Birthday Girl

My little girl happens to share my birthday month. Even cooler than that is that she shares a birthday with two of her grandparents, Mr. PD's mom's mom on one side and my mom's dad on the other side of the family.

This year she turned 4! I can't believe how quickly the time has flown. We're not big into big birthday bashes around here (at least not yet.) We prefer to have it be a family affair. The birthday boy/girl gets to pick the dinner menu and the type of cake they want. This year Ellie Mae requested "hotdogs, corn and fruit." Now that's a meal I can handle! On the other hand Mr. PD has a birthday next week and he requested tamales! (I'm hoping to convince him to pick something easier!)

Ellie Mae also requested cupcakes, pink ones, instead of cake.

...and as you can see she had a great time blowing out those candles.

Scheming...

I love color.

This rental house is stifling my color groove! I'm working on a furniture project that will rip-off Pottery Barn. {Notice I didn't say Pottery Barn is ripping me off, nope I'm going to outsmart PB by building it myself and saving $1000.} It's an entry way system that will hopefully keep my house tidier, help me with my sanity, and temper (it never fails that we always spend 10 minutes looking for shoes before we leave the house, especially when I'm in a hurry) assuming I can train my kids and husband to use it!

I've painted the pieces we have so far a creamy white color that honestly just looks like plain white! I'm not really happy with it but I think I will leave it for now and instead accessorize with color, glorious color! Ideally I would love to paint the basement walls in "Alpaca" gray, I would love to re-paint the entry system in either a mustardy-yellow "Anjou Pear" or a toned down green "Sassy Green" and I would add accessories in "Youthful Coral" (pink) and "Frolic" (green)

The color chips are so much prettier than what the camera could capture and they are all Sherwin Williams paints. I think I could convince my landlord to let me paint the basement (kids playroom and where guests would stay) if only I could convince Mr. PD

Cathedral Window Pillow

I recently had a finish! Lately it seems like I have a ton of unfinished projects or projects that "need" to be started.

I finished this lovely pillow:


for my girl Heidi:

whom I was so lucky to visit last month on my little trip to Utah. This pillow is super special because it is made using fabrics from her husband's ties. The red fabric is from the first tie she ever gave him, and the silver fabric is from the tie he wore at their wedding

I finished it last week but I couldn't post pictures until I was sure that Heidi had received it. I mailed it out Wednesday afternoon and it made it to UT on Saturday, just in time for Mother's Day!

I had been working on this pillow for about a month. It really isn't horribly difficult but it was my first time making the Cathedral Window pattern and I was just too afraid of ruining the ties! I finally just took the plunge and finished it up. I must say it turned out beautifully. I basically followed the instructions on A La Mode and can be found here (part 1, part2) Instead of pinning all the window fabrics and the arcs, I used a fine line of Elmer's glue and heat set it with my iron. I glued all of the windows and arcs down before heading to my sewing machine. By doing all of the gluing I was able to do continuous stitching from one arc to the next with minimal starting and stopping.

Before sewing but after all the windows were glued down
This is how I did continuous line stitching

I love the finished product and I have always admired the Cathedral Window quilts. I don't know if I have a queen size quilt in me! I may just have to compromise at pillows!

Quilt re-visited

I previously mentioned I got to visit UT last month. Well I was able to hang out with my husband's sister as well! More girl talk, more food, and more fun!

She totally indulged me by visiting my husband's grandma with me and then drove me around to buy some:

Oh how I love thee, let me count the ways:

Raspberry truffles

Marzipan

Blueberry Truffle
Key Lime TruffleLemon truffle

I tried their new Strawberry Truffle it was awesome (sorry no pic) and I tried Ginger, it was interesting but good

Yes I am a fan of the truffles! I find them to be less sweet than those my husband prefers, like the Bordeaux's and Butterscotch squares.

Then she took me to an awesome Thai restaurant were I had some super awesome curry! Then we went back to her place and stayed up eating strawberries with sour cream sprinkled with brown sugar and watched the blind side. The next day was Sunday and the day I was flying home. So we got up early and headed over to Temple Square to watch Music and the Spoken Word live! It was an amazing performance by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in a beautiful building. It was a fun weekend visit!

Before leaving I remembered to take some decent pictures of the Recipe for Friendship Quilt that my other SIL (Ari) and I made for Ruth.



Seeing that quilt reminded me that I still have to quilt my daughter's version of the quilt! The top has been pieced for almost a year now! Shame on me!

Honey Wheat Bread

I mentioned in a previous post that I got an awesome bread book for my birthday.


I would like to report that I have put it to good use! I've already made 4 loaves of the "Whole Wheat Brioche" and it has flown off the counter! It's made with eggs, honey, and butter. You can find the recipe here on the HBin5 blog. Make sure you use the dough within 5 days and wash your container between uses (because of the eggs.)

Now it may seem like a lot of eggs and honey but you have to remember that you are making 2 BIG loaves of bread. This bread is so delicious on it's own but is subtle enough to be used for sandwiches (PB or ham.)

See! Even little mice (EJ) can't get enough of this delicious bread!
OK now for some recipe hints,tips, tricks, and what not to do.

The first batch I made (pictured) was made with store bought "White Wheat Flour" (King Arthur I believe.) I bought it at my local Winn Dixie (golden springs.) It was on sale for $3.49 and should make 4-6 batches of dough (8-12 loaves.) It looked just like the flour I had ground myslef (more on that.) It is light in color and had a good fine consistency. When I mixed up the dough it was a pretty wet dough. After the initial rise it pretty much filled up my 5 qt bucket.

On baking day I used half of the dough for 1 loaf. The dough was sticky but had good elasticity and I was very easily able to form a loaf. I noticed that the color of the dough was yellowish. After baking the loaf rose quite a bit over the pan. One of the pans that I filled a bit to high dripped one blob of dough on my oven but not much. As you can see the baked bread has a yellowish coloring and it looks almost cake like. It was very moist and not too crumbly. Delicious!

The second batch of bread I made was made with the my food storage wheat. I thought it was the same as the store bought white wheat but I was wrong! It looked the same and had the same consistency but when the dough was mixed up it did not look yellow at all but tan. It was a bit drier as a dough as well. It rose perfectly as the first batch and when I went to shape the dough I realized it was drier and not as elastic. I had a slightly harder time shaping the loaf to be smooth because of the lack of elasticity. I think this could be fixed by 1) adding more water 2) adding less wheat flour and more white flour 3) I'm going to be trying to mix in some of the store bought white wheat flour and a bit more water as well.

Once baked the bread had a darker tan coloring to it and was a bit more crumbly after slicing. I noticed it also got stale quicker, probably because it was drier to begin with. It was good but you have to be used to the wheat taste in order to appreciate it. A few days ago I confirmed that I did indeed have Hard Red Wheat in my food storage. It is a stronger flavor than White Wheat and is not so great for bread. White wheat is the best for making bread, but since I have quite a bit or red wheat I'll be trying to use it up so I can replace it with white wheat.