H: Six Months

My baby is six months old.

A few items of note:

-REFUSES to sit on my hip like a normal baby. Must be facing forward at all times.
-sits up very well but usually needs some pillows around to catch her inevitable tumble.

-loves to eat real foods (and always needs a bib, unlike how her neat and clean older sister was)
-chunky chunky baby. It is a struggle to make sure all the crevices and rolls get cleaned in the bath.

-insists on novelty with her toys. If she played with it that morning and I offer it again, it will be thrown at me.
-goes to sleep easily as long as she has her pacifier and a blanket to hold over her face.

Yep. Life is good when you are 6 months old.

Toddler Talk

T is finally old enough to string some sentences together.

1. "Oh mom. I'm SUPER thirsty. I need juice."

2. When I tried to play with H in the middle of a board game with T: "Mommy, stop. Stop eating that. Stop eating Hailey's feet . You want to play Guess Who."

3. I was changing H's diaper when she walked in, observed us for a minute, then turned around and walked out the door saying "See ya. Wouldn't want to be ya."

I guess I should stop saying that to Seth when he leaves for work.

I Spy

This is from a while ago. It took me a minute to figure out why Seth snapped this picture....

Quiet Book

I made this for T's 2nd birthday. It took me freaking forever too so I am very proud of it, which is why I'm posting about every single page I made. Get excited!
I put some details about how I made it but mostly I just linked back to where I got the ideas, so if you are interested in making one you have the original sources.

The cover. I made it the "Winsor" Quiet Book, instead of just for T (even though it's for her birthday) because there is no way I am making another one of these. I printed out the letters off the computer and then cut them out of felt.

Button-on flowers. Inspiration here.

You can put the flowers in the flowerpot. I had clear thread so I used that for all the machine sewing rather than having to keep switching it out for the correct colored thread. I used colored floss for the hand sewing.

Picking apples off the tree. This is one of the more favorite pages, probably because she can do it so easily.

The apples have velcro. Inspiration here.

I didn't really like any of the zipper ideas I came across, so it's just a page of zippers. T still likes it. Inspiration here. 

Tying shoelaces. Inspiration here. T can't quite do this page yet, but she likes it because she has a pair of pink converse that look a bit like these.

The barnyard. Inspiration here. Pretty sure everyone on the internet who's made a quiet book has this page in their books. As well they should. It's so cute!

This is the favorite page so far because of the finger puppets. We've already lost them a couple of times.

Mailbox. Inspiration here. You can move the flag up and down too.

There is a letter for each of the girls to put inside, made out of the same material as the pages so it's a little stiffer than normal felt. I just hotglued some ribbons and a "stamp" on it and wrote their names on the front.

Balloons. This is my favorite page. They snap on and off. 

The balloons are all attached to the page but you can move them around where you want them. Inspiration here.

Seth likes to tell everyone this is a plane shooting lasers, but it's obviously just a flying airplane. You can move it along the ribbon. Inspiration here. This one is another favorite of T's. 

The end. The pages are all made from extra stiff non fusible pellon (idea here), but everything else is felt. I used the bottom of a piece of paper to measure, so all the pages are 8.5" by 8.5"

I spent a few weeks of naptime/evenings working on this and it was actually pretty fun for me to make.

But not in a repeatable kind of way.

Happy Birthday T

Today my firstborn turned two years old.

Some things about T:
-She calls everyone "honey."
-She thanks me for almost everything I do, including driving, sitting, and changing her diaper.
-She is a very picky eater. Her favorite food is macaroni and cheese and fruit snacks.
-She is very talkative. She sounds more like an adult than a toddler.
-She always tells me "oh how pretty!" whenever I put something in her hair or get her dressed.

She is funny and smart and polite and loving and creative and I have a hard time remembering what life was like before her.

Happy Birthday T!

Facial Hair

T has some weird ideas about facial hair.
Anyone with a beard and/or mustache is Jesus. (Sorry, guy at the park that she kept pointing at and yelling Jesus! over and over again.)
And she is very afraid that Seth is going to grow a mustache. Like, she will almost start to cry when Seth asks her if he should grow one.

He tried to get her to move past this fear by modeling a paper mustache.

It didn't work too well.

Grateful List

I wrote a post a few years ago and basically whined about all the stuff I wanted.
I had a list. It was:
1.  job
2. house
3. baby
4. blender
5. new couches

I finally got everything on that list. Guess what the last one crossed off was?

The blender.

Yeah. Definitely thought it wouldn't take me three years to get that, much less be the last one on that particular list.

We are really enjoying making smoothies with it though.

Now all I want is more sleep, which ironically I had back when I made the list. 

I showed this to Seth and he said: "I fulfilled all your dreams! Now there's nothing left to live for. It's all downhill from here."

But I don't think that can be true. At least not while I have a blender to make smoothies for me.

Happy Birthday Seth!

Seth turned 28 on Monday.
So last Saturday I surprised him with a trip to the beach and the Aquarium.
I pretended like we weren't going to do anything special for his birthday and he totally bought it, so I was very pleased with myself for the deception.

T is still talking about everything she saw at the "A-care-yum."

It was SUPER windy at the beach on account of some thunderstorms coming in so we didn't stay long.

And T actually enjoyed herself, unlike the last couple of times we went to the beach.

Happy Birthday to my handsome husband!
(And for the record, I did ask T to smile in this picture and this is what she came up with...)