A mattress for a baby

I have been so sick this days I haven't been able to finish all the things that I need to finish before Christmas!! I know, it is in two days!!! Anyway, today, besides feeling so awful I manage to work on the little mattress and blanket I had planned for one of my nieces. I finish the decorating the crib, got the baby, then I made a fleece blanket, not anything extraordinary, just a blanket. But then I made this little mattress for it. 

The problem was that Estrella saw me making it and she loved it. She told me that Estrellita (her doll) needed one for her bed, and that this one would be a great present for her. Well, I told her that if it didn't fit in the other crib I was going to give it to her, lucky her this one was too wide for the crib I have for my niece. I think it is cute too. 

Christmas Cookies

Ok, so, decorating is not my forte. I like trying recipes but when it comes to decorate cakes or cookies I totally stink! So, New Year's Resolution #10, learn to decorate. Anyway, here are some cookies we made with the girls, since I am not good at decorating I don't even have things at home to do it, I don't bother, I know, bad me. So the girls wanted to make this shape cookies so bad, we did and had fun doing it. I made some frosting and frost them all. But then Estrella said, "mami, where are the snowman's eyes?" ha good question I thought, I don't have any kind of candy at home or sprinkles, and no car so I could go to the store. 

Well, I could have walk to the nearest store with my two little girls in a 10 degree weather, but I didn't. Cold weather makes you resourceful, I guess.






Here is how we decorate them, all I have was chocolate chips and frosting. I called hubby to ask him for gummy drops, since that's the only kind of candy I could think of, and I didn't even tell him for what and that's all he brought me, I don't know what you need to decorate cookies!!! Anyway, this is my poor attempt at decorating Christmas cookies, they taste good though, isn't that what's important? I brought them to the Young Women Caroling Activity and felt bad when I saw this other amazing cookies the girls had brought. Oh well, they taste good!







This snowmen look like they have sunglasses on!! he he.  So please tell me good sites, ideas, recipes, etc. for Christmas cookies. Tell me what do you do when you run out things to decorate your cookies. I really would like to know.

Giving

This week we are doing letter G with the girls, we are talking about giving and gingerbread and all that fun stuff. I was trying to get all my gifs ready. I want to make so many things I am going crazy!!! But I love it. I remember our first Christmas together with my husband. Since he was an student only and I had a teacher's salary, our budget was kind of short. So we decided to make some jewerly to the people we were giving gifts too. After that Christmas, his family decided it was a good idea to have a gift exchange of handmade things. I like that tradition!!

I made this for one of my co-workers at school. She loved it!

Chris made this. I like this one a lot!

Chris made this for me, this was my present! pretty don't you think?

Anyway, I think gifts that you make are more significant, here is the blanket I gave Estrella last year, I drew the animals then cut them in fabric, to tell you the truth this blanket was really hard for me to make.

by the time I was done sewing the animals, I was too tired to put some nice ribbon around, so just tied it, like the traditional fleece blankets.

I put a giraffe and a tree

a monkey 

and an Elephant, which looks kind of wrinkled, but Chris said that elephants are wrinkled anyways.

So, I am working on my presents this year, I have finished some that I need to post here. what do you think about handmade gifts? when do you start making them to have them ready?

Jingle Bells Jam in a Jar

I wanted to share this activity I did with my girls  to learn the sound for J in English and Spanish, my girls had lots of fun, they learn not only the sound but also the joy of giving (which also starts with a J) So this is not my creation, is theirs. I just helped a little.

We started by talking about Jesus and His birth and how this season is about Him. The girls started this play pretend game where one of them is Mary and the other is Joseph, crazy huh?!

Then we read the book Pooh's Jingle Bells that talks about how this season is for helping and giving. So we talk about ways to help others, help around the house, give away things that we don't need, etc. We took a trip to the Food pantry and brought some food, Estrella had put some of her dolls in the bag saying that she like them but she didn't need them any more so the poor kids could have them! :) my sweetie!!! Later on the week we decided to make Jam and put it in jars to give away to people like our postman, the person who picks up the garbage, one for grandma of course and aunt Marcy.

 The words for jam and jar are Jalea and Jarro, so that worked for the same letter in Spanish.
 I had never make jam before, and looking for a recipe I found one in my Cuisinart Bread Maker Instruction Book. We decided to make Blueberry Lime Jam cause blueberries were on sale at the Jewel this week.




The girls  did almost all the process, I help them with measurements and things like that, but they poured it and mixed it together, (I mixed it more after they were done, just to make sure! ) After that we put it in the pan fitted of the bread maker and let it do its magic. The Jam was ready in 1 1/2 hours. It smelled delicious!!!









We filled out the jars, we got five of them!! more that I expected and we let them cool down.

We put the lids and Estrella wanted to decorate them, so she picked some green paper, cut some pieces that she said were rectangles and we put them around. 

She put some bells in some yarn to make jingle bells like the one in the Pooh book.

We tied our jars with the jingle bells and we were done!! 

We are now ready to give and give!!!

 But first lets have some of that jam in some fresh made bread, from the machine of course!! yum yum!!

