The One on Valentine's Day

It's one of my favorite holidays. Chocolate! Pink! Kisses! Sweet notes for loved ones! Unfortunately, with all our insane traveling lately, I didn't get around to much of that. And today I'm helping my mom in her flower shop with all the craziness of the day. Hopefully I'll at least be able to show you some of her handiwork. She really is quite genius at arranging flowers, among other things.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Always remember that you are so loved.

Via one of my favorite artists, Katie Daisy. 

The One Where I Love You The Orangest

When I was kid, I really loved the book I Love You the Pruplest by Barbara M. Joosse. In the story, a mother has two boys who are very different from each other, but both have their strengths that she admires. One night, each asks her who she loves best and to one she replies that she loves him the bluest, and to the other, the reddest. Together, she loves them the purplest.

I've always thought that was such a sweet way for a mother to show how she loves each of her children for their individuality. And so I thought I'd write some poems of my own, modeled after Joosse's. And then I thought they'd be the perfect thing to share for Valentine's Day.

Together, baby girls, I love you the orangest. Happy  almost Valentine's Day.<3

Speechless Sunday

 

This map of the United States by Rachel Austin (another Portlander!) is fun. It's also fun to think I've visited several of these places over the last few weeks. Now off to Idaho to help my mom with her flower shop for Valentine's day. 

The One Where Olivia is 11 Months Old

This definitely should have posted when she turned 11 months old (on the first), but with all our traveling, I'm just getting around to it now. But now on to the issue at hand. My baby is growing up way too fast. It's killing me to think she will be a year old in just a few weeks. I don't know if I can bear it. But on the plus side, she just gets keeping getting cuter and cuter with every passing day. 

I mean, look at that wild hair sticking up all over the place.
And she was just the sweetest smooch at Disneyland. Especially with her double-fisted wave at all the princesses at the parade.
I just love her wide-open-mouthed kisses. She has the most precious voice I've ever heard. It's kind of high pitched and so, so sweet. And when she sings songs I just want to bottle it up somehow and keep it forever. Not in a creepy way like in the Little Mermaid. But just keep it so that I could hear it whenever I want. It's beautiful.
She's even saying "uh oh." And she has little sounds for, "please," "thank you," and "hi."
Her little skootch is ridiculously cute. She's gotten really fast and kind of does this little flying leap around the house when she's really excited. She pulls herself up on things and likes to try standing up in the middle of the room... but I think it will still be a little while before she walks. I am in no rush for her to grow up, though. She can stay little just as long as she likes.

But my absolute favorite thing about this month is what we've dubbed, "the monkey snuggle." She's gotten a little skiddish lately and so if you don't hang on to her tightly enough she wraps her arms and legs around you just as tight as can be. She hangs on for dear life and it's nearly impossible to peel her off and put her to bed or at the table to eat dinner. If I'm going to be honest I have to admit that I sometimes pull her off or hang on too loosely so that she'll freak out and tighten her grip. It's the best feeling in the whole wide world. And I hope it never ever goes away. I will pick her up and carry her around until she weighs 100 pounds if she hangs on like that. Ok, maybe not really. That might hurt. But I sure do enjoy it now.

I'm already excitedly planning her birthday party and will be printing all the pictures for her first-year scrapbook. And I've got to start taking apart her onesies so that I can make a memory quilt like the one I made for Ellie.

The One With the Things I Love About Ellie (2 years, part II)

My little Ellie and I have spent the week apart. She is with her grandparents while Olivia and I are traveling in the South. We just couldn't afford to get her a plane ticket, too. But I really miss her. So I thought it would be appropriate to post some of my favorite things of hers, as of late.

1. I love when she gets food all over her face. I don't know why, but for some reason I always think her eyes look prettiest when she's got crumbs and sauce all over her little cheeks.

2. I love that she is such a big sister. She's a little bossy, opinionated girl who likes to help with dishes and keep things in their place. And she takes care of Olivia, too. When it's nap time she looks over into Olivia's crib and says, "Head back, Wia." So she'll go to sleep. And the she shushes her if she starts to cry. "It's ok, Wia." And if Olivia is ever sad, she rubs her back and says, "Poor Wia." It is very cute. And when Olivia is crawling around sometimes she pats her little baby butt and says, "Cute bum."

3. I love how she loves to be so friendly now, thanks to our Disneyland trip. She got so used to being adored that she just waves to everyone she passes now. It's very sweet.

4. I love how excited she was to go be with grandma and grandpa. As much as it was hard to see her go, I was happy that she was so happy to go spend the week with her grandparents. She loves them very much.

5. I love how she counts her kisses. "One kiss?" Smooch. "Two kisses?" Smooch. "Three kisses?" And on and on as long as possible. Steve taught her that. And it's my favorite. The other night he FaceTimed with her on his iPhone and she accidentally hung up on him with her lips while giving him "three kisses?"

