Life at the Parents’

We’re all still alive over here, I swear. It’s just that Andrew has been in Seattle for the past six weeks for school and the girls and I have moved in with my parents for the time being, so cooking has been light and relaxing has been heavy. But I earn my keep by gardening, hanging curtains, making headboards, and cooking occasionally. Here’s dinner from a few weeks ago. Lemon Chicken with croutons, green beans with roasted veggies, and simple dinner rolls rolled in various seeds.

And this is of course all done while the littlest one does this:

(that was actually just an excuse to post a picture of her, but can you blame me?)

baptism gowns

I had originally planned to use the baptism gown that I made for Bella for all of my girls. Then I pulled it out last week and was reminded how ridiculously huge it was, even though I made it in the 0-3 month size and followed all the correct seam allowances and everything. When I say huge, I mean she could probably wear it now at the age of 3 1/2 YEARS. Anyway. So I decided that Eva should have a better fitting one, and I also decided that it would be nice for each of my girls to have their own to use for their girls (I’m a big fan of family heirlooms like that). I used the same pattern for Eva’s, but I made it a size smaller (the xxs, up to 7 lbs size that is still too big, but at least it’s an improvement). I used a different trim and tried out some “decorative folding” along the bottom. If you have any idea what the real name for this decorative folding is, please let me know. Maybe it’s just called pleats, I don’t know.

Eva’s dress is in the foreground with Bella’s in the back.

Here is Bella’s collar…

And Eva’s collar…

And Eva’s skirt…

And the trim on each of the skirts…

I do not recommend waiting till the last few days to get something like this done. I was up till the early hours of Sunday morning hemming Eva’s dress so that she could wear it for her baptism yesterday. Unfortunately, we have no pictures of Eva in her dress yesterday because everyone forgot cameras, but here’s Bella in hers from a few years back and apparently I have no pictures of Bella in hers either. Maybe we’ll get our act together for the next one!

Introducing the Tagger

The Tagger is Beloveds answer to the cliche of tacky and bulky comfort items. They don’t think children need to be over stimulated to be entertained and comforted. They have chosen quality fabrics that are interesting, elegant and texturized for maximum motor skill development without offending your sense of aesthetics.

what I’ve been doing…

So this is what I’ve been enjoying lately.

Pretty much irresistible. Miss E will have her 2 week birthday tomorrow, and I’m happy to say that we’re pretty well settled into life with two now. She sleeps and eats like a champ, and I continually find myself thinking, “It’s not supposed to be this easy…”. She’s now 7 lbs 8 oz and growing nicely. She looks more and more like her big sister every day, and we’re carefully labeling pictures now because in a few years we won’t remember which is which (although digital cameras with date and time stamps do make it a bit easier). Life couldn’t get much better!

pretty burp rags?

I’m really not sure what the purpose of these are, but I saw some similar ones on Etsy and thought that they looked like a fun place to use some of the fabric I’ve been collecting. I suppose that they just serve to glam up what are normally very mundane birds eye cloth diaper burp rags. Whatever the reason, I like them, and there are two packed away in my hospital bag.

As a bit of an aside, I think these are also a great testimony to expectant fathers-to-be how undeniable the nesting urge can be sometimes. My husband came home and saw me making these and kind of just stood there for a minute and watched until I looked up and said, “Yes, I’m sewing pretty fabric on to diapers. I know, don’t ask, but I am.” And fortunately, he understood.

My Hotsling

I also refuse to pay $50+ for what is basically stretch cotton sewn together at the ends. So again, I turn to my trusty Viking and make my own. Apparently I’m really into hot pink this time around, so a lot of baby things are coming out in that hue. I followed this tutorial which happens to be fantastic, mainly because of the pictures. It’s kind of hard to display without a baby tucked inside, so you’ll just have to wait a month or so for some modeling pictures.

Help?

So Miss Mira will be 7 months on May 13.  She’ll gnaw on crusts and veggies and fruits, but she is generally uninterested in actually eating. We tried banana puree and rice cereal (Her eyes filled with scorn as she spit, sputtered and gagged!). I’ve also attempted introducing a bottle and sippy cup. She was unimpressed with both.  Frankly, I’m exhausted and I’m not sure how to dazzle her with feeding options outside myself. I never had this problem with Ophelia. After we introduced the bottle at 2 weeks (Ben and I went out for Valentines day!) she was hooked and never looked back.  I need suggestions for weaning or at the very least, getting her to take a bottle.

