Hi Friends! I know I’m late again! I was working on some things for my family book club and had to get them in the mail to have any hope of getting them there in advance of our Monday virtual meet up. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking of you all! I got a pin maker. So shoot me a message in the comments with any pins you think would be fun and I can maybe make your dreams come true…
So I promised last week to tell you about my crazy idea for Julius’ Valentine’s. Julius’ 1st grade teacher is the science focused teacher. He loves all the science experiments she does and you may remember that he invited his whole class to his birthday which was science themed. His teacher had everyone bring in their lab coats and goggles from the party for a class photo. Basically they all love science!
So Julius said he wanted to give a science experiment out for his birthday. I decided a fizzy potion experiment (made with household ingredients) would be fun. Of course I tested it out on Julius and Patricia by putting it in their Valentine’s mailboxes. It was just mix the two ingredients (citric acid and baking soda) to form a fizzy chemical reaction and some explanation of the science. Julius thought everyone would love it.
But then I started thinking about it… Giving the kids two baggies of white powder… Might not be the best idea. I did end up contacting his teacher to ask (because a friend convinced me people might make a mess before they got it home, not, surprisingly, because it looked like I was giving the kids drugs) but then wimped out and just decided on a different valentine. Instead we did secret message Valentine’s using red cellophane. They came out cute! Julius was a bit bummed he didn’t get to give out the chemical reaction though…
1. Have your child write a note in light blue marker in a post it note sized square. (My son wrote his on the laptop.) Then scan to your computer. (Note: Julius’ Valentines say friendship day because that’s what his teacher called it.)
2. Make an even sized grid of the post it note sized squares in word so you can later cut them out. (Use my decoder sheet to line up where the photos should go.) Print on white cardstock
3. Insert page you just printed back into printer face down. Print secret encoding sheet on top.
4. Cut sheet into squares. Hole punch one corner of each.
5. Use a cricut or other die cutter to cut out the heart shaped decoder (you will need 2 cut outs per person).
6. Cut a piece of acetate to fit in the heart shaped window of the decoder. Using a glue stick glue the acetate to one side of the decoder (on the wrong side of the paper). Repeat for second side.
7. Glue all around the edges and handle of one side of the decoder (again wrong side). Sandwich both halves together.
8. Use the ribbon to attach the decoder to the secret Valentine’s message.
9. To decode the message simply place the red acetate decoder on top of the squiggles.
Eep! We’re totally 1/3 of the way thru mending March and I can’t think of anything I’ve mended yet! I did take out some things to mend though. We’ll see how far I get with those. If you have things to mend, now is the time to do it!
Life is still a whirlwind here. We slept over the Mystic Aquarium this past weekend with the scouts, which was quite fun (despite the absolute lack of sleep combined with daylight savings start). I thought fixing the clocks to something was a totally bipartisan issue (I have not heard anyone NOT complain about the clocks moving) yet no one has tackled that one. I’m in the “I don’t care whether we adjust to daylight savings or not as long as we stop the changing” camp. Not only are the changes a complete train wreck every year, twice a year (especially when you have pets or kids), but it makes our meetings misalign with everyone else in the world. How annoying. Am I preaching to the choir here?
Patricia and Julius both still crack me up when I least expect it. Last week Patricia had Dr Seuss themed Spirit week. For wacky Wednesday she wore Valentines pants, a Halloween dress, and braided a candy cane into her hair. It was very wacky (much more creative than I would be). When she came home from school this happened:
Me: Patricia, where did your candy cane go?
Patricia: Oh! I ate it for snack!
For some reason the imagery of Patricia taking her hair accessory out and eating it (plus that fact that she tricked me into giving her a candy cane) tickles me.
Patricia is also doing really great reading with the Bob Books right now. I always forget the kids can read, and I had to remove some (of my favorite) lewd magnets from the fridge the other day that they noticed and were asking me about. Then for Valentine’s day Will got me a candle that said “Smells like she’s reading fairy smut again”, which is wildly appropriate. Julius clearly had read it several times and asked me one morning:
Julius: Is fairy smut a real thing?
Me: Yes, but it’s an adult word.
Julius: Like saxy*?
Me: Exactly.
*Note: Julius asked about the word sexy the other day, probably because they use it in Gangnam Style but he mispronounces it and I choose not to correct him.
