Mom's Famous Crescent Rolls

My mom's crescent rolls are legend in our family. It's not a holiday meal without them. In fact, in years past my family has been known to make two double batches, just so that we have enough left overs.

Ingredients: 
1 pkg dry yeast
4 1/2 - 5 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 C sugar
2 Eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 C warm water
3/4 C butter, softened
3/4 C warm milk

Dissolve yeast in warm water and let stand 5 min to proof the yeast. Combine 4 1/2 C flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Cut in butter with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Combine eggs, milk, and yeast mixture: Add to the flour mixture stirring well. Dough will be sticky. Cover and refrigerate for several hours to overnight.

Once dough has risen, punch down and divide in half. Roll each half into a circle on a floured surface. Cut each circle into 12 wedges. Roll up each wedge tightly, beginning at wide end. Place rolls point side down on baking sheets. Cover and let rise until doubled in size in a warm place (oven heated to 200 works well).

Bake at 350 for approximately 10 minutes.
Yields 2 dozen rolls.

To freeze:
Allow to cool on cookie sheets or cooling rack. Place in ziplock bags and remove as much air as possible. Freeze until ready to use. Thaw in microwave when ready to eat

Honey Bourbon Chicken in the Crock-pot

This is a seriously delicious meal that I've made for my own family, and for others that I've delivered meals to after they had babies. It's always well received and everyone wants the recipe for it. Here it is, adapted from Once a Month Mom

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds chicken (I've made this with boneless, skinless breast and with bone in, skin on thighs. It's delicious with any part of the chicken you like to eat)
  
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup minced dried onions
• 3/4 cup honey (you can substitute agave)
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/4 tablespoon red pepper flakes

Place all ingredients in a ziplock bag and remove as much air as possible before freezing.

To use: Thaw in the refrigerator. Place in crock-pot on low for 3-4 hours until cooked through.

Serve with rice, quinoa, or mashed potatoes

Toddler Christmas Tree

Ok, so I know it's not even Halloween, but since I'm anticipating having to go on bed-rest in the next 2 weeks thanks to all of these contractions I decided to bump up a few busy projects I had planned for Turbo.

Toddler Christmas Tree

 This $4.00 project kept her busy for 45 minutes this morning! That is an unheard of amount of time to keep this little 18 month old occupied.

Disappearing 9-patch Baby Quilt

 One of my best friends is having a little girl in February. I found a pack of fat quarters with the perfect color scheme and added a few other prints that I fell in love with.

Disappearing 9-patch baby quilt

Isn't that adorable?

 It's raining outside right now, so indoor pictures will have to do.

Butterfly Mobile

After seeing this on Pinterest when Turbo was a baby, I really wanted to make it for her, but I just never got around to it. Now in preparation for Snow, I've finally completed it!

 I liked the more rustic, natural look of leaving the wooden embroidery hoop exposed instead of covering it with ribbon like in the tutorial. I also used 3 different colors of scrapbooking paper with the vellum in order to tie in some of her bedroom colors.

See the instructions here

My Little Rapunzel

Turbo is going to be Rapunzel for Halloween this year, so I found a pattern online that I adapted to make the dress.

Crayon Wallet Tutorial

I hadn't planned on this being a tutorial, so I don't have pictures as I went, but here's a pattern and tutorial for a very cute crayon wallet that saves us when we go out and need to keep Turbo busy for a few minutes.

Crayon wallet to keep toddlers busy

 

Pinterest Inspired Newborn Stocking Cocoon

 

How cute is this picture?

After seeing this picture on Pinterest, I knew what I'd be doing for Snow's first photo shoot when she's born in December. I however was not going to be spending the $85 on the cocoon that's sold by this website, and since I had made the Easter bunny hat for Turbo's first photo shoot I decided to work on making Snow a much better priced cocoon.

Crochet Newborn Stocking Cocoon

Not too bad for making it up as I went if I do say so myself.
See the pattern after the jump

Fingerprint Noah's Ark

Our good friends are having a baby boy! They've decided to name him Noah and run with the theme of Noah's ark, so for the baby shower we made him a thumbprint "Noah's Ark" in place of a guest book.

