One Word

I've never been one for making resolutions. I know I won't keep them, so why bother?!

Last year however, I did get on the "choose one word" wagon and I loved it! Last year my one word was discipline. My best friend pointed something out to me when I was sharing some very personal thoughts with her. She told me that I had all of the abilities to do the things that I wanted to accomplish but I lacked discipline. Ouch! That stung a bit. It wasn't meant to be harsh, it was truthful and I thank God for her truthfulness all the time. Her words made me more aware of the discipline that I did in fact lack. Keeping those thoughts in mind I became more disciplined and I did accomplish a few goals of the goals that I had.  

This year my one word is Intentional.

Intentional~ done on purpose, deliberate. 

I want to be intentional about the things that I do, the goals I make, the things that I am involved in. Of course that sounds silly to say, I'll be intentional about the goals I make, doesn't everyone that makes goals make them intentionally? I guess what I really mean is I will be more intentional about how I spend my time. What I do needs to have purpose. In order to do that, I need to simplify. This year I hope to live my life intentionally simplified.

June

June. That's her name, just June. I wish I had a picture to share, but I don't. I don't have anything but a few memories and an urn. She came way too early and left us even earlier.

Trisomy 13 is the diagnosis that we had received just a few weeks prior to June 29. So when my water broke as I stepped out of the car at our beach vacation home after driving for 7 hours to get there, we weren't shocked. We knew it was the end and we knew why. We were just not ready for it to be this soon. I wanted to have her with me longer, even knowing that the possibility of her ever getting to live with us here on Earth would probably never happen. It wasn't easy but it was easier to accept because we knew why it was happening. Within an hour she was born. And within the next day I was sitting on the beach watching the never ending waves crash on the sand.

For just a few days I got to try to forget everything and just enjoy the sound of the ocean and my family. I knew that reality was waiting at home. A calendar full of doctors appointments that were already made that had to be cancelled. New appointments to be made. A refrigerator full of ultrasound pictures. A vase of dying peonies that were given to me by a dear sweet friend after the diagnosis of T13 sat on the kitchen counter waiting for me to clean up the wilted petals that had fallen. Already a mailbox of sympathy cards waiting for us. A box of keepsakes and books to be used when we had her many months from now from A String of Pearls sat by our garage door. Of course I didn't forget for one single second and never will. Not one single detail.

As awful and sad as it was, I can't think of a better place to have had our sweet June. We were on vacation with my parents. What a blessing it was to have them there for us and our children. Tybee Island I will be back! Your waves sound much sweeter to me now.

Four Years Two Months Sixteen Days

Four years two months and sixteen days ago I gave birth to my son. He was stillborn. This was quite possibly the hardest thing that I've ever gone through. Over the years I've come across sites that would have helped me tremendously had I known that I was facing that. I went in for my 32 week visit and there was no heartbeat, ultrasound confirmed death and I was induced that evening and had him that night. We were so unprepared and had no idea what to expect. We didn't even have a camera with us. I do have hospital pictures that I treasure but I often wish that I had more personalized pictures with my husband and I holding our son. I do have very vivid memories of him. I have a little blanket that he was wrapped in and a teddy bear that was in his pictures with him. I also have many copies of his foot prints and hand prints. That is all that I have.
There have been so many firsts that we've missed with him. There will be a lifetime of firsts without him. We've celebrated each birthday with cupcakes. Our girls know who he is and we talk of him often with them. They know he is in heaven and that we will see him again one day.
Now there is a huge possibility that we will go through this again very soon with a little girl. This time we know in advance and we can plan, if you can really plan for something like this. I know how I want this to play out, of course ideally that would be that they were all wrong and she will be full term and perfectly healthy, but that may not be the case. We've been told that she has Trisomy 13. We still aren't certain but are preparing for that just in case. My son was completely perfect and normal. His autopsy and blood work showed absolutely no reason for his death at all.
I know that we want to include her in our life as much as possible right now. I want pictures of my growing belly with my girls around us. I want lots of labor and delivery pictures. I want lots of newborn pictures with all of us holding her and loving her. Because I know that once I hand her over and she is taken out the door of my hospital room that I will not see her or hold her again here on earth and these pictures and little things will be all that I have of her.
I know that I will have a huge family to spend eternity with in heaven. We will all be perfectly healthy and pain free and happy forever. I know that God has been with me through all of this. He will continue to be with us always. He is the only reason that we are able to face this and to cope with going through this yet again. I don't question why this is happening although that would be easy to do. I accept it although its not always easy to accept it. I've been abundantly blessed. There is something great that will come from all of this. I don't know what and may never know but He knows and that's all that matters. My son served a great purpose. He was the answer to many prayers that I had. He brought my husband and I closer together and brought my husband back to church and to God. He had stopped going to church and was angry at God for some reason that he's never shared and that's ok because I don't need to know. When we had our son I asked him to go to church with me the next week and he did and he has every Sunday since.
I know that we will all be ok no matter what happens. She is loved and will always be loved.

Lemon Cream Cheese Coconut Flour Cupcakes

Now that's a mouthful! I've recently purchased some coconut flour to use in a recipe from Trim Healthy Mama. It goes a long way! I needed to find another recipe to try to use up some of the flour before it goes bad. When I searched for recipes using coconut flour most came back still using wheat or using half a dozen eggs for 9 muffins!

I'm not usually one to go out of my comfort zone of following a recipe when it comes to baking. A recipe is not needed when I make anything else and it drives my husband insane! But baking must be by the recipe! 

I decided to make my own recipe with these cupcakes and it worked! I've made them 3 times now and each time everyone has loved them! 

I'm not completely wheat free. I'm not gluten free. I try to be as sugar free as I can, but that has only been in the last few months. This recipe is however wheat free, gluten free and sugar free!

Lemon Cream Cheese Coconut Flour Cupcakes

4 oz cream cheese room temperature

3 tbs butter room temperature

1/4 cup plus 2 tbs of Truvia (or 1 cup of sugar if you don't use Truvia)

juice and zest of one lemon

3/4 cup of milk (can use almond milk) add more if needed

3 eggs

dash of salt

1/2 cup of coconut flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

In a bowl combine the cream cheese and butter with truvia. Add in the lemon juice and zest. Mix well. Add eggs one at a time, mixing on low until just blended. 

In a separate bowl combine coconut flour, baking powder and salt. 

Add flour mixture alternating with milk, to the cream cheese and egg mixture. Blend well. The batter will be much drier than normal cake batter but should be moist and sticky. You will have to spoon it, it will be too dry to pour. 

Preheat oven to 350*. Line 12 muffin tins with well greased liners or use silicone muffin cups. Fill 3/4 full with batter. Bake for 30-35 minutes. 

This recipe easily doubles! 

Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

2 cups of ground Truvia for baking (I ground mine in a coffee grinder)

1 package of cream cheese

zest of a lemon

I mixed all of this together in a mixer until well combined. If it is too thick you may add milk by tablespoons until you get the right consistency for spreading. 

Once the cupcakes have cooled well, ice with a generous amount of icing. 

The cupcakes should be refrigerated and can be frozen. The cupcakes tend to be a bit crumblier than normal cupcakes and will stick to the liners if not greased well. 

If you like the coconut taste and want to omit the lemon you can use a tsp of vanilla and make up the rest of the liquid with milk.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think! 

Bohemian Babydoll Dress and Top Pattern Testing

This past week I was lucky enough to do a little pattern testing for Heidi at Elegance and Elephants for her new pattern the Bohemian Babydoll Dress and Top! Seriously it is adorable! 

I made the top version for Caraline in size 18mths. I will be making Lillie one this week since she was begging me the whole time to make her something! (I was also in the process of finishing up Easter dresses that I will share later, so she was getting something!)

I love that it doesn't have any closures! No button holes! No zippers!!!! It does have lots of ironing, but I love ironing so that doesn't bother me! 

It has adorable little flutter sleeves with the option of making it sleeveless. 

It also has a fully lined bodice and hides all seam allowances for a very professional finished look. 

I love the little hem band around the bottom! I made it from the same fabric as the underside of the flutter sleeve and the bodice lining. The fullness of the skirt is great for those little cloth diaper babies with big butts! Lots of room and not too tight across that little bum :) 

I used some seersucker that I purchased from Joanns over a year ago. It took 2 hours to sew together which wasn't bad for a first time pattern. 

The pattern is now available in a pdf download here in size 6mths-9years. Through April 25th use the code BABYDOLL for a $2 discount. 

Thank you so much Heidi for letting me test this adorable pattern!!!

What do you do?

Two years ago I might would have been doing the same thing.
Two years ago prior to February 14, 2012 I might would have felt that I had done my part in breast cancer awareness by taking a no makeup selfie and baring myself to the point that I was certain that I had endured what a breast cancer patient was going through. That I had made myself so incredibly vulnerable. And by posting such a picture of myself I might would have felt that I had certainly raised awareness for breast cancer. But.........

February 14, 2012 changed the way I see breast cancer and breast cancer awareness and spreading breast cancer awareness. I'm not putting anyone down at all. That is not what this post is about at all. This post is about how breast cancer has changed my life and how I see breast cancer awareness.

The way I see breast cancer is remembering my family being crushed imagining what my 30 year old sister, who is a wife and mother of two, was going to endure and thinking she was leaving us. I see breast cancer as stopping her world for almost 2 years. I see breast cancer as having tests and doctor appointments and more tests and more doctor appointments before a decision is completely made. I see it as having her chest basically cut off and reconstructed. Having bandages and drains for over a month, with more doctor visits. A port placed in her chest for blood draws and poisons to be pumped through her veins. I see 6 rounds of chemo every 3 weeks that totally drained her energy, her color and tried to suck the life right out of her. I see her losing her hair. I see another recontructive surgery before she could start her 5 weeks of daily radiation treatments an hour one way from home. I see her drained. I see her fighting for her life. I see her living for her family and still trying to keep life as normal as possible for her family. I see her finally getting to finish her recontruction over a year later. I still see her having many doctors visits in the years to come. I see her living. I see her accomplishing dreams and goals that she never knew she had until now.

I'm not belittling what anyone is doing to raise awareness for breast cancer. If you really want to raise awareness for breast cancer at least post along with your no makeup picture to go get a mammogram, do a self breast exam, donate to breast cancer research, do something! But in all honesty, 2 years ago the thought to actually do something to help in raising awareness for breast cancer probably would have never occurred to me, because it hadn't been a part of my life until now.

What do I do? I donate. I participate in the Susan G Komen 5 k held here in Roanoke, we've had a team for the past 3 years. I, along with my mom, family and friends, make mastectomy aprons and donate them to cancer patients undergoing a mastectomy in which they will have drains placed for sometime after the surgery. You can learn more about the aprons here. I get my mammogram (when I'm not nursing a baby!). I do self checks.

Housekeeping....

Or should I say blogkeeping? I'm slowly getting my blog set up the way that I want it.

I wanted some really awesome little icons on my sidebar so that you could all stay in touch with me and follow along with what I'm doing when I'm not on here. I found one of my favorite bloggers, Karen at Sew Many Ways, has a series on how to do almost every thing in blogger! How awesome is it that she just shares this out of the kindness of her heart?!?

So after visiting her blog, I now have some cute little icons. Now you can follow me on instagram, twitter, facebook, flickr,......! The icons that I used came from here.

If you are trying to find out how to do things on your blog chances are she has it all figured out for you or can help you through it! She also has the most awesome craft room! And the most creative mind I think I've ever seen, she can think up things to do with anything other than what their main purpose is.

If you need me I'll be browsing through her site finding more ideas and learning things to do to my blog!

Sewing Buddy Project

I joined in the Sewing Buddy fun with Whipstitch! I'm really enjoying getting to know my pen pal! I'm sure if we lived closer there would be some fun play dates with us and our girls!

Our first project was to make an artist trading card. I had never heard of them before now. They are so cute and fun to make! It's basically, in this case, a fabric business card. It's the approximate size of a business card and basically gives a description of yourself.

I think I did a fairly good job describing myself in this little card! I wasn't sure at all when I started this, that I would be able to get anything on that small size about myself. But I think I covered most all of it ;)

I tried to use my favorite colors, grey, green, white, pink and blue. I love all shades of these colors, especially grey blue and green. The pinwheel block is one of my favorites and I could make it tiny. While I don't actually live in a pink house, its about as pink as it could get with 4 girls including myself living in it. I love love love to garden! The tree and flowers represent my love for that. Daisies and hydrangeas are my favorites! The blue forget me nots are in memory of my son that was stillborn at 32 weeks. The pink ribbon is in honor of my younger sister that has won her battle against breast cancer that started two years ago. The beads on the back represent my blingy side!

This was a fun little project and it got me back to the sewing room! I haven't done anything in there since before Christmas. Can't wait to see what our next challenge will be!

The signups for this year are now closed but if you are interested be on the look out for signups next year! Until then you can see what some of our projects are in the Sewing Buddy Project flickr pool here and follow mine here!

My Grandma's Quilts

Have you heard of Vintage Quilt Sunday? If not then you need to go check it out here at Swimbikequilt.com! Katie has featured some beautiful quilts with some beautiful stories! She also wrote a book about vintage quilts, Vintage Quilt Revival! I don't have it yet, but that is my next purchase! 

Anyway, today my Granny Carrie's quilt was featured! How awesome is that! Go here to read the story!
Thank you Katie for sharing the story of my Grandma's quilts! 

Christmas Dresses, just a little late

Just a little late in posting the girls Christmas dresses that I made for them. 

In all honesty I wanted to share them earlier, but it took 3 different attempts to get a descent photo of them. One professional shoot that didn't turn out so well, one of us was sick, one of us looked very fat, one of us looked like we had some bad botox (in his defense he has never had botox, but I have no idea what his facial expressions were all about!), and two of us never looked in the same direction at the same time (actually all 5 of us)! One little attempt on our way out the door to church while they were both crying! And finally one attempt after Christmas was over before we took down the tree, the next day both girls were diagnosed with the flu.

Of course Lillie the 2 1/2 year old, decided that she did not like the dress and was not going to wear it because she did not need it. I would have been broken hearted it she wasn't so funny about it! She would say, no I don't want to wear it, I don't like it I don't need it you need it! Ok? Finally she decided it was ok after about 2 weeks of talking about not wanting or needing it. I told this story to someone and she asked what are you going to do about a Christmas dress now? Well, shes' only 2 she will wear it, she may not be happy, but she will wear it ;) 

Back to the dresses, I fell in love with the Olivia pattern by Craftiness is Not Optional. It includes sizes 6months to size 8, which made it perfect for me with 2 little girls running around! I couldn't wait to get it! I found the fabric at Joanns, nutcrackers are my oldest daughters favorite! I give her a nutcracker every year for Christmas and she's had me start that with the two little ones. I also smocked a detachable collar to go with the dresses. I made up my own pattern for that and used one solid color of thread so that they can be used with other dresses. 

This little dress was so easy to make! I can't wait to buy more of CINO's patterns, they are so easy to follow and very precise! I have fabric stacked up ready to be cut out and made into more little tops and dresses for the girls. 

As for the pictures, they are blurry, the girls are not sitting still, but on occasion I got a good smile from one of them at a time :) And that's ok, that's our life these days(and I wouldn't change that for anything in this world!) and one day a few years from now I may be able to bribe them enough to get a picture that we are all sitting still, looking at the camera and have smiles on our faces!  

Checking in

This month has flown by, mainly because we've all been sick. We've had the norovirus, flu and two different colds all since December. I'm so ready for spring and fresh air! 

I have some exciting things coming up in the near future! Exciting for me. Exciting for my family. And exciting for my friends! 

I'll fill you in on everything as I can! 

For now I'm perusing seed catalogs planning my garden and dreaming of summer!

Homemade White Bread

My family loves bread. I love making bread for them. I make sometimes 4 loaves a week depending on what our meals are and who is here all day. I buy my flour and yeast in bulk at a local Amish whole foods store.

It has taken me about two years of baking and reading James Beard's Beard on Bread book to get my recipe exactly the way I like it and to really learn how to make bread. I never kneaded it long enough. I've found that if I've kneaded it long enough and had my water the correct temperature when adding to my yeast that it doesn't really matter what the temperature is, it will rise. 

I've used several different recipes and tweaked them to my own and am very happy with the results. Our bread doesn't typically last long here but in the rare case that it does, it will keep up to a week on the counter in a large ziploc bag. 

Homemade White Loaf Bread

1 tbs yeast

1 cup of warm water (110*)

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp sugar 

3 tbsp olive oil

2 1/2-3 cups of all purpose flour ( I use King Arthur Special) 

Add the warm water to the yeast and let sit for about 5 minutes until bubbly. Add in the salt, sugar, and olive oil and give a good stir before adding the flour one cup at a time. It depends on the moisture in the air as to how much I have to add, sometimes I've added almost one more cup than it calls for. Once its mixed together and forming a sticky ball you can turn it out onto a floured surface and knead until the dough is soft and sticky but doesn't stick to your hands, you may also notice some pockets of air bubbles which is also a good sign that you've kneaded it well. This usually takes me about 5-10 minutes. You can do all of this in a stand mixer if you want to eliminate all of the kneading by hand. You will come out with the same result but miss the arm workout! 

I place the ball of dough back into the same bowl and let rise until doubled with a kitchen towel covering to block the draft. 

Once it has risen, punch it down and knead it back into a ball. Oil your hands and a loaf pan with olive oil. Form the dough into a loaf and place in the pan and let rise to the top of the pan. 

Place in a cold oven. Turn oven on at 375* and bake for 25-30 minutes. When finished baking let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack. It slices best when completely cooled, but if you're impatient like me and have to slice into it right away just slice really slow with a serrated bread knife so that you don't tear the loaf. 

This recipe is easily doubled. If you do use a stand mixer be careful about doubling the recipe as there may not be enough room in the mixer bowl to knead the dough. You don't have to use a loaf pan, you can free form the dough into a round shape or a french loaf shape and cut slits in the top, I do this quite a bit as well. 

I find this to be a very easy recipe. A lot of people tend to be afraid of using yeast and therefore don't make their own bread. I think what the problem is, is they really aren't kneading the dough long enough or hard enough. Once you get the hang of it you can tell the exact second that it's kneaded enough just by the softness of the dough.

Go make a loaf and let me know what you think! 

Pewter Christmas Treasure

I have an obsession with measuring cups and spoons. I love them, every single one I see. I use them all. The more unusual the better. Brightly colored, ceramic, plastic,and some of my favorites are pewter. 

I've always wanted a pewter set like Paula Deens. I visited Savannah a few years ago and we had dinner at The Lady and Son's Restaurant. I drooled over the sets of measuring cups/spoons in the gift shop and left empty handed because I just couldn't pay that much for them. 

This fall my mom went yard saling with a friend and found a cute set of measuring cups and spoons that were very much like the pewter ones that I have been drooling over for $10! I was perfectly fine with them being a Christmas present! 

Especially after I saw this! Tin Woodsman Pewter Co. was stamped on the bottom. I looked it up and it is now Crosby and Taylor, the makers of the exact set that I've been wanting forever! This set sells for $265!

They are in perfect shape. I can't imagine why anyone would ever get rid of them period, much less in a yard sale where they basically gave them away! 

Now I'm drooling over a few more pieces to go with them! Like a spoon rest and these adorable little salt pots and spoons! Pretty much anything from their site would be wonderful! 

I have to say that my family knows how much that I've wanted a set of pewter measuring spoons because I also received a set from my mother in law! 

Please excuse all of the Christmas mess! 

I've already been using them, actually I've found something every single day since Christmas to make just so that I can use them!