Dad's 50th Birthday Meatitarian Feast

For this weeks edition of Mmmm good Mondays I bring you Cheeseburger Cupcakes and a feast fit for any carnivore!

We themed the party "Meatitarian" after the Wendy's commercial. Ron and I are raising Wednesday vegetarian and we ourselves only eat meat rarely and when this commercial was released we recieved a couple phone calls from our family making reference to it. We decided to use it as the them to the dinner because my dad is always complaining about the lack of meat at dinnertime these days and I thought he would be able to appreciate a meat buffet.
The buffet consisted of dry rubbed and marinated for two days in a homemade sauce by Ron and then slow baked in the oven ribs, meatballs slow cooked in a crock pot in the same homemade bbq sauce, Sweet and spicy Thai chicken wings, two coleslaw (another homemade ginger sauce by Ron) type salads, bake potatoes, cheese bread, mac n' cheese bake and the Cheeseburger Cupcakes for desert.

The cupcakes were almost as big a hit as Ron's ribs. I got a lot of oohs and aahhs but Ron's ribs were eaten into extinction. I tried a couple meatballs and although the sauce was wonderful I cannot stand ground beef and it's meatballs counterparts. Give me a meatless meatball any day! I did manage to fill up on a bake potato with sour cream and some mac n' cheese. After the entire day in the kitchen making the cupcakes, I really was not that hungry anyway.

The cupcakes were inspired by this flickr tutorial set. I tweaked them a bit using brownie hamburgers (inspired by Martha's brownie cutouts from her Cupcakes book) and buttermilk in the vanilla cake mix (it was a *gasp* box mix) and I made my own vanilla icing recipe from Martha Stewart Cupcakes book. A tip: Dust your cookie cutter with cocao to cut out browine 'burgs. I used icing sugar without thinking first and well...you can see where I am going with this.
Topped with some killer 5-0 shaped sparklers they were worth all of the effort.

Better than all of the cooking and baking though was having my family here. My sister and brother were here from Toronto for the night and my other brother came in from Kingston the day of the dinner. Very close friends of the family made it in from out of town for dinner and cake and it was great. Said friends even bought dad a t-shirt that went perfectly with the theme it said "There is room for all of God's creatures, right next to the mashed potatoes." I was sad when everyone had to start heading out hoping to beat the Sunday night traffic but I was exhausted at the same time. After battling that cold this month, having a child who now rises with the sun (literally) and company, visiting and baking I am truly exhausted. I slept like a rock last night and I just might nap with Wednesday in the next hour.

Then again, I might start another craft project because I am a glutton for punishment.

On Play Dates...

Today is Thursday and that means play date day! Wednesday and I both look forward to this day for essentially the same reasons. She loves her playmate Sydney and I love my mommy playdate Tara. We have a standing date on Thursday afternoons to get the kids together and let them run around like monkeys for a couple of hours. It just keeps getting better every week.

When we started the play dates the babes were a couple months shy of their second birthdays. They were well socialized with adults but not really kids, especially their own age. don't get me wrong, they were both great with others neither being biters or hitters or even snatchers of toys really. They just didn't have a lot of experience with kids of a like age. So we have tried to get them together once a week since mid summer with great success.

Each week we watch their development as children with both their cognitive and fine motor skills but even more so we see them develop socially with each other both on a superficial level but on a friendship sort of level as well. In the beginning they played in the same room or in the same yard but not so much with each other. One would play with a toy and they other would take an interest, that was about the level of interaction you could expect the first couple weeks. But as the weeks went on they would begin to participate in the same activities together until one day they were actually playing with each other. They would shout the same words for fun and shout at each other in jest. And now Wednesday not only knows where Sydney lives and asks to play with her but she talks to her on her play phones and in the truck when amusing herself. Sydney has become a part of Wednesday's life just like friends do.

This warms my heart to the core. I could ask for a more perfectly paced friendship to form. I love to watch their development as little people and likewise little social people. Sydney is a wonderful child who is quite bright and incredibly active. A more perfect playmate I think we could not ask for.

