Several months later here I am....school is back and we are 2 months away from the highly anticipated birth of the newest member of our family.  I have been sewing a lot lately and this weekend I made this dress for the baby.  Now I just need to make or find a warm sweater and some stockings to go with and maybe this will be her Christmas dress.

Found the pattern for this dress in a stash of patterns that were in a bedroom closet when we moved into this house.  The pattern included this dress pattern and a pants pattern that I have used to make pants for my nephew.  If I can find enough fabric I like in my box of scrap fabric I will make some pants for baby next.  For this dress I used leftover fabric I used to line a skirt I made myself a year or so ago and a bigger piece of scrap fabric given to me when I was collecting for a quilt project.  So far in all the sewing I have done for baby I have only had to buy fabric for the back of her quilt and for the cushions on her chair, everything else has been made from scraps I had or that were given to me.  Finding good ways to use small pieces of fabric is fun and works well when you are sewing for someone who will be so little.

A delicious cake

This was my birthday cake.

It was amazing.

It was my one birthday request.

It is key lime cake.

It is from a little local bakery in the little town next to our little town.

It was amzaing.

I would love to have a recipe for key lime cake that tastes just like this.....it reminds me of limeade, not too sour, but with lots of lime flavor.

My cake had pale green frosting (which you can't tell in the picture, and purple sprinkles). 

We ate every bite of it.

THANK YOU HUSBAND!!!

Wall inspiration

Want to see something funny?

Okay back to what I really meant to share.  I love pinterest (you know you do too).  So I was perusing pinterest last September and was coming across a lot of quotes on peoples wall.  I think this is a pretty popular thing to do these days.  We did not currently have any words of inspiration on our wall, so I thought it might be something nice to do.  However I had yet to see something that I really thought fit us enough to write it on the wall.

A few weeks later I had kind of forgot about the idea when I came across one that I loved and I had to add it to our home.  There is a hallway in our home that leads to all the bedrooms besides the master and ends in a blank wall.  This wall once had some beautiful plates with chickens painted on them hanging on it, but one of the plates lost a fight with a broom so I had taken them down. This empty wall, I thought, was the perfect location.  The only problem was I really wanted the words to be simple text and black and white.  The hallways was yellow.  To make a long story short the idea to put some words on the wall in our hallways led to me repainting the hallway, the kitchen and the kitchen cabinets.  Anyhow the project was complete a week before our wedding so I consider it a success.

If I had one of those fancy vinyl cutter printer things I would have just used it to make my quote.  Another alternative would be to go online and order the stick on words custom made (too pricey).  My alternative was very cheap but much more time-consuming.  I typed out what I wanted and then used a poster maker to blow it up.  The time consuming part....I cut out all the letters with a box cutter.  Ta-da, a stencil.  Taped this to the wall painted the letters and touched up with sharpie and some extra white paint.  It was a process, but it was worth it.  You can see these words when you walk into the kitchen and whenever you head for a bedroom, so we are constantly reminded of who we are trying to be.

Sausage bread

This is what we had for breakfast on Sunday.  It is a modification of a recipe my grandmother gave me.

Here is my recipe
 for the dough:
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tablespoons yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/4 cup prepared mustard
2 tablespoons butter
31/2 cups flour

for the filling:
1 lb sausage cooked
3-4 eggs beaten
1 cup grated cheddar

to make:
1. mix flour, yeast, sugar and salt in large bowl
2. In a separate bowl microwave, water, mustard and butter until warm (but not too hot...I microwave the butter until melted then add the water and mustard and microwave it jsut a bit longer---my goal is about 110 degrees to make the yeast happy)
3. Mix liquid into dry ingredients (I used my stand mixer) knead until smooth and elastic
4. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes
5. Mix together cooked sausage (that has cooled a bit), beaten eggs and cheese
6. Roll out the dough to be about 10 x 15 inches
7. Spread filling ont he middle third of the bread dough
8. Cut slits in dough up to filling and braid dough
9.  Brush dough with extra egg before baking
10. Bake 375 for about 40-45 minutes (cover with foil if you need to to prevent it getting too too brown).

This is easy to prepare ahead of time a leave in the fridge until you are ready to bake.  No rise time so it is a quick hearty breakfast that is a big hit at our house.  You can also make this recipe into 2 smaller loaves and freeze one before or after baking.

Chicks......and ducks

Have you ever convinced yourself to get something you don't need because you really really want it?
Back to that in a minute....

We got out meat birds thist week.

This is the first time we have done meat chickens so we only got 25.  When we try something new for the first time we also try not so spend to much on the project in case we find out we don't like said project and don't want to do it again.  Should we find that we enjoy whatever it is we did then we consider investing in better supplies.  We have an extra dog lot that was given to us that we will use to raise these guys in.  I only felt comfortable putting 25 chickens in this lot at a time so that is what we got.  In the future I would like to get more.

We also went to easy route with Cornish Rocks this time, but will consider heritage breeds in the future.

For a brooder we are using a big water trough that leaks so is no good for giving livestock water.  This gives them plenty of room.  With smaller numbers of chicks (like when we add a few layers we use sterilite containers).  The chicks will live here for a week or so, then move to my big wonderful cage (see previous post about the best cage ever), then into their outdoor lot.

Back to the question.  I convinced myself that I needed ducks.  Yesterday I went to our feed store to pick up my chicks and they had ducklings....they were cute and I wanted one.  I decided that a duck would be very happy living at our house and also very cute, so I got two.  THE END!

Grillin, Smokin, Eatin

My birthday was last weekend, so my husband got a new grill (what just happened, I thought it was my birthday).  This is not just a grill though...


the new grill hangs out in the basement because we have not bought a cover for it yet



...this is a gas grill, a charcoal grill, and a smoker.  I have never had such amazing grilled and smoked food.  The steaks cooked with a little smoke are amazing!!! This week we will be smoking some ribs from our dearest Lenny.

On another note...

...dog and puppy finally decided they love each other (the puppy loved the dog, before but the dog did not reciprocate)

An unofficial advertisement

I got some new shoes for Christmas.  They are great.  You should get some.

These are Toms....for each pair you purchase a pair is sent to a child in need of shoes in a third world country.  Toms is now selling sunglasses as well....buying a pair of sunglasses can help a person in need with their sight.  They call it "one for one"

This is not a paid advertisement for Toms.  I just like them, and it is a good cause.  Cute shoes