Make-It Monday: A Birthday!

 

 Gracious, what a whirlwind life is right now! Because planning the studio recital, choosing/arranging music for students over the summer, making packing lists, clothing shopping, "just-because" jaunts to Seattle, summer kick-off parties, normal teaching schedules, working, sewing a gown for my sis (another make-it monday! ;), scouring the internet for a good price on return tickets from Glasgow, nailing down final details for travel once across the pond, practicing and rehearsing to accompany a friend, Mother's Day, and trying to keep my room in a semi-sane state isn't enough for the month of May, we also have birthdays! There are moments when I feel a little overwhelmed.


the Twinkles cut camellias & placed them at each spot.

However, we were able to effectively put all that craziness on hold Saturday, as we took a day to celebrate Mama's birthday! While Mumsie and Dad typically celebrate by going to the beach for the day, this year they stayed local ~ even though they were still out 'til evening. We were able to clean the house, decorate, set a formal table (for the high-class Costco pizza the parents brought home), and try out a new cake recipe!

 

 

When I asked Mumsie what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday, her response was, "Oh...lemon would be good..." (wait a minute, I have lemon cake on my birthday), "...or lime..." (I've never even heard of a lime cake...maybe key lime pie, but..) "...or orange..." Finally the decision was "Something citrus-y." What's a girl to do but google "Citrus Cake Recipe"? Oh boy, did Google come through for me.

The cake is a delicious, moist, butter cake, with grated lemon & orange zest...

 

Filling? Some killer lemon curd!

 

 

 

Frost with some delicious orange-flavored frosting...

 

I promise, I finished frosting it the whole way, this was just when Emmy took the picture :)

 

And garnish with orange, lemon, lime, and grapefruit slices:

 

 

Oh! and mint (which you may have to run to the store and purchase, if forgotten)

 

 

Check out the recipe here. It will certainly be found in our kitchen again!

 

Hooray! The birthday girl! :)

 

Have a Yummy Monday! :)

 

 

Make-It "Monday": Oh, Strawberries!

Last week, I took a Spring Break from teaching. For the last couple weeks, my room had turned into what I referred to as the "Spring Break Pit." Mending, sewing crocheting, books to read - they were all placed in plain view so I wouldn't forget about them during my "vacation." Of course, I bit off more than I could chew, but one of the projects I did accomplish is this wee Strawberry Dress. A few weeks ago, Maddy made some strawberry slippers for a little girl yet to be born, and mama loved it so much she bought strawberry fabric to make a go-along dress. The pattern is from Create Kids Couture ~ talk about adorable sewing projects!! :)

So yes, happy Make-It Monday on a Tuesday! :)

 



Make-It Monday: It's the New Year!!

Today I am making...

♥ New Year's Resolutions.

♥ 2013 "Book List" (includes books and authors). What are some of your "To-Reads" for 2013? I would love recommendations!

♥ my "Daily Schedule"...

♥ Studio schedules, competitions, and prize lists!!! :)

...so it must truly be the beginning of 2013. Wow. I will save the attempt of relaying the overwhelming thoughts of where I've been and where I'm going for another day...

...but in the meantime, the end of 2012/Christmas vacation means I will be going through withdrawals from all sorts of fun.

From our annual New Year's Ball....

Some of the Ladies ~ Back Row: Rachel, Me, {Gracie}, Kaytra, Emily
Front Row: Madeline, Megan

Some of the Gentlemen ~ Back: James
Front: Friend Austin, Zachary, Friend Jonah

Grandma (and Grandpa) came this year!

The Whole Gang!

...to the "adoption ceremony" of some dear friends...

It started with breakfast, and some of the best hot chocolate EVER!

Me an' Jenny (one of the adoptees)

Jonathan (the other adoptee) and Ben

Emily, Jo (previously 'adopted') and Rachel

Then we were off for ice skating!

