I’ve made a lot of things over the years. My mom made lots of things when my sister and I were younger.  She taught us how to follow a pattern as soon as we were old enough to patiently listen.  She did most of the work, but I remember coutnless projects: skirts, dresses, T-shirt dresses, pants, etc. Not to mention 2 of my 4 prom dresses.  

 And I have since sewn many of my own projects:

• In 8th grade, I designed and sewed a vegetable bag for my mom to use in her garden.  It had a wide bottom, 4 sides, and straps just long enough to comfortable loop over the shoulder to make collecting and carrying multiple veggies from her garden: tomatoes, carrots, peppers, onions, potatoes, green beans, peas, etc.
• Sara and I took a sewing class in college for one of our electives- it was so much fun! Especially since we got to take the class together.  We made pajama pants and a shirt in that class as well as a couple of other random projects.
• I made the curtains for our first appartment when Matt and I got married.  I borrowed my mom’s sewing machine  for a few days for that project.
• I also made the curtains for Anna’s room last year.  I had waited on putting curtains in there when she was born because I couldn’t decide if I wanted to just have a valance in there, or put up window shades, etc. I finally decided to go with basic curtains, but since I wanted them to match her room I had a hard time deciding on material too.  I found this pretty dark brown material, and then finally settled on this corral pink fabric to make the looped tabs at the top for curtain rod, and then made another long loop to pull them back and hook them to the wall… I think it makes it a little more decorative than just plain curtains that get pulled all the way to the side like most of our others in the house.
• My sister-in-law, Jennifer, started making a “Nana” shirt for my mom every year for Christmas after their 3rd child was born. It had handprints of all the kids with their names and ages on it.  Then when Eva was born into the list of grandkids, they started adding her to each year, and then my sister’s boys joined in when they were born.  In 2007, Jennifer thought it’d be fun to do feet instead of hands, and since I still had no kids to join in on the fun, she suggested we put Lola’s feet on it with everyone else’s (I was actually pregnant-and found out just a few days later)  So, all that to lead up to the other recent project I made.  In 2008, each grandkid picked out a cotton fleece fabric (like receiving blankets are made of) and we traced their handprints on it, cut the hand slightly larger than it needed to be, sewed each hand on the shirt- at the right size- and then cut the remaining edges like little fringe to keep it from fraying too much.  (Mom embroidered this one with the name and ages- the first project that she had to finish herself- sorry Mom)
• And if you count sewing the elastic ends together to make a couple of Tutus, I’ve done that too recently!
• My good friend Sarah found a great tutorial on making your own Legwarmers for babies and Toddlers- I made a couple of pair of these too to test them out and see if the difference between making my own and purchasing BabyLegs.  And the verdict is:  The homemade ones are actually better!  They’re Longer, Stretchier, and don’t slide down her legs even after running around at gymnastics for an hour!  And with a long-legged toddler, that’s Awesome!

Over the past year and a half or so, I have been blog-stalking a very creative seamstress from North Carolina. I don’t remember how i found her, but I made these inspired by one of her projects,  and I think I’ll make another adjustment to make it even more functional. I use a lot of coupons when we go shopping and typically have them separtated into 2 categories- “definites” and “maybe/if-on-sale”- and instead of taking my coupon box, I use to use 2 envelopes to keep them separate.  So I took Meg’s magazine wallet and turned it into a coupon holder- the front pocket is great for the grocery store “member” tages and/or the quarter for the shopping cart at Aldi.  I also made a gift card holder using the same method- Super cute!

Which brings me to my next project.
Here’s a sneak peak of the material I’ll be using. I’ll let you know when it’s finished. I had to go to 4 different stores to get all the pieces, not to mention countless online shopping attempts for some of the hardware, but I’ll blog more on that later when I reveal the final project!

Here’s a quick look at my sewing machine set-up.  This machine was given to me by my grandmother.  She purchased it in the 70s, and the sewing cabinet it’s in was also purchased then.  The cabinet is great! I can fold up the machine down into the cabinet when I’m done to protect it from dust, etc.  But it folds out into a nice long table top to make working on projects a lot easier too!  I actually just rearranged this room a little, so it’s not as packed with my desk, etc along this wall, but you can see how convenient it makes it when there IS a lot of furniture around it.  I moved my desk into the kitchen since that seems to be the only place my Wacom tablet doesn’t wig-out while trying to edit images.

