Water sling

I have been trying to work out the details of a sling that will be good to use in the water. I know there are some really fancy ones for sale out there, but I figured a simple ring sling out of the right kind of material would work just fine. I love the solarveil fabric for the sun protection it offers tiny baby skin, but the fabric has been discontinued. I usually keep our babies all slathered and white with sunscreen so I guess sunscreen fabric really wouldn't make too much of a difference anyway.

There are great websites out there that offer all sorts of guidelines for making different types of slings. The one I find myself going to whenever I am in a baby-carrier-making-frenzy (like now) is the Jan Andrea site. She has several sling designs on her site along with all the information needed to make them yourself. I always go there first, before I start sewing a sling, to make sure my measurements are at least close to hers.

Hopefully we will be able to try out this new water sling sometime this weekend when the weather clears. I'm excited to see how it holds up while chasing Owen full speed all around the pool with The Carms in tow. Just the visual makes me giggle.

I am going to sign off of here until Monday and do some weekend weeding, possibly some sewing, a bit of birthday celebrating and maybe...hmmn..maybe the laundry.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Summer wear

Pool days are here and Carmel has picked out her favorite summer gear. She is really diggin' the red boots and I gotta tell ya, I am too. Unfortunately, they don't stay on her feet all that well. She still has some growing to do. Lots of it.

This little girly will be 1 on Friday. Where did my year go. I want it back!

Jam Update

{Carmel doing the jam taste test}

The canner got a bit of a workout this past weekend. We now have 35 jars of strawberry jam/marmalade canned and stored. I keep imagining how wonderful it will be during those cold winter months to open a jar of homemade jam. It will be such a sweet reminder that strawberries really were growing in our garden over the summer.

I have been planning to post the recipes I've used so far but I haven't gotten to it just yet. I promise I will do it soon though.

A day in the park

Yesterday we stopped in at the park to enjoy some blue sky and cool weather.  I laid back with my head on our blanket and stared up at the beautiful Catalpa trees.  I was trying to convince Owen and Carmel that these Catalpas are some of the loveliest trees we have around here. They weren't sharing in my enthusiasm for the trees.  Owen gave me one sideways glance.  Carmel chewed on a leaf and then spit it out, unimpressed.

Maybe if I could have really gotten their attention they would have agreed, but you see my lovely Catalpa trees were competing with this for attention...

...crane.

...guy swinging from crane.

...guy swinging from crane with chainsaw in hand.

I will have to admit that it really was quite a splendid show.  They were completely mesmerized and thoroughly impressed.  Mouths open.  Forgetting to blink.  I was worried a few times that they had stopped breathing.  And to be honest, after about five minutes into the show I was thinking, "what trees?"

Hooray for pillowcases!

I found these great pillowcases at a rummage sale a couple of months ago.  Since then I have been holding them, staring at them, running my hands along them, adoring their vintage print, turning them inside-out and then right side-out again, wondering all the while what they should become.    

I finally decided on a dress for Carmel.

I just figured that if I was going to stand around staring at a pillowcase all day, then I may as well just make a dress out of it and wrap it around something (or someone, in this case) I usually spend my days staring at, holding on to and adoring anyway.

I still have one pillowcase left.  I'm thinking maybe a little matchy-matchy thingy for the mama and the Carms (you know, while she is still too young to care about having an outfit to match her mama's)  Oh how I do soo love matchy-matchy.

Baby Bliss

The babes and I went to a birthday party on Saturday and we took Baby Bliss with us to give to the birthday girl (whose middle name happens to be Bliss.  Love that!).  We don't know what they ended up naming her but we really enjoyed having our Baby Bliss around and we are sure going to miss her lots.  In fact, I just started another little doll like her this morning.  Owen, very sweetly, asked me "who is this little dolly for mama?"  I was a little embarrassed to admit, "Hmm, well Owey, this one is for mama."  Yes, it's true.  I am actually going to make myself a doll.  Also, I will not be listening to any of you who believe there is something wrong with that. Nope!  Just look at her.  She's sooo cute and I want one.

The Dolly 411:  

{The pattern came from The Black Apple via Martha Stewart.  It is really easy to put together and sews up pretty quickly.  I love that the hair is felt and you don't have to spend hours sewing on yarn hair.  The fabric is called 1974 Urban Chicks, I think.  Not too sure about that. The stuffing is 100% wool, so is the felt hair and scarf.  The face is painted on and she has beads in her behind for weight.   This is a really great, easy to make doll.} 

Stitch her.  Stuff her.  Love her.

Strawberry Jam

At some point this winter I set the rather lofty goal of lining our cabinets with no less (no less!) than 52 jars of jam.  That was one of my canning goals for this season (Did I just say canning goals?  Yes, something is seriously wrong with me).    Now 52 jars of jam may seem excessive, but really that's just 8 ounces a week; barely more than an ounce a day split between four people. Now that's nothin'.  It fact, when I look at it that way, maybe 52 jars of jam isn't enough.  

When our berries first started coming in we were picking and eating most of them.  Every time we picked and ate a bowl full I would secretly mourn the loss of one jar of jam that particular bowl full of berries could have made.  This is ridiculous of course, as anyone who has seen our strawberry patch knows,  we have enough berries to eat, drink (no shortage of daiquiris here), turn in to pies, jams, tarts, whatever, with loads more to share.  

Last night Andy and I went out and picked some berries after we laid our little people down for the night.  We came back into the house with about 5 quarts of berries.  We cut, squashed, sugared, boiled, stirred, ladled and finally finished  17 beautiful jars of strawberry jam.  

Yum.

Yum.

Just 35 more to go.