Thank you Ree Drummond

Thank you Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, for your photos, recipes, craft projects and all around awesomeness. And thank you also, for creating an impossible standard for bloggers. I mean who has time to do all that? Honestly who has time to take and upload photos, make food, homeschool your kids, clean your house, love your husband, AND blog about it all EVERYDAY. It's crazy. I barely have time to take a shower. I will never be as good as you at blogging and I'm okay with that.

New Baby Food

Some of Liam's favorite food right now are blueberry pancakes and mac & cheese. The boy loves his carbs. I actually enjoy making these foods because I get to eat them too! I don't really follow a recipe for the mac and cheese, I just mix together pasta (ditalini), plain yogurt, shredded cheese, and toss a in few vegetables. For the blueberry pancakes I use the recipe from my Baby Love book.

Whole Grain Blueberry Pancakes

Serving Size:

Makes eight 2-ounce pancakes.

Ingredients:

For the pancake mix:

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar

For the pancakes:

• 2 cups pancake mix (from above)
• 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
• 2 eggs
• 1 pint buttermilk
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted (that is 1/8 pound)
• 1/2 cup fresh blueberries

Method:

In a large bowl, combine the ingredients for the dry pancake mix. Store in a zipper bag or in a plastic container with a tight fitting lid.

Preheat griddle to 350°F. You can also use a large cast-iron pan or a nonstick pan.

Just let it preheat for a while on medium heat — you’ll have to practice a bit to achieve the correct and consistent heat. Pour the pancake mix and the flaxseed into a large bowl. Whisk eggs in a small bowl. Add buttermilk and then melted butter to the small bowl and whisk ingredients together.

Add the egg, buttermilk, and butter mixture to the pancake mix and the flaxseed.

Add blueberries. Slowly whisk together to just combine wet and dry ingredients.

You do not want the mixture to be smooth. Ladle mixture (about 2 ounces per pancake) onto the griddle and cook until golden brown. Flip and cook the other side until golden brown. This should take approximately 5 to 6 minutes.

Eight Years Ago Today

January 17th, 2003, Dylan and I went on our first date. I was a freshman and he was a sophmore. Just little babies. We went to the Olive Garden, SAK, hopped a fence and shot off fireworks at Blanchard, and talked til four in the morning. On Saturday we attempted to recreate this date. Instead of Olive Garden we decided to class it up by going to Urban Flats (fried green tomatoes, yumm). Then we headed to SAK which was as hilarious as I remembered. We skipped the fireworks and late night talking and rushed home to bed by midnight. It was a great night. I felt like it was the old us again. Not the tired, lame, homebodies we've become. This is why people have date nights once a week, so they can get a glimpse of what it used to be like to be a couple.

And to top it off, Liam slept almost 12 hours that night and woke up with happy babbling.

Liam's Taggie Blanket

This weeks project was to make Liam a taggie blanket. Since I loved all the fabric I recently got I couldn't decide on one and just made a patchwork on one side. I loved the way it turned out, just wish the fabrics were a little softer. I also learned 1. that I can't sew a straight line and 2. working with soft fuzzy fabrics isn't easy.

All the strips laid out

The top all stiched together

The back was white minky fabric and I got all the ribbon from Jo Anns.

The contrast of the front and back

I attached some velcro to hold a pacifier or to attach to a stroller.

New Blog name

Lately everything has been about patchwork quilting. It's all I look up on the internet, read in books, and go to Jo Anns for. At the same time, I've been trying to think of a new blog name. I just feel like the one I have now doesn't really describe me or what's going on in the space. First I thought I would go the domestic route, but I didn't want to be confined to only write about cooking and sewing. Then I thought that maybe I would just write about motherhood, but that's not what I want my entire life to be about. I still wanted to maintain my identity apart from my current roles in life. So my mind went back to Patchworking and how that could be symbolic of what this blog is about. It's about a lot of different things that don't necessarily go together, but make up a beautiful whole thing (me). I can have the freedom to write about whatever I want whether it be a recipe, music, faith, love... whatever. I know it's not that big of a deal, but it gives me some closure knowing that things will fit in nicely here.

Welcome to,

A Living Patchwork

Fabric Frenzy

So I might be a little obsessed with fabrics as of late. I've been wanting to make Liam a baby blanket for a while so I started searching for fabrics online. Boy did I get in over my head. I literally spent hours/days looking at fabric online before I made a decision. And since I liked so many fabrics my decision was to make 2 different blankets; one taggie and one quilt. Through all my researching I fell in love with patchwork quilts. They don't look like grandma blankets and they seem easy. I've never made a quilt before but we'll see how it turns out. I am anxiously awaiting my fabric in the mail and until then I am learning all I can about about blanket and quilt making.

Fabric for Taggie Blanket

Fabric for quilt

So this is the New Year...and I feel very different

Last Night we celebrated the New Year in a very different way. For the past eight years we have celebrated in Atlanta during Christmas Conference. We danced the night away with friends and stayed up really late. Well let me tell you, times have changed. Instead of spending the night out dancing with friends, we stayed in and forced ourselves to stay up til midnight. I felt totally lame. Is this what parents do on New Years?

To make the night a little fun I made an Italian inspired dinner for us. We started with a plate of Bruschetta and Manchego cheese with Honey. Then for our second course we had Eggplant Parmesan (Martha Stewart). For dinner we had Steak with zucchini ( I didn't really follow a recipe for this). Finally my favorite part, we had Lemon Panna Cotta with a Blackberry Balsalmic Sauce. This was my favorite!!!! I was so happy with how this turned out and am anxious to try different combinations. Here are a few pictures.

Happy New Year!