Happy Monday Tuesday dear friends! It’s only January and I’m once again thinking there are just not enough hours in the day! I’ve been trying to finish up a couple projects that have been sitting in my back room for AGES and I’m making some progress! I hope to finish both this weekend because now they are not just taking up my back room but also taking up the main area of my basement! One of my new year’s resolutions should be to clean out and organize the back room. It sort of unofficially is… You remember the advent calendar that took me a decade to finish? That was one of the items in the back room! One box – cleared! Unfortunately right after I cleared that box off the shelf I inherited 2 more boxes from the cub scouts and I have literally no idea where to store them. I already can’t fit my own stuff!
Speaking of fitting stuff…(I just re-read this and still decided not to cut it) from Julius’ birthday alone I added another box of “science equipment” to my shelves. The good news is he wants a cooking birthday next year (at least he says that now) so most of the stuff I bought was actually measuring cups and spoons which I can use again next year! Bonus!
I am shocked that I haven’t finished all the birthday posts yet. I’ll add this one about the unicorn headbands I made and then I just have one more I think. Maybe two. I will be honest, the unicorn bands came out adorable! But they fell apart! I almost never use hot glue if I can avoid it, and this is the exact reason. It never holds things on properly. Next time I would completely cover the headband with fabric like I did for the disney ears. I think even if I still used hot glue it would be a better base for the horn to stick to. Despite that they looked cute for the party so that’s half the battle.
Unicorn Headbands
What you’ll need:
blank headbands (I would recommend ones pre-covered in fabric)
1. Start by cutting out your gold fabric, folding in half and sewing along the unfinished edge to form a cone.
2. Turn right side out then take a 14″ piece of silver elastic and knot one end. Insert inside the horn and pull thru the top.
3. Stuff the horn with stuffing and then take the silver elastic and wind it around the horn. (You should strategically glue it in spots down the way.) Tie it at the base of the horn.
4. Glue the horn right onto the center of the headband.
5. Cut out 2 unicorn ears from template. Glue ears on either side of the horn about 1-1.5″ inches to either side. Do this by putting a stripe of glue in the center of the ear, attaching it to the headband, folding the ears up then gluing them together.
6. Glue flowers around the horn in a cluster, covering up the ugly glued on part of the horn.
Well it’s back to the old grind today for me. Last night I slept like I was in the back of a cement mixer. (So basically I woke up like 8 or 9 times.) Honestly I might be the kind of person to be able to sleep in the back of a cement mixer so maybe this is a bad comparison. I guess it was all the dread of going back to work. Though the holidays and their associated craziness are still a form of work, it’s different when it’s all for fun. Plus my mom took on the brunt of hosting during Chistmas. Despite not making any presents for the kids for Christmas we had a lot of gatherings that require prep work! And one silly tradition we’ve started that you may have noticed on our cards this year. But before I talk about that, I just want to comment about how we are so lucky we ended up with two great kiddos instead of just the one.
Julius and Patricia are so cute to watch together. They played together all break and really (except for a very light amount of teasing) they didn’t get tired or frustrated with each other. Right before break there was a Cub scout pot luck and I had the kids make cards for someone they loved. Patricia made one for Julius and Julius made one for Patricia. It was the sweetest thing ever. Yesterday they insisted they were going to sleep in the bed they had made in the hallway and were incensed when we told them they couldn’t sleep in the same bed. They settled on sleeping in different beds in Julius’ bunks.
Another sweet moment was witnessing this conversation:
Patricia (to Will): Daddy I want to go outside in the snow.
Will: Ask if Julius wants to go with you.
Patricia runs upstairs
Patricia: Hey Julius, after you get your clothes on do you want to go outside and sled me around in the sled?
Julius: Yes I’d love to do that.
Patricia (shouting down to Will): He said he’ll go outside with me!
So the new tradition we have started is celebrating the winter solstice. Not just one of the solstice based holidays but the actual shortest day of the year. (I know I’ll have to celebrate summer solstice too, but one pagan thing at a time people or Will will catch on.) So last year we celebrated by leaving the lights off when the sun went down and lighting candles and a fire in the fireplace for light. We then had dinner by candlelight and had a yule log cake for dessert. After dinner we celebrated by looking at the stars and the moon through a telescope (first time my kids had looked in one) and then reading books by the fire before bed. It was a blast! And super cozy. Julius talked about the yule log cake for the entire next year. So… we did it all again this year!
