Homemade Holidays – Roundup November 12, 2009

Holidays are always a special time in my extended family. My mom’s side of the family takes special pride in picking JUST the right present for someone. It may not have been something you asked for. But it screamed your name just the same! I’ve never opened a present from my mom, sister or aunt and haven’t had the pleasant zing of anticipation for what I’m about to see. Because I know it’s going to be wonderful. It’ll be something I use and every time I pick it up, it’ll remind me that my family loves me.

Ingrid

To me, that’s a gift. Toys are nice when you are a kid. But the cup that my Aunt Carol made special for me, is SPECIAL. And though the mug might be tiny now, I used it for my milk as a child and now as an adult that hand thrown blue and white speckled mug sits in my bathroom as a q-tip holder and I feel loved every time I use it.

The flannel rainbow flame pjs I made for my then 5 year old son are still beloved by my now 8 year old son. Every time he wears them he feels mom’s love. He knows that I love him so much I made him something with my own two hands to cuddle him in his sleep and keep him safe. I keep having to add length to the legs LOL, but he still adores them!

So this year, like every year, I come up with things to make the kids and my extended family. Like my nephew Avery, he’s 5 but he ADORES scientific books. And add that to his dinosaur obsession and we’ve got a little boy who doesn’t want toys, but a whole bunch of our older homeschooling books on dinosaurs, the stars, Egypt, and deep sea fish. Plus some flannel dinosaur pj bottoms that he’ll hopefully wear until he’s outgrown them or my sister has to mail them to me to add some length on the bottom! LOL!!

Then there are the other benefits of a Homemade Holiday…

1. It’s Greener – especially if you have to buy very little and instead can use items around the house – easy for me with my massive craft supplies. You can even push at this a little and buy your supplies locally, plan your trip so that you use the least amount of gas, or even see what supplies you can pick up at your local thrift store. (I do this a lot; buying flat sheets and x-large clothing I can cut down) Plus making sure what you buy is either made in the USA or Europe.

2. Save money – no more multiples of 20 and 40 dollar toys that will soon be broken or forgotten. Instead, have them unwrap handmade one of a kind Yule stockings, pjs, primping items, decorative items and items to help them organize. All for much much cheaper than store-bought prices.

3. Lifetime memories. That’s something no money can buy. Looking at something from 30 years ago and still feeling loved.

So here’s a roundup of things I’m going to be trying to pump out this year. I usually WAY over plan and my serger is on the fritz this year (which makes my anal retentive self do french seams instead of serging *sigh* which adds to the time I’m hunched over a sewing desk) so I probably won’t get all of these done, but I’ll darn sure try!

Rice Therapy Bag – I have 2 sizes of these, a foot long one that is about 6 inches wide and one that is about as big as a Mommy’s hand. One can wrap around necks, or lay on sore tummies, the other can sit upon sore hands, eyes, cheekbones and knees. I really need 2 of each, one for the freezer and one for the microwave! They definitely need covers as they tend to get dirty! And the original bag needs to be made out of fairly tough material. No gauze!

Twirly Skirts or Tiered Skirts

Handmade Patchwork Stockings

Pj Pants – you can make kid pants or pj pants from this great tutorial. I usually do Pj’s for the older kids and reversible for the 2 year old, they keep her little legs warmer and in case of stains, I just flip them inside out! Plus if I make them about 4 inches longer, and fold the bottoms up, they work for 2 years worth of pants instead of just one! Kaia still fits her pants from last year!

Needle Case – really cute needle case idea. I loathe the plastic ones you get at the store and I always end up dumping out a bazillion needles trying to grab one. Or I stab myself or SOMETHING. They just annoy me. These are great because you can keep the sizes YOU want and even add a bit of extra felt to protect your fingers from stabs!

