Now I know my ABC's

We had such a wonderful Christmas in Seattle with family. We saw lots of decorated houses, and went to see the lights at the botanical gardens, which was amazing! Baby T had such a great time looking at them. Christmas morning was so much fun, T says "awww" to just about everything now, so that was her reaction to most of her gifts when she wasn't trying to hug my aunt's white lab Lucky.

This is a present I completed in December for T. It was fun to make, I had seen a few tutorials online for magnetic abc's but I wanted something bigger. Something we could play with on the floor, spell words, and learn the letters. I made the template for the letters myself, I probably could have gone an easier route and printed out big letters but I had run out of printer ink and decided just to draw them out. After cutting out the paper, tracing it on fabric, sewing the fabric with fleece in the middle, I thought pinking sheers would be a good easy finish. I love the way they turned out and T and I have been having lots of fun with them.

this is me journal and high chairs

One of the first blogs I started reading was Thismamamakesstuff, I thought it was wonderful, it opened my eyes to the world of blogs. She has amazing ideas from everything to where to donate your halloween candy to baby clothes to triathlon advice. She is also the creater of the This is me journal for kids. I was lucky enough to win one on twitter during her week of giveaways. I can not wait until T can start to draw, She has held a crayon to paper but still can't get past the urge to taste it. I have been recording on a weekly bases milestones and funny habits and games we play since birth in her book, the new baby's baby journal and when I saw the this is me journal I knew it would be perfect for helping T and I record her life.

Last month she blogged about a fabric high chair she recreated from a 70's version. This high chair is just amazing and after countless nights at friends houses of

just letting T roam around while we eat, I thought this was something I had to make as soon as I could. She created a tutorial for it and I got to work. It was very easy to follow and did not take a lot of time. I made one for T and another for a friend. Definitely go check out her blog!

Halloween Baby

Oct. 31 2008

I got up at 5am with contractions and walked around to the song vogue by modanna playing in my head. I woke Richard up around 7 excited to tell him the contractions had been going on pretty steady. We called the midwife on call who told us to take a walk and try and wait to come in til my appt. at 10 if I could. After a walk under the big umbrella holding bruno on my big belly we packed the car with our things just in case and went to our appt. Cathy, the midwife, told us we would probably have her the next day, that I was only 2 centimeters. After that R took me on the longest walk up tons of hills to 'do errands' (he works at the hospital), 2 hours of walking the contractions got more intense, I remember walking on the bridge to the library having to hold R's hands who was walking backward, and thinking the people around me must think I'm in labor. Well I was! We made our way to the delivery room and 40 mins later we had our little girl.

Oct. 31 2009

Just as much emotion, we set up for our party while baby T took a long nap. The guests arrived, we played games, opened presents, ate great food, and handed out some candy. It was a beautiful day shared with some great friends and family.

The weeks prior to the party I had been working on a few crafts:

First up 'Pin the Smile on Jack' The orange material is from her carrot blanket costume we wrapped her in at the hospital last year

Halloween Banner with her name printed on one side

Trick or Treat bags for guests

and of course baby T's costume she was a plane and R and I were the pilots

Bellatrix Lastrange

Oh no its Bellatrix Lastrange, Draco's nasty aunt from Harry Potter! No its just baby T!!

My sister is having a Harry Potter theme 30th birthday party at the end of the month, baby T and I are flying in for the occasion. We needed something fun but comfy so decided to go with mean ol bellatrix breaking out of prison. I will be going as her nephew Draco with a suit and cape and slicked back blond hair =) I made this little get up for baby T along with a bellatrix doll from the scraps.

We are in a transition with sleep patterns and moving and all sorts of other things around the household, so it leaves me little time for sewing and even littler time for blogging. I am currently working out a schedule which will hopefully help me do more of both.

Wedding Recap

We had a lovely time at the coast with our friends. It was a beautiful wedding on the beach and perfect weather for the occasion. I wore my hemmed vintage dress and got many compliments! Thanks for all your comments, they are probably the reason I wore it! Before I left I had enough time to whip up a little skirt for baby T out of the remaining fabric. Since it was a windy day we paired it with a long sleeve onesie (I was going to doll her up with a cute top but I had to be practical) The onesie did say LOVE on it so I thought it was appropriate. Here are a few pics of us in our matching outfits, which got a lot of ohhhs and awws.

throwing sand (yes she ate some)

on our way to reception
meeting the princess

All in a days work

I managed to accomplish quite a bit today. I started early and had the whole day to sew. I finished up the Sewn Giveaway prize for Linda and put it in the mail today. I made a hemp clutch with a design on it for her and a little dino (made from eco friendly felt) for her baby on the way. Thanks for playing Linda, I hope you enjoy your gifts.

I also finished a smock dress (obviously didn't iron it) and a surprise project that you can take just a peek at. I'm finishing a lot of things for etsy and hope that I can post all the things shortly. I am having a lot of fun creating everything, and hope I can keep up the momentum.

We have been having just a bit of bad luck today....not really bad luck but just frustration with things that should only take 15 mins but instead take about 5 hours!! Like the itunes not installing correctly and day 2 of R figuring it out he had to call apple support. You know something has gone wrong when he calls for support, seriously the man knows everything about computers...or almost as much as one of my fav. cousins in law does. The other thing was threading a drawsting (part of that secret project) through the waist... it is still sitting there. I have had to seam rip areas to get the safety pin through, and it's just annoying.

Anyhoo... I had a fun day, and I hope you did too.

also I believe it is my friend KJ's birthday, Happy Birthday!!

Sewing Day

It was a successful sewing day. I think I completed everything I had planned to. I am starting up an etsy store, getting all the things done that need to be photographed. I won't show you all the tricks I have up my sleeve, but here is a little something I am particularly proud of. I drafted the pattern for these baby pants, great for crawling which baby T has been doing now for a week! I need to tweak one thing when I sew them but for the first pair they turned out GREAT! What do you think? I love the bottom of these pants--it makes it easier to turn them up and get more use out of them as baby gets longer. After a great sewing day R, baby T, and I went to go downtown for a scavanger hunt fittness challange. When we got on the tram it was a nice day out--but when we got off the tram at the base it was crazy windy and looked like rain was going to pour down on us any second. So we headed back home watching the porta pottys and long fences blow over as people stood by taking pictures and trying not to get too much pollen blown in their eyes. All I can say is thank goodness we had the rain cover for the stroller! We made it home right before the rain came but boy was it windy!!