This weekend, my mom, sister, brother-in-law, niece and I headed out to New Jersey to go apple and pumpkin picking. This is something we talk about every single fall, and very rarely actually do. However, this year was different. My still relatively brand new niece is now a factor, and my brother-in-law’s family lives out near the apple orchard/pumpkin patch. And so we planned a day of it with the in-laws. Waking up Saturday morning, it was pouring rain here […]

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Somehow, over the weekend at the baby shower (not for me – just thought I’d throw that in there as a disclaimer in case people thought I’d been keeping a huge secret), I managed to take pictures of all the food we had spent the week prepping and the games the guests played, but none of the people! Thus this post is more “Tips for Throwing a Baby Shower” rather than “Here’s What Happened at the Baby Shower.” Food The […]

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In part two we take a look at the dresses for Hodel and Chava for the wedding scene.  I decided that these dresses would be plain, with some small details that made them special.  After all, the family IS poor, but they would wear their best for the wedding.  So for Hodel and Chava, I made the same exact style, but in different colors.  This was also kind of to signify a “bridesmaid” kind of deal, even though that’s not […]

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This year, our annual musical is Fiddler on the Roof, and I’m in the full throes of designing and making the costumes. My approach here is a little more pioneer than it is 1905 Russian peasant, but so far I think it’s working. Tzeitel’s Wedding Dress I started off with the wedding dress for Tzeitel. I used Folkwear Pattern’s Edwardian wedding gown, and made a simple version of it. The main goal here was to make it look like the […]

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Here is where I sheepishly admit how behind I am at blogging “real life” events. My cousin and his girlfriend got engaged this past July, and the engagement party was Columbus Day Weekend. That’s right. In October. So any references to nicer weather and October are not a strange accident, but the work of a procrastinator (who is, currently, procrastinating as I need to vacuum the bedroom right now but am instead doing this… it’s amazing how much I can […]

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Bacon. Whiskey. Caramel. Marshmallows. Chocolate. Sound amazing? Now imagine them all put together into a gooey bark, an you have why I affectionately call “The Swanson” or “Swanson Bark.” (After the bacon and whiskey loving Ron Swanson, of course.) I discovered this recipe on Pinterest a few months back and was immediately intrigued. However there were a lot of steps to it that I wasn’t ready to get into but I decided the holidays was as good a time as […]

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On August 31, 2013, my sister got married. It was a wonderful day filled with love and joy, and since I’d like to make sure that I do it complete justice, I’m going to take the time to really write out this post as I remember the highlights of the day. We spent the entire week leading up to the wedding upstate at the bed and breakfast where it would be held. This was easy enough, since said bed and […]

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Today we headed out to do the fittings on the flower girls, and found that the dresses fit almost perfectly on one flower girl, but were a little bit big on the other two. I’m very glad I didn’t end up putting the zippers in beforehand, because they fit so much better at the end of the day today than they did when we started! I am happy to say, however, that we didn’t have to hem ANY of them! […]

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