Speaking of Valentine’s day I cannot believe I haven’t told you about what we gave out to the kids’ classmates. I will tell you the story of how unhinged I am next week. For this week I will tell you that we made Patricia’s classmates scented play dough! I think they came out really cute. Patricia was very proud to help me make the dough and decide on the scents. I will say the lemon came out WAY BETTER than the vanilla. The vanilla scent doesn’t come thru as much as the lemon. I used the same play dough recipe I used to make gingerbread play dough and it comes out soooo soft.
To scent them we added about a tsp of extract to each half batch. Next time it might be better to try something more strongly scented like essential oils. Of course I saved play doh containers for this and added the ingredients and a note to say homemade so they aren’t confused. Patricia dictated the note to write on each one and we I put them with a cookie cutter in these cute little paper lunch bag I picked up (not for this) and sealed them by hole punching thru the rolled down bag top and securing with ribbon.
The key to fitting the playdough in the tubes is rolling it into a log then cutting it into 2.5″ pieces. It looks exactly like a fresh pack of playdoh!
I’m sick. So I’ll keep this post short. I have been trying to reorganize closets and the basement for the last couple weeks and things are finally looking better. It’s so gratifying to see a pile of disorganized stuff turn organized. I tackled the kids’ bathroom closet yesterday which had a bunch of bathmats I haven’t used in years and so many kitchen towels that I had no idea what season was what. I actually had tackled this problem several years back and put them in a couple containers organized by 2 different seasons but I couldn’t fit them all in the two buckets and everything was hard to get to because I had to remove the bucket to get to it. Everything slowly moved down to a second shelf outside of the buckets taking up even MORE room.
This time I moved to clearly defined stacks of Halloween, Thanksgiving and fall, summer, everyday (and bees), Valentine’s and St Patty’s Day, easter/spring. I also put dividers between them to make the stacks more defined. This may sound obvious but I put the fold of the towels outwards so I can tell where each towel starts and pull it out more easily from the stack. I then moved the cleaning supplies into the old bins I was using for the towels. I really hope this helps keep things organized. I also gained quite a bit of space that I might end up using for more guest sheets and guest towels. Bonus! I wish I had a before view because it was horrendous.
I give those labels a week before the kids figure out they can pull them out. (They are just 1″ thick strips of cardstock)
Oh boy what a day. I have been pretty stressed at work lately and today was no exception plus I had to leave early (ideally before 4) to get Patricia from school to get her to gymnastics. I don’t know why but I can never get there on time. It’s just that 4pm is like the worst possible time for me in my day. The West Coast is just getting back from lunch and Costa rica is going home soon so (like me) they are trying to wrap things up. I ended up getting asked some questions 20 minutes before I needed to leave. It was a disaster most were not quick answers. I told them I had to run and left to get Patricia at like 405. Her daycare is close so I got there at 411 but of course there are no parking spots. I park in the back and go to her classroom. She wasn’t in there but I picked up her stuff quickly and left.
I get to the other classroom and she (for once) doesn’t ask to finish reading the pile of books she has, finishing coloring an entire picture or finish a 36 piece puzzle so I feel like we’re doing pretty optimally on time all things considered. So she runs to her room (while I’m yelling at her to do walking feet and sheepishly apologizing while getting glares from the admins). She remembers she left her tiger and pillow which are both in her nap bag outside the room. Perfect, no distractions from her wanting to hug each classmate before she leaves. But tiger isn’t there. She runs into the classroom, locates tiger and only hugs 2 people before leaving.
We get in the car (pretty optimally timed again because she lets me buckle which is sooo much faster). By this point it’s 4:21. (1 minute past her class start.) Not so bad, the gym is the same distance as home. Oh but wait, we’re parked in the back so we have to go all the way around the building onto a one way road in the wrong direction, turn around in the hospital parking lot next door and loop around that back to the rotary which adds 2 minutes. (The owners at the Inn near the daycare refuse to let us exit out the shared back exit of the Inn and parking lot because they’re assholes they feel it is disruptive to their completely empty parking lotalleged customers. That would save me 2 minutes though every single day (and 2 minutes for Will every single day). Which is what… 250 days * 2 minutes/day… 500 minutes?! Yeah nevermind going with assholes extreme curmudgeons again.
Anyway I digress! I make it to gymnastics, check Patricia in and get her into the class by 4:31. Only 11 minutes late… Sigh. I’m muttering to myself the whole time that I can never get there on time and the other moms are listening and commiserating and making me feel better (even though let’s be honest I have a very obvious time management problem).
