First Day of Kindergarten!

I can't believe my little girl is in kindergarten! And full day kindergarten...I am sure going to miss her (and so will Jack - he cried when she left). But I put on a brave face as she got on the bus yesterday. I had to - Erin was less than excited to ride the bus to school. Poor kid cried so hard when we told her it was time to go. I had to carry her to the bus :( Despite the rough morning though, she arrived home a different kid! She had a great first day, loves her teacher and made a new friend! I am one happy mama for that!

Nice cheesy smile lol!

Anxiously waiting

Time to go

My happy kindergartner at the end of the day!

Of course the first day of school needs a special outfit so I let Erin pick out fabric from my stash and choose a pattern for a new dress. She went with some Riley Blake Hoo's in the Forest and The Cottage Mama's Ruby Ruffle Dress pattern but in view B - I love how there are different options with The Cottage Mama patterns. So in true me fashion, I started the dress the night before and was up until one in the morning completing it! Getting up five hours later to get Erin ready for school was not fun but totally worth it when she saw her special new dress!

Cute little dress for the first day of school!

I added some rick rack between the panels and only used one button per side for the closure.

Love the little owls!

I was so happy that Erin did enjoy her first day of kindergarten and her special dress! I hope she has a wonderful year!

Thanks for stopping by!
Meghan

Jack's Blanket Finished (finally!)

I finally finished Jack's blanket that I first posted about here.

After I pieced the top together, I put it off to the side so I could figure out how to put the whole thing together. Originally I was going to bind the front piece, batting and minky with some navy blue satin quilt binding. I looked up different tutorials on how to do the binding but just never got around to doing it. So flash forward a year later, I decided I needed to get this blanket done before Jack went off to college! Instead of binding the blanket, I just pinned the top, batting and minky together (top and minky right sides facing) and sewed around the whole thing. I left a small opening to turn the blanket right side out and then top stitched all around to close it up. Simple and it turned out pretty cute!

Cute little bears in airplanes!

Jack was so happy to have something made for him...he took off down the hall to put his new blanket on his bed!

Setting up his new blanket

Almost got it

Yay! A new blanket just for me!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Meghan

Recipe: Avocado Chicken Salad

Sunday night for dinner, my husband bbq'd a delicious beer can chicken. It was one of the best chickens that he has ever cooked - very moist and flavorful. It was the first time he tried preparing chicken that way and it is definitely something we will have again! Since we are only a family of four with two littles 4 and 2 (who are VERY picky eaters!) we had a good amount of leftovers. Usually when we roast a chicken, I use the leftover chicken to make a pot pie. Since it is way too hot for using the oven, I needed another way to use the chicken and wanted something different. To Pinterest I went and found a delish recipe for BBQ Chicken and Avocado Quesadillas. Since we did not use bbq sauce when we first made the chicken, I simply shredded some chicken and mixed it up with our favorite bbq sauce and then assembled everything. These quesadillas were delicious and a great way to use the leftover chicken but...I still had more chicken left over! Not a lot but enough to use for another small meal for sure.
So this afternoon when I was trying to decide what to have for lunch, I thought of the chicken and the extra avocado that I had and again went to Pinterest - ha! I found a few tasty looking recipes but I did not want to leave the house to go buy any extra ingredients. I just wanted to use what I had on hand. This is the recipe that inspired my avocado chicken salad. I thought I would share how I made mine but of course you could always search Pinterest just as I did for other yummy ideas :)

Avocado Chicken Salad

(Adapted from a recipe found at Becoming Betty)

1 cup of shredded chicken

1 avocado diced

Juice from 1/2 a lemon (lime would be really good too)

1 small Roma tomato diced

1-2 tablespoons of mayonnaise

salt and pepper to taste



Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Serve in a wrap with lettuce and enjoy!



I used only about half of the chicken salad in my wrap for lunch today so I guess it serves two. I am looking forward to having the rest tomorrow. I think I might try it on some whole wheat toast :)



Thanks for stopping by!