As for the mommy, well we have a bit of history (not really but kind of and all good) we knew each other briefly in high school so it was not so strange a meeting. The meeting as moms was arranged by a mutual best friend who had managed to stay friends with the both of us since high school. She set us up when she realized we lived just a couple blocks away from each other with little girls who were less than two months apart in age. Bless her heart.

More than having a mom who thinks and parents very very very similar to me (which is a blessing let me tell you) but she is around the age as me, a stay at home mom like me, reads many of the books as me and funny as heck. So it is not just about Wednesday having a radical playmate but me too. We can talk about mommy stuff and agree on just about everything, we can talk about non mommy stuff and if we don't agree we can agree to disagree. We have started a 'Mommy Movie Night' once a month. We went to see Inglorious Basterds last week and the night was great with good food and conversation and the movie was awesome with Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino! We are hoping to see Sherlock Homes next but I am not sure when the release date is so who knows but whatever it is is will most likely be violent because we like it that way. She even gets along really well with Ron as sometimes he joins our play dates.

Speaking of Ron and husbands hers and mine also have a lot in common and get along well. So this toddler play date is slowly turning into family play dates and really that is what it is about right? Friendships on all levels. Support networks? Understanding your neighbor?

But sometimes, it is just about little girls being little girls.


In June


Last month


Last Week

Happy Thursday~!

Cozy Wall Pockets ala Moi

I am so excited to share this with everyone. It is my first finished project from Amanda Blake Soule's Handmade Home and it took only a couple of hours! I started cutting the fabric right before Wednesday went down for a nap and then my mom (bless her heart) took her for an outing shortly after she woke up and with about twenty minutes to spare I had the pockets cut, sewn and hung!

This was wonderfully simple. I used felt instead of the recommended wool blanket because wool is not so easy to come by around these parts. (I do have one blanket but I am saving that one for another project from the book.) I found this felt at value village on a second vintage linens scavenger hunt and thought it perfect for the job. It does not hang quite as heavy but because I made my organizer the length of a door instead of the original 38" it hangs quite nicely. I made sure to double stitch the pocket dividing lines to give them added strength. The only trouble I had was I pinned all of my pockets to the felt and then sewed instead of sewing pocket and then pinning another etc. They did not shift much at all and I am totally happy with the result. Here is the set on Flickr if you would like some more close up shots.





Don't the vintage linens look just wonderful together?! So very awesome. Thanks for looking!

Mmm good Mondays!

Happy Labour Day my fellow North Americans! And a very happy Monday to any readers from other parts of the globe!

It has been a whirlwind time here in Sweet Home Ontario and so I have a lot of posts to post and yet not enough time. As a way to help me organize my thoughts I thought I might give a theme to a few days of the week starting with today. Mondays are officially Mmm Good Mondays! and as a premier post I bring to you Pineapple Banana Muffins!



Mmmmmm good right?

I recently had a lot of fresh pineapple around the kitchen that needed to be used up before it went to rot. This was a perfect way to use it up (that and dried pineapple flowers ala Martha Stewart). They took no time to make even without the help of my handy dandy Kitchen Aid counter top mixer. The muffins turned out perfect and lasted a couple days (I made two batches) tasting fresh(ish) right until the last muffin. Here is the recipe text copied from the Cathlin Cooks blog.

½ cup olive oil
½ cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons rum
3-4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoons baking soda
¾ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
½ cup pineapple


Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a muffin tin. In a large bowl, beat together the oil, brown sugar, vanilla, and rum. Combine the mashed bananas and eggs in a separate bowl and add to the sugar mixture. Beat until thoroughly combined. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir it into the banana mixture. Chop up a cup of fresh pineapple and add to batter. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups. Bake the muffins for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven, and let cool in the tins before removing to cool completely.

***

As you can tell from the photo they turned out perfect and perfectly delicious. I would also like to point out it was tricky finding a recipe calling for fresh not canned pineapple and this one was worth the search.