I also did some other rearranging and organizing.  We found that Anna will play on her own longer when her room is neatly organized. Not just when her toys are put away in a location along the wall, or somewhat put into baskets.  But when everything is in a set place, she’ll play for a long time in her room by herself.  Thus, the need to find some way to officially have a set spot for EVERYTHING!  So when Target put their cubicles on sale this week, along with the organizing bins, we decided to splurge and make a set place for everything. Once and for All!  So here it is.  We moved her little play kitchen to the wall next to the door of her room, and then put this shelving system next to her bed.  I got a little sneaky with the way I organized the bins.  Since she likes to dump things out, I put the bins with fewest number of items closer to the floor and more accessible, and the bin with ALL of her kitchen supplies and food in the top bin, so we can get it down and play with it occassionally, but not constantly picking up plastic food from all over the floor.

Okay, I took a video of Anna saying names this afternoon.  If we didn’t get to your name, I’m sorry… she got distracted by the wind blowing the tree limb against the window outside.  When she hears loud sounds, she usually says “oh-no” and then “vacuum”.  So here you go!

And this is one I found in our YouTube files that I guess I never posted on here. She and Lola are giving each other “5s”. 

Anna has been repeating us for several months now.  Usually the last word of any given sentence that we say.  But lately she’s changed that to the last phrase of the sentence.  And if she feels she didn’t say it correctly, she’ll repeat the phrase several times- as if to practice her enunciation!  Wow!  And she’s also started adding a name to the end of more common phrases that she’s been saying for quite a while now.  (ie. Thank you, Mommy; Bless you, Lola; Silly Daddy; You’re Welcome, Mommy, etc- sometimes she’ll say her own name at the end of a sentence- yesterday I went into her room to check on her and as soon as she saw me she said, “What are you Doing, Anna?”- because she expected me to say the same thing!  She’s so funny!  And brilliant if I do say so myself!  How many 19 months old kids do you know that can say a 5-word/7-syllable question?!?!!

Matt was on-call last week, so every evening when his phone rang, he’d say “Tech support, this is Matt…” as he walked into the computer room to help the HobbyLobby store that needed assistance.  By Wednesday, Anna picked up on it and would say “Matt” as he walked away.  We hadn’t really talked about Mommy and Daddy’s names with her just yet. Mostly because it’s so cute to hear her call out “mommy” or “daddy” when she wants one of us, and Matt and I don’t usually call each other by our first names- ever since Anna’s arrival we just call each other Mommy and Daddy when Anna’s with us, and never really picked up on pet names for each other either.  So she’s never really associated any other name for the 2 of us. 
However, since she picked up on the “Matt”, I took the opportunity to talk about the whole Names thing.  We talked about her friends names at JoyfulNoise, and talked about Lola’s name, and her name, and then talked about Mommy and Daddy’s names that other people call us, and Daddy’s name is Matt, and Mommy’s name is Elise.

Check this out:  AnnaSaysOurNames!  She said my name clear as a bell!  I do a lot of children’s portraits, and have 6 neices and nephews- and not one child under the age of 2 and a half has EVER said my name, with both syllables this clearly!  Let alone on the first try!  So I HAD to record her saying it again.  And isn’t it cute how long the M-sound is in Matt’s name?!!  She says his name that way every time! We also practiced saying a bunch of other names. But it was almost 5 minutes long, and I then found out I can only email a recorded “memo” that’s 2minutes max. So I’ll have to try that again later in shorter segments.  I was getting her to practice saying the names of people we know, as well as friends that we’ll be visiting soon.  (Anna and I are flying to Houston in April, so she was saying Sarah, Emma, and Robbie  as well as a lot of other college buddies names.)  She even said Bridget almost perfectly!  she only left out the “r”!  Wow! 

 Again, WOW!

I love it!  Her teachers at JoyfulNoise are always saying how well she talks.  I believed them when they mentioned it a few weeks ago, but WOW! she really does talk well for just over 1 and a half!

While walking through HobbyLobby’s store the other day Anna was pointing to random objects, mostly statues or figurines of animals on the shelves, and saying the name of the object and/or making the animal sound that goes with it. Sometimes I’d figure out immediately what she was talking about, and other times I’d just acknowledge that she was talking to me as we strolled around the store price-checking different items. But 7 out of 10 words out of her mouth were followed by “yeye,yeye, yo” (that’s eye with a “y” sound in the front). After awhile of her chattering I finally figured out she was singing E-I-E-I-O as we passed animals in the aisles! So once I finally caught on, we sang Old McDonald softly throughout the store! It was realy only loud enough for her to hear me, I’d sing the beginning and list an animal, and pause to let her sing the vowels and the animal sounds.
She had so much fun! And I did too! And of course, she’d stop to say “hi, how are you?” to anyone who came close to us, so I don’t think anyone else even heard us in our own little world anyways!

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When I first graduated college I thought I’d never just give away my art. I framed several of my favorite images throughout college and shortly after, and I had a mind set then this was valuable artwork- I worked hard to find the right angle, I took several images of almost all of these and narrowed it down to the ones I framed, plus, I invested money in the frame and print itself. 

