Peaches!

We have a 'Contender' peach tree in our yard.  This is it's third year to bear fruit and it's only 4 years old.  This year it was loaded, this picture shows only one branch.  I think we picked about 80-90 lbs of fruit!

I truly believe the best way to eat a peach is fresh, however we weren't going to be eating 80 lbs worth so I gave some away and we ate a many as we could possibly stand to eat and bake with and I preserved the rest. 

My counter looked like this for about a week, each time I'd get it almost emptied off I'd go pick again! 

This was the first time I'd used a canner alone and I felt like such a grown up doing almost everything solo! :)  First I tackled basic canned peaches.  And to be honest I must have read 15 different blog post on doing so and really can't remember whose I used. I think I just took information from all of them and went to work! I used a lighter syrup and between 3 different sessions ended up with 18 quarts and 9 pints.  We've eaten one so far and it was fantastic! 

I also made peach butter, raspberry peach jam, peach preserves all in half pints.  The peach butter is great on pancakes and waffles, the raspberry peach jam doesn't use pectin so it is a bit runnier but awesome mixed into vanilla yogurt (I like Chobani), and the peach preserves take awhile to cook down but they're great too!  It was fun to experiment and to have such great success canning made the week even better! I also froze quite a few slices on cookie sheet and then transferred to freezer bags, these I can bake with or perhaps just eat? 

I will say I didn't do much cooking during that last week in August and I had to recover for a few days afterwards but now that we are starting to open a few jars it was well worth the work!  As most things in life are.  Thanks for stopping in!

Scoop Top...sewing for ME!

Hello, sorry for the sparse blogging here recently.  I have over booked my summer so far and seem to be having trouble finding the time to sew and blog, but I have high hopes for this month! :)  Today I've got some sewing for me! Yeah!  If you haven't tried Kristin's Scoop Top you have to give it a try. Even if you're like me and think you won't fit into the small/med. free pattern she has available; print it and see!  If it does't work she is working on a wider range of sizes, I believe. What got me to take the plunge and try it was when I saw this cute top by Anna, I thought maybe it will work, and it did!!

I didn't really change much at all other than raising the neck up a bit for my preference.  It is ultra flattering and SO comfy!  I love how the cut is fitted enough to be figure flattering, but then where mommas (at least this momma) needs a bit more room it widens out a bit to help hide that dreaded middle! I'd wear it everyday if I could. In fact it's been made for at least 3 weeks and that's been part of my problem in blogging about it.  I've worn it so much that either it or myself have needed cleaning! :)

The fabric is from JoAnn's and it is a couple of years old.  I was concerned that it would be too busy, but I really like it.  It was on hand and that was the biggest factor! :)

I did the sleeves the way Anna did and finished them like the neckline.  I think I like that better than just hemming the under.  There will be more of these great tees in my future!!

We were at my parents this past weekend and my dad has been bailing hay so I decided that might be a fun backdrop for some pictures!  I love the country and while I enjoy my city life now, being home feels like a bit of heaven! (Oh, and my mom made me a belated birthday cake, that made the weekend down right perfect!) Thanks for stopping by, have a fun and happy 4th of July!!
p.s. I couldn't leave out the cows, how can you not love cows! :)

Party time!

I think our house has finally recovered from party mode.  Peyton turned 5 a couple weeks ago and we celebrated with 2 parties.  A family one and a friend party, we also took cupcakes to preschool.  Her theme this year was rainbows.  She gets very into picking a theme and generally starts thinking about it right after Halloween.  I had to nix a couple before we reached rainbows.  Barbie and the 3 Musketeers seemed a bit hard to work out! :)  I'll spare everyone the full birthday experience and just share the crafting and baking highlights!

For the family party I really wanted to make a cake incorporating these two ideas from pinterest.  (here and here)  It turned out well, I learned that cake balls are a bit more time consuming than I prefer, and if you cover a cake with sprinkles it is quite crunchy.   :)

She got lots of great gifts and had a fun day with her family.  My Mom made her this cool Dick and Jane quilt which is perfect as she is learning to read.  