Then Patricia comes up to the window to get a drink and is scratching her head a bunch. So I’m thinking ‘please lord of heaven or hell or any other immortal universe that cares to listen don’t let her have lice again’. And Patricia thru the glass sees that ‘oh no is it lice’ look in my eyes and she walks out to see me. The she proffers her head for me to check. So I start looking thru her hair then quickly realize what I’m doing in front of all these other moms and I say ‘I don’t see anything you’re fine’. But now I’m embarrassed and all I’m thinking about is lice so I mutter to no one in particular ‘she’s had lice several times’. As if this is somehow going to make it better. Then I remember she only had lice once… which probably wouldn’t have been much better of a comment anyway but the damage is done. Now all these moms are probably thinking I sent my daughter into gymnastics with lice even though it’s probably just dry skin (she has terrible eczema as does Julius). One of them even made a loud comment like “well I really hope it’s not that” and made a pointed look at the other mom who chuckled and shook her head. Mortifying. Then I had to sit there for 20 more minutes pretending like I didn’t care about anyone else’s opinion and pretending to work while actually stressing out over how Patricia and I are never going to make new friends because of lice and trying really hard not to scratch my own head which was suddenly very itchy.
How have I become such a weirdo hermit in just a few years?!
Well, all that aside I’ve got a new plan. My BFFITWWW says this vegetarian pie is delicious so maybe I can make new friends by giving them pie! Forget “marry me” shepherds pie this is “Be My Friend You Won’t Regret It even though I’m a weirdo who brings up lice in public” Shepherds Pie.
It’s not much to look at, but trust me, it’s tasty. Actually I just realized it’s even vegan if you don’t put dairy in the potatoes!
Be My Friend Veg Shepherd’s Pie
Ingredients:
16oz Mushrooms, sliced (I like baby bellas)
1 Onion, cubed
1.5 c lentils (ideally french green lentils but brown will work)
.5 tsp mushroom powder (you could probably omit this)
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp gravy master
1 bag of frozen peas and carrots
2 Tbsp veggie boullion and 5 cups water or 5 cups veggie broth
3 bags garlic instant mashed potatoes (I know, I know homemade are probably better)
1 Tbsp corn starch
Saute mushrooms and onions in olive oil on medium-high heat until onions are soft and mushrooms are browned and releasing their juices. Add lentils, mushroom powder, soy sauce, gravy master and veggie boullion & water or broth. Simmer for 25 min. Add carrots and peas and simmer an additional 5 minutes or so until peas and carrots are cooked (add more water if things are starting to look dry). Salt and pepper to taste. Add 1tbsp corn starch mixed with 1 tbsp water and simmer 5 more min.
While the lentils are simmering, prepare the mashed potatoes following package directions. If they only call for water I prefer to substitute milk for some of the water after your water has boiled.
Finally assemble in a 9″x13″ casserole dish. First pour the lentil mixture on the bottom and spread so it’s even, then add mashed potatoes in a layer on top until completely covered. Take a fork and rough up the mashed potatoes a bit. From here you can refrigerate overnight if desired.
Bake in 400 F oven for 20 to 25 minutes until lentils are bubbling and the top is browned a bit.
Hello dear friends! Trying to get a blog post in. Despite having to work some of the weekend it was a good weekend overall! We started off with some Valentine’s day dinner! This year we opted for crepes! The crepe filling I made was incredibly easy. I sautéed mushrooms and onions then added in baby spinach until it wilted and finally melted cream cheese in it. It was amazing. I usually make something similar using béchamel sauce, but this was way faster since I didn’t have to measure anything for béchamel. We had both savory and dessert crepes and the kids seemed to like both. (Though Patricia ate most of hers with just cheese inside and Julius ate most of his savory crepes plain with cheese on the side.)
Because I had to work we decided not to go skiing in Maine. Julius was absolutely heartbroken. To make it up to him I decided to plan some Valentine’s events the rest of the weekend. We had a Valentine’s tea party for a late lunch on Saturday. I have a LOT of heart cookie cutters, so I really put those to good use. For tea sandwiches we made cream cheese & cucumber (classic) and chickpea curry (I think it doesn’t taste great on bread though). Julius helped me fold napkins into hearts and did a really good job. Oh! And the kids made us Valentine’s cookies for the tea party. I gave them homemade sugar cookie dough and cookie cutters for Valentine’s day. Of course they also wanted to get out other cookie cutters so Julius also made a boat and Patricia made a dolphin. They were quite pleased with them and they tasted excellent with tea.