"We girls" after the skates came off!
Rachel, Emily, Jo, Me, Jenny

Then we came home, watched "Kidnapped", played games, and generally enjoyed each other's company! I present to you all the Coder children: now a happy 13 in number! :)

...to the fabulous White-Elephant-Dress-Like-A-Portlander (which really means anything goes) Party.

Our magnanimous host and hostess: Tai and Kaytch!!

The whole gang - aren't we a lovely bunch??

I am so blessed with this group of friends with which I have been surrounded. People who dance Regency dances with us, our dear "new" siblings, and (of course) the gang above, which constitutes the young people in my church. Plus, all of them genuinely love the LORD, and are seeking His will in life. Yep. Besties all around (who enjoy being crazy as much as I do! - how cool is that? :)

Welcome, 2013!

Make-It Monday: Muffins, Granola, and Blogs (Oh My!)

Happy October Monday! Is it as lovely where you are as it is here? Cloudless blue sky, trees with a multitude of colors, afternoons in the 70s...autumn in the Northwest is wonderful! :)


I've been saving up for this Make-It Monday. Not on purpose, necessarily, but because I just haven't gotten around to posting, the last few weeks. In the first place, I have been making breakfast with the Twinkles, and they both wanted to get pictures for me to post. It's the same lovely laptop camera, but it makes them happy, so without further ado...

 

Megs and I got up one morning, and decided to make muffins!

 

I was going to post the recipe but...I can't remember which one it was. :) I do know we substituted honey for sugar, and flax seed for over half the eggs, so it was fun to show "Nellie" (my recent nickname for her - don't ask) how to make and figure out the differences.

 

Muffins, home-made plum jam, and tea - what could be better?

 

They were delish!

 

And then we have the next week, with Maddy...

 

Before we were quite sure what we were making...

 

We decided on granola! Chopped macadamia nuts, almonds, and dry rolled oats, mixed into yogurt, jam, and honey ~ it was pretty good! :)

 

The last thing I've made (or am in the process of making) to share with you this Monday is ~ as you've probably deduced from the title ~ a blog! Yes, another one. I decided, the other day, to put together a blog for my music students/parents. On the practical side, there will be the policy, the schedule, pictures of the various bow exercises for violin students, competition updates... But this is where I need your help: What would you want on a blog your music teacher had? Information about concerts in the area? Music in the news? Book/movie reviews? My students are mostly in the 6-16 age range, so there's a wide spectrum of potential interest. What would make it fun? Check out the "under construction" deal here, and give me some feedback. I'm positively greedy for ideas, so even if you're a reader who never comments, or a person just passin' by this blog, hit me with any and every cool (and practical) brainstorms you have!

 

Happy Monday!

 

Make-It Monday: Twinkle Smiles

Hooray! Finally back to some Make-it Mondays! This post is in celebration of the completion of one of those "under the bed" projects...

I started these dresses almost exactly a year ago to sew for the Twinkles' birthday. Unfortunately, I forgot the oh-so-enviable fact that little girls often grow straight up without growing out for a couple years. Thus, the dresses fit them just lovely around the waist, but were rather on the short side for the "Sunday dresses" they had hoped to wear. Into a bag and under the bed they went, until such a time when I could (unemotionally) determine the fate of the ruffled hemlines.

At long last, a week or so ago, I pulled them out, cut up and ruffled several yards of eyelet, finished the hand-sewing, and voila! ruffly Sunday dresses! An unforeseen plus of using eyelet for the hem-extensions was the hoop-skirt-reminiscent "poof" at the bottom of the dresses - the eyelet was stiff enough to hold the lighter cotton out, which, of course, the girls loved!

goofy, goofy girls...

In the course of taking the pictures to show the finished project, we switched over to just doing a twin photo shoot. At the end, Maddy said, "Oh, Sarah, we have to do the Head-Heart-Shadow Picture! We love to do it!" As far as I can tell, they came up with it on their own. Also, just so you know, it is "just for twins to do".

Precious, isn't it? What are you working on this Monday?
 

Make-It Monday: Pillow (and video?)