Side note: As a child growing up i thought all pineapple tasted like that from a can. Was I surprised when I had my fist taste of fresh, perfectly ripened pineapple. I haven't been able to consider, let alone bake/cook with and or eat. But for at least twenty years prior I had no idea the deliciousness of a fresh pineapple. Crazy isn't it?!

(Recycled) Jersey-Velour Cloth Wipes Tutorial

As some of you know I cloth diaper my little girl. There was a time when I spent all of my spare money (which as a stay at home mom I do not come by with a desirable frequency) on diapers and accessories. I received two free bamboo velour wipes with a wetbag purchase one day and after just one swipe across a poopy bum I was sold. I proceeded to order a few ever couple weeks until i had enough to use as diapers, wash clothes and after meal cloths. And then the unthinkable happened; I lost almost all of my wipes in the move. Along with some diapers, wool pants and other cloth diapering goodies. I have been using the same six? since and let me tell you six do not go far when you use them for wash cloths as well. So when a mama on livejournal offered to sell me a couple yards at a good price jumped ta the chance to make my own. Yeah. Let me just say I am happy to be done. But! I am happy to have fourteen new wipes to wipe my snot nose with because just as I was finishing the wipes on day two I came down with a bigger, badder version of the cold Wednesday had at the beginning of the week.

I backed the wipes with repurposed t-shirts and a tank top. Sounds easy enough right? Wrong! Sewing stretch fabrics is not for the novice sewer I say. I say! I consider myself an okay seamstress. Amateur at best but the stretch fabrics took a level of patience I did not know I had. So I thought since I took pictures along the way I would turn it into a tutorial. "A tutorial for simple wipes?" you say? Well, more a tutorial for repurposing old clothes as wipes and some hints for sewing two stretch fabrics together.

Sew, on to the tutorial. For those of you who do not like scrolling through mega picture posts here is a link to the tute on my flickr.



Old t-shirts and tank tops. Stains are really of no issue because wipes get stained, and fast. See that white and pink tank top? It is a ribbed a-line top. Don't use it. That fabric gave me the most trouble.



Cut wipes to desired size plus seam allowance. Pieces pictures are roughly 8.5" square. Pin them right sides together. If you are using just t-shirts and no second fabric, you can turn the shirts inside out and trace the pattern on one side and cute two and go straight to pinning.



When you have pinned enough. Add more. Stretch materials move...a lot!



Give yourself at least a 1/2" seam allowance and a one inch opening to turn the fabric right side out. I found putting the the opening in the middle of a side seam made sewing the seam and corner easier.



Because you are sewing stretch fabrics, and I can only assume you are a novice like myself because you are reading my tutorial you will most likely have to trim your edges a bit after sewing due to the stretch factor of the stretch fabric.



Turn the fabric outside right and use a chopstick or something similar to get into the corners.



After you have turned out your fabric and your corners look dandy pin the opening shut. I found an excessive amount of pins worked to keep the opening shut because sometimes I did not give myself enough of a seam allowance.



And yet more pinning. For serious. (It keeps the seem neatly between the two fabrics.)



Voila! A beautiful cloth wipe for your baby's bum or face and/or hands.



Now, do that all again thirteen more times like I did!



Don't forget to take pictures like anyone but your mom cares!

If you want to when your done making your wipes you can add them to the flickr pool Love of Cloth.


EDIT: If you do not have the inclination to sew some yourself but are seduced by the brilliance of bamboo velour you can alway buy some from Sarah's Stitches. That is where I bought mine and the price is so reasonable that if I hadn't been recently obsessed with sewing I may have just bought more.

September already!

This is Wednesday's mom telling you to get outside and smell the flowers before they are gone.

Happy Humpday!
~Melissa

Fluffy Mail Love

We all love packages right? And we all love super soft fabric right? So it is doubly awesome when something super soft arrives in the form of a package yes! I bought some fabric off of a mama at Livejournal and I am so happy with it! The boysenberry is to-die-for and the natural will be PERFECT for the doll I am planning for Wednesday's Christmas gift. With the boysenberry I have many many many cloth wipes planned and some mam cloth too. Oooh I see many hours on the sewing machine this week. I should stock up on the A5-35 !