Candlelight solstice dinner (ignore the reflection on my face)
Patricia and I were home by ourselves for the beginning of solstice so we built the fire and threw some rosemary on the fire for a nice spiritual cleansing. (I told Patricia because Julius and Will were going to be at a birthday party we would do witchy things by ourselves at home. She shouted “go away bad witch” when she threw her bundle of rosemary into the fire. Not sure if she thinks all witches are bad or just some but I guess sending bad witches away is always a good thing.) Patricia and I also made a delicious vegetarian cassoulet (aka just a big old pot of white beans) with bread crumb topping. I’ve made vegetarian white bean cassoulet a few times, and this recipe is definitely the best we’ve tried. Will had thirds and that’s saying something. My only substitutions were to use a couple sprigs of rosemary in place of the thyme (I still, despite my best efforts, despise thyme).
Not super attractive by candlelight I promise it was delicious!
Of course we also had crusty sourdough and a winter spinach salad.
My yule cake also came out amazing this year! Julius helped me decorate by adding some bark patterns on the ganache. I think the key was not overcooking the cake and rolling it up immediately out of the oven. Mine didn’t crack at all! I used this recipe for all the parts of the cake and I highly recommend it!
Wow. That really looks like a log! I’m all about that buche
For fireside reading I gave each of the kids a book I thrifted and Will read to them by the fire while I tried to finish the actual text based normal book (read: not audio based) that I’ve been reading. It was nice to catch up on some reading in such a cozy spot. The 21st was a Saturday this year so it was the perfect start to the holiday week.
If you made it this far I have to relay another cute Patricia quote. For context we were watching descendants, which has a bad guy named the boogie man who causes bad dreams.
Patricia (indignant): He didn’t make my bad dreams! I did!
She wasn’t mad the boogie man was giving people bad dreams, she was mad he was taking credit for the bad dreams she had created. Touche!
Hello friends! I hope you enjoyed/are enjoying some winter solstice based celebrations. And further I hope when you read this (most likely in the new year) you are having a happy start to 2025! Happy New Year! The kids and I did a bunch of New Year’s Eve themed crafts today a la Pinterest. I wanted to do the typical New Year’s Eve count down at 12pm (aka Noon Year’s Eve) but for yet another year I couldn’t get my act together in time. Instead we decided to prep everything for post dinner celebrations. We called it “crafternoon” and got down to business after lunch doing some gluing, painting, cutting, taping and stickering. Then the kids decided they wanted fondue for New Year’s Eve dinner so we whipped up some of that. Side note, fondue is incredibly fast to make! Like, you can make it on a week-night fast! I’m going to have to log that away for later. I’ll post the recipes I used below.
Sigh, while Halloween is my favorite holiday, the winter celebrations are a very close second! The New Year always triggers an end to those joyful celebrations. My siblings all went home yesterday which always makes me sad! Will is extra sad, I’m sure, because that also signals the end of more eager board gamers living with him. I am just not as eager, I fear. I’m more of a do all the crafts type person. Luckily Will is out having some game night fun tonight with friends to continue his streak.
Speaking of do-all-the-crafts I think this is the first time in several years that I haven’t made anything for the kids for Christmas. It made me feel like a total failure! I had so many ideas and I accomplished none of them. On the bright side I did use the furoshiki wraps that I finished after last Christmas for all the Christmas presents and I had WAY MORE than I even needed including using them to wrap presents from others that had been shipped to us! We saved SO MUCH PAPER! What a great feeling. We hope we didn’t counteracted it with all the deliveries to our house. I can’t even fathom how bad that is. I’ll have to make an effort to buy more things local next year, though it really is very difficult to find things in stores these days. Especially when the only brick and mortar toy store is 45 minutes away from us. Target has a great toy section but it doesn’t cover all the things the kids asked for this year for Christmas. Though really no toy store would.
Patricia and Julius really don’t like to write Santa letters. Last year and this year we asked over and over again to have them write Santa a letter. They refused, on the reasoning that they asked Santa what they wanted in person. We went to see Santa at the beginning of December and they each asked for one thing. Patricia asked for “100 dolls in boxes” (we did have a chat about greed but it bounced right off her) and Julius asked for “a cheesecake”. Huh. Patricia ended up getting one American Girl Welly Wishers doll (and accessories) from Santa and shortly after opening it cut off half its hair. I had a near heart attack when I found the clump of hair in the bathroom. It should be noted that she did not choose to do this to the offbrand 14.5 inch doll that Mama and Dada got at Target for 1/4 the price, she targeted the Welly Wisher. Sometimes I wish I could bottle her curiosity for cause and effect.
Julius found a note under the tree on Christmas morning telling him to check the fridge. It appeared some jolly elf had left a brown pastry box in the fridge that had a sticker from “Mrs. C” on it. It had a block of cheese inside… that it seemed was actually a cake. A cheesecake to be exact. Mrs. Claus must be a bit of a prankster sending him a cheese-cheesecake. I bet she had fun making that. Julius said it was awesome, but not quite as good as the jelly cake.
New Year’s Afternoon Soiree with Kiddos*
*can I count this as a party? I don’t know but I’m going to, I don’t get out much anymore.
