Carousel Top Take Two

If you’re a regular reader (do we have those?) then you might know that I sewed up a Carousel Top from The Train to Crazy in the past and though it gets worn often, it is hard to pop Charlotte’s head through.  Looking back, I think I cut out an 18month instead of a 2T.  Whoops.  Charlotte still wears 12m tops from stores, but I should have gone by measurements for the pattern.

I cut out a 2T this time, and decided on the button hole option just in case.  This one came out really cute and fits great!!  Plus, it’s one of her favorites so she actually wears it, instead of screaming at me when I try to force her into it.

Agh! She’s getting so big. And those shoes… adorbs!

I got Charlotte all dressed up to take pictures (which if anyone has attempted this in the past, understands how uncooperative Little Bit can be when you want her to do something, especially if it involves touching her hair) and then realized the camera had gone missing (Hubby….*fist shake*).  So I used cell phone pics, sorry about that.  The show must go on, and I wasn’t getting her dressed up again another day.  I don’t know anything about the fabric (I bought a lot of knit fabric from a local mom who used to make cloth diapers) and the button is from my mom’s collection.

Braids?! Haha, you were just asking for it.

It sewed up in about an hour…I did opt to leave the sleeves and bottom unhemmed since the lightweight jersey just rolls a little and I don’t mind the raw edged look.  With the super lightweight jersey fabrics I’m always worried that whatever hem I do will look worse than just leaving it alone.

Are those tomatoes? Some deer ate mine. That’s right, deer.

Oh sheesh….can you tell she wore it a few times before I got around to taking pictures?  I should have pressed it….

Anyone sew anything for Kid’s Clothes Week?

Meal Plan July 29 – August 4

I had to search through my Pinterest boards to find my meatball recipe to link, and now I want to make all new and different things….ah, Pinterest.  Here’s the plan for now anyway 😉  All of these are likely out of order, but will all happen this week.

Monday: use leftover roast beef to make Philly cheese steaks, serve with salad and grapes
Tuesday: Eggplant Parmigiana, Meatballs, Spaghetti, homemade marinara  (I know, way too much for one night, right?  Doug HATES Eggplant Parmigiana since he’s a crazy person, so I promised I’d make meatballs, too)
Wednesday: Steaks on the grill, roasted cauliflower, mashed garlic potatoes
Thursday: Roasted Red Pepper Goat Cheese Alfredo, salad (this is super delicious by the way, we’ve had it quite a few times here)
Friday: Pork Ragu, salad  (When we ordered our whole pig, we didn’t get the hams ‘smoked’, so I’ve found this is a great use for not-baked-ham)
Saturday: homemade pizza (from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day)

Sunday will be a flex day….leftovers, perhaps?

What are you having this week?

The skirt I’ve walked away from 5….er, 6 times

A few weeks (it might be months at this point), I decided I would start sewing more for myself, and committed to make SOMETHING on that particular day.  I dragged out all the patterns and fabrics, bugged Drea to help me decide, and landed on the Taking Notes skirt out of some Lisette Collection floral sateen I had.  Since it drapes very softly I thought it would be good for a full skirt that wouldn’t make me look too full.

I set out, cut out all my pieces, made the waistband, all is going well. I’m noticing as I’m sewing that this tutorial is not a beginner project, but I’m not a beginner.  I can handle this, right?  Sigh.  Anyway, I get the waistband done and try it on, and it overlaps by a lot (pretty sure it’s not supposed to overlap at all).  Of course there are no size guidelines in the tutorial.  Why didn’t I even consider that it wouldn’t be my size?  Anyway, picked it apart, sewed again, decided that it was close enough to the right size to add on the skirt.

On to the skirt portion.  I really wanted it to be full, so I decided to do two full widths of the fabric I had (so around 90″ around).  I cut it, sewed up the sides using french seams (thought it would look a little more finished than serged seams), gathered the top, pinned it to the waistband….got it all sewn up, went to turn it…I somehow made a möbius strip.  It took me a good 15 minutes to accept that it wasn’t going to turn right side out and something got fouled up.  No pictures, since I was in a throwing mood at this point.  Apparently I had sewn one of the side seams of my giant pieces twisted.  I had to pick apart the entire waistband (and anyone who has gathered and sewn a waistband on knows how angry that can make someone) and take apart the side seam (which I decided to just cut, since my patience was wearing thin).  I got it all fixed and sewn back together without the twist.  Tried it on.  The waistband gaps.  Of course, I never really did nail down that fit properly.  The bottom of the tall waistband fits nice and tight, but the top gaps open.  In case I want to use it as a pocket or crumb-catcher I guess (which I just realized, I desperately wanted to add pockets to this and didn’t….don’t think that’s happening).  I cried to my mom for awhile, and set it aside for a few weeks.