Crayon/Paintbrush/Colored Pencil/Inkpen Organizer Rollup – My 15 year old is seriously into Anime and Manga and draws every day. Often I hear ‘MOOoom, have you seen my xxxxxx?’ with that added huff at the end of it. She sits on her bed or the couch to draw and her things just tend to disappear into couch cushions or bedclothes. My 8 yo daughter draws ALL THE TIME. I hate grounding her from drawing but she’s SO awful about putting her things away. But she’s also really obsessive about purses. So if she had a cute little roll-up for her purse…. hmmmm

Nightgowns (aka pillowcase dresses)

Kaia in her 'pillowcase' style nightgown

Personalized Ornaments – When I was a new mom at 19, with my own apartment. Christmas came by that year and I had *nothing* for decorating. I had to buy all my ornaments at the 99cent store and think about 1 year old Morgan and what would be safe for her. I firmly decided that year that I would buy her at least one ornament a year, and put the year on the ornament somehow. That way when SHE moved out on her own she wouldn’t be faced with nothing to decorate her house with. I decided upon Angels or Fairies as her theme. Morgan at age 15 has about 20 angels and fairies. She’s going to have enough for a small tree by the time she has her own place. So as each child has come along they’ve gotten their own theme (it’s easier to remember whose is whose with a theme) and the kids get SO excited about unpacking their particular boxes of ornaments and the shouts of REMEMBER THIS! ring through the living room LOL!

• embroidered felt ornaments
• felt mittens
• button wreaths
• felt mitten tutorial – really pretty, lots of room for customization
• Patchwork star tutorial
• Beaded Snowflake Tutorial

Rag Rugs – I used to make rag rugs all the time from my scraps. But I have a VERY large hairy dog who has allergies which make her smell if she gets into wheat (and I have a toddler = food crumbs) plus the large hairy dog sheds a lot AND loves rugs to lay on. Washing rag rugs mean that they distress a lot faster and they were getting very worn, very fast. So I stopped until I could come up with a better idea (or steal one LOL!) One day at my friends house. We were cutting fo0d up for dinner together and she pointed down and asked how I liked her new rug. I LOVED it. It was very squishy under my bare feet, protecting my back and arches from the hard floor. She told me it was old t-shirts crocheted together. AH HA went my brain. At home I’d been given a whole bunch of t-shirt neck binding. Rolls and Rolls of it. PLUS some 8 yards of various t-shirt material I’d gotten for a project that I’d found it was ill-suited too. All in colors that would look great with my house. So now I’m crocheting rugs again after 5 years off. They stretch in the washer, then pop right back into shape. They don’t get distressed with lots of extra threads coming off and they are super comfy under your feet. Better than scrap fabric!

Scrap Fabric Magnetic Fridge Letters – Perfect for your toddler or college age kid!

Patchwork cloth napkins – perfect for those friends who want to go green and quit using paper towels, but pretty enough for dinners! I’d made a set in just the absorbent material for everyday yucky mess use and then a patchwork set to use for dinner.

Weekly Menu November 11, 2009

I’m late, yes, I know….

I think I’m going to try to do these Wed to Wed as that’s the day my local grocery has it’s super sales… and Wed is the day they have Super Meat Sales. So I need to let the idea’s percolate in my brain for a couple of days LOL….

So anyways.

Wed - Beef Broccoli with Rice (without the oyster sauce and add a little brown sugar and ginger)

Thurs – MeatLump and Baby Heads with butter and lemon pepper with GF noodles w/ Parmesan (this is a joke, it’s really meatloaf, and it’s really Brussels sprouts, but my kids are sick little jokers)

EDIT - I got sick, so easy dinner was in the cards!

Fri -(was) Spaghetti Tacos (actually) GF pasta alfredo with skinless boneless chicken breasts and broccoli mixed in

Sat – (still sick – was!) Italian Chicken with ‘fried’ garlic green beans and almond rice casserole

Actually! Honey’s Cookin so sausages with homefries in garlic all cooked together in a dutch oven

Sun – We decided to keep doing fighter practice over here for ease of putting small ones down to sleep, and the fact that we have the biggest yard and most varied kid age toys. So Italian chicken and almond rice has been moved to Sun night.