I also caught up on laundry this weekend! For the first time in like 8 weeks the dirty laundry baskets are empty! (Well they were empty until the kids put today’s clothes in them. And the clean laundry baskets are full, but I’ll take what I can get!) I have to focus on the little things given all the craziness these days. Oh and I should report back that the truffles were some of the best we’ve made! The lavender were amazing (I will need to remember to make a double batch next year), and most of the chocolate was perfectly tempered. The peanut butter ones were delicious and I don’t think I got to try a chocolate one but Julius told me the inside was “really good”. As part of their gift I made the kids little Valentine heart boxes on my Cricut that perfectly fit one of each truffle inside. I actually made the pattern last year but it seems I never posted it! I will tell you that it came out better this year. Last year I used tape glue to adhere everything and they fell apart instantly. This year I tried a hot glue gun and it worked so much better!
1. Follow the instructions on your cricut to cut your box (make sure to select cardstock). You will want this to be right side DOWN so that it can score properly and so it can trace out a heart guideline.
2. Punch out your pieces.
3. Fold the side pieces on the tabs under.
4. Make your top piece by hot gluing the side pieces on starting at the top center of the heart. Line up the edge of the tabs with the outside of the black line drawn with your cricut.
Note: use a glue gun, trust me. Also this was me testing, but you’ll want the tabs lines up with the OUTSIDE of the heart, not the inside.
5. When you reach the end (back at the beginning of where you started gluing) trim to 1/4″ and fold. Glue this tab to where you started.
Again, just a glue gun.
6. Using the small heart, trace a heart on the right side of your box bottom in the center. This will be your guide.
7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 using the small heart tracing as the guide.
8. Place the small heart guide inside the bottom of the box.
9. At this point you can add in 3 small mini muffin cups to the box, and your candy!
Hi Everyone! I am still alive! I know this is my longest hiatus between posting in…well…a long time. I’ve gotten some concerned texts so I just wanted to assure everyone I am okay and just severely busy at work. I have been so busy I have barely had time to craft in several weeks. I only barely finished my mom’s birthday present (which was to fix the pleather on one of her bags) because I stayed up late every night the week before her birthday.
In other news I will tell you that I love Valentine’s Day with our kiddos. We took out the Valentine mailboxes and the kids have been making Valentine’s for each other. It warms my heart both because they are crafting but also because they are an adorable brother & sister combo. I hosted my yearly truffle making Ladies’ night again this week and I was very excited. I’ve been so busy as of late that I haven’t seen everyone in ages. It was fun to get together! I’m hoping I can do more events in the winter doldrums.
I was a wee bit worried I wouldn’t get everything prepped in time since last night I shopped for groceries, cleaned the house, made dinner for tonight and made chocolate fillings. I ended cutting one of the 4 fillings since it got so late and had to switch to a frozen loaf of bread instead of fresh but otherwise I got everything done!
I think this was our best batch of truffles yet! Amy and Karoline and I rolled the truffles when they first arrived and put them in the freezer. Then we ate dinner when Kathy and Mary arrived. For dinner we had salad with spinach, red onion, pecans and apples; lentil shepherd’s pie and sourdough bread. The bread (frozen and thawed) was awful! It somehow got stale thawing overnight? I’ve never had that happen though usually I eat the defrosted bread a couple hours after I take it out of the freezer. Maybe that was the problem? Everything else was great though!
After dinner we tempered the chocolate and then dipped all the balls that by this point were frozen! I tempered the chocolate in the center of the island on a portable induction cooktop and it worked really well. I think these chocolates came out the best ever! We made peanut butter from this recipe, then the usual chocolate truffles and lavender truffles. Everyone thought the peanut butter filling this year was great so I’ll have to note that for next year. Also I don’t know how I forgot to take a picture of the table (and Amy who had to leave a bit early). Happy Galentine’s Day!
