One of the best things about being a parent is getting to share the same experiences you had as a child with your own children, and one of the best things about marrying your high school sweetheart is that he’s from the same town and has many of the same family traditions. Like going to Weber’s Farm in the fall. Pretty much everyone in Baltimore County, MD goes to Weber’s Cider Mill Farm in the fall. (and I think they were all there with us on Saturday because it was crowded!)

Sure we could have gone to a pumpkin patch much closer to our house, but that’s not the same. My sister and a friend of hers met us there and we got to share all of our childhood memories with Nick and Abby.

As a grown up I love the little general store with all of its canned goods. They also sell apple cider slushies and cider donuts at an adorable little cafe.

and pumpkins and gourds (farmed on land owned by the family of one of my very dear friends from high school and college)

Charlotte (my sister) and I always loved the pumpkin story book walk, although we both remembered it as being much more elaborate when we were young.

Pumpkins are dressed up like characters from nursery rhymes, like Humpty Dumpty and Little Boy Blue.

There are tractors big and small to occupy little boys

And giant slides built into the hillside

and toddler-sized hay maze

a petting zoo with goats and geese

a mining area to pan for gold

and plenty of opportunities for family photos

Admission to the activities is $7 for kids ages 2 & up and $5 for adults, memories like the above photo: totally priceless.

I’m linking up to Fun on a Dime

It’s been a rainy, yucky day here in PA. Nicholas was supposed to have a preschool field trip to an apple orchard, but it was canceled. Don’t tell him, but I was actually thrilled to hear that they were going to have school instead because that meant instead of hanging out in the mud and pouring rain with a huge group of toddlers I got to spend a few quiet hours with just one child. I have a bit of a stomach virus & haven’t been feeling well for a few days- NOT fun when you have two toddlers and your husband is gone for the entire week.

Besides, we’ve already been apple picking this year. If you haven’t been I would strongly encourage you to find a U Pick orchard. It’s a great, inexpensive family-friendly fall activity. You only pay for what you pick. We went to the Paulus Orchard here in central PA, but we’ve since learned there are at least 2 other orchards closer to our house that weren’t listed online when I was trying to research where to go. (and we only had to drive half an hour to get to that one!)

The orchard was beautiful and they also had a maze & go karts (there was an extra charge for those) and a free playground for the kids. There was a little general store and I learned that they offer canning classes, which I desperately need and plan to take next fall once I have a husband at home again in the evenings when the classes are offered. They also had AMAZING apple cider.

We picked half a bushel for $12. I made a huge pot of apple sauce, two apple crisps, apple pancakes, and we ate quite a few apple slices. Eddie bought me a canning supply kit for my birthday, but when he ordered it he didn’t realize it didn’t come with a pot. Unfortunately, by the time I found a water bath caner the rest of the apples had gone bad. Now I’m prepared for next year!

Yep, I’m definitely glad that our apple-picking experience was just the four of us on a beautiful day and not me with a stomach virus chaperoning 20+ preschoolers in the cold & rain.

However, I miss this man!!

Oh, and I found a great recipe for apple sauce on AllRecipes.com:

• 4 apples – peeled, cored and chopped
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a saucepan, combine apples, water, sugar, and cinnamon. Cover, and cook over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes, or until apples are soft. Allow to cool, then mash with a fork or potato masher.

I doubled this recipe and got 2 large serving bowls of applesauce, probably close to 3 quarts worth. I would have made more and canned it, but, you know. There’s always next year.

Today I wanted to add buttons to the reversible coat I made for Nicholas. Small problem: I have no idea how to create a button hole. Usually I go to YouTube or Google for this kind of problem, but all of the tutorials I found were for much fancier machines than mine or involved attachments that I don’t have. I was really nervous about messing this up because it was going to have to look good on both sides since the coat is reversible. Ugh. My brain hurt.

To save you the brain cramp I had from trying to figure this out myself (of course maybe you are smarter than I am and you already know a better way to do this, if so this post is not for you.) here’s the method I wound up using.

