The Handmade Dress

This winter there has been a breakthrough in the Caffee house! Ben has finally learned to love soup!! Before he just tolerated soup as an occasional fill-in, but now he loves it and is asking for more. I'm ecstatic because I could eat soup for every meal and be happy! Our new favorite soup is this black bean soup HERE  (we use dry beans instead of canned). Ben even made it at the fire station (he added hamburger meat) and they loved it, they called it "meat candy soup". :) Tonight I'm trying a minestrone recipe, I'll let you know how that goes. I hope it's a hit too! So what is your family's favorite soup recipe? I need more recipes! Edited to add: I just remembered another really great soup that Ben has always liked. It's this broccoli cheddar soup and the only thing I do different is that I add a couple of grated carrots and I steam my broccoli beforehand. :)

Yesterday Molly played guitar and sang for the first time in church. Oh my, I was one proud mama!!! She did an amazing job! I'm so glad that she can do things like this! Molly is obviously not afflicted with her mama's fear of being in front of people. I was so nervous for her that I was sick, but she seemed as cool as anything. It's funny how these kids seem to teach us way more than we could ever teach them isn't it? It challenges me to think twice before turning things down because of fear (I've done that a lot , you would probably be shocked if you knew how terrible I am at this). This sweet girl of mine is such a blessing! I couldn't wait to share the video with you guys, I hope it ca bless you today too! xo, Sam PS. Molly is wearing the new Miss Penelope dress/top. The pattern should be in the shop iMarch. :)

Surprisingly, today found me (thanks to some amazing grandparents) with just one child. It's just me and the littlest of my five today, so I built myself a little nest around our gas heater (it's not quite cold enough for a fire or this scene would have been slightly different), gathered a few necessities, and started the writing part of my next pattern. It's the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon! I have a cooing babe at my side, my favorite kind of work to do, a hot cup of coffee, a Lucy Maude Montgomery book that I've heard 4000 times playing aloud, and a warm spot in a comfy chair...yes, it's  a perfect pattern writing kinda day. I hope your Monday is going well too! :) xo, Sam

Almost well that is, we have been hit by a couple of different bugs over the last month. The first was a stomach bug that started with BEN! (If you wonder why his name was in all caps there followed by an exclamation point then I must explain that he rarely gets sick, like hardly ever, and we have to constantly hear bragging about his "amazing, super manly, paramedic/firefighter, superior immune system" that he has developed after years of working with very sick people. Whatev!) It wasn't so bad, just a 24 hour bug that took a week or so to filter through all of us (except Penny thank goodness). So that was over and the sniffles hit sometime later, in the middle of all this my Maddie had a few very strange things happening. It started out not that big of a deal and ended after trying 3 different antibiotics, 2 doctors visits, 3 weeks, 1 mommy breakdown involving many tears, and a mystery full body rash with swollen sore lymph nodes and all, and many sleepless nights. I...