Weekend Crafting Adventures

Being Veteran's Day Friday I got to have a three day weekend.  It was a busy one full of crafting projects.  We were going to be having company on Friday night and Saturday night, so I started Friday by making a very rich dessert.  The bottom was a brownie, followed by a layer of peanut butter cookie dough (egg free), topped with a chocolate ganache and peanut butter chips.

The recipe can be found here.

I spent the afternoon with a friend shopping JoAnn's and then making fabric flowers.  We twisted fabric to make roses.  We stacked layers of a more synthetic fabric (I think it was taffeta, I'm not good with those names: organza, taffeta, etc...) and singed the edges; add a button or pretty pearls to the center and you have another rose or poppy style flower.  I guess they are like the ones Anthropologie sells, but since we don't have one in Juneau I wouldn't know.  We also cut circles, folded them in quarters and tacked them down together to make a third flower.

Fabric Rose Tutorial - fantastic directions by the way
Synthetic Singed flower Tutorial - excellent directions and great pictures for inspiration!
Circles flower tutorial - I think this one may be the most difficult to get it looking how you like.


Saturday we had a crafting afternoon at church where we made a sample of several ideas for the Christmas season.  I'll blog more about that later.  But we made paper flower ornaments, Christmas stars, learned to tie pretty bows and got ideas for gift bags/tags.  Mostly we just enjoyed each other's company.

Sunday I worked on the project that actually inspired the desire to try the flowers.  I'd been wanting to make fabric headbands.  I tried a couple was to do the stretchy part at the back and ended up following the directions on the blog.  I'm still not sure I want to do it exactly that way but I was too impatient to wait to go back to JoAnn's and get different supplies.  My favorite part about it is that it is reversible. Double-sided fabric headband tutorial.

Ravioli Adventures

 I have heard that wonton wrappers work well for ravioli.  I finally  decided to try it out.  Mike prefers meat filled ravioli and most of them that you get at the store seem to be cheese filled, so I got it in my head to make ravioli.  We had a coupon for Jimmy Dean sausage and we had the Hot version sitting in the fridge...there the meat choice was easy!  Next finding a recipe, not so easy.  I'm thinking meat filling is more of a manicotti thing than ravioli.  So I'll use one recipe I found and another manicotti filling recipe, plus my creativity to make this up.  Ended up with spinach, garlic, italian seasonings, ricotta, parmesan and an egg.  Unfortunately I didn't think about the fact that parmesan and sausage tend to be salty already and added a bit of sea salt.  Wasn't terrible, but it was a bit salty.

Next came filling the ravioli.  I at first tried filling and then topping it with another square.  It just felt too big and seemed like too much pasta for filling.  I decided to go with the triangles.  This wasn't too bad, just had to pull Tait out of trouble a few times :).  Another time he came up and pulled himself up on my pants.  As he reached for me to pick him up he actually forgot he needed to hang on for balance and let go!  Yay!  He'll  be standing soon.  He also stood up on the chair with his highchair, reached for the tray and then pulled his feet off the ground.  Umm...Tait we don't do pull ups on our highchair.  (But mommy does try to take pictures for daddy...hehe).  I decided they looked a little boring and the wonton container had a ravioli recipe that said to pinch the edges with the fork...viola it's fancier!

Next I boiled them.  Here's where things didn't go quite as I planned.  I should have known though if I'd have really thought about it.  They turned out the consistency of dumplings.  You know, a little more gummy and sticky, but not in a bad way.  So we decided to saute them before adding alfredo sauce.  Tait ate them before the saute and seemed to enjoy them.  We were pleased other than we won't do a wonton wrapper next time. Live and learn!  At least I've tried ravioli now...next...crab cakes?  Actually first I have to do something with my rhubarb...

Cowboy Adventures

 Cowboy Tait turns 1!  We had a fun day with our friends and family.  First we skyped with Grandma B, Grandpa B and Auntie B.  After a nap Mary came over to help set up for the party.  My friend Betty was the first one here and we had fun wearing our cowboy/girl hats and riding the rocking horse.  Pretty soon the rest of my friends got here and we went down to the park.  