New Years Eve Noisemakers (I’d just gotten a bunch of bells from Michaels on Xmas Clearance. This is what I was doing yesterday instead of writing this blog post).
Recycled Party Poppers (instructions below)
Food
We made a half recipe of this awesome cheese fondue. The only difference I made was to omit the Worcestershire sauce (it’s not vegetarian), added 2 Tbsp of corn starch with a tablespoon of water and I brought it back up to medium to come to a simmer while stirring with a rubber spatula the entire time. It almost instantly became the right consistency when it started to simmer and I didn’t have to wait 5-8 minutes. Will even liked this recipe because it was made with cheddar. Will is not a fan of the swiss cheese varieties, even though Julius and I think they are great. For dippers we served with cubed homemade sourdough (obviously), raw carrots, broccoli, pepper and celery, apples and cherry tomatoes. I didn’t bother serving with a salad because the kids ate more than their share of veggies this way with no prompting.
For dessert we happened to have all the ingredients for chocolate fondue on hand including marshmallows, strawberries and some unfrosted sugar cookies I had made for xmas that I chopped up for dipping. I used this recipe (again halved) and melted the chocolate on low and it was perfect.
At 7:30pm we did a count down and watched a recording of a past NYE ball drop. The kids played their kazoos and shook their noisemakers when we got to 0. Then the kids said they wanted to do their own ball drop with the disco balls we made. So they counted down to 10 and dropped them off the balcony. And finally they launched pom poms at me (then cleaned them up) before they headed up to bed.
Recycled Party Poppers
What you’ll need (for each):
1 toilet paper tube
1 toilet paper wrapper (or tissue paper)
Additional scraps of tissue paper or TP wrappers
string or ribbon to tie the ends
Tape
Paper for jokes
a fun little trinket (ours were some little boba tea lip glosses)
1. Cut your TP roll in half. (Honestly having done this several times now I’m not sure they ever break along the center line, so this step is probably unnecessary.)
2. With the scrap TP roll wrapper/tissue paper cut up little 1/2″x1/2″ size squares of confetti.
3. Cut a roughly 1′ x 8″ rectangle of TP roll wrapper/tissue paper then place your cut TP tube in the center on one of the longer ends.
4. Tape on each side of the tube.
5. Slowly roll up the tube in the wrapper until it overlaps. Then again tape each side of the tube.
6. Pinch one end closed and tie ribbon or string around it.
7. Fill with confetti and a joke (the kids wanted to write their own jokes). Then have the kids close their eyes while you put a little prize inside and add more confetti on top.
8. Pinch other end closed and tie off with ribbon or string
Well… Another great weekend… until it ended with lice! Not something you want to hear, I know. A few months ago we found a few on Patricia and it turned out Julius also had a few. This time we found them on Julius and it turned out I had a few… Last time it put me in a state of panic for 2 weeks afterwards as we washed and dried and vacuumed everything in our house. I probably did 20 loads of laundry. I’m not going to lie it took a toll on me mentally. This time Will and I both took a mental health day to go to the lice clinic, do laundry and clean and vacuum the house and furniture. We didn’t even finish all the laundry that day but we made a huge dent and it was so much better than trying to do over 2 weeks all while working. And of course this weekend our guests come stay… We wanted to make sure we don’t scare our family away. Side note the lice clinic we found is awesome. They guarantee no lice after treatment (which consists of this hot dry air blowdryer thing followed by dimethicone). This is kind of unheard of, and is a very recent scientific lice treatment break thru! Thank goodness for science.
Before finding out about lice we had a great weekend (in retrospect thank goodness we were outdoors and wearing hats nearly the whole time)! We went to NYC, had some bagels, saw my friend Cathy, went to Rockefeller plaza to see the giant tree (from MA this year!) and FAO Schwartz, went to Times Square to write our wishes for the new year on confetti they drop with the ball, saw a bunch of cool window displays then went to Bryant Park for some dinner and dessert at the winter market. It was a great quick trip!
Speaking of quick these cupcakes for Julius’ party were pretty quick to make and it was great I could make the fondant for them several days in advance which makes decorating them easy! That said they wilted a bit because I put the fondant on then covered them overnight. Next time I’ll wait until the day of to add the fondant (or I’ll have to use something that won’t wilt like gum paste). Luckily this was a lesson learned for Patricia’s party so she didn’t have floppy unicorn horns. When I asked Julius if he knew what my fondant decorations were he said “yeah! They’re science cups.” Which I thought was adorable…
Science Beaker Cupcakes
What you’ll need:
fondant (I make my own from this recipe I got in a class at Amanda Oakleaf Cakes)
food coloring for the fondant (gel is usually more vibrant)
1. A week before you want to serve the supcakes you’ll want to form your fondant beakers. I first made some teeny cookie cutters. This kit I got off Amazon has really come in handy. I have made like 7 different weird shaped cookie cutters from it since I bought it 5 years ago.
