Can you tell I haven’t been on top of my drawing lately? I know I’ve mentioned it repeatedly on how I start late in the evening. I hate that because then I’m rushed and I’m not really happy with the result. But I keep on plugging away. It’s almost been two months and I don’t want to break my drawing streak with the excuse that it’s too late in the evening.

But of course then that’s how you get quick one pane scribbles like this that don’t really make sense.

I was trying to show Isabelle making a mess and getting flour everywhere while “helping” me bake cookies. Ok it was a total cop out last minute drawing.

Pictures work so much better here.

She really did get the flour everywhere. But she had so much fun. She didn’t want to stop even when the cookies were done. So I had to gave her a little bowl of flour to mix some more.

I do love making cookies with Isabelle.

And the best part? When we’re done playing we actually have cookies to eat!

Isabelle quite adores Maggie. Have I ever mentioned that? She used to adore George and I’m sure she still likes him but she’s over the moon about Maggie. She always asks for her, “Meg-gie! Meg-gie!!”. Then she’ll sit there watching and repeats what they’re saying. I can’t blame her. Maggie is adorable and I do love the ferocious beast with his big red removable spots.

So I thought I’d make her a Maggie doll. I didn’t want it to look just like Maggie, I just wanted her coloring. The doll was quick to make. I used some flesh colored cotton fabric I had laying around and some wool felt for her hair. I haven’t decided if that’s the way I want to go or instead use yarn for the hair so I didn’t sew it down. Clothes are trickier for me to sew so I tested with muslin and this is what I came up with.

It doesn’t look like Maggie at all! But actually, I quite like it the way it is, faceless and everything.

Well Isabelle took a look at her and didn’t say Maggie but she did deem her worthy to dance with.

I’ll just need to sew down her hair and give her a yellow top and a blue skirt and some shoes and socks and see if she’s Maggie enough for Isabelle. If not…back to the drawing board and something more Maggie looking.

The other day I made some bread pudding. Alan doesn’t like bread pudding but Isabelle does. I mean she REALLY likes it. Maybe that’s why she prefers to have it fed to her, instead of doing it herself. That way she doesn’t lose a single bit.

Update- I combined two recipes (one from Cook’s Illustrated and one from Cook’s Country) to make these individual bread puddings. I’m not exactly sure what I did but here’s what I think it was:

Can you believe it? Two months worth of daily drawings! Yay yay yay! This may be the end of the streak. I may be taking a blogging drawing break for a week. Maybe I’ll do reruns, my favorite past illustrations for a week. I haven’t decided yet.

Oh and the bread pudding recipe has been added to my last post.

Did you miss us? I haven’t posted in over a week. And I haven’t drawn much either. It felt very weird not to have a daily drawing. I feel out of practice. And when I sat down to draw this, it felt strange. It was nice to take a break but now the drawing habit is broken and I don’t know how to get it going again. I don’t know if I will. But anyhoo…what we’ve been up to…

Alan was on vacation last week for his birthday. What did we do? We made plans and didn’t follow through! We’re good at that. We wanted to go to the zoo, to a farm, and do other kiddie activities. But we didn’t make it to the zoo or to a farm. We did manage to go to Australia night at the library.

Australia night at the library. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? It was stories from down under. Ok. Not really that exciting. My active imagination just blew it up to all kinds of crazy proportions when in reality it was just a woman reading books. No boomerangs or didgeridoos or bushmen with Australian accents. Just stories and make your own toilet roll koala.

Isabelle was NOT interested. We couldn’t get her to sit and listen. Even if they had didgeridoos and boomerangs or bushmen, she wouldn’t have cared. She was much more fascinated with the scissors on the tables. Who wants to listen to stories or even color more than a little scribble when they can cut with scissors?? Real scissors that mama doesn’t usually let her touch. So who mostly made this koala bear (or penda beer as Isabelle calls it)? Me. Isn’t it bea-u-ti-ful?

What else did we manage to do? Go to the park. We like the park. Where besides the beach do we get to throw sand everywhere and water…well sand?

And oooh what else? Dinosaur cake. Made by me. Or dinosaur cupcakes…whatever they’re called.

I’ve made two dinosaur cakes since I’ve last posted. Where are the pictures of the cake? Didn’t you just read me write, I suck at decorating cake? The pictures are tooooo sad. You do not want to see them.

I made the first cake in a rush with a recipe I’d never tried before. My brain wasn’t working and I couldn’t figure out how to put the dinosaur together correctly. And for some reason I didn’t think logically and turn the mold over to compare. I kept flipping the cake pieces over back and forth trying to work it out. DUH! I failed miserably. All that trouble and they didn’t taste that great. Well of course Isabelle didn’t care that it was ugly and that the cake wasn’t great. She was just happy that it was cake with FROSTING and that there were candles.

But I had to have something yummy so tried making it again but with a recipe I knew. But wouldn’t you know it? I forgot to spray the mold and the cupcakes stuck. I mangled them all popping them out. At least I managed to put it together correctly. But they didn’t taste as good as the last time I used the recipe. I wonder if the dinosaur mold is the reason.

And the other big thing we did? We bought a new car. We are now a two car family again after five months with only one car. And where’s the picture of that? I can’t get it together to take a picture. I keep remembering after Alan’s driven it off. I mean it’s taken me three days to write this post and it’s already too long, so another day.