However, in an effort to take back what is rightfully mine- my house!- I would love to give any or all of these images to anyone who wants them.  First come, first served- so leave a comment to take your pick and let me know what you want soon!  My artwork has been displayed throughout the house since Matt and I married over 5 years ago, and now that we have Anna, and I photograph her all the time, I’ve begun to take down some of the random art and replace it with wall portraits of my little girl instead.  Most of these were too small to be hung on the wall by themselves.  I had the majority of them in groupings.  (the guitars were together, the 3 square images were together, etc) and I hate to even admit that these have all just been setting against the wall in our office room.

So here’s a gallery of the ones I’m trying to find new homes for:  if you rest the mouse over the image it will pop up with information on sizing.  The first set of numbers is frame dimension, and the second numbers are the image size. (1114-8×10= 11×14 inch frame with 8×10 size print)  And I’m still going back and forth on the largest one.  I took that on a trip to rural Wetumka and set my guitar (actually Dad’s classic guitar that was on loan to me) up against an old building out there. It’s one of my favorites and I might have to really be talked into to parting with it…

Let me know!  If you live out of state I can get you a quote on shipping cost (you pay only the shipping for AMAZING art!?- not a bad deal ). I’m sure I can come up with box that will fit any of these sizes. 

JBF is a nationwide local consignment community… does that make since?  It stands for Just Between Friends.  They have sales 4 times a year in this area (OKC and Norman each in the fall and spring) The Norman spring sale is going on this week.  And since Monday was our day off, Anna and I decided to go check it out. My sister and I went about 2 years ago to the OKC sale- it costs $2 per adult to get into that one.  But the Norman sale is free. And let me just add, though the jogging stroller was great for Anna to have a comfy ride, and for me to have a storage basket underneath, it was quite hard to manuever the narrow aisles with all the other moms and strollers. 

My hope was to find a booster seat for the kitchen table.  Anna has been requesting to sit with us at the table a lot lately.  And since we have counter height table and chairs, I’d like a seat I can strap her into, or at least one that will boost her up a little and be sturdy on the chair. She’s not quite tall enough to sit comfortabley in the chair and see her dinner 100%, while not kneeling on the seat.    But at the sale, the larger items were all in another building across the parking lot, so I had to make our clothing purchase before heading to the other side, and arrived just in time to see a lady walking out with 2 seats in her hands,  yep, she took the last two.  Oh, well.  I’ll look at the other consignment shops in the area in the next week or so.  And the OKC sale is in March (I received a coupon for free admittance to that sale when I checked out at this one.)

So hopefully I’ll get lucky and find an inexpensive one soon.  I think Anna’s really wanting to graduate out of the highchair!

Look at all these shirts and dresses I found for this summer!  PLus the shirt and sweater she’s wearing today.  She’s at JoyfulNoise now, I can’t show those at the moment. Since Anna is quickly outgrowing the 18month tops, I shopped down the 2T/24mnth aisle. But there’s no way she fits into the 24 month pants.  She still doesn’t really fit the 18month pants, but the 12 month pants are too little.  Poor girl, I wish I could just dress her in dresses, but it’s been too cold to do that lately… So all this to say, with the cramped aisles, I didn’t go down the 18month aisle to find some pants for Anna so we just settled with the tops (2 of them came with shorts).

I may look into consigning next year.  You earn 65% of what the item sells for, and you determine the original asking price, and you can even mark your item to be exempt of the 50% off sale that takes place on Saturday.  Not a bad deal is you ask me!  I put in a little work of tagging the items ahead of time, and then let them sit on a rack for a week (or less) and then receive a check in the mail 2 weeks later.  Hmmm…yep, might just have to check into that.

Anna is just a little more than 18 and a half months old, and check out these sweet Jumping skills! She actually gets both feet off the ground almost every time!  Check her out!

Things to notice:
She gets both feet off the ground every time in the video
She walks over to the fridge and sees a “W” on one of her magnets, so she says “wave” and waves her hand
(we’ve been talking about what letters the words we’re reading start with- I’m hoping it’ll help her learn more about the word, also in an effort to help the flashcards become more educational and less memorizational)
At the end of the video, she really wants to give Lola a treat. So she’s saying “Lola” over and over, and then says “treat”. She had just given Lola the last one a few minutes before this, so we really were out.

This video clip is just a random one of Anna first thing in the morning.  She’s so content to play in her bed in the mornings until I go in to get her. She usually just plays with her bear or glo-seahorse and will do so for about 30 minutes in the mornings if I let her.  Which is great for me! I can get her breakfast ready or finish getting ready myself in that time if I need to.  She somehow that night pulled one of her arms out of her jammie sleeves, but it obviously didn’t seem to bother her.  (And she was having so much fun playing, that she didn’t even care that I came in with the camera to film her playing!)