2. First mix in food coloring to your white to form colored liquid. You don’t need very much for this. I made purple, green and orange. Take one of your colors and form it into a roll. Take an equal sized ball of white and form it into an equal sized roll.
3. Put some powdered sugar down to prevent sticking then roll out the two together to form a very thin (2-3mm thick) dual color strip.
4. Using your cookie cutter (or a knife and a template) cut out a bunch of beakers. Make sure the colored part is the bottom of the beaker to look like liquid.
5. Repeat above steps 2-4 for other colors of “liquid” and beaker shapes.
6. Let the above beakers dry for a couple days. When dry use a black food safe marker to form tick marks for measurements.
7. Frost your cupcakes. I used a large cupcake star tip starting in the center and then continuing outwards to form ring of frosting around the edges. Then I placed the fondant beaker directly on top.
This is the best picture I have, you can see some of the cupcakes on the right hand side that don’t have beakers on top.
8. Add some sugar pearls around the top of the beaker to look like bubbles.
Note: You’ll want to serve a few hours after you put the fondant on top or it might become moist.
Wow. I’m late. Again. I haven’t started making any gifts for my children or Will despite the list of ideas I have again. I did finish multiple sets of cousin calendars I make (with the help of my brother and SILs) and almost finished addressing holiday cards so I consider myself ahead of the curve! And oh boy just wait for this year’s holiday cards…
So as I was thinking about what to write for this incredibly long in the making project I was trying to actually remember WHEN I started it. It couldn’t have actually been 10 years ago… we only had just adopted Dany. My guess is it was 8 years ago. (So close it was 9 years ago.) I’m pretty sure I started it before Whimsical Brims. Because that was several laptops and pre Google photos I probably don’t have some pictures from the beginning of the project. On top of that I switched to an easier method because I got lazy after realizing the original plan was going to take me the rest of my life (I’m not exaggerating). Honestly it seemed a sisyphean task every year when I’d take out the box, work on it a bit and then put it back. That was until last year when I realized that I actually might be getting close to done. Then this year I was able to buckle down and in the course of just two half days I finished it!
“What is this epic project you keep waxing on about?!” you ask. Well it is a somewhat quilted looking advent calendar. The idea was to quilt an advent calendar with pockets. I feel the need to add like 7 more caveats. When I first started this project I had just gotten an embroidery machine and had no idea how to do applique. I also had no idea what quilting was. I also really didn’t know how to hoop stuff properly. I also hadn’t thought about the fact that quilting or embroidering on top of things would mean any pockets installed at the beginning would get sewn over. I also didn’t realize how LONG it would take me to embroider over 48 shapes. So instead I changed the project to use fusible fabric bond (heat n’ bond ultra). I surprisingly only used one package of this for the myriad of shapes I put on there.
Year 1 (2016):
Cut out a 4’x4′ piece of quilted backing, cotton fabric for the front and cotton backing for the back. Using a walking foot stitch through entire 3 pieces in a wavy pattern and realize you really have no idea how quilting works.
Cut out your Dany cartoon corgi with Santa hat. Attempt to attach it together by using the sewing machine to embroider. Decide you don’t like the look and give up for now.
Design and cut out Christmas boxes and bows.
Most of my boxes are 4×5. Some are longer. Also cut out strips for “ribbons” mine were the length of my boxes x 2″ wide.
Add “ribbons” to boxes by cutting boxes in half then stitching “ribbons” using .5″ seam allowance. Press boxes flat.
Fold under 1/2″ at the top of the box and stitch.
Sew a bunch of pockets. (You’ll need 24 total) I made these pockets 4×4 with an extra inch at the top on one side. (You’ll see why).
Lay out to see how it looks then give up for next year.
Year 2 (2017):
Have a baby, don’t do anything except make baby stuff.
Year 3 (2018):
Screw it, don’t do anything this year either.
Year 4 (2019):
Second wind! Give up on embroidering everything! Buy heat n’ bond ultra. Decide these boxes don’t take up enough room, cut out a giant Christmas tree then using heat n’ bond attach it to the quilt.
Start attaching boxes to the quilt. First cut a 3.5″ slit just below the lip of where the box will go. Then using one of the pockets you created 3 years ago stitch just above the slit into the extra 1″ of fabric you left above the pocket. Hand sew the other side of the pocket to the unfinished part below the pocket.
Using heat and bond, attach to pocket, making sure to leave a .5″ overhang that has no heat and bond above the slit you made to conceal the pocket.
Do the box/pocket thing until you get bored.
