grown up kids meal

Here's a grown up version of a kid favorite meal, hot dogs. I found this hot dog recipe last year just before lou's first birthday. We had a baseball themed party for him and you need hot dogs. This dog in a bun recipe is great for cookouts and picnics, since the dog is baked right in. There is no slipping bun or leaky mustard. You can bake cheese right in, if you wish. The buns have a slightly sweet flavor, just like a store bought hot dog bun.

Make up a dough:
dissolve-
2 ¼ t yeast
2/3 c warm milk
1/3 c warm water
add-
1/3 c sugar
1 egg
2 T butter
1 t salt
3 2/3 flour (I use a mix of unbleached white, spelt, and whole grain)
Knead, rise 1 hour-
divide into 10, wrap around hot dogs (stuff with cheese if you want), let rise another 15+ minutes
Bake 350° for 25-30 min

slouch purse, kind of a tutorial

There are some super great tutorials out there for the making of all kind of things wonderful and crafty. That being said, this is my first 'tutorial' so I will simply do my best. I don't follow patterns and rarely measure... keep that in mind.


I really wanted to make one of those funky trendy bags I keep seeing everyone carry. I don't even know what they are called. I found some online called pillowcase bags. I didn't have a pillowcase that I wanted to use, so I just cut out fabric about the size of a pillowcase. I used some funky new fabric I bought this weekend at our new IKEA!

I sewed the sides shut like a pillowcase. I usually use a french seem, but I cut the fabric a little thinner than I would have if I was going to do a french seem, so I just used a straight stitch and a zig zag. I think next time, I would line it as well. Then, after sewing the sides up, I folded it over and cut out a scoop the opening.

I turned the opening under and pinned it, then sewed the hem.


Because I can't have a bag with out a pocket for my phone and camera, I sewed a little pocket and added it in the hem while I was sewing that up.

Last, I sewed across the top of the strap (this photo didn't turn out at all), turned the bag right side out, and knotted it at the top. I have seen some where the bottom corners are turned inside and sewn to make a 'boxier' bottom, but I wanted the pointy corners. I have a teenage sister with a birthday coming up and I think this will be the perfect thing. I have some cute fabric in mind...

for your listening pleasure

A little trip to the beach this morning for shells...
We have had two days of storms and rain and I thought that might make for some good shelling early this morning. I was right! It was still raining off and on this morning, so we practically had the beach to ourselves! We did not even get rained on.




I just love the sound of heavy waves... and little people playing in the background. For your listening pleasure...

Just a little dolphin watching...
Bee spied them the first time, but then could not seem to be looking at the right time and missed them every time. There were two or three out playing today. They came around several times. (I am using Hubby's old camera and it does not take the best videos)

tweet tweet preschool

I am so NOT a fan of birds. However, I taught the theme of birds Tuesday at preschool and really did have a lot of fun.


I had a B for birds coloring sheet for the early arrivals (my kids). Then did a more creative B is for Birds sheet where we turned Bs into birds. I had several styles of cut out beaks and feet and let the kids glue those on. They added feathers and buttons as they thought fit. We ended up with some adorable birds.

My favorite project came from No time for flashcards. I planned for us to go on a nature walk, collect our sticks and them headed inside to create our bird colleges, however it was raining. Luckily, I was prepared with a set of sticks already glued on paper in case it rained. We have mostly non-cutters, so I had the birds already cut out as well. I am a firm believer in letting kids do the project by themselves, but this did require some of my help/preparation. My daughter was the only one who seemed to notice that I did more of the project than normal. A few nights ago when I made up the sticks glued to the paper she said, "mommy, why don't you let the kids glue those, it's our project."

We sang a few little bird related finger plays and bird counting rhymes. The girls always want to sing these little rhymes over and over, the boys just watch and then go play. Of course, we dance around like birds and made bird noises.

The kids pretended to be birds and made nests with their legs. I handed each a card with a small number. They helped me count out plastic Easter eggs to match the number on their card. Lou got very upset because I was passing out his special 'ball' design Easter eggs.

