April's Summer Dress

Remember these dresses I made for a friend? Well of course I had to make one for April. I was waiting for some new fabric to arrive so I could make it. The fabric is by Heather Ross and I love it so much for this project. Now that I have the shirring worked out it only took me 30 minutes to do the whole thing.

  She is so cute in this dress, I wish she could wear it everyday. I'm thinking of making her a sweater or jacket to wear with it so she can wear it into the fall. Any suggestions? It can be sewn or knitted.

The End of the Summer Garden

Things are starting to wrap up in my summer garden. Even though the weather wasn't great, things overall went really well in the garden this year. I've decided to give a fall garden another go (last time we had an early frost and I lost it all) so I'm planting for that.

 Tri-Color Beans

 Acorn Squash

 Apples

 Red Pontiac Potatoes

Wild Blackberries

So far this year we've got 33 lbs of english peas, 19lbs of potatoes, 27lbs of zucchini, 8 lbs of cabbage, 6lbs of beans, tons of kale and 6lbs of blackberries. 

We are going to have a lot of pears and apples ready soon. I'm also expecting a lot of tomato.

I've planted more kale and brussel sprouts for the winter. This week I'll be planting fall peas, carrots and beets (I already planted fall beets but the slugs came and ate every single sprout to the ground) and in September I'll plant winter lettuce and spinach. I might try chard though I've never had success with summer chard maybe the winter will be better.

Birthday Sundresses

My friend's daughter celebrated her 4th birthday this past week so it was time to make her a cute summer dress. I decided to make one for her younger sister too since I missed her birthday earlier this year.

The yellow is the birthday girl's dress and the green one is her little sisters dress. I love the yellow, it is such a summer color. I would have liked to have made both dresses from the yellow but I ran out of that fabric.
I used the pattern for the Heather Ross smocked sundress from Martha Stewart's site. I did encounter quite a few problems with this dress. One was that I think the video that goes with this pattern isn't very helpful. Heather Ross mentions changing the tension when sewing the lines but actually I found that the tension did not need to be changed but the stitch width did. I sewed these using the longest stitch possible on my machine. Also the bobbin does not need to be as loose as the instructions make it seem. Really it just doesn't need to be as tight as the machine would make it but there does need to be some tension.
In the end I really love these little dresses. I will be making a couple for April when my new fabric arrives!

6 months old

Halfway. Seriously...we are halfway through April's first year. It's been such an awesome 6 months; tough but amazing.

 We've reached some big milestones. April can crawl and loves to laugh. She's been really moving. It still sometimes surprises me how far she can get in such a short amount of time. Nothing like a crawling baby to make you realize how many tiny things you keep in your home.

 She still loves to be read to and has recently developed a taste for books. It's really hard to get through a story when the baby keeps trying to put the book in her mouth. She also still enjoys music. She seems to really be listening when I sing to her now which is really cool. We are going to start the Sing and Sign class here in town to start her sign education and expose her to some other songs.

 I'm in love with this baby's laugh. She thinks it is hilarious if someone else in laughing and she is constantly making me laugh. She also seems to think that I'm super funny when I have the hiccups. I just love when I hear her laughing, I don't think anything makes me smile like her laugh.

Summer finally arrived here on the west coast and we've been loving it. April is still the water baby she's always been so we've been out in her splash pool almost everyday. I took her to the beach but the Pacific waters were still too cold for her. She enjoyed the sand though. We love to lie under the pear tree and enjoy the warm breezes. April is fascinated with grass. We've also been able to lie in our hammock at night. Ahh...

April's Birth Quilt

This quilt has been in the works since December. There were lots of delays (and procrastinating on my part because, well, I hate quilting) but at last it is complete. This quilt is in celebration of April's birth. I was inspired by the days when people used to make quilts to celebrate big life changes such as a wedding or a baby. Friends and family each made a square and I assembled it (and made some squares of my own. You can click on the picture to see it larger.

Clockwise from the top left:
My mom made this square. It is modeled after our wedding invitations and has the initials of everyone that made a square embroidered on the tree trunk.
My friend Lindsay made this one. She traced her daughters hands. She was inspired by these quotes: "A mother's heart is always with her children" and "Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
Jon's aunt Mary Ann made this one. I'm not sure of the story behind it.
My grandmother made this one. The two large hearts are attached at the shoulder and the little heart is attached to one of the big hearts by a little umbilical cord.
My aunt Karen made this one. She modeled it after the design on our wedding program. They are two love birds and the mommy bird has a baby in her belly.
My friend Kyrie made this one. A strong family tree grown from love.
I made this one to commemorate April and my shared love of music. I hope to sing and make music with her her whole life.
My mom also made this one. When I was little my favorite thing about my stuffy was the tag on the back. I loved to rub the tag in my fingers. April loves tags too. This little bear has the perfect tag (by his foot).
I also made this one. I embroidered a baby sleeping under the stars. It is my sweet dreams square.
Jon's mom made this one. It reads Eyes Wide View Miracles. It was to remind me to keep my eyes open when April was being born (but I was so focused on pushing I kind of forgot).
Jon's aunt Joan made this one. In the center heart is a little head down embryo, surrounded by love.
My aunt Karen also made this one. It is April's initials and an umbrella. All made from her wedding dress fabric.
And finally, I made the center square. I was inspired by a quote I heard once. "Before you were born I carried you under my heart. From the moment you arrived in this world until the moment I leave it, I will always carry you in my heart."
I will hang this quilt on her wall for now, but when she is older I think I'll let her use it for special days like when she is sick or hurt and needs to be surrounded with love. I really hope this quilt stands the test of time and gets passed down to her children.
Thank you to everyone who helped create this quilt.

More Garden Goodies

We've gotten nearly 10lbs of peas from the garden and there are still tons more to be picked. We've picked about 5lbs of cabbage (but there is still so much more out there and I just don't know what to do with all this cabbage). Unfortunately we only got about 2lbs of broccoli. The weather has been so weird that it seems to go to seed before I can pick it. We've also gotten blueberries, raspberries, kale and cucumber from the garden.  So things aren't as grim out in the garden as I thought. Time to start planting for fall.

5 months

She is 5 months old. She is becoming such a big girl. She can almost sit unassisted, she can laugh, she's on the verge of crawling and has a tooth coming in. Not a newborn any more.

It has been a month of first. Her first laugh, her first trip across the border and her first real trip to the beach. She loved it, she had so much fun wiggling her toes in the sand. I can't wait until it is warm enough to go in the water with her.

In general she is still the happy baby she always has been but she has been having a tough time in the evenings I think because she is tired and her mouth hurts. I've started implementing a regular bedtime and a nighttime ritual which seems to be helping but until I can get her to nap more during the day I think we will still be having these nightly meltdowns.

This month her favorite things seem to be daily walks, bath time, books, frozen soothers and when Mama gives her raspberries. Seriously, this child gets cuter by the minute!