Year 5 (2020):
Have another baby. Think about the project but only in terms of “oh crap am I going to need to make 2 of these by the end?”
Year 6 (2021):
Don’t even think about this stupid project. Do 10,000 other projects and continue to increase anxiety about my kids still not being old enough for the covid vaccine.
Year 7 (2022):
Nah
Year 8 (2023):
Really? No wonder it took me 9 years.
Year 9 (2024):
Continue attaching boxes. Make sure not to sew or cut through any of the ones you added prior.
Add a star to the top of the tree and “rays” coming off the star. Add 4 extra pockets to the rays when you realize you don’t have enough boxes. Make more pockets because you don’t have enough. To attach the pockets to the rays, cut a slit directly thru the ray and the quilt (before the ray is attached). Then attach the pocket to the slit as before and heat n’ bond the ray on top, lining up the slit in the ray with the slit in the quilt.
Finish the corgi. Still hate how it looks but decide this is the home stretch now. Add a bit more outlining but overall just glue it together with heat n’ bond.
Attach the bows with heat and bond.
Add a border around the edge of the “quilt” (not sure we can call it that anymore). Add some little loops to the back for hanging.
Make 24 little tags out of some wooden xmas tags you got on sale who knows how many years ago. Paint numbers on each then attach to ribbon and the other end to a metal ring that is heavy enough to hold it in the pocket.
Marvel at how not-completely-horrible it looks but also not at all what you envisioned. Voila!
Sorry that I’m a few days late again! I was a single parent with one kid earlier this week and it turns out that is a crazy amount of work! How do all the single parents do it?! They are the real heroes. Plus I ended up with the “easy” child… Though honestly Patricia is such a sweetie and really has come out of the terrible twos and threenager years. She’s so much better at controlling her temper these days. And she’s still full of adorable quotes. Here are a few from the last week (when I was actually with her):
Me (talking about the picture above): Is it a hat?Patricia: No it’s a rock with a unicorn horn with a rainbow rock on top.
Patricia (out of the blue, trust me there is 0 context): I don’t want to put Santa on the bad list! He’s the good guy!
Patricia (hands and feet on the ground and butt in the air as I walk by her in Sugar’s lounge room while everyone else is having dinner): I’m a cheese! Eat me!
Some timely quotes there. I know it’s Christmas and I promised to show the 10 year in the making Xmas project (and st this point getting your hopes up for nothing) but wanted to get this unicorn tutorial out there first. It was actually quite easy to decorate Patricia’s cupcakes as unicorns! It’s a combo of a bunch of techniques from all over the place that totally work!
Unicorn Cupcakes
What you’ll need:
fondant (I used this marshmallow fondant recipe)
American buttercream icing (takes gel color better)
Red yellow orange green blue violet black gel food coloring
piping tips
making sheet
parchment paper
cupcakes
1. Make ears and horns out of fondant. For the ears I made a leaf shape and then pinched in the bottom.
2. For the horns I dyed some fondant yellow then made 1″ carrot shapes and then used the side of a toothpick to indent a swirl around the edges.
3. Let the horns and ears dry for several days.
4. Frost your cupcakes by making a batch of American Buttercream (I use this one). And prepare a couple baking trays lined with parchment.
5. Fill a piping bag fitted with a large round cupcake tip with 2/3 of the frosting. Pipe a large blob of frosting in the center of each cupcake.
6. Carefully invert the cupcake and slowly press it into the parchment paper. Make sure the cupcake sits evenly an the blob smooths out rather centered.
7. Repeat until you fill the tray of cupcakes then pop in the freeze for 5 minutes while you repeat step 6 with the second half.
8. After 5 minutes in the freezer remove your cupcakes. Gently remove each cupcake from the parchment, peeling it away slowly.
9. Divide the rest of the frosting into 8ths. (It will only be a few tablespoons each.)
10. Using gel food coloring, color the frosting black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Place all the colors but black in individual little rolls of plastic wrap in hot dog like shapes.
11. Place the rolls of frosting in rainbow order next to each other in a circle, then cut the bottom of the plastic wrap tubes to expose the frosting
12. Place the bundle of tubes into a piping bag fitted with a small sized star tip.
13. Pipe a moon of hair at the top of the cupcake followed by a little tuft in the center.
14. Use the black frosting and a fine line tip, pipe little eyelids below the hair.
15. The day of serving (don’t do it earlier or the fondant will wilt) insert ears and horn into frosting. (I frosted them the night before then inserted the fondant the following morning).
