Sewing Project for Toddler: Fabric Alphabet

I saw this project on All About Learning Press, although I modified it a bit. I used their letter templates, but since I didn't know where to find quilt batting, I just backed the fabric with felt, and I'm pretty happy with the result.

So, first I printed the letters and cut them out. Honestly, this took a few days.

Then, I tried to find fabric scraps that matched the letter sounds. Honestly, this took a few weeks, and I only matched about half the letters to appropriate fabric, but that wasn't a big deal to me.

Next, I traced the letters onto the fabric and pinned them to a 5 inch square of felt. This whole process took a couple of weeks.

Finally, I sewed along the lines of the traced letters, then cut around the shape with my pinking shears, which I'm still extremely excited about.

To be honest, I'm not finished with this final step yet. When I'm all done I'll clean up the pencil marks, either with an eraser or gentle hand wash.

Why is this project taking forever? Because I'm doing it in 15-30 minute increments after work or on weekends, preferably while Moonpie is otherwise engaged, which is, well, never. I'm not in a rush, though, because she IS still only 14 months old.

I think I might try to finish today, though, because yesterday she brought me her animal alphabet book, which I read about 15 times a day and have memorized, turned to the back page where they list the whole alphabet, pointed at "A", and said "A B D E!" She's a genius, I tell you. A genius.

Picnic

The Muslim Sacrifice Holiday was at the beginning of this month, so we got a 5 day weekend and tons of family togetherness. I'm pretty impressed by how much we maximized our time. The big highlight for me was our picnic on Monday. There is a picnic grounds out by the zoo, and we had never been there, so we decided to check it out, keeping in mind that it could be a great place or fairly creepy place, but there was no way of finding out without going ourselves.

It turned out to be full of families and pretty fun, although I'm thankful we didn't have to use the "facilities" there. That may have been not so fun.

Moonpie had a great time discovering her independence with her new walking skills and exploring nature, which were mostly eucalyptus leaves and sticks on the ground.

She even made a little friend names "Asia" who came over to steal some of her toys, but ended up staying to play. They were talking back and forth in some really expressive baby language and seemed to understand each other perfectly. So, so cute. I even did a really Turkish thing and gave someone else's child a cookie. The parents didn't seem to mind since they were happily swinging in their hammock and paying us no mind at all.

After lunch we took a walk and found a grove of these trees. They are "oleaster" or silverberry, or wild olive trees, but are being cultivated as agricultural research next to this picnic grounds. They look like olives and taste kind of similar to dates, but not as good. They are common in the Mediterranean region, and through my research I learned that they are probably the trees mentioned in the Bible when Paul talks about wild olive trees in Romans 11. I still have lots to learn about Turkey!

                                     

And that was our picnic!

Kazakh Cultural Center and a taste of Kimiz (Fermented Mare's Milk)

Some friends of ours, a German-Turkish couple, had asked us a while ago if we wanted to get together, as we do from time to time, but the past few weekends were too busy for either or both of us. Finally, last weekend we were both free, and they said they had heard of a place to check out - a Kimiz Farm. I had heard of kimiz before. It's apparently a very traditional Turkish drink that is still a big part of Kazakh culture. (All pictures taken with our new Samsung NX1000. I just want to point out that Moonpie is not blurry. You may continue.)

Some flags of places where Turks live

For people who aren't aware (as I wasn't until I got interested in all things Turkish), there is a large group of Turkic peoples in the world who live in areas stretching from China to Turkey, and most places in between, including Russia, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and some others that don't come to mind at the moment. Oh, Azerbaijan. They all speak fairly similar languages, share similar cultures, and quite of bit of ancestry. They were historically tribal nomadic people who migrated probably from somewhere around Mongolia out into a huge part of the world I just mentioned. Anyway, this is by no means a completely accurate or complete overview, I just wanted people to know why Turks would be interested in Kazakh culture.

Hello there!

Anyway, the "farm" (it's more like a cultural center) is about 1 hour from our house just outside of Kemalpasa. As soon as we got there we had to stop and show the kids the horses. They have horseback riding, but both of the little tykes were too little, and none of the adults wanted to risk crushing a pony, so we skipped that. Then we learned that they had a cultural talk in the replica traditional "otagi" basically like the traditional Mongolian ger.

Moonpie and friend

We went inside and were greeted by a Kazakh woman who immediately asked what part of Germany I was from. Um, actually, I'm not, oh nevermind. She kept stopping the talk to ask if I had understood her, which was pointless because I wasn't listening to most of it as I was trying to keep Moonpie and our friends' two-year-old from poking each other's eyes out or slamming each other's fingers in the conveniently low to the ground right at baby level windows in the "tent" (it was made out of concrete in the shape of a tent). Anyway, I did glean some information, like traditionally Turks didn't eat vegetables because they were nomads, so they got all of their nutrients from horse meat, sheep meat, yogurt and kimiz. Wow, I thought, kimiz must be awesome. My interest was building by the minute. I also learned that they burned dried dung for their fires (I did not know the Turkish word for dung until this day) and it was very important for each nuclear family to have their own tent. No sharing. I think that was a great idea on their part. Anyway, it was all pretty neat, and although I didn't understand the whole talk, I enjoyed looking at the items and decoration in the room.

