This week, I’m linking up with Polly Want a Crafter, Motivate Me Monday, Made By You Monday, Make It Monday, More the Merrier Monday, Masterpiece Monday, Craftomaniac Monday, Make It Monday, Metamorphosis Monday, Making the World Cuter, Make It Yourself Monday, and Bedazzle Me Monday! Check out the projects in these links, so creative and so fun!

This is one of those projects that’s only hard in your head, once you actually get started on it you’ll find it’s no biggie and comes together really, really quickly. As long as you can sew, even a little, you’re good to go!

I made this for Wee One #2, but the same instructions apply for an adult, just bigger! She love, love, loves to dress up and run around and cause a lovely disaster in her cutest dresses. Making an inexpensive but adorable tutu for less than $10 makes a lot more sense than dropping $40 on one – especially if your wee one runs into the backyard and rolls around in the grass and/or dirt while playing princess and pirates!

Tutu via Prudent Baby
4 yards of tulle
matching thread
safety pin (I ended up using a hair clip!)
2ft elastic (to fit around your wee one’s waist)
sewing machine duh
scissors double duh

First, fold your fabric in half, widthwise so you have a wiiiiiide strip of tulle that is as long as you want the skirt to be. Now sew a small loop in the very top of all the layers to make a waistband. Then attach your elastic to a safety pin and feed the elastic through to the end. DO NO use a hair clip like I did. It was a bit of a nightmare.
Make sure you sew the end in place once you have fed the elastic into the waistband.
Keep feeding the elastic through to the end, it’ll be a little harder to work with the further through all the fabric you get. The wider your piece of tulle, the puffier the skirt will be. Puffier is always better when it comers to tutus. When you reach the other end, sew the elastic in place and then sew up the two ends to officially make it a skirt!
Next time, I’d use about twice as much tulle to make it even puffier!

I’m participating in Menu Monday at Organizing Junkie and Life as a Lofthouse

I didn’t blog last week because honestly I have been extremely distracted. It’s all been pretty fun distractions though!! Since Christmas we thought we were going to be planning a long distance short-term work-related move. We were extremely excited because it was to a place we’ve always wanted to go. Then last weekend we thought that it wasn’t going to happen after all, only to find out a few days later that it’s going to happen, just not as soon as we thought. For a planner this was at first, extremely painful. However, after a while I have come to appreciate that it can be fun to just live my life as I live it (playing in the kitchen while making sock puppets and cocktails) and let surprises unfold on their own – and in their own time. I asked my husband not to keep me in the loop about this work move. Only to tell me when it’s a sure thing and it’s time to start packing. Which honestly takes a load off. So now I’m focusing on Wee One #3’s teeny weeny Hello Kitty birthday party next weekend. It’s teeny weeny because she only really has one friend, I mean she is just turning three after all!

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my oven died, thankfully my stove stop still works perfectly so I’ve been cooking quite a bit, and working through my ‘no bake’ recipes but I haven’t been doing any baking at all. Le sigh. I love baking. At first we looked into having it fixed, but it’s not much of a savings compared to getting a new one and then we have a new warranty. Anyhoo, it’s Menu Monday so while we pick a new stove here’s yet another stove top menu!

This Week’s Menu (Feb 27 – March 5)
*I mentioned last week, I make two separate dinners most nights because I’ve made some dietary changes and I’m not pushing it on my family. They tend to join in with a healthy May-style breakfast and lunch and I make their faves for dinner. Wee One #2 has started eating ‘dinner like mommy’ though, so that’s something!

Sunday – Hamburgers and French Fries for the fam, Chick Pea Burgers and Sweet Potato Fries for me

This week, I will photograph these meals as I make them so I can blog about them and link back to those posts when I mention them in a future Menu Monday, which you know I probably will!