Handmade Home by Amanda Blake Soule

Over the last few weeks I have really taken an interest in the blogoshpere. Particularly the mama-come-crafter bloggers. And most recently I stumbled upon Amanda Blake Soule also known as Soulemama. And also most recently, I purchased her newest book Handmade Home.

I ordered it (from my Chapters wish list) and received it yesterday. I had a package slip in my mailbox that could also have been for some bamboo velour that I recently ordered but I was wishing for this book. I got my wish!

What a wonderful book so far. The projects are both practical and beautiful and easily manipulated to suit your needs and/or tastes. They include both cloth diapers (prefolds) and cloth pads (mama cloth). I was so happy to see the mama cloth included especially since her blog is so well read by so many. She stresses the use of reclaimed fabrics and vintage materials. She also explains how thrifting is both pratical and fun. A woman after my own heart.

I have a project in mind for this week, but if I get to it and complete it soon enough expect at least one post in September to be made from the pages of this wonderfully photographed and loveingly written book. Also, I will be purchaseing her first book The Creative Family as soon as my budget allows.

Happy reading!

Here Fishy Fishy....

Wow, what a day so far! So busy! But last night I finished my latest crafty obsession and today I can finally share pictures of it with you! Okay, drum roll please!



It is a little fishing game I crafted out of mostly felt, some steel washers, bamboo and crazy magnets. Because I only get nap times and bed times to do the bulk of my crafting (Wednesday is so curious I cannot get anything done) this took me the better part of the week to finish but I did it. With a bunch of ways to improve it so that I am not AS happy with this as I should be. But, I am really really happy with how it turned out. Especially considering my skill level and artistic talent (or lack thereof).

I have to note that the original idea is NOT mine. I found a picture of a similar item in this photostream at Flickr. I cannot link to the original photo or set because of the author's settings but you should check out her photostream, she has both great taste and great talent for making childrens toys.

It was essentially a practical lesson in machine embroidery because all of the stitching was done on a machine with various zig zag and straight stitches. I learned as I went and I learned quite a bit. I can't wait to tackle another project that requires some sort of machine embroidery.



Clockwise from top left:
White salmon, yellow tuna, red tuna, blue whale, hermit crab, octopus, sea turtle, two jellyfish, starfish, two sea weeds and a great white shark.

The first three fish look kind of funny because they were my first and I did a combination of straight and zig zag stitches. By the time I reached the octopus (which was my last) I was a pro at the whole 'machine embroidery thing'. And when I was sewing the washers on I realized I could have put the washer inside since the magnets were so awesome. Another thing to try next time. The batting is an eco friendly poly made from corn! (Which I thrifted for a buck at a local charity shop.) The felt is eco-spun made from recycled plastic bottles.



The fishing poles are bamboo garden stakes sawed in half with a hand saw and a shiny red string tied to one end (to be glued soon as tying was a bad idea) and then I wrapped some cloth around the magnet and tied the string around that. In theory it was a good idea but the fabric I used to wrap the magnet was way to flimsy. After just a few minutes of play the corners of the magnet were wearing through the cloth. I will sew up some felt packaging this weekend. It will also dull the power of the magnets.
The bag is a simple sewn drawstring bag all straight stitched but I do double hem the seams because I really don't like fraying edges. The lettering and fishing pole were my very first attempt at such a thing and although I was smart enough to back it with something, felt was the wrong thing. It catches on the tracks just a bit too much, next time I will invest in some interfacing.
The blue sea is some sheer yardage I bought at Value Village just the other day for I think a couple bucks.



Some action shots from this morning. I babysat my cousin's son again and this was a big hit with both children. They played it for probably a good solid half hour. Not bad for a two and four year old. It was worth all of the late nights and neck cramps. I can't wait to do it again, maybe he'll get one for Christmas.