I finally finished two projects that have been cluttering my back room for over a year. The first project is this little roll top desk that Julius has been asking me for ages to fix. I don’t know where it came from but the bottom of the drawers said “Ralph”. My grandpa’s name was Rolf but some people called him Ralph so maybe it was his? Or maybe it’s just from a yard sale! Nobody knows. It was in okay shape but the roll top part was awful. You could not roll it back. One day a few months ago I finally got annoyed enough to take the thing apart. The roll top part had been repaired but very poorly with this awful pleather material that was falling apart, was very bulky and was not very smooth to slide. I started ripping the thing apart slat by slat… And that’s when I realized I couldn’t go back… It was time to actually fix it.
First though I painted it. I asked Julius if he wanted it white or to leave it the color it was. He wanted it white. I have been dying to try milk paint for a while so I started covering it up with that but it all flaked off after drying. My mistake, I was really hoping it hadn’t been sealed. I sanded it all off then changed over to latex paint but the only white latex paint I had in the house was flat paint. So after I had it beautifully white I painted over it with a water based polyurethane…. And completely ruined it. The wood stain from below started leaking through! I decided to leave it because I was just fed up. Not my best work (honestly I think it looks worse than the original, but I really blame that on the paint) though the roll top is at least finally totally functional! If nothing else, it’s in Julius’ room and out of my basement…
But this other project is the one I’m itching to tell you about. I got this box off the free site and let me tell you the original box looks really cute in pictures but it was a MESS. I was the 10th person to say I was interested and I guess I should have been suspicious when it made it all the way to me. The box is huge! The hardware was hideous (and they’d carved out chunks from the top of the box to fit the ugly hinges). It was also covered in wax and something sticky on the top that I could never really get off. The wood was really dinged up, the bottom particle board was warping from dampness and the bottom was held up by these gross 2x4s which were wasting 3 inches of box depth. It was also on casters which I didn’t put back on but could have.
This is the bottom and back of the box with the casters removed and the bottom removed – it’s on the right – yuck. From afar it’s not bad! It’s actually really cute! But look at it zoomed in. Not ideal. I would have had to refinish the stain. I got rid of that string holding the box cover opened as well as those hinges…Here you can see part of the ugly rope peeking thru.
I first tried to clean it and succeeded somewhat but that lead me to notice all the random gouge marks and paint splatters covering the surface (especially on the lid). So then I removed the bottom of the box and refitted it with a new bottom (made with some 3/4” plywood leftover from the pull out cabinets I made a few years back).
See the new bottom I put on?
Then I decided to whitewash it because I wanted it to match the costume chest I made for the kids a couple xmases ago. This time I sanded it all down lightly and used the milk paint to do the whitewashing. The box took the milk paint better than the desk but I wish I’d done a second coat. When I finished white washing everything I realized how horrible the top looked white washed because of all the blemishes I mentioned previously. I started brainstorming another solution.
That’s when I saw the foam that’s been sitting in my basement for years from the climbing wall I put up in the garage ages ago. I’ve been itching to do a button tufted something so this seemed the a good opportunity. The problem was my foam is a little bit… Tall. So I didn’t want to put any additional batting in top for extra loft. It still worked but I think it would have looked better if I just went for it and added the batting to make it look less square. The button tufting wasn’t too hard! It makes me want to do way more! After sending the inside of the box lid, I cut my foam to size using an old broken serrated cake knife. Then I cut out 1” deep strips of the foam where the slats were on top. Then I cut a rectangle of fabric to fit over the top of the container. I then marked my button locations and used a large tapestry needle to stitch both ends of a piece of kitchen twine thru my fabric and the foam cushion in the place marked. I threaded the other end thru another button, pulled it very tight then tied it off.
Here’s me marking out all the button locations. Here I am removing the strips for the top of the box to fit inside. Here I’ve fed thru all the buttons but haven’t pulled them tight. Here I am tieing off the buttons on the back. This is after I’ve stapled the fabric on the cover. This is the outside whitewashed with the fabric on top.
When all the buttons were complete, I stapled the fabric onto the underside of the lid. To cover up the ugly staples and unfinished fabric I more discretely stapled woven trim on top of the unfinished fabric along the border.
Next I changed out the hinges and added a mechanism for holding the box opened (the previous owner was horrified I was going to use it as a kid’s toy chest as they got lots of bruises from the lid hitting them in the head… Apparently the lid holder is called a lid stay. The hinges I used were 3″ door hinges.
Then I took all the hardware off and painted the box. This part took me by far the longest. I found some cute images on the internet as inspiration (here, here, and here) and then hand sketched my own versions of each. Then I traced my hand sketchings onto the box. Finally I painted them. It took forever, but I kind of love it.
