She Walks

...a few months earlier than her big sister did. Baby J loves watching other children run - she squeals in delight if her big sis will run full-speed at her and Little S is happy to oblige. In fact, Little S spends much of her time trying to get a laugh out of her baby sister. Yesterday in the car they were taking turns laughing at each other, each round making the other sister laugh louder and with a stronger "belly laugh." By the time we got home I was laughing, too. These are the days to remember...

Baby J loves to put anything around her neck - beads and even grosgrain ribbon she finds laying about the house (as in the first pic).


The girls are loving the dress-up box these days, too. While we were in Reno Little S had her Grandpa dressed in some of these duds. Uncle Scott was a willing model a few weeks ago. Lastly, a pic of one of her favorite spots in the whole house - Little S's doll bed. When Baby J gets a moment to herself in big sis's room, we almost always find her perched on the bed. Don't you love the crossed legs? So cute while pretending to eat something from this bundt pan.

Busy Work

Recently, I've been having problems with my photos uploading to my computer. I don't have any current pics but I thought I'd share some projects.

I'm in the early stages of locating a to-die-for flower girl dress for Little S to wear to my sister's wedding in October. I have yet to find the "to-die-for" part so I sent the inquiry to Gabrielle at DesignMom and she posted my question and her answer on her blog this past Monday (many sources were referenced in the comments, too).

Speaking of the kiddos, we are loving books by Jack Prelutsky the past few weeks. His rhymes are fantastic! Ryan and Whitney were given two of his books at the twins shower and after flipping through, I knew Little S would love them. This week we're enjoying The Wizard (illustrated by a BYU-I graduate it turns out) and Ride a Purple Pelican - a collection of rhymes in a Mother-Goose-meets-Shel-Silverstein style.

My friend Becca keeps a "good things" blog here and her blogroll on the right column is full of inspiring ideas. The past few days I've found quite a few projects I want to make (some require D's woodworking skills), including this tutorial on Montessori number rods from A Handmade Childhood.

Lastly, I've been obsessing about Ikat fabric. I've been looking at it all over the web. I finally bought some home dec weight Ikat-style fabric on Monday that I've been wanting for some time. (At $3 per yard, who could resist?!?) This is it:Nate Berkus used it for his line at HSN. It is a long story about how I came to this realization - I won't bore you (maybe I'm too late?).

Hoping D can figure out my photo-computer problems soon. I've got pics of our walking one-year-old to share!

Valentine's Day

Last week we were heart attacked by the girls from church. Little S was so excited when she woke up and saw all the "love" in the front yard. She ran out and started rearranging the hearts among other flower pots. I turned around from taking the picture below and spotted Baby J sneaking out the front door to see what all the commotion was about.


We made heart flowers for Little S's school valentines. She cut about 1/4 of the 48 hearts for the project. I was up late last night assembling them and she signed her name on each this morning. When I dropped her off I was impressed with all the other valentines sitting on the class cart - I think she'll come home with quite a haul today.

Dr. Seuss baby shower - twins!!

warning: lots of pics


D and I enjoyed a quick weekend trip to Reno to celebrate the upcoming arrival of Ryan and Whitney's twin boys. (Little S stayed at our house with D's parents). We bunked at the home of our good friends, Chris and Nicole. Nicole is Whitney's sister - obviously, we love that entire family.

Nicole put together a fabulous shower brunch - Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat theme with red, white and baby blue everything. She throws my kind of party! Beautiful decorations, unique theme, and special personal touches - like the red and white striped chair covers she and her mom made for the 45 (gasp) chairs. Nicole's degree from the Cordon Bleu in Pasadena informs the delicious party food she prepares, too. This was a shower not to be missed.




Place settings for each of the 45 guests.


Baby bingo to promote audience participation during gift opening - I didn't win.

the happy mama at 27 weeks along

Nicole and I wore the same colors - oh well, it was a TWINS shower, right?

croque monsieurs, mmm - you don't want to know how much butter was used on these babies

These two woke up from naps toward the end of gift opening and quickly started devouring blueberries. They even fed each other - such cute little friends. I'm just noticing all the polkadots in this pic - even Baby J's tights were polkadot!

Part of my gift to Whitney - I made this nursery art (I use the term loosly here) for the boys. The project was a comedy of errors - after finally finishing it late the night before we left, the plexiglass frame shattered during a hard plane landing en route to Reno. D and Chris had some glass cut for me before the shower, but it was pretty sharp and Whitney cut her cute finger while opening the gift. ugh. That seems to be the norm with most of my projects these days...

Later in the evening, we celebrated Izzy's first birthday!! Two parties in one day - both organized by Nicole and much of the food made by her as well. She's supermama.

I love this pic of the birthday girl with her doting grandmother (who, by the way looks young enough to be Izzy's aunt!)

Baby J loved playing with the Izzy drink bottle during the festivities. Such determined eyes!

Baby J's rock star fingers

These two friends enjoyed the royal seats at the party - it was Baby J's actual birthday on Saturday and Chris and Nicole were kind enough to have her join the cake eating mess.