I made her a veil to go with the Rapunzel wedding dress she got.  The veil is from this tutorial and it was really easy.  Much better than the piece of fabric she had been using.  

 Her cupcakes for preschool were these great ice cream cupcakes.  I remember taking these to school as a kid but had forgotten until I saw this reminder over at Make it and Love it!
A bit hard to transport but worth it!

  Finally for her friend party I wanted to make rainbow cupcakes, you know the ones where you layer all the dyed batter.  It is super time consuming and my husband thought I was nuts, but the final product was SO AWESOME!  Even better was how cool the kids thought it was.

Here are a few more shots of the cupcakes.  Let me also say that the rest of the pictures in the post were taken by my great friend Erica, I have lots to learn about photography from her!

Along with the cupcakes I made a fruit tray from an idea on Pinterest.  The little bowl is for the bananas I put them in last minute so they didn't get all brown and gross.   With 10 kids and 4 Mommas, there wasn't a single piece of fruit left over.

I wanted to make a craft with the kids, but wanted it to be pretty easy and not too messy.  I used this pin as my idea.  They had so much fun and created some great rainbow suns.  I just loved the variety in the final product.  

And what kind of party would it be without some games?  Peyton loves games but some of her friends don't share her level of competitiveness.  I decided to give a little prize to everyone when they were out of each game rather than having a winner each time.  The kids loved that and it made everything go smoothly.  We played hot potato using a rainbow pillow for the kids to pass, musical rugs (not enough chairs for 10 kids), and pin the pot of gold on the rainbow.

Parties are fun but I'm glad to be back to normal around here.  I don't know what I'd do without Pinterest for party ideas these days.  :)  So far 5 has been very fun.  She's changing fast!  She even has a loose tooth to prove it.  Guess I'll need to add a tooth pillow to my long list of sew projects!  

Happy Valentine's Day!

 At our house Valentine's Day has become a big deal.  I never really liked the holiday growing up.  However Peyton's birthday is right around Valentine's Day and so we've become much more partial to the holiday recently.  In fact this was the first year I did any decorating for the holiday.  Here is how we celebrated the holiday this year!

 

I made a felt heart chain similar to the ones I've seen on Made by Rae and Made.  The little hearts on the tree I envisioned right away when I was thinking about the holiday. Luckily Gordman's had the tree and it worked as planned! :)

Peyton's Valentine's for school are about as difficult as I can handle with all the birthday prep. I've been doing this week. I saw the idea on Pinterest.  I mean where else do you come up with ideas these days? :)  It is a printable from BHG.  I got the little bags at Michaels. I love her 4 year old handwriting!

 Finally I made her a shirt to wear today.  I didn't want it to be so holiday that she couldn't wear it after today.  I used some heart fabric I got from Baneberry Place.  Such a great place for knit fabric!  I used my flashback tee pattern.  This is the best one I've turned out yet!  The skirt is from Target.

I also had to make a bow!  I used a tutorial by Prudent Baby.  Nice and easy!

Are you a fan of today?  I wish everyone a day filled with love!  Thanks for visiting!

The rest of the Christmas sewing....

I thought about doing a couple of posts with the other things I made for Christmas but I decided to just put it all into one. Then I can get caught up so I can get back to my sewing machine instead of sitting at my computer!

Earlier this week I shared the rollie pollie I made for Peyton, so of course I made something for Carter too.  I went with a playmat for all the animals and cars we have.  I looked at lots of good examples and then just decided to wing it!  I did take the very lazy way out and hot glued everything down rather than sewing it.  This was my last sewing project before Christmas and I was getting pretty burned out.  I didn't think about how long it takes to design and cut out all the pieces.

I will say it is a bit too old of a toy for Carter, but he'll grow into it and for now Peyton really likes it.  I wish I had a picture of her playing with it but, oh well!