My Moby

I refuse to pay $50+ for what is basically a length of knit fabric. That just seems silly to me. I’d much rather go to JoAnn’s, pay $15 for 5 yards of knit and add in a fun bit of hot pink floral to the middle (left over from another project) to make my own sort of Moby D wrap. Here’s a pic.

The picture is kind of non-descript right now (they’re kinda hard to display without the wee little one inside), but you get the idea. I’ve tried it on and I’m a little concerned that it’ll be way too warm this summer, but we’ll see. If you’re not sure how the Moby wrap works, here’s my 3 year old big-sis-to-be modeling a Mini-Moby.

review: Fisher Price Papasan Cradle Swing

This is the Fisher Price Papasan Cradle Swing.

Background.
This swing was given to me about 3 1/2 years ago by the wonderful ladies who I worked with at Crossroads Nursery. I hadn’t originally planned on getting a baby swing (all I knew of were those wind up ratchety things that creak and sway in old church nurseries), but I was more than willing to take this one as a gift! My boss said that her niece swore by this thing, so I figured why not give it a try. After all, it looks pretty cool and cozy and I know I sure wouldn’t mind curling up in one if they made it in my size!

The good stuff.
We started using this swing for B the day after we brought her home. She loved the gentle rocking motion, and it really does cradle babies oh-so-cozily. We could swaddle her up and tuck her in between the cushy headrests and not even bother with the buckles (but we would leave it on the lowest setting, just to be safe). So for the first week we kind of thought of it as a fun place to put her. After the first week, when Andrew went back to work, I began to see it as The-Most-Important-Thing-I-Owned. As an infant, B insisted upon behind held all the time, and greatly preferred it if we held her while we were walking around. As you can imagine (and as some of you probably know from experience), this can be a bit problematic especially when one wants to take a shower and is the only adult home. So for those times when I simply had to put her down (usually just for my shower and the putting on of make-up) this swing came to my rescue. She could lie here contented for a good half hour and that was just enough time to get done what I needed to.

The speed settings worked well, although we really just left it on the lowest one for the first few months because she was so light that that would get it going fast enough. As she got bigger we probably bumped it up a notch or two.

The music isn’t bad, but B never really got into it.

The mirror on top for the kiddos to look at was a hit, as were the spinning birds, butterflies, and leaves (we had the Nature’s Touch version). B loved to stare at herself in the mirror as she’d swing side to side…I think we even got some fun videos of that when she was little.

The not-so-good stuff.
I have two complaints with this swing. First, it runs on batteries. It would be so much nicer if one could just plug it into the wall (they may have remedied this in the past 3 years). That said, in the 8 or so months that we used it I think we only replaced the batteries once or twice and as you may have gathered from what I wrote above, we used it a lot. Secondly, the base is a bit large. The legs spread out quite far in order to steady the swing and this makes it a bit difficult to tuck the swing into a corner. So if you live in a smallish apartment (or a house of a smaller scale), be prepared for the swing to make quite a dent in your floor space.

Final thoughts.
For me, the pros waaaayyyy out weigh the cons. I would have this thing sitting in the middle of my kitchen if that was the only way I could fit it into my house, and I would give up my Starbucks for a week (yes! even as a new mother!) to buy the batteries. Fortunately, these are so popular now that they can be fairly easily found on Craigslist or other resale places for about half of what they cost new. But even with a price tag of anywhere from $110 to $280 (depending on which design you get), it’s a fantastic investment in my opinion. I can’t wait to pull ours out in a few weeks and get it all set up for Baby E!

reviving tights

Hmmm, that sounds a bit like a band name. Anyway. So a few weeks ago I realized that the red tights I’d planned to put on my little girl were hopelessly pilled and just kinda unattractive. This saddened me because I really wanted her to wear some cute outfit that required red tights and I did not want to take the time to find a new outfit (that would no doubt require its own pair of tights that would probably be pilly too…it’s been a while since we bought new tights). So I was looking at said pair of red tights and I realized that the inside of the tights was completely pill-free. They looked brand new on the inside. So I flipped them inside out. Voila! New tights! I don’t imagine that this will work on all pairs of tights as this pair was from the dollar store and had a strange sort of weave to them (not as thin as regular tights, but not a heavy knit either). All the same, I thought I’d pass on the trick in hopes that some other mom out there can benefit!