Post Halloween Carving

Who says you have to carve your pumpkin before Halloween? Not me!

I kept putting off buying a pumpkin this year. I don't know why. Laziness I guess. But it worked out because Halloween week my mother-in-law brought us a couple from her garden. So then of course I kept putting off the carving--I was waiting for a good time when we could all participate as a family. But we finally carved one! Hooray!

Charlie pulled some of the guts out, but he mostly helped design the pumpkin's face--picking shapes, sizes, etc. Emmett warily ventured to put his hand in the top of the pumpkin, and when his hand came out with one pumpkin seed on it we cheered and said he helped, but that's about all the help he had to give. The boys enjoyed watching, and we had a good time.

Fun with Perler Beads

A while back I decided to buy some Perler beads so Charlie and I could have a fun craft to do together. We work on this while Emmett naps. I like doing crafts, and I'd like to share that hobby with my kids. Creating is awesome! Also, fine motor skills have never been one of Charlie's strengths, so I figured this would be a good craft to help him work on that.

I started out with buying a bucket of a variety of colors, like this. Charlie doesn't really care about what colors he has, and he's not quite ready to really follow a pattern or create a pattern of his own. I've been able to make a few things with the color selections we've got, but for projects that use a lot of the same color, I'll probably need to buy additional beads. I'll also need to buy some bigger pegboards. Here are some patterns that I want to make for Charlie:

Captain America & Batman

Superhero or other brand specific toys (like Nintendo) are typically expensive, and this is a good, cheap alternative. And Charlie gets very excited when I make him something like this. And by very I mean that he will be thoroughly entertained for at least the next hour playing with it. At least.

The first time Charlie and I sat down to do this, we spent some time sorting the beads by color, and he did pretty good with it. Then we started putting the beads on the pegboards. He did ok, but he didn't understand what the end result would be, so he lost interest and didn't really have enough beads on his pegboard to make anything. I made a rainbow heart.

The second time Charlie did much better. We sorted some more before we got started. Charlie put a good amount of beads on his pegboard. I still had to help him finish his project, but he did very well on his own. And I made him a Pokeball. He was thrilled!

The next time we invited a friend and her mom over to do beads with us. Also a success. We had a good time and both kids were pretty successful in making theirs--still needing some help to finish.

We did some more yesterday, and I made Charlie a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Michelangelo at his request. While I was looking back and forth at the pattern, Charlie took a look, dug around for some beads, and said, "You need two pink for his tongue!" And handed me two pink. I was surprised and impressed. I think next time I'll have him help me build one from a pattern. Maybe he's closer to being ready for patterns than I thought.

The word of the day while working with the Perler beads yesterday was "loseable." Charlie kept saying, "These beads are loseable." Over and over and over. It was a little annoying, but I didn't know a word to teach him as a replacement. After all, these beads definitely possess the ability to be lost. What other word for that is there?

Swirl Drop Flowers

I used some birthday money (thanks, Mom!) to buy myself cake decorating supplies in the form of a Wilton Decorating Basics Student Kit that included 12 decorating tips, 4 standard couplers, 2 featherweight bags, 6 disposable bags, 6 parchment triangles, 1 flower nail, 1 cupcake nail, 1 decorator brush, 12 flower template stickers, 1 spatula, and a practice board with stand and patterns. I think it was a pretty good deal.

I was so excited to get it! So the week it arrived, I made some sugar cookies and decorated them with swirl drop flowers. (PS: When does making cookies with kids become fun? Because I sure find it frustrating, but Charlie loves helping.) I liked the idea of a small project to start practicing; I didn't want to try tackling an entire cake right off the bat. I think I chose well.

It was fun. And they turned out pretty pretty if I do say so myself. I did run into a snag that I was concerned would be a bigger problem then it turned out to be: the tip to make the swirl drop flowers (Wilton 2D) requires a large coupler, and my kit only came with standard couplers. Weird, right? I was too excited to be deterred, so I just put the tip in the bag without any coupler. It worked. Not ideal, but successful. I definitely prefer how the coupler holds the tip in place, so I will be getting one eventually.

