2014 Summer Outings: Albany Tulip Festival

St Valentine's Day family celebration: Thank you Pinterest!

Happy Late Valentine's Day everyone! Cap is learning to crawl so my ability to sit and update the blog or my Etsy store is rather limited. The store comes first, well, after sweeping, laundry, sleep and food! He has really picked up on it so quickly, within a week he now will follow me around the living room while I clean or work at my craft table. There are days when I am so tired but the majority of the time I am so in love with all three of the kids that I cannot wait to be pregnant again and start the whole process over! 

Valentine's day is a little different with three kids, Hubby had to work through until the afternoon and then we picked up the older kids from their mom's house, so we had to plan a family friendly, love filled evening instead of a romantic night out for just the two of us. 

Friday morning brought the citizens of the Hudson Valley almost a foot of snow and since Hubby had to be to work at 5am, we were up early to shovel so he could even get out of the driveway. After finishing up, he went to leave and I went to the window to make sure that he was able to get out of the driveway okay when I saw him sneaking in with this wonderful bunch of flowers! I am not the biggest fan of cut flowers, it seems an odd tradition to me, but since I don't get them often, the once or twice a year that he buckles and buys some are even more special. I do love fresh flowers in the house, it makes everything seem pretty and I love having the reminder of him sitting in the middle of the kitchen table all day. 

Originally, we had planned on making cupcakes with the kids but I wasn't sure how late they would end up getting home with the snow so I made them in the morning. I caught a look at a cupcake recipe on Pinterest where she put strawberries inside of the cupcake. I can't find the original blog that I found it on but here is another. The one that I was reading, the woman had cooked the cupcakes completely, then dug out the middle to put in the strawberries. I am impatient and with an infant on the hip, I need minimal time from start to finish for a project, so I just stuck the strawberry in the batter while it was cooking. I made six without strawberries and the rest with, which went over really well with the family. Sprinkles and some fresh strawberries topped them off beautifully (the leftover raw strawberries were finished well before the cupcakes, we love our fresh fruits here). 

yummy red velvet, strawberry, vanilla cupcakes!

I again stalked Pinterest to find quick Valentine's cards for the kids. Our Minecraft obsessed boy, Griffin got a Creeper themed card, while little miss Eve got a fox themed one. I found them here  and here. Mine are not nearly as fancy, but I had to work with the things I had and in a limited time frame. They both liked them, although I was told that my Creeper was not perfectly drawn. I'll get 'em next time! The fox was a wooden decoration that I had bought on clearance from Michael's more than six months ago and finally got to use!

      This was Hubby's Valentine's collection. The superhero poster in the background was one of his old shirts that he had worn so much that the collar was fraying unattractively. Since I hinted that he shouldn't really wear it out of the house, I figured that I would use it to decorate the house instead. Using a canvas from Michaels, again on clearance, I stapled the shirt onto the canvas frame and cut away the rest of the t-shirt. He liked it and I think it will look great in our bedroom (next to our Captain America and Doctor Who posters).
I have Pinterest (I might be addicted) to thank for the card and the bacon roses. I found the bacon roses here, although I did not follow the instructions perfectly. I refuse to drill holes in my cupcake pan, for one. I use that thing for everything! All I did was to roll the bacon, stab it through with a toothpick, then broil it for about half an hour. I let them sit until they were cool, them finangled them onto the skewer sticks that I had laying about. Those directions also called for using the stems from a bouquet of fake flowers, which I did not have on hand, so skewers with paper leaves in my TARDIS coffee mug worked beautifully. The card came from Pinterest too, but I can't find the link, I believe it was through Etsy's Pinterset board, but I am not sure, sorry!

In addition to my wonderful flowers (and a box of chocolate that is almost gone already!) Hubby and both of the older kids picked out cards for me, which were adorable. Eve's was the kitten, Grif picked out one that had Love you written out in stitches and Hubby picked out the diamond one (I told him that it made me feel like Beyonce, cause ya know, bling). He also gave me a cute little moon necklace, the package said "I love you to the moon and back" and an amber resin necklace that I have been eyeing since before Cap was born! We will see if we like it or not, if nothing else, it is pretty and the baby likes to hold onto it while nursing, so it's a win for me! It was a perfect Valentine's day. I love just spending time with the family with nothing too pressing or stressful going on.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone and a huge thank you to my wonderful Hubby for being the best and making me laugh and love every single day!!!

Renaissance Faire 2013: Peacock Fairy Fantasy Costume

     So after worrying for the past three weeks about what we are going to do for Renfaire costumes considering my limited amount of time, the kids not being here all the time for me to sew around them and a complete lack of idea on a nursing appropriate costume for me, I finally sat down to start sewing this weekend. The week before we are planning on leaving. Six days before I had to have them done. All five costume. One week.

some inspiration pictures were
found on Pinterest and Google

    After the mental freak out on how I was just starting the costumes now, I was able to finish almost all of E's costume, a peacock fairy, with the exception of sparkling up a pair of sandals to match. 

