Mushy Peas Please: How Daniel Tiger Helped Us Choose Amelia's First Food

Daniel Tiger became a big brother a few months after Hannah became a big sister.  His mom had the baby in one episode and by the next baby Margaret was eating solid foods.  Mushy peas to be exact.  (No wonder Hannah was a bit confused why her baby sister had to wait so long to start solid foods. ) In honor of Hannah and her love of Daniel Tiger, Amelia's first food was mushy peas.  Hannah helped to make it for her and gave Amelia her first real taste of food.  Daddy Man made a edited their adventure into a short video (Check it out).

Hannah working the food processor

Amelia's not so sure

Hmm...

What is this?

Amelia has yet to be convinced that mushy peas are the bees knees of food.

Hannah, on the other hand, LOVES eating her sister's food!

Hinge Moments

Jon Acuff writes (in his book Quitter) about "hinge moments" in our lives that change our direction.  My first hinge moment occurred back in the sixth grade when Raymond Degorge stopped me in the hall on a cold winter day and confronted me.

Raymond was a hulking sixth grader.  He was not one of the popular ones nor was he on the same educational track as I was.  He also was not an overly morale teenage boy.  But he confronted me on how I was dressing.  That day I had on shorts with stocking.  (I know, I know, but this was the nineties and apparently that was the style of the moment.)

I don't remember his exact words, but he told me that I was not like the other girls and I needed to stop trying to act like them.  I remembering feeling a tad bit embarrassed, and a whole lot convicted. But his words took root and impacted me.  I stopped trying to dress like the other girls.

Over the years I would go back to his words and I would remember.  I don't need to try to make myself like what I think others are like.  I need to be who I was
created to be.

Fast forward to 2014 to a conversation with my hubby where he lamented the fact that we did not have a way to play together.   We began listening to the podcast "Ear Biscuits" by Rhett & Link where they interview interesting people from Youtube.  As we listened we learned about the creative process of others and how they made their dreams into reality.

We started kicking around ways that we could work together creatively. Enter my new hinge moment.  He decided to start making youtube videos and I decided to start a blog. So check us out.

What's a hinge moment in your life?

T-shirt Skirt Dresses

I tackled 3. Fold Fabric & Store in Craft Closet on my list and realized what a shame it was that she'd outgrown so many shirts.  I also realized that she was almost out of dresses that she could wear.  So onto Pintrest again to search for some ideas.  I wanted to make a pillow case dress, but then I saw t-shirt dresses.  Brilliant! My inspiration came from this blog http://lemontreecreations.blogspot.com/2011/08/tutorials-i-tried-and-loved.html.   I could use Hannah's too short shirts and make dresses with the pretty scraps of fabric from my stash. 

I got out my sewing machine and during the span of two naps I got churned out  2 very cute, very thrifty little dresses.  

 Dandelions are everywhere!  So while I was gathering them to dry out for dandelion gallbladder tea I wondered if I could batter and fry the blossoms.  So I hoped on Pintrest, read some recipes  and got frying! 

 I made some using Italian bread crumbs and some gluten free ones for Hannah.  Not only were they yummy, but Hannah nommed them all up!  And then asked for more!  Score one for raising a baby on a dime!  And for those who are wondering this little weedy flowers contain lots of vitamins and health benefits.  Win-win!  

Homemade Wheat Thin Search

I am in search of the perfect cracker, specifically wheat thins.  I love them, but I don't love the price.  Where I live they are 2-4 dollars a box!  I also am not a fan of things with a long shelf life that contain mystery ingredients and mystery processes.  And I just like a challenge.  So in the past two weeks I've tried four different  recipes.  None are as good as the boxed wheat thins nor the recipe that I had tried and lost a few years ago.  

I tried two gluten free recipes for Hannah, one that require mostly flax seeds and cheese, which while intriguing wound up tasting like fishes horse biscuits.  The other type used sorghum flour and an all-purpose gluten free type, they were had a nutty flavor and good bite when rolled about 1/8th of an inch.  Any thinner than that and they didn't have a good bite, but instead feel apart on crumbles.   

The wheat thins were flops.  Some of the problem was rolling them too thin, but mostly they just lacked the good wheatty flavor and firm texture that I love so much. So I will keep searching and trying and pinning new wheat thin recipes to try till I find the perfect replacement for the box.

Flax seed crackers

Attempt at Wheat Thins

Ten Day Challenge Update

The challenge is going well!  It is actually serving its purpose, which is to provide motivation and direction to my day.  I have tackled 5 out of 10 items on my list.

Craft Closet Before:







(I've included a few blurry action shots of my little helper sorting the piles for me.)

When I was folding and sorting the fabric  the perfectionist in me got really excited and proclaimed that I should sort by color and fabric type.  The Realist in me burst out laughing and I realized that I should just settle for getting them folded.  I desire to have organization not perfection.  I did however also organize them by heavy fabric  flannel, and other.  It works.

10 Day Challenge

1. Gather the Yarn-remember it is scattered to the four corners

2. Organize Yarn into bins

3. Fold Fabric & Store in Craft Closet

4. Organize Linen Closet  

5. Sort Hannah's Shirts-this girl outgrows so quickly!

6. Round Up Lurking Trash

7. Round Up Donations & Donate them!

8.  Sort 1 Basement Box

9.  Sort Box of Pre-Baby Clothes

10. Blog & Photograph it

Ten Day Challenge

Moving 8 times in 8 years really changes the way that you keep house.  For example when you live somewhere for less then a year, do you really need to wash your windows?  Answer: Nope!  You just move to a place with cleaner windows.  So I could tell that I was really starting to settle into my home of 1 year 5 months when I broke out the Windex and cleaned my windows! 

Another thing that hasn't happened in years is getting everything organized.  I have had my life functional, but things haven't been really organized for several moves.  For example: my knitting and yarn can be found in every room of the house.  That is not organized!  And because everything is everywhere nothing is being used and enjoyed to its fullest potential.

My first plan was to jump on one of the preexisting "cleaning/organization" challenges that are filling up the Pinterest feeds.  There are only a few problems with that.  A lot of those challenges are for long spans of time.  One blogger is doing a 52 week challenge!  52 weeks!  I have moved 2 times in 52 years, clearly this challenge was not designed for me!  The other problem with a long challenge is that I know myself and I wouldn’t stick with it.  I really, really like starting projects.  Its like starting a new relationship, all roses and chocolate and no problems.  Once a cleaning conflict arises or I bite off more then I can chew, I am apt to blot.  (Thankfully this only pertains to projects and cleaning, and not relationships. I've been happily and successfully married for almost ten years and have worked through my fair share of issues.) 

While the shorter challenges lacked that problem, they still didn’t fit.  After all they were designed by people who have already settled in and who were actually looking to clean.  I needed something for me to tackle that addressed my needs.  Where would I find that?  Umm…

So I decided to develop my own list of 10 things to tackle.  They had to be small projects that I could complete in an hour in order to keep up the motivation and they had to be things that I don't normally do as part of my house cleaning routine.  I am giving myself a month to complete these challenges and will document some of them to help with the motivation to continue. 

10 Day Challenge

1. Gather the Yarn-remember it is scattered to the four corners

2. Organize Yarn into bins

3. Fold Fabric & Store in Craft Closet

4. Organize Linen Closet  

5. Sort Hannah's Shirts-this girl outgrows so quickly!

6. Round Up Lurking Trash

7. Round Up Donations & Donate them!

8.  Sort 1 Basement Box

9.  Sort Box of Pre-Baby Clothes

10. Blog & Photograph it