Launch

Posted on June 27, 2026 by lexicolton

Whew! So much stuff again. More school committee, cub scout campout, gymnastics and soccer end of year celebrations and Patricia’s preK graduation. Busy, busy, busy! This is Julius’ last week of school. Today he was allowed to bring in a stuffie so he chose his giant Totoro that I made for his 2yo birthday! I’m happy to report that he still sleeps with it every night.

For the campout I ended up building a couple giant catapults that I guess I’ll tell you about today. Right now I’m watching my kids in swim lessons and for the first time ever they are in lanes right next to each other. Patricia and Julius keep high fiving each other after each lap it is really cute.

The catapult was a replacement for an activity that was way too risky for a group of k thru 5s (but I of course do at my own medieval parties outside of scouts). I figured I could build some catapults and if they end up violating the cub scout rules down the road (they change every 5 minutes) I can just use it for the medieval party. When I ran the event the catapults met all the specs for Scouting America rules (to my knowledge). Disclaimer: if you’re using these plans for scouts give the range rules a gander yourself because I am not the authority here just a scout leader trying to do her best.

I nearly completely used the design here but I doubled all the dimensions. For elastics I used 3 foot bungees but they vary wildly in strength. I think it’s best to mess around and test this. The main adjustments I made to the design (other than doubling the side) were to use 2x4s, and make it possible to disassemble and reassemble using bolts. This meant instead of having one main post to hold up the stopper, I used two, held thru the main post by bolts into the frame. Ultimately it comes apart into 6 pieces (though I left the throwing arm attached to the frame for the scouts) that can be transported more easily. The whole thing is assembled by 10 bolts.

The idea was to have a large number of scouts (6 to 8 per catapult) divided into two teams. Half would race to build the catapult using my instructions below, the other half would race to build a structure with cardboard bricks as tall as possible. Then we’d have the first team storm the castle and then swap. We in reality had half the number of kids I was expecting so it took the small teams much too long to assemble the catapults. I think in theory the design is pretty good because you can choose how much they have to setup, but unfortunately I hadn’t really tested it with a group of kids to judge speed.

So I think the catapult is pretty safe. The worst thing that could happen is the bungee snaps or the arm hits you in the face. For that reason we have eye protection (as per Scouting America guidelines). It doesn’t hurt at all to get hit with the balls so while it is run as a ranged sport, the stakes are far lower if someone were to cross the boundaries.

The real problem now is trying to figure out where to store it…

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment

Spicey

Posted on June 10, 2026 by lexicolton

Well life has been chaotic to say the least!  I had my first school committee meeting last night and it was very interesting.  I have so much to learn.  It is going to be a lot for a while I imagine!  But I’m going to do my best!

Meanwhile we’ve also been busy with scouts and other regular life activities.  Julius has been working so hard at gymnastics that his coach said he made the fall team!  But the hours are such (9 hours a week, not even counting the weekend tournaments) that he is going to drop back to recreational gymnastics and ninja.  It’s bittersweet.  He’s been doing such a good job and improving, but it also already takes up so much of his time and is hard to schedule around.  He’ll have more time to play during the week which is something he’s always complaining about!  And we’ll have time to actually eat dinner at a reasonable hour more days of the week (maybe). 

Patricia decided she wanted to start piano lessons so this will be her first week.  I’m proud that she’s interested in trying something new.  She’s very good at advocating for herself, which is something as a child (and to this day) that I struggled with.  She’ll be starting kindergarten in just a few short months and she’s very excited!  She rode the bus and had a blast, she keeps repeating all the rules of the bus to us.  I can’t wait for her to get somewhere that will actually challenge her!  I just hope she is motivated!

Will has gone all in on AI and is building his own RAG for board games, I’m sure those of you who care will learn of that when he releases it.  Meanwhile I’m behind on crafts.  Our last scout meeting was yesterday so I’m hopeful that I can start getting home stuff done!  I spent the last several weeks cleaning out spice containers to use for cub scout crafts.  I used vinegar, baking soda, the dishwasher and the sun to get the smell out.  I think the sun worked the best… Yesterday the scouts decorated the cannisters and then filled them with 5 of the six essentials. The only one that didn’t fit was a water bottle, so we clipped that to the side with a carabiner.  I used some jewelry floss, a square knot and a bowline hitch to tie a loop onto each bottle for the carabiner.  The exact versions of everything I bought to fit in the container are below:

Flashlights that fit!

