Dressup, breadmaking, and a new haircut!

Jaymi has had a major dressup phase going on lately.

She has always been into dressing up, but lately her imagination has been in overdrive. LOL ;)

Her most interesting idea recently, was when she spent a few days pretending to be a bat.  She made her own bat wings out of construction paper at first, but they didn't work out quite the way she wanted them to.  When I told her that I had an idea of how to make a bat costume out of a black garbage bag, she was excited.

This was the result.

It was her idea to take an old black toque of Mark's (with his permission) pull it down over her face and cut holes in it for her eyes.

She kept going to the couch, or wherever, and would just hang out upside down for a while.

And of course, her favourite dressup costume is her Snow White costume.

She loves to pretend to be a princess, especially Snow White (and Cinderella).

She even had a storytime with her 'forest animal friends'. :)

And she loves to act out the part of Snow White, where she eats the poisonous apple and immediately drops dead.  (She likes to do apple bobbing first, and then when she bites into the poison apple...well...you can see what happens.)

She was awesome at making that bread recipe that I just posted.  She made a whole loaf of artisan-style bread all by herself.  The only thing I did was to put it in the oven and take it out.

And the big news of last week is....Jaymi got a haircut!

Not just a regular haircut.  A short one.

She has been asking us if she could have her hair short (above her chin) for months and months now.

We have made her wait for a long time.  Partly because we hoped she might change her mind, and partly because she does change her mind about things so much, and we wanted to teach her that she needs to be sure before doing something like that, as well as patience.

She hasn't wavered from the desire to have short hair, and although it was pure torture for her to wait that long, we finally decided on a date to get her hair cut.

And she absolutely LOVES it!

Here is the BEFORE and AFTER picture that I took:

 Although we weren't thrilled about the idea, it does look pretty cute, I think.

She loves the little pigtails that she can try out now.

And it looks great with her glasses on too.

Ultra-Easy Bread Recipe - NO KNEADING! :D

I came across the EASIEST bread recipe ever.  I love it, because there is no kneading!  

Jaymi did the entire first day by herself, and I did the second day (because she wasn't around to do it).  What you do, is keep the bucket of dough in your fridge and take whatever amount you want to bake, each day or so.  2 days ago I made fresh multi-grain bread with it, and yesterday I made a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread - yum!

I'm looking forward to playing around with this recipe...making pizza dough, pretzels, various breads...Jaymi wants me to make chocolate bread!

Here is the video where I learned how to make this wonderful bread.

Easy 5-Minute Artisan Bread:

5 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbsp kosher salt

1 1/2 tbsp granulated yeast

1/4 cup vital wheat gluten

Whisk all ingredients together, then add 4 cups (I added an extra cup, almost, because it seemed way to dry) lukewarm water.  It has to be lukewarm, otherwise it will take longer to rise.

Stir everything in a bucket (that has a lid).

Cover with a lid, leaving a small opening (or drill a hole in the lid) to let the gases escape.

Leave at room temperature for 2 hours.

Store in the fridge overnight.

The next day, take some of the dough (it will be wet and sticky), make a ball (DON'T KNEAD), stretch it into an oval (or whatever shape you want), and lay it on a piece of parchment paper.

Cover loosely with plastic wrap and rest on the counter for 90 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 450F, with a pizza stone on the middle rack, and a broiler pan on the bottom.

Brush the dough with water, sprinkle on seeds if you like.  Make 3 or 4 slashes, 1/2-inch deep diagonally across the dough.

Put the dough (still on the parchment paper) in the oven, on top of the pizza stone, on the middle rack.

Pour 1 cup of hot water in the broiler tray underneath, to make steam.  Close the oven door and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack (take the parchment paper off). and enjoy!

Christmas Fun

Our first week of Christmas holidays has been so much fun!

I have done things that I have been wanting to do for years.

Right before school began the holiday break, Jaymi's school did a Christmas performance.

She was an angel, and her class sang two songs.

She happened to have this perfect white dress, and all I had to get for her, was a pair of wings and a halo.

She chose the shoes that she wanted to wear with her angel outfit, and I just love the pair she chose - her sparkly silver runners.

:)

We made a few handmade presents for people this year.

I can't tell you about a few of them, because they are surprises that I don't want the recipients to find out about yet.

One of the things we tried out, that we might do as a gift for someone one day, was to make candles for the first time. 

We also made applesauce-cinnamon Christmas ornaments for the tree.

 

Of course, we decorated our tree.

We decided this year, to re-use last year's Christmas tree, which we had planted in a pot.

It saves us money, and is earth-friendly too!

We made angel paper chains,

and snowman paper chains.

We made a snowman family portrait :)

We also made gingerbread people as a gift for the teachers at Jaymi's tae-kwon-do sschool.

She insisted that they all look like each of the teachers, so we dressed them in the tae-kwon-do outfit, complete with each person's belt.

We made shortbread cookies and iced them.

That was so much fun!

We also made these yummy Puffy Rice Balls.

They are made out of marshmallows, butter, and puffed rice.

They're like Rice Krispie squares, except they aren't crispy - they're more chewy.

She also decided to try dress up like a Christmas tree the other day.

It was hilarious!

Mark decorated her and she stood there, as still as she could.

She refused to smile when I took these pictures, because she said that Christmas trees don't smile.

 

Jaymi always has fantastic, creative ideas, and this week she has been full of them.

We were in a craft store and she got the idea to make a stuffie Christmas tree.

So, she chose the fabric (felt), and when we went home, she got busy.

She designed and cut out a paper template, cut out the felt, and then she was ready to begin sewing.

I supervised this project, while she was on the sewing machine (very closely) but she did about 97% of this project by herself.

She sewed, controlled the machine pedal, controlled the foot, controlled the manual dial, cut the thread, decided where to sew, remembered to begin inside-out, flipped it the right way around, and stuffed it.

She did amazing - I'm so proud of her.