Determined to finish it up, and determined to make something I would actually wear, I revisited the skirt.  Since the waist still overlapped a little .  My mom suggested I use the buttons to cinch it just right instead of darts, then I can do a buttonhole for the tie to pop through the waistband.  At least I had a plan, and the buttons placed this way would hold that gaping top closed.  During this meeting of the minds, she popped one of the elastic loops I had sewn in out.  After much more stitch ripping and under my breath cursing, I cut off both elastic loops and opted for conventional buttons and buttonholes, using some wood flower buttons I had laying around.  The invisible zipper is in there and went in very nicely, and is so invisible that you can’t really see it in any pictures.  Think of it as a Where’s the Zipper game.

So here’s the finished skirt.  If you don’t like it, I probably don’t want to hear it.  Nice comments are the only variety I can probably handle.  I’ll also accept any styling suggestions (I have dreams of sewing up some great white blouse and making a wood bead necklace….).  Also, please admire my super awesome dress form I found in the clearance section of Joanns.  The chevron cover zips off and it can be plain muslin, or a floral cover.  And it just happens to be my measurements.  Well, really close anyway.  If I just lose an inch or two in the waist and hips…

Dress form envy! Love the chevron.

Maybe undoing a french seem is a right of passage for all sewing-for-yourself projects!

Mobius strip and all, I love the style and the fabric!

I’m sure sewing for myself will get easier with time, right? Why is kids sewing so much easier?!  Doubtful that I will do the matching skirt for Charlotte, but I do have about a half yard left….I’m thinking she might get a cute blouse.  Any ideas?

Rowing (Prayer for a Child)

After We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, I decided to do a less …exciting book? That’s not the right way to describe it….maybe more low key? Yes, a more low key Before Five in a Row book. Not every book lends itself well to a TON of extra activities, but this was still a very sweet book to read everyday.

Prayer for a Child is a simple prayer in the voice of the little girl in the book. I found my copy at our local library book sale for fifty cents! I’ve found quite a few FIAR titles there and at Salvation Army for very cheap. Anyway, the girl blesses everything around her (“Bless this milk and bless this bread”) in a cute rhyming prayer.

Most of the activities we did were straight out of the Before Five in a Row suggestions. I printed out the cycle of where milk comes from and where wheat for bread comes from and we talked about that process (though I had already taken him to the farm recently to see a cow being milked….he drinks a couple GALLONS of milk a week). I found a puzzle at the thrift store of children around the world and we talked about how they might look or dress differently.

Our verse for the week was “The Lord bless you and keep you” Numbers 6:24. Pretty easy to remember (and he loves recording himself and sending it to Grandma Nina so she can hear his weekly verse!).

We also talked a lot about the pictures in the book, and just read it a few times a day.

In other work, we did a few lessons each from Rightstart and All About Reading. Charlotte is really doing well recognizing all her letters and letter sounds! For science, we made a bug hotel and garbage viewer (both from Science Play). Our ‘chicks’ (still call them that, but they are pretty big now) were very suspicious of the bug hotel.

I still want chickens! Apparently quail are legal backyard animals here.

After the week was up, we pulled the bugs out and Dexter drew pictures of them and counted body parts for his journal.

I’m a little bit of a sissy and so I threw in some rubbing alcohol when he wasn’t looking so the bugs wouldn’t be everywhere…

The garbage viewer still needs a little time to make sense to him I think.

We will keep an eye on it in the next few weeks so he can make observations about the decomposition.

The theme of the week for science was ‘Our Neighbors’, so we also baked muffins and cookies to share with the neighbors, and I made a collage of the animals that visit our yard often (squirrels, gopher tortoises, herons, hawks, blue jays, cardinals, ibis, pigeons) so he could find them when he was outside. He REALLY loved that, until Charlotte ripped it. I’ll have to make him a laminated version. We also read books about the insect world.

Pretty low key week for us. Anyone else ever make a bug hotel or garbage viewer? I would love to hear about it! Have you read Prayer for a Child?

