Ava Update

Hi all,

Just an update on our almost-15-month old today. She is growing like crazy now! She says "Mama, Papa, wuff-wuff, hi, bye-bye, oo-oo ah-ah (monkey sound), no, no, no, no and more no. She says it all the time!

She has taken up to about 6 steps at a time, but she's still pretty cautious about it. She has, however, 3 dance moves now, so I'm hoping that she starts walking more in the next few weeks so she can bust them out at the weddings we are going to!

My other favorite things she is doing now is giving hugs upon request. And she will pat your back (or her stuffed animals) when she hugs you. She will also follow simple directions to hand us things, or put things in a container. It's so fun to realize that she understands so much of what we say.

This is a picture of her post-ponytail hair Snuggle time with Papa

Working on her "new" computer (our old laptop. She loves pounding on it!)

Trying on her bike helmet. She loved it! :0)

The NUMBERED Cottage

Whew!

It's been a long time! Long story short, I'm starting a small business, so projects and blogging (and lawn mowing as you will soon see) have been on hold. BUT I'm really excited about this post, because although the exterior of our house could use a lot of work, we did an upgrade this past month that really makes a big impact on our "curb appeal".

Behold: The "before" front of our house: (creepy stalkers and burglars note that we don't have anything of interest in our house, so ignore the house number). Note the sticker house numbers. For Christmas I asked for these FABULOUS house numbers. They can be found at Home Depot, but interestingly not at their website. It's like a wonderful insiders secret!

Mr. Wonderful did all of the work to put these up. I will tell you that he used some caulk-type stuff to secure the numbers, and then used the tape to hold them in place until it set. I got to enjoy the job of scraping off the ancient sticker numbers that were on our door frame. Let me tell you that Goo Gone did not really work on these suckers. Mostly just elbow grease and some scrapes in the paint on the metal door frame.

Much prettier! I love how modern and clean the numbers look. And much more readable. I would also love to paint the front steps and then paint the house number on the front steps too. Mr. Wonderful says we should worry about the exterior NEXT summer. He's probably right!

Also I changed out the flowers in my wreath to match the ones in the coffeepot on the front steps. Less cluttery that way, I think.

the Mama Bag

Woot! The sewing bug has bit again. And the venom is sweet.

I tried out another bag from Handmade Home by Amanda Blake Soule. This one is called the Mama Bag. That's right. I sewed myself a purse! Mr. Wonderful laughed at me because he thinks I have too many purses. I did buy myself a purse this summer at a rummage sale, but believe it or not, it's TOO big. It's so cavernous that I can never find what I need. I wanted to downsize. And I wanted something less...hippie-ish. Don't get me wrong, I love hippies! I just don't want to carry their purse all the time. :0)

I added some pleats to the front ala Gussy. Gussy makes me want to pleat and ruffle everything in sight.

Can I tell you that I was like a woman possessed during this project? I finished it in a day, using one whole 2 hour nap and probably another hour during the evening. I couldn't stop myself! I am so excited about how much better I'm getting at sewing! Next I want to try tackling patterns. Patterns are very intimidating to me. With their fragile nature and their tracing chalk. They are kind of like bobbins to me. Although I think I am slowly conquering the bobbin!

I think what I have learned from sewing is to just go for it. Yeah, maybe your idea won't work, but you can always tear it out and try it again. And I've learned to be a little more careful with my work. I think having a young baby I got in the habit of being happy if things just got done, and didn't worry about the quality of the job. So I took my time with this purse, and got a little nitpicky with it. It paid off!

Now get out there and sew!

Faux Roman Blindy Thingys

I don't know if I've mentioned it on the blog before, but we received an awesome gift from a friend for our baby. She works for a trade magazine that specializes in baby gear and thus gets a bunch of awesome freebies through work. She passed along a COMPLETE nursery from Cocalo Couture, and some other things to boot which totally floored us and made outfitting Ava's room a breeze. I love all of it, but since our nursery is small, we has to put the crib next to a window. If you have kids you know there are all sorts of safety precautions to make when it comes to windows. It's gotten to the point where I wasn't totally comfortable having those long drapes so close to her when she isn't supervised. (Choking hazard? Suffocation? There is so much to worry about!)

So I took a cue from some other bloggers and decided to try making some Roman Shade looking things. I read some other blogs, here, here, and here. Then I decided to wing it and make it up as I went along. I knew I wanted to just keep the curtain rod. No cornice or anything fancy. I liked the Nester's idea of just tying it up with ribbon, but the curtain was way too long to do that and I didn't want to cut it down. So I did sort of a fusion of a Roman Shade tied up.

Not perfect, but safer. And I safety pinned up the ribbons on the bottom, so if she ever gets tall enough to reach it I can always pin it up higher. :0)

I'm linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick's Before and After Party!

A smorgasboard of Ava pics.

Why yes, my daughter IS eating graham crackers off the floor. And yes, we DO feed her. Father's Day!

Ava took a dip in her new swimming pool (Thanks, M & G!)

She LOVED it. She is a beach baby, much to her papa's delight. My parents were up for the weekend, and we had a great time. Look at those adorable thighs!

Good news about Ava's hair-dos. I'm getting better at them! Here she is rocking the pig tails.

And here.

AND here.

Ooo, and here's her VBS costume! I had some extra material leftover from mine.

Doesn't she look so ancient Egyptian?



Heh, this picture depicts how sometimes Ava's bibs can make her arms look a bit...short.

There! An Ava fix for you!

Now headlining....our kitchen island!

Hey, lookee here! No, above the giant fur cleaning ad (seriously, how often have you seen people in Wausau wearing furs. How can you make a living doing that?) .....

It's our kitchen island featured in You Magazine! (a publication of the Wausau Daily Herald) I think it's a women's magazine. It doesn't say that on the cover, but all of the people on the "board" are women, so I think it's safe to assume. My friend, K, saw the island and asked if she could write a how-to article about it. It was really sweet of her and she did a great job with the article. It was fun to be interviewed and see it in print. And I'm really glad they didn't use the picture with ME in it!!!

It's In the Bag...

I can't believe that I just sewed two bags. I took fabric and out of this fabric a bag appears. I'm not claiming they are any GOOD, but they serve the intended purpose and this is still boggling my mind! I can do it!

I used the book Handmade Home by Amanda Soule Blake to make them. There were challenging parts, such as dealing with the blasted bobbin, and figuring out how to make button holes (the machine just does it FOR you! Even my ancient one!) I wanted to make a bag to replace the above lovely plastic one, which has been my place to put the multitude of bibs and washcloths that clean up mealtimes. Babies have a way of exponentially increasing one's laundry, no?

This is the one I made! I think it looks much better. I had some sturdy canvas material, which I figured would hold up well. I didn't make the cloth balls hanging down that the book suggests, but I did make a pocket on the front. For color. And I used hem tape that I found at a thrift store (5 packs/$.26!) for the straps and drawstring.

Here is the other bag I made. I made it to hold Ava's cloth wipes, which are currently getting hopelessly mixed in with all her diapers. When baby is on the changing table and you realize you need another wipe, you want to be able to get to it FAST! Hopefully this will facilitate such speed.

I would definitely suggest checking your local library for Handmade Home. There are a LOT of cute ideas for practical things you can use around the house. They aren't too complex, and some of them don't even use a pattern, such as this one. A good confidence builder!