What do you think? how do you teach your kids the joy of giving, especially during this season? Do you have an easy recipe for jam? Do you think this was a good way to teach the sound of J? I think so, Estrella really seems to have learned it. leave your comments about it. Thanks

Corduroy

We read the book Corduroy by Don Freeman and Estrella loved the green pants he was wearing. On a trip to Jo-Anns I found a piece of green corduroy on sale (yeah big piece for $4.00!) I of course bought it thinking about Corduroy pants. Yesterday I was trying to finish Estrella's black dress but I run out of tread, so I looked at the green piece of fabric and thought, yeah why not. I have seen on Made (it's a blog about all this cute things Dana makes) a tutorial on how to make your own pattern. I cut the using another pair of pants. I took me about two hours to finish the whole thing, except for the pockets, that took me like 4 hours!! yikes! here are my too mistakes:

1. I am pretty sure I need to sew the pockets before I sew the legs. I did the opposite, hence the time I spent trying to get them right and leveled with each other, (one is still a little bit lower)
2. I measured the length of the pants and added two more inches for the hem, but I forgot to add some for the elastic, so they were short.

Here is how I fixed them, I made some little ruffles from the left over fabric, I still have half of the piece of fabric but I want to make a skirt. I was going to put two pieces of ribbon around each leg but with the ruffle it looks better with only one.

 I also put some elastic in the pocket so Estrella can put her hands in and out easily, that was my husbands idea.
So the pants are not at all like Corduroy's but they are green!! and Estrella loved them, I wanted to make them more girly and since I have this thing about ribbons I thought that was the perfect thing to add. What do you think? I can show you how I make them if you want to. Let me know

Letter of the Week

In Guatemala I never tried ginger bread for Christmas or any other time. the first time I tried it here I hated it!!! but I loved the smell. Then I met my mother in law and she makes the most delicious ginger bread I've ever had!!! Yummy!!!! This school year, as I said before I am staying home with the girls. We have a routine, after the morning ritual, we have circle time and sing and read  book that has to do with the letter we are learning that week. So for December I decided to do letters related to the season, last week we did W for winter, we read all about winter and made snow men with mashmellows, to practice counting. I got this idea from No Time for Flashcards, she has been my life saver.
Anyway, as you can see the mashmellows are not lasting much. I wanted to share this just so you see why I take so long posting about something I have created. My mornings are filled with teaching, my afternoons are all pretend play, dinner, going to bed routine, and the nights are mine to create.

Winter Flowers in your Head!

Well, not exactly! I take so long to post my creations, sorry about that. My husband wanted me to make him a hat out of Alpaca yarn or something like that. I didn't find any, so I bought some Lion Brand Jiffy extra soft yarn and got a pattern from the book: Men's Knits: 20 New Classics by Erika Knight. Great book!! I followed the pattern not realizing that it called for chunky yarn. So when my product was done I had this tiny hat that only fit my daughter, He was disappointed cause the yarn is so soft. He told me to add a ribbon or something to make it girlie, but he said to put a green ribbon!!!

The hat takes one evening to be done.

This ones have an edge of crotchet, that's why they look curly

Well I added a ribbon flower, then I added a ribbon around it, so the first one has a mistake. So I modified the pattern to fit my husband's head. It worked, he loves his hat!

Isabella really loves her hat, she wears it all the time, even at breakfast!

But then, Isabella wanted one too, so I made her one and this time I made the flower and put the ribbon in a different more efficient way.

So, then my sister in law asked me to make one for her baby, I got Lion Brand Yarn Jiffy Bulky, thinking that it would be a little warmer. Well, I followed the original pattern, not thinking, again, and I ended up with a hat big enough for my head, but way cuter! So I decided to put some brown ribbon around it and did the flower in a different way. As they said, practice makes perfect and the third one is definitely better looking, I like the yarn better and the way I put the ribbon on makes so you don't see the ends of it, they are all tuck in the flower center.

Even the pictures are better!! he he he, it fits a little too big on Estrella, but still looks cute.

We gave it to Estrella's friend for her birthday, she loved it! 

So, what do you think? big difference between the three don't you think? I am working on a pink one right now for my sister in law's baby, I have to modified the pattern again.  

The Isabella dress

I made this dresses over the summer. I made Isabella's first because I felt bad that Estrella was getting all my creations, I put a ribbon around the skirt and that gave it a nice look. I took me about one hour to make. For Estrella's dress I decided to make the straps from ribbon, it looks nice. This is the easiest dress I've ever made and I've seen many variations of this model, the possibilities are endless. I've decided that I will learn how to shirr!!

Daddy's Old Shirt...

One of Chris's shirts got a chlorine stain. I was about to send it to goodwill, feeling guilty cause it was not something anybody will buy. Since I am home now with my girls, I have been toying with many ideas in my head to help us be more frugal. One of those ideas was to turn the old clothes into something wearable for my girls, I kept thinking about it and searching for ideas, when I found the site www.dana-made-it.com, she has great ideas for converting old clothes and she is generous enough to share it. So I decided to do my first shirt dress. Here is Estrella wearing it, I covered the stain with the brown in the middle and since I am lazy and don't have much time, I just cut the sleeves from the original shirt and sew them to the dress. In her site, Dana shows how to add different sleeves, which I will try, but the way I did it saved me some time. I think it looks nice. Chris thinks it needs something more, Estrella loves it, and Isabella wants one too. So I have a black shirt that will be my next shirt dress, I'll keep you posted.

Finally!

I finally decide to start a blog about our little family. Hopefully I can keep up with it.