Related articles

• D/dt (School) – First Week in July (derivingmommyhood.wordpress.com)
• Rowing We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (derivingmommyhood.wordpress.com)

Meal Plan July 22-28

It seems I haven’t written a meal plan in a little while.  I do promise we still have been cooking and eating, not sure why I didn’t actually type out my meal plan.  Oh well, here’s what we are having this week, all based around great produce from our local farmers market and meat we have in the freezer:

Monday:  Herb crusted beef roast (our herb garden is doing very well), homemade mac and cheese, sauteed yellow squash, sweet potato rolls (I’ll probably leave off the glaze)

Tuesday:  Steak fajitas with homemade tortillas

Wednesday:  Parmesan herb crusted salmon (based off a kraft recipe, but I make my own breading), quinoa, sauteed swiss chard

Thursday:  Burgers on the grill (I add grated onion and garlic to our patties, along with other seasonings), baked beans, corn on the cob

Friday:  Stuffed Peppers (a favorite from growing up that I’ll try to recreate….my mom used bell peppers stuffed with beef and white rice, cooked in tomato soup….I’ll see if I can recreate it without Campbell’s and using brown rice….wish me luck)

Sorry there’s a lack of linked recipes….this week is apparently all coming from my head….

Orlando for the weekend!

What are you having this week?

The diy bug spray challenge

The mosquitoes are killing me. Just eating me alive. I go outside for 30 seconds and come back with 5 new bites. It’s bad. Especially cause the kids like being outside so much! I don’t like using the DEET stuff for fear of, well, death and thought maybe I could sneak by this year since the mosquitoes hadn’t been horrible. But I was wrong. They’re out now and they know where to find me. Not only that, but Starr Lil’s is getting bitten too! Poor little thing has welts on her little legs and arms from the bites. Any suggestions on how to relieve the itchiness?

There are a ton of diy bug sprays out there and I thought I would give them a try, but which one to go with?! That’s when I decided to do a bug spray challenge. A sort of, off-the-cuff experiment to see if one worked better than another. I did some quick googling and saw that most of the recipes are very similar. Some have witch hazel, some have oils, some have vinegar, most have essential oils, and water. So here are three that I’m using for inspiration: (I’ll have to make some substitutions for some ingredients I don’t have.)

Witch hazel and olive oil,

Instead of the vegetable glycerin, I used olive oil and about 15 drops of eucalyptus, tea tree and citronella essential oils.

Witch Hazel and Castile soap

The only change I made here was to use the same essential oils as above, since that’s what I already had. Although I’m tempted to use lavender essential oil, next time.

Vinegar

I just made a smaller batch of this with the same oils above too.

I ushered the kids outside to give them a try,

and tested all 3 sprays!

the one on the left is definitely the one I’ve made in the past (it worked, but turns out cinnamon oil was a bad call to add in). Do the others do a better job ‘sticking’?

I sprayed the witch hazel and olive oil on my arms, witch hazel and Castile soap on my left leg and the vinegar on the right leg. Good news!! I only got one mosquito bite on my forehead, which had not been sprayed and only a tiny little gnat bite on my left arm. So who’s the winner? Duh duh duh…

Witch hazel with Castile soap and Vinegar!

I sprayed some around Stone, but not directly on him and he didn’t have any bites at all.

so big!!

Pruutty amazing! And look at my sitting little guy! 6 months old already, le sigh.

And here is a blooper shot of when I asked Starr Lily to sit on the door step:

ah, love this age.

Yup, gotta love those toddler years. A mere 20 seconds later we have this:

I love the progression of her pretty clean dress, post play 🙂

happy little girl again and we’re bug bite free!

I did try all three sprays at the softball field the other day with the same results. Except we had to reapply about every 2 hours.

Do you make your own bug sprays? What recipes do you use? How do you keep your toddlers happy?