To create a button hole on a basic sewing machine:

1. Rest your button over the area where you would like to create the hole. With a pen mark the top & the bottom of the button to get an accurate size for the hole.

2. Draw a straight line between the points you just made.

3. See those those two knobs and a switch marked LMR? (L=Left M=Middle R=Right)
a) Set the switch to “M”
b) Turn the middle knob up to 4 or 5 (large stitch size)
c) Turn the right knob down to F or where ever your zig-zag setting is.

4. Place the needle on the fabric where you marked the top of the hole and stitch back and fourth a few times staying in the same spot.

5. Now set the switch on the right to “R” and the middle switch to a lower number like 1 or 2. Leave the left knob alone. Slowly stitch a straight line down the right side of the line you drew.

6. Once you get to the bottom of your line repeat step 3.

7. Set the switch on the right to “L” and the middle switch back to 1 0r 2. Here comes the tricky part. Hold down the reverse lever at the same time that you sew a straight line backwards on the left side of the line you drew up until you meet the first stitch you made.

8. Take a seam ripper and rip the fabric in the middle of the rectangle you’ve just made being careful not to break and of your stitches.

I strongly suggest practicing on a piece of scrap fabric first. Once I did a practice run it was much easier and all of the holes on the coat came out just fine. Yay! 🙂

I cannot tell you how excited I am that I got this one right on the first try!

Like I told you, I’m not the most accurate seamstress in the whole world. That’s mostly because I hate bringing math or ironing into anything I am trying to do for enjoyment. So I don’t measure. And I DON’T press seams. (I tell myself that women were figuring out how to make clothes for their families long before there were standard measurement systems and electric irons, but really it’s just because I’m lazy like that.)

But I bought a bunch fleece fabric last week because it was 50% and I decided that I was going to make some coats for the kids. Oh, and I also wanted them to be reversible. I’m really into argyle these days, but an entire coat made from argyle could sometimes be a bit much.

So what if I’m not going to measure anything and I don’t have a pattern for what I want and I’ve never made anything reversible or with sleeves? How hard can it be?

Surprisingly, not very.

I spent a little bit of time looking at a jacket Nicholas already had that fit him well.

And I realized that the main structure was made out of parts that are shaped like these (I just folded the original jacket and traced around each part to get the size I wanted)

The piece at the top will be the back, the two pieces under it on the left will become the front, and the rounded pieces on the right will be the sleeves.

To get the reversible effect I wanted, I cut two of each piece, put them right sides together, sewed them together on three sides, then turned each piece right-side-out and did a zig zag stitch along the bottom.

Here’s a close up of the zig-zagged edge. You could use bias tape here if you wanted it to look a little more finished.

Then I attached the pieces to each other by butting them up and zig-zagging them together. You can see these seams, but I actually like the way it looks all put together.

Attach the front pieces to the back first by sewing from the arm hole down. Then attach the shoulders.

The sleeves were tricky. (so tricky that I decided to keep this a “vest” for a few days because I just knew I was probably going to mess them up.) I did the shoulder seam first, then I zig-zaged the rest closed. I made sure to keep the seam from the armpit down because that’s where it was on the “real” jacket.

I think it came out pretty awesome considering I was just making stuff up as I went along. (Granted, I probably should have taken some extra time to try to match up the pattern in the argyle at the seams.) I don’t know how an actual seamstress would do it, but I like my version just fine.

I cant decide if I’m going to add buttons or just Velcro for the closure. I might also add a collar or a hood if I’m feeling ambitious later.

It’s a little big, but I wanted it that way so that it will fit over bulky sweatshirts and last him until next year. (Sorry, he couldn’t be bothered to stop watching his robot movie while I took the pictures)

I bought a similar argyle in white, pink & purple & a matching purple fleece to make one for Abby too.

Now I’m a little sad that it’s been 90 degrees here lately. I hope it cools down within the next couple weeks, because I want him to wear this on his apple picking preschool field trip!

Update: Buttons really up the cuteness factor!