Tank Top Dress and a Little Fashion Model

Hello, blog.

I go hot and cold with this thing.  Half the time I think, what's the point?  Who really cares what you have sewn or what you do with the kids?  But then I remember my mom...and my mother-in-law...and think, hey! They do!...I think...  Ha.  I sometimes feel weird sharing the posts on Facebook...but then I think...isn't that the point of a blog--to share?

I do like having a little scrapbook online here to keep track of what we've done.

We've been busy just doing summer things...which makes it real easy to forget about blog posts. :-)  Nick is in the homestretch of attaining his master's degree in exercise science, so he has been gone all day, every day for most of this summer, so, I have been attending to the kids from morning til night....which makes for sleepy Mommy.

I've been going back and forth between painting and sewing.  I go hot and cold, there, too!  I am painting the corn hole boards Nick made and will share them when they are both finished. I am 50% there.

Next for painting is the play kitchen!  Still waiting for someone to help me with the saw cuts.  Hmmmm.  On a walk with Marin last night, I found another much smaller old piece of furniture that I think I will turn into a mini play kitchen. Maybe Nick didn't notice the new addition to the garage?

I finally got around to sewing a dress I pinned on Pinterest 29 weeks ago!  You better believe I comment on each of my pins when I actually complete one. :-)

Here it is:

Of course, when you stand around taking fashion pictures of yourself (she says with a hearty laugh), this happens:

My little mini-me

I made the sash extra long for reasons beyond my conscious brain.  But it worked out.  Here is the back with the sash tied in a bow:

I am so thankful for my MIL's friend, Nancy, who sent the skirt fabric for me.  There was a lot of it!  She probably intended it for quilt backing.

Here is the link to the tutorial: Tank Top Dress

I have to tell you, though, I had a terrible time dealing with elastic thread in my bobbin.  I still have tons to learn!

In case you had any doubt your little children are watching you...

Our Summer So Far

A visit from Grandma Cinder

A trip to the zoo

Chalk Walk!

Scaling walls

Climbing trees

Getting down from trees

Bruschetta with fresh basil and dill and soon fresh tomatoes!

T-ball

Painting outside

Painting inside

Homemade dill pickles

Being goofy with my brother

Waiting for the fireworks to start in our pajamas

Tie-dye

Traditional trip to Cracker Barrel after camping in C-bus

Blueberries

The big blueberries are down low where no one squats!

Collected by Emory

First red tomato...might get eaten tomorrow! 

College Friends

This past weekend, I had the wonderful delight of spending some time with two of my dear friends I met in college 12 years ago.  It was a brief moment for me to see them, after many years of not, but it was awesome.  Andrea and Christine are best friends, and they came as a pair when I met them in college, I a freshman, and they juniors. Andrea held a surprise birthday party for Christine, who lives out of state.

Andrea was my spiritual mentor and Bible study leader, nurturing me as a young christian. Both ladies were spectacular encourage-ers and great friends with whom I was able to live with my sophomore year in an on-campus house.

First Sunday in the house; housewarming flowers from my sister.

Since we lived together...we ate together...we went to church together...had Bible study together...we did special things together...we all did music together.  Andrea and I organized the praise and worship for our weekly Crusade meetings. She sang and I contributed my voice and guitar and piano.

At Christine's birthday party, I started Marin singing the song, "Our God" to show everyone how much she loves to sing. Andrea and Christine joined in. It was an "ahhhhhhh" moment and it felt so good to hear our voices sing together again.

At a Campus Crusade for Christ leadership retreat

In order to live in a campus house, you and your roommates had to come up with a theme and a laid out plan as to how you would provide service to the community.  We called ourselves "Women of the Word (WOW)," and honestly, I can't remember what service we provided. Ha!  I think we cooked dinner once for all of our guy friends?!?!?  You know...showing them our domestic prowess?  :-P  GREAT service for the COMMUNITY, I know...but one of those guys did end up being my husband...so I guess the domestic proof was in the pudding! ;-)

W-O-W...get it?  Get it?  Shirts made by Andrea

Of course, I had to dig out hard copy photos and *scan* these. The normal person didn't have a digital camera back then.  We didn't take many pictures either!  I guess you didn't if you had to *pay* for film and *pay* for developing.  That just meant, you could live your life without having to capture every moment with a picture!  :-)

Andrea and me

Christine and me

Back when turtleneck sweaters were all the rage

Aren't we cute and so incredibly absolutely funny?  ;-)

Sadly, I have never heard from our fourth housemate again. She was the one I even shared a room and bunk bed with!  Guess that's just how it goes sometimes.

