National Popcorn Day

So today is National Popcorn Day. What better way then a Popcorn Tutorial? Sprouts Farmers Market has yellow popping corn on sale for $0.99 a pound. The only other thing that you'll need is a brown paper lunch bag.

Each oz cost about $0.06

Take 1/4 cup of corn and put it in your bag. I folded the bag over twice then taped it close. Lay it in the microwave and set your timer for about 3 min. If your corn is done popping before 3 min (mine was) take it out when it slows down the popping or you'll end up with burned popcorn. Season and enjoy.

The great thing about this is that you determine what kind of seasoning or butter you want on it. Oh and it is waaayyy cheaper!

Diary of a Tired Mom Conclusion

I meant to do this last week and I apologize.  I am extra tired now just because my body is catching up on all that missed sleep. Chloe (2.0)  is a champ she has been sleeping through since Thursday.  It is amazing, I still have trouble believing that she is not getting up multiple times at night.  An the two times she did, I just took her right back said "Goodnight" and left the room, she then slept till morning.  Oh and the other plus... she has been waking between 6:45 and 7:45. Now this might seem early to you, but keep in mind it use to be 5:30 and 6:00!

Lily (3.0) is having a little tougher time. She is teething right now. Trying to get the first teeth to break through. Poor baby. But once they come in I am going to go back to the routine. A strange side effect of this is that she now cries at bath time.  I mean a full out cry! I have no idea how to calm her. I am just hoping that my former water baby is just adjusting and this will change soon. Oh and it is now a little harder to get her to nap now. But I will just keep trying. She has only been waking once a night for a small feed, the right back asleep till around 6:30 to 7:00.

I will update in a week to keep you in the loop.  Thank you

UpCycle of Old Dress

We got this very cute dress from a friend and Chloe just loves it, the only problem? It is about 2 inches to short and shows off her cute little undies. So instead of getting rid of it I decided to make it a new dress and as a added bonus a skirt too. 

Here is the dress. Oops I already cut it when I remembered to take the pic.

 

 So I cut it in half right under the seam of the bodices very carefully. I put aside the skirt for later use and started on the skirt for the dress. I found this really beautiful fabric called Larkspur Meadow.
I just fell in love with it. It works so well with the pink of the dress which has small flowers embroidered at the top.  

I took the length of the skirt that came with the dress and added 3 inches to it for good coverage. Then I just cut out a rectangle of that 17" by 36". Then I sewed a quick basting stitch along the top of the rectangle and gathered it so that it was the same circumference as the bodice. Then put the bodice over the dress right sides together and sewed with a zigzag all the way around.  To make it a very easy project I used the selvage for the bottom for a nice and easy construction. 

 

 That is it for the dress.

The skirt was equally easy. All I did was cut a piece of elastic. I got mine from Ruffle Fabric.com. My piece of elastic was 19" long, about 1" greater then her waist size. Overlap the elastic about 1/2" and use a zigzag to sew them together. Then I just sewed the elastic right on the skirt.  And voila! 

She loves it!

Yummy Desert

I also made this really yummy desert. Kind of strawberry shortcake. It involves ladyfingers, strawberries, and honey whipped cream. Do I have your attention. Maybe this pic will.

What I did was this...

Add 1 tbsp of sugar to washed and cut strawberries, set in the fridge for a few hours till nice and juicy. (3-4 hours)

 Get your whip cream ready to go, heavy whipping cream in a stand mixer (or what ever you have). Once it is formed add your honey (I use buckwheat honey), then re-mix till stiff peaks.

Add all together, and you get the first pic. Delish!

Buttermilk Chicken Strips

I had some good friends over today who have a little boy so I wanted to make something that everyone would eat. I had chicken breast in the fridge so I thought chicken strips. I love, love, love chicken strips and this is my favorite recipe.  I don't know where I found it, I do my own thing and don't follow a set recipe but it is good!

What you'll need three pie pans, a heavy bottomed pan, and some tongs.
Chicken breast (I use boneless, skinless), Panko (and if you run out breadcrumbs will work), eggs, and flour (add salt and pepper for seasoning)

1) Cut up the the chicken in strips 4 per breast, put them in a bag, and pour in the buttermilk with salt and pepper. Put in the fridge for at least 1 hour up to 8 hours.

2) When ready to cook heat up oil in heavy bottomed pan very hot.

 3) Get your buttermilk chicken drained, coat it in flour and dust off extra, dredge in eggs, then cover with panko crumbs. Out in oil and cook till golden brown and beautiful. 

Love this Dress

 

There is a dress over at Smashed Peas and Carrots that I just love.  It is super cute and will do well in the summer when babies need lots of flow with their clothing. I also used the tutorial from Make it Love it to make a cute diaper cover for her.  I have been trying to find a way to use this fabric and just could not think of something. I know that they don't really go together, but I love the way the dots peek out of the back. It makes me happy. The hardest part of this for me was the diaper cover. This took me just as long as the dress to make. For some reason I could just not make the holes for the legs to look right. Thankfully Lily's legs are kinda chunky so you can't really tell that the legs are wonky.  The pattern says that it is for 6-12 months but it is still really big on her. So maybe with the next dress I'll scale it back 1/2 an inch. I think that it will fit a little better.

Day 3 of Diary of a Tired Mom

After tonight I am feeling kinda dumb for not starting this sooner. The girls did fantastic tonight. It was amazing. 3.0 went down at 6:50 (she missed her 3rd nap at 4) and cried for 7 min then was fast asleep. I thought that for sure 2.0 would wake her when we came in after book and potty. But no, zip, zero, nadda. No crying at all. We have a video monitor in her room so I watched for 15 min to see if she was going to get up at all. She just layed there eyes open for ten min then fell asleep.  I could not believe this!

Then at night, I slept through my 12am alarm to dream feed 3.0 and she work up at 1, so I went and fed her 3 min, put her down she was asleep. She made noises about 3 min later, but she was just turning over to her tummy.  And that was all out of her for the night. 2.0 woke up about 5-7 min later saying she was hungry, but I went over what she had eaten that day and knew that she had enough to eat. So once she got up and opened the door, I took her back to bed and said "Now is not the time to eat, it is sleepy time". And left the room. She started to cry and tantrum. Im thinking "oh here it comes". But it only lasted for less then 30 sec! What the heck!

I dream fed 3.0 at 4 and she woke up at 6:50 for the day.  Im am wondering if I had remembered to feed her at 12 if she would have woke at all?

Between 4 and 6:30 2.0 somehow managed to sneak out of her room and into my bed. I woke at 6:30 to her touching my face. So I think that it was closer to 6:30. (I hope). 

I can not believe the transformation from 3 nights ago to today. I mean, is it really possible to have such a dramatic change in 3 nights? Have I really just endured 4 years of bad sleeping to have it change in less then a week? I was sooo against cry-it-out (that is pretty much what this is) but it works and my kids still love me when they wake up. 

I am going to keep up my diary till Friday but hopefully by then all I will be writing about is 2.0 and 3.0 slept all night long!