Today though, since I have no oven and you probably do, I will hit you with this recipe for Tater Tot Casserole so you can make it for me! It’s the ultimate in trashy food (I have a weakness for such things, remember?) I’m not even going to lie to you (though it would save face if I said something like ‘I don’t remember where I came across this recipe‘), this is totally a Duggar Family recipe. Don’t look at me like that! Don’t act like you don’t love that show too! Johanna is my fave little one and I think Jessa is fierce. <3

First, make mashed potatoes however you usually do that. I toss mine in the pressure cooker and then mash them up with some garlic and butter.
Now add the egg, milk and flour or else they will just be mush in the oil. MUSH. The original tater tot recipe coats them in breadcrumbs and I didn’t. I totally will next time though! This is when you heat a pot of oil and toss these babies in. They only need to be in the oil for like 30 seconds. I had my first few in for about 2 minutes and look what happened!!
They were perfect on the inside, burnt to a blackened crisp on the outside. Whoops!
I had the next batch in for about 45 seconds and that’s all they needed!
Now for the actual casserole part. I just browned the ground turkey (you could use chicken or pork or beef or fake tofu-ish stuff) with a little parsley, garlic and onion though none of those three are technically called for in the recipe, and spread it over the bottom of a casserole dish. Then I put the tater tots on top!
Then in another bowl, I mixed the evaporated milk with the cream soups and poured it over meat and tater tots in the casserole dish.
Bake at 350F for about an hour and OH MY shit this is amazingly good.

If my new oven isn’t chosen and delivered by Friday, I’m going to have to bake a Hello Kitty cake at my neighbor’s house. Oh small town living, you come in handy sometimes.

It’s been a super busy, super fun Valentine’s Day around here today! Here’s the parade of the love fest we sent to school!

First up, for the teachers, we made the same caramel corn as for Miss America but I halved it and made the other half purple. I packaged them up in baggies, and used these super cute tags from Our Best Bites – here’s the PDF for them. They say ‘Just popping through with a Valentine for you’. I used red and white baker’s twine that I just ordered from Keeley Behling to wrap them all up. There’s just something about baker’s twine that makes me feel like a serious domestic goddess. I also dipped pretzel rods in melted chocolate and rolled them in pink sprinkles, then wrapped those in parchment paper and tied with more baker’s twine. Love!!

These adorable little friendship bracelets were for Wee One #2’s class. They are just three strand braids that we made together; green/orange/blue for the boys and pink/light pink/purple for the girls. They’re strung through another sweet printable that says ‘our class would knot be the same without you’. Ha! I know, it’s mega uber cheese, but dudes please, it’s Valentine’s Day, what do you want from me?! The printable for these is from Dandee Designs over here.
These are my favorite treat I’ve ever sent to Wee One #1’s class. They are jumbo Rolos (the kind with 10 in the package) wrapped in red construction paper. I secured the construction paper to the wrapper with double sided tape so it couldn’t be seen and I also rolled half a black pipe cleaner in with it! Instant stick of dynamite! Love it! I made the labels in Photoshop with a similar font from the one it was originally pictured with. This idea came from Make It Do. Our oldest will be 12 this summer, so he’s borderline too old for this shit, you know? It’s hard to find ideas that still fit the holiday without being too lame for him to be down. This? Totally worked!
Wee One #2 wanted a little something extra for the kids in her class so we made a fairly classic chocolate covered Oreo for each of them and to keep it festive we added red and pink sprinkles! They’re pictured drying with the equally festive chocolate covered pretzel rods included in the teacher’s loot.
The Oreos were hard to package, because short of bringing a tray of them into the school, how do you wrap an individual chocolate covered Oreo?! My solution was to plunk each one in a pink cupcake liner, wrap with pink tissue paper and secure with — you guess it! BAKER’S TWINE. I need help, is there a support group for this sort of thing?

I have wanted to do this forever – it is infinitely easier than it seems and it seems crazy easy. No brainer and the wee ones are happy, happy, happy. I came across this recipe via Easie Peasie and tried it later the same day. Success!

Just mix 3 teaspoons of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup corn starch and 2 cups of water in a saucepan. Cook it until it starts to thicken and then separate it into jars and add food coloring! So simple! Wee One #3 watched me make it, and helped get the paper and brushes and easel ready. By the time we were set up to paint, it had cooled and she painted for almost an hour – creating an alarming number of masterpieces. Clean up was easy too!