Mon - ‘Thai’ Chicken Soup

Tues - Oven Fried Cube Steak with gravy, homefries and salad

Teen Gluten Free and “Thai” Chicken Soup November 11, 2009

 

 

My 15 yo daughter recently (like a month ago) decided that even though she can’t get tests to say definitively that she has Celiac disease like mom. She can look in the mirror, and she can talk with mom about what Mom’s symptoms were like when she was 15.
Lets see.

1. Stabbing pain under left rib – check
2. Major issues with mood swings and serious depression – check
3. Everything is FULL OF DRAMA AND OMG MOM! – check
4. Headaches every afternoon – check
5. Occasional stomachaches – check
6. Occasional bouts with the Big D – check
7. Occasional neuropathy in hands and feet – check
8. Pretty severe bone/muscle pain a couple of times a week – check

Then throw in some of her own symptoms, like a blood vessel in her hand popping about once a month (very painfully too) and you’ve got a teen who is willing to try and feel better.

This time last year, it was NO WAY mom, I’m not EVAR depriving myself of all these foods that I love.  But then the depression hit, and you would do anything not to feel like that again. Not to mention the daily headaches right when she needs to practice her clarinet and oboe, right when she’s got homework, and right when she’s trying to talk on the phone, type on the internet and do chores at the same time.

So she approached me, I was supportive. I made her awesome lunches to take to school, other kids were jealous LOL. I made sure we had plenty of snack foods and yummy stuff that was healthy for her to have around the house.

Then she started feeling better…. then she started feeling MUCH better.

This of course, seriously upset her. My younger daughters say stuff like ‘thanks Dad for the monkey arms!’ or ‘Thanks Dad for the hairy back!’ But Morgan says ‘Thanks mom for the Celiac!’ with just the right tone of sarcasm! Even though she feels so much better, and even though she’s been prevented from all the medical issues I had as an adult… She still mourns (and whines). I point out that my dad is being tested, that her G. Grandmother has all the symptoms and that BOTH of her parents died of complications from probable celiac disease in the 40’s. But of course it’s my fault (same as the big butt, large upper arms and shortness are all my fault too LOL!!)

My Grandmother and Grandfather in 1950

Luckily. She’s got a mom who is a good cook, and luckily she loves to experiment with foods. (eating them not cooking them) So it’s a simple matter to make delicious food that she loves and is naturally gluten free most of the time.

Then 3 days ago, one of her good friends that lives about 3 houses down from us was put on a gluten-free diet by his doctor. Now she has a buddy to commiserate with. But unlike her, Micheal doesn’t have a family that is supportive, he’s pretty much stuck eating meat and potatoes unless he comes over here. And that gives Morgan an appreciation for just how good she has it.

And that’s never a bad thing for a teen, especially when it’s NOT their mother reminding them LOL!!

So what did Morgan take to lunch today? In her cute little thermos she took a large serving of our ‘Thai’ Chicken Soup.

I invented this a few years ago while pregnant with Morgan’s baby sister and Hot and Sour Soup was the ONLY thing keeping me fed. It killed my nausea and made me feel like 100 bucks. I wanted to know if there were other relatively spicy foods that I could eat and feel better.

Thai Chicken Soup

• 8 cups chicken broth
• 1/4 cup sesame oil
• 1 bunch green onions
• 1 whole chicken
• 1 whole cabbage – regular or Asian – diced
• 1 can water chestnuts
• 1 can sliced bamboo
• 1 can black beans
• 1 jar Thai Spicy Sweet Sauce (GF)
• 2 TB diced garlic
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 2 cups snow peas (optional)

I usually cook the chicken in the crockpot the day before in 6 cups of water. I debone it and use the broth it creates in the stew.