I just finished a project that I started about 10 years ago… Way before I had kids. But I’m not going to tell you about that yet! You might have to wait another 10 years… or at least another week. Julius and I have been alone since last Friday and despite my suggestions we had a pretty low key weekend. I offered to go to the Boston museum of science but Julius said it was too far and just wanted to stay home. (This was after he told me he wanted to drive to Sugar and Daddy O’s house.) Instead we went to the library and then made dumplings which honestly isn’t too bad of a day. Wait can we go back to the kids not wanting to do fun stuff for a second? I asked Julius and Patricia if they wanted to get a birthday bear from build a bear the other day and they both said no. What?! Since when? So we just .. didn’t go. I’m as surprised as you are.
In other actual fun news I joined a book club. A smut book club. I honestly might not read enough smut for this book club (I know, hard to believe) but it’s been a great place for romance recommendations and everyone is super nice and fun. I got a pin and a sticker when I joined! These girls are legit!
So I wanted to do a tutorial for some fun bread I’ve been making this fall. I made 5 of these pumpkin loaves in the last couple months and I think they came out really cute.
This is an adorable half loaf!
Pumpkin Sourdough Loaf (or half loaf)
1 recipe sourdough just out of the fridge (step 6)
cotton butcher’s twine
More flour and rice flour
a large pretzel rod
I have been making the King Arthur No Knead Sourdough for quite a few months now and I have made some adaptations to the recipe. Honestly this is what works best for me. I have also tried baking it with some of the techniques I learned in the King Arthur Baking class I took with success but those are a bit more laborious so for just one load I recommend sticking to the Dutch oven method.
Start preheating our oven to 500F. Remove the dough from the fridge and turn out onto a floured countertop. (If making a half loaf divide in two.) Let sit on the counter for 10 minutes or so until the dough warms up a bit. Then shape into a boule. I find the easiest way to do this is to pull a bit of dough from the sides of the dough into the center to form a circular shape.
Next flip your shape upside down onto the counter in a place where there is no flour; you want friction with the counter for this bit. Put your hands together on the counter as if you were going to sweep a bunch of flour into your lap. Then use this motion to draw the loaf towards you as you spin the loaf gently. Turn the loaf a half turn and repeat that motion. This should create some tension in your dough and the loaf will hold it’s shape. Note: If you aren’t getting any friction pat the surface with a damp cloth (not wet) then try again.
Flour your bread proofing basket of choice (I used to use a bowl with a towel to great success but I caved and I bought a basket and liner with the same amount of success). I know the KA baking class discouraged this but I find a super fine layer of rice flour works the best to prevent sticking, but I recommend you try what works for you. The way I get the rice flour in such a fine layer is by shaking it all over the bread form then use a spoon in a circular motion to scrape off as much as possible off the liner.
Place your shaped bowl into the bread form. (Make sure the side that was in contact with the counter is now facing up.) Let sit in a warm place for 1 hour. (I put mine on top of our oil burner…)
While you’re waiting for your dough to warm up, flour your string. Cut 3 lengths of string about 24″ each. Dampen very slightly then toss in flour. Toss in flour again right before the hour is up**.
Covering string in flour.
Prepare the dutch oven. Place the strings across the dutch oven forming 6 equal wedges.
Positioning in the dutch oven for the strings.
Invert loaf onto your hand and place gently down on top of strings. Draw each set of string ends up around the loaf (you should NOT pull them tightly, you want them just resting against the dough) then tie in a bow. Repeat for all 3 strings.
Grab your scoring tool (I use just a razor blade from my Leaf razor). In each wedge score 3 upside down v shapes.
Loaf tied and scored.
Place cover on dutch oven and put in preheated 500F degree oven for 20 minutes.
Lower the temp to 475F and continue to bake for 15 minutes (10 minutes for half loaves).
Lower the temp to 450F and continue to bake for 15 minutes (10 minutes for half loaves)
After removing the cover in the oven.
Remove the cover and bake for 15 more minutes (10 minutes for half loaves). At this point check if it’s done (if you aren’t sure because you haven’t baked bread often, you can use a thermometer – it should be around 210F in the center)
Loaf after baking (needed an extra 10 minutes).
Remove the strings then let cool. When ready to serve break a pretzel rod in half and insert in center of the loaf to look like a stem.
Finished half size loafs! Finished full size loaf!Served a half loaf on Halloween with my mom’s pumpkin soup. Oh and these cute salads (those are supposed to be pumpkins and ghosts)
**I’ll be honest, I still get some cotton fibers on my loaf even with this method. So make sure you’re using 100% natural fiber string.
Hello friends! I am done with birthday parties until next year! What a relief! Time to relax for 24 hours until I start the Christmas project list. The birthday season is completely bittersweet because my kiddos are growing up so fast! I did remember to take pictures with the wooden blocks I made when Patricia was born, and they are both big kids now.
Speaking of big kids, Julius has been using lots of slang that I don’t understand. Here’s a conversation we had the other day:
Julius: Do you know what sigma means?
Me: It’s a Greek letter.
Julius: Well that’s right but it also means ‘sus’.
