tracey's house

Spring Break at Tracey's...yes that is a lot of snow!

Ok. This post was originally written at Tracey's, but I was having problems posting and I am just getting settled back in at home from the rest of my spring vacation (more on that later), so here it is...

Hello to all from Moscow, Idaho. Home of Tracey. I am so lucky to be on spring break for all of this week and three days of next week. All of this time off gives me a great chance to travel around the country. I am at Tracey's house right now, while she is at work. I will stay here until tomorrow when I return home just in time to leave for Portland by way of Bend.

Anyway. I just wanted to share a little of Tracey with you. You all know she is obsessed with pirates and skull and cross bone, right? Take a look at the slide show to the right! By the way....Tracey painted those two teal and brown skull and crossbones. Talent, I tell you!

xoxo ~ Stephanie

Easter

This Easter we were invited over to an afternoon meal. We decided to bring a simple green salad and a fruit salad. I've been wanting to make a fruit salad for a while now, I kind of wanted one like great grandma or grandma Doris used to make. So, I've been searching online for a good one. The one I found is really easy and uses almost all canned fruit. I'm really looking forward to this summer and trying all fresh fruit instead. This is the one I found:

Ingredients:

• 1 can (20 oz) pineapple chunks, drained 1 can
• (16 oz) peach slices, drained
• 1 can (11 oz) mandarin orange sections, drained
• 2 apples, cored and chopped
• 1 package (3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1 1/2 cups cold milk 1/3 cup frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
• 3/4 cup sour cream

Preparation:
Combine fruits in a large bowl; set aside. In a small mixing bowl, combine pudding mix, milk, and orange juice concentrate. Beat for about 2 minutes. Beat in sour cream. Fold mixture into fruit mixture. Cover and chill thoroughly.

So it is pretty simple. I messed up with buying the canned fruit. I was in a hurry and bought crushed pineapple. I decided to just mix it in with the pudding stuff and it worked really well. I also only used one apple and put one banana in.
I have to tell you, this salad looks pretty nasty, but oh my god, it tastes so good!
Love, Tracey

lemon pound cake

Martha Stewart's Lemon Pound Cake

Johnpaul had a little potluck at work last night, so I made some nice, springy lemon loaf for him to take with him. I was really drawn to this lemon loaf from Martha Stewart's website because it resembles the lemon loaf from Starbucks that I LOVE. It did not turn out exactly like Starbucks, but it was pretty tasty. The lemon glaze was to die for!

xoxo ~ Stephanie

the garden

Jack is loving the sunshine as much as I do

It is finally my favorite time of year...the first day of spring was yesterday. Unfortunately, I spent it home with pink eye. Really bad pink eye. It is really disgusting. I am home again today. But, back to happy stuff. It is spring time. Spring time is great and the best part is that it leads to summer time, which is just as great.

Two garden beds with a really cool birdhouse made by Johnpaul's dad

Last week/weekend we worked and worked in the yard to get my garden space ready. I am so happy! We had to dig out the grass. The grass in our yard has been there since 1950. It is full of roots and rocks. It was a little work. Johnpaul is so amazing. He did most of it for me while I cooked dinner or was at school. We made two 12x4 beds. This is the first picture of them. They aren't ready yet!

Raking and rototilling up the garden

The next step was to rototill up the hard soil. Johnpaul used a rototiller that we borrowed from my wonderful Grandma Doris (she is the garden queen.) I raked and gathered big old roots and stones from the ground to be placed elsewhere. As you can see, it wasn't exactly warm here that day.

Look at how muddy it was! Johnpaul's feet were covered by the sloppy mud

Top Soil

Next we added soil and steer manure so our little vegetables would love where they are living. Then Johnpaul mixed it all up with the rototiller.

Square foot dividers for my square foot garden

In my garden this year I am going to grow one bed just like I always would, cramming as much in it as possible and seeing what I get out of it. I am going to try a new method in the other garden. It is called square foot gardening. I know it is actually not new, but it is new to me. You split your bed up into one foot squares and plant according to spacing and harvest time. So, a tomato plant when mature needs an entire square to itself, but in the early days you can use the outer parts of the box for lettuce or another quick, early harvest food. Do you see what I mean? I will be posting more about it as my garden grows.

