The First Day Dress

Ever since I saw the First Day Dress on 

danamadeit.com,

I knew that Mary Grace had to have it

(or rather, I had to make it!).

And I was not disappointed.

So far I've been obsessed with sewing just the swing dress, 

but the pattern also allows for an 

A-line dress/top, and a swing top option.

I'm not sure yet if I like it better 

with the capped sleeves or without.

I might have to make a few more,

you know, just to be sure!

Mary Grace loves the "twirl factor" from the circle skirt.

And poking mommy with sticks 

when she gets tired of modeling for the day!

That's fine.
I'll just go back to my sewing.

Last harvest of the summer

It's the day I've been waiting for all summer, 

the watermelon harvest!

Just four small Sugarbaby melons came from the mulch bed garden.  I've never had much luck growing melons, but this variety seemed to do well, it makes me regret not planting more!  

They are super sweet and just the right size to store in the fridge.  And perfect for a summer morning breakfast!

I'm also very excited about these birdhouse gourds and luffa!

These will be part of our homemade Christmas gifts this year.

After they dry out over the fall, Kyle and I have plans to decorate them with a wood-burning pen and then dip them in stain and high gloss polyurethane.  

They are going to be gorgeous hanging in the trees next spring!

Our luffa are going into handmade soaps, 

kind of a soap and body scrubber all-in-one!

There will be a few more pepper harvests and some eggplant, too.  They just love these long Texas summers.  

Soon work will begin to ready the garden for fall plants: cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and greens.  

Oh, and less weeding, too!  

That's my favorite part about the winter garden!

Smells like laundry

Living in the country with five kiddos and a dog, 

sometimes the house can smell less than...

fresh.

I have a couple of those wax warmer thingies strategically placed around the home for such occasions,

 but I was out of the scented wax melts.  

A perfect substitute:

Gain Fireworks laundry booster!

About two tablespoons of scent booster 

makes a nice subtle smell throughout the house. 

It smells like laundry day, 

but without all the work!

Happy Feast of the Assumption

And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked with favor on His lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is His Name.

 He has mercy on those who fear Him in every generation. He has shown the strength of His arm, and has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.

 He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. He has come to the help of His servant Israel for He has remembered His promise of mercy, the promise He made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.”

A busy month!

Y'all, July flew by for us!

It's been really bustling in the Creamer household,

here's what we've been up to:

Ryan graduated from WCJC 

(actually his second graduation from a program there!)

and he has been super busy preparing to take his state boards. 

 HE DID IT! 

He passed his Cosmetology boards with flying colors and now has a job at Visible Changes that he really likes.

I like that he has full time employment!

And even though he's a fancy shmancy hair stylist now, he still makes time to take care of all of us with free haircuts!  

And if that wasn't enough, 

Ryan celebrated his 20th birthday!

I feel so old. 

Kyle had a birthday this month, too. 

We celebrated by going to an Astros game.

That boy is a die hard Astros fan!

He also got his very first job working at the local BBQ joint.

Sometimes he comes home with leftover ribs and kolaches.

My husband loves Kyle's new job.

Family selfie

I love that things have finally settled down and we can get back to our normal routine and a new home school year.  

Things don't stay quiet around here for long.

Cool in the pool

Since the Texas beaches are matted with feet of seaweed, we took off to the local water park for some summertime fun...

This free slideshow generated with Smilebox

And while I remembered to reapply sunscreen 

to the kids every two hours, 

I forgot about myself!

Happy birthday, America!

Have a CRAFTY fourth of July!

The Bottle Tree

A bottle tree in the garden is totally a southern thing, y'all.

I have been wanting a bottle tree in the garden 
for quite some time now.  
I think they are just beautiful!
But I also think I'm becoming one of those people,
you know the one, 
the crazy neighbor who has too much yard art.

I'm not that bad yet, but I'm working on it!!

This wasn't exactly the style tree I had planned when I was having bottle tree fantasies. I had pictured a free flowing, tree-like form, but whenever I came across those, they were ridiculously expensive. So I had Doug buy a 4x4 post and Danny and I hammered in nails for the bottles to rest upon.

It's a work-in-progress!

She's mostly "nekkid" right now, but she will evolve over the year as I collect bottles here and there.  I'm so tempted to go buy wine this very minute for the pretty bottles and just pour the wine into another container because 

Impatient = my middle name.

Bottle trees add such a nice touch of whimsy to the garden and have wonderful benefits such as never needing to water, prune, or fertilize.  Plus, they are rumored to catch evil spirits roaming around at night! 

It's a tree that even the laziest gardener can't kill,

but they might stumble a little going out to the garden after drinking all that wine and beer!

No time for blogging today!

Now that I've got that pesky garden snail problem licked, 

I can get down to some serious sauce making!  

Loads of  SanMarzano tomatoes are ripening by the day. 

I've waited all summer for this!

Check out my super simple way to make tomato sauce HERE.

You won't be sorry!

Just call me the Drunken Snail Slayer!

Y'all, 

I HATE SNAILS!

They have completely decimated my garlic bed (above).

And have eaten through more tomatoes than I can count (below).

I would go out to the garden each morning and pick off and crush as many as I could find, but they simply outnumbered me!  I posted the question on how to get rid of them on Facebook and my ever-wise friend, Peggy, gave me a solution...

BEER.

She said to bury a small container at soil level in the garden.

Fill the container just shy of the rim with beer.

Luckily, I just happened to have some lovely Shiner Bock in the fridge.  I really hated to waste in on those slimy villains, but I was desperate! 

I set the filled containers out at dusk, 

because the snails become more active at night.  

I thought by morning I might have a dozen or so. 

 I almost passed out when I found THIS:

These greedy little slime balls crawled to the container, 

drank the beer, got drunk, fell in, and drowned!

If I repeat this 2-3 more nights I might make a dent in the snail population in my garden!  Although, I might get some funny looks at the local grocery store for buying beer in the middle of the day with four children in tow...

Thank you, Peggy, for your wonderful idea!

You're definitely getting some tomatoes 
(and whatever else you want from the garden) 
for helping me defeat the army of snails!

It must be summer!

Because I have 'cukes comin' out of my ears~

and that means it's

PICKLE TIME!

I used to hate, like REALLY HATE, bread and butter pickles.  I couldn't understand why anyone would want to eat a sweet pickle!  In my opinion, if you're going to eat a pickle, it's got to be crisp, garlicky, dilly, and just a bit spicy.

Recently, by mistake, I had some sweet pickles on a hamburger....

it was delicious!

And ever since then I have been a believer in the goodness of bread and butter pickles!

  

Here's my recipe for making them:

Pack 7-10 pickling cucumbers into quart sized jars 

with half of a thinly sliced white onion.

Make a brine of:

2 cups apple cider vinegar

(Use an unpasteurized vinegar like Bragg's) 

1 1/2 cups of honey

1 Tbs. mustard seed

1 Tbs celery seed

2 Tbs sea salt

Pour this mixture over the cucumbers.

Place lids on jars and give them a good shake to get rid of all the air pockets and put them in the fridge.  They'll be perfect in two weeks and will last months in the fridge.

And because I love them so, I made a batch of good 'ol lactofermented pickles!

Here's a post on how to make them:

The Creamer Chronicles :  Old Fashioned Pickles

Here's to summer time and eating pickles, 

which ever ones you prefer...sweet or sour!

Get your pucker on!