Queen of....Tarts?

One of the things that often comes with this time of year is baking. I absolutely love to bake, and look forward to all of the extra baking I get to do in the holiday season. I often feel that I don't have enough people to bake for, and have thought of opening a bakery or catering business of some sort. Maybe in the future, a girl can dream!

My husband's birthday is November 24th, and that means pumpkin cheesecake. This year I tried a new recipe and I really liked it. It has some lemon extract in it and a few other ingredients that I wouldn't normally have used and it just added such an interesting combination of flavors. We all enjoyed it so very much.

Here is where to find the recipe for the cheesecake: Pumpkin Cheesecake

The other thing we made were English butter tarts. Isabella has been doing a literature study on Alice in Wonderland and this is one of the activities. We got the recipes for these from <a href="www.allrecipes.com"></a> , also. I used  a separate recipe for the crust and the filling. I don't have the direct links to the recipes with me right now because I printed the recipe off weeks ago and put it in my lesson plan book. What I liked about the tarts were that they are such a non-traditional food in the U.S. that I didn't have to worry about being in competition or offending anyone by bringing something that they typically bring to the holiday meals. If you forget to ask in advance what to bring this is a good dish to bring because you know there won't be two of it! Also, it is delicious and tastes very holiday-y if I do say so myself. We opted to put walnuts in ours (not black ones) but no raisins. Everyone who tried them thought they were very good. Also, my daughter was quite proud of her culinary prowess when bringing her own dish to Thanksgiving dinner!

Busy Little Sewing Bee

<p style="text-align:left;">Yesterday I was so productive, I feel that I deserve a medal. I am really trying to streamline my "to-do" list and add a few more thing that I actually enjoy "to-doing" onto it, and yesterday I finally got that done!</p>
Every since we saw the latest Alice in Wonderland for my birthday last year I have been in love with the Red "Um" dress that Alice wears in that movie. I told everyone "That is the next dress I will make myself!" Flash forward 7 months and I wasn't lying because I haven't made myself a thing in all of this time. Well yesterday I decided to finally get this dress started so I can wear it to a Halloween party I am going to.

I don't have the luxury of just losing myself in a project like I used to so I had to make a list of things to accomplish each day, not just for my project, but for the other things I have going on to.

So here is how yesterdays list read:

go to church

go to Jo Anns and buy ribbon/tulle

read 10 pages of Art History book, chapter 10

Finish section 2.3 of my math book

finish folding/putting away laundry

finish the curtains I started for baby Aubrey

cut out pattern pieces for red dress

pin the ribbons to the boddess

How it went:

Well, I got all of my tasks done pretty much! I didn't quite finish Aubrey's curtain because I ran out of hook-and-loop tape 2/3s of the way through, and that made me mad, but I am so close because I just have to add that last little section and then pull the cord through the curtain because it is a balloon style curtain. Here is a picture:

I really wanted to finish that curtain before I started my own project because otherwise I might never get it done and Aubrey will be moving into her own room in just a few short weeks because she is getting too big for her bassinet! I want it all ready for her.

Here is a sketch I made up of what I think my dress will look like based on the fabrics I bought.  (A very rough sketch, I have never tried to sketch a dress before)

The next step was to cut out all of the pieces from my main fabric, which will be the red fabric:

And my last step for yesterday was to pin down the ribbons to my boddess which I will be having to sew on by hand!

Sooooooooo, I accomplished a lot yesterday, and I actually got all of this done before midnight. I would have made it to bed at a reasonable time if curiosity hadn't gotten the best of me and led to me watching the show "Sister Wives" until 1:30 in the morning (All Megan's fault). At any rate, go me!