Crafts, Cooking, Creating

In one of my other posts, I'll give a tiny bit more information about some American Girl doll accessories that Haley sent up for the twins, but for now, the important thing to know is that I picked a dress for Molly and a dress for Blaire and embroidered outlines of 'their' favorite characters on them for Christmas.

Using printer paper, I just pin it on, then 'trace' the lines in a dotted pattern, and after removing the paper, go between the dots for a more solid look.  

I was worried about Areil's face looking weird, so she just has hair, but I think it looks close enough. = )

The material on the Hello Kitty dress was a knit, and it was awful to work with!  I'm glad I did Ariel first, because I might have scrapped the project.  Hello kitty is easily recognizable, thankfully, and I don't think their dolls will mind too much. = )

Speaking of clothing, Grace sewed her own skirt (with a zipper) using some fabric I got off of marketplace (thought it was from Natalie, but not earmarked for me necessarily.)

Last week, on a cool September day, Kristy had me over, and we stumbled our way through making cookies in her off-the-grid oven!  It can be heated using catering candles or stick and leaves!  We were using it inside, so we chose the former.

It was only supposed to take 25-30 minutes, so we started slowly closing the vents, and finally, after about an hour, it was finally ready to cook.  

Well, the instructions say to put out the closer of the two heating elements, but it was not working.  Each time we got it out, the other one would reignite it.  Finally, we took out the canister all together.

Sadly, between having the drawer open to get out the canister, and opening the door to drop the temperature down from 400F, it stabilized at 200F, so that's how we cooked the cookies!

They took a looooooooooong time to cook, but were really tasty when finished!

She also put together a loaf of bread, using her bread maker, though I had to leave before it finished.  

I made a banana nut loaf using some of the zucchini flour that I made from the squash that she'd given me.  We had to sub in baking powder, since she had just used her baking soda on a different project, but it turned out okay, despite the sub.  

I also tried to make a loaf, but made the rookie mistake of proofing my yeast in a metal bowl. = (  The loaf didn't cook through, but was definitely done on the outside!  The bit we sampled wasn't bad, but the rest of it went to the chickens.

And, because I didn't get enough baking it, I came home and finished my projects for the day, then whipped up an apple pie from some aging apples that we had.

Alice got to it before I got a picture, but she and Billy are my pie people and both approved.

Emily is really into Steven Universe right now, and as such added merch to her Wishlist.  I found a red tank top and some iron on vinyl at the rummage sale on Friday, so I made her a shirt.  I didn't save it for Christmas, because it's a women's medium, which would be big on her, so we will have to alter it in some way for her to be able to use it. 

After presenting it to her, she told me she would rather be a low key fan and just wear the shirt that he wears in the show.  So I'm on the lookout for a red shirt, if you happen to have one lying around?

One night, Billy saw a video and was in the mood to make bread!  The recipe required lots of sitting time, to the point that Billy didn't want to stay up late to cook it, so we stuck it in the refrigerator overnight.

I got out the bowl to bring it to room temperature, and later in the morning, he formed them into small little loaves!

The rolls came out crispy on the outside, and light and fluffy on the inside!

His instructions did not tell him to pretreat the pan, so he ignored my advice.  Hindsight is 20-20.

The last crafty thing is far less fun. When Billy and I got married, my sister and grandmother bought us a set of Navy and White bath towels from Kohl's.  They were good, fluffy towels that we enjoyed, and they looked so good in our bathroom!  A few years after Alice was born (so maybe when Emily or William was a baby?) I read an article about how to keep your house, and one of the suggestions was to only use white towels, because they can be bleached!  Well, that was the only tip in the article that I took to heart, but I said goodbye to our navy towels (which had a few pink bleach splashes on them by this time) and bought white ones, of the same brand to replace them.

Well, those towels lasted us all the way until our Michigan move, and then in the past few years, they started to fail.  So, I bought replacements, but they are awful.  Within 6 months, of normal wear, they develop holes and tears!

