Me: End of Summer

As I look at all my hopes for the upcoming school year, I thought I might have been purchasing home school materials and looking forward to a year with my whole family home.  However, sometimes life happens and other choices are just better for now.  On the plus side, my daughter has been desperate to try out school and now she will get to.  My younger son will get to be the big brother instead of stuck in the middle.  I will look forward to afternoons of napping kids and some time to maybe write.

It is funny to think there will be so much less work with ONLY three kids at home.  Realistically I know that Joel and Ellie help me out a lot.  When I am making dinner, I can ask them to sing to Bria.  When I let my kids play in the backyard, I know the older two will tell me if the little ones are getting into things.  I have helpers now, and my three year old is not really able to do much.  So I am trading some help for about two hours of quiet a day.  We'll see how that goes.

In my "free" time lately I have been sewing.  I figured out a use for some old jeans and the elastic from a torn apart pair of maternity pants.  By cutting my jeans right below the knees and evening out each side I have a perfect sized pencil skirt for my daughter.  She is very slim and most clothing falls off her waist.  I used the thick elastic as the waist band and then I sewed a ribbon over it to make it look prettier.  She is quite pleased with her new skirt.

There are lists of how I want to use up old bits of fabric like this.  I have an old table cloth with a couple stains on it, that I plan to turn into oven mitts.  Then I have some old curtains that I look forward to turning into chair covers for my kitchen chairs.  Kids and fabric seated chairs has been a real mess.  I need to be able to throw something in the wash.  I am also thinking of using jeans scraps to make a purse, since mine is falling apart.  Reusing old clothing and fabric, might just have become my new hobby.  Just think, if I had the money to go out and buy fabric, I would be missing out on these crazy creative ideas.  Don't get me wrong, I would love to pick some stuff out too, but right now I am having fun getting to know my sewing machine with fabrics already taking up space in the house.

So as one can see, the creative side of me is taking over.  After having a baby this tends to happen.  This time it was during my pregnancy and now.  I love the idea of making as much as I can and buying very little.  That way I know who spent the time making a lot of the finished product.  I do not see myself learning to make fabric myself, but if I had a million hours a day I would try to.  Products are more fun if for me if I attempt to make them.

Projects: Size Large Cloth Diapers

 Mom wow, you made me some more cloth diapers!

 What color do I like the best and how are these diapers different from the last ones you made me?  So far no diapers have been made the same.

 Gussets and snaps?  Hum...these should really help me out.  Taking the extra time to sew in a gusset may seem like a bit of a pain, but it is sure worth it for a bigger baby.  When the food source is no longer just breast milk, cloth diapering is a whole new story.  Let's just say, poop can end up on the floor, if the diaper fit is not just right.

Simply find a piece of scrap fabric, the part that one cut the leg part of the diaper usually works best and is useless for much else.  Then measure the length of the leg hole with a piece of elastic and cut it.  Then cut in half.  One half of elastic is for each side of the diaper. 

Stitch back and forth at the top of the gusset to keep the elastic in place and then do the same at the other end of the fabric and elastic.  Then you are ready to sew in the gusset.  Just fold fabric around the elastic and sew.  It looks more complicated than it actually is. 

There you go...gussets.  Let's hope these stop some leaks. 

Bria is not sure what she thinks about these diapers.

I also learned how to put snaps on my diapers.  Only one third of my diapers have snaps because I did not realize that ordering 200 snaps means that it takes four components to actually have a functioning snap.  I needed twelve sets of snaps for each diaper, so 200 hundred snaps made only five diapers.  I also have some basic snap pliers, so my snaps need to be pressed again sometimes to work as well as the snaps found on professionally made diapers.  The plus to buying snaps, is I am in control of the colors and in honor of watermelons, I have pink diapers with green snaps. 

These diaper making days have been fun.  I even made up my own pattern this time for a change.  Let's see how long these diapers fit.  Will this be the size that gets us to potty training? 

Now onto if it is worth it to make diapers.  So far my many diaper making days have added up to almost the price of one stash of store bought all in one diapers.  (consider diapers that require one to buy different sizes.)  Some diapers are one sized diapers, but many come in sizes.  Price is different depending on what kind of diaper one wants to buy.  If one wants to save money, just get prefolds and covers, but if you want something easier to use, but do not want to pay hundreds of dollars, make diapers.  It is fun and it does cost less.

In The Kitchen: Pastry Cream Creations

Just over a week ago, my family and I went berry picking.  It was our second time this summer.  We would go every week if we could, but that would just be a bit crazy with our five kids.  There is something about picking berries that is enjoyable and playful.  I love watching our buckets fill up and the kids pretending they are not eating tons of the berries in the process.

When we made it home with two buckets full of raspberries and one and half buckets of blueberries I felt like we would never have to buy fruit again.  We had these berries on oatmeal, as snacks, in smoothies.  I considered making jam, but fresh berries are just so good.

As the week went on we moved berries to the freezer, but there is something I had to make first.  I love fresh berry tarts with pastry cream.  Now usually I use heavy cream, but I found a recipe in my Bosch cookbook that intrigued me.  I had no idea how much cream I would have by the time I finished this, but I knew it would make more than one pie.  I changed up some of the ingredients based on what I had in the house.  Here is what I used:

4 cups raw milk
1 1/2 cups organic cane sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
12 egg yolks
6 tbsp tapioca starch
1/4 cup butter

I mixed this all together starting with some milk and tapioca starch.  Then whisked the egg yolks and mixed the first and the next step together with sugar.  Then one mixes the rest of the ingredients over low heat, but I did not let my mixture thicken.  I put it in my first set of mini pies too soon thinking it would set, but it didn't .  The easy fix for this was baking the pies in the oven.  It worked perfectly.  I still had about six cups of this stuff left over after my first batch of pies.

Now to cut out some calories, I just baked the custard and had it with blueberries.  This was a nice treat, but by the next three cups of this cream, I wanted to try something else.  The best summer treat ever is ICE CREAM!  I had a bunch of raspberries, about two and half cups mashed up.  I cooked them a bit with about 1/2 cup of sugar and a tablespoon of sugar.  Then to make it more interesting I  added a tablespoon of raw cocoa.  Then I thickened the pastry cream in a pan over medium heat.  When this was done both the raspberries and the cream were combined and placed on the counter to cool a bit.  I moved it to the fridge and waited.  This process started around ten in the morning and I did not attempt to freeze the mixture until around one in the afternoon.

Make sure to use a metal bowl in the freezer, the ice cream will freeze faster.  It still takes almost three hours, but it was worth it.  Once in the freezer one needs to mix the ice cream every thirty minutes until it starts to look thicker, like soft serve.  Then just leave it in the freezer a bit longer to actually resemble ice cream.  I would say the texture of my raspberry chocolate pastry cream was more like rich gelato.  It was really good.  To add to the flavor, my friend Cory has this fudge sauce on her cooking website that I love.   http://freshisthetaste.com/hot-fudge/  Make this sauce at least once and you will thank me.