6. I love how she is trying to learn about temperatures. When I give her some food she usually says, "Hot." And then she investigates and realizes it is just, "warm." And therefore ready to eat. This is a big part of our eating ritual, determining the temperature of the meal at hand.

7. I love her little sentences. They're trimmed to the basics, but getting so descriptive. It is so fun knowing what she is really trying to say. "Santa Claus coming town reindeer." (Yes, she still stuck on Christmas a month and a half later.) "Babies sad. Toys broken." "Good job singing, Mama." "Class good today, Mama?" And of course there's the reassurance, "I got it!" whenever she is doing something tricky, like climbing into her dinner chair in the most precarious way possible.

8. I love how much she loves books. I'm sure this has come up before. But we went to the Scholastic Book Fair at our church's school last weekend and we got her some new books. She was completely enthralled with them all day, every day.

9. And speaking of that, I love how she reads books to herself now. After I read them to her before bed or nap time, I let her take them to bed. Then she lays in bed and reads them to herself. It's usually just a few key phrases from the book that she repeats on each page. But it is precious.

 

10. And I love that she misses me. I am glad that it's not too bad and she is being good for her grandparents. But it is so nice to know that she loves me a little fraction of the amount that I love her. 

I can't wait to get her back today. She's just the best.

The One With Stephanie's Sewing Adventures

Hello! While I'm on vacation I thought I'd arrange to have some guest bloggers write posts for you guys! I asked my dear friend Stephanie to share her first sewing project: pillowcases! These look so awesome and I can't wait to make a few of my own - as I've been stashing pillowcase fabric for far too long now. Anyway, I'll let Steph take it from here:

Hello everyone! My name is Stephanie and my lovely friend Michelle asked me to write a blog post about my first sewing adventure. I received a sewing machine (Handpicked By Martha, my future mother-in-law would be proud) for Christmas!

The  first thing my fiancé requested I make was pillowcases for our bed. I thought, yeah, who couldn’t do that? We bought some nice canvas type fabric and a couple weeks later I finally opened my sewing machine. First off, I didn’t realize that you had to spool your own bobbin. I figured the machine came with an assortment of colors but to my disappointment, it didn’t. After digging through the mini spools of thread that I own (mainly to sew buttons on) I managed to spool my own bobbin. The difficult part came when I was trying to thread the string through the base and meet with the other string that comes from the top. I had to watch a few random tutorials online before figuring out what I was doing wrong. Once I got it, I was finally ready to go. 

I started by using a pattern/formula that I found online. It suggested using a main square piece of fabric 1 inch larger than your pillow and two rectangles which were the same length but half the width plus 2.5 inches. For me, using an 18in X 18in, I had a large piece of fabric measuring 19in and two rectangles that were 19in X 11.5in. It called for rounding the corners and hemming all the edges of the fabric with a “zig zag” stitch. My sewing machine has that option but the zig zag was going all over the place and I felt like it was making my edges more uneven than anything. So, halfway through, I switched to a straight stitch which I personally think looks better anyways. I realized while making this first pillow cover that I didn’t have sewing pins; somehow I managed without them and the edges look relatively okay. After hemming the pieces and putting them together I shoved my pillow into its new cover. To my surprise, it didn’t close all the way. I thought hmmm that is weird, I followed the formula. The round corners also turned out to be an issue because I wasn’t able to sew them completely shut. After putting the pillow in its cover, I had to take it back out and sew some portions of it by hand. I was pretty much ready to give up on the second pillow case but instead I decided it would be a good time for a break. 

After running some errands (and buying some sewing pins), I thought to myself, why don’t I just figure out a formula? So, that’s exactly what I did. I decided that the main square didn’t have to be as long so instead of 19in I made it a little over 18in but not quite 18 ¼ in. The two rectangles I also shorted to about the same length and made them a little wider, about 11 ¾ in. I decided not to round the corners and also not hem the edges of every piece but just the two edges of the rectangles that would be facing the outside. I sewed all the pieces together, using pins this time, and viola! A beautiful pillow cover emerged and even shut all the way. The second one took half the time and looks even better than the first. Plus, there was no need to sew any part of it by hand. I was glad that I figured out an alternate way to make the second cover since the first one was a little excessive for me. Now I am ready to sew pillow covers by the hundreds! Okay, no, not really. Two is enough for now. 

Thanks for checking out my sewing adventure!

Special thanks to Michelle for letting me be a guest blogger while she is away on all her fabulous trips! 

I totally love that Steph improvised when the pattern she got didn't work out well. And if you need help threading your sewing machine or anything else, youtube is a great place to get free tutorials just like she did. Try searching whatever your problem is like, "how to thread a sewing machine," or "how to spool a bobbin," or "hemming," etc. I've used the tutorials on there many times!

Speechless Sunday

 

We went to New Orleans yesterday! It doesn't look quite like this, at least not on a regular basis.But this is a pretty picture nonetheless.

Via unknown.