angry chicken

happy mother's day (a bit early)

Here's mom (grammie) when she was about 22 hitting a parked car with a baseball bat. There is a story here, I am sure. Something about car paint being impossible to chip? I think it was for a newspaper story she was writing. I don't quite remember, but I think too many details might wreck how awesome this image is. This is before she has us kids, maybe even before she was married by a year or so.


And Grandma with her twin boys at age 22. My Mom's Mom. These two women are huge in my life. Grandma passed away several years ago, but not a day goes by that I don't think of her. Both women larger than life, both journalists—brilliant woman with strong personalities, huge hearts, and senses of humor. I asked my Mom once what she felt was one of Grandma's biggest strengths as a mother and she said it was her ability to love and support her children without judgment, especially of my Mom's parenting. I smiled when she said this, because this is how I feel about my Mom now—100% supportive of what I do with my girls and the choices I make for my family. Or at least if she's not, she's a master of keeping it to herself. Ha! I could write forever about these two women and how much they mean to me. I should stop now before I get completely teared up. Sniff. Seeing my Mom with my girls now is pure magic, I wish I could record every minute of it. We are all so lucky.

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there—put your feet up if you can.

 

grammie and grandma stop reading this.

We are getting some gifts together for Mother's Day. Terrariums have finally been made over here for the very first time. They were a huge hit as a project for the girls.

I have been wanting to make some for so long now. I talked to Melissa (who is a terrarium queen) and got a little potting soil, some pretty gravel, a bit of charcoal, and some sedums—that's about it.  I got smart and had the girls make one for me, too.

I had all these grand ideas for homemade Mother's Day gifts but am trying to keep it simple this year and give these and some time. Time being the most important thing.

Rice cooking method that has changed my life coming soon!

happy spring!

Many things have been made this week in preparation for the first day of Spring (our big family event at home) and Easter. This bunny cake is lemon ginger and is a modified version from this month's Everyday Food. Or was it in this month's Martha? I can't remember. I also realized why I liked it so much—it's almost identical to a mailorder recipe from 2 years ago.  I am so predictable. It was served with mixed berry compote and almond whipped cream. Sadie thought the whipped cream tasted funny and the bunny had a broken neck. Also, note to self, before I use these crazy big animal pans, think about what I will serve it on. I had nothing big enough to present this creature, so he was served off the rack. Sort of tacky.

Hot crossed buns made from the challah dough recipe from my new bread book. They were very very good and can't wait to make more from this dough. There wasn't an exact recipe for this in the book, I just used the dough, added cinnamon sugar and and egg wash on top before baking and then made an orange icing.

Only one Easter dress was completed. This was weeks ago, and since then dresses were purchased by various family members, and the girls were more interested in dress up, so this is the only one this year that was sewn by me. As I was about to trim this with lovely ribbons and make it all fancy, the middle child said to leave it plain because it's Cinderella's rag dress. Ah, yes, of course. My tastes once again don't quite live up to her sparkly version of a proper holiday dress. But at least Cinderella can wear it while cleaning. And she does.

I am super excited and flattered that a Bend-the-Rules Sewing Swap has been organized by Clicky the Moose! How cool and fun! The first project is a swap for the Pleated Beauty Handbag, check it out. (sign-ups are closed March 31st)

what our cookies look like

We made some Spring sugar cookies last week. I made these cookies in 3 stages—one day I made the dough, one day we cut out the cookies (with 2 adults I freak out less, but this time it was just me and the 3 girls and it went just fine, somehow.) Then one evening Grammie and I made the icing and let the girls have at it. They got to decorate them completely on their own, no food styling here. These shapes are all bunnies, chicks, flowers, and whatnot, which is awesome, because you can't even tell what they are now. I made a simple icing of melted butter, powdered sugar, and milk until it was sort of drizzle-y dropped from a spoon. I also put out little bowls of sprinkles. I used this great natural food coloring (in the post here) for the icing, which was completely negated by the large quantity of creepy sprinkles that were dumped on each cookie.

A bunny head. Okay, these cookies were so good. They set up hard, well, they do if the icing isn't 1/2" thick, which is what these were. I used the sugar cookie recipe from my new cookie book (although I'll bet the recipe is similar to this one) and as you can see, they look quite different. But, you gotta love that 100% kid baking thing, you know? They were so proud.

primitve dolls wearing shawls

I got these very sweet primitive painted dolls for the house for Spring/Easter. They are from Bayberry Cove, which is a lovely shop, I always fall in love with something when I look there. These are designed by Stacey Mead and I can't find much about her online, but did find this amazing pig, which I might need as well.