Me: What is ‘sus’? (I know sus.)
Julius: Sus is when you’re koo koo kachoo and naughty at the same time.
Patricia still says plenty of cute things. I am disappointed though that this year she figured out “cupcapes” are actually pronounced cupcakes. There goes that cute one. On the morning of Patricia’s party the kids woke up and I heard Patricia outside my door speaking in a hushed voice to Julius:
“They’re both still asleep. They’re not even awake. How will they go to my party?”
I decided to get up then so I didn’t worry her further. The party with a dozen 4 year olds was quite a bit more chaotic than the one with a dozen and a half 7 year olds. And we had one/two activities that were total flops. That aside I do think everyone had fun! I was worried about it until I came to pick Patricia up today and all the kids rushed me and talked about Patricia’s party. Her teacher said they’d been talking about it all day! I guess I can call that a success!
Theme
Patricia told me many moons ago that she wanted a “rainbow unicorn” themed party. I figured, “slam dunk. This will be easy.” The problem is there are too many rainbow unicorn things out there. Everything can be rainbow unicorn. As you know I like to have kind of a plot or flow to my parties and this one I was challenged! I was worried thinking about Julius’s 5th birthday where some kids spent 15 seconds on each activity and others spent 30 minutes. So I went with the “so many activities” mode.
Activities
Unicorn Makeup
I made a bunch of unicorn headbands for the party ages ago. I thought they’d be a cute give away. And a Patricia party wouldn’t be complete without face paint. So I set up a face painting station in the lounge and painted rainbows on anyone who wanted it. I wanted to use a rainbow split cake, and the super gentle brand I used last year (Snazzaroo) doesn’t make them. I went with another reputable hypoallergenic brand called Tag. It worked pretty well! Though I regret not making stencils for the stars and clouds because it would have made it far quicker!
Unicorn Stickers
While kiddos were getting their faces painted we set out a bunch of unicorn sticker boards that my mom had found. One of the kids was so silly and gave their unicorn a mustache. Much like Julius’ 5th birthday some kids spent an hour at this and some kids spent 5 seconds.
Necklace
While I was finished up the face paint we let everyone make rainbow necklaces. I made the charms out of the UV reactive bottles from our sunscreen.
Unicorn Hunt
I decided I wanted to give away a unicorn and was debating between a peg doll unicorn and a little stuffed unicorn. I pinned a bunch of inspiration pictures and Will thought the inspiration for the unicorn stuffy looked cuter.
To find the unicorn we thought it would be cool to follow a string around the room. But with 10 (actually 11) kids the path around the room was complete chaos. Julius was able to do it no problem, but most of the 4 year olds had tons of problems. They ended up getting tangled in the string…. so I had to cut kids out of the deathtrap web.
Tattoo Hunt
We also hid tattoos all around the room (Will did this), and our theory was that they would work on the web and afterwards they’d notice the tattoos. But some kids just noticed the tattoos and collected all 100 of them. I think 2 kids found all of them. In retrospect we should have done this in 2 rooms. Next time!
Paint a Cookie
This is my favorite project I’ve done in a while. I made a bunch of paintable sugar cookies and after lunch let the kids paint them. The kids seemed to really like them and this is the one activity that every single kid participated in.
TP Roll Unicorn
This activity was a bit of a challenge for some, but everyone persevered! I think they came out cute!
Bounce House
We had the bounce house that Laura and Sal gave us set up in the garage as a backup plan. Well all the kids heard about it and they all bounced for about 30 minutes beyond when the party lasted.
Lunch
We once again had party pizza from Mr. Z’s but this time they got the order correct. I also did rainbow fruit and veggie platters. For drinks we had Polar unicorn seltzers and lemonade… this time with color changing ice cubes. And once again I forgot to take a picture of the setup!
Dessert
I was planning to make a unicorn cake with rainbow layers and surprise sprinkles like I did for Julius’s 3rd birthday. But Patricia said she wanted cupcakes. So I made unicorn cupcakes. I used a different recipe for the cake which got rave reviews. It was kind of a terrible recipe though. The cakes rose and then fell even though I cooked them about double what the recipe called for. I felt they came out pretty nice though I think the chocolate frosting and cake is far superior.
By the way did I mention my mom cleaned our house before the party?! It was a life saver!!
Okay dear friends, you probably can guess why I didn’t post last week. In case you can’t, it was a combo of trying not to go near the internet or media and prepping for Julius and Patricia’s birthdays. I won’t write too much about how disappointed I am in the US once again for failing to elect a competent female president over a sexist, racist, transphobic, homophobic, fascist, hate mongering convicted felon tv celebrity. Just know that I am extremely disappointed and now more than ever I fear for the future of America (and really the world, because goodbye climate protections, and a crazy person once again has the nuclear codes.)