So happy to have briefly reconnected off of Facebook with these lovely ladies!

As American As Strawberry Pie?

A few people have asked me about the strawberry pies I make..."You don't use the store-bought pie filling?"  And the answer is no!

I've kind of always thought that the store stuff tastes metallic.  And it's definitely hopped up on Red Dye #40...and high fructose corn syrup...and sodium benzoate... all things that I want to avoid.

So, here is what I do for strawberry pie.  I know, I know...you're thinking, strawberry pie?  Pfffffffffft. I'm trying to make blog content here people!  ;-)

Start with some strawberries...

These look like enough!

Pull off the stems and wash the berries.  I core them, too, with this nifty little tool from Pampered Chef.

Hmmm...these look perfect to stuff with chocolate or cream cheese!  Naw, let's make a pie.

Add 1 c sugar (although, I use less. I always use less sugar in anything I make) and 2 T corn starch in a small sauce pan.  Mix together. The corn starch will make the mixture get thick once you add the berry juice, but I also toss in a small envelope of unflavored Knox Gelatin, so that the pie doesn't run all over the place when you cut into it.

Next, I cut some of the outer skin of the berries...

I consider myself officially an adult since I can cut like this now.

Strawberry thief!!!

...and place the outsides of those skins face down in a baked pie shell.  I imagine this is a little preventative thing so that the crust doesn't get soggy...but, this pie never lasts very long around here to find out. :-)

Place 1 c berries in a blender and juice it!

Add enough water to make 1 1/2 c of juice.

Pour into dry mixture and stir very well.  Get all of the dry stuff off the bottom of the pan.  Boil for two or three minutes until nice and thick.  Once thick, let the glaze cool for five or ten minutes.

Lick your whisk.

Spoon some of the glaze on top of the first strawberry layer already in the pie shell.  Place the rest of the berries in the pie shell.

Pretty!

And spoon the rest of the glaze on top of the berries.  Add candles if it happens to be your husband's birthday.

Yum!

Oberlin Chalk Walk

The boys and I went to the Oberlin Chalk Walk today and we just enjoyed ourselves so much.  It was so pleasant to just leisurely stroll along without any real agenda other than look at some awesome art and do some coloring ourselves. We even ran into Evander's art teacher chalking away. :-)

The weather was simply GORGEOUS and the boys loved the anticipation of "what's next?" as we came upon each chalk drawing.  There was also time to climb some trees and eat ice cream...and donuts...and cookies.  Oh boy, did I just really list all of those?  Let me just say, we bought cookies at Subway only so we could use the bathroom...and only Evander had ice cream and only Emory had a donut. Phew. I feel less guilty now.

The boys' favorite drawing done by Master Artist Dan Cherney

Working on their pictures

My favorite drawing---of course a sleeping little kitty. :-)

Emory is always Luigi and Evander is always Mario.

The boys loved this!

If we had Batman for the boys, we have to have ponies for Marin.

Another master artist

Sometimes brothers still hold hands <3

We were loving this woman's work on these cupcakes, and then went on to look at other drawings.  I must have used Evander's name to point something out to him, because this woman looked up and said, "Evander, did you draw something?" Okay, it's strange for a stranger to use your kid's name...but the mystery lady ended up being Ms. Wolosz, Evander's art teacher from school!  I am sorry her eyes are closed in this picture...but I couldn't see much of my camera in the bright sunlight and I guess it was bright for Ms. Wolosz, too. :-)

Inspired to draw a cupcake

"Mommy, I drew a floating head!"

Marin would have said, "My deeeeerie!!!!!"

Robots coming out of the shadows 

Scaling the walls like Spidey boys

Love this!

Love this quote, too.  It's strange to see people smile without showing their teeth!

Naughty, naughty!

Application of sunscreen with chalky hands makes for dirty face

My little miscreant

Love Stories

Another master artist

Emory really liked this whale

Evander thought this looked "ancient"

Sonic!

Strawberry and Banana clash

Oh, yes we did!

Believe it or not, I have a bunch more photos...but I will spare you!  Sorry if you don't like to scroll and scroll and scroll to look at pictures on a blog...but I think I like it this way better than smaller photos side by side. I guess if you are reading this, you have already tolerated scrolling and scrolling and scrolling to view the pics. :-)