Sewing Projects

I've been bit by the sewing bug. I've had a machine for 4 or 5 years, and I only dabbled in it on occasion - I was intimidated and didn't know where to start. Last year, I made this with the help of my mom, which instilled a lot of confidence in me and then in the past couple of months I've become addicted. Some friends and I have a sewing night every few weeks, but I've been working on projects more at naptime and after Avery goes to bed.

sprucing up some old burp cloths - more on the way when I can get more thread

new larger nursing cover, because Avery was an acrobatic nurser and I flashed more people than I should have

complete with terry cloth pocket, which needs some adjustments because it's a little too loose

And - the one I'm most proud of - a throw-size rag quilt for Avery's big girl bed

rag quilt back

I've also whipped up a drool bib for the baby and a pillowcase dress for Avery, which is still in need of the ribbon ties. I have a whole set of projects in queue, just waiting for a chance to get to the store for more fabric.

♥

Baby Love

Our girl is becoming more aware of babies and baby things these days, in a good way. I'm hoping that her love for the baby doll translates to love for the little brother or sister.

She discovered the bassinet and has helped herself into on many an occasion when my back is turned.

 

All morning she's had a conversation with herself, or her baby, with running commentary such as this, "Good-night baby, sweet dreams baby...goodnight hug, goodnight kiss...sweet dreams...all done sweet dreams...lovie blanket baby...." The baby has been put to bed in the bassinet, on the couch, on the floor, on the coffee table, under the lovie, under the blanket, on top of both, with Avery on top of her (have to watch that one when the real baby arrives!!), with multiple hugs and kisses and then tossing about by the arm or leg. It's sweet to see her pretend and play in her own little world.

Birthday Weekend

"more cup-cake!"

"smoomies" - the first run in the VitaMix. This machine rocks.

the paint missed the paper by a wide margin

Birthdays these days are kind of anti-climactic. A trip to the store by yourself can be the best.gift.ever. Sleeping in ranks even higher. Luke cooked pancakes for breakfast, much to Avery's delight, and I got to sleep in til 10 (!), waking to a barricade of chairs in front of my bedroom door because Avery knows how to open doors and the lock is broken. My sister came over and surprised me with cupcakes (I broke my no-sugar rule for the big day - everyone needs cake on their birthday), though Avery had the most fun with them. Last night Luke and I had a dinner/movie date, and the fun continues when I get a massage on Wednesday. Avery and Luke also worked on a craft project for me - a nature painting, though Luke had to finish it by himself because Avery decided that she didn't like her hands being dirty and we had to wash them off. So, 28 didn't bring much hoopla like 16 or 21 did, but it was the sweetest of them all.

Outside Fun

Avery always gets dirt on the tip of her nose when we play outside.

Who needs an eraser for chalk when your shorts can do it for you?!

Uh-oh, where's Avery?!

There she is! She's so sneaky.

Oldies but Goodies

I was pulling a few pics off my mom's camera from our spontaneous trip to visit my parents this week, and I found some old pics of Avery. Oh my, I had forgotten just how bad that haircut was!! These were taken about 11 months ago.

Peach and berry picking

Keys are still a favorite, a year later

And, some funnies from February:

Today's Reasons Why I'm Crazy About Her

1. She sat in her little reading chair and read her counting book, only this time instead of just naming the animals on the pages, she said "quiet walk, quiet talk, tea". The book starts out "One is good for a quiet walk, two is right for a quiet talk, three is nice for having tea...."

2. She told me her lovie was driving the scooter, as she laid it gently over the handlebars. Later today, she gently placed it on the handlebars again, buried her face in it, and blindly drove the scooter as fast as she could into the doorway, repeatedly, laughing hysterically each time. 

3. She skipped over the yummy chicken salad salad I made, and dipped dry cereal in the dressing instead.

4. Every time she asks for something, and you repeat it back to her to clarify, she responds with "yeah" and the most hopeful look on her face.

5. She thinks the monkeys hanging off Noah's ark in her book are in trouble and acts very worried about them. We can't leave the page until she is completely sure they aren't going to fall into the flood.

6. We've read Click Clack Moo approximately 472 times since Monday. She stares at the page where Farmer Brown is furious for a very long time. I think she's worried about the cows.

7. D-Dad came to town for a couple hours for work and treated us to lunch, and she squealed with excitement when she first laid eyes on him. She then ate a bowl of sour cream for lunch, with a couple bites of quesadilla for good measure.

8. Buckles are her favorite thing, and she proceeded to buckle every stroller in Baby Earth today.

9. She smacked her lips when she gave kisses today. This also means her kisses are more slobbery.

10. She's finally tall enough to put the key in the lock (which means I don't have to lift her and hold her while helping her figure it out), and she unlocked the door with only minor assistance from me.

11. I told her Daddy would be home soon, and she yelled, "Lock!" and ran over to the front door to unlock it for him.

12. While Luke was picking out pjs for her to wear tonight, we noticed that she was pretending to fill her teacups with water from her play kitchen faucet so she could drink them. Apparently she shared some of her yummy water with Daddy after I left the room.