Suntan lotion that fits!

But that was just a silly side project!  Let me tell you what lead to the surplus of bottles. I reorganized my spice cabinet!  It’s always such a disaster to find everything.   I have a cabinet up top where I store extra spices I buy but it’s so cluttered sometimes I forget I have an extra already.  So I took everything out (I should have taken a picture it was insane), then alphabetized them all, consolidated them into these nice glass spice containers I have been collecting and then made a spreadsheet.  In my spreadsheet I ranked everything by the order I used everything (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, less). Then I sorted the spreadsheet by most used and alphabetical order and was able to fit 24 (with one empty space) jars in the new rack I built. The rest I sorted by alphabetical order and put in my top shelf so I could easily find them later. Let me tell you it has been life changing.

Quick anecdote before I give you the details – I overheard this conversation last week:

              Patricia (to Julius):  Who’s your BFF Julius?

              Julius:  Probably you.

Patricia learned what BFF meant and this conversation ensued. Be still my heart.

Spice rack

I measured my cabinet and figured out that I could fit a 5×5 grid of glass spice bottles. I’ve been collecting the glass bottles from Morton and Bassett products for the last couple years. I originally wanted to make something more complicated than this, but I settled on the method of just effectively little tiny shelves.

First I cut two boards slightly smaller than the height of the jar just below the cap and as tall as the diameter of 5 jar caps stacked together.

Then I glued small 1/4″ wide trim on each side board, spacing 1/8″ larger than the jar lid diameter.

Finally, and this part needed to be pretty exact, from 1/8″ MDF I cut 3″ deep boards that were as long as the cabinet minus the width of the side shelves that you used (ours were 1/4″).

Slide these onto each shelf and fill with spices!

Posted in Home Improvement | 6 Comments

Danycon 2026

Posted on April 29, 2026 by lexicolton

Oh my gosh. It is APRIL. This is atrocious! I apologize for leaving you hanging for TWO MONTHS. Life has just gotten SO BUSY and my motivation is completely in the tubes (though I may have turned that around!) I also decided to run for School Committee which is, apparently, a legit elected position. Luckily I’m running unopposed, but still, vote for me on May 11th! Some of my friends in town were joking they were going to write in Will on the ballot and see how that played out since most people don’t bother filling in the unopposed boxes… I know he’d love to wake up to find out he was on school committee /s.

Gosh what to even tell you from the last couple months?! Well, I guess I’ll start recent. Last week was Danycon! We somehow missed Danycon last year due to pushing the last one back a bit and then no one being able to make it! Instead Erin and Mark had KatieCon with Will because everyone else was too absorbed in their own lives (read: busy with work and wallowing in existential dread – okay wait that was just me). But we DID have Danycon this year and it was a blast! Erin had a conflict with a mother-daughter tea party with Ari but even she was able to get in in the wee hours of Sunday for a full day of Danycon. Everyone (except Erin) flew in Friday and then flew out Monday afternoon so we had a SOLID TWO DAYS to play games. IT WAS A BLAST.

Theme

The theme this year was paranormal. Unfortunately we recently got rid of a bunch of our paranormal games… so our paranormal games were somewhat slim pickings. We still managed to play quite a few. And we kept with the theme for our goodie bags which contained mini ouiji boards, tea reading books with loose leaf tea, a ghost in a jar, danycon paranormal society pins and danycon shirts with a fun surprise.

Will made an epic paranormal themed scavenger hunt this year that I really wanted to help with. Unfortunately I ran out of time making shirts and other stuff for the goodie bags so Will made the whole thing SOLO. I was incredibly impressed. I basically only imparted a few ideas. Claude also helped…

We had a very cranky participant last year for DnD that honestly ruined the entire experience for me so Will and I decided to take a year off. It’s just no fun to DM someone who is actively disinterested. Surprisingly everyone else was deeply saddened by this and said they look forward to it every year! So we will be doing it again next year! We just will let people decide in advance if they want to opt out. We also didn’t have a murder mystery dinner because we weren’t sure if Erin was going to make it and didn’t want to risk 7 players when we needed 8. Next year we’ll have another one. Instead we did this new RPG Alice is Missing that Will and I played at PAX. It’s silent, done all over text messages and after setup it is 90 minutes total. I think everyone enjoyed it but Mark went to pick Erin up from the airport so neither of them got to play it (I’ve got a session set up with them tomorrow instead!)

