July Comes to an End

This has been one of those weeks where we've been out every day. I wouldn't mind so much but I feel bad for Parker having to come with me and sit in his little stroller and/or carseat for so long. He's so good, though! He only starts to get upset once I've hauled him in and out of the car a few times. I'm very thankful for such an easy-going little boy.  :)

Between youth group events, grocery shopping, Bible study, doctor appointments, errands and family visits, it's been a long (but fun!) week. And that wasn't all...
Wednesday we celebrated our 9th anniversary! Our neighbors were kind enough to watch Parker for a couple hours while we went out for dinner. We hadn't had a date night in a few months so it was nice to go out ourselves. We went to one of our favorite new Italian places and had a wonderful meal. And by the sound of it Parker was perfectly happy here, playing with his little friend and eating his own favorite meal of macaroni and cheese.  :)
I was spoiled again, of course, when Kyle presented me with a beautiful purse along with a giftcard for new maternity clothes! I went to the mall the next morning to pick out a couple things. Yes, I have the sweetest guy ever!

The last thing we did this week was go to a baseball game on Saturday. The Dodgers were in town playing the Giants and a big group of Kyle's co-workers and their families were all going. We thought it would be fun to take Parker although we knew his little attention span wouldn't last the entire game. He did pretty well, though. We got lunch as soon as we found our seats and he was content to sit and eat french fries and snacks for a while. Pretty soon he was climbing off and on his chair, looking for something to do. We were able to distract him with a snowcone for a little while but by the 5th inning he was starting to get upset. He calmed down once Kyle pulled out his phone for him to play with. We finally ended up leaving during the 7th inning. But I don't think we missed much, as the Dodgers were up 7-0 when we left. It was a fun day! Even though Parker is too young to watch or understand the game, I'm still happy we took him. You can't beat spending time as a family!

So that was our week...  hopefully August starts out a little less crazy! I'm looking forward to some time at home. And I'm sure Parker is, too.  :)

Carseat Cover

Here's one of the baby items I've been working on. It needs one little finishing touch, but I can't do it until we unpack our carseat...which won't be for a few months.

It's a pattern I found on pinterest and I was very happy to have come across it. It can be a hassle trying to keep a carseat covered with a blanket without it falling off (or being pulled off by a nosey bystander). Annoying. This looked like a better idea since it attaches to the carseat handle and the sides can be completely closed in. It'll be perfect for when baby is sleeping or when we're out in bad weather.

Here's the website where I downloaded the pattern. The one shown is made from fleece but I chose to make mine from a double layer of flannel instead. The pattern is free, although it's pretty large so the pieces have to be cut out and then tiled/taped together. The flannel I used for the lining wasn't quite wide enough, so I had to sew a couple strips onto the sides so the pattern would fit.




For the outside I found white flannel with pink and brown dots. I used plain brown on the inside and put pink piping cord around the edge. It probably would have looked better with light pink lining on the inside but I thought if baby was sleeping, a darker color may help block out the light more.


It was my first time sewing piping and I didn't know how hard it would be. But the pattern showed how to do it and it's super easy--thank goodness!  :)

Since I don't have our carseat available I had to guess somewhat on where the straps should go. Once they were sewed on I asked my neighbor if I could come over and try it on their baby's seat. It fit perfectly! The 'finishing touch' I mentioned earlier is adding velcro or snaps to the sides below the handle so it can be closed more securely. But I'll wait on that so I can fit it to our own carseat.

I wish we had one of these when Parker was born! He was a Fall baby and we hated having to carry him around in the rain. At least his little sister will stay dry.  :)

Makeup Bag

My most recent sewing project was a makeup bag!  I made one last week at my July sewing class and it was kind of fun so I made another, smaller one.

The blue and black one has a handle and is just big enough to hold my wallet, phone and keys so it's a great little 'purse' to grab when I have to go on a quick errand. And I love that I can hook it over the stroller handle when I'm out with Parker.

The red one is the perfect size to tuck into my regular purse to hold eye drops, hair accessories, etc.

Our sewing instructor kept saying she loves making sets of these for gifts. May have to keep that in mind for later!  :)  I guess that's all for now... I've also been working on a couple baby items that I want to post, but I'm not quite finished yet so I'll wait on those!

Meatballs

I made spaghetti for dinner tonight and thought I'd share a little something I learned about making meatballs.  :) The recipe says to bake them on a cookie sheet and turn them while they're cooking. I've done it this way, but they still get flat and a little overcooked on each side you put them on. Not to mention they're a bit greasy.



So last time I made meatballs I tried a different way to cook them. I set a wire cooling rack on top of the cookie sheet and placed the raw meatballs on the rack.






That way worked SO much better! The heat can circulate all around them so they don't need to be turned, meaning they came out round and evenly cooked.








And I like that the meatballs aren't sitting/cooking in a puddle of grease--it all drips down into pan. Look at what was left on the cookie sheet after I took the rack off... disgusting, right?



Here's the meatball recipe I normally use. It's from Taste of Home's Quick Cooking magazine. The recipe makes between 30-40 meatballs, depending on how big you like them. And, of course, I recommend MY cooking method ahead of hers.   :)

Make-Ahead Meatballs

1 egg

1/2 cup dry bread crumbs

2 Tbsp. finely chopped onion

3/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. worcestershire sauce

1 lb. ground beef

Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. Shape meat into 1-inch balls and place in a single layer on an ungreased baking pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until no longer pink, turning often while cooking. Drain on paper towels.   

So that's my little cooking tip for the day! Hope it was helpful to somebody reading!

This last picture was one I took for fun while making dinner. The larger, regular sized bell pepper was from the store and the little one next to it was picked from our garden. Isn't it cute?  :)

Patriotic Sweets

Since the 4th of July is coming up, I wanted to make some kind of patriotic treats for our youth Sunday school class. I wanted something non-messy that they could either eat in class or take home with them. I'd recently seen chocolate-dipped rice krispie treats covered in sprinkles online somewhere and thought they looked fun, so I made some on Saturday!

It seemed easier (and cheaper) to buy individual rice krispie treats rather than make them, so I picked up a few boxes of those along with melting chocolate and red, white and blue sprinkles. I already had cello bags and ribbon at home.

Dipping them turned out to be a bit harder than I thought! I wanted to leave the ends plain so they could stand up while the chocolate set. That way they'd have a nice coating with sprinkles on each side and would look pretty. But dipping them into warm chocolate made the marshmallow even softer and they'd start to bend or squish a little while I was holding the end. I got out a corn cob skewer and tried holding it with that instead. It worked a little better, but I had to work fast or the krispie treat would still start to bend or stretch apart.

Finally I had them all covered and sprinkled! To make it easy for the kids to take home, I placed each one in a little clear treat bag and tied it with a ribbon. I used red, white and blue ribbon to match the sprinkles  :)

 I love holiday-themed sweets! I've found some other fun ideas recently that I want to try. Ones like this are so easy to make but people think you spent a lot of time on them. Of course, I don't bother to tell them otherwise...a good cook never reveals secrets, right?  :)