I also tackled an apron for my Grandma.  She had mentioned when we saw her last summer that she could use a new apron.  I looked around for a pattern similar to what she has, that she said she liked, and ended up using this Simplicity pattern #4987.  I made her look #3 in a small but had to shorten it up a lot as it was really long and my Grandma is under 5'.  I picked out a brown duct cloth fabric for the top and a fun teapot print for the lining.  The teapot fabric is Michael Miller and I got it here, I really love this!  She liked it but unfortunately I didn't get a picture of her in it.  Our big family Christmases always get kinda crazy and it was overlooked.

One last project.  I bought my brother and sister in law Starbucks gift cards and to dress up the gift a bit I made coffee cozies for their cups.  I used this tutorial.  For my SIL I did a scrappy one and added a bit of embroidery to it. I am by no means very good at embroidery, but I love the look it adds to some projects.  For my brother's I used some fabric left over from a pillow I made for him this year.  He picked the fabric so I assumed he'd like it on his cozy! :)  These were fun to make a went really fast.

I love to sew for other's but I've decided if I'm going to sew Christmas gifts next year I have to start before the month of December!  :)  Did you sew any gifts?  What did you make?

Happy 2013

Oh my how busy things have been since mid-November!  Funny how new flooring in most of your house and then going straight into Thanksgiving and then Christmas just leaves VERY little free time!  The older I get the more I love January!  I mean the holidays are fun, but I look forward to the peace that January brings.  

I get to organize, plan, relax, read, and most of all sew.  I swore I'd sew less this past Christmas but in reality I really didn't cut back so I'll be sharing some of where my December went in the coming week.  

My big new toy is a lovely camera.  I'm still learning lots but it is certainly fun!  I'm sure it will make my pictures much nicer for the blog, and I'm exciting to see where blogging leads me this year.  

Thanks for reading! Happy January.

Vacation Avocation!

I've been absent around here for about a month and that is due to near constant travel!  While it was wonderful; traveling with 2 young kids might be more of a job than just staying put!  :)  We kicked off our travels with a trip to Southern Minnesota to see some of my family and to celebrate my Grandpa's 81st birthday.  Somehow there were very few pictures taken that weekend, I think we were too busy catching up and eating all of the great food my grandma makes!

We spent a week at home and then we headed out to Northern Wisconsin for a week long stay at a cabin with my husbands family.  We had a great time; and while I was hoping to spend much of our week doing this.  

We actually spent most of it doing anything but!  We'll hit the highlights! :)  We took the Spooner train, which was nice but perhaps a bit spendy for what it actually was.  We did get a nice river view where we stopped to turn around.

 We also swam at Shell Lake, it was so rocky on the beach and in the water that my kids spent more time on the playground than in the water!  

A short trip up to Hayward to see a lumberjack show was entertaining too. That wasn't all the driving we did as we also drove up to the Apostle Islands and took a cruise, which would had been much more enjoyable had we not had a crazy little guy with us who did not enjoy being cooped up on a boat for 3 hours!  

We also spent some time walking among the falls at Amnicon State Park.  

Did I mention we saw a wild black bear!  Can you even see it?  :) That was one of my favorite parts.

Okay, so we did relax some.  Peyton went fishing for the first time and caught 11 of the tiniest sunfish I've ever seen.  She was in heaven!  Carter just enjoyed  the outdoors and being dirty.

It was a fun filled week and I really enjoyed the beauty of the north woods.  I did however find my solo trip to Target once home to perhaps be more of a vacation than our trip!  Can anyone relate to that?

We recovered from Wisconsin for a few days then headed down to the Des Moines area to stay with my parents and go to Adventureland.  We hadn't been to the water park park there before and had a great time. Of course we still found time for some rides.  I've been coming here my whole life and love sharing the tradition with the kids.

Gotta love our flat state!  You can see forever at times.

We are now home and getting back into routine.  Preschool starts for Peyton right after Labor Day which will be here soon!  I love fall and really love routine.  Back to school has always been one of my favorite times of the year.  I have some new clothes sewn for Carter that I'll be sharing soon and I think I have even have some tutorials coming!  :)