Here’s the shark (side 2)Here I am painting tentaclesThis is me repainting the words because I didn’t like the color (it didn’t show up!)
Finally I coated it in 3 coats of water based poly, re-fastened the hinges and lid stays and then had to decide on the handles. The previous owners had these really ugly ropes for handles and they’d cut these huge holes in the side of the box that were both different distances apart from each other. I wanted to cover the holes up so I made some leather straps from some scrap leather I had, and some old bolts I had lying around. This is my least favorite part of the box. I’ll probably change them out eventually, but for now it works.
Coating the box in water based polyCutting out scrap leather for the handles.
Overall I’m pretty happy with it, and even more happy it’s out of my back room and holding the kids’ costumes! I had all the things in my stash (yeah I know I am a horder) except the hinges. Which cost me about $6. If you consider that as the cost, I think it’s pretty good!
Happy Monday Tuesday dear friends! It’s only January and I’m once again thinking there are just not enough hours in the day! I’ve been trying to finish up a couple projects that have been sitting in my back room for AGES and I’m making some progress! I hope to finish both this weekend because now they are not just taking up my back room but also taking up the main area of my basement! One of my new year’s resolutions should be to clean out and organize the back room. It sort of unofficially is… You remember the advent calendar that took me a decade to finish? That was one of the items in the back room! One box – cleared! Unfortunately right after I cleared that box off the shelf I inherited 2 more boxes from the cub scouts and I have literally no idea where to store them. I already can’t fit my own stuff!
Speaking of fitting stuff…(I just re-read this and still decided not to cut it) from Julius’ birthday alone I added another box of “science equipment” to my shelves. The good news is he wants a cooking birthday next year (at least he says that now) so most of the stuff I bought was actually measuring cups and spoons which I can use again next year! Bonus!
I am shocked that I haven’t finished all the birthday posts yet. I’ll add this one about the unicorn headbands I made and then I just have one more I think. Maybe two. I will be honest, the unicorn bands came out adorable! But they fell apart! I almost never use hot glue if I can avoid it, and this is the exact reason. It never holds things on properly. Next time I would completely cover the headband with fabric like I did for the disney ears. I think even if I still used hot glue it would be a better base for the horn to stick to. Despite that they looked cute for the party so that’s half the battle.
Unicorn Headbands
What you’ll need:
blank headbands (I would recommend ones pre-covered in fabric)
1. Start by cutting out your gold fabric, folding in half and sewing along the unfinished edge to form a cone.
2. Turn right side out then take a 14″ piece of silver elastic and knot one end. Insert inside the horn and pull thru the top.
3. Stuff the horn with stuffing and then take the silver elastic and wind it around the horn. (You should strategically glue it in spots down the way.) Tie it at the base of the horn.
4. Glue the horn right onto the center of the headband.
5. Cut out 2 unicorn ears from template. Glue ears on either side of the horn about 1-1.5″ inches to either side. Do this by putting a stripe of glue in the center of the ear, attaching it to the headband, folding the ears up then gluing them together.
6. Glue flowers around the horn in a cluster, covering up the ugly glued on part of the horn.
Well it’s back to the old grind today for me. Last night I slept like I was in the back of a cement mixer. (So basically I woke up like 8 or 9 times.) Honestly I might be the kind of person to be able to sleep in the back of a cement mixer so maybe this is a bad comparison. I guess it was all the dread of going back to work. Though the holidays and their associated craziness are still a form of work, it’s different when it’s all for fun. Plus my mom took on the brunt of hosting during Chistmas. Despite not making any presents for the kids for Christmas we had a lot of gatherings that require prep work! And one silly tradition we’ve started that you may have noticed on our cards this year. But before I talk about that, I just want to comment about how we are so lucky we ended up with two great kiddos instead of just the one.
Julius and Patricia are so cute to watch together. They played together all break and really (except for a very light amount of teasing) they didn’t get tired or frustrated with each other. Right before break there was a Cub scout pot luck and I had the kids make cards for someone they loved. Patricia made one for Julius and Julius made one for Patricia. It was the sweetest thing ever. Yesterday they insisted they were going to sleep in the bed they had made in the hallway and were incensed when we told them they couldn’t sleep in the same bed. They settled on sleeping in different beds in Julius’ bunks.