In sauce pan, place oil, garlic, ginger and chicken and sautee for about 15 min. Then place in 8 cups of chicken broth. Add in the diced cabbage, water chestnuts, sliced bamboo, and beans. Simmer for about 20 min. Then add in the sweet chili sauce, snow peas and garnish with the diced green onions to serve.

This soup also has the added benefit of all the goodness of mom’s homemade chicken soup, but with added ’spicy’ to clear your sick head too. It makes a great out of the box comfort food at our house. I usually freeze individual portions after Morgan and I stuff ourselves silly LOL!

October Blog Party October 4, 2009

To participate in this blog party, pledge to do is something holiday related everyday the month of October and blog about it. You do not have to blog everyday, just chronicle what you’ve been doing on each day when time permits. Deadline to join is October 1st.

October 4th

Todays craft is brought to you by Value Village. My 10 year old son is SERIOUSLY into Harry Potter. In fact, the only things he needs to complete his trunk to head off to Hogwarts are some potions bottles and a Nimbus 2000 as well as a trunk to put them in. He’s already borrowed my cauldron that’s from the 1800’s and made in Scotland, and my cloak (it’s even waterproof on the outside!) So when I saw this particular craft for making Beware Bottles, (near the bottom of the page) I immediately thought of Ian and his particular obsession.  Especially as I have probably 20 vintage spice bottles which will be perfect for the craft!

I’ve also got 2 extra boys today, my BFF’s sons and good friends to my sons, they’ve been staying over this weekend. So we are going to be doing this altogether, and then probably making snacks to go with em!

Remember these guys?

That’d be 3 of the boys and my step-daughter! Muddy little hobbits!

October Blog Party! October 3, 2009

To participate in this blog party, pledge to do is something holiday related everyday the month of October and blog about it. You do not have to blog everyday, just chronicle what you’ve been doing on each day when time permits. Deadline to join is October 1st.

October 1st

I put out the Halloween Decorations  – not the lights, but the various colored pumpkins and skulls, the hanging bats, the skeletons, and the house decorations, colored candles, stuffed witches, paper mache candy holders, signs (autopy room in the kitchen for one)

October 2nd

Made Fallish-Dinner, Beef Stew in the crockpot with homemade bread. Hot food! We haven’t had it much, it’s been toooo hot outside for using the oven!

October 3rd

Seasoned 2 cast iron cornbread pans, one shaped like a fish and one like corn. Make gluten-free ‘corn’ bread with sausage, cheese and savory herbs to finish the seasonings. I say ‘corn’ because unbelievable, even though I’ve got 3 months worth of pretty much everything else we eat, we are amazingly out of cornmeal! So I used masa instead and they are really really yummy! Comment if you’d like the recipe!

Kaia’s 2nd Birthday Partay August 9, 2009

what’s This?

Obviously a pink heart right?

Into cutey delicious gluten-free cupcakes!

Bad picture of the castle cake (that’s a vinland flag)

She ate the crown first, then the whole frog head as screams of ’she must be Ozzie Osbourn’s daughter’ rang in the background

and Owyn’s sloppy goblins he cooked in the crockpot with momma’s supervision – he’s eight

My GF Bread vs: Pamela’s Bread Mix July 25, 2009

First, the pictures and I think you’ll come to the same conclusion I did:

View from the top Pamela's then Mine

Texture and Appearance seems very similar

Time for the Taste Test - Pamela's on one side. Mine on the other!

My bread was made with my GF flour mix – the most nutritionally healthy bread mix (unlike rice mixes) that I could come up with which didn’t taste extremely strongly (like bean mixes) and most resembled wheat flour cooking. The muffins, pancakes and other things that we make with it all turn out very well and even our gluten-eaters gobble them down. But bread for sandwiches seems like the ultimate test of your flour mix. Even just a bit off or crumbly and it doesn’t satisfy that deep-set need for ‘just like wheat bread’.