I really had so much fun making this. All the felt, fabric and notions I had on hand but I did have to go out for the washers, bamboo and magnets. All in all the whole 'game' cost me about fifteen dollars not including felt. Totally awesome.

I think that is all I can say about that for now. Good night folks!

Sugar Nazi 1 - Them 0

I have been crafting up a storm lately but nothing is finished yet so I thought I would talk about something very important to me. The sugar intake of children.

Wednesday is one of those children who has a lollipop and then climbs the walls. So, she does not get lollipops. She had one once. Once. And her head nearly exploded after an hour of constant babbling and running. I think she was fifteen months at the time. That was our get out of jail free card. Wednesday had never really had sugar before that so we had no idea what her reaction to it would be. We were with the in-laws who were in from out of town and so she was mostly occupied and indoors (the lollipop had come from having dinner our earlier int he evening and I had popped it into my mouth without realizing someone would be watching)where she could babble and run until she crashed, almost literally. She had tripped over a toy, fell on the carpeted living room floor and started to half-cry. The sugar high was over and we as parents were much wiser.

The next dose of sugar she had came months and months later in the form of a juice box. We were at a friends place visiting and their little guy was drinking a juice box and so, Wednesday being the curious one wanted one as well. I couldn't find it in my heart to deny her one and seeing how we were just about to leave I thought we could manage it. Well, for the twenty minute car ride home Wednesday sat in the back seat just babbling away. And I mean babbling. Total jibberish all the way home. So we learned, again, how Wednesday reacts to sugar.

Now, Wednesday gets sugar through fruit. NOT fruit juice. We try very hard to keep fresh and/or frozen fruit on hand for Wednesday daily intake. Fruit is always offered first and foremost at snack time. At the park I have container after container of grapes and apples and such. She does get 'cookies' but they are Heinz Toddler biscuits and it takes five cookies to amass a whopping 7g of sugar. She likes them and I like that.

I am not going to lie, it is a constant battle with others. Thankfully Wednesday is still too young to know better. But, I have the nick name 'Sugar Nazi' because no one is allowed to give Wednesday sugary treats without first asking me. And I say no 99% of the time. She can have one fruit juice jujube or a teaspoons worth of ice cream from their bowl etc. But on the whole my child lives a relatively sugar free diet.

The reason I decided to write about this today was brought on by what I did yesterday. I babysat a four year old boy. I thought it would be fast times at Sweet household high. But alas, the child was very well behaved, very polite and above all, very mellow. Which was a blessing because it rained the entire morning so I was not able to take the children to the park to burn any excess energy. For breakfast they ate MultiGrain Cheerios with fresh blueberries, for snacks they had all the fruit they could eat (which apparently he detests) and Ritz peanut butter sandwiches and Heinz toddler biscuits. For juice I gave them watered down lemonade which both children were happy to have. For lunch he had a peanut butter sandwich and milk and then it was nap time. He woke up and his dad came to take him home.

All in all it was a breeze to care for the child. I was happy to offer to do it again tomorrow. Upon talking to his grandmother (my aunt) I found out that he reacts to sugar the exact same way Wednesday does. A single juice box or glass of chocolate milk will send him into a sugar induced frenzy. So, score one for the 'Sugar Nazi'.

I have just never understood people who give children sugar in the form of candy or the well meaning juice box and then marvel or become angry at the child who "bounces off the walls". And then when they crash they get sent to bed for a nap because "they must be tired". That is no way to spend a day constantly getting high and crashing and then being punished. Imagine that in an adult's day, being given speed a couple of times a day and then being given trouble for the poor decision making skills that come with it and THEN being sent to sit in a room by ourselves to think about it or sleep it off. Just reeks of unfairness I think.

I am looking forward to tomorrow at the park with two children though. And I am looking forward to tomorrow with a well mannered boy and my well mannered Wednesday. maybe, I'll have my big craft finished in time for them to enjoy it. But that is another post for another time.