The cheap-skate, last minute birthday party

I'm a slacker.  I wait until the last minute to plan things like birthdays or valentines or anniversaries.  I get tons of good ideas, but due to the last minute issue, I don't have any time to actually do any of them.  Right around Christmas Eve, I put aside a few sewing projects, telling myself that I would finish them for my little girl in time for her birthday.  Then I promptly forgot.  I remembered again, the morning of her birthday.

Maybe it was guilt that spurred me on to do an actual party for her.  Generally, I say a three year old doesn't need anything but ice cream, frosting and presents, but since the presents were lame, I felt obligated to do a little more.  So we had a Dora/Diego party, sort of.  Since I'm cheap and it was last minute, I had to  use what was in the house and what I could get through the internet.  So, for any other procrastinating mom, like myself, I'll share my Dora party equations.

One chunk of purple felt = a tiny backpack.  It was my first time making a drawstring backpack like this and I think it turned out well.

 Construction paper and some sketching time = Map.

Old flannel sheet = water, over which lies the troll bridge, of course it needed some repairs performed by a 3 year old girl.

Chairs of all varieties in the hall = boulders in Slippery Rock Canyon, of course.

Then we had the dark tunnel, which required a flashlight, obviously to be found in her backpack.

We also had construction paper stepping stones, one of which needed some sticky tape, also in the backpack.

I used some of Dora's friends to help along the way, and even Swiper made an appearance.

When she emerged from the tunnel, she found the cupcake tower and presents.

All in all, I think it was a success, even though I stressed myself out completely trying to come up with Dora stuff in my non-Dora brain.  The little one loved it and fell right into character, with her siblings helping her read the clues.

Maybe if I start planning now, I'll have a stress free birthday for her next year.  Or maybe I'll just try to finish her Christmas projects before summer starts.

Where did January go?

...and where have I been?

I've been here, doing the things I always do, but for some reason there seems to be fewer hours in the day, or at least less time during the afternoon nap.  I just can't fit as much into that time slot as I used to.  We have been furiously filling out financial aide forms, scholarship applications and tax information. (My husband is a full time student)  We finally signed up the Dancing Queen for a dance class like we've been promising to do for at least a year, and that sends us hustling down the road each Thursday.  I'm also a cub scout leader, oh joy.  One hour a week with some wild and funny boys keeps life interesting.

We seemed to spend January shuttling our kids to and from birthday parties.  What's with everyone being born in January?  We took advantage of those parties to take the other, not invited, child out on a "date" with Mom or Dad.

We just had a February birthday.  My "baby" is now 2 and I suppose now she has an excuse for her monstrous behavior.  We celebrated by letting her run around naked and trash the house, her two favorite things.

This is the PG version.  There's usually more skin.

Okay, she does that everyday, so it wasn't that special.  We will be doing the whole cake and ice cream song and dance this weekend when we go to Grandma's.  I did make her some leg warmers to keep her somewhat warm while she goes through this phase of needing to be naked.

Still need to fix the gray socks to make them leg warmers.

Her birthday hits at a perfect time, as far as my crazy creating whims go.  During the month of January, I discovered this blog, and was inspired to make some stuff.  Lucky for me, I just happen to have a couple of little girls that like to play with kitchen stuff.

Beets!

Bananas!

The carrots took forever!

Eggs over easy...

A few varieties of cheeses.

The radishes aren't finished yet.

I think everyday for a week or two, my husband would come home to find me in the middle of some other felt food project.  I find it makes me happy to create something fun and quick like this.

What have you been up to?

I survived the princess party

It's over, and I'm alive.  Okay, actually, there were almost as many parents there as children, so my stress level was very low.  My dear husband hauled bags and baskets of food and gifts and then cooked up lunch, a mother helped me round kids up when we needed some structured fun, and another mother took my camera and snapped pictures for me, since she knew that the birthday mother has her hands full everywhere else.  That's the great thing about other mothers... they know.

Ever see a princess on a tire swing?

We decorated crowns with jewel stickers, markers and glitter glue, which takes forever to dry and magically ends up on everyone's arms and hands.  Next time I'll stick with the stickers.  (Ha! next time... I'm so funny)  We blew bubbles and played a few games.  We ate lunch and then we opened presents.  Do we leave that at the end to build up suspense?  I found myself having to explain often during the day that it wasn't time for presents yet and I couldn't really answer why.  She survived anyway and was soon in that present opening zone that makes their eyes glaze over and they start tossing presents already opened out of the way to make way for presents not yet opened. 

After the cupcakes, and party favors were passed out, I snatched the birthday girl (which is what she made her brother call her all day) and made her pose for a few pictures.  I had to commandeer this bridge from a few kids to get this one.  Unfortunately, while they were happy to loan me the bridge, they seemed to not be able to stay out of the camera lens.   Guess I have some cropping to do.

Oh, I made that ribbon crown the night before.  I thought it would be a quick project, but it took me a while.  Here she is showing the ribbons in back.  I think it tops off the ensemble nicely.  I guess my late night was worth it.

We had the dress sitting out on a chair for her to find when she woke up this morning.  It's not often that she is speechless, but we achieved it this morning.  The dress is too big and would fall off of her shoulders, but it was nothing a few safety pins couldn't fix.  I'm just glad it wasn't too small!

So now I heave a big sigh and listen to the noise makers that my husband insisted on buying.  That is, until they get "lost"...  Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl!

Now go to sleep!

Fair's fair...