As usual Will made his online board game itinerary. Erin and Mark made fun sporkle challenges for us to play every morning which were a blast! Including what year is the Danycon shirt from which everyone but me were stumped about. We also played Bingo again and Mary Elizabeth won! No one was able to get full card bingo…

As for games we played a bunch! I think the only paranormal games we played were Spectral and Mysterium… though I could be mistaken.

Food

Dinners

For food we ordered from our favorite local Mediterranean place on Friday which was amazing as usual AND they whipped together a huge order for us in only 40 minutes. We had tons of leftovers.

The next day I made a pasta bake with beyond sausage served with a salad. We also had way too many leftovers that night… which meant Sunday’s dinner was either Mediterranean or pasta bake… (I planned to make Shepherd’s pie with impossible meat…)

Lunches

We bought tons of sandwich ingredients for lunches along with wraps and rolls and served them with apples, clementines and chips.

Sorry Jesse for cutting your head off! This is the only picture I have of lunch!

Breakfast

We went to the cub scout pancake breakfast on Saturday! Convenient! So I didn’t have to make breakfast and I got to show off my family to the pack and vice versa. Sunday I made sourdough bagels for breakfast (though everyone ate them for lunch)…

Surprise our shirts glow in the dark!
Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 6 Comments

Whirlwind February

Posted on February 25, 2026 by lexicolton

Wow what a busy past few weeks! We had a great time visiting Mark and Erin and the kids and seeing their great house and community. I even got to join for a cub scout meeting to see how things are done in Texas! (Spoilers the same as here.) We got to join for my niece’s birthday party which was a fun pokemon themed bash at a local playground! All the kids were super excited about the pokemon activity Erin had planned and I got to help Marko with the pokeball cake. Will got to eat Mexican food all weekend, and we played many board games. Okay mostly just one, but we played it a lot of times. Everyone had a blast!

We got home (4am on Monday) after a long night in airport. I spent the next evening prepping dinner and chocolate ingredients for Galentine’s day. We had a blast making chocolates (more on that later) and chatting. The rest of the week was spent prepping for Valentine’s day itself, working with the kids on their Valentines. They almost independently addressed and signed them though! Even Patricia! I was so proud. And then on top of that I somehow managed to finish some crochet animals that I made originally from Woobles kits that Amy got me for my birthday! (Oh and did I tell you I also wrote them little love notes in their Valentine backpacks nightly?)

The following weekend we went to Great Wolf Lodge! Which I haven’t been to but the kids went to with my parents for Julius’s friend’s birthday party several months ago. It was a blast. We did lots of water slides, rode the lazy river about 1000 times, had a sleepover in the hotel room, did some crafts and yoga and played on a playground. Next time I’d add a second night! It was a fun little vacation 20 minutes from home.

We came home from the lodge just in time for dinner on Saturday and made Valentine’s fondue! Will’s mom and her best friend Janet were in town for the evening so they got to join us! Since there were a couple more people than usual I used my induction cooktop with my enameled dutch oven in the center of the table for the cheese course and then used my hand me down fondue pot for the chocolate dessert course! It worked pretty well.

Then the next day we headed up to Maine to go visit my parents and go skiing. We skied all day presidents day and then drove back home. But we left Julius there! He got to spend the rest of the week hanging with my parents and skiing! Lucky! Patricia was heartbroken. She missed Julius a lot. Julius told me the first day he called that he missed us which broke my heart. And he told my mom that he missed Patricia several times. We were so glad to have him back home. We spent the weekend at the library, tapping maple trees with the scouts and vegging at home with movies and homemade pizza and treats. Then we had a snowpacolypse which lead to two days of cancelled school… (sidenote: I hate having to work on snow days). That brings us to today! Hooray!

I’m going to show you ladies’ night then next week I promise to show you the Valentines that the kids and I came up with this year…

So we made A LOT of truffles this year. Karoline brought key lime filling and oreo filling (my favorite) and I made chocolate, mint (sidenote I used “mint” instead of “peppermint” extract and I disliked it), peanut butter and lavender. The lavender and key lime were white chocolate and were total disasters! We couldn’t figure out why both mine and Karolines both came out bad until Amy discovered that due to chocolate supply issues they have been swapping cocoa butter with vegetable oil… which does not work for truffles. The centers never set! It was awful! The worst part was we both used tried and true Ghiradelli white chocolate, confirmation Ghiradelli is using inferior emulsifiers. There should be some warning their recipe has changed!