I made chocolate and chow mein noodles birds nests for a little treat. For a real snack, I served 'bird seed' which was really just a trail mix of random dry snacks we had on hand. During snack I read Make Way for Ducklings. I have found that snack is the ONLY time I can read the kids a little bit longer book.

To practice counting our number of the day 20, we strung old spools on lacing. Bee and Lou like to make long string of my old sewing spools and then pull them around the house pretending that there are pets on the other end. Today, one of the girls suggested that they were jump ropes.... a few whacks in the head later and decided to move on to a new project.

I had intended to eggs out of cornstarch clay using a recipe from sweet things but when Bee, Lou and I were testing it out, I decided just to have the kids play with play-doh. We didn't even end up with time for this, so I'm glad I didn't make anything special for it.

One of the books we read was Feathers For Lunch. I love the college style birds pictures in this book. I made cards with the birds from the book and had the kids look for their bird in the book. We worked on matching the card with the pictures in the book.

I found a little printable book about a mama bird building a nest. We used it to work on story sequencing. I made sure there were enough for everyone. I read through it while they followed along in their own book. Then they looked through them several times on their own. Some colored the pages.

It doesn't get any more girly than this... seriously

really... this is about the most girly party ever. Our little neighbor friend turned three and had a tea party birthday party. Bee and I walked over for the party and Daddy and Lou came over about halfway through, as to not infringe on the girly atmosphere.

The girls dressed up in lovely costumes, decorated hats with ribbons and flowers, they ate little sandwiches cut into shapes with a cookie cutter, decorated cupcakes (baked in ice cream cones), and really just had a girly good time. Most drank tea, my Bee drank several cups- good girl. The little felt desserts we gave as a gift as well as our nice children's tea set were used for decoration.

Mail's here

Yesterday I mentioned our felt mail set. I worked on this silly thing for hours last year at Christmas time. I liked how it looked, but it has not help up as well as I had hoped, one trip to preschool and several of the velcro pieces had come unglued. We love to use this with our table fort. I used felt (the soft and the stiff kind) and then stitched on words and designs. There are a few postcards, several stamps, name labels, a package, a couple of envelopes, and a mailbag.
All of the stamps and name labels have velcro on the back and the envelopes and package have the opposite side of the velcro hot glued to them. Our issue is that the hot glue doesn't hold the velcro on well since the kids are pulling on the pieces to separate them. I can't sew the velcro to the package since there is a cardboard 'core'. any ideas?

table fort

When Lou was just a little bitty guy, I found having two kids on opposite nap schedules was difficult to say the least. We missed all of the moms group activities and had someone awake and someone asleep through most of the day. Needless to say, we were stuck in the house too much! I was desperate to come up with a few new indoor activities for my little ones. I saw a cute card table fort somewhere online and was pretty sure that I could make one for us using the dining room table.

I used two flat white sheets (that I had laying around just waiting for a project) for the top and sides. I literally just laid the sheet on top of our table and cut out a circle. Then, I measured the height of the table and added that length to the sides of the circle. I kept an opening and added one for a window. Everything else added to the outside of the fort was made using scrap from my fabric box. I used wonder under and an iron to attach each piece and did a loose outline using the sewing machine. It took a few hours, but has provided us with multiple hours of entertainment. I think the mail slot may be our favorite part.... I'll have to write about the felt mail set I made to go with this fort.

how to hem jeans and other odds and ends

ok, so I am not in the middle of hemming any jeans, but have before and wish I had known this secret! Here, Gail shows her tip!

now, here are the odds and ends:

Whenever someone leaves a comment, it sends it to my email inbox. I can read the comment there. I always send a little note back, answer the question, say thanks for commenting, just say hi sis, whatever... however, I just realized this evening that the email address for the return is a no reply email address... so I apologize for those unsent emails in reply to comments. Luckily, I'm not talking to a whole lot of you out there :)

secondly, I did change my format/layout recently. I however really want my header to be large across the entire top. If anyone know how to do this, please contact me, I need your help.

oh, just thought of one more.... while I'm asking for help, I really want to be able to post more than 5 photos some times, but can't find out how people are doing this..... any ideas?

unrelated photos....