    We were going for a combination fairy and peacock, mostly since I already had peacock butterfly wings from Halloween clearance last year. I am trying to make a point of not needed to go out and buy anything for costumes this year, my stash is a bit unmanageable at the moment so things need to be used. For the top, since I don't particularly like putting in zippers or buttons, I just reconfigured on of her tshirts, making it into a slight peasant blouse with cap sleeves.

before, just a plain tshirt
(not the one that I actually changed,
I forgot to take before pictures)

gathering that I put in the back to
give the shirt a bit of form

front of blouse, with peasant gathered neckline, cap sleeves and flower embellishment

     The skirt was a bit easier, we were going to do a full tutu, and I am still debating just using up all of the tulle that I have to make the skirt more full. Right now, it is a simple circle skirt with three inch black waistband elastic with a tulle bustle sewn onto the back. We added some ribbon and peacock feathers for embellishment and pre-made fabric flowers that I had for embellishment. On this part, depending on what time I have left, I might make some felt peacock feathers for more oomph, but I do worry about putting so much time into costumes that they only wear once or twice. 

fabric flower embellishment on bottom of skirt

tulle bustle with peacock flowers sewn onto ribbon

     While I want them to look adorable and amaze my husband with my crafty wiles, I have to remind myself that as long as we have fun, it will not matter what they wore. The first five times I went to Renfaire, I went in civilian clothes. Once I found petticoats though, it was on. When all was said and done the costume was pretty cute, Hubby liked it, E liked it and it only took me an afternoon. It was definitely a "while the kids are napping" project (by that I mean, the infant was napping while the other children and Hubby were playing video games). It was nice to get behind the machine again, considering that I haven't done any sewing since before Steven was born. I can still see the pile of un-sewn burpclothes sitting on my dining room hutch, staring at me angrily and stressing me.  

     A full picture of the costume on will come on Saturday with a lovely family shot (hopefully) and my family outing score for the New York Renaissance Faire. 

Garden Update: Spiders!!!

     With Baby coming a little earlier than I had planned, my garden updates have been a little lacking. While Steven and I enjoy sitting on our little bench in the garden for a couple minutes every day, since I got poison ivy a couple weeks before he was born, I haven't done my share of the weeding so at this point, the garden looks like a giant section of weeds interspersed with bright orange pumpkin flowers and tall pea vines. As soon as I can bend over comfortably again, I'll grab my gloves and the wheelbarrow and the stroller to take care of that beast of a garden.
     This picture, while slightly difficult to see because I was too scared to get too close, is of a giant spider nest made between some of my pea vines. The half dollar sized momma spider stayed close to the nest until the little spiderlings were big enough to be on their own, which took two weeks or so. There had to be around 300 tiny little spiders in the nest, which caused a disagreement between James and I. He wanted to "take care of them," they were too close to the house and he was worried about them getting in and biting one of us. I disagreed, figuring that in all reality, only a couple would make it to adulthood and the momma probably dies after her job is done. We had thought that they were wolf spiders, but when I looked it up, wolf spiders (who tend to be aggressive and bite-happy) carry their eggs with them. Nursery web spiders (a very appropriate name) look very similar but carry their eggs until they are ready to hatch and then make their beautiful web nursery. So this protective momma, won the argument and now they are out of the garden and out in the big scary world, hopefully growing up beautifully and not biting lots of people.
     In other garden news, my peas flowered in tiny, delicate white flowers. I wasn't sure what the flowers were going to look like, so I was happy when they looked so pretty. At this point, we have eaten almost all of the peas right off of the vine with none to save for actual cooking or canning. Note for next year: plant three times as many pea plants to prevent us devouring all of them. There are a couple that we missed eating while we were in the hospital and are now too dry to eat, so I will pick them soon to dry out for either pea soup (although I doubt there are enough for that) or to plant next year since these did so well. Thank you Burpee for giving us a wonderful crop of great tasting, off-the-vine peas. While Burpee may not have been to blame, our carrots did so poorly, if we have one plant I would be surprised. We had a late frost that did many of our more delicate plants in. The pumpkins have taken over most of the garden and a fair chunk of the sidewalk. The tomatoes are about a foot tall and doing well, we are still unsure how the potatoes are doing and surprisingly, my moonflowers have started to grow while I was away. I was convinced that the shock of transplanting and the frost had finished them off, but two vines are growing on the trellis so we will see if they bloom.
     In other news, baby Steven is above his birth weight, filling out his newborn sized clothing and spending a lot more time awake, mostly between nine pm and three am.
But he is doing well, this Momma is counting down the days until she can start some serious work on the extra 20-30 pounds that are still left over and until I can go swimming again. Eating lots of fruits and vegetables, high protein, vitamins and trying to stay hydrated to help the process along. This weekend, Baby and I are down in Altoona, PA visiting family, celebrating my grandmother's 60th birthday and my grandparent's 25th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, Hubby could not get off work during the busy summer season so we are also spending our first chunk of time away from Dada. All things considered, I think I might be the most affected by that event. James has to work all weekend so he is a little preoccupied and Baby does not notice much quite yet. Two nights of this lonely momma pacing the hallway to calm Baby will be quite enough for awhile. While I love being with grandparents, I can not wait to be home with James and back in my own bed!