I love it when she asks for Fruit instead of just crackers!  And these little Cuties have been the perfect snack for us to have around the house (and they have coupons in the paper for them every once in a while too!).  They’re sweet, healthy, and still filling.  So not only have they been a snack option, but I can cut one up and use it as a side item with dinner.
And the little picture on the box of one of the mandarines being “zippered” open is pretty accurate too.  They peel so quickly and easily!  And, yes, they are actually mandarine oranges, but it’s simpler to call them oranges. And Anna calls it an Ah-nij. (You can see in the video).  And luckily, when Anna does say Cracker, it’s usually because she wants a snack, not necessarily because she has a hankering for crackers specifically, and she hasn’t said no to the orange yet when i offer it as an alternative to the craker request.  Yay for Anna!

I love it! We’re on our way to eating a little more healthy.

In the first video, Anna is requesting oranges. It’s just cute to hear her say.  But in the second video when I ask her to say “thank-you” she says “Your welcome”.  Also a very cute phrase to hear out of her little mouth.

That’s right! Can you believe my little girl is one and a half! Anna is surprising everyone at her great developing skills.  She’s so smart, and so quick to understand a given situation.

We went to Anna’s new doctor Thursday.  She’s in Norman, and she was recommended by 3 different moms that I know.  I liked her a lot!
First, if you keep up with our blog, you know that I haven’t been impressed with our past doctor lately, and I’ll explain a little bit of that before I get on to why I like the new one so much.  We liked Dr.F  a lot when we moved here, but lately he seems… “busy”… hmm, I think that’s the best way to describe it.  In the past he would ask questions, make recommendations, spend a little extra time making sure he was really getting the problem taken care of.  But in the past 2 years it seems like he needs to get on to the next patient.  He also makes comments like “I’m a doctor, so I know what I’m talking about” before making a diagnosis, or almost flat-out telling me he doesn’t believe me when I tell him my child has been weazing while she breathes (when she had the congestion a couple weeks ago).  She was sleeping in my lap during an impromptu morning nap just 2 hours before the doctor’s appt.  I would know.  But he raised his eyebrows and said “well, i didn’t hear anything when I was listening to her just now”- through the stethascope which Anna kept pulling away from.  And then said “it’ll go away if there’s anything there”.  This was on the first day of her congestion and her voice sounded almost hoarse at times.  Of course, I know that I’m a mother, and I’m going to be super protective of my baby, but this stuff seemed obvious to me.  And even if I was an extremely confident doctor, I think i’d ask for a little more information about my patient before diagnosing something.  The child’s mother, that spends the entire day with her while she’s sick, is going to have more information than I can get in 2 minute’s time of looking in ears, nose, and listening to the chest while said child is apprehensive and greatly intimidated by said doctor.  You’d think he’d want my help in making sure he didn’t give her something she didn’t need. He said she had the beginnings of an ear infection and prescribed cephalaxin- the same thing he prescribes for EVERYTHING. 
Anna is quite friendly of strangers.  She says “Hi, How are you?” to almost every person in a grocery store.  But she has always acted a little leary of Dr.F- perhaps because he walks into the room and quickly steps right up to her and touches her hand or back while talking to her with his face just a foot away from hers. (That even makes ME uncomfortable!)   I work with children a lot in my business.  You have to let the child WANT to talk to you.  You have to let them approach you, or at least stand a few feet away while you talk to the parent for a minute.  This helps the child see that Mommy likes the stranger, so I can too.  And it makes the whole scenario the “Child’s idea” to interact with you.

On to Dr. J- again, I liked her a lot!  She was friendly, stood across the room to let Anna warm up to her for a seconds, asked questions, and I genuinely felt like she WANTED to hear what Anna was up to.  She did find that Anna had a “pretty good” ear infection, meaning the “beginnings” of one that Dr.F found, had gotten worse in the past 2 1/2 weeks since her visit with him.  So she prescribed some Amoxicilin. Hopefully that’ll get rid of it.  We have a follow-up appt with her in a few weeks, so I’m glad to get to see her again soon to have more than one visit to base it on, but so far, I think she’s going to be a great alternative!

18 month check-up: 22lbs 13 ounces (27%); 33 inches tall (86%).  And the doctor said she’s doing great with her development.  She thought it was great that Anna is “reading” and speaking so well, but developmental she looks at other things, like: using utencils, walking/running well, etc.
You can read the other recent blogs to see how far Anna has come on her other developments: recognizing words, sentence structure, complete sentences, etc.