Much to the children’s joy, the farm cats had a few litters this summer and there were little puff balls of kitten delight around the barn. Kailan named the little orange and white one A.J. A.J. is his new best friend, which is unfortunate since he sneezed the entire way home after sticking his face in A.J.’s fluffiness. Luckily we had some Claritin in the cupboard, so he could get some sleep.

We are now pretty sure he is allergic to cats, which is why Kitty decided to sleep with him that night.

Cats just know.

He always seems to have a stuffed up nose, which is worse in the winter.  A constant “cold”.  One of my friends has a son that is allergic and they keep his door shut at all times and an air purifier in his room, since they have pets, too.  I think that is what we will need to do, too.

When he woke up in the morning he said he missed A.J.  Brian thought we were going to be bringing another cat home with us that day, but I do believe one cat is enough for us right now.

Anya wore her pretty birthday dress that day, too.  She went over to the enthusiastic puppy that was tied up for the sole purpose of staying away from the kids so he wouldn’t jump on them.  Yeah.  He jumped on her and his nails caught the tulle in her dress and ripped a piece out with a nice big hole, to boot.  That top layer of tulle is going to be considerably shorter very soon. 

This is her describing why Copper is not her favorite dog anymore for ruining her pretty dress.  Poor Copper.  He just wanted some LOVE!

Copper was a bad puppy because he jumped up and TORE MY DRESS.  *pout* *pout*

See?!  Look!

 Don’t worry, Baby Girl…Mama will fix it.

Okay… *big sigh*

We stayed most of the day and took off in time to miss most of the “cabin traffic”.  We stopped at DQ on the way home…mostly because mommy and daddy were craving some ICE CREAM.  Seriously, I could have just had a small peanut buster parfait for dinner and would have been fine.  Unfortunately that would have set a bad example to the kidlets. 

Dang…being an adult is hard sometimes.

Last Fall I cut out a bunch of pants for Kailan, but unfortunately I didn’t get them all sewn up.  I knew that I would have to add length for this Fall.  He does grow, that little guy.  I finally decided to get them sewn up, since I don’t have to really think too much in putting them together.  This is what would be termed a TNT (tried and true) pattern, in my case.  I did get a bit adventurous in the styling of the elongation of the legs, but that’s what I do.

This first one is a brownish/blackish corduroy.  I did some fancy cutting and panelling on the front of the bottom to add some length.  Then I added a dragon with fabric paint along the side seam.  Can you see it??

NOW can you see it?? 

Yeah, I wanted subtle and apparently I got it.  Ah well.  It’s still awesome even though most people won’t be able to see it.  I have a book of dragon artwork that I perused to find one that was simple enough to stencil and met with the little man’s approval.  I used gray and white metallic paints.

Next we have a pair of light blue corduroy pants.  I added a dark denim to the bottom of these, which I figured would help in the staining department, as well.  Once winter comes, light fabrics suffer stain-age from trooping through the mucky snow.

To do the bottoms detail, I ironed Heat n’ Bond to the denim and drew the designs on each side.  I didn’t want them to match, so they are different.  Once the designs were drawn, I cut them out and then I took off the backing and ironed to the corduroy.  I just did a straight stitch around the edges.  It will most likely fray a bit in washing, which I would like to see.

There you have it…last week’s sole sewing.  I am attempting to get in shape, so my weeknight sewing time is being usurped by working out.  Only so many hours in the day…

While they were here we had a nice lunch and visited awhile.  Eventually, it got late and we decided to order some pizza for dinner before they made the drive home.  Susie and Sarah wanted to take the kids to the pet store to get some fish while we waited for the pizza to arrive. (We live rather close to all sorts of shopping, so the pet store was only a few miles away.)

During the day we had been looking at the pond and noticed a frog inhabiting it.  The nice, normal, non-threatening frog is in the picture below.

Kailan saw a frog at the pet store that he just had to have, of course.  The kids each chose a fish for the pond, and then Susie let Kailan have that frog.  Once they got up to the counter, Aunt Susie was met with a surprise.  It was a poisonous toad!  She even had to sign a release to take it home.

Being the doting aunt, she still bought it for her little nephew.  It came with the added bonus of crickets that we were supposed to feed to it. 

Live crickets.

I have to admit the toad was pretty neat looking.  It was a light green with white speckles.  We let him out on one of the rocks in the pond while we were eating the pizza.  That is the last time we saw him.  He made a quick getaway as soon as felt the free air.  Very likely he was born and raised in captivity.  I’m sure he’s frolicking through the marshlands around our house now.

Fortunately, we still had the crickets.

We eventually had to let them go as they started to eat each other, completely ignoring that potato which was supposed to be their sustenance.  Little cannibals.

 We still are on the lookout for the toad.  As least there is no shortage of them in our yard for the kids to catch.  Nice, normal, non-poisonous toads.  

Which is quite nice, since this little girl really like butterflies!

We have been having a busy summer, so when we have a chance to relax we are taking advantage.  I’m pretty sure I won’t be having a Crafty Tuesday post this week, although I do have something made up.  Hopefully next week I will get a post up on it/them.  I even got some mending done yesterday while we had an impromptu playdate.  Our friend’s needed some takers for their 3 kids for about 5 hours, so we had a housefull of rugrats.  They all behaved fairly well, so it wasn’t too taxing on us.  I just didn’t get as much done as I wanted.  This is not an unusual occurance, though.

She was diagnosed with an agressive bone cancer and they are in need of some financial help.  Hopefully the basket will sell well.  It seems hard to find cute stuff for boys, so I’m hopeful the novelty of it will produce some willing bidders.