We did the same thing we did last year which was roll all the truffles centers before we ate and them placed them in the freezer (or this year the porch covered in snow) to set. After dinner we dipped them in chocolate that I melted in a double boiler over the portable induction cooktop in the center of the counter. And I got a new double boiler from the thrift shop a few weeks ago that fits right in my existing pans! This is great because the last one I owned was not induction friendly and I donated it.

This year for food I went with my vegetarian cassoulet that I usually serve at Solstice, plus French bread and a spinach salad with onions, apples and pecans that Amy threw together for me while I put everything else on the table. I did remember to take pictures of the ladies this time though so you’ll have to enjoy these instead. I need to have ladies’ nights more often they always bring me joy (and hopefully they bring everyone else joy).

Truffles!
Emmie’s amazing Galentine’s outfit
Dipping!
Finished truffles!
The one picture I got of the food. Plus Amy modeling the bread.
After rolling out truffles!
I stuck my head in here too
Posted in Culinary Delights, Parties | 2 Comments

Tea-rrific Birthday

Posted on February 3, 2026 by lexicolton

Hello friends. Last week was not ideal. Two snowdays, lice, frozen then busted pipes, double vision issues and the worst TMJ I’ve ever had (probably from stress?!) Good news is, it’s a whole new week! I know a lot of you had it far worse with no power and heat for weeks! Much more stressful. So I really can’t compare but it was not a great week for me.

This weekend we are visiting my brother and sister in law and finally seeing their (not so) new house that they bought 2 years ago! The kids are excited to see their cousins and because of postponement due to weather across the South a couple weeks back we even get to be there for Ari’s birthday party. We are looking forward to it.

Speaking of birthdays I realized I didn’t even show you Patricia’s party! Patricia asked for an “animal tea party” this year and as you know I’m rather a tea party afficionado so I didn’t need to do much to make that happen. Because she wanted to invite her whole class (20 kids) plus a couple others and I knew parents would ask to bring siblings, I rented out the community center cafe for the party! It worked great.

This is the one party where I did not have too many crafts, in fact I ran out of crafts. It is so kid dependent how long they spend on something that I totally stand by my usual inclination to have twice as many activities than they need. Luckily it was unseasonably warm out and my mom suggested we play some outdoor games with the kids like farmer and the dell and what time is it Mr fox. They seemed to enjoy that.

Theme & Invites

I don’t know the emails of most of the people in Patricia’s class so I did old fashioned paper invites! I made these on MS Word… they did the trick.

Decor

From past parties, you’ll know I have a collection of tea cups. I added a few more this time around from the thrift shop, and also bought a bunch of pretty plates that I turned into tea party tiered trays for cheap! I wanted there to be one per table, and ended up with a few extras that I used for cupcakes. I bought sheets from the thrift store that I turned into tablecloths and splurged on some paper plates from Michaels that look like real china. But the real pièce de résistance? A streamer chandelier that covered the ceiling and had a (I know I went against my rules) golden 5 balloon. Will gets full credit for putting that up exactly to spec. I never would have been able to reach the ceiling and he did a marvelous job.

Activities

I bought these cute little “aqua puff” animals. Basically they are dry flattened sponges you color with marker and then paint with water to get them to puff up. I figured it would be a good activity as kids arrived. Unfortunately kids arrived in varying amounts of time and some kids took wildly varying amounts of time to make them.

Next I bought a bunch of mini wild animal stuffies (made from 100% recycled materials). I made adoption certificates and little bow ties and hair bows for them to decorate then with as well as little capes for them to decorate and put on. Again, varying amounts of time for these.

Finally I had kids make tea party hats by picking out flowers and bows to put on their hats. I helped them with the bows, they decorated with the flowers using tacky glue and then my mom glued them all down for the kids with hot glue. This worked well and most kids’ hats stayed together!

High Tea

After this we had the actual tea party, described below. All the kids liked the tea choices I picked with many asking for seconds.

Games

After lunch we went outside for a few games, and then back inside for cupcakes and singing.

Food

We had a couple kids with different food allergies so I did not put any questionable items with allergens on the tables with the kids (honestly I wasn’t even going to serve anything with any known allergens but my friend, whose child has an egg allergy, convinced me she wanted to eat egg salad so I made an exception… Plus it’s Patricia’s favorite). Frustratingly some parents didn’t tell me their kids had food allergies (partially my fault because I usually put it on the invite and didn’t this time). Luckily it was an allergy I had accommodated for as a “just in case” (and I’d taken pictures of the things I had purchased instead of making from scratch so the parent could double check). As for food prep, I brought a toaster oven to heat up the crumpets but everything else was prepared in the morning and put in the fridge until we served it. The labels made it easy to remember where everything should go.