First thing, upon looking at the bread. Pamela’s browned more nicely, and had a smoother top. They both rose about the same however.
I also added flax seed and a 1/4th of a cup mollasses to both mixes. Need those extra bits of fiber and vits/minerals!

Smelling the bread, they both smelled pretty awesome. However, mine smelled a BIT more yeasty than it should. I was a dope and added an extra 1/2 tsp of yeast to the mix just to ’see’. Instead of following what I knew. Darn me and my drive to experiment!

Both mixes were put in the bread maker, same ‘dough’ setting, rose once, and then taken out, put in my grandma’s old pans, let to rise again, then baked.

Both breads had similar texture, and amount of holes. My bread had a few larger holes in it than Pamela’s did, and her bread seemed a bit less crumbly. Plus the strong yeasty smell my bread was emitting!

Taste? Well, taste, Pamela’s won! My bread was much to yeasty, the texture wasn’t quite right due to the crumbly-ness (and had to be toasted to eat the rest of the loaf)

What am I going to do next time I make my own bread? Well, I’m going to use less yeast (ha!) and I’m going to add in a packet of unflavored gelatin to the mix. Plus some powdered milk. I think this might fix most of the problems!

So until next time…

Kombucha Tea = Vinegar! July 23, 2009

Click the picture to go directly to an article by Arwen O’Reilly about Kombucha (picture is her’s as well! isn’t it awesome!!)

This article/recipe is for those of you who already own a kombucha SCOBY, or have access to getting one, and are semi-familiar with the premise of Kombucha Tea. I’m not going to make any health claims or any boasts about how awesome it is.

I will however say I’m a busy woman. And I take time, several hours a month, and put it into making kombucha, so you can draw your conclusions for that LOL

Making Kombucha Tea into Vinegar for home use

Step 1. Make tea – 4 tea bags for vinegar, 6 for drinking kombucha
Step 2. When tea is done, but still hot – add in 3/4 cup of sugar for each gallon of water
Step 3. You let the water cool to room temp.
Step 4. Add the tea to your kombucha tea starter, and the kombucha mushroom that you’ve put in a big container (5 gallon bucket, 5 gallon water jug, etc)
Step 5. Let it sit about a week and a half in a cool dark place.
Step 6. Using a pressure cooker or large 4/5 gallon pot, place a filter where you can dump the kombucha tea through it. I use a large cloth one over the top of my pot.  Run all the kombucha tea through a filter. When the cloth starts getting clogged with debris. I take it off and rinse it, then put it back on. I keep dumping the kombucha in the pot until I’ve got about 3 inches left in the bottom of my container (the starter tea) and the mushroom of course.
Step 7. Put the pot on simmer for about 2 hours if it’s a large pot. If it’s a pressure cooker, 20 min on 10lbs. The idea is to kill all the bacteria in the kombucha tea that make up the SCOBY or the ‘mother’ so no new one can grow.
Step 8. It’s now vinegar, run it through another filter, to catch all of the dead ‘mother’ particles.
Step 9. Place your vinegar in it’s storage containers.

I use vinegar all over the house. I use it as a hair rinse in the bathroom. It’s in several small spray bottles all over the house with some basil tea as a homemade ‘febreeze’. It’s in a gallon container in the laundry room to put in a downy ball for each load of laundry (it makes hung laundry less crunchy, helps eliminate problems with hard water, which is important to me as we use cloth diapers and cloth pads) We use it in cleaning counters, sinks, and most especially in cleaning hard water off of the shower walls, shower fixtures and toilet insides. I also give vinegar to my neighbors, who love it LOL.

Request for you the Reader July 22, 2009

If you are reading this, could you please comment how you found me?

(here’s me!)

I’m insatiably curious! Truly!

I’ve noticed that someone put me in Condron.us. I’m sure that some of you are here from a yahoogroup I’m on, following my sig line. Others are here because I commented on your post and you were curious yourself LOL!

