Monkeys!

Well, the weather is turning cold again, hopefully I'll take the opportunity to finish up a bunch of projects around here, although I've been having a little trouble with the motivation coming and going.  Today I finally managed to commit to my monkey appliques, so the little project I hinted at here, is finally coming along!  Here's the new blankie I'm making for Serenity's new pink and purple room...  (she asked for monkeys =) 

There is still quite a bit to do, stitching down the monkeys for security, a border, backing, and so on, but the monkeys were the part that I was hesitating the most about.  I wanted them to be cute, and I always have to take my time on applique.  (Even though I barely do applique, I always use fleece or felt so I don't have to turn anything under. Much simpler)  I used one of her favorite shirts from Carter's as the inspiration.

Bubbles!

We had a lovely day outdoors today in the crazy t-shirt weather we've been having this week, and I finally got a chance to try this bubble activity I saw on Family Fun.  It was so simple and fun!  You just collect several straws, I used seven, and tape them together to make a crazy tiny bubble blower.  It worked amazingly well, and the best part was, even my two year old could do it!  Normal bubble blowers she just doesn't have the control to blow evenly and get actual bubbles, or she puts her mouth on it and gets a mouthful of bubble solution.  It made tons of tiny bubbles or crazy clumps of bubbles.  Fun, quick, and cheap! 

Cord Control, Finally!

Cord Control, Finally!

Well, inspired by my friend Abbey’s decision to clean out all her junk one closet at a time, I decided to deal with our television area.  We bought this flat screen tv and a wall mount for it more than a year ago, and I’d been staring at ugly, black, dangling cords ever since.  Plus, I was using a blanket box to hold our dvds, with the vcr on top of that, which meant it was a pain to actually look through our dvds.  This led to huge piles of movies that never got put away.  Here is my former nemesis:

Isn’t that awful?  I just can’t deal with clutter like that.  So I organized.  I sorted all the individual dvds in to black leather cases and threw away piles of the plastic cases.  Then I moved most of them into a bookshelf where it would be easier to look through them.  (I decided to put actual blankets in the blanket box, what a novelty!)  And I finally bought a shelf for the vcr, which has the added benefit that my daughter can’t get to it anymore.  We have a few scratched dvds from her experiments.  And finally, the cord covers!  I ordered this set from Amazon, and painted it to match the walls!  I love the look!  It’s so clean and finished!  I even painted the cords that led from the vcr to the tv so they blend too!  And hey, while I had the paint out, I touched up all the little mistakes from our shelf painting project, and the five or six excess holes caused by a defective studfinder during our tv mounting project.  So a successful day!!!  

How We Travel

How we travel…

The quick answer is, as light as possible.  Serenity always hated a stroller, and I hate lugging around a bunch of stuff, so I try to keep things simple.  Here are the must-haves:

For a two year old (where I am now)

1.) Dress her in pajamas (I wish she’d still wear footie ones, but we just do socks and shoes now.)

2.) Dress myself in something with pockets (must be able to quickly access pacifiers.  Although we are getting rid of them tomorrow so I won’t have this crutch much longer!!!)

In a backpack:

1.) Diapers, wipes, powder (or lotion, whatever you need.)

2.) A change of clothes if something icky happens.

3.) A sippy cup with juice (you can carry on liquids for infants and toddlers now I discovered on our last trip.  Plus the flight attendants will refill for you.)

4.) Simple snacks.  I take her favorite, pretzels, plus craisins for an option.  And then I have fruit snacks for emergency distractions. 

5.) Some sort of entertainment.  We have an ipad, which is the coolest thing ever for traveling with a toddler.  She is glued to the thing whenever we give her the chance.  (I don’t reveal it until it’s allowed in flight, or for long layovers.) 

6.) Non-electronic entertainment.  I bring several paperback books (because they’re light), and this trip our biggest success was a set of stickers.  I brought some simple colored circle labels, the kind you use for garage sales, and printed a few of the sticker sheets from this page on Simply Montessori.  She is in love with do a dot pages and this was nearly as good.  It entertained her for a whole hour in Denver, and for take-off!  We’ve also had some fun with word flashcards, and other flat things.  

7.)  Because I’m hopeful like that, I bring her small teddy bear that she sleeps with, and a blankie.  Sometimes she sleeps.  Usually as we’re landing at our destination.  But sometimes she just wants to snuggle so the bear comes in handy. 

