Shonee's beautiful nose

Shonee's nose before Saturday's basketball game...


Shonee's nose after Saturday's basketball game...

Notice the unnatural bulge on the left side of the nose. Ouch!
He had an ER doc who was playing ball say that he may have gotten a slight fracture, but I don't think he's going to go get an x-ray to make sure. He kind of likes the notoriety of having a broken nose. He loves to tell the story, please ask him next time you see him.

Alena's Amazing Apple Pie

Today Alena had a school assignment where she had to create something with local natural resources. She didn't have to actually make her creation, but she wanted to. She decided to make a pie. Local ingredients included apple, raspberry, wheat flour, butter and egg.

To make her pie she took a simple press-in crust from a kids cookbook, an apple filling from the BH&G cookbook, tossed in a cup of raspberries, and added a crumb topping from a different BH&G recipe. It was absolutely incredible! So scrumptious!

Here's her recipe:
For filling:
5 c. peeled, cored and sliced granny smith apples
3/4 c. sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. lemon juice
Toss together to coat apples. Then gently fold in
1 c. raspberries fresh or frozen (thawed)

For crust:
4 c. flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
Mix these together, then cut in:
1/2 c. butter
When the mixture is crumbly, add
2 egg yolks
Combine it until it's a ball, then press onto the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie tin.

Pour apple-raspberry filling into prepared crust

Topping:
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
Blend together then cut in:
3 Tbps. butter.
Sprinkle topping onto filled pie. Bake in a 375* oven for 50-55 minutes. Put a cookie sheet directly beneath the pie tin to catch all the syrup that will boil out as it cooks.

Serve warm with ice cream and enjoy!!

Creative Kiddos

My kids have all been doing such fun things, I thought I'd share.

Montana bought a Lego set with his own money (took him a year of saving), and when it arrived, he spent the next three hours blissfully putting it together.

Alena, as previously posted, has been working on a quilt for her American Girl doll. She was going to hand quilt it, but I convinced her to try my machine. She got it done in about an hour, put on the binding (I did the back seam) and tucked it around her doll this morning. She is such a great little seamstress, I'm excited to work with her on lots more projects!

And Emma decided to make herself pancakes for breakfast this morning. She got out a kids cookbook, got out all the ingredients and tools, and whipped up some really fluffy, yummy flapjacks which she graciously shared with her siblings. She did everything except grease the griddle. What a great little chef!

Time for Delivery!

Here it is: The final finished quilt.

It is a medallion and each side is symmetrical and mirrored on each other side.

Detail of the quilting on the top:



It looks so good on my bed, too bad I have to give it to it's owner today ;)

Can I just say that this has been an amazing experience for me? I have really loved working on this colorful quilt for a colorful lady.

In my footsteps

I realize I just posted 10 minutes ago, but I thought Alena deserved her own post for this accomplishment!

Alena began hand sewing squares for a quilt for her American Girl Doll last summer. I cut them all with a rotary cutter and showed her how to make a running stitch at 1/4 inch. She worked on it on long car rides and got about 3 rows completed.

For Christmas, she received her very own sewing machine from Grandma Langford. It is small and goes slow, so it's not "scary" like mine is. Christmas Day she sewed all her remaining squares into pairs, but in the lead up to our move, everything was packed away for a while.
We got her machine out last week while I was working on a dress, and Alena and I sat side by side, sewing. It was like heaven! It was so wonderful for her and I to be together, I could look over and comment on her work, answer questions and praise her efforts. She could observe me doing my own project, and see that I have to use the seam ripper, too!

Here is her finished top. It only took about an hour once she sat down with her pairs to make her rows and sew them together. She isn't sure if she wants to quilt it on a machine, by hand, or just tie it. It think she did a smashing good job for her very first work of fabric art. I can't wait to see the doll tucked in for the night in the jammies Auntie My made, snuggled under the quilt Alena made for her all by herself!

It's quilted!

I was so lucky to be able to use a long-arm quilting machine that a lady in our ward owns. I did a large stipple over the whole surface, except for the center medallion, which I did in-the-ditch around the basket, flowers and vines. I had some trouble with the thread the first day, after getting the thing all pinned to the machine. But on Saturday I went over again and a bit of fiddling with the threading solved the problem. I was able to completely quilt it in about 3 hours. Now I've just got to do the binding and make a label for it and I will be ALL DONE with this service project! It's been so educational to do these different techniques and I've enjoyed it very much, but I know the lady who bought the materials for it is anxious to have it in her home. It's taken about 4 months.

crafting

I've been feeling crafty since I got my sewing shelves organized in the new house.
These are burp rags for a baby that is due in March.
Too bad my sister is the one who showed me the pattern and has already made a bunch,
she's having a baby in March, too.

I also, finally completed the quilt top for another friend, now I've only got to quilt it. No problem!