Since I created a bright pink princess dress for my soon to be 5 year old, I figured my son could use a little costume love too.  Plus, we needed a "knight" to deliver the party invitations to make things authentic and proper.  The knight outfit was much easier to make.  I didn't even need a pattern!

He got to choose the insignia on the front.  I was hoping he'd pick the simple cross, but he picked the lion instead.  I was afraid I would have to bribe him to actually wear this outfit, what with him being so mature these days, but  I was wrong.  He puts it on every morning and we have to make him take it off to go someplace.  He likes it so much, he actually hung it up!  He doesn't hang anything up.  It could be that he gets to carry his play sword when he wears it, but whatever.  He will be doing his part to make the birthday fun for his sister.

And speaking of the sister... ever since the knight costume has been finished, she has been begging me to make her a queen dress.  I keep putting her off, telling her I'll look into it and maybe try.  I have such a hard time waiting until the actual day when I'm excited about a gift and I know that they will love it.  Almost there.  Soon she will be poofing around in a pink "queen" dress.

We're just finishing our party preparations.  Gifts are wrapped, food is in the fridge, party favors are ready.  Unfortunately, the cupcakes are not yet made.  I had planned to get them done during nap time, but nap time ended very early.  It might be a long night!

I will be a very happy momma as soon as all this birthday stuff is over.  Then I will be back to my normal schedule, whatever "normal" is.

Family reunions and pink puffy sleeves

It feels like I've been gone for a month, but it was only a week.  I spent the weekend with cousins and other relatives at our annual family reunion.  It is a camping affair, but we had a great time in spite of being dirty.  My dad nicely offered his camper to me.  There was a time in my life that I would have scoffed at such an idea.  I thought tents were for sissies.  Then I grew up and had children.  Life is different now.  My older two kids really wanted to stay in the tent, so we pitched it too.  They woke up at 6:30 am, ready to play.  Mom was not pleased. 

There was lots of visiting and catching up.  A big pot-luck dinner and an evening listening to stories of my grandpa, since it would have been his 100th birthday this month.

This is the only picture I can find of Grandpa.  With his team of horses.

After coming back, the reality of my daughter's 5th birthday was looming.  I decided to make her a princess dress.  While shopping at the second hand store, I discovered a great big, pink, girly curtain.  It wanted to be a princess dress, I could tell, so we brought it home and I started thinking about how to make this dress.  Usually, I start a project, thinking I can do it by myself and it ends up in a great big disaster.  This time, I decided to follow a pattern.  It turned out to be the most difficult sewing project I have ever done.  What was I thinking?  Sleeves?  Zipper? Miles and miles of gathers?  The amount of fabric on this little dress is simply ridiculous.  But, it's finished. 

I need to thank my mother for keeping the princess for a few days and my husband for hanging onto the baby most of the day so I could knock this project out.  This dress sets the record for fastest project, clocking in at two full days of crazed sewing.  I did stop for meals.  Oh, and I did give my husband some sewing lessons.  He sewed the lining of the bodice, and did a great job.  (don't tell him I told you).

And that is what I've been up to for the last week.  Now maybe the dishes and laundry will get done, but first I need to vacuum up all these little pink strings...

More projects

I realized yesterday that my baby is turning 1 next week.  I can't believe how fast this year went.  I then remembered that I had planned to make her some cloth blocks for Christmas, but when that got too busy,  I decided to put it off until her birthday.  And then I promptly forgot until yesterday.  I spent last evening and today putting these together.

I was a little worried about how they would turn out with all the different patterns and colors, but I think they ended up pretty cute.  I was worried about them being too small, so I made them big.  Really big considering they're for a baby.  Too big maybe...so I added the ribbon for something to get a hold of.

A few weeks ago, I brought a gray sweater home from the second hand store.  It had a very big turtle neck on it that my husband decided would make at perfect beanie.  So, he cut it off.

Now we just have to figure out how to finish the top of the hat.  Gather it up?  Fold it and stitch?  He can't decide, so this project is on hold.


A few days ago I had a craving for some craisins, you know, raisins, but from cranberries instead of grapes.  Then I remembered that I had some cranberries in the freezer.  I bought them around Thanksgiving time without any idea of what to do with them, so they ended up in the freezer.  I had cranberries, and I have a dehydrator... maybe I could make myself some craisins? 

The instructions I had said to blanch the berries, then freeze them and then dehydrate.  Since these were already frozen, I just blanched and dried.  I expected them to shrivel up while drying, but they didn't.  Unfortunately I just kept drying, thinking they would eventually shrivel up.  Instead, I have dried out berry shells with almost nothing inside.  Maybe I can rehydrate them a bit... probably not.  I kept them just in case I think of something to do with cranberry crumbles.  They do look pretty in a jar though though.  Maybe next year I'll get it right.

Raspberry rhubarb pie

My mom brought home a bunch of rhubarb yesterday. We were going to can it, but then we decided to use it right away for Dad's birthday pie. My dad asks for pie instead of cake on his birthday, so this year, we made raspberry rhubarb pie. We kind of made it up as we went along, since we couldn't find a specific recipe and we didn't have any strawberries on hand. We put a few cups of rhubarb in the pie shell, then mixed raspberries, sugar and flour, and put that on top and covered. The raspberries put out a lot of juice, as you can see on the last photo.


The kids got to make their own little pies. Can you tell which one was done by a girl?


The finished pies. I really don't like when the juice leaks out of the pie shell, but I think raspberry juice will be okay. We had one after dinner tonight as we sang to grandpa. It was delicious with some vanilla ice cream on the side. Yum!