Since I had never made sugar flowers before, I wasn't sure what kind of frosting to use. I was reluctant to try royal icing because I've never used it before and I didn't have the ingredients. I've worked with buttercream before, so I used a Wilton buttercream frosting recipe I found online. As some of the comments suggested, I used all butter instead of half butter and half shortening. I wasn't sure about consistency, but I knew I didn't want it too thin, so I only added 1 T of milk instead of 2. The frosting turned out delicious! And while I'm no expert on the perfect consistency to make sugar flowers, I think it worked out really well. But I am definitely interested in suggestions!

To make the flowers, you rotate your wrist and squeeze out frosting at the same time. It's only a little tricky. When I went slow, more turned out wonky than almost perfect. But when I got in a groove and went a little quicker, it seemed more turned out almost perfect than wonky. I don't know; what's the best way to establish muscle memory? The thing I need to do better next time is to stop squeezing before I pull the frosting away. You can see that some of the flowers are a bit spiky, and I think I jumped the gun and pulled the frosting away before I stopped squeezing.

Now, as I was looking stuff up online to get ready for this attempt, I happened upon one of the most amazing frosting tricks ever! I'm serious. It's genius. If you don't believe me, check out this video--the good part starts after the first minute:

I tried it with this project, and using this trick made cleaning the frosting bag almost non-existent! I only had to clean a tiny bit of frosting out of the tip of the bag. It was so quick. I will do this from now on. (And I think I'll store my leftover frosting wrapped up in plastic wrap in the fridge or freezer for future use--it'll just need to get to room temp and then it's ready to go!) I had been debating the whole reusable vs. disposable frosting bag scenario. After all, the disposable ones are super convenient--and I REALLY like things to be easy. But why continuously pay money for frosting bags? This new trick has solidified my choice: reusable. Yes, the trick requires some plastic wrap, but it's not like the stuff is expensive. I think it's a perfect compromise.

Training Underpants

I am preparing to really potty train Charlie. I say "really" because while I've been encouraging Charlie to various degrees over the last year or so to use the toilet, we haven't really done anything about it. And I'm tired of buying diapers for two children. And I'm tired of wiping sh!t off two bums (well three if you include mine, but it's not like I want anyone else doing that for me)--granted, the sh!t wiping will continue into the potting training for a bit, but once it all gets started there is hope in sight!

Four or five months ago, we had a "potty training day," and yes it only lasted one day. I did the whole give-the-kid-as-much-to-drink-as-they'll-take thing, and in doing that, everyone I talked to said you're then supposed to put the kid on the toilet every 10 minutes. That seemed excessive to me. I was wrong. I was going for every 15, but I checked the time with each accident and it was really close to every 10.

To make it all worse, all three of Charlie's accidents happened while I was attempting to nurse Emmett. I learned that de-latching a suckling infant, putting them in a safe place while they scream at you for de-latching them, covering yourself up in an attempt at modesty in front of your toddler, and running to said toddler's aid to prevent them from peeing all over the place just takes too long. This potty training day made me immediately regret not trying to potty train Charlie before Emmett was born.

Honestly, I'm not convinced that if I had tried to potty train Charlie before Emmett's birth that it would have been successful. But I wish I would have at least tried.

Also, holy cow my kid can pee a lot! I learned that I do not have enough spare towels to handle the massive quantities of pee that can leak from my kid's body every 10 minutes.

So, now that I've stopped nursing Emmett, I am ready to potty train Charlie in force.

And in order to save my few towels from repeated urine soakings, I have made Charlie some extra-absorbent training underpants. In my mind, these are the cloth diaper take on pull-ups--which I am not willing to pay for.

I got the idea off Pinterest, and you can see the original blog tutorial here. I followed that tutorial with only one deviation: I lengthened both my flannel and PUL layers so both went from waistband to waistband.

Before I got started, I washed the flannel, PUL, and Gerber training pants. This ended up being pretty important because my flannel actual shrank quite a bit even though I followed the washing instructions carefully. Then I began the project by tracing the area of the training pants that I wanted to be reinforced. I used a marker and wax paper.

