Solo Trip

Guess what. I’m taking a trip. ALOOOONE.

Say what?!!

It’s true. Today I’m flying to Charlotte to see my Sis, Bro-in-Law, nephew and of course… sweet newborn Daphne!

Just look a her. Just look. My sis tells me that she’s been asking about me all week and wondering when I’m coming.

Well sweet girlie, Auntie Suz is coming TODAY to meet you!! Don’t you fret your perty little self…

Aside from meeting her and hanging out with the fam, I plan to do other things that are even more rare occurrences. Like sit on an airplane seat all by myself (obvious, I know, but definitely worth a mention). And not carry any diapers. And travel with ONLY carry-ons (Did I just say that?!). And sit in my airplane seat marveling at the lack of toddlers by my side. Then sit in my airplane seat and cry at the lack of toddlers by my side. Then pull out a hanky to blow my nose and remember my sweet boy who made me a hanky for Christmas and cry even harder. Oh my. I also plan to eat my traveling snacks all by myself without sharing. I will walk through airports without pushing a stroller, without tugging a child by the hand and without spreading loads of crumbs in every gate I wait in. And when I arrive, there will be no traces of snot, vomit or smeared peanut butter on my clothing. Glory halleluiah.

Hold up. I'm not done.

When I arrive I plan to sleep in a (fabulous) King size bed all by myself, whenever I want, for as long as I want. I'm gonna sew stuff without one of my children on my lap. And read books without pictures. I’ll call home and talk to my hubby and my babies and tell ‘em how much I miss ‘em and how much I wish they were with me. Then I’ll hang up and wonder if I really meant that or not. Then I’ll struggle with internal conflict for the next half an hour. Then I’ll curl up on the couch and drown my internal conflict with a fuzzy blanket, a newborn baby and lots of cooking shows.

I think you get the idea. It’s gonna be great.

I’ve been seriously looking forward to this for awhile. I think it does a Mama some serious good to get away. And maybe it does the Daddy some serious good to? I can’t count the number of times in the past few days that Mikey has said “Don’t leave me!” He he. Don’t you worry about me, friends, I’m gonna be doin’ juuust fine… But maybe you could pray for my husband? Ha! He’s gonna be doin’ great too. He's amazing. I love him. And it's mostly him I have to thank for the gift of this weekend...

Vocabulary Lesson

My boy’s vocabulary continues to multiply. He’s super fun and I love his words.  Whether or not he gets it quiiiiite right…

This is a “House section”, aka, a housing development.

“Fire sprinkles” are what fly out of fire when it is stoked.

A “Steam roller” is used to roll out cookies.

He loves to drink “White water Coke”.

This is a “Whiskers”.

Grammi and Poppi played “Bee-nokoly” with him in Ohio.

Sweet N’s favorite property was the “Yai yai berks.” Ha!

The projected words on the wall at church is actually a “Magic wall.”

These are “Fire sticks”, naturally.

Which would make these “Ear sticks.”

And we have “Crew-nuts”

and “Glitters”.

I do hope you learned much from today’s vocabulary lesson.

Felt Baking Kits–Hearts!

Recently I created these homemade felt baking kits for my two little munchkins. They were a hit!

It would make a super cute Valentine’s gift for the mini-mes in your life and there is still time to make it happen before the 14th of February.

Here is the whole kit. But I’ll show you some details…

The ‘dough’ that gets rolled out is two layers of tan felt. I doubled the felt so that it would feel less flimsy than a single layer. It would definitely work with one layer also. I spent most of my time zig-zagging around the edge of these pieces and if I’d only done one layer, it wouldn’t have been necessary to zig-zag at all.

Using a cookie cutter as your pattern, cut the shapes out of the felt with a sharp razor blade. That way your little baker can cut and re-cut the perfect shapes each time.

The pan and spatula were bargains and I added my own details…

I love tiny details. And these small details help to keep the whole set along the same theme and make it easy to identify that it’s not my spatula that I suddenly find missing when I’m trying to scramble eggs. But it also makes it possible to distinguish her rolling pin from his rolling pin, if you know what I mean and if you understand the importance of being able to distinguish! the two. Two bakers fighting over whose rolling pin is whose are not happy bakers. (Yes, I made a boy set too!)

I covered a bargain hot pad with my accent fabric and trimmed the edge with pinking shears. Easy peazy.

Who wants a cookie without toppings? Okay, I’ll take a cookie any ol’ way, but it’s more fun with icing and sprinkles!

Perfect!

I also included this sweet apron. It was mine when I was tiny, but it wouldn’t be hard to create your own.

Lastly, I sewed this cute bag to gather all the bits and bobs.

Here’s the boy kit. It’s so manly, eh? His apron is a dish towel with a length of black binding tape quickly sewed onto the top. He looks oh-so-handsome with it on too!

And here are the little details on the boy set. So fun.

In closing, I have a Warning: DON’T attempt stars unless you’re really committed… it was much more difficult to zig-zag these felt shapes than the hearts. I really wish I’d just chosen a circle or something, anything without 10 sides!

My kids love these sets. I have even hauled them to church as a quiet activity and it worked. My happy little bakers baked away. Until my littlest baker started hitting her spatula on anything hard that made a noise. Oops. What are you gonna do? She’s two! I still called it a success!

So there ya have it…