13. She colored on her Magna-Doodle with her crayons...not sure when this happened, but we discovered it tonight. Anyone know how to remove crayon marks? At least it wasn't the walls!

14. She always leaves the house fully accessorized, and all jewelry tends to remain in the car for days as she takes it off bit by bit. We never return back home with her wearing the same type or amount of jewelry.

High Praise

Something must have stuck with Avery after our potty-training attempt, because tonight she looked at me (as I was using the restroom), and proudly stated, "Good job, Mommy!"

Quitting Time

Day 4, 10:15 am


You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em...

I'm pulling the plug on this potty training thing. She is SO distraught this morning over it that we're just done. I don't want to scare her so much that she won't ever do it, so even though she showed great promise last night, it's over. She seemed to show all the signs of being ready, so we thought we'd try, but it's not worth it if it causes her so much heartache. We'll wait a few months and try again.

Can I Outsource This?

I think they have those doggie obedience schools where you send the dog off and he comes back completely trained. Sometimes I wish I could do that with Avery. Like during potty training.

Day 2
Tears all around. I had to give myself a time-out at one point. I began to think I wasn't cut out for this, much less parenting in general. Ready to give up.

Day 3
We took a break, risked regression (as if you could regress from zero success) and put a diaper on her, and drove a meal down to a friend and popped in at a playdate to visit another friend visiting from out of state (Hi, EMU and Bop!). She sacked out in the car on the way home, because it's been an exhausting 3 days, and after a quick lunch, down for a nap, in which she didn't nap. So up again, back to full-force potty training, and after 2 accidents, we had nothing but success the rest of the afternoon! The winning strategy? Keep her favorite shows on repeat so that she sat on the potty until she went, and then went again, and again. Full emptying here. I was so proud of her!! Now, we just need to work on getting her up and moving around and realizing when to run to the potty.

For Realz

Potty Training: Day 1

I'm going to let you in on the mess of today. No need to put down food...nothing that will make you squeamish, hopefully. If you could care less about the bathroom activities of my two year old, please visit again in a few days. But, so I can remember this in 25-30 years, when Avery is possibly potty training her own child, I'm documenting the weekend.

No successes, by potty standards. We had one "finish" in the potty as we flew her bottom over to her little toilet. She got a sticker. We sang and danced. We high-fived. This was half-way through the day, after 2 accidents on our well-protected floors and lots of practice sitting. She napped, wearing a cute cloth pull-up I found on Etsy, and finally pooped. Just a small one, because she'd been holding it all. day. long.

After nap, she kept yelping and crossing her legs and saying "diaper change" and she'd even run to sit on the potty by herself sometimes, but she refused to go in it. Every single time. So, we had another wet accident.

I think by the end of the day we had 4 accidents total. But, she isn't minding sitting on the potty, especially if we prop her up with books or pull the laptop down and let her watch a few minutes of a movie. We sing a lot and practice our This Little Piggy or Itsy Bitsy Spider. She was given stickers for voluntarily sitting on the potty, for running to the potty when the timer went off, or for even just sitting there happily. If she'll pee or poop in it, I might even bring out the M & Ms. Lucky girl.

The logistics of set-up: We started the day with one all-weather blanket (waterproof), another old blanket, and tons of old towels. About an hour into it I ran to the store and picked up plastic drop cloths and carpet cleaner, thanks to accident #1. She went right NEXT to the all-weather blanket, instead of on it, and certainly not in the potty. We layed down the plastic and put the towels and blankets back over them. And we washed laundry all day long, cycling towels out. Notice the pile of clothes and towels on the couch? Her little potty migrated between the living room and the kitchen, wherever she was playing. We wanted something nearby in case we couldn't get her to her bathroom in time. We'll eventually bring everything to the bathroom after a couple days and hopefully get rid of our CPS (carpet protection system). She's allowed to run around with nothing on her rear end for the next 3 days, unless we venture out for a short trip to the playground.

We aren't attempting night-time training yet, so diapers still for that. I'll be using cloth pull-ups for naptime for the foreseeable future, and if we have to take a car trip this week.

Part of me is creeped out by a toilet in our main living space, but it can't be any grosser than pee on my carpet, so I'm going with it.

Easter 2011

Luke's family has a big Easter get-together every year at the ancestral homeland in Louisiana. His grandparents open their home to whoever wants to come, and we made the trek out there this year. It's a LONG drive for us, but it's so fun to be removed from crazy everyday life and spend some time in the country, surrounded by family and REALLY good food.

His parents have a camphouse, The Estate, that we all stay at, while the rest of the cousins and such stay with the grandparents or in campers near the lake. We managed to fit 15 people plus 4 dogs in the camphouse, and we all shared one bathroom. Whoa.

relaxing in Great-Grandad's chair

sweet cousin Sidney - he is literally the happiest baby we've ever met

20 weeks! Luke loves when I wear this shirt, because the space between stripes are twice as wide in the front as in the back.

the youngest cousins enjoying breakfast together

Nana gave each of the kiddos their own beach chair. We love it!

