A'Dell Stevens

I made curtains this weekend. Here is what the window in the breakfast area looked like before I asked Chris to hang them up (I didn’t bother straightening up or pushing in chairs as I do not live in a photo shoot, much as I might enjoy such a thing):

And here’s what it looked like after, all Instagram’d up and filtered:

It’s only one window’s worth (the other one still needs its set hemmed and hung up) but I am quite pleased! I bought this fabric about a year ago and I cut it right away and pinned the sides, but I didn’t hem it up and then I got distracted by trying to find the right curtain rods and then I got pregnant and that’s about when all projects came to a screeching halt.

For my birthday I told my mom that what I really wanted were the curtain rods I’d had my eye on all those months that I still thought were too expensive, but I still wanted after looking at All The Other Curtain Rods For Sale In America. (Really, I looked at ALL OF THEM.) My mother loves me and she got me TWO of the expensive curtain rods and I figured it was probably time to haul out my sewing machine (which my mother gave me as a 20th birthday present, fourteen entire years ago) and run some fabric through in straight lines. I got these done during Saturday morning’s nap while Chris did the taxes. Hopefully I can do the other set tonight and call this one done.

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I made these Tiny But Intense Chocolate Cakes on Friday night.

They’re a Smitten Kitchen recipe, found in her book, and they’re SO simple and SO delicious and just the perfect thing for me to whip up after kid bedtime while Chris talks to me in the kitchen and we share a bottle of wine. The best thing about them is there aren’t any weird ingredients and I ALWAYS have the five or six items required in my pantry. Really, they take about 15 minutes to throw together and they bake for another 20. I made mine in ramekins because I don’t have a 6″ cake pan like Deb recommends (and they turned out fine and fantastic) but I put a 6″ pan in my Amazon cart that night. I’ve made these about three times and the recipe is a keeper and part of my regular rotation.

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Claire is so completely Not A Toddler that it takes my breath away sometimes. Rationally I know she’s my oldest and she’s the most independent and she can talk and do things and understand things but then one Saturday I look in my camera and I see this and I remember abruptly that she’s just a short hop from Kindergarten where I expect the divide between her and the youngest two will become more stark and obvious for the long haul: “The One That Goes To School Every Day” and “The Ones That Do Not.”

(The growing up! It is happening before my very eyes!)

Charlotte has been entertaining us with her tomfoolery. (Tennis, anyone?)

And Preston? Well, he’s just hanging out, showing us his amazing spiky hair. He’s miles and miles away from growing up, THANK GOODNESS. (SMUSHY BABY, MMMMM!)