Another sweet moment was witnessing this conversation:
Patricia (to Will): Daddy I want to go outside in the snow.
Will: Ask if Julius wants to go with you.
Patricia runs upstairs
Patricia: Hey Julius, after you get your clothes on do you want to go outside and sled me around in the sled?
Julius: Yes I’d love to do that.
Patricia (shouting down to Will): He said he’ll go outside with me!
So the new tradition we have started is celebrating the winter solstice. Not just one of the solstice based holidays but the actual shortest day of the year. (I know I’ll have to celebrate summer solstice too, but one pagan thing at a time people or Will will catch on.) So last year we celebrated by leaving the lights off when the sun went down and lighting candles and a fire in the fireplace for light. We then had dinner by candlelight and had a yule log cake for dessert. After dinner we celebrated by looking at the stars and the moon through a telescope (first time my kids had looked in one) and then reading books by the fire before bed. It was a blast! And super cozy. Julius talked about the yule log cake for the entire next year. So… we did it all again this year!
Candlelight solstice dinner (ignore the reflection on my face)
Patricia and I were home by ourselves for the beginning of solstice so we built the fire and threw some rosemary on the fire for a nice spiritual cleansing. (I told Patricia because Julius and Will were going to be at a birthday party we would do witchy things by ourselves at home. She shouted “go away bad witch” when she threw her bundle of rosemary into the fire. Not sure if she thinks all witches are bad or just some but I guess sending bad witches away is always a good thing.) Patricia and I also made a delicious vegetarian cassoulet (aka just a big old pot of white beans) with bread crumb topping. I’ve made vegetarian white bean cassoulet a few times, and this recipe is definitely the best we’ve tried. Will had thirds and that’s saying something. My only substitutions were to use a couple sprigs of rosemary in place of the thyme (I still, despite my best efforts, despise thyme).
Not super attractive by candlelight I promise it was delicious!
Of course we also had crusty sourdough and a winter spinach salad.
My yule cake also came out amazing this year! Julius helped me decorate by adding some bark patterns on the ganache. I think the key was not overcooking the cake and rolling it up immediately out of the oven. Mine didn’t crack at all! I used this recipe for all the parts of the cake and I highly recommend it!
Wow. That really looks like a log! I’m all about that buche
For fireside reading I gave each of the kids a book I thrifted and Will read to them by the fire while I tried to finish the actual text based normal book (read: not audio based) that I’ve been reading. It was nice to catch up on some reading in such a cozy spot. The 21st was a Saturday this year so it was the perfect start to the holiday week.
If you made it this far I have to relay another cute Patricia quote. For context we were watching descendants, which has a bad guy named the boogie man who causes bad dreams.
Patricia (indignant): He didn’t make my bad dreams! I did!
She wasn’t mad the boogie man was giving people bad dreams, she was mad he was taking credit for the bad dreams she had created. Touche!
Hello friends! I hope you enjoyed/are enjoying some winter solstice based celebrations. And further I hope when you read this (most likely in the new year) you are having a happy start to 2025! Happy New Year! The kids and I did a bunch of New Year’s Eve themed crafts today a la Pinterest. I wanted to do the typical New Year’s Eve count down at 12pm (aka Noon Year’s Eve) but for yet another year I couldn’t get my act together in time. Instead we decided to prep everything for post dinner celebrations. We called it “crafternoon” and got down to business after lunch doing some gluing, painting, cutting, taping and stickering. Then the kids decided they wanted fondue for New Year’s Eve dinner so we whipped up some of that. Side note, fondue is incredibly fast to make! Like, you can make it on a week-night fast! I’m going to have to log that away for later. I’ll post the recipes I used below.
Sigh, while Halloween is my favorite holiday, the winter celebrations are a very close second! The New Year always triggers an end to those joyful celebrations. My siblings all went home yesterday which always makes me sad! Will is extra sad, I’m sure, because that also signals the end of more eager board gamers living with him. I am just not as eager, I fear. I’m more of a do all the crafts type person. Luckily Will is out having some game night fun tonight with friends to continue his streak.
