Snap!

I have been on a little crafting/sewing kick lately.  I don't want to say I'm avoiding the quilt, but lets be honest.  I'm avoiding the quilt.  Maybe I'll get over it and cut out some fabric tonight while Corey studies.


Here's a new addition:

I used another free pattern online (here).

I thought they turned out pretty cute.  I had this soft velvet-ish white fabric that I thought would make a good inside so Noelle's toes are nice and comfy.  I didn't have any velcro so I just added snaps instead with my spiffy grommeter Corey bought me a few years ago.

Despite these shoes being super cute Noelle still tries to kick them off.  She has this thing with shoes where she'll scrunch her toes and won't relax her foot while they are on.  Maybe I'll try tricking her and putting socks on first when I try to get her to wear these to church.

 Also, Noelle can now say "mama".  She doesn't actually know she says it though--it just happens on occasion when she's chatting to herself (usually when she's supposed to be napping in her crib).  
Noelle:  "Gabbahahamamablabhahah"  
Me talking to Corey:  "Did you hear her, she said 'mama'!"

New Dress

I sewed another quick dress for Noelle yesterday.  We're at a stage where she's grown out of most of her current dresses and the next size seems a bit big.  Plus I just want to play around.

I just made up the pattern by looking at a onesie and going from there.  I thought it needed a little something and added a ruffled thing in the middle, now I'm not sure I like it--oh well.  Overall I thought it turned out okay and it will be really easy to whip out another one.


 Noelle was having a lot of fun playing with her dress too.  

Weekend Fun

Sometimes relaxing weekends are the most fun.

We read some Harry Potter together (we're on book 3).

Sometimes Noelle got distracted with her new trick, rolling over.

And then she wanted help getting up.  I sometimes think she just wants to play.  Stop reading and look how cute I am!

Noelle has also figured out she could make new noises and likes trying it out all the time.  Corey finally caught her chatting on video:

We all looked so cute after church so I tried to get a picture.  It's hard trying to make Noelle smile with no one behind the camera.  The blinking light on the self timer is just to interesting!  Here's the best one.

Sewing

My latest project:

You are probably wondering what on earth it is.  It's not a hot pad gone wonky.  It's a travel baby seat!  (I got the pattern here for anyone who would like it.)  As Noelle isn't sitting by herself yet I used our trusty stand-in, teddy bear, to model for us.  

I remembered seeing this a while ago after we were talking about what things we'd want to bring home for Christmas.  Easy and light substitute for a high chair when traveling.

I've had this cute elephant fabric lying around trying to figure out what to do with it.  It was a buck or two at a sample sale at work back in the day, it used to be a crib skirt.  I got it before I was expecting Noelle, and it did start some rumors :)  I didn't think anything of it, just thought the fabric was cute and then I start getting questioned by my co-workers.

Plus I got to try out my new friend!  Bernina foot #29.  It was fun trying to stipple.  Don't look too closely my lines are all wonky.  

I'm going to try and find a few more projects to practice on and if I get better at it I'm going to  attempt quilting Noelle's blanket (once I finish piecing it).

Garden Update

The main update is despite the heat and bugs it's still alive.  Kind of.  I'm not super confident I'll get any produce from the pepper or tomato plants.  I'm going to keep watering just in case.   


Below you can see my pepper plants.  Bugs got the first one.

Heat got this one.

I replanted some lettuce and spinach once I realize I had planted the first batch too far away from the water source (smart).  Some of it is sprouting now, but I'm not sure which--spinach maybe?  I planted a few extras in odd spots between the pepper and tomato plants where there seemed to be extra room, but forgot to keep track of what I sowed.

I have a small bunch of basil that seems to be doing well.  I replanted more of this as well and hope to have a nice bunch of basil in a month or two.

Uno, Dos, Tres, Quatro...

Cinco!


Noelle is five months old today.  

It still feels like just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital. 

I know one day we will wake up and she'll be a teenager and we won't know what happened.  We're trying to enjoy every minute that she's a baby.

Here's new favorite of Noelle's--suck on mom or dad's finger.  Why suck on your own when you can grab mom's?!  Also, she has already figured out it's fun to pull on her socks.  I don't know how we're going to keep shoes on her.  Right now her favorite songs are Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Old McDonald, and Wheels on the Bus.  Maybe that's because that's about all I sing.  Hard to say.  I need to get some new material!

Fall Dress

I decided to make Noelle a little dress.  Brown seemed like a good color for fall and we had a few old t-shirts no longer in use.  Perfect!

It's not perfect.  I'm adding some little pleats to it as it's a little big around the neck.  

But it's cute.  Never mind the fact that we could wrap Noelle in a dish rag and she would still be cute.

Aren' I cuuute? 


I am nearly done with a little pair of brown bloomers to match the dress.