School Nook Mini Makeover

You may (or may not) have noticed from our school posts lately that it seems like the furniture is ever changing.  I’m in the process of revamping that whole area.  The walls are all getting changed around because we no longer need a giant palm tree, but a big map to talk about places we read about in Five in a Row books makes more sense.  And All About Reading has us using lots of letter tile magnets, so a magnetic chalkboard to fill a good portion of the wall gives us space to practice handwriting as well as arrange our letter tiles.  So the walls are a work in progress right now, but the furniture is now done!  There was nothing wrong with our Ikea table and chairs, but they were a little small for both kiddos to be working on something at the same time.  When they were in each other’s space they didn’t work as well together.  I kept my eye open for a good table on Craigslist, but every one I found was either the same size we had, or sold before I got it.  On one of our many Ikea trips during the bathroom remodel, I spied an unfinished wood dining table in the As-Is area…and it was love.  Just a plain table, nothing special, but the perfect size (and price, since it was marked 40% off for being scratched….it was unfinished though, so that didn’t matter to me).

Nice find! We always mosey around the “as-is” area in Ikea too.

Doug chopped the legs down to make it kid height (it took a couple tries…we didn’t want to cut too much off and make it too short).  We settled on a height of around 21.5″.

And, since I knew I would sell the old set together with the chairs, I searched for some new ones.  I figured actual school chairs would be a little sturdier than our others, and slightly bigger since Dexter was outgrowing the old ones.  I had no idea how many heights and options there were, and am glad I didn’t buy online!!  New school chairs were actually a lot pricier than I thought they would be, but constant Craigslist searching helped me find some vintage Virco chairs for $4 each!  Score. They had a few different heights to choose from so I just had Dexter try each out.  I swore I would want 13″ so that they would last a little longer, but when I saw him sit in it, legs swinging, I knew they were way too big.  We went with 12″ instead, and his feet are comfortably on the ground.  I loved the mustard yellow color too.  I cleaned them up and they were looking pretty great (here’s the before and after)….

These chairs bring back some memories!

Haha, umm, these two pictures look the same.

I wasn’t in love with the brown legs though.  That made them look a little too seventies, so I decided to paint them.

I used some bags and masking tape to cover all of the plastic, and spray painted with a hammered finish black (the texture in the paint helped to hide any blemishes).

Any that might have seeped onto the yellow wiped off easily with mineral oil.

There is something appealing about that nice and rusty brown…

They don’t look dramatically different, but I think it’s just enough of a face lift to look a little bit sharper and less rundown.

Back to that table though.  I couldn’t leave it unfinished without it getting destroyed of course (first day they sat at it, Charlotte colored on it with a dry erase marker that wouldn’t wash off).  I decided to paint the legs with gloss white trim paint, and the top in chalkboard black.  First I did a coat of white on the legs, and sprayed primer on the top…

After a light sanding, I finished off painting the legs and let them dry for a day.  Next I tackled the top, just a few coats of black chalkboard paint.

Looks great!

We may or may not actually use it as a chalkboard, but I figured that finish would hold up well to all of Charlotte’s stray crayon, marker, and glitter.

The old too small rug moved to Dexter’s room (and is getting a lot of love from his cars), so now I’m on the lookout for something that might fit there a little better.

I did buy four chairs for when we have a friend or two visit, or just in case Doug ever changes his mind and decides we can have more kids…so all said and done, the new table and chairs was right around $61 (not bad, considering I wanted the size they sell at Pottery Barn Kids or Land of Nod), and I sold our old table and chairs….so the whole project including paint was only $32 (I only needed to buy chalkboard paint since we had the rest).

What do you think?  Anyone else in love with the vintage school chairs?

berry protein smoothie

We usually have some eggs for breakfast in the morning for a good protein-y start to our day, but last week I ran out and didn’t have time to run to the store. I needed to come up with a quick and easy fix! Almond butter to the rescue. Here is the smoothie I whipped up!

Start with some spinach and milk.

Toss in some fruit – banana and blueberries that needed to get eaten soon.

mmm….so they just grind up in your blender? No need to do them separately??

Add the usual seeds – chia, hemp, and flax.

Starr Lil’s asked for more blueberries, so I added some frozen ones.

more blueberries is always a good call. smart girl.

And here comes the protein punch – almond butter and greek yogurt

delicious additions!!

Yum! Put a straw in it and enjoy.

This one came out extra creamy and was better eaten with a spoon.

What else do you eat for breakfast?

Related articles

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Rowing We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

Working nicely on All About Reading.  They very much enjoy the craft sheets from My Book of Letters.

Emmit always chills out right here during school.

Love that they have their drinks right next to them!

Handwriting Without Tears in action.

…

Right Start Math….the interesting part is how well Dexter can work with what’s going on around him….zoom out….