Really nice motifs

On to lunch and the famous kimiz. They brought out the kimiz before the meal, and only my German friend had tasted it before. She didn't seem very enthusiastic, but I thought, wow, this must be great. If you drink this you don't have to eat vegetables.

You drink it out of little bowls instead of cups, so I poured some into my bowl. Mr. Stitches advised me to go easy. I took a sip. YOW! WOW! That stuff has pop. I could not keep a straight face for any of my sips of kimiz. That flavor really pops around your mouth, and not in a good way. My German friend's husband thought that maybe they were ripping us off and just selling us sour yogurt souped up with vinegar.

Awesome Kazakh (and Uzbek) food!

Kimiz was not a hit, but I did finish my bottle because we had paid the equivalent of 3 dollars for it. My theory was that it would go down easier with food, and I was right. The food, by contrast, was amazing. I enjoyed every single thing, and I would go back just for the food.

Moonpie found a pine cone

Here's their website which includes an informative video. Although it's in Turkish, you can see the gist of the place.

For those in Turkey and wanting to visit, it's called Kimiz Ciftligi and it's on the road between Kemalpasa and Torbali, closer to Kemalpasa. Their phone number is 0232 878 14 43.

Moonpie’s First Birthday - Ladybugs!

We celebrated Moonpie’s first birthday one month early so my parents could be included. I wrote about her birth story here if you missed it.

I actually used my cupcake stand!

I didn’t know if I wanted a theme, but I found an actual party store in the old town shopping district of Izmir called Kemeraltı. I am convinced that you can find absolutely anything there if you just wander around long enough. They had a selection of 10 or so party themes for kids, so I chose the lady bugs. Then I bought almost every red or ladybug party decoration in the store – plates, cups, napkins, balloons, paper flowers, banners, and even a “1” cookie cutter and red fondant, which I have never used before in my life. That saleswoman was gooooooood, I’m telling you. Good. And it all cost about 20 bucks, so I felt it was worth it compared to the time I would spend trying to make my own decorations.

So my idea was to make carrot cake cupcakes, because carrots are a vegetable and I wouldn’t feel as bad giving that to Moonpie, and cupcakes are easier to make cute than a whole cake. I used the recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook, my mom brought a cute Ladybug Cupcake Decorating Kit from America, and we were set.

Flour-dusted fondant

The fondant turned out way better than I expected. I used this recipe from Miss Marzipan for the sugar cookies. They were really, really, really good. The only flaw was that I got flour on the top of the fondant. I wasn’t sure how to roll it out otherwise, and the flour got all in the fondant, so I brushed them with water, then they were all moist. But, nobody cared about that. I had seen a ladybug stamp in a Playdough set that would have been a cute addition, but I couldn’t justify spending 9 dollars on the whole set just for the one stamp, so I passed that up in honor of my goal of decluttering.

My mom also brought a cute ladybug dress, but Moonpie doesn’t like dresses at the moment as they cramp her crawling style, so after some pictures I changed her into a red shirt and white shorts.

Happy Birthday Moonpie!

My in-laws, including SIL’s fiancé came over, so we were a party of 8 adults and the birthday girl. Just the perfect size. She got tons of cute gifts that people sent from America (thank you!), just the perfect mix of clothes and books and toys.

Moonpie liked her cupcake, but was extremely cool about it, as she is about most things. She was like, “Yeah, it’s alright. I guess I like sugar.” She ate about half.

Still playing with her new loot in her pjs.

For dinner we ordered in "pide", which is like pizza, I guess. I know I could have hand made the decorations and cooked a fabulous meal for everyone, but I was just plain tired, and I didn’t want to waste hours that could be spent with my parents stressing out in the kitchen. (If you can't tell I feel bad about not totally homemakering it up for Moonpie's birthday, because usually I would be all over that. Just the timing, I guess. And I have to keep telling myself that Moonpie really doesn't care at all, so why do I?)

The best part was that Moonpie enjoyed the party. I had read that first birthday parties can go downhill fast when the kids start melting down, but Moonpie actually didn’t have any meltdowns! That’s my girl! She seemed to really enjoy all of the attention and new toys, and was playing happily even though she stayed up past her bedtime (you may gasp here)!

How do you (or did you) celebrate your kids’ birthdays? Do you go for homemade or store bought? Large or small (or none)?

Baby Moonpie's Father's Day Gift

Look at this foot. Isn't it just the cutest? 

I asked Moonpie what she wanted to get her daddy for Father's Day, but since she didn't have enough money saved up for a sports car, we decided to go with a homemade craft. For Mr. Stitches's Father's Day gift I decided to capture Moonpie's foot and hand prints. 

(I tried to take pictures of each step, but taking pictures while trying to prevent paint from covering our entire house proved easier in theory than practice. At least it's washable!)

Here is Moonpie showing (trying to eat) the paints. 

Step one: smear finger paint all over baby's hand and ask yourself "Why did I think this was a good idea?"

This was the best picture of her feet I could get. 

Finished product!

I added "Happy Father's Day" and her name and the date and put it in a frame.

Scarves a plenty

I don't know why it never occurred to me before to let Moonpie play with my scarves. She loves watching me fold laundry. She also loves, loves, loves sitting on our bed while I make it. The child loves textiles.

I showed her my scarves today and she was thrilled to just lie in the pile and squirm around.

Then she sat up and we had a  very colorful game of peekaboo.

I think the green one was her favorite. I think that's my favorite, too. Fun!