Unrelated fact.  Noelle's new favorite thing to do when she doesn't want to sleep and is stuck in her crib:  bang her feet on the mattress.  Imagine the sound you hear when a kid is jumping on their bed--it's like that.

One Year Older and Wiser Too!

Grandpa Larry!

Don't be silly!

Have a...

Play Time

A new game Noelle likes to play sometimes is "catch dad while he tries to blow on my tummy".   Gottcha!

**I couldn't resist editing this post to add this.  Corey said:  'We don't know who Noelle will be most like, but she certainly has her dad's face'.  Ha ha!  What a great corny joke.

Noelle continues to have fun finding out new things.  She's found out her legs are hers and sometimes she will grab them (still need a picture of this).  She also has fun while sitting with mom to arch herself backwards so she can see Dad upside down.  She's really close to rolling all over.  Like scary close.

Noelle likes her new doll.

For a few reasons.

Mt. Lemmon

Today for fun we decided to drive up to Mt. Lemmon.  Talk to most anyone in Tucson and they ask, "Have you been to Mt. Lemmon?"  

During the winter it's a ski resort (open for about a week or so a year we're told).  They've got one ski lift and a handful of runs.   During the rest of the year you can go and visit the shops and ride the ski lift.  

"Shops" is misleading.  We expected a few little stores that we could look around in.  There was a little souvenir shop and a food shack.  The souvenir shop smelled like skunk (I'm not trying to be mean about it--I think they actually were sprayed by a skunk recently.  You can't fake a skunk smell).  We bought a cookie roughly the size of the moon and walked around the area for a bit and enjoyed the outdoors.  It was much cooler which was really nice as it has been mid-90s here.  There was green everywhere--it was awesome. 

We recently bought a great backpack carrier and Noelle seemed to enjoy being toted around.

We saw some wildlife and some un-wild life (there was a cat with a collar walking around randomly).  Even Noelle enjoyed a little snack.

On the way home towards the bottom of the mountain we stopped and took some pictures with the locals.  They are huge.

The one we posed by is a medium sized one.

Welcome to the desert!

Gardening

Here is a quick look at the start of our garden.  It was lucky that our house already had a grow box so it was much less work to get it started.  I'm watering daily due to the fact that by afternoon my plants look so wilted that there's no hope for survival if I left them for another minute without water.  Next time I will plan out my rows better, right now they are short rows and the water has to go in a funny path to get everything.  

We have two tomato plants, 4 bell peppers, half a row of lettuce and a row of spinach.  Next week I'm going to plant more spinach.  Something has been munching on my bell pepper leaves.  There are ants around but I haven't seen any on the actual plants.  There are lizards about, but I don't know that they eat leaves... maybe it's grasshoppers.  I will be investigating.

I also planted basil in a little side box next to the garden.  Look!  It's coming up already.  I'm not a total failure.

Hello Dolly!

I decided to do a quick project while I took a break from the quilt.  I had saved a cute doll pattern I found online a few months ago for such an occasion.

Introducing ....Sam (short for Samantha, of course).  Noelle may rename her to 'baby' or 'goober' or whatever she likes later on.

I thought she turned out pretty cute, even if she's a little uneven in spots.

As she didn't take hours to make with expensive materials (I used materials I already had) it's no biggie if Noelle slobbers all over it or gets it dirty, which is nice.  I think I will be making a few more of these just for fun.  

Splish Splash

Happy Labor Day everyone.


We took Noelle swimming for the first time today.  

Noelle didn't seem too interested in swimming, but she humored us.  

She wasn't unhappy, just not excited about the whole thing.  We did get her to smile a little when we played airplane.  We could not however seem to get a smile for the camera.

We hung out in the pool for an hour or two as the weather and pool were perfect.  It was slightly overcast so we didn't have a lot of direct sunlight.  We had some yummy treats and met some new people.

**Just a random fact we have discovered--buttermilk brownies don't do well in Tuscon.  From our experience we have realized that it's too hot for the frosting to stay set.  For us it just turned into chocolate syrup brownies (still good mind you), to the people who brought them at the pool party today it turned into chocolate frosting all over their car when they turned a corner.  

Meet the Neighbors Deux

Here is a neighbor we haven't introduced yet.

Do you see him?  Here's a closeup:

Meet Lenny the lizard.  He actually has had quite a few names because every morning when I saw him on our tree eating ants I forgot what I called him the previous day and made up a new name.  Corey decided enough was enough and we should just call him Lenny.

I discovered that we had two more varieties of cacti in our yard.  One was in the very corner hiding in the bushes.

 The other was in the front.

Remember the cactus with a tiny pink blossom?  Look what happened this week!  One day the blossom popped out and now it's well on it's way to having a new arm (I have no idea if thats correct cactus talk, just made it up).

Here are the pretty blossoms from our bush:

And last but certainly not least here's Noelle and Corey outside.  We went to check the mail tonight.  Dark clouds were rolling in so I bet we'll get a nice rainstorm tonight.