Recent Adventures

Finally, a blog with pictures!  And since it’s been so long, this is an all-round update, with Judith stories and crochet and baking and more.  Our everyday adventures :-). 

Peanut Butter Cookies

squiggly peanut butter cookie

A friend of mine asked me to do peanut butter cookies for her sister’s wedding.  And she wanted them to be heart shaped.  With initials.  So I checked online for recipes for peanut butter cutout cookies.  But the reviews for each recipe I found said either that the recipe was tasteless, or that it was way too soft to roll out.  So I used the recipe that my sister makes, because I know people like it.  (This was only like my second time ever making peanut butter cookies.  They’re really not my favorite!)  The dough was soft, but not too soft to roll out between sheets of wax paper (my pastry teacher would say “pastry chefs are laughing!”).  Honestly, I wasn’t fully satisfied by my handwriting on the initials, although both Lance and my friend said they were beautiful.  But I was thrilled with how these squiggly ones turned out! 

Teaching Preschool

February 27 was my first day teaching the preschool co-op.  I got to teach about Summer, and yellow, and squares.  I searched the internet for fun ideas, and found some great resources.  We traced the squares in an “Itsy Bitsy” book, had homemade yogurt popsicles on an indoor “picnic” for our snack, and made paper bowl suns for our craft.  All-in-all, a good experience, and I’m already looking forward to teaching “Taste” April 2.

"can I have it now?"

The Moose-Bear Boat

As I was working in the kitchen one day, Judith came scooting around the corner on these friends, using her legs like oars to propel herself along.  She said it was her boat.

Must be rough water

Tamales

Lance asked me to make tamales!  (Actually, what he said was “With all of your recent discoveries/experiments with different recipes and things, I was wondering if you would find a good recipe and make me some tamales?”)  So I went searching.  And found a recipe.  And bit the bullet and bought some pork and cooked it in the crock pot until it fell apart (gross!) and added salsa.  Then I made the masa according to the package directions, and assembled them.  I made only as many as one batch of masa made, because I wasn’t sure if Lance would like them.  But he did...especially with some mole sauce and fresh cilantro.  He at about one third of what I’d made and I froze the rest.  He’s requested that I try to make sauce-from-scratch ones next.  We’ll see.

Assembly line ready

the finished "present"

as served, with green mole and fresh cilantro

Crochet Projects:

Crowns:  at the request of a friend I made a crown using this pattern, modifying it in some places as suggested in the pattern’s comments.  And then I experimented with another smaller, simpler crown that I could possible put beads or jewels on.  I’m pretty happy with the result, especially because I was mostly feeling my way through what I was doing.  Which paved the way for:

Cupcake Nametags:  at MOPS this week we had “cupcake wars”, a competition between tables to see who could decorate the best.  And in the interest of table spirit, I decided to try making some crochet cupcake nametags.  I think they turned out rather well – and I didn’t have a pattern at all, just a picture that gave me somewhere to start.  (I suppose, if someone requested, I could try writing the pattern down :-)

crowns...bottom is from a pattern, top is improvised

crochet cupcake nametag

And progress continues on the big blanket for our bed.  I'm ready to crochet the border!  Look for a big reveal soon!

Bubblebath Fail

In an effort to save money but still be green, I tried two different recipes for bubblebath using castille soap.  Neither worked at all.  The bubbles lasted for approximately thirty seconds, and then the water was just cloudy.  I’ve seen some other recipes for DIY bubblebath that just add a little water to body wash, but since I’m trying to avoid sodium lauryl sulfate, that’s not what I’m looking for.  Guess I’ll have to write that one off.

The Joy

Lots of learning, lots of chocolate, lots of gifting...of course there’s joy!

Joy to you!

Barbara