Willow Bakes Amelia Bedelia's Cake

The kiddo loves to bake.
The nice thing about baking is that the recipes are generally rather simple, really. You don't have to use the stovetop, usually. Often, you don't have to even use an electric mixer. Most of the time nothing is timed until it goes into the oven. All this makes baking ideal for little kids to do independently--they can take as long as they want, they don't have to worry about burning themselves, they can build up their little arm muscles and practice their math skills.

Although Willow rarely wants to make a recipe a second time (she still talks about how much wooooork the French bread was, even though she didn't complain while she was making it), if she finds a new recipe that she wants to taste, she's pretty much always up for making it once. The other day, she read Amelia Bedelia Bakes Off, and at the end of the book, Willow showed me that the author actually included the recipe for AMELIA'S PRIZE-WINNING CAKE!!!

It was very exciting, likely the easiest cake recipe that I have ever seen, and here's how it went:

First comes the flour. Notice how clean the table and the child look. That will not last:

Next, you add the sugar. Please note that child baking is NOT for the faint of heart--it took Willow over four minutes to measure out one cup of sugar. I thought that I was going to die:

The cocoa goes much better, as now Willow has a system, but Sydney also develops some alternate plans:

Then you mix the dry ingredients, and you, the audience, discover that I am, in fact, a mean and wily parent:

Shout-out to Pizza X! And also Willow grosses me out a little:

There were big plans afoot to ice the cake and frost it like a dinosaur, or maybe a castle, and to decorate it with cookies and candy obtained who knows where, but after enduring the agony of waiting for the cake to bake, and hearing me announce that we'd also have to wait for it to cool before we could decorate it...well, plans changed:

PERFECT cake.

Thanks, Amelia Bedelia!

Cloudy with a Chance of Screen Time

It was a GORGEOUS morning:

The sky was full of clouds, and the clouds raced across the sky, so that all you could do was stand with your head craned backwards and watch them:

 We took many photographs:

And then we ran around, chased all the rest of the leaves that were going to fall off the tree right that minute, and watched the amazing sky some more.

Then the tornado sirens began to wail, so we scurried inside and spent the rest of the morning watching Land Before Time in the basement.

This was also fun, it turned out.

Do Not Eat the Candy Corn

I know it looks delicious:

All white and orange and yummy:

It's true that crayons are non-toxic and all, but if you eat these--

--I'm pretty sure that your tummy would NOT be pleased:

You can check out my NON-EDIBLE candy corn crayons over at my pumpkinbear etsy shop.

And speaking of non-edible treats, my weekend post over at Crafting a Green World about sugar-free, eco-friendly Halloween treats has spawned a series of the meanest, most mean-hearted comments that I've gotten since I dared to declare that the tag "craftivism" shouldn't be tethered to one particular leaning. Apparently, I am stupid, all kids hate me, especially my own, and don't I know that all apples have razor blades hidden inside of them? If I wasn't making an effort to be all Power of Positive Thinking lately, I'd be deject that the mere possibility of a Halloween absent high fructose corn syrup and individual packaging could be met with such vicious negativity, but I AM making an effort to be all Power of Positive Thinking lately, so...

Yay, I'm getting so many comments on my blog post!

My opinions are out there in the webosphere, and the world has taken notice!

Next stop, Larry King Live!

And when I appear on his show, I will give him a festive Halloween pencil.

And maybe an apple.

Little Kid Kasparovs

Sure the babies still like dinosaurs and human evolution and their bicycles and Magic Tree House and My Little Pony and baking sweet treats and Nancy Drew and Halloween, but their latest obsession?

 
 
 
Willow would rather play with me (and one of these days soon she's going to kick my butt instead of it being the other way around), but Syd likes to play, too, so usually I pit the two girls against each other and I coach.

It makes for a WAY better game, frankly--both of those two little nuts are so crazy and unpredictable that they'll do anything, and they never pass up an opportunity to take a piece. Seriously, they might as well salt the earth when they're done, because they leave their battlefied BLOODY!

And I can't even describe the thrill as they race their pawns to the other side to get their queens again, only to have the queens attack each other the very next move--and goodbye, queens!

All I can say is thank goodness--the girls and I are taking a cross-country road trip in a couple of weeks, and before we leave, I am shifting some cash out of the food budget and buying us a travel chess set. Because we won't even notice that we're eating beans and rice AGAIN if we're playing an exciting game of chess over dinner...

Tutorial: Camera Strap Cover

I had a really cute intro to this, but when I got up a minute ago to put on my pajamas and pour the last layer of melted crayon on top of some candy corn crayons that I'm making, Sydney's cat Gracie came and rolled all over my keyboard. Not only did she delete my blog post, but she also then typed in qwekkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk on top of it so that my draft saved that way.

Anyway, pretend that there's a really cute intro right here.

This camera strap cover is the third iteration of this particular project, and I feel that I've finally nailed it. The cover is as long as the camera strap, but when you want to cinch the strap tighter, as I wear mine, then the cover will nicely ruffle along the entire length, also adding some padding so that you don't have to sew in bulky interfacing. The cover is also pieced from two pieces of fabric, because sewing two side seams keeps the cover lined up better with the camera strap that just one seam does.

To make a camera strap cover, you will need:

• fabric. I used vintage quilting cotton for my strap, but I had really wanted to use flannel, and I bet that fleece would work, too, or even felt. Choose a small, busy print.
• rotary cutter, ruler, and self-healing cutting mat
• sewing machine with thread that matches your fabric.

1. Measure your camera strap, then cut two identical pieces of fabric. Each piece of fabric will have the length of the camera strap length + 1", and the width of the camera strap width + 1", also:

2. Put the two pieces of fabric right sides together, then sew all the way down one long side:

3. Hem each short end:

4. With right sides together, sew down the other long side, to form yourself a nice, long tube.

5. Turn this tube right side out.

6. To put it on the camera, unfeed the camera strap from the camera, slide the cover onto it, then hook the strap back up to your camera. After you've adjusted the strap length, your new strap+cover will look something like this:

But this, I think, is how you'll generally see it:

Insert really cute concluding thoughts here.

A Picture of Me in the Nude

ME: What a wonderful picture, Sydney! Will you tell me about it?

SYDNEY: It's a picture of you, Momma, and you have none of your clothes on:



And also, I suspect that those aren't my arms...

A Pinback for the Holidays

King Kong Donkey Kong

Florida

Texas

Missouri

BLUE FISH

Indiana

And now I'm gonna go watch Fringe.