I’m participating in Work in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

I have been very good this week and stuck with the baby legwarmers without touching the Flying Arrows socks at all. I have been spending a lot of my evenings doing research for something that’s sort of a really big deal but that I shouldn’t talk about until I have more details on it. Vague enough for you?!? That’s what has kept me from knitting, that and the very same something has me going on less errands lately so I’m not knitting in the car as much either!

This pattern (Socks for Mary Janes) really is alarmingly cute and would work so well on a little girl in Mary Janes. The little girl I’m making the legwarmer version of these for will look equally adorable running around her house in her little skirts and sneakers.

They are sooooo close to being done, just 4 repeats of 4 rows left and then I will ship them the 800 miles to her house.

This started out as a Work in Progress Wednesday but between that last sentence and this one, I finished them and had Wee One #3 model them for me.

These socks were knit in Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo DK in Paintbox Pink, on 3mm DPNs. What a cute name! The band just says #160, with a name that cute they really should make it obvious.

I really, really liked using this yarn. I bought two balls assuming I’d be using most of it on these little cuties, but I still have a few yards left on the first ball! When this little photoshoot was over, Miss Wee One #3 freaked out and didn’t want the socks I had knit her anymore she wanted to keep these legwarmers. When I asked why, she said, in her painfully cute not quite 3 year old voice ‘beeeeecuz they so peddy’. My heart melted, but I cast on for my friend Rachel’s kid, and so Rachel’s kid shall rock these. I’ll make another pair for my own kid this weekend.

My most eager baker assisted me with this one. Actually, it’s gotten to the point now where I’m the one assisting her, which I totally adore! She gets really into it and unlike the usual ‘dump, stir, lose interest’ category that most kids fall into (including Wee One #1), she really wants to be involved in every part of it. So sweet!!

The weird thing about cooking and baking your way through cookbooks is there will eventually be a recipe no one wants to try. For some reason the word ‘cheesecake’ doesn’t sit right with the kids, and my husband and I are not huge fans of dairy. Well, correction. Dairy isn’t a fan of either of us. Once it was out of the oven though, and the whole house had this wonderful cheesecakey smell going on, the kids caved and each had a piece. And then another. And then more the next day till it was gone.

This was recipe #11 from Baking With Kids!

The recipe has you crushing crackers, you could just use ground graham (or wheaten) crackers.	Melt the butter and mix it in with the crumbs and the sugar.
Mix it till it’s mostly combined.	Once it’s in the well greased springform pan, press the mixture flat.
Now mix the ricotta and sour cream in a big bowl with your mixer (or a spoon).	Crack the eggs into a separate bowl to avoid shells in your cheesecake!
Tip the egss in!	She likes to watch the kitchen power tools very carefully.
Now add the icing sugar and the ground almonds. This is also when we grated the lemons and added both the zest and the juice from the lemons to the mix.	Sooooo creamy. Pour it over the crust!
Normally I’d say ‘sprinkle the slivered almonds on top and away you go’ but this Wee One is very specific about the placement of each almond sliver.	It’s her work of edible art!
Bake at 300F for 1 1/4 hours, then turn off the oven and leave it inside without opening the door for another 1 1/2 hours till the oven cools off. Then take the cheesecake out of the springform and serve it either as it is or with fresh berries!

So I know this will sound like gushing, and we have only ‘bumped into each other online’ a couple of times, but I’m a little in love with Mama Pea of Peas and Thank You. If you read her blog with any regularity at all I have no doubt you are a little in love with her too. Last week, for example, ‘Tonight we all needed a little comic relief (or a horse tranquilizer)…‘, I read that and thought, HOLY CRAP!! THAT’S MY HOUSE! Also? One of her blog tags is ‘pissing and moaning’. Love!!

I know, I’m such a creeper but really I love her extra for these bars, she concocted a recipe for gluten-free vegan chocolate chip granola bars that Wee Ones #1 & #3 love. They’re called Zee Bars because she was lamenting in her post on these little babies about the food marketed specifically to kids and how it’s exactly the same as the food marketed to adults, except they’ve slapped a little chocolate on it and spelled kids with a z. Right?! Dammit, my kids can spell! Anyhoo, I am still cooking and baking my way through her cookbook (I made the Fabulous French Toast today for brunch actually….), and I’m still not going to post any recipes from her book. However, this recipe was posted on her website so it’s fair game.

