Fantastic First Father's Day

Earlier this month was Jon's first Fathers' Day!  We celebrated the day and great weather with Emberlie's first hike.

It was a 2 mile hike at Shingletown Gap, just outside of State College.  Although Emberlie slept through most of it, I'm pretty sure that she enjoyed it.

After the hike, we went to Deb and Richard's house for some swimming.  This was also Emberlie's first dip in a pool.  It was still a little cool, so I don't think she really enjoyed it and only lasted about two minutes, but we did it!

The last bit of fun was some delicious paella prepared by Deb and Richard, which included chicken, shrimp, calamari, clams and mussels.  And, of course, the most important step of allowing the paella to "get to know itself" after its done cooking.  There were also some killer mojitos made with chocolate mint.  What a great meal!

Rock N' Roll

This weekend we took our first road trip with Emberlie to Cleveland O-H-I-O.  Of course, it was about three and a half hours from State College because all major cities, magically, are about that far away (NYC, DC, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltmore, and now Cleveland).  Emberlie was so excited for the trip to the city of Rock N' Roll she decided to roll over the Friday before we left!

We attended my friends wedding during the day.  Emberlie made it through the whole ceremony with just a little crying in the beginning.

Then we went to Panini's for some gigantic corned beef, french fry and cole slaw sandwiches.  Our good friends, the Handley's, were conned into babysitting for us and my college roommate Cara and husband Matt also joined us.

We finished the day at the reception with a few adult beverages and CAKE POPS!  So smart and so delicious.

The next day we ventured to Lucky's Cafe, featured in Diner, Drive-in and Dives for breakfast.  Awesome menu with homegrown veggies used when possible.  There was definitely some sausage gravy served, as well as curried tofu, eggs and spinach, and homemade jam.  A great place to check out if you are ever in Cleveland.

And then the ZOO (...sorry Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)!  The Cleveland MetroPark Zoo was a wonderful spot to explore and well worth the twelve dollars.  The habitats seemed more realistic than most zoos and there was plenty of walking and greenery.  We had a great time!

 

A Dress to Impress

Do you have some scrap fabric you'd like to transform into an adorable dress?  There is a great tutorial on how to make a pillowcase dress from The Mother Huddle blog.  Start with five fabrics and end up with one cute dress.

The dress is made by sewing four strips of fabric together and one along the bottom, resulting in two panels.

 

I learned a new technique called "top stitching" or "edge stitching".  Top stitching is used to hold the raw edges of a seam in place on the back of your work by running some stitches on the front or "top" of your work.  It also makes it look sharp and finished.

The top corners are cut off and the panels are sewn together.  Elastic is used on the neckline to make it easy to wear.  And  I made bias tape to use as straps, so they would match the bottom of the dress.  I can tell that Emberlie is very excited!