Author Archives: Jennifer

About Jennifer

crafty...knitting, crochet, photography, sewing, cooking (eating), wine

Dubu Muchim

dubu muchim

mmmmmmm…Korean tofu with red chili sauce.

This is a huge favorite at our house. It’s quick and spicy and yummy and requires no cooking and pretty healthy. As a main course, this serves 2 at about 320 calories per serving.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 tbsp gochujang
  • 1/2 tsp hon dashi
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup sesame seeds
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/2 tsp minced ginger
  • 4 medium scallions, sliced
  • 16 oz tofu

Directions:

  1. Press tofu under weighted plate to drain for 30 minutes.
  2. Mix together gochujang, hon dashi, soy sauce, sesame oil, minced garlic and minced ginger.
  3. Slice tofu into bite sized pieces and pour sauce over the top.
  4. Finish by sprinkling sesame seeds and scallions.

dubu muchim recipe


and here’s what you missed…

The boys are bigger and badder than ever. They’re best friends, until they’re not. The little one can do anything the big one does, until he can’t. The big one is “NOT a baby!” until he is. Every day is an adventure. It’s a wild ride, except for when it’s peaceful.

They boys keep us hopping and we’re trying to enjoy every minute of this lovely weather. Charleston pretty much skipped winter this year and it’s been really nice.

We spent a great day at the Riverbanks Zoo last week. The boys loved it. Truth told, I did too. It’s been ages since I’ve been to a zoo. Don’t worry, I won’t subject you to random animal photos. Mainly because they are dreadful. Here are the boys instead.

liam and kellan

livin' large at the zoo

liam gregor

just monkeying around

Gardening started in March this year. Child labor laws be damned. We put the old baby to work in the yard. Aunt Kelly, that wheelbarrow is the BEST gift ever.

Liam is really helpful with the yard work. Kellan is trying. He’ll be up to speed soon enough. When these goons are teens, we’re going to make a mint hiring them out for landscaping jobs.

liam gregor

rake, rake, rake

liam gregor

load, load, load

liam gregor

haul, haul, haul

Don’t worry. It’s not all work and no play. Every once in a while, we have lunch dates at the Brittlebank Park playground. These two can pack an awful lot into lunch hour.

There’s always…

liam gregor

climbing

kellan robert

and climbing

kellan robert

sliding

liam gregor

and jumping

I have no clever segue for this last bit…

So, in the better late than never file, here are your gratuitous kilt shots. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

kellan robert

strike a pose

liam gregor

hope YOU had a great St. Pat's.

Peace out.

P.S. the kilts are from http://www.altkilt.com/.


hearts and roses…

laced with yarn and made of paper. That’s how we roll on V-day.

Liam lace a few hearts for his extra special valentines.

laced heart valentines
laced with love

The cards really are cute. Red bird crafts provided the inspiration. I just put the top card on a cork tile and punched holes in the shape of a heart with an awl, making sure the tails ended up on the front of the card. Then Liam went to work lacing a folded strand of yarn through the holes with a darning needle. We tied the yarn ends in a bow. Finally, and this was not really needed, we glued the card top to a backing square of card stock.

laced heart card

lace away

We made some coffee filter flowers too.

coffee filter flowers

crumpled with love

Peaches tutorial inspired our flowers, but we used Rit dye and skipped the trimming on most of our flowers. It was really easy, just added a splash of yellow liquid Rit to a bowl of hot water and submerged coffee filters one at a time until no more would fit in the bowl. Wearing rubber gloves, I squeezed the excess liquid from the stack of filters back into the bowl, then added a bit of wine Rit to the yellow water and dyed a bunch of filters peach. Added more wine (dye to the water, zin to my belly) and made a bunch of fuscia filters. After squeezing out the excess colored water I separated each filter and laid them in loose pile to dry overnight.

Next day, we made the flowers and tied them off with green pipe cleaners. Didn’t use any tape, just twisted the bases really tight and wound the pipe cleaner around as tightly as possible.

So, happy Valentine’s Day!

kellan robert

from a boy and his (neighbor's) dog

and

liam gregor

from a boy who can roll his tongue

xoxo


keepin’ it spicy

No one will be surprised to learn that we have an absurd amount of spices in our kitchen. Seriously an entire three shelf cabinet was full of nothing but. We have been desperate for more kitchen storage space and came up with this cute little solution.

A little bit of pegboard, some paint and an inexpensive adjustable storage system from Walmart. Et voila. Easy access to spices and a whole cabinet for other stuff.

1. Paint your pegboard. Use child labor if you’ve got it.

liam gregor

paint the pegboard

2. Hang your pegboard. B just screwed it right to the wall.
3. Hang the storage system. B used simple peg hooks.

pegboard spice rack

easy peasy installation

4. Cram it full of spices.

pegboard spice rack

spicy!

5. Kick it up a notch!


happy new year (and all that)

Man! The holidays are busy when you have kids. Who knew?

liam and kellan

the shot that almost cancelled christmas

Beginning with the joy that is taking Christmas card photos…

kellan robert

yay. more photos.

Trying to clean up for a minute or two…

liam and kellan

cleanliness lasts as long as the bath

Spending Christmas day playing…

moshing with the neighbors

moshing with the girls

liam gregor

rockin' and rollin' on the new blades

And ending with a really fun trip to PA…

aydan

fishing with the cousins

cousins

best group shot

We were a busy clan.

Managed to knit up a couple hats, but totally failed on the handmade stockings. Better luck next year, I guess. The blue hat is based on the Elf Hat from Handknit Holidays, but finished with the pointy top hat shaping. Here’s the Rav. The faux-hawk was knit similarly to the elf hat but with a rounded top. Someday I’ll write up the pattern. Someday.

liam and kellan

super bulky knit hats whip up fast!