Speaking of do-all-the-crafts I think this is the first time in several years that I haven’t made anything for the kids for Christmas. It made me feel like a total failure! I had so many ideas and I accomplished none of them. On the bright side I did use the furoshiki wraps that I finished after last Christmas for all the Christmas presents and I had WAY MORE than I even needed including using them to wrap presents from others that had been shipped to us! We saved SO MUCH PAPER! What a great feeling. We hope we didn’t counteracted it with all the deliveries to our house. I can’t even fathom how bad that is. I’ll have to make an effort to buy more things local next year, though it really is very difficult to find things in stores these days. Especially when the only brick and mortar toy store is 45 minutes away from us. Target has a great toy section but it doesn’t cover all the things the kids asked for this year for Christmas. Though really no toy store would.
Patricia and Julius really don’t like to write Santa letters. Last year and this year we asked over and over again to have them write Santa a letter. They refused, on the reasoning that they asked Santa what they wanted in person. We went to see Santa at the beginning of December and they each asked for one thing. Patricia asked for “100 dolls in boxes” (we did have a chat about greed but it bounced right off her) and Julius asked for “a cheesecake”. Huh. Patricia ended up getting one American Girl Welly Wishers doll (and accessories) from Santa and shortly after opening it cut off half its hair. I had a near heart attack when I found the clump of hair in the bathroom. It should be noted that she did not choose to do this to the offbrand 14.5 inch doll that Mama and Dada got at Target for 1/4 the price, she targeted the Welly Wisher. Sometimes I wish I could bottle her curiosity for cause and effect.
Julius found a note under the tree on Christmas morning telling him to check the fridge. It appeared some jolly elf had left a brown pastry box in the fridge that had a sticker from “Mrs. C” on it. It had a block of cheese inside… that it seemed was actually a cake. A cheesecake to be exact. Mrs. Claus must be a bit of a prankster sending him a cheese-cheesecake. I bet she had fun making that. Julius said it was awesome, but not quite as good as the jelly cake.
New Year’s Afternoon Soiree with Kiddos*
*can I count this as a party? I don’t know but I’m going to, I don’t get out much anymore.
New Years Eve Noisemakers (I’d just gotten a bunch of bells from Michaels on Xmas Clearance. This is what I was doing yesterday instead of writing this blog post).
Recycled Party Poppers (instructions below)
Food
We made a half recipe of this awesome cheese fondue. The only difference I made was to omit the Worcestershire sauce (it’s not vegetarian), added 2 Tbsp of corn starch with a tablespoon of water and I brought it back up to medium to come to a simmer while stirring with a rubber spatula the entire time. It almost instantly became the right consistency when it started to simmer and I didn’t have to wait 5-8 minutes. Will even liked this recipe because it was made with cheddar. Will is not a fan of the swiss cheese varieties, even though Julius and I think they are great. For dippers we served with cubed homemade sourdough (obviously), raw carrots, broccoli, pepper and celery, apples and cherry tomatoes. I didn’t bother serving with a salad because the kids ate more than their share of veggies this way with no prompting.
For dessert we happened to have all the ingredients for chocolate fondue on hand including marshmallows, strawberries and some unfrosted sugar cookies I had made for xmas that I chopped up for dipping. I used this recipe (again halved) and melted the chocolate on low and it was perfect.
At 7:30pm we did a count down and watched a recording of a past NYE ball drop. The kids played their kazoos and shook their noisemakers when we got to 0. Then the kids said they wanted to do their own ball drop with the disco balls we made. So they counted down to 10 and dropped them off the balcony. And finally they launched pom poms at me (then cleaned them up) before they headed up to bed.
Recycled Party Poppers
What you’ll need (for each):
1 toilet paper tube
1 toilet paper wrapper (or tissue paper)
Additional scraps of tissue paper or TP wrappers
string or ribbon to tie the ends
Tape
Paper for jokes
a fun little trinket (ours were some little boba tea lip glosses)
1. Cut your TP roll in half. (Honestly having done this several times now I’m not sure they ever break along the center line, so this step is probably unnecessary.)
2. With the scrap TP roll wrapper/tissue paper cut up little 1/2″x1/2″ size squares of confetti.
3. Cut a roughly 1′ x 8″ rectangle of TP roll wrapper/tissue paper then place your cut TP tube in the center on one of the longer ends.
4. Tape on each side of the tube.
5. Slowly roll up the tube in the wrapper until it overlaps. Then again tape each side of the tube.
6. Pinch one end closed and tie ribbon or string around it.
7. Fill with confetti and a joke (the kids wanted to write their own jokes). Then have the kids close their eyes while you put a little prize inside and add more confetti on top.
8. Pinch other end closed and tie off with ribbon or string