Satin bound flannel/minkee blanket and flannel/terry cloth burp cloths

Fleece sleeper and hat for a newborn/1-3 month old

Taggie blanket (from my stash)

All together in a cute basket that I had already

That is about all I got accomplished this week.  It was busy, busy…as usual.

This recipe is not the healthiest way to eat halibit, but when you have a freezer full of fish and want a different way to eat it…this works.

1-2 halibut filets (skin off)
1/3 cup mayo
1/3 cup sour cream or Greek Yogurt
2-3 TBSP fresh squeezed lemon (1/2 lemon)
Lemon zest, from the above lemon
1 tsp dried dill (or fresh if you have it)
1/2- 1 cup grated cheese of your choice (I used aged white cheddar)

Cut your halibut into 1 inch pieces and lay flat in the middle of a piece of aluminum foil that has been sprayed (don’t want the bottom to stick!).  Make sure you have a large enough piece that you can close up the sides and tent the top up a bit. 

Mix all but the cheese together and put on top of the fish.  All you have to do for the lemon zest is use the small part of the cheese grater and take the yellow part off the lemon.  Don’t go into the white part!  It just takes a few swipes in each spot to get the nice lemony skin off of it. 

Put cheese on top of the sauce.  Fold up the sides and top of the aluminum foil, leaving some space at the top so it isn’t sitting directly on the sauce.

Place on pre-heated grill around 300 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  Make sure it isn’t above the hottest flame so the bottom doesn’t burn.  I served this with a side of grilled summer squash, broccoli and vidalia onions with cajun seasoning and a loaf of french bread that I baked on the top rack of the grill (one of those freeze and bake small loaves).

Good eatin’!  This is definitely a serve-to-company dish.

Then, Anya needed a new swimsuit.  Her other one is getting some pretty decent fading from the weekly swimming lessons and the bottoms were a bit tight.  I have the hardest time drafting the bottoms.  I made these a little bit bigger and they still aren’t quite right. *sigh*  At least I have a bunch of black, so I can make her new ones no problem.  The top strap on this suit is just meant to be tied up behind her neck in a knot.  I left it continuous so it won’t be dragging when she changes into it, and she can just flip it over her head.  I think for the next suit that I am going to do it over one shoulder so she won’t have to deal with straps.  Must work on that design.  Fortunately I have plenty of swim fabric to test it out!

*****

I’m working on some projects right now – namely a basket of little boy stuff for a charity auction.  I have a hat, burp cloths and a blanket.  Now I just need to make a taggie/ribbon blanket and an article of clothing. 

I have been getting back into working out now, so it is harder to work on the sewing after the kids go to bed.  At least working out at 8:30 pm means that I tend to be quite awake and can get a little done.  I tried working out in the morning and I’m just not awake enough to do a decent job…so nighttime it is!

He’s very enthusiastic in his hitting…timing and aim, well not so much.

Last Tuesday, his Aunt Susie and Grandma Joan came to watch his game.  We packed up some sandwiches and fruit for dinner and then went to the ball field to watch him.  It was a really nice evening outside.  This time was also Kailan’s turn to be the catcher, which was his cousin Sara’s position in softball when she played.

Now Kailan will have to anxiously await baseball for next season.  Hopefully we can get some practice in this summer so he can get a bit more experience and knowledge.  As Brian noted, his coaches didn’t know much about baseball and how to handle the bat, but they were the ones that volunteered.  Can’t complain when it’s all volunteer labor!

Now that CSA season is in swing, I have a whole bunch of lettuce to eat.  By myself apparently.  I love a good salad.  My salads are not just greens and dressing, though.  It has to have at least one of the following ingredients:

• a dried fruit (craisons, dried cherries)
• a savory cheese (feta, goat cheese, gorgonzola)
• a nut (roasted, slivered almonds or walnuts)
• a 1/2 avocado if I have one (cut it up just before eating or else it will brown)

Other items that go well:

• croutons if I have them, but really I don’t need them with everything else in there
• carmelized onions (make ahead and store for a week’s worth of salads)
• roast chicken (for the carnivores )
• olives
• marinated artichokes
• roasted veggies

I generally try to make my own salad dressing.  All in an attempt to limit the preservatives in my diet, but I know the ingredients do contain them, as well.  I usually do vinaigrettes, and have an arsenal of vinegars to my disposal: balsamic, red wine, champagne, white, rasberry and cider.  Then there is the oil.  I have olive oil (of course!) and usually you want the good stuff for dressings (extra virgin).  Occassionally I will pick up the flavored olive oils and what a punch they give to a salad!

My vinagrette’s are basically this:

Start with about 2-3 Tbsp of vinegar, 1 tsp sugar, salt, pepper and a good 2-3 tsp of herbs.  Sometimes I use mixed dried herbs and sometimes I grab some from the garden.  Mix together.  Then wisk in about a 1/3 – 1/2 cup oil to emulsify.  I have a small little wisk for this process.  This will be a good 2-4 salads for me.  That’s enough of one dressing, so that allows me to make a different kind.  I just bring it to work in a covered bowl, shake and use up during the week.

I make good use of the dried seasonings I have in my pantry so that stuff doesn’t go to waste.  I usually give it a little taste to make sure it is up to snuff and then onto the salad it goes.  This isn’t rocket science and it is much cheaper to make it up yourself.  You can also add citric juices and zest from the peels to make a nice fresh vinagrette.

The other day I had a salad with roasted golden beets, goat cheese, dried cherries and a citrus vinagrette of some sort from a local deli.  Yum!  I can’t wait to recreate it when I get some beets from my CSA.

The season’s first CSA haul

 I’m still trying to convince the kids that veggies really are good for their little bodies and good to eat.  It’s a battle.