Avery relaxing before church.

trying on her new jewels - apparently the necklace makes a better headband

 

I completely failed to get pics of any of the adults or the older cousins. Major fail. But, we had a blast playing all weekend. And Luke hid one egg so well that he offered $20 to whichever kid could find it first. They spent over an hour looking for this egg, and because they had such a hard time, he started selling clues for $4 off the total. They got down to $4 and still couldn't find the egg. It was buried in the ground, and Luke had to dig it up. The kids now all think he's a liar, because he told them it was blue, when really it was pink. He has the worst memory!

Good(Night) Moon

Avery's first favorite book was Goodnight Moon. We read it every single night before bed for probably 6 months straight. We've taken a break from it for awhile, but she pulled it out again yesterday, and we sat together on the couch for 20 minutes. I read through it once and then she pulled it onto her lap to "read" it herself. She's decided that the best use of time is finding the mouse on each room-scene page.

"Nother mouse! Kee-keet!" (translation - another mouse, squeak squeak!)
"Climb up, mouse!"
"Silly oatmeal! Silly mouse oatmeal!" (The mouse is peering over the bowl of mush, and she thinks it's the funniest thing in the world that he'd want to eat it.)

Her Favorite Book

These days we're reading a lot of this:

img source

Every morning I get a request, "Read, Boom Boom Shin?" How can you resist a request 1. to read? and 2. that sounds like that?!

To Tide You Over

The camera has been lost in dead-battery-limbo for days now, so all pics are stuck on there until we can get the charger. But, a couple weeks ago, when we had perfect spring-time weather, we spent EVERY evening outside, playing with the neighbors and riding scooters. Well, she rode the scooter. I sat on the blanket.

Um...

Avery seems to think that all sleeveless shirts belong off the shoulder. One day I caught her playing outside with the shirt hanging out around her waist. I informed her that as long as she lived in our house, she wouldn't be dressing like that, and I pray that she never attempts it when she's out of the house either.

Little Miss Houdini appeared again at lunch today:

Oh, hi. Um...

I can explain.

See...it's just that, well, the straps, you know...fell down or something.

Mooommm - just hear me out.

It's modest, I swear.

2 Year Stats

Avery's 2 year doctor appointment was yesterday, and the only time we could get in was right at naptime. It made for an interesting appointment - she instantaneously cried the second she saw the nurse in scrubs; I'm guessing she knew a shot was coming. We had talked about it all day, but it didn't click with Aves until we were walking back to the exam room. She then bawled her eyes out when the nurse weighed her, listened to her heart, and took her head measurements, and this was the easy part!! Avery is a big fan of her doctor though, who is so patient and takes the time to explain all of the instruments and let her touch them. Dr. B got her laughing, and the rest of the exam was (mostly) tear-free, until we had to listen to the heart again!

All in all, she's healthy and growing well, and we get a bit of our grocery budget back now that we can all be on the same milk.

At 2 years (and 11 days) she weighs 27 lbs 5 oz and is 34 inches tall. Her weight and height are in the 50-75%, while her head is in the 90-95%!! So, it looks like she's slowed down a bit on height, which is good, because she's fully in 2T clothes simply for the length, and sometimes those dresses still seem short on her.

And, big developments on the potty front - she now asks for a diaper change every single time she's wet or dirty, so we're working on getting her to tell us before she goes. That may not come until we actually start putting her on the potty consistently, though she sometimes runs to the potty when she asks for a diaper change. We're going to lock ourselves in the weekend after Easter and tackle this, and hopefully it will work so we can have a few months under her belt before the baby comes, and so I get a break from washing diapers for a few months!

(Mostly) Handmade Birthday

I've had this dollhouse for about a year now. It was meant to be Avery's Christmas gift, but it became her birthday gift this year because I just lacked inspiration for decorating it, plus she's at a better age for it now. It's still a work in progress, but here's what I accomplished by her birthday.

Bedroom: I whitewashed "wood" floors by drawing pencil lines and knots and then painting a thinned out white acrylic paint over the lines. I repainted the armoire, which was once primary green. The main wall is wallpapered in scrapbook paper, the bed and nightstand were painted, and I sewed a comforter for the bed. The rug is velvet scrapbook paper.

Anything white on the furniture I painted, because all furniture was once a primary color in places. Again, scrapbook paper wallpaper and velvet scrapbook paper rug.

I decoupaged pink tile scrapbook paper for the bathroom floor. All else stayed the same.

I left the hood of the range blue, because I kind of liked the color, but it might change. This room still needs work, and the patterned paper on the floor isn't adhered yet, because I was unsure about it. Table and chairs painted.

A friend had a craft night where we made these blocks. I decoupaged paper on them and added alphabet and number stickers. They've been sitting around since January, waiting for her birthday.

We love Bla-Bla dolls around here, so a new member joined the family. This is Suzette, though Avery simply calls her Kitty Cat. She now has to join the crew that sleeps with Avery, only this one has graduated to in-the-arms status, while the others sleep under their own blanket in the corner.