I know that I need to switch brands, but it's hard to change after all this time, not to mention expensive.  So, I've been delaying.  Well, the last time I ran a load of whites towels, 4 of our 8 towels had holes.  With Billy's layoff, buying new ones is out of the question, so I cut up some towel rags in an attempt to repair them.

It was a two-sided repair, so each side needed a swatch of rag.

Honestly, the repair is not glaringly obvious when holding up the towel in person (I had trouble finding the repair when showing off my handiwork to my mom) but one of them did unravel on the edge after washing it.  I'll keep an eye on it, but may end up having to quilt it to keep the patch in place.  It was nice to know that the hole shouldn't be growing larger at least!

later days

All the Other Fun Things

As usual, a post with all the other small events in life, grouped into a single post!

Grace slept with buns so that her hair would be curly the next morning.  It worked pretty well!

Some toys are set aside, so that the pieces don't go missing.  Once such toy is the doctor kit.  So, it tends to garner quite a bit of attention when someone goes to the extra trouble of extricating it from its storage location. = )

I thought the drying rice looked like a tiny dragon head.  Alice said she couldn't see it.

On one of my shopping trips, I found a cute black and green dress for Emily.  She liked it!

Grace and Juliet enjoy putting our dress up collection to good use!

I thought this was an interesting statue, pictured in a book in the twins' school library.

A trip to Horrocks was full of interesting finds!  First up was in ice sculpture.

These were both labelled Red Leicester, but the flecked one is the one that tastes good.  fyi.

Sauce for me!

And, next year, I know where to find the cinnamon imperials for the wreath cookies!  They also have gumballs for the twins' gumball machine.

One morning, I woke up, flushed the toilet, and then found that I had no pressure in the sink faucet.   A quick trip to the basement showed the problem: one of the tubes that Billy had messed with the day before had come completely loose, and our basement was flooded.  

Nothing was damaged, but it was annoying to have no pressure.  I brought up the emergency water jugs, and Billy was able to reconnect the tubes and tighten the fastener enough, but even after repairing it, the pump was not shutting off.  

I called the company that installed it, and they were able to come out and get everything in order.  It has finally dried out fully down there too!

Grace inherited one of Zoey's old outfits, and she was delighted to wear it!

Juliet showing me her heart shaped chicken. = )

On one of the days that all 5 were off for winter break, WGJ had an appointment in Grand Rapids with their ophthalmologist.  It was a dilation appointment, so we were there a long time!   The kids opted to move to the 'movie room' which had more to do than the exam room. 

Daddy sat in one of the kids' places, and then was slow in getting his food, so they all decided to take his place. lol.

Another Fallout memory. = )

Sunrise & snow.

Sunset, but no snow.

Our trash truck looks like a trash bin that's been knocked onto its side! = )

Emily wanted cardboard for her Halloween costume. We scored some really large boxes from Billy's work, and the twins claimed them for the week that they were off, before giving them to Emily. = )

We drove up to Looking Glass Brewery one day, waiting for the rummage sale nearby to hit 'clearance' time.  Somehow, I only ended up taking pictures of the screen, at Grace's behest, so that she could show Juliet.  It was a neat place.  I didn't like their cider as much as I like Dimes (which is probably for the best) but they had some 'Crab Rangoon Nachos' that were unique and oh so good!  We might have to go back again just for those!

I went into Kroger, which I rarely do, to secure one of Emily's desired birthday gifts, and spotted these delightful seasonal treats.  I bought a single bag, opened it in the car, and proceeded to finish it before the kids got home from school.  oops.

Speaking of cardboard boxes, a system glitch ended up sending my BJs order to a different store, so my pickup order was not ready when I went there.  Luckily, I wasn't in a rush and was able to collect my order in person.  They weren't able to cancel my order, so we just had to wait for it to time out.  

As I was leaving I saw 10 grape boxes!!!  I grabbed them for the twins, and set them up as a surprise for when they came home.  It turns out, they make the best child trap!  I was able to trap William and Emily before the twins even came home!