Obviously, Char is plotting ways she can get the toys to attack Dex, without his noticing…

An animal picnic?

Story cards for We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (printables from here).  I helped him put them in order this time, but throughout the week he did them by himself.

We’re Going on Bear Hunt board game, also from Homeschoolcreations.com.

Dexter and Charlotte are both in LOVE with the book this week.  They want me to read it a few times, multiple times a day.  The board game came out again as a reward after dinner/clean up and before bed.

Deep in thought Dex
Char still plotting…

Charlotte has her counting bears and dots while Dexter matches the words to the picture.  He did it with no help, just used the beginning sound in each word to find the first letter.

Clipping the mini clothespins on the first letter of each word.

A hula hoop sectioned off a portion of the yard, and they used their magnifying glasses to get a close look at the natural community there.

Baking mini pizzas (part of science…learning about the community).  We also went on a nature hike and made an entry in our science journal for the week, and talked about different people who have different roles in the community (like firefighters, chefs, cashiers, etc).

Char told the toys Dex should hang around since he know his letters.

.

All About Reading letter N.  Charlotte looks like she might be trying to cheat.  We also got through letter O this week.

A sensory box for We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.  I used white beans, made grass by stapling cut foam sheets onto an uncut piece, forest from our train trees, snow from some random sparkly balls, the river is hair gel (double bagged), mud is play dough, and the cave is a mini bilibo.  We did have a brown bear but it went missing for a few days…we found it and replaced the polar bear.  They had fun acting out the story with their fingers (I let them watch the story on You Tube).

so cute!

A Right Start Math game.  Games are a huge part of the curriculum and he loves them all.

Dexter practicing entering numbers on the abacus by looking at the printed number.  I had Charlotte pick a number for him, bingo style, and try to call it out (so she got practice orienting them, and identifying them).  Numbers are from Confessions of a Homeschooler printables, mod podged onto milk bottle caps.

Mmm, how do I get some here?

Some bear claw cookies.  Just basic chocolate drop cookies with slivered almonds stuck in them.

We are definitely doing these soon!

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt!  On Friday, to end the week rowing the book, we had some friends over to go on a bear hunt together.  They all had a blast!

Charlotte models the homemade binoculars….toilet paper rolls, tape, and yarn.

Dex looks like he’s ready to find some bears.

Long Wavy Grass….

A Deep Cold River

Thick Oozy Mud

A big dark forest

Must be a fun texture! I want the recipe.

Swirling Whirling Snowstorm (made from Insta Snow…big hit)

Did they all fit in there?

A dark gloomy cave

We’re not going on a bear hunt again!

(Though they did….quite a few more times)

adorable!

A bear mask craft after the hunt.  We also had a themed lunch, with spinach noodles for the grass, water for river, chocolate avocado pudding for mud, broccoli trees with ranch for the forest, cottage cheese snow, and rolls with bear cookies inside for the cave.

They definitely loved school this week!!

Related articles

• Rowing Storm in the Night (derivingmommyhood.wordpress.com)
• D/dt (School) – First Week in July (derivingmommyhood.wordpress.com)
• Homeschool update (derivingmommyhood.wordpress.com)

Sneak Peak (birthday party)

In just a few short weeks, my little girl will be turning three! It’s hard to believe that this tiny little peanut,

has grown into this adorable, talkative, inquisitive little toddler.

So much cuteness! I just want to squeeze and kiss her all the time, but now she sees me coming and screams “no mama!” and runs away laughing at me.  Yep, I’ve become that mom, haha.

August always seems to creep up on me, but this year I’m getting started early on the party preparations! We’re hosting a Luau and here’s your first sneak peak into the party decor!

I saw it on pinterest and had an old wreath laying around, so we put this bad boy together in a few minutes! Want to see how incredibly easy it was?

First, I ordered 144 mini umbrellas from Amazon, for $5.83. (Oh, we just became amazon prime members and love the fast and free delivery!)

Then I tracked down my old wreath – yeah, the one that made my front door look sad and gloomy before.

I pried off those pine cones and as much glue as I could and was left with this:

I started placing the mini umbrellas on the wreath and seriously the longest part was taking off the little rubber bands holding them closed.

Just place them where they look nice and that’s it!

First decoration done, yay!

Feels good to start crossing things off my party list. Can’t wait to show you what else I have planned. When do you start planning for your kids’ parties?