I have to attempt to be positive though because how else can I raise positive kids? Well, what could be more positive than a child’s birthday?!
Right now we are in the midst of birthday chaos. Julius’ birthday was a few days ago, his party was this past Sunday and Patricia’s birthday is today. We’re hosting Patricia’s party next weekend so that I have a few days of breathing room. Both Patricia and Julius wanted to invite their entire classes. That’s not so bad for Patricia but Julius has 19 kids in his class. Luckily we were able to rent out the community center which had a pretty perfect setup for a Science Birthday. Thanks to my mom and dad who came up to help with the party plus set up and clean up. We only had an hour to setup and 45 minutes to clean up so it was tight! Without further ado, here’s how it went!
Julius’ Science Birthday
Theme
Julius has been obsessed with science experiments for the last year. So a few months ago he told me he wanted a science birthday. I’ve been thinking about this theme for a while and have been pretty pumped. I ended up doing 4 different experiments with lunch and cupcakes mixed in. For “favors” all the kids got lab coats and goggles that obviously they were to put on immediately.
Here are the favors! The syringe pens were contentious. I was thinking they looked like oral syringes but Will thought they looked like needles… The kids thought they were cool at least…
The room is all setup for slime and ready for everyone to arrive!
Activities
Obviously we were going to do science experiments. I wanted experiments the kids could do themselves. Since they were 6&7 year olds I figured they’d be able to do some exciting ones. I tested several in advance and got it down to four that worked really well and seemed pretty exciting. The kids were extremely enthusiastic about them all and it filled my heart! Is this how teachers feel?? I did have several slide decks to explain the experiments but I really only used them for conversation. I’ve included them below if you need inspiration.
Name Badges
For a starter activity we had everyone write a name badge and decorate with stickers as they desired. People came at wildly different times so I probably should have done a longer starter activity but it worked out alright. After they got their name badges we had everyone pick a seat, which had a pair of goggles and lab coat.
The first experiment we did was slime, and we sort of slow rolled this while people trickled in. Everyone seemed to love the slime making. Especially the addition of glitter, which I kept under close watch at the front table.
This one was a two part-er. I did one part with an acid indicator and the other with a base indicator.
Invisible Ink
We used baking soda as a base to write on paper, and decoded it using tumeric (a base indicator). They were all pretty enthusiastic about this one too because what child doesn’t want to make invisible ink?
Writing with invisible ink
I’m lecturing about the next activity but you can see the completed invisible ink pictures.
Color Changing Lemonade
Those Medela sterile bottles are always getting put up on free sites and my friend Mary got me a bunch of sterile sealed ones someone was giving away! I thought these would be perfect for our food science experiment! I told everyone that we were never to eat science experiments but this was one exception because it was a food science experiment. I had everyone wash their hands and then head into the lunch room for this one where we’d set up containers of butterfly pea flower tea at each seat. Then each child filled a cup of ice full of lemonade. I let everyone try the tea and lemonade before mixing and everyone hated the butterfly pea flower tea. But their expressions when they mixed it were priceless!
This is my favorite picture of the day. Look at the amazement on their faces!
We did our final activity, the rocket launch, after lunch back in the science room. We launched rockets using baking soda and vinegar. It worked pretty well, and we had extra for those that that misfired. Julius said this was his favorite experiment!
One of the launch sites and the prep site!
Lunch
For lunch we had party pizza! They screwed up the order though and didn’t bring us any pepperoni! I also made a giant fruit salad and veggie platter with dip. We also put out lemonade and more butterfly pea flower tea with instructions in case the parents wanted to try it out. And finally we had tons of seltzers. I put out post it notes for where everything should go and my mom and Will set it up while I finished the invisible ink experiment.
As usual I forgot to take a picture of the food spread but you can see the pizzas were followed by fruit salad, veggies and drinks (the cupcakes came out later).
Cake
Julius wanted chocolate cupcakes again this year, but he wanted chocolate frosting instead of vanilla. Honestly these were my favorite cupcakes ever. I’ve been sneaking them for the last couple days (and I am full of regret). I used the same recipe for chocolate cupcakes that I’ve been using for the last couple years, and this chocolate frosting recipe I used years ago. The combination was amazing, and both are so easy (as opposed to Patricia’s which I’ll talk about later). I made fondant decorations for the cupcakes in the shape of beakers and flasks to put on top… Julius saw these and called them “science cups” which made me chuckle. I’m pretty happy with how these guys came out!
The joy on Julius’ face makes me so happy!
Overall I think the kids had a lot of fun! The party was a bit chaotic at times so it was awesome my parents and the other parents were there to help out! So thankful to everyone who helped! Julius said he loved all the experiments and immediately went home and made more slime with Patricia. (Then today we launched more rockets.)