How cute is that?

Everyone on Pinterest has probably seen the thumbprint trees people are doing in place of guest books at weddings, so I had my highly artistic friend Nola draw an empty ark for us and I picked up some ink pads for the shower. Next to the empty ark I left this note:

Help us make some art for baby Noah’s wall.

Add a thumbprint animal to the ark and sign your name. Get creative with any animal you’d like.

(But please try to keep it to no more than two of each)

And below that we made a few example animals for people to see. 

Here's our empty-ish ark (sorry, I forgot to take a picture before people started)

 

Maternity Wrap T-shirt Tutorial

Maternity clothes are just too expensive. Last week I found this Isabella Oliver top online, but I just can't bring myself to spend $125 plus tax and shipping on a shirt that is meant for me to wear for only a few more months. So I decided that I would take a few yards of jersey material I had laying around and see if I could make something myself. 

 I think I did pretty good compared to the original.

See how to make your own after the jump.

Honey Oat Bread

Doesn't this look delicious?

I'm working on stocking my freezer right now so that as we get closer to baby #2's arrival I will have less and less to do. With that I have also been trying to save some money and make a lot of things at home since we'll be down to 1 income once I go on maternity leave. With that said, my family LOVES bread (notice 1/2 of one of the loaves is already gone). I've made bread before, but usually it's banana or zucchini bread. I also make biscuits and muffins as quick breakfast or additions to meals, but never something for sandwiches.

While browsing Pinterest I found a blog by a woman who, like me, likes having a stocked freezer but hates having to plan the day before for something to be defrosted in the fridge. She posted this recipe for whole wheat honey oat bread that is dense enough for sandwiches and is delicious. Once it's cooled it can be sliced for sandwiches and frozen. It thaws quickly and tastes just as good after being frozen.

Get the recipe here.

Fair warning... This makes a lot of bread. The recipe on her site stated that it would make one large loaf. So I figured "I'll just double it. That way I have a loaf for now, and one for the freezer." After I let it rise the first time it was obvious that my "double batch" would not be fitting in my 2 loaf pans. I ended up with four loaves.

So now I think I'm going to go have a slice of toast with home made pomegranate jelly. Happy Baking!

DIY Diaper Wreath

I've been working on a baby shower for a friend of mine and decided that we should have a diaper wreath for the door. After seeing a few on Pinterest, I thought I'd give it a try.

 

See how to make it after the jump.

Animal Finger Puppets

While working on an animal themed baby shower for a friend I decided that we needed some cute finger puppets to be part of the decorations. Unfortunately for me, everywhere I looked, all I could find for patterns were ones that you had to purchase. I knew that I could design some myself. So after looking at lots of pictures of finger puppets online, I started drawing and cutting.

Attached are the patterns that I designed for these cute little guys. See full instructions after the jump.

Big Girl Quilt

Since Turbo is such a climber, I knew that we'd be moving out of the crib and into a big girl bed before too long. With that in mind, I started working on a quilt for her new big girl bed in April. It's a good thing I started then, because at just 15 months old, we've needed to upgrade to a twin size. It's a good thing though since # 2 is coming in December. This gives Turbo plenty of time to adjust and not think that the baby is stealing her bed. The quilt just came back from the quilter and I finished the border so we're all set.

 
The pattern is "Flim Flam" by Pressed for Time Quiltworks. It's meant to be a throw quilt made from fat quarters, but with an added column and row in addition to the borders it makes for a perfect twin size.

The pattern can be purchased at The Pincushion Boutique for anyone interested in trying their hand at a very simple, but beautiful quilt. Check back later to see the tutu bedskirt and Tangled theme room.

Laundry Room Hanging Photos

Now that the family is moved and I finally have a laundry room that isn't the garage, I've been wanting to use some pinterest inspiration to do some decorating. Unfortunately since we're renting, my options for remodeling and decorating are sadly limited. So with that in mind I decided to keep it simple with some pictures of my daughter (Turbo) hanging from pants hangers and a quote from Mary Poppins.