Well, once Emily and William knew it was a child trap, and a very successful one, they were anxiously waiting and watching to see how long it would take for me to 'trap' the twins.  It didn't take long at all!

The twins have spent many hours configuring and reconfiguring the grape boxes.  They even stacked them to see how tall of a podium they could make!

William has also enjoyed the boxes, creating a double decker structure, with Grace on the 'second' floor. = )

The elementary robotics team is gearing up for next year, and many of the pieces from the robot kit were missing, so I was tasked with sorting what was in the bin and identifying missing pieces.  Took me the better part of two hours, but at least now we have an inventory for next year (assuming that the twins are eligible to return.)

I had parent teacher conferences with the big kids this past week, and since the big girls were at a band competition, WGJ had to attend with me.  The first hour they were awesome and well occupied.  After a while though, they followed me and came in to each meeting, making it a little harder to focus.

Poor Billy came home from work to an empty house and a simple dinner left in a warm oven.

Speaking of Parent - Teacher conferences, the twins' will have theirs next week, and the halls are filling up with lovely student artwork!  Grace and Juliet's class has poetry books on display.  I snapped a picture of my favorite from each book. = )

On Friday I went shopping with Kristy and we went to a Sushi/Japanese restaurant.  She hadn't ever tried sushi in a way that made her content, so I ordered AAC with cream cheese (my favorite) so that she could sample it.  She didn't much care for it, but she didn't spit it out!!!

Our teriyaki meals were both served in adorable boat dishes. = )

20 or so minutes before I needed to pick up the twins, we heard firetruck and ambulance sirens fly by our house (not terribly unusual, since Holt/M99 is a busy intersection with regular accidents.)  However, when I walked out the door to make my 2 minute drive to the school, traffic was backed up beyond the curve!!!  I couldn't believe it.  Apparently, they were funneling all south bound M99 traffic through our village. = 0

Someone kindly let me in, but it was slow going, and the twins had already been brought inside by the time I arrived.  It was still backed up when we returned, so at least they could see that I didn't forget them!!!

By the time Billy came home they had completely closed the intersection and he had to take a strange detour to get to our house.   Reports said it was a state trooper and other vehicle, but no injuries were reported, thankfully.

And....finally....you can now 'snooze' your alarms!!!!!  I'm so excited that I no longer have to turn off and then remember to TURN ON my alarms with every school break!!! = )

And lastly, today was Pie Day!  The band sold pies, and today was the day for all the parents, students, and any other volunteers they could muster, to come assemble pies.  It was quite the assembly line.

It was so well done that I have no complaints.  We were able to check in, put on our sanitary gear, wash our hands, and get to work!  We made over 500 pies in under three hours, with a short break when we switched from cherry to apple.

I personally was on the top crust machine.  My job was to grab the partially flattened dough, and pust it under the next roller to make it flat enough for the top crust.  My partner caught the dough and added it to the pie.  (We recreated our jobs during clean up, because it wouldn't have been very sanitary to take out our phones during the actual pie making process. = ))

During the cherry pie making, Emily was a human conveyor belt, pushing the pies from the filling station to us.  During the apple making phase, she was responsible for taking the boxed pies over to the pick-up tables.

Once all was cleaned up, they fed us a pizza lunch.  All the workers claimed the pies their band member had sold, and then we loaded them into vehicles.  After that it was just a matter of cleaning up what we could, folding the empty tables, and leaving the organizers to pass out pies to sellers who couldn't help out this morning.

For an entire week our family has been eating freezer food, in an effort to clear space in the basement refrigerator.  Even with all we'd moved upstairs and eaten, it wasn't enough.  I managed to squeeze 17 in, by taking out the drawer on the bottom, but still had to find room for three in the upstairs freezer and cooked two, because there was no room left.

But, our early morning volunteer day is over, and Emily has already had her first customer come collect their pies (the ones from the upstairs freezer!)  She'll deliver the remaining pies on Monday after school. = )

It's been a busy month so far, and it's only March 2nd.  And tomorrow, we get to celebrate our favorite 13-year-old!!!

later days