We played with bubbles, played on the swings and rode the pony.  Riding the pony made me sleepy, if my turn was longer I would have taken another nap :).  My friend Taylor LOVED Buddy and didn't want to get off so the other kids could have a turn.  Betty and Hannah didn't like Buddy at all.  Nathan decided to walk/lead the pony rather than ride him.  

Having cake with my friends was fun.  We all enjoyed the yummy cupcakes.  Mary made haystacks, those were yummy, too.  I was really happy to have all my friends around!  I wasn't even fussy from all the attention and noise.  I got some cool presents like a pull along puppy, Mr Potato head with his dog and cat, a homemade sun hat, a floating car for our trips to the new pool, new clothes, books and a bee pillow.  I can't decide which is my favorite yet, but I sure like the puppy and potato heads!  I'll have to decide what to name my puppy.

Napless Adventures

So our day starts WAY too early as the sun is up before 5AM now (luckily he at least slept until 6).  Then he got fussy before church so we had to try for a nap.  He got a short one and we still made it to church; very late, but we made it.  After church and lunch we tried for another nap, but he just refused to sleep.  He even opened the curtains in his room (not helping the sunny situation at all).  So we gave up and went for a drive.

We intended to check on a geocache that we had planted, but he fell asleep before we got there (the head of the trail wasn't too far from home) so we decided to let him sleep and headed out the road.  At about 30 mile there is a new parking lot access to a rocky beach (note that I say rocky!).  This lot has a handicap parking spot.  Huh?  Ok, well we planted a micro geocache there called "Handicap Parking?".  As soon as the car stopped Tait was awake again.  At least it was a short nap.

On the drive back to the first cache we wanted to work on we got talking about the entrances to the Eagle Glacier, Herbert Glacier and Windfall trails.  We thought that Herbert and Windfall started on the same trail, but there were too many parking lots and a road we hadn't seen before.  So we checked out the road (we should have seen this in the book before) and it turned out to be the beginning of the Windfall trail.  At the parking for it we realized we were about 300 ft from a cache and .4 of a mile from another.  So off we went geocaching in the afternoon sun.  Didn't find the first one though I think we should have (approached it from the wrong side without any info and hints).  Then realized the second one was actually on the Herbert trail (on the other side of the river...haha).  Another day we'll get them.

Tait, despite the lack of naps was endlessly happy while we were out and about.  He pointed at all the trees and laughed when the sun got in his eyes.  I stopped to take pics of some berries and Tait decided to try eating a leaf bud.  Silly boy (this kid is all boy)!

Garage Sale Adventures

We don't normally go out garage sale-ing.  We knew there was going to be a neighborhood garage sale nearby and we headed over to check out what they might have.  I was really hoping to find a rainsuit for Tait, but instead I found something else we wanted.  For $5 I found Tait's new favorite toy.  He very quickly learned that you push the nose to make noise and you can sit on the floor behind it and push it back and forth to make noise.  He thinks it is the coolest thing he has ever seen.  He loves to sit on it, push it (when he is sitting), and stand behind it.  When it rolls forward he hasn't learned that he needs to move his feet yet.  So it rolls forward and he doesn't let go.  Then he looks at us like, "hey what happened?"  Silly boy you have to walk ;).  Won't be long though.  I have a feeling Mr. Lion is going to teach Mr. Tait to walk!

Our biggest adventure so far

On May 28, 2010 at 3:14pm Tait Corban Podruchny joined our adventure through life. Laughing and tears, but it is a great adventure.  Tait is our little blessing; God knew what kind of baby we needed and that's exactly what we got.  He has grown from 7lb 15oz to 18lb 7oz.  Almost big enough to face forward, just another pound and a half!  He was smiling by six weeks but didn't really roll over well until almost seven months.  He started crawling around nine and he has become an expert army crawler!  I think he prefers army crawl to all fours because he can carry items with him as he moves :).  In the last couple weeks he has started pulling up and standing on chairs, tv stands, and couches.  At daycare he pulls himself up on the baby fence by his arms until his feet are dangling, then he needs help to get back down.  Silly boy!  He loves to high five and knows how to wave, but won't always show off.  Instead he tips his head and gives a shy smile.  Always friendly, but discovering he likes to have mommy and daddy around.