And that’s it.  I carry my two-year old, a single backpack, and her car seat, which is more than enough.  If I ever get rich I’ll buy one of those wheeled cart things for her carseat and we’ll breeze through the airports. 

We’ve mostly been very lucky at airports.  People are usually helpful, and when she was an infant, the airport people would put us in our own row sometimes.  And the last trip that I flew alone, five different people offered to help me carry her car seat.  It made me so happy =)

For an infant:

We carried a few different things when she was tiny.  I carried infant Tylenol, which I gave her a dose of half an hour before flights the first few times in case she had ear troubles.  She never has though, so we’ve stopped that.  I carried more diapers and wipes and more like two or three spare outfits, because having to shop for a onesie in the airport because of a blowout sounded like no fun to me.  I carried a nursing shawl for feeding and a fleece blanket that was thick enough to support my arm and pad the airplane wall so I didn’t bump her head.  And then the front carrier, which I dearly miss.  But no toys, so it evened out pretty well. =) 

We have our favorite places in several airports... In Detroit, they have this awesome rainbow tunnel that's hard to leave behind, and an excellent fountain where Serenity completely soaked herself. 

Infant-Sized Superhero Cape

Well, I posted just last Friday about the capes I made for my daughter's birthday, but I made another one last week that I have to share!  I attended a shower for my good friends Marilyn and Andrew.  I made capes for their baby's cousins when I did the huge batch last summer, and they mentioned that their baby will need one so he can be one of the Musketeers too.  Well, I decided he probably needed his cape right away, so here it is, the superhero onesie!

 

I altered my original pattern by removing the neck part, because I thought it would choke the baby.  Instead, I sewed snaps to the top, and snaps onto a light blue onesie.  That way they can remove the cape when they want to stop flying the baby around  without removing his whole outfit.  

And if you're curious about the superhero emblem... yes that is bacon.  They are calling him Baco-Bits until they decide on his name, and it's so cute everyone is using it now.  So I thought it would be a good Superhero design for him!  I just took dark red felt and beige felt, cut into wavy shapes.  Then I topstitched the beige down to be the marbling in the bacon.  You might not be able to tell, but the bacon is actually a little bit dimensional.  I just tacked it onto the blue plate in two or three spots so I could make it wave like actual bacon does.  

This cape is reversible too, to a plain dark blue. 

Our reading list

Serenity is two and a half :). In case you are wondering what age range our book selection is.

Books we read

Mouse Paint
She loved this book!  she loves colors, and it was good practice for color mixing, which we usually do with tub paints.  And when the cat can't find the mice on the white paper, she is always happy to help the cat find them. ;)

Go Train Go

Crack in the Track
These are both Thomas books, and we must have read them fifty times easily.  She has a bizarre love of Thomas, even though she has never seen the show.  She has picked the books frequently.  We have a generic train, but I may have to break down and get her a Thomas.  These books were good, a little long for two, but she obviously loved them. Nice rhythm.

1 Zany Zoo
Hilarious, and colorful.  Counting.

Llama Llama Misses Mama
We have checked out this series several times, and this is our favorite.  Especially useful now as we are considering school two days a week this fall.  Although I bet that will be more, Mama Mama Misses Llama than the reverse. :)

Biscuit Finds a Friend
We check out a BIscuit book nearly every week, usually the I Can Read versions.  She loves the "Woof Woofs!" It is fun to see her try to figure out the words on her own!

Well, those are a few of our recent favorites!  If you have any recommendations to add I would love to hear them!

DIY Flower Box Cornice

DIY Flower Box Window Cornice

This was a fun and simple project!  With the upside-down garden, I knew I wanted to have lots of flowers, and using a window box for a window cornice seemed perfect.  I made a simple box, using the cute trim molding on three sides so the back side would be flat.  There are little one by one scraps of wood at the corners to give me something to nail into, and one board in the middle to help keep it sturdy.  Then the back piece has a small rectangle cut out of it so that I can hang the box easily on a one by two that is screwed to the wall!

After filling the nail holes with wood filler and painting, I did the arrangement.  I stuffed the box with styrofoam.  It was very tight so I didn't worry about gluing in case I wanted to reuse it later elsewhere.  I purchased lots of silk flowers after they went on sale, you can almost always find some seasonal flowers at a good price, plus the ones from the dollar store work fine for something like this.  I was especially glad for the big sunflowers as filler, but I think the prettiest are the little sprays of blue and red flowers that draped down so nicely.  Then I just hung it up!  It’s great for color and detail, and would be nice as part of a little play garden for someone whose nursery is right side up =)