homemade poptarts and other stuff

I've been trying to go a whole month without buying any fabric. I know this doesn't sound hard to some of you but to me its near impossible. I love the look of cords with patchy side panels but I have almost no corduroy so there are what I came up with for Elijah out of my stash. They are black denim with a patch of just about every fabric I've made him something from. I added elastic to the waist and trimmed the strings after I took the picture.
I know making pop tarts sounds like a weird thing but I really want to become a better baker. Not baking like following package directions but from scratch and I found this little pop tart recipe and had to try. It was actually quite fun and thanks to Alton Brown's advice regarding making pie crust in the food processor super easy.
Emily and Elijah both helped in their own ways. As I'm sure you can tell one was much more helpful then the other.
Elijah picked pink for the frosting bc it is my favorite. He can be such a sweetie. And as you can see the results were yummy.

Um great I'm so not ready for walking. She's still holding on though thankfully. Oh and don't you just love her baby jeans. They are not her very first pair but the first cool hippy jeans for certain. They are even bell bottoms.

Ok Whatever

Emily wasn't feeling super great today. She wasn't too bad off but she was tired and cranky. Here she is yanking all her diapers down of the table. Oh well. Guess we'll be using them off the floor for a few days if I don't get around to putting them up.
Here's Elijah playing crash test dumby. What can I say. He's a boy.
Emily the vampire slayer.

just for fun stolen from Jen

So one of my extended friends had this on her blog and I thought it was too fun so here goes. The responses are me, Elijah , and Emily in order

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME (first pet, current car):Puffy Mazda, Maxamus liltyke, liltyke

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME (fave ice cream flavor, favorite type of shoe):Chocolate Chuck, Sweetcream Striderite, Chocolate bare

3. YOUR NATIVE AMERICAN NAME (favorite color, favorite animal):Pink Baby, Blue Duck, Pink Stuffed Animal

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, city where you were born):Suzanne Richmond, Jacob Raleigh, Grace Cary

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 of your first name):HorSt, HorEj, HorEm

6. SUPERHERO NAME (2nd favorite color, favorite drink):Purple Martini, Red Sprite, Black Water

7. NASCAR NAME (the first names of your grandfathers):Mutt Ken, Troy James
8. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME (your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter): Jarret Jamestown
9. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower):Spring Daisy, who knows

10. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing rightnow):Strawberry t shirt, blueberry backpack, applesauce diaper

11. HIPPIE NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree):Coffee Dogwood, Pancake Oak, Boobymilk Oak

Welcome Fall

Above is a picture of Emily climbing on her brother in the outfit she insisted that I get her at Target. Well technically she only insisted on the shirt which she grabbed rubbed on her faces and started screaming every time I tried to take if from her leading me to say fine is 6 bucks you can have it. She is also climbing on her brother. I asked her to stop but he said he did not mind so oh well.
Here is picture prof that I due sew for the boy from time to time. He is more challenging. He's bigger, he actually cares if he looks silly, and he won't wear things he deems girly. This shirt says I swim and has a black band on it. Black bands are actually black and white. He likes it bc the black part is fleece so its soft and snugly. He also calls it his zebra hoodie.
Here is Emily in a sort of fall outfit going for a walk with all of us. I've been loving the hint of fall in the air though its lead to a bit of a shopping spree. The kids both need some fall/winter clothes to complete outfits for Emily and bc Elijah had grown a good bit taller though still no wider.
Here is my darly son doing his homework. That's right Kinder garden has homework. He is doing quite well though and we have gotten into an after school grove so getting it done isn't so bad.
Finally, Emily with her boppy. For some reason she and Elijah have both become obsessed with the pink fuzzy boppy that has be sitting in the corner of the living room since she was about 4 months old. She likes to flop around with it and he likes to whine that she isn't sharing then lay on top of her causing her to cry bc well he weights more then twice as much as he does so it hurts.

Bug Fest

Ok so I'm going to get back and do an actual update on the general goings on but today we wen to bugfest at the science museum with some of our friends and their kids. It was super croweded but we all had a blast. We even ate some bugs though somehow that was not captured on film. Elijah had several hushgrubbies (fried grubs in hushpuppies) I tried several things but couldn't get past the fact that they were well bugs and my friend Lori was so repulesed (her word not mine) by the first dish antchalatas that she could not bring herself to eat anything and informed her dh that he needed to brush his teeth before kissing her. Interestingly enough the kids had the best time after all the fest stuff when we fled down a side street bc of a loud speaker and ended up sitting outside where there were lots of steps and railings beside a wildflower garden where they could climb and slide down. Funny how thats how it usually works out with kids. You can plan big adventures but its the little moments that just happen that they enjoy the most.