Happy Monday, everyone! I am sorry for my absence, but life has been...normal. And  by normal, I do not mean slow, structured, or mundane, but insanely busy and full. Why do we even bother answering "busy" to the question "how's it going?" The answer is always "busy" - so really, we should just answer "normal", don't you think? Anyway, I'm back today, with two things for you:


1. Linking up with Kirsteen from Life in My Houseful of Boys - I made a pillow! The actual pillow-case part is knitted, and then I made up a crocheted flower pattern (which I ended up falling in love with!) as an accent. Ta-dah:

Bonus: this was made entiredly out of the scraps yarn I was telling you about a few weeks ago. (So, for example, when I ran out of the brown right at the end of the pillow, I just supplemented it with some of the flower-colored yarn. :)

See? Adds personality. :p


2. Announcing the contest winner from my bloggy-birthday drawing!

To read Lauren's imaginative post, click here.

Have a sun-shiny week! :)

Make it Monday: Odds, Ends, and Dress-Ups

A while ago (two years, actually), I won a fantastic basket of yarn in a raffle. Nice yarns. Beautiful yarns. Cottons, wools, and mohairs, to be precise. But I soon discovered a problem: there is very little you can make with just one skein of yarn - and the basket held no duplicates! I don't really care to make 20 cell phone cases or finger puppets, which seem to be the sum total of the brilliant, one-skein patterns available, so the yarn sat unmoletsed in that basket for TWO YEARS (can you believe it?). Finally, I decided I needed to either use the yarn, or toss it, so before going to Texas I decided to just start a project I'd been wanting to try (Stimson Ave. Stole) with a skein I had and see how far I got. :) It managed to be about half the proper length, and the other skein I used for the edging got me half-way around and then ran out - but I'm glad I did it anyway. The little girls get it to play dress-up with, and I know now how easy and beautiful the pattern really is. :)

knitting

 Ta-dah! Definitely something I will make again, with the proper yarn amounts. :)

This last week I "finished" the stole and began to search for a pattern that could be used for some lovely, lavender, lace-weight mohair. Fingerless Tea Gloves! I think I will be able to get at least two little girl pairs out of the skein (no prizes guessing who those will go to)...I love how delicate and lacy they are!


crocheting

 After starting numerous projects and not having anywhere close to the right length of yarns, I finally found a pattern for these fun ruffly neck-warmers. I made one of wool (the green/tan one) and one of...some other, mysterious, unlabeled yarn (I have a hunch it's at least partly acrylic). I think they're wonderful, but the picture is model-less, as I've yet to get buttons.


crochet

 After the wool neck warmer, I was left with simply scraps of wool - too little to be made into anything, and too much for me to feel like throwing it away. It is such nice wool! So I've started a sort of "scrap quilt". Only it's crocheted, and not really a quilt at all, just a little zig-zag pattern made out of cozy wool. This one will be a long time in the works, as I will only add to it when I have useless lengths of wooliness left over from various projects. But I like the idea, and feel quite happy with it. :)

crochet


Then there was a great, thick skein of cotton. A while back mama had made some knitted washrags that had different patterns on them by alternating your purl/knit stitch, so I decided to try it for myself! Here is washrag #1 (#2 is still in progress):

And finally, remember when I mentioned that the neck warmers needed buttons? Yes, well, I went to Joann's to get said buttons, but...did not...that is to say... when I returned home, it was not with buttons. I returned with some absolutely gorgeous, brilliantly-colored, happy-smiley bamboo silk skeins, which I've been making up into fun flower-granny squares for a blanket. I don't know yet if it will just be a lap blanket (all I could make with the squares I currently have) or if I dare go back to Joann's to buy more skeins - what with yarns, and fabrics, and patterns, that place is downright dangerous to the pocket-book!

crochet

 And those are the projects that have been keeping me busy this week. I find that I phase in and out of obsession with regards to yarn - apparently I'm in the thick of one such phase now. :) Linking up with Kirsteen from Life in My Houseful of Boys today! :)