The Handmade Dress

We are making the most of summer here at the Caffee house! We are taking advantage of all of the good veggies coming in from our garden and our neighbor's garden (Thank you Mary and Eddie!). Breakfast and lunch pretty much look the same everyday with a slight variation in vegetables. We also have quite a popcorn addiction these days. Oh my do we have an addiction! I think I ate it in my sleep last night! Or at least dreamed up a new seasoning combination to try! Our favorite popcorn flavor at the moment is cooked in coconut oil, with dry dill, garlic flakes and salt. Yummmmy! What is your favorite popcorn topping? Please share!  We also made homemade lip balm today! We used a Burt's Bees copy cat recipe and it's really just like the original, I can't tell a difference.  We ended up with a good bit of lip balm (6 containers) for just pennies. I like that! It feels so good on! I want to try this lotion bar recipe next. While the babies took

I decided a few weeks ago to turn my china cabinet into a place to store our apothecary things. For years I've had this stuff spread throughout the house and never seemed to be able to find what I needed, and the problem was compounded when I started making my own medicines. Trouble was, my china cabinet had seen better days, so we decided to give the old girl a makeover. At some point it had been in a fire because it has always been smoke stained. I gave her a fresh coat of white paint, sanded and painted the rusty handles turquoise, and Ben steadied her with new braces and nails.  This sorta started a frenzy of projects that everyone got in on. My kids painted my plate holders and Molly put them back up. I got started on some new curtains for the French doors. Tim got out the sander and started distressing my door couch (I painted it but never distressed it). Maddie watched the babies.  Ahh! That felt nice! You see how good she turned

This lady now sits like a little monkey to eat, I call her Mowgli, this child is a HOT MESS! I take a lot of morning pictures, the kids and babies are all just so cuddly then that it makes me want those memories forever, I bet I have thousands of them.....and I still want thousands more.  Summer breakfast just went into effect. I am a creature of habit, it's coffee, two eggs and turkey bacon all winter. In the summer I make what I call backyard breakfast I cram all of the veggies I can into my two eggs (they are hardly ever the same veggies, though tomatoes are always there).  I'm happy for the change, I've been waiting on these veggies!  While I worked one afternoon around nap time Penny just helped herself to the floor. Poor baby! You see how hard she has to work?! One morning with all five piled in....love.  I documented a "family Heirloom" before it gets passed along to cousins. My Aunt Rita made this for my sist

I have had a few emails and questions after my apothecary bag post, so I thought that I would share more about our recent experiences. Lately it seems more and more normal for people to take charge of their own health and find gentle natural healing for everyday bothers instead of always running to the drugstore. This makes me so happy!!! Most of you know that once upon a time I was a pediatric nurse at Children's Hospital, my career as a nurse taught me, above all, that there is a delicate balance between natural healing and modern medicine. My husband also works in the medical field as a firefighter/paramedic and believe me, if you are in an emergency situation you want the wisdom of men like him administering life giving fluids and medicines until you can make it to the hospital. However, I also believe that to be able to treat and heal my family using natural methods (that cause no side effects) is something that I need to learn more about and put into practice. Tha

 I've had sick kids for the last few days, it's just a spring cold but it's enough (with five kids) to take up a good bit of my time. We've been doing a lot of listening to books, playing card games, rocking, watching Netflix, taking baths......you know, the usual.  Well by last night I was desperate to sit in front of my machine with a good book playing, and I knew just the project that would be fast and be  put to good use immediately! An apothecary bag! That's my name for it anyhow, Molly and I have a thing for naming things pretty names from books lately (I'll tell you more about that later). The word apothecary just sounds so much nicer than medicine doesn't it? I thought about the word remedy too but it just lacks the romance that the word apothecary has...anyhow. (Maybe I got hooked on the word from reading "The Apothecary's Daughter" a while back?) after the babies were asleep last night and my big kids were all laying around I sn