Menu

  • Mini Crumpets served with jam and flower shaped butter (these were a huge hit)
  • Egg Salad on Sourdough Rolls
  • Sunbutter and Jelly sandwiches (store bought bread)
  • Turkey and Cheese sandwiches on rolls (no mayo, store bought rolls)
  • Cucumber and Cream Cheese sandwiches (bread not homemade)
  • Fruit Salad
  • Teacup Cupcakes
  • Raspberry Herbal tea
  • Paris Herbal tea
  • Assorted seltzers
Posted in Culinary Delights, Thrift Finds | 2 Comments

Moxie Boxy

Posted on January 27, 2026 by lexicolton

Well I really meant to post last week. I really did but I started reading Manacled and physically and mentally could not do anything else until I finished that. It was a struggle to live life last week with the knowledge that if it weren’t for <playing with the children/working/eating/sleeping> I could be reading that book. Man I loved it. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a book that much since ACOTAR. Suffice it to say I’m now in a reading slump because nothing else compares.

Julius has been baking for us every weekend in his easy bake oven. It’s really cute. He seems to really enjoy it, even more than I did as a child. We got him a cookbook that has a bunch of recipes so you don’t have to make the kits and he’s been cruising thru it. I think he’s made a dozen recipes. Patricia has been playing with her easel almost daily as well, which means I’m greeted to a new assortment of colors decorating the floor. (But at least it’s not on the carpet anymore!) I’m glad she’s so creative and it’s fun to watch her paint. The kids have also been doing a really good job picking up after themselves a bit more. We did a huge clean up after Christmas because we literally had too many toys to fit in the house. We got rid of a bunch before Christmas too, but seeing what they got for Christmas made the kids realize there were a lot of things they were just never going to play with again (read: Will donated and threw everything away while they protested.)

In all honesty though I was at my wit’s end with the state of the house on a day to day basis and my therapist suggested having a quick family clean up time in the evenings, and try to make it fun. So we dubbed it the ten minute tidy (anyone remember The Big Comfy Couch?) and each kid picks a song to add to our tidying playlist and then we work on an area that mom dubs the most messy. We’ve been doing it daily since before Thanksgiving and I really think it has improved my sanity! It also holds the children a bit more accountable for their messes. Yesterday they surprised me by doing TWO ten minute tidies themselves (they set up Alexa to play songs for them and count down a timer). Today they did another 10 minute tidy before dinner without me asking! Of course they’re not perfect, but it is a relief to have them even notice the disaster.

Speaking of organized I want to show you the silly thing I made for Will for Christmas. So for a while I’ve been wanting to make Will a board game carrying case. The idea is for him to take a bunch of games out of their boxes and bring them in a hard sided carrying case. Will usually brings a bunch of boxes of games and the boxes get all crushed. He’s tried bringing just the components in his backpack but then the cards and boards get bent. This, in theory would solve those problems! The key dimension is that it had to be carry on size. I bought a box at the thrift shop before I realized that it would be too big to fit in the overhead or under the seat in front of him. I eventually found a utensil box at Savers that fit the bill: it was small enough for a carry on in all dimensions, and it had a cover with some depth to hold game boards. I would use the bottom to hold cards. If I’d made the box myself completely I would have made the bottom a bit taller so I could fit cards on their side.

The first step I did was removing all the gross interior fabric, and fabric on the bottom of the box. It was in pretty bad shape. I then added a clasp mechanism (taken from the first box I bought, and added a handle for carrying like a suitcase. I added felt to the bottom again, and inside the box I added a strap and pouch to the top area to store game boards and instructions. On the bottom I added a couple slots the width of a standard deck of cards and used balsa wood strips to create dividers. On the outside I added some gilding. (though I realized afterwards that I put the gold meeple the wrong side up in my opinion!)

Ripping out al the gross velvet.
Stitching in an elastic band for the
Adding a meeple using gold foil.
Adding felt to the bottom.
Finished inside
Finished outside.

