Polly & Me

During my visit to my grandma's house a few weeks ago, we were looking through this box of random photos, and I found these three pictures...

Yes, that blue-eyed baby is me! I had blue eyes for a long time when I was a baby, much to my mother's delight, who loves blue eyes and thought I would be dark haired with bright blue eyes. But then when I was two they changed to brown . Sorry Mom! I couldn't help it! I would have liked to have kept those lovely blue eyes too!

I have no idea how old I am in these (probably only a few months), but look who I'm hanging with! It's Polly Esther!

Even at such a young age, I loved my sock monkey!

I have a philosophy that every child needs a sock monkey. Until I started making my own plush toys, it was my go-to baby shower gift.

Life Update...

I must aplologize for my lack of posts this week. (ah yes...the obigitory blogger's apology) My official excuse is that my digital camera's battery died, and I lost the charger (but I do have the camera on my phone, so that's not a great excuse). My husband also took a vacation week, and we were doing lots of household stuff, so I didn't get a whole lot of crafting done.

One thing that happened this week was that we finally got a stove/oven on Tuesday! We have been living without a stove/oven since we moved to this house in August. The house didn't come with any appliances and the appliances we had in the apartment belonged to our landlord. So for the past 7 months, we've been using a hot plate, toaster oven, rice cooker, crock pot, and other various appliances to cook our meals. You'd be surprised how well you can do without a stove/oven. But now we have one! Yay! I can bake again! I really missed baking during the winter...particularly around Christmas.
CJ also got me a new kitchen faucet (you can kind of see it in the first picture)...which makes doing the dishes a little bit less of a pain, since the faucet is a lot higher than the old one. And it's a whole lot prettier.

On Friday my Mom had a doctor's appointment in the morning that my Dad had to drive her to, so they both had the day off from work. So after Mom's appointment, Mom, Dad, and King all came out to visit. We decided it was okay to let King get on the couch. He's such a snuggler. Anyone who says all Rottweilers are mean and scary needs to see this picture!

Finally, here's a picture I took today of my friend Kim's week-old little girl with one of my Monster-Ear hats on. She's such a little peanut (6 pounds!) and the hat fit her perfectly!
It's so hard to believe that a week ago she was still in the womb!

So, that is my week in phone-camera taken pictures. I did find my camera's battary charger today (it was on my craft room floor...I don't know why, but I'm blaming the cat. She tends to jump up on my desk in the craft room and bat things around. Sometimes I'll find sweater scraps in the hallway upstairs). Hopefully I'll have more to blog about this week!

Lil Monster Debut!

Remember a few weeks ago when I made this hat? Well, the baby boy it was meant for came into the world this week! (and he looks so much better in it than the semi-creepy baby doll I originally modeled it on!) Congratulations Amy!

However...

"after his debut in it, Oliver decided that he has a big head and that the hat donning process was a bit too much for his liking since his 13 1/2 inch head barely fit!"

To be fair, Oliver is the first real baby to try on the newborn-sized hat, and I was aware that even newborns are all different sizes when they're born. So I was prepared for the possiblility of the hat being too small...so when Amy bought the hat from me, I had offered to make a bigger one if it didn't fit. So I'm going to make good on my offer now.

Yup...sizing is still a slow learning process. Even with help from Martha. ;)
I don't have any kids/babies of my own, so I can't just go grab one to measure their head...I have to borrow my friends' kids!

More Monster Ear Hats in Infant & Kid Sizes!

I got some infant size hats now!

And more kid-size hats...

These are some of the kids at church on Sunday...

Custom Newborn Monster-Ear Hat

I posted pics of the previous newborn hat on my Facebook and now all my friends want one! Below is my first custom hat for my friend Amy. And these newborn hats are listed in my Etsy shop now. (need a baby shower gift?)

Yay for making fun, yet practical fuzzy things!

(BTW: I'm hoping to maybe use one of my friends' babies as models soon so I won't have to use the baby doll. It's pretty life-like, but not enough to fool one into thinking it's actually a real baby...so it just ends up being a bit creepy.)

Newborn Monster-Ear Hat

After seeing my last post, my friend Amy emailed me saying that she'd love to buy one for her new baby that is on the way. She also gave me a very helpful link to a project for making fleece hats that has some sizing information on the Martha Stewart website. (Oh....Martha is sucking me in!)
So, eager to try my hand at making a smaller sized hat, I made a newborn Monster-Ear hat...

I made the pattern myself based on the sizing chart on the Martha website and the hat pattern I'd used for the adult sized hat (traced from a pattern for a recycled sweater hat project in the book Last Minute Fabric Gifts)

My model is a baby doll that Aunt Grandma actually gave me years ago...a childhood toy that I keep for my friends' kids to enjoy when they come over. It is supposed to be the size of an actual newborn. It fits the doll, so I hope it fits an actual baby! (this is based on the smallest size on the chart...14 inch circumference and 8 inch crown)

Average Head Sizes:
Newborn (6 months and younger)
Circumference: 14 to 17 inches
Crown: 8 to 10 inches

Infant (6 to 12 months)
Circumference: 16 to 19 inches
Crown: 11 to 12 inches

The Baby & the Nubbin

Remember that green baby Nubbin I made for a friend Nancy's baby shower a few months ago? Well, I recieved a text message from her this morning with this picture attached...

Nancy said "she's mighty hungry in this pic but the monster calms her down! :-)"

Aaaaaