Not perfect, but it’s harder with three.
Littlebit, the Princess and Baby Bee
For more (mostly) Wordless entries, visit 5 Minutes for Mom
Not perfect, but it’s harder with three.
Littlebit, the Princess and Baby Bee
For more (mostly) Wordless entries, visit 5 Minutes for Mom
Right now you’re probably wondering if I’ve suddenly become schizophrenic as it would appear that those two topics have nothing in common, but let me assure you, they do.
Last night, Littlebit woke up with that damn tell tale barking cough. Big Daddy and I mobilized. I hopped into a steamy shower with her, Big Daddy set up the nebulizer. I rocked little bit with the mask held in front of her face, Big Daddy slept with Littlebit and would press his ear to her back to make sure she was breathing okay. When the morning dawned, Littlebit was okay, but not much better.
That meant a day of nebulizer treatments and catering to a preschooler. All of which are okay, but means I watch a lot of Calliou.
But how do pants fit in this? And more specifically what of those misadventures? Sit down friends. It will all make sense.
Last week, I pulled a box of fabric out of the garage. I pulled out the material for the Christmas outfits an some things I thought would make nice winter jammies/clothes.
Add to the Littlebit’s love for pants. She. LOVES. Pants. If we go to Target and walk past the baby clothes section she attempts to fill the cart with pants. She can think of nothing better than pants. If she’s not wearing pants, she crabs until she is. Pants. Pants. Pants.
Since Littlebit was feeling sick today and since she loves pants and since I had material I told her I would make her a pair of pants today.
Last week, I found this pattern to make no-pattern toddler flat pants. Perfect, I thought. So, today when Baby Bee was giving me a few moments peace, I sat down with my sick LIttlebit and we measured and cut and sewed and OMG….

ZOMG? Not pants! That's for sure!
I don’t have to tell you that the project went wrong do I? Cause it did. I have no idea. I won’t show you the pants on Littlebit. They’re atrocious. They look bad enough on here. They look like pants Denise Huxtable would have made when she first started sewing and attempted to make Theo. that designer silk shirt without a pattern.
I began sketching out a pattern on how to make the pants fit LB* better. I pinched. I measured. I sketched.
And then it occurred to me that i have years worth of sewing magazines upstairs and chances were good I could find a good one piece pants pattern and it would save me drafting time and figuring time and mistake time and LB* could have her new pants today.
So, I found a pattern and that’s what I did.

Yay! Pants!
From Ottobre Designs Magazine, Spring 2009. Pattern 19. I omitted the cuffs and just lengthened the 110cm size to 116cm. No seam allowances. Fit like a dream. You can find the formerly hard to find, now plentiful ooga booga monster fabric on etsy, ebay and other on-line fabric stores.
*Littlebit
About a week ago, Big Daddy and I finished our second Once a Month Mom cooking session. We opted to roll back to the August menu as we don’t host Thanksgiving here. We shopped for ourselves, Big Daddy’s Aunt and Mom an spent just under 300. I think we probably spent more this time as I didn’t shop as many sales for the items we needed in large amount.
We also opted to package more items in bags that we could thaw quickly. That was our biggest issue last month. If I forgot to pull out an item ahead of time, it was hard to catch up with the food being packaged in foil pans. They didn’t seal tight and you can’t microwave them.
Also, if you can get a good price on chuck roast, I can’t really say enough nice things about the hot beef sandwiches. I will be making some every time we can get a deal on chuck roast. You can find the recipe here.
But without further ado…
Monday Deconstructed stuffed chicken breasts, pasta and veggies
Tuesday-Crock pot beef stroganoff, rice and veggies
Wednesday-Lemon Chicken with Veggies and fresh bread
Thursday-Chilaquile Casserole with corn bread and veggies
Friday-Pizza Night! We’ll be making our own as the price is about the same and the pizza is THAT much better
Saturday-Family dinner at our house with Big Daddy’s cousins. We cannot wait!
Sunday-Lazy Chili Rellenos, spanish rice and corn
This week, I will also be planning our menus for Christmas, including Christmas eve morning breakfast and cookie baking. YUMMY!

Busy little hands
I have lots of little hands around here and they love to help me cook. It can be difficult, at times, to find easy recipes that don’t make a mess and taste good, but this one is one of my favorites and you can make it too.
World’s Easiest Cookies
Refridgerated pie crust
cinnamon and sugar (mixed to your taste)
butter
cookie cutters.
1. Preheat your oven to 350
2. Unroll the dough on pretty much any surface. Let your little ones cut out shapes. Pie dough is so forgiving that you can easily ball it up and flatten it out enough to make more cookies.
3. Lightly dredge cookies in butter and then sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar
4. Bake in pre-heated oven for 8 minutes.
5. Enjoy.
These little guys are instant gratification. In a matter of 10 minutes your first batch can be out of the oven and in little hands. One box of pie crust makes about 2 dozen little cookies. The dough is super forgiving, easy to flatten out (no rolling needed), and your little ones can mold it an shape they’d like AND since it’s just flour, shortening and water you don’t have to freak out if anyone eats any.
You can use colored sprinkles on them and they look really pretty, but the dough is NOT sweet at all. The cinnamon sugar produces a much tastier result and if your little ones can’t be trusted to sprinkle the cinnamon sugar, you can also lightly dredge them as well. Look how pretty!

Sugar Cinnamon Teddy Bears.
Don’t start booing and hissing at me. It IS coming. And fast. It’s November and before you know it will be December and then….well you can do the math, right?
In two weeks, Big Daddy, the girls and me head off for family portraits. Our first as a family of five, of course, and beyond that our first as a family since 2001. It’s been a while. If you haven’t scheduled your Christmas pictures, now is the time. They’ll be back in plenty of time for you to get your holiday cards out.
I’m one of those moms. I’m an…um…overacheiver. I’ve blogged about it. Several years ago, I learned the power of scaling back and doing only the important things. This year, an important thing is making matchies for my girls.

In Progress...
I intended to make Christmas dresses out of this last year, but the Prof. and Maryann bought the girls lovely matching dresses, so I skipped the sewing.
But this year? Sorry Prof. I’ve been holding on to this lovely fabric forever and next year I won’t be able to get three lovely things out of it so this year is the time.

Lovely.
Pictures of it sewn up co