They’re way easy to make and even easier to eat! All you need is:

1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup oat flour (just run 1/2 cup of oats through your food processor)
1/2 cup vanilla protein powder (or another 1/2 cup oat flour)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp non-dairy milk (I used almond)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon
stevia to taste (or be a cheater like me and use 1/4 cup brown sugar) I have stevia, but no one likes it!
1/4 cup chocolate chips (I also cheat with this and use 1/2 cup)

If you throw on a little drizzle after the bars are cool you’ll also need:

3 tbsp chocolate chips
1 tsp coconut oil

So first, preheat your oven to 350F and spray your 8×8-ish pan. Theeeeeen, mix the oats, oat flour, protein powder, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and your brown sugar if you’re using it.
Mix up the applesauce, vanilla and almond (or whatever) milk.	Now mix your wet into your dry.
Fold in the chocolate chips.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.	Mama Pea describes it as ‘pulling away from the pan’, when you know it’s done.
So so so good. I could knock back a tray of these in an evening – no problem!

The 10th recipe we made from Linda’s Collister’s Baking with Kids cookbook and Wee One #2 totally took over! I was so impressed with her! She has really become a mini domestic goddess in training and it’s so sweet to see!!

Chocolate Cupcakes – from Baking With Kids (p. 17) Cake: 1 1/2 cups four 1 tsp baking powder pinch of salt 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa 3/4 cup sugar 7 tbsp unsalted butter, softened 2 extra-large eggs 1/2 cup whole milk Frosting: 3 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate 1 tbsp light corn syrup 2 tbsp unsalted butter
Preheat your oven to 350F. Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa and sugar.	This little miss is very precise, dontcha know.
Add the butter to the bowl, and crack your eggs into a small bowl first to be sure you don’t get any shells in your cupcakes (this is especially important when your helper is under 10 years old).	Theeeeen dump them into the mixing bowl.
Now add the milk!	Mix until you have a nice, smooth batter.
Divide the batter between 12 muffin cups – either grease the pan or use cupcake liners. Bake for about 20 minutes and voila!
For the frosting, break up whatever chocolate you like, (just make sure there’s about 3 1/2 oz of it), with the syrup and the butter. Melt it all together over a pan of hot water and mix till it’s all melty.
Wee One #2 attacked all 12 cupcakes with frosting and then covered them in jelly beans, life savers and whatever other candies she could get her little hands on. So cute and way too yummy!

Watching Miss America was always a yearly thing for me but it wasn’t an ‘event’ until one of my besties confessed a few years ago that she loves pageants – of course out came the champagne and plastic crowns! Since living in the woods for Miss America this year (& last year), I’ve made it an event with Wee One #2, who adores all things pink and girlie and glittery and pretty and omg she’s such a little diva I love it.

We usually have a big spread and make a whole night of it, but she was practicing her embroidery and I had been helping Wee One #1 with homework for a good part of the day – so we settled on popcorn but of course only pink popcorn would do for such a girlie occasion!

I’ve made loads of different caramel corn and I swear this recipe tastes just like the junk at the mall – the junk at the mall that you LOVE!! DON’T LIE TO ME! Ahem. I plan to try this recipe out with drink crystal flavors and different colors!

Old Fashioned Pink Popcorn – from Cooking Classy 2/3 cup unpopped popcorn kernals 2 cups sugar 2/3 cup half & half 1 tbsp light corn syrup 1/4 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla 6 drops red food coloring / dollop food coloring paste
Pop your popcorn and set aside. In a saucepan, whisk together the sugar, half & half, corn syrup and salt.	Cook this until it bubbles and looks all scary and you’re sure you’ve done something wrong. Use a candy thermometer to be sure your mixture gets to 232F.
This is when you take it off the heat and stir in the vanilla and food coloring. If you’re experimenting with other colors and flavors, switch them up now!	Mix the color in or the popcorn will be streaky.
Pour your neon goo over the popcorn. Mmm. Neon goo.	This works best of you divide all your popped popcorn in half first for easier mixing.
Spread out the shiny, sticky popcorn onto parchment paper and let it dry (if you can stop yourself from picking at it).
This stuff is addicting, so I’m glad I made it for a crowd!