Baby Dream Mobile

Remember those well-wishes and mommy advice cards I collected at Kailey's baby shower? I turned them into a simple baby mobile, kind of like those paint chip mobiles you may have seen floating around the blogsphere or pintrest.  I wanted to make something special that would rain down love and luck on baby Quinn.  So I chose rain cloud colors and intermixed the advice and wish cards into the "rain."

And then I kicked myself for not thinking of this most amazing of amazing ideas sooner.  Like, 13 months sooner so my baby boy could have had one, because I'm pretty much in love with this awesome idea.

All I needed to make this was:
1 medium-sized embroidery hoop, just the inside hoop
1 small-embroidery hoop, just the inside hoop
silver paint
scalloped 2" inch circle punch
3-4 sheets of each 8 colors of paper
well-wishes and mommy advice
colored twine
glue

 
After punching out innumerable circles and organizing them by color, I found it was easiest to plan out my scheme by laying out each color in groups of 18 (since I had 18 strings to cover). This also showed me any extra (over 18) that i'd have to intermix with the next row of color.  I wanted to create a sort of ombre effect with the colors.



I found it easiest to work on the mobile when I laid it out like this. Remember to glue circles in each spot! One for the front and one for the back. I used a glue stick but some people liked using a glue gun.

I did occasional QC checks by hanging it up on a vase with two wooden skewers taped to the top.  This also helped me to cut my lengths of string evenly and to the size I wanted.

 
After completing the two tiers, I lashed them together with even lengths of twine so the smaller tier would hang a little lower than the big tier.

The finished product: kid approved!

"I'm Sawyer I and I approve of this mobile."

Homemade Marmalade

I think it was my Gram who got me hooked on marmalade. For one week every January growing up, my Gram would travel from Maryland to watch my brother and sister and me for a week while my parents went their one getaway/date a year.  In addition to just being excited about her presence, and the games and puzzles she would bring, we also got excited about all the delicious food she would make us. Not the least of these was toast. My Gram makes great toast! Sometime during those visits I'm sure I had my first schmear of marmalade.

During my Sophomore year in college, I survived on toast spread with cream cheese and marmalade, and deep down in my subconscious I'm sure I felt those comforting weeks when Gram came to town.  

Now, just the other day I say Ina Garten make marmalade on her show and was surprised at how simple it was.  All it takes is citrus, sugar, water, and time.  The cooking process was slow, but it filled my house with a luscious sweet citrus smell.  It was so tantalizing that once it was done I ate it right out of the pan until I gave myself a tummy ache.  Then I divided it up into jars to continue the tradition and share it with people I love.

 

Homemade Marmalade
recipe from foodnetwork.com

Ingredients:
4 large seedless oranges
2 lemons
8 C water
8 C sugar

At night, thinly slice (I used a mandoline) the citrus and place them and their juices in a large dutch oven or stainless steel pot. Cover them with 8 C water, bring to a boil, stirring often. Remove from heat and stir in sugar until it dissolves. Cover and let it rest out all night.

The next morning, pop a candy thermometer into the pot and bring it to a boil.  Drop the heat to a low simmer and let it cook, uncovered, for about 2 hours, until it reaches 220 degrees.

Store in sterilized mason jars.

When you give a Sawyer a Stuffed Animal....

...he'll want to built it a fort.  If you build that animal a fort, Sawyer will want to get in too.

 

After a good nap in the fort, he'll want to get out and about. And if he needs to get out and about, he'll need a car ride.

   
That car ride will result in some hunger...hunger for cookies! And when you give a Sawyer a cookie, he'll be sure to share it with his stuffed animals, too.

Kailey's Baby Shower

With the help of Jeff's family, I threw a baby shower for my SIL Kailey a few weekends ago.  Jeffrey's aunt wanted to do a theme with bubbles, so we went with the ever-popular "She's About to POP" theme with bubbles and balloons and  lots, and lots of circles. (Thank you Archiver's for your amazing selection of blue and gray papers and awesome machines that cut circles with ease. Between the two of you, I spent about 2 hours selecting shades and having circles cut....A few less choices may have helped, actually.)

I also made a "Guess When She'll POP" calendar so all could have a shot at guessing the babe's arrival day. And for good fun, I put Kailey through the diaper-changing ringer.  Have you ever changed a diaper blindfolded, while getting squirted with warm water, on the clock? Kailey has! I figured it'd be pretty good prep, considering all the places and ways strange situations I've had to wrangle Sawyer in and out of a diaper within the past year.

In addition to traditional gift-giving, I also punched out little paper circles for everyone to give back to Kailey: one with mommy advice, and the other with a well-wish for her baby boy. I collected them all at the end of the party to turn into a baby mobile so love and good fortunes can hang over his sleepy head every night. 

Look Ma, I Can Feed Myself!

Playing with Doughboy

 Sorry for the blurry pictures, I didn't realize I needed to switch my camera settings until it was too late.

Sawyer is my soft and squishy dough boy.  His baby soft pale skin makes him the long-lost brother of a batch of homemade white bread dough. And his SQUISH! He is perfect, the squishy I've always wanted. Confession: his squishy-ness is definitely one of the reasons he runs around in his skivvies all day-it makes him easy to catch and squish. It also makes cleanup for moments like this one depicted really easy. 

My squishy kitchen helper and I made some homemade playdough today because I've resigned myself to this simple truth: no matter how many times he tastes it, shudders, and spits it back out, he'll eat playdough again.  So if he's going to eat it, I want to know exactly what's in it.  Our homemade stuff was all natural, soft and perfect for molding, and not at all tasty.  Here's the recipe so you and your friends (or kids, or pets...) can feed each other playdough while playing and not be worried about it, too.  

(Recipe for dough boy not included.)

Play Dough Recipe

1 C white flour
1/2 C salt
2 Tbsp cream of tartar 1 C water
food coloring

Mix first 4 ingredients in a medium saucepan. Add water and mix well. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 3 – 5 minutes. Dough will become difficult to stir and form a “clump”.  Remove from stove and knead for 5 minutes–add food coloring during kneading process. Play dough will keep for a long time stored in a covered plastic container or plastic sandwich bag.

recipe adapted from here