I have only made a painted rag doll once, from a Gail Wilson kit, and I totally loved it. It was so fun making a muslin doll, stuffing it, and then painting it. I really would love to make more. (When?) So, I thought about making something similar to these, but time is limited right now and I wanted to get something up before next week—so I had to buy these. They are wearing shawls and little slippers! You understand.

On the  other shelf next to the dolls are these turned wood people and eggs with watercolor added by the girls. I think Pete added the faces, but I wasn't around for this craft project, so I'm not sure. They have quite a few egg shapes at Casey Wood Products, which is where all this stuff came from.

Unrelated, I plan to get some books from the library about handwriting analysis. Just cause. I have always wanted to know more about it. I distinctly remember what all my friends handwriting looked like in middle school, with the note writing and all. . . do middle schoolers still write notes? Or is it all texting now? That would be so sad, I loved looking at handwriting growing up, now, I love it when it looks familiar, you know? Like, when I really know it, and could spot it right away. I need to handwrite out some blog posts, that would be cool.

chocolates and stuff

Here's a small cake. It's orange chocolate. I made 6 of these all baked in white, red, and pink heart shaped ramekins—super cheap from Micheal's. Mariko and I added an easy frosting (about 4 oz melted chocolate chips and 2 tablespoons sour cream) and it was amazing. The cake recipe is from One-Pot Chocolate Desserts, a book I have had for 10 years. I love it. It's very bare bones and basic, great for the girls because they love to hand mix everything.

I didn't get around to buying heart molds. Pete suggested the lollipop molds. . .brilliant! This is a good quality milk chocolate chopped from a huge hunk, melted, and supposedly tempered in the microwave, but I don't think it worked. These are still tasty as all get out, anyway. They get melty fast which makes the sticks even more handy. I am so into melting chocolate into shapes now instead of buying over-priced junk for the holidays. I need to get going on easter. I want to try a bunny, 3-D style.

We had a valentine craft get-together last week with some fun friends. Paul made some pretty cool valentines, I wasn't prepared for such intense parental participation with the craft projects, I'm glad I had enough supplies to go around. Melissa was pretty deft with the heart shaped paper punch.

big love, tiny style.

These are valentines I made for the girls. They are shrinky dinks—some special ink-jet shrinky dink stuff, the opaque white kind. (Second item on this link over at ReadyMade) I was going to include a little magnifying glass. I still need to find that. I also need to make 2 more tiny envelopes. Each will be tucked in a little box, and then hopefully be put in the baby books (that don't exist yet) to save. Actually, I will have to print another set for that, these will disappear in no time. Who am I kidding?

Each of these mini letters have a little bit about each girl and some sweet observations like "You are funny and like to climb trees" and "I hope you take a bath soon" Pete got all misty eyed when he read them. I actually got this mini letter idea from a random shrinky dink pack I had lying around from last year and I thought it was super cool. I burnt the first round of these, by the way. Don't use a convection toaster oven, it's way too hot.

swedish christmas braid

Grammie always made a Swedish Christmas Braid for Christmas morning. I have been making them for our family for about 5 years now, more or less, and they are a favorite holiday tradition of mine. I usually make it on Christmas eve and then leave it out overnight for french toast in the morning, or just with butter and jam. I love the idea of baking it fresh in the morning, but there is no way I can get up that early. I guess I could do the first rise and then braid it and then put it in the fridge overnight. Then I could take it out and do the second rise Christmas morning. That would work. But this requires a bit more brain power than I seem to have during this time of year.

Here it is as french toast yesterday. I froze it. And I have to eat it with jam.

Cardamom, which is the spice in this braid, is a wonderful flavor to me. I like to use it in apple pies, but don't very often because it always disappoints someone. "Why does it taste soapy?" Hmmm. That's the nice version. "Why did you ruin a perfectly good apple pie?" is probably what is really meant. This also happens when I add orange rind to chocolate chip cookies. Which is pure heaven in my book. It's getting to the point now that I splint a batch in half, one with the orange rind, one without because I love the orange rind so much. I like to avoid making gender generalizations, but it's interesting to me that men seem the most offended by orange rind in my cookies. Or baked goods in general. The most upset I ever saw Pete in a restaurant was when his waffles came with orange rind in the batter, which wasn't described in the menu. I think not knowing it was in there is what did it, but still, he was pretty aggro. Grammie says women like citrus flavors way more than men. Grammie is the master of sweeping generalizations, a quality I absolute love about her, and I make my share as well. What's best is that we never remember saying these things, so when people quote us back to ourselves later we always say "Did I say that? I didn't say that. I must have been smoking crack." But, back to citrus. . .  is this true? I love citrus in baked goods and love lemon tarts and all that but the men I know really don't get all excited about a lemon tart. Or orange pound cake. But good ol' chocolate cake? Yup, that goes over big.

