post the pictures of the crib bumper and pillows I made for the new room when we have the room done. I also started the girls' Easter dresses. One of the easiest projects were these outfits (I need take a picture with the girls wearing them, because they're pretty cute on, if I do say so myself)

It was a fun and productive weekend! Baby girl got sick, and like I said there is so much going on this week, so I'll have to catch up on all of my blogging later in the week.

Cake Part I

I've had several comments about Amelia's castle birthday cake, so I've decided to do a tutorial to show you how to make it - it's really not difficult at all!

But because I don't have the time or ingredients to make it this weekend, I'll just start off talking about cakes in general today and then come back and do a detailed (with pictures) tutorial about assembling the castle (I think I'll make a boy one to show that it can be great for either!) at a later date (soon I promise!)

Plus, Sophia wanted a cake today... she's all about getting married these days (watching Mommy's princess movie aka our wedding video, getting dressed up to get married to Daddy, etc.) so we decided to make her a wedding cake - she did most of the decorating, so this is proof that cake decorating is not that hard :)

So, you'll notice I have a great homemade frosting recipe below, but not a cake recipe...well, that's because I use boxed cake mix! I have a few random talents* but I also acknowledge when I am NOT great at something. I can make a good coffee cake and German chocolate cake, but NOT a great white cake - the boxed mix always turns out better.

YUM!

But there ARE some things you can do to make a perfect boxed cake, so here are my tips for the perfect cake. Bake the cake according to the box instructions, but also

• Line the bottom of the cake pan with parchment paper (place the pan on the paper and trace and cut out to fit). If you don't have parchment paper, grease the pan and then put a little bit of the dry cake mix and sift it on the pan.


• Be sure to pour the batter into the pan immediately after you're done beating it, and then stick it into the oven immediately. Don't let it sit in the bowl or pan.


• Do not over-cook the cake - as soon as a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out dry, take the cake out.


• Let the cake cool in the pan for a couple of minutes before transferring onto cooling rack.


• When the cake is cool, trim it. I don't have a lazy susan for this, I just place the cake on the cake stand and rotate the cake stand with one hand while using a large serated knife to cut the top of the cake level.


• Crumb coat the cake. You can either use some thinned out frosting and apply a very thin layer to create a crumb coat or make a glaze by heating up jam and brushing it on with a pastry brush. This step is crucial, because it keeps crumbs out of your frosting and seals in the moisture of the cake!


• Then refigerate the cake for a couple of hours before decorating.


• To decorate, pipe the frosting over the entire cake, then use a decorating spatula to smooth the frosting. Dip the spatula into hot water and pat dry between strokes. If you don't have one, you can use the back (flat part) of a knife.


• Another method for smoothing a cake, if you're using a frosting that crusts (NOT buttercream), is to first smooth it using the method above and then, once a crust has formed, place a sheet of wax paper or paper towel on the cake and use your hand to smooth it even more by rubbing with your palm flat using circular motion.


• Now you can add whatever decorations you'd like on top. Another trick I've learned, to fill a pastry bag - place it into a drinking glass and folding the edges over the sides of the glass, then using a spoon to fill the bag.

Three year old's wedding cake, decorated by the bride herself:

By the way, for frosting mini cupcakes the best tool is your fingers - just smooth the frosting on with your (clean!) fingertips.

*I'm also thinking of doing a tutorial for the jumper Amelia is wearing in the picture with the castle cake - I made it reversible, so that she could wear the "1" side on her birthday and the floral side the rest of the year. It was fun to make. One thing you'll learn about me and sewing is that I generally don't use patterns... I just tend to pick easy projects and then - sometimes using ideas from several patterns - come up with something that works. So we'll see if I can recreate this one! I also do things like use Target sheet sets to create baby clothes (recognize that Simply Shabby Chic seet set?) - I am from Austria, so how very Sound of Music of me, huh?