I’d just be nice to satisfy my ticking brain for once with  comments from readers. I’d love to know how you found me and where you’re reading from, it’d be so cool!

map counter

My 2 Year Old July 22, 2009

My baby is 2 today. At 4:15 in the morning 2 years ago my water broke (a first for me after 3 other children) and we embarked on this new adventure after only a couple of hours in the hospital. Kaia shot out of me so fast, with only 1 push, the midwife barely had a chance to catch her. Kaia’s daddy flinched watching Kaia slide towards the floor. Then she stopped slipping, yelled and yelled and yelled while they weighed her, checked her signs. Then they handed her to me to nurse and she ate with gusto for 45 min. Little piggy.

Kaia is so different from my other children in a lot of ways. She says Who-wee instead of horse and  chocklitt in a deep growly voice like her big sister did as a toddler. Her penchant for getting up between 5:30 and 6:15 is definitely like her big brother Owyn. He’s often found getting her a bowl of cereal, and then getting me while she’s happily munching. Just because the two of them awake at about the same time.

Otherwise, she’s daring, climbing trees, ladders, shelves, tables, you name it, with ease. I think she’s fallen maybe a couple of times. No serious bruises or bumps. My other kids have been covered in both to the point where I was scared to take them out publicly for fear people would think we were abusive! She KNOWS how very cute she is, and utilizes that with every breath, batting her eyelashes, fluffing her hair, the perfectly turned smile, with just the right amount of dimple. She loves wearing beautiful clothes, but has no problems with putting on a gorgeous dress, then going outside and helping me dig holes, or climb trees, or dump dirt into her water table to make mud pies.

She’s a dancer. I really believe that this little girl has got talent, serious talent. We are going to have to find the money somewhere to get her dance lessons, because talent like this shouldn’t be squandered. I danced as a child, and did ballet, until I was old enough to be on toe shoes (before my teachers daughter, who was the same age, because I was that good), but we moved, and we were poor. And I’m not built like a dancer. Never have been. Maybe a dancer for rap video’s when I was thin. But Kaia doesn’t have my body. She’s got her daddy’s body. And he’s tall, thin, and with long long legs and muscles that would be perfect for dancing (if only he had rhythm LOL).

Kaia’s almost completely potty trained now, and she did it herself honestly. She still wears diapers to bed and if we are going to be out of the house for more than 30 min. But I guess it’s time to sell off my diaper stash. I’m going to be sad to see it go. Seriously. However, and here is where birthday comes in LOL. We don’t have money for presents, and we don’t have money for decorations. But I do sew, and I do have a cretive mind.

What does Kaia need? Well she needs panties to be honest! She’s wearing her 7 yo sisters right now, and while Ingrid is very very thin, so they kind of fit, they are very saggy, and they aren’t Kaia’s. So after I’m done typing this out, I’m going to finish sewing Kaia some panties out of one of her daddy’s old t-shirts and appliqueing some decorations on them. She’s going to squeal with delight I know it LOL!  Kaia also needs more nightgowns, I got so sucked into depression with my 3 oldest children gone to their fathers for the summer that I just wasn’t capable of anything but doing normal household chores. My brain isn’t wired to be creative and to create when I’m that sad.

I’m also finishing up the birthday banner I started, and Kaia also saw this dress on a blog I was reading:

and is now DEMANDING a dress like this. Yes, she’s only 2. You’d think she’s 4 with how she picks up on the fact that ‘mommy can make this for me’

So today, it’s underwear with hearts and starting a rainbow dress for Kaia. Then finishing a banner (it’s only bias tape, I don’t know why I’m resisting *sigh*) Then MAYBE another nightgown. At least I’m helping to get rid of more of my fabric stash right?

I’m also making my ‘famous among friends’ crockpot spaghetti sauce, and the kids are already saying ‘It smells so gooooood’ and ‘It’s making me huuuuungry’ LOL, plus a chocolate brownie cake (GF) with chocolate icing. Because Kaia IS a girl (and is related to me LOL)