The Swedish Christmas Braid recipe I use I posted here on flickr last year for the December Tie One On submission. Oh, don't forget the polka-dot aprons for Tie One On are due February 1st! Perfect theme for Valentine's Day, huh?

fudge & sugarplums

Again. . . . I need to post some pre-holiday stuff here to play catch up before I forget.

Our holiday cards had a fudge recipe on it. An insanely easy fudge which is begging for customization. The recipe I used is from here and then I just added some mix-ins. I suggested adding cayenne (just a pinch) this year and called it "slightly naughty fudge" and it was suburb—but then later I made a batch that was even better (to me, of course, cooking being subjective and all) and I call it Salted Fudge.

I made a batch using the same recipe as above but used 1 part semi-sweet chocolate chips, 2 parts milk chocolate chips, added a bit of vanilla, a teaspoon of instant espresso powder, and then on top very lightly sprinkled my fancy finishing salt mixed with a tiny bit of cinnamon and sugar. If you try this, make sure and dust it right away, the fudge sets super fast and then the salt and sugar won't stick on top.

Oh good lord almighty. Really. This finishing salt is crazy because it doesn't even taste like salt. Okay, I could go on here, but for the sake of brevity. . . the salt makes the whole chocolate thing very complex and so amazing. It's one of those "oh, what is in my mouth? It's is so good, perhaps it's not even food, but a bit of chewable heaven" moments. I had several friends and family members experience this as well when eating this stuff.

An all time favorite pre-Christmas photo. Now I have four Sugarplum Fairies. Thank you Hillary, they love them so much and so do I. And look, I even let the girls play with them. I have to. I tried to hide them twice and got totally busted.

Happy 2008!

I thought this photo was fitting for today—a blank slate for the New Year. Or maybe it's just a bit dorky. And hey, I am so glad you guys liked the Holiday Gifts tags! I still yelled random things at people when they were opening gifts, but that's what I do. I can't stop.

Anyway, I put together these chalkboard sets for the girls from Santa and I think they were my favorite homemade gift this year. The chalkboards, erasers (wool felt!) and little rulers I got from Casey Wood Products (thanks again for this amazing resource, Amanda) and it was all insanely cheap. I sewed a little bag to store the chalk, erasers, and rulers in. It closes with a bit of Velcro sewn into the inside. Very pleasing. I tried to get the girls to draw something for this photo, but the fun part is erasing, so leaving a drawing on the boards is not an option. Understandable.

Okay, so 2007. I love making lists and looking back, but my brain is so very soft that what is popping into my head borders on. . . .well, mental. I also realize that all these items are mostly from the last month, which shows my inability to remember anything. I like to call it staying in the moment, but it also could be called early onset of Alzheimer's.

Personal Excitement in 2007 (that sounds naughty!) in no particular order:

-Paper cutting
-successfully making homemade marshmallows (will post this soon)
-having a baby
-getting a new niece
-releasing my book and the awesome booking signing event that you all came out for
-fitting into jeans again (albeit, still 1 size larger than before kids. Ahem.)
-cake in a jar
-all the cool new blogs out there
-going to a movie last week, by myself. I saw Darjeeling Limited, which I really enjoyed.

Super Lame in 2007 (again in no order)

-the demise of Blueprint Magazine
-the demise of MS Kids (yes, that was more than a year ago, but it still upset me this year)
-the assassination of Benazir Bhutto (Horrible that I list such a tragic event in with magazines, but such is my brain.)
-worrying about all the lead/toy recalls. Good god.

Much has been left out. I just got a TON of new music and am so excited to get into it all. So, that should be on this list, but isn't. And I should list books too, but I am not organized enough. Oh well. I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's Eve and that your 2008 is crazy phat!

If you got Bend-The-Rules Sewing for Christmas, don't forget to look at the flickr group for amazing photos of completed projects and the awesome discussion section. There are now over 120 topics discussed (and there is a search option) and the book errata is on flickr too. (These have been corrected in the 2nd edition of the book, BTW.)