Then I cut four layers of flannel for every one layer of PUL. I pinned the flannel to the inside and sewed using a zig-zag stitch.

I pinned the PUL to the outside and sewed using a zig-zag stitch.

And done! It's really quite easy, and I think any beginner sewer could make these successfully. I find it to be a bit time consuming, though. My first one took me about two hours--I am a perfectionist so I go slow anyway, but I am getting quicker.

My plan is to make a total of six of these for Charlie, and so far four are complete.

I was able to get all the fabric at a discount: I got the flannel on sale for 60% off and I used a 50% off coupon for the PUL--which is a good thing since it's $15 per yard! Including the cost of the Gerber training pants I used, I made these underpants for about $4 each. I'm not going to any lengths to be exact because I will have a lot of both fabric left over, but I'm confident that $4 each is a good approximation. (The blogger from the tutorial I mentioned above sells reinforced PUL training pants on her Etsy shop for $35 for a set of three.)

Charlie has already had some accidents in these. The first accident was lots of pee. Lots. The underpants were thoroughly soaked. BUT . . . no puddle on the floor. Huzzah! AND . . . only a little leaked through to his shorts. Huzzah again!

I'm excited. :)

With these in hand, I'm more optimistic about potty training. I feel like I'll have a lot less mess to clean up when Charlie does have accidents. And maybe with less mess to clean up, I'll be able to be more patient with him throughout the whole process. After all, I'd like potty training to be as pleasant an experience as possible for everyone.

Carving with Charlie

I was thrilled when I got to my local Winco and discovered pumpkins were only 9 cents per pound! Charlie and I (mostly me I admit) picked out a huge one and brought it home. For the last couple weeks, Charlie has taken great pleasure, despite my protests, in climbing all over our big pumpkin.

But the day finally came when we got around to carving it. I think Charlie was pretty surprised when we took the big knife to the pumpkin, and I really hope he doesn't get it in his head that he can start carving into things--we'll see.

Since carving does involve large, sharp knives, the most that Charlie could really do was watch, but we gave him the big bowl of pumpkin guts to take care of. He was enthralled with stirring the slimy goo and seeds (which he kept calling coins) for a surprisingly long time. When the fun was gone, we gave him a cookie. He was happy til we were done carving.

Charlie did pick the triangle eyes and the diamond nose. And when we were finished, I asked him what we should name our jack-o-lantern. Quickly and decisively he said, "Mark!" I don't know where he got that name. I don't think he knows anyone named Mark. (PS: When asked what we should name his baby brother, Charlie said, "Lewis!" Again, Charlie doesn't know anyone named Lewis. Weird.)

Mark now sits outside our front door and receives many a "Hello" and "Goodbye" with our comings and goings.

 

Pink Sheep Cake

We celebrated the October birthdays on my side of the family, and I designed this beautiful pink sheep cake. “Why a pink sheep cake?” you ask. Well, I will tell you.

We celebrated two birthdays: my cousin’s and my brother-in-laws. My cousin’s favorite color is pink, and my brother-in-law’s family has a sheep ranch. Viola. Pink sheep cake. I’m a genius.

My mom actually made the cake and frosting, but I put it all together. The brown frosting for the sheep’s face and ears is not the typical chocolate frosting we usually make; we used Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Cocoa. This was my first experience with it, and I thought it was delicious! Personally, I love the wiggly eyes. They may be my favorite part of the cake, and I will be using them again in the future. And I used a peanut M&M for the nose.

It may not look exactly like a sheep, but I think it’s pretty close, and it was a lot of fun to make.

New Dress

 For my sister's wedding, I sewed myself a new dress. My sewing experience has been pretty sporadic, and my last attempt at a dress, during my senior year of high school, turned out pretty laughable—just ask my mom, I can guarantee she will laugh. So for this attempt I not only made sure to purchase an easy, beginner pattern but I also proceeded under adult supervision. And it turned out to be a great success! At least I really like my new dress. And I had the opportunity to learn a couple new sewing skills; I can now successfully make gathers and tack down lining. (The gathers is an especially good skill to know since my first attempt at gathers is the main reason my last attempt at a dress was so laughable.)