Do forgive my spotty and brief posting. No use pretending it will change any time soon, but that ever elusive someday may eventually get here. Maybe some pics will make up for it a little bit. These two are my favorites.

liam gregor

kellan robert

Bonne année et bonne santé!


pillows galore

We’ve been in serious need of some throw pillows in the living room for quite some time now. I finally pulled my act together and made a few. Back in September, while the boys were on their vacation, I whipped up these simple little envelope pillow cases from a few fat quarters and a little piece of embroidery that I made ages ago. Honestly the embroidery has been sitting in my stash bin for almost two years, I bet.

pillows

simple envelope pillow cases

alphabet embroidery

the striped fabric reminded me of lined paper...

envelope pillows

envelope back

I bet the pair of cases took less than an hour start to finish. And that, my friends, is all I accomplished during a week home alone. Sad, right? Plus it took two months to post about it. Hm.

Now these little cuties are a great kids project. I saw the idea on pinksuedeshoe.

leaf pillows

placemat to pillow

Took a few seconds to open the seam, 10 minutes for the boys to get bored cramming fiberfill into a tiny opening and five minutes more for me finish stuffing and resew the seam by hand. Total cost: $9 ($3 for each placemat) + $4 for a bag of fiberfill = $13.

pillow

two inches of hand sewing and viola

There’s one more pillow in progress. Isn’t the smocking at 52crafts52weeks divine? This pillow top was made following learningtofly’s tutorial and using canvas and dark blue embroidery floss.

honeycomb smocking

honeycomb smocking...love

I made a marking guide with a length of grid lined poster board and a tiny hole punch. Then used a disappearing fabric pen to mark the dots on the canvas.

grid lined poster board

grid lined poster board guide

Even thought the smocking has been finished for months, the pillow still needs a back. Soon. Soon.

Wow. A kid-free post. Can you believe it?


and the winner is…

Viking Kellan!

mommy and the winner

mommy and the winner

Just received a call from the South Carolina Aquarium. Our viking won 3rd prize in the under 3 Halloween costume competition! Who’s the proud mommy?

As if my inclination to decorate the boys for public appearances needed any encouragement…


boo!

I mean Rooooaaaar…

liam gregor

the dragon unicorn in action

and arrrgh!

kellan robert

our viking on the move

Hope everyone had a super fun Halloween. You know we did. Liam was the boss of Halloween this year. We made lots and lots of “Halloween Projects”, such as:

cheese cloth ghost

ghosts

foam spider and cheesecloth web

spiders

foam pumpkin and grapevine wreath

pumpkins

and

scarecrow

mr. scarecrow

Liam also picked our costumes. He, obviously, was to be a dragon unicorn. Originally just a plain old dragon, but then he saw our neighbor in her unicorn costume and became obsessed with unicorns. No way mommy was making two costumes, so a dragon unicorn was conceived. The costume is a modified version of McCall’s 6185. My review is on PatternReview.com. It was a solid 11 or 12 hours of sewing, but well worth it i think. The boy really loves it.

liam gregor

check out my tail

liam gregor

grrrr

Kellan was originally slated to be a butterfly, but I made a last minute executive management decision. So, with only minutes of effort on my part, namely sewing a little fur vest, our viking was good to go.

kellan robert

my candy!

kellan robert

seriously! my candy!

You’ll note that mommy and daddy seem a bit random alongside our dragon/viking combo…

mommy, liam and kellan

had to catch more than just butterflies

It was decreed that mommy would be the butterfly catcher to Kellan’s overruled butterfly.

feather butterflies

who doesn't love butterflies?

And daddy would be a giant chipmunk, natch.

daddy

what a glam chippie

It was a big time. And we’ll be eating candy for months.


once upon a time

Once upon a time, I had two sweet baby boys. Now I have a two year old teenager wannabe and the world’s littlest dictator.

The big one has taken to putting himself to bed at night. It starts with, “No, mommy, I do it myself.” and ends with little feet stomping up the stairs and the sound of the acrobat launching himself into his crib. He’s begun rolling his eyes when asked to do something he considers unappealing. That’s surprisingly annoying and, thankfully, still pretty infrequent. And, interestingly, he routinely calls me Jennifer. Jennifer? Seriously? The bed thing is pretty awesome, but I really wasn’t expecting to be on a first name basis so soon. Certainly not while he’s still in diapers.

On the plus side, he is finally using the potty, if only when prompted. And he’s still wicked cute. And hilariously creative. And super excited about Halloween. And takes the cheesiest photos ever.

liam gregor

i'm soooo cute

Not to be outdone, the new guy has shown himself to be a real bully. He wants what he when he wants it. No negotiating. No concessions. No discussion. Just do it, mamamamama.

Perhaps relatedly, the K-monster is using words such as cat, ca-ca (cracker), uh-huh (yes), ffff (fish), mamamama (mommy), dadada (daddy) and teddy and signs including more, all done, fish, and milk. He understands so much more than he can communicate, so I’m guessing that’s a significant contributing factor to his screaming at me when he wants a cookie.

kellan robert

i'm not bad, just misunderstood

Some days, it’s like a modern version of Lord of the Flies in our living room. Other days, Leave It to Beaver has nothing on us. We’re living the dream.


Mahalo Y’all

A good time was had by all at the Blackwater Ukulele Festival in Cypress Gardens. It was a fun way to spend an afternoon. The boys enjoyed the butterfly garden and the tropical birds and the little aquarium and especially the alligators.

The swamp was very cool.

cypress gardens

cypress garden swamp

But the real fun was chasing the wild boys around.

There was dancing…

ukulele festival

groupies

and bird watching…

liam gregor

i see you

and alligators too.

liam gregor

liam-gator

kellan robert

kellan-gator

What more could you hope for?


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