Early Crop Seeds

I planted my early, cold weather crops on Saturday while Johnpaul was sleeping. The early ones in the ground are lettuce, peas, spinach, onions and carrots. I am so proud of myself because I think these are the earliest seeds that I have ever planted. Usually it is at least spring break before I get them in the ground.

xoxo - stephanie

Springy!

I'm really happy to see all the tiny blooms popping up on my walk to school. I unfortunately only have one tiny white flower in my yard, but I'm sure some more will appear soon. These are some of my neighbors that I secretly took a quick picture of.



This weekend, however, we spent in Donnelly. It was so cold and snowy still! My mom and I got to spend a few hours at the Resort. We sat in the outside hot tub with a great view of the snow covered golfing range. After the hot tub we sat in the very lovely steam room. It was so nice, when we got out we both felt so great! Plus it was really fun to be there with my mom.



This is the outside of the cabin. Ryan had to climb up that giant mound of snow to fix the satellite so I could watch some quality tv.

a new bike

I have to be the luckiest girl ever! Johnpaul bought me this new bike from REI this week. We went on a nice bike ride after planting our new fruit trees and blueberry plants (more on this later) the other night. It really feels like spring is here. I can really cruise on this bike. It is so much more awesome than my old bike and it has a really cute little bell on it.

I know I've only been on two rides, but I am loving it! xoxo Stephanie

big plans

My mom called me up after school to let me know that McCall's Patterns were on sale for $1.99 at JoAnne's this weekend. You know I couldn't pass up a great deal, so she drove over to Boise and we went to JoAnne's. While I was there I found some really cute, really cheap patterns AND all of these adorable fabrics. Here are my plans for the fabric as of right now.

I am planning on making a skirt with this material. I did not buy a pattern for the skirt...I will probably just "trace" one of my other skirts to get the desired shape and pattern. This fabric was a steal and I couldn't pass it up!


This super cute fabric is totally creamy white on the top of it, so it will make a really cute dress with the pattern at the bottom. I didn't find a dress pattern that I loved to go with it, so I bought it and will just have to wait until I find the perfect pattern.



Doesn't this just look like the perfect fabric for a cute little mod dress for the summer? I thought so. I think that it may be perfect for the rehearsal dinner at Johnpaul's cousin Chris' wedding.


And now the patterns:
So, this is the pattern that I am thinking for the black and white mod fabric.

I think these are some cute, springtime school pants. I bought some nice, lightweight, green pants material to make these out of, but it didn't photograph well, so you will have to try and imagine it.





And finally, this super cute bag. I am going to make this bag out of a really cute old 1960's table cloth that Johnpaul's grandma gave me. I have been trying to decide what to make out of it forever and I think I finally decided. It is such cute fabric. It is dark brown with white daisies all over it. adorable.


I guess I have some work to do now. xoxo. Stephanie

what i did last night

When I went to visit my sister Michelle in Portland last weekend, she gave me her leftover scraps of fabric from really cute skirt that she made. She bought the fabric at IKEA and it is adorable. It is thick and kind of rough, kind of like canvas.



So, last night I pulled it out to see if there would be enough to fashion a little skirt for myself. With some creative cutting and sewing...I was able to make it happen.



So, here I am. In my brand new free skirt. Thanks Michelle! It is not the cutest skirt that I have ever made. I didn't have a zipper at home so I made an elastic waistband, but I think that I can pull it off with a long shirt.
xoxo - stephanie

Tracey's Very First Post

My Top 5 Favorite things to do with Stephanie:

5. Sit in mom's kitchen eating and goofing around.
4. Make ROCKnROLL videos in Steph's living room.
3. Watch our ROCKnROLL videos anywhere.
2. Travel hours and hours to see Reel Big Fish and Suburban Legends.
1. Dance, Dance, Dance!!

I am so excited to be able to share great recipes and ideas through this blog. Maybe even get a little help learning how to cook!

Stephanie's Very First Post

Tomatillos from my garden last spring

I have been so inspired by my friend Heather's blog, that I have decided to put together one of my own. I love looking through her posts and all of the creative, wonderful things that she does. Mine, I am sure will not be so creative, but I do love the idea of posting pictures of my garden and my cooking and sewing projects. So...here is the first post.

Tracey and I are going to be sharing this blog...posting day to day things including recipes, stories and all things awesome.