Nostalgia

Ok I'm really going to have to fix this so it just puts the pictures in the center next time. That said I thought I'd share a few nostalgic moments I've had lately.

The first picture is of Emily in Elijah's first Christmas pj's. She is more the a month older then he was and I had to squeeze him into them. She kept loosing her feet and had to have both sleeves rolled to keep from loosing her hands.

Next is Emily with the strange new toy I bought her. I was thrilled to find it as it is a replica of one I had. She wanted a phone and had a really hard time figuring out what the heck it was. I think she's sort of got it now but would still prefer to just play with our phones.

Lastly is a picture of Elijah playing Super Mario. I hate that game mostly bc my younger brother used to play it for hours. Oh well. Elijah's cuter at least. Elijah also loves to watch Scooby Doo, Mr. Rogers, and Reading Rainbow. Gotta love the classics.

Some Sewing Projects

OK I'm so in no mood to make blogger behave but I am trying to work through some of my unfinished projects as well as the pile of fabric in my sewing room. Here are a few of the recent finishes. I need to get on some things for Elijah and do several more projects for Emily. My current goal is to avoid buying more fabric till I get through a good bit of what I have. It would be easy to make the lions share of Emily wardrobe this way and its sort of a fun challenge.

So Much for Perfect Attendence and other stuff

Well its official. Elijah will not be one of the kids at the in of 12th grade that gets an award for 13years of perfect attendance. Not that it was likely anyways but he has a stomach virus so even though he seems to be feeling better I will spend the night praying for no puke and he will be staying home tomorrow. I really hope he makes it back on Tuesday though. I'm getting attached to my alone time.

On some other notes. I just last week discovered that one of the girls who used to babysit me goes to my church. Its funny how age seems different as you get older. I was telling my mom how funny it was that we have kids around the same age and she just politely pointed out that when LeeAnne used to babysit me she was only in jr high and I was part way through elementary school.

If I'm being totally honest I will also say that as much as I was annoyed my having to attend the session retreat all about spirituality I have been pondering this topic a bit more lately. Mostly I think that feeling close to God is simply not that hard for me. I mean I'm lucky to have had a great religious upbringing and for as long as I can remember I've gotten the God is everywhere concept. I do feel though that sometimes God shows you exactly what you need in a given moment. So this retreat had left me feeling somehow a bit less then these individuals who want to feel close to God by studying, mediating, centering prayer and so on. I mean I pray, do yoga, and such but I really don't analyze it the way some do. Well I started reading that "Eat Pray Love" book while I was in labor with Emily, not exactly the best time to start a book but whatever I've been slogging through it even since and was part way through the pray part a few days after said retreat when I came upon this tidbit. "God isn't interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves. " She goes on from there the idea comes from some kind of yoga and they theory that God dwells in you as you. For us that's similar to we are all made in the image of God. So anyways enough preaching I really just thought it was amusing that after 10 months of sort of ready a book I would come upon page 192 at exactly the right time. There is no way to get past the Almighty's involvement there.

Gotta go dinner time

Dang it Emily

Harassing Elijah after school.
Climbing. She's good at it and she likes it.

Trying to talk on the phone.
She demanded to be given the plate so she could eat it this way. She's never done it this way before but apparently she got the idea in her head bc she was determined.

Its the Most Wounderful Time of the Year

That's right back to school. I know technically Elijah started last week but since he only got to go one day it just wasn't the same. He started for good in his class on Tuesday and as much as I love him it has been wonderful. Neil walks him in and I go pick him up most days. Today I walked him in then wandered over to Starbucks when I was done. I am enjoying having some time to myself when Emily naps and love hearing about his day when he gets home. Oh and FYI yesterday he informed me that he has a girlfriend Julia. God help me there may be a bit much of Sam (who is no longer listed as single on facebook) in this one. He is having so much fun though. The sad thing about all this is that poor little Emily misses him so much. She crawls around the house looking for him and goes to check in his room every time we go upstairs. I know she'll adjust but the baby girl is sad. I'll add too that my house is a total mess. I will have to start being better but this week I've really been milking the alone time and only using it to sit around or do things that I want to do. I'll have to do a bit today though bc I'm having friend over tomorrow.