We took it to Nashville for it’s maiden voyage and it fit A LOT of games; especially card games. It’s not going to fit Dark Tower or Fireball Island, but it will fit a bunch of fun favorites. Check out everything we took:

Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Thrift Finds | Leave a comment

Reindeer Dreams

Posted on January 13, 2026 by lexicolton

Happy New Year everyone! We had quite the holiday season! We started Christmas Eve off with my parents joining us for dinner… And Patricia had a really high fever! She tucked herself into bed before my parents arrived and slept thru dinner. She did eventually wake up and we played some games, put cookies out for Santa and sent the kids off to bed.

That night Santa came! I was a bit worried he might pass us by because Will and I ended up staying up way too late… The kids this year wrote Santa a note and left out their autograph books which Santa signed! They must have been very good kiddos because they got way too many toys this Christmas. I have no idea where we are going to put everything. I nearly forgot to mention that Julius woke up at 5am Christmas morning with a high fever! So we gave him some Tylenol and sent him back to bed and luckily he felt well enough to open presents at 8am. Then he immediately tucked himself into bed for a nap… My parents came over later in the afternoon with MORE presents before they headed out. Julius seemed to like the easy bake oven the most… and Patricia loved this weighted stuffed cow she got from aunt Mary Elizabeth (fun fact, we got stopped both there and back for the cow. They had to test every seam for explosives…)

We were supposed to leave early on the 26th to fly to Nashville but the family requested we stay home until our kids were 24 hours fever free. We were able to move our flight (for exorbitant prices) to the 27th. Then we woke up on the 26th to find both kids were fever free (yay!) and our flight on the 27th had been cancelled and there were no available flights out on JetBlue for 5 days (boo!). We then scrambled to rebook flights on a different airline for even more exorbitant prices while I waited on hold with JetBlue for over 3 hours before they hung up on me. I was not happy. We had gotten reasonable prices in April and we ended up paying triple the cost for these last minute flights. Luckily we were able to stay for longer because it was the “cheapest” option. I’m grateful that we have enough means to do this (even if it really pisses me off) but I can’t imagine what happened to those folks whose flights were cancelled who don’t have the means to rebook. I hope they were able to have happy holidays wherever they got stuck.

Once we made it to Nashville we had a blast with the Coltons celebrating Xmas part 2, seeing friends and family, going to lots of outings like ice sculptures, the car museum, the pancake pantry, several favorite restaurants and of course playing lots of board games! It was fun to see the whole family and we were lucky that we only had to work one day while we were there!

I have a couple things to show you that a made as presents for Christmas this year, but this week I wanted to show you something silly the kids and I did. Patricia came home before Christmas with reindeer food that she was supposed to sprinkle on the lawn to attract Santa’s reindeer to make sure they didn’t miss our house. They were really excited about it but to me it looked like oats mixed with silver glitter… and I’m going to guess the glitter would not be ideal for animals to eat (though I guess we all have a plastic spoon work of microplastics in our brain already… but I want to avoid contributing…) I told the kids that I was worried about the glitter being made of plastic and that we could definitely make our own. Julius was pretty convinced that it wouldn’t work without the glitter because it was reflective to attract the reindeer. Luckily I have a stash of sprinkles (read this as: I have a whole cabinet of sprinkles because I’m a crazy person.) We were able to find a suitable substitute! We used the Sweetapolita Flight of the Unicorn sprinkles with silver edible glitter stars and small silver dragees. (Yes I know these are no longer considered edible by the FDA but Canada still thinks they are and under this regime I’d trust Canada more with my life than the US. Just don’t eat a bucketful!)

We can confirm it works! The kids sprinkled it all over the lawn and woke up to presents and our cookies and carrots gone!

Teamwork
Here’s the finished product
Fevers didn’t stop them from sprinkling magic reindeer food on the lawn.
Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 4 Comments

Happy Solstice 2025

Posted on December 29, 2025 by lexicolton

Happy Winter Holidays to you and yours!

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Holiday Mayhem

Posted on December 22, 2025 by lexicolton

Again posting a week after I wrote this one! Gah!

Another 2 weeks flew by again! We went to the nutcracker, went to some drive thru Christmas lights, saw Santa, went to the Hudson Holiday Stroll and rode a horse drawn carriage, hosted 3 sets of people, went to 3 parties, mailed out Chrismas cards and barely had time to sleep! It has been complete holiday madness! This weekend is solstice so we’ve got even more holiday plans coming up.

