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Planning for Five

I used gentle parental manipulation encouragement to convince Biscuit that rather than a generic party at the bounce house place she'd much prefer a theme party at our place. Hooray for success. We're now planning a "French Cafe" birthday party for October. She was so excited she drew some art for the invitations. (like last year. Ok, I still love the invite from last year) Here's what she did:

 

Awesome, no? This was the only Eiffel Tower image close at hand and she went above and beyond by copying the whole picture.

 

It won't be a Madeline party (although wouldn't that be ADORABLE?) but "French Cafe" so, what do I serve? Unfortunately she's declared crepes are "disgusting" so I'm already out of ideas. Parfaits? WWFND? (What Would Fancy Nancy Do?) Luckily I have 1.5 months left for research (and parfait testing) before our little mademoiselle is 5.

Today in our ice cream maker

Blackberry sherbet (finally using the blackberries we picked on Friday) AND lemon-lime sherbet using frozen juice from last year's lemon crop and a lime that was hanging around. The long-time reader will recall that my awesome ice cream maker makes TWO flavors at once! Biscuit really, really wanted to make rainbow sherbet and this is as close as we can get.

Here's the recipe for the blackberry (modified from the one that came with the Norelco maker).

For 1 quart blackberry "sherbet"

• 1 cup sieved blackberry puree (about 1.5-2 cups fresh blackberries, blendered and sieved to end up with 1 cup seedless mush)
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• ~2/3 cup milk
• ~1/3 cup heavy cream (I was finishing off a carton so added cream then topped it up to one cup with milk--you could use 1 cup milk and no cream for a real sherbet)
• 1 T corn syrup
• 1/4 cup plus about 1T sugar
• 1T lemon juice

Stir everything together until sugar is dissolved. (I then chilled it for an hour but not sure it's necessary). Proceed using ice cream maker per instructions.

Backpack and lunchbag tag

I wanted to make some sort of tag to ensure Biscuit always ended up with her own lunchbag and backpack so I decided to embroider them. 

The fabric is from a sheet she used to make a skirt for her "mini me" for school. Bad photo but it shows mini me.

So back to the tags. This morning we were running so early for school I thought I had time to stitch a tag together before we left. Only problem was, I took too long and Biscuit was a minute late her second day of school. Bad mom! I was feeling guilty all day and then late this afternoon Mr. H left a message.

"Hi hon. When Biscuit and I were walking out this afternoon we ran into the principal. She stopped and asked to talk to me..."

My stomach dropped as I was listening thinking how embarrassing it would be to have a tardy reported to the principal. On the second day! Cringe!

"...she said what a pleasure it had been to meet Biscuit in her kindergarten class today...."

Heart beating again I kept listening to hear how well day 2 went despite the late start. Tomorrow, no morning sewing, so tonight I finished the second tag for the lunchbox.

I was thinking maybe I should have embroidered our phone number or email but I just wrote it on the back in pen. Maybe I'll put a little "please return me to" card inside each case. Anyway, at least this way the kid should come home with the right belongings.

Tomorrow my main goal is to be on time for drop off. It's the little things.

First day of kindergarten

I started blogging when Biscuit was 4 months old. She looked like this. And now she's in kindergarten. She looks like this:

 

As you can see, she wore the yellow dress. Green was the hands down voting winner but what you friends 'o' the internets didn't know is that green and blue were both in the wash and unavailable for first day wearing.

 

Blue is her hands down favorite but dad convinced her yellow would be okay. I was amazed she was willing to wear anything I made at all.

 

Check out all those parents with cameras. So funny. We were right there with 'em.

All in all the first day went great. She was excited and happy all the way through. Especially when I picked her up and she asked for ice cream and I said yes. We just discovered Hagen's. We're slow. The orange freeze is SO GOOD!

Dress voting

Well, we already know what Biscuit wore to her first day of kindergarten because she's there right now wearing it. But, this can still be a lesson in voting and democracy so go ahead and humor us by voting for your favorite dress. Which one would you elect to live in your (daughter's) closet?

