Snickerdoodles love

I really love that word, honestly for a non american the first time someone told me that I thought they were joking, then when I understood they were cookies I was expecting something peanut buttery.... Now they are our new favorite cookies.
Anyways my friend gave us a bag of home snickerdoodle they were so delicious that between the four of us the bag lasted hmmmm 2hours. Yum!

So inspired I went on the net to look for a recipe. Those are the family favorites and super easy to whip together. I think the kids will find that in their lunchbox soon. Speaking of which I need to do some serious thinking around lunches....
Here is the recipe I found not remembering from where and I can't seem to find the recipe at this time but here it goes.

1 1/2 cup of sugar
1 cup of butter at room temp
2 3/4 cups of flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cinnamon Sugar

2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/3 cup of sugar

Mix the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well in between. Add the vanilla and incorporate/mix well. In a separate bowl mix in the flour, baking powder and salt mix well. Then add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix well.

Preheat your oven at 400F
If the dough is too soft you can stick in the fridge covered for 2 hours. I don't have any patience so I just roll my dough right then into 1inch ball, roll them in cinnamon sugar then put them on a baking sheet with parchment paper spaced about 2 inches apart.
Flatten with the bottom of a glass to 1/2 inch thickness.

Cook for 7-10 min (mine are done in 7) until the edges of the cookies are golden and the center is still soft.

Enjoy!

Noel

We always try to keep Christmas magical whether it is just us with the kids the current norm, us visiting family in France the old norm that we are missing, or us with family visiting the exception but maybe the upcoming norm.
This year we hosted Christmas for the first time since I moved to the states. My in laws came to spend Christmas with us and the kids. It was great. Look we even decorated the fireplace with snow flakes and cinnamon ornaments. Thanks to my very patient mother in law who spent hours cutting the snowflakes with MEC. It was quite an operation.

We are hoping that the dark gray rug will survive our grubby feet

Our tradition is to have a fancy dinner on Christmas eve and Christmas day is spent playing with toys and lounging in our PJs.... Which means that usually on the 24th I'm running around like a mad woman, finishing the kids fancy clothes, going to the store to buy food and cleaning up. Of course B is there to help as well. This year finishing MEC's dress took longer than expected maybe because we had company. I didn't have time to really finish it note to self still need to serge the lining of the dress and finish the arms oops. MAC didn't want to wear his jacket so I didn't even bother finishing it.

Dinner was delicious! To munch on something while drinking champagne, I prepared gougeres, and had a cheese plate. For dinner, I made standing rib roast recipe courtesy of Williams Sonoma with mashed potatoes and a big salad followed by the deep dish apple streusel from the same source. The dinner was super delicious. 

I was trying not to panick when my husband and his dad left for the Apple store at 4:30pm to buy new iphones. Luckily they were back at 6pm and the standing rib roast while too cook for my taste was still moist and oh so delicious. 

The tradition after the kids are in bed is packing their gifts frantically while sipping some more wine in front of a movie. We chose to watch Fly Fishing in the Yemen since we could not find the subtitles for Les Intouchables. Both movies are amazing in different ways. 

All of this for two lucky lucky kids

Crud the house keeper is coming tomorrow, we have to clean

After brunching on homemade waffle with apple compote, drinking a ton of coffee we needed to get some air. Even though the weather was more Christmasey than usual we had to go spend some time at the beach. The kids shrieked in delight alternating scaring off the seagulls and dancing Gangman style. If you have a second-third grader I'm sure you are experiencing this new contagious disease. If you find a cure please let me know!

I hope you all had a wonderful day!

Happy Holidays

Lots of sewing lately or rather sewing projects. After deciding that it was OK for me to buy patterns I found those groups from Blank Slate Patterns and tackled the blazer for MAC's christmas. I apologize no pictures, I'm really bad at taking pictures while sewing.... I always remember once the garment is done and well it is a little too late.
Anyways I was able to use some fabric I bought 2.5 years ago. It is a pinstripe navy cotton, it is gorgeous. I doubled it with some natural linen. He exclaimed with a huge smile "this is kind of cozy! Mama this week end we need to make sign that says Bopple (my label) children's clothes for sale!". It melt my heart!

On the project list:

• MEC's christmas dress, inspired by JCrew
• Flannel pyjamas
• some dresses, some pants all kinds of stuff!

I have been listening to Train California 37's album and some of the songs have awesome lyrics. Such as Mermaid, California 37, Drive by, 50 ways to say Goodbye are my favorites.... Go listen up and hopefully it will make you smile!

Other music loves of the moment, Lana Del Rey. I am rediscovering Yann Tiersen widely known for the soundtrack of "Amelie".

I finally read and devoured 50 shades series. I liked it a lot. It is really light reading and if you can get past the erotism of the book it is an interesting book with interesting characters.

If I don't write a post between now and then Happy Holidays!

Patterns, tweaking and working on the fabric stash

A little while ago I swallowed my pride and put my ego in my pocket and bought a couple of patterns for the kids. After a fail attempt at making the knotted shorts for my little girls, and botching another couple project I decided that well I didn't have the time to learn how to make kids patterns properly. I just have a limited amount of time to sew.
So after browsing etsy for a while I purchased three patterns from lily bird studio.

After a long break from sewing I decided to make the Summer Blouse with some Anna Maria Horner voile I bought a while back. MEC likes indigo blue.

The pattern was easy to print and follow. I will definitely purchase other patterns from her and I have to say it was quick to make and thus very rewarding.


Since I am not the best at sticking with direction or what someone tells me to do, I decided to tweak the pattern a bit and make a night gown using the same pattern. The inspiration was a night gown I saw at a pottery barn kids.

I had some Princess Tianna Flannel and could either make a pj or a night gown. MEC asked for a night gown. 

This is what I had to do:

• I had to make a shirt placket (didn't know the name at the time) instead of the button down front
• I had to lengthen the sleeves
• I had to make a round collar instead of the ruffles.
• I had to lengthen the bottom part of the shirt to be a night dress

Not overly complicated but not a straight sew either.

Sew a Straight Line sewing series provided the explanation I needed to figure out the shirt placket and the collar. I made up the pattern for those two pieces so they weren't perfect. I also didn't remove the 1inch of the front piece used to make the button holes and button side in the original shirt pattern.
I was going to attempt my first tutorial but I'm sorry to say I didn't take enough pictures and I don't have the time to put the post together. Maybe one day soon.

It came out a bit crooked at the collar but not bad for a first tweak. She loves it because it flannel and thus really comfy.

The next project was a knit shirt with a contrasting collar and shirt placket. It had the original puffy sleeves although I'll make a pleat next time. For this shirt, I made the necessary adjustment to the front piece after my oversight on the night gown. I also adjusted the collar and the placket pieces.

She loved it so much that I didn't get a chance to add the buttons.

What I like about sewing with a pattern is that I can really easily whip multiple size of the same project.
Yes I won't lie even though I'm pretty stoked with the result it wasn't one of my creation. I'm weird that way ah well.
That didn't stop me from purchasing a bunch of basic patterns from Blank Slate Patterns so stay tuned for some more sewing......

In the works: The blazer from Blank Slate Patterns, coming up a bunch of flannel pjs and then more..... I'm happy I'm going through my stash of fabric which means only one thing I get to buy more fabric !!!!!
The best of all is that MEC is totally excited and she is actually asking for stuff now. I think I got her at the if I make you clothe I spend less on clothe and I can buy some more shoes ;)