I haven’t had a ton of time to craft again this holiday season but I did manage to make a cute craft for my book clubs. And we did a cute little craft at ladies night that I wasn’t sure how it was going to go over, but seemed like it was a hit! I had a completely different plan in mind but when I got around to testing it it was a total fail. I will need to find another use for the clear plastic Christmas ornaments I bought. Luckily I had a backup in mind, so the night before ladies’ night I was able to test out and order black headed pins off Amazon with 1 day shipping (I know, sorry).

For ladies’ night this time I made a raddichio, pomegranate, red bean salad from Rancho Gordo, my mom’s pumpkin soup (made with part of the 5 pumpkins I roasted and froze a couple weeks ago) with fresh sourdough and again my lentil shepherd’s pie. I think the raddichio salad could have used a bit more of a pop of sweetness or else the raddichio should have been cut into smaller pieces to guarantee you’re getting all pieces in a bite. It was my bad for not testing the recipe first! (Yes I did forget to get a picture with all the food… Again).

We also did a cookie swap! People brought some amazing cookies! Spumoni, hot cocoa, shortbread, pistachio chocolate chip, buckeyes and gingerbread bars. They were all amazing (and devoured quickly). The kids and I need to make some more for Santa.

The silly craft we did was making cork dog ornaments. Most folks in the group have (or had) dogs so I thought this would go over fairly well. Everyone went all out making customized dogs and other animals! I was so proud! Amy even made a capybara which cracked me up.

Cork Dogs

What you’ll need:

  • small eye hooks (.062 x 1/2”)
  • small black screws for the nose (#6 x 1/2″)
  • pins with black heads
  • various lengths of finish nails (I used #18 x 3/4″ wire nails but also provided 1.5″ finish nails)
  • corks
  • felt
  • ribbon

To make the corgi

Cut a cork for the head down to 2/3 original size (at the party I provided a little flush cut saw).

Hammer in nails for the legs and tail (or just push them in)

Hot glue the head onto the body, keeping it a bit further back than you’d expect so it’s center of balance is better.

Add pins for the eyes

Add a screw for the nose

Cut out triangles for ears and hot glue them to the back of the head.

Cut a 4″ piece of ribbon for the scarf and hot glue around the neck (to cover the hot glue from putting the head on).

Add an eye hook for hanging (may need to be on the head to hang properly).

Display proudly.

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Hot Cocoa Dreams

Posted on December 3, 2025 by lexicolton

Well we had a blast at Thanksgiving with my family. We all stayed at my parents’ house and my siblings and their spouses and family all came to town. We played games, did a 2000 piece puzzle, went to the zoo lights, and had STUMP FEST (where we decorate our Christmas tree stumps from years past). The kids had a blast playing with their cousins. They were all crying when they left for the airport today (so was I!)

I felt like I was ahead of the Christmas rush this year having already bought most of my Christmas gifts and finished my cards and calendars, but then 4 swaps got added to my calendar. So close. My first one is this weekend and I can’t wait to share you one of the things I made for it. Not yet though! We had our first snow of the year on Tuesday and I’ve been thinking warm thoughts and cooking warm meals. Patricia has had hot cocoa 3 times already this season! (Though I haven’t made any of it.)

Speaking of hot cocoa… when camping I started buying the little prepackaged bags of oatmeal because it was easier. I like the Kodiak brand because it has slightly less sugar, and supposedly more protein (not sure how). Julius and I decided we preferred the chocolate chip version. I decided that I could make that for way cheaper (and plastic free). Julius has eaten several variants, as have I. I decided this is my favorite version. It’s reminiscent of a hot cocoa oatmeal… Note that powdered milk has a lot of sugar in it. That’s where most of the sweetness comes from in this recipe, but the mini chocolate chips add a little pop of sweetness. I don’t think this is cloyingly sweet though, and those used to the grocery store version may be disappointed. Fair warning. And full confession – I eat it after the kids go to bed as a dessert sometimes.

I really need to work on how to make these photos less ugly.

Hot Cocoa Oatmeal

  • 1/4 cup quick oats
  • 1 tsp chia seeds
  • 1 tsp powdered milk
  • 1 tsp cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp mini chocolate chips
  • 1/3 to 1/2 cup boiling water (to preference)

Mix all ingredients except water. When ready to serve either pour boiling water over and let stand (covered ideally) for 5 minutes. Or pour room temp water over and microwave for 1-2 minutes. Pour milk on top if desired when serving.

Kids enjoying their oatmeal while camping in Vermont this fall.
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