Apple Picking!

Fender is at an age where he wants to do and try everything he hears or sees.  We read a story about apple picking in an orchard and when you live in the Apple Capitol of the world you have to try it out.  So to celebrate the first weekend in Fall, we took a road trip to Central Washington to go apple picking.  We have a tree in our back yard, but it is not the same as strolling through an orchard and all the fun things that comes with a farm. 

After taking the hayride up to the orchard, we were free to roam and pick as many as our hearts wanted (or as many as our baskets could hold!)  We brought back about 60 pounds! 

We got to taste all three Ambrosia, Yakata, and Jonagold.

We learned that they use crab apples to help polinate the larger trees.  It reminded me of my Grandma Miller who used to serve sweet stewed crab apples every year at Christmas time, I'll have to ask my mom about how she made them.

dC and I pressed 20 pounds into cider while the kids fed even more goats and ran from the free roaming chickens.

All the while beautiful Lake Chelan in the background.

We had a really fun day!  Thank you to The Sunshine Farm for having us!  I'm sure we'll make this a yearly tradition!

Five Years Coming! Month 3

This month was a fun one - a fall basket of bake sale cookie cupcakes!  I chose to do the peanut butter cookie cupcake first and they turned out great!  Not too sweet and much more like a soft cookie than a cupcake. You can find the recipe for them here.

The recipe made 2 dozen and there was enough frosting to make 4+ dozen...what to make with the leftovers?  The next cupcakes in the basket are oatmeal-raisin cookie cupcakes and chocolate chunk cookie cupcakes.  I'll be attempting them soon, but for my monthly challenge (and my waistline) I'm crossing September off of my list! 

Honey Cakes

Almost every night, Fender and I read one of Karma Wilson's books about lovable Bear and his woodland friends, Mole, Hare, Mouse, Raven, Wren, Gopher and Badger.  In each of the books we've read so far all of the animals celebrate together by eating "honey cakes" and Fender is constantly asking if we have the ingredients to make them.  Since the drawings make them look like currant scones, I've always told him we'd grab what we needed on our next trip to the grocery store.  But today I decided to Google "honey cakes" and came up with several different recipes.  I learned that it is usually made at Rosh Hashana (celebrated in September for the start of the New Year on the Hebrew calendar).  Fender was excited, since the pictures looked delicious, and I was excited because the ingredients evoke fall!  We made them and celebrated just like Bear and his friends!  The whole house smelled delicious.  You can find the recipe here.  (PS~I skipped the whiskey and the orange juice and it is still delicious!)

He loves to whisk!

Fall Craft

Every month Fender gets a "High Five" (Hi-Lights for little guys) magazine that he just loves!  We usually try to make the recipes in the back and there is always a craft.  Some times the craft is pretty lame, but this month I thought it was a super cute idea.  It's basically decorating a twig with play-doh in fall colors to make a mini-tree.  So we headed out to the backyard found a twig, used some old play-doh we had made awhile back and made a Fall centerpiece!

Chloe's first Tutu!

Chloe's first birthday is coming up (she is one of my favorite babies out there!) and her mom Kristen asked me if I would make her a tutu...OF COURSE!

I thought I'd share how I did it here, since it is probably one of the cutest things I've made and by far the easiest!

Here's what you'll need:

3-4 yards of tulle

"no-roll" elastic

sharp scissors

tape measure

needle and thread

Start by rolling the tulle up into a long tube (keep the natural fold that the tulle has when you buy it off of the bolt...if you don't it's a mess to fold!)

Then cut off the ends of the tube to make a clean cut at the edges.  Then cut the tube into three inch lengths.



Toulouse helped me with this!



Then since the tulle is doubled you can cut it into strips twice as quickly!  I made 10 inch strips...you take the [{desired length of the tutu} x 2] + 2 inches since you loose an inch for the elastic and an inch for the knot.  For example...I wanted a 4 inch tutu... [{4} x 2] + 2 = 10 inches! 

Measure the waist of your tutu wearer and subtract 2 inches - cutting that measurement from the elastic.  Overlap the elastic by about an inch and sew a circular band.  This is also a great time to find something to wrap the tutu around while you work.  I used this twine, but a paper towel roll may work out for you as well!

Take your lengths of tulle and using a slip knot, knot the tulle around the band.  Repeat about 240 times pushing the knots close together to make the tutu full!  You can alternate lengths or colors to make it variegated, or keep it simple and short like I did for Chloe's!  I trimmed some of the longer pieces to make it even all around.

TADA!!!







Nice moves Chloe!



Toulouse was jealous!





Back to School



Before...



After!





When I think of back to school time I always think of chalkboards.  I've seen so many cute applications of chalkboards in craft rooms, garden sheds and kitchen walls that it made me want to make one for our family and our busy schedule.

We are fortunate to have a house built in the 20's, but it also came with some quirks that I am finally going to capitalize upon.  Our kitchen has a huge walk in pantry with a closet door on it.  I love the pantry part, but the door has always seemed weird to me.  So I added a chalkboard to the inside.

I basically taped off a couple of rectangles using painter's tape (one for the title chalkboard, and one for the main board.) painted three layers of chalkboard paint on it and voila!  A cute little chalkboard to write love notes and grocery lists on!