The blue dress. First seen here, the dress now has a dyed bottom edge but still has the incredibly uneven hem. It's made of knit with a lined bodice and full skirt. The pattern is McCalls 6155 view B but heavily modified (hence the uneven hem).

 

The green dress. A lined, knit bodice with an Ikea fabric skirt. Bird applique from the skirt fabric. I didn't use a pattern for this one but traced one of her existing dresses. She did her own styling for the photo shoot.

 

The yellow dress. From Butterick 4176 and some fabric I bought to make me a dress (that was a total failure). Only pattern modification was lengthening because I've got a girl who likes her dresses long (and who am I to complain about that?).

 

I realize these dresses are mostly too big. I am not a good garment seamstress and fitting is beyond me. Still, she'll wear them so I'm counting these in the success column.

Ok, Vote!

Blue Dress

I got A LOT of things checked off my to-do list yesterday. Isn't that the best feeling? Of course there are many things still ON the to-do list but I'm trying to focus on the positive. "Make School Clothes" has been on the list since May. I did the pajamas. Now I am focused on dresses (and hopefully shorts/tops).

This dress has a great spin factor. I am planning to dip dye the bottom edge. Once that is done, I'll show the other dresses and invite you to vote.

I was trying to explain the democratic process of voting to Biscuit yesterday and thought a real life example might be fun. Stay tuned.

K minus 3 (plus pajamas)

K-3. In other words, Biscuit starts Kindergarten on Monday. It's Thursday night now. Three days left. We met her teacher at the school picnic tonight and she seems very nice. Biscuit is very excited about kindergarten and we are excited for her.

In preparation she has received a new (pink) insulated lunch bag to replace this one that was still in use, a new (pink) school backpack and a new (Tinkerbell) pencil case. She doesn't really need clothes but I wanted her to have a few new school outfits so I'm in sewing mode. Naturally, I started by making her some pajamas. Totally logical.

 

I am learning about sewing knits. I have a copy of Sew U Home Stretch checked out from the library but it's really a lot of trial and error. Lots of error. This was the first project where I tried to bind the edges of knit and it was easier than I thought although the neck is obviously stretched out. I think it was part user error and part pattern error. After that I just serged the other hems. Whatever, it's pajamas.

 

The apple knit was a great thrift store find--super soft--and the navy blue is from the JoAnn bargain table. I find some great apparel fabrics on those racks. And by "great" I mean "cheap enough to use for experimenting."

 

She fell asleep in record time after this photo shoot. Must be the comfy pj's.

The grandmas are restless

The grandmas are my most vocal readers (mostly my mom) and they apparently expect regular updates. But somehow life has seemed really busy lately for no good reason. So, as a placeholder, some recent footage of the kid being hilarious with her dancing and singing routine. You'll notice she writes her own lyrics and tunes ;) And then the kid reading a bit of Shel Silverstein (which was a favorite of mine when I was a kid).

I can't believe she's starting kindergarten in 5 days.

Bounty

I grow an unpredictable garden. Last year was year of the butternut squash. Year before was carrots. This year, all tomatoes. Mostly cherry. Gazpacho, BLTs and tomato cucumber salad are on the menu this week.

Backpacking

The cute people backpack in:

Our campsite. We didn't even use the tent; we slept under the (shooting) stars.

 

Clearly somebody needed a nap much earlier in the day

Swimming and fishing in one of the many, many lakes.

 

Campfires allowed in the backcountry. So fun!

And, finally.  A shot for my dad. Actually, this entire post was probably for my dad and for me when I get caught up on scrapbooking two years from now and wonder when exactly we took this awesome trip. And where the heck we went.

 

Final scrapbooking note to my future self: Biscuit was a great backpacker but only if she got to be line leader. Luckily the other kids (and adults) humored our little leader of the pack.