Meghan

Erin's Graduation Dress - A Cottage Mama pattern

My little lady graduated from pre-school at the end of June. The school she attended held an adorable ceremony for the children. The theme was "Spirit of Americana". The children practiced for weeks all the patriotic songs they would sing and the lines that they had to say. Erin was part of a group that talked about George Washington. Her line was, "George Washington's face appears on the one dollar bill". She said it perfectly and without any help from her teacher! It was such a great little ceremony and the kids definitely had fun and did a wonderful job of entertaining the parents!
Erin requested a pretty dress to wear for her special day and I was happy to oblige! (She really didn't have to ask...I had been hoarding some Sandi Henderson Meadow Sweet fabric since the beginning of the school year for a dress for her graduation!)
Erin did pick out the pattern for the dress. I was going to use The Janey Jumper pattern from The Cottage Mama but when Lindsay's new patterns came out, Erin happened to be looking at them with me and she asked if I could please get her the Ruby Ruffle Dress pattern instead. She loved that the dress had ruffles on it! Since I have an obsession  a love for the Cottage Mama patterns, I placed the order right away. I have both the Janey Jumper pattern and the Shortcake Reversible Romper and dress pattern. These patterns are very easy to follow and the finished garment is adorable and has a professional look.
The Ruby Ruffle dress pattern is no exception. I love how the dress turned out and so did Erin! Again, the instructions were very easy to follow. I love that there are actual photos along the way of each step. Much easier to see what you need to do than looking at an illustration.



Ruby Ruffle Dress size 4 in Sandi Henderson Meadow sweet



Top of dress details - I used fabric covered buttons

Ruffle detail

Side view

Back view - love these beautiful flowers

Having fun dancing in her new dress!

I just love how this dress came out and so did Erin! She is requesting another Ruby Ruffle dress and I am looking forward to making more and trying out the different views that the pattern suggests. :)

Thanks for stopping by!
Meghan

Strawberry picking fun

A couple of weeks ago, my friend and I packed up our kids and some snacks and headed about an hour north of where we live to go strawberry picking. My friend knew of this great organic farm in Ancram, New York called Thompson-Finch Farm. "Thompson-Finch Farm is a family-run fruit farm that specializes in growing certified organic strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and apples. The farm is known region wide for high quality fruit and our season long "Pick-Your-Own" operation."
The drive up was beautiful, lots of farms and old houses to look at on the way. When we got there, we checked in at the fruit stand, had our baskets weighed and one of the workers let us know where in the patch we were allowed to pick. I brought along my own baskets but they do provide boxes if you don't have your own.
The kids had so much fun picking strawberries! They were up and down all the rows carefully selecting the best berries for picking. It was so cute!

yummy berries!

Jack really had the most fun eating all the berries he found!

Delicious!

Erin took her job very seriously!

She did a great job finding berries!

Strawberry picking fun!

We had a great time at the strawberry patch and came home with a lot of strawberries! I took about a pound of the berries and divided them up into bags and froze them for later use. With the rest, I made delicious Strawberry Cinnamon Muffins. I found the recipe on The Cottage Home blog awhile ago and have been wanting to try it ever since. Our abundance of berries finally gave me that opportunity :) The muffins were delish! And we had such a great time at the farm!

Project Run and Play Week 5: Movie Challenge

For the week 5 challenge at Project Run and Play, the designers had to pick a movie and make an outfit based on that movie. It could be a replica of an outfit worn by one of the characters or just inspired by the theme of the movie. I had a bit of trouble deciding on what movie I wanted to go with for this challenge. I wanted to recreate an outfit that Erin could wear everyday. I didn't want it to be costumey (I don't even think that is a real word). I really wanted it to be cute and wearable. The kids recently watched Charlotte's Web, the live action 2006 version with Dakota Fanning. I just love that book and Erin just loved the movie! (Jack not so much - he did like Wilbur though. He would yell "piggy oink oink" each time he raced into the room and looked at the TV for 2 seconds!)
Anyway, since Erin took such a liking to the movie and she is on a yellow kick, I decided to recreate the dress Dakota Fanning's character Fern wears at the fair the day Wilbur gets his medal. It is an adorable yellow dress with ruffles - right up Erin's alley!



source

 I made the dress out of some yellow gingham that I had purchased at Joann's for last week's challenge and never used. I created a lined bodice and attached a simple gathered skirt to the bottom. To create the ruffles, I cut six strips that were each 40 inches long by 3 inches wide. I then attached two strips together so that I would have three strips total. I then hemmed each strip and ran a gathering stitch down each one to create the ruffles. After attaching the ruffles to the skirt, I added some white rick rack across the seam. I also added white rick rack to the neckline then sewed a piece of yellow bias tape over the top.
This dress was definitely time consuming due to the ruffles but Erin just loved it and I think it looks adorable on her and pretty true to the original.



Erin's Fair Dress



close up of neckline



ruffles




back of dress - I used red buttons for a pop of color








Erin and "Wilbur"





Radiant!



Terrific!

humble

I hope you enjoyed my take on Fern's Fair dress! Don't forget to stop over at Project Run and Play to see what the designers came up with this week and to vote for your favorite look!

Project Run and Play Week 4: Color Challenge

So this week's challenge over at Project Run and Play is color. You had to pick a color and use that color as inspiration for your outfit. So I decided to ask Erin what color she would like (thinking the answer would be purple) she responded - yellow. Yellow? Really? Are you sure you don't want something purple? No - yellow.
Okay then.
I have a teeny tiny amount of yellow in my stash but lots of purple. Purple would have been so easy and cost effective-lol. So off to Joann's I went to get some yellow. I purchased some Kona cotton in Corn Yellow and some cute yellow gingham not really having a particular outfit in mind. I did know that I wanted to make a cute dress Erin could wear for the summer. Then I thought: summer - sun - I know! A cute sundress that I will call: The Pocket Full of Sunshine Dress! Yay! I sketched out a few variations of how I wanted the dress to look but in the end I sort of winged it lol!
I drafted my own pattern for the bodice and just made a simple gathered skirt to add to the bottom. I was a little overwhelmed by the brightness of the Corn Yellow, so I added a sash to the bottom of the bodice using some yellow and white striped fabric I happened to have in my stash (that being the teeny tiny amount of yellow I had). I was glad that I remembered I had the striped fabric because it goes better with the theme of the dress than the gingham. Stripes - rays of the sun - much better than gingham. Anywho, I attached the sash directly to the bodice so it became part of the top. I also used the striped fabric to create straps for the dress and also to make the pockets.



front bodice pattern



back bodice pattern

bodice with sash

 I knew I wanted to have two pockets on the skirt of the dress with cute little suns on them. I first thought I would embroider the outline of the sun with as cute smiley face right onto the pocket. Well that did not look as cute as I had hoped. It just was not that noticeable so I decided to applique the sun onto the bottom of the pocket and then use grosgrain ribbon for the rays. I still embroidered the face onto the sun because I thought it made it more well happy =)

happy little suns!

The straps of the dress gave me a bit of trouble. I sewed the straps directly into the back of the bodice with the idea of having them attach to the front with buttons. Would have been cute except that I made the straps too long. Yes, I could have just shortened them but then I had another idea - make buttonholes in the bodice to pass the straps through then attach the strap to itself with a button. But.... that did not work out either because the straps were still too long. So I decided to just tie the straps to keep them on. I am actually really happy that I made this mistake because I think the dress looks cute this way =) 

the too long straps



straps all tied up



So despite the mistakes I am happy with how the dress turned out. It was the perfect dress to sew this week as there was no sun here. Cloudy rainy weather does not make for the best pictures though but I just had to take pics outside. I am so tired of being in the house so maybe this happy sunny dress will bring the real sun out play =)

happy little sundress!



pocket full of sunshine

back of dress with button closure

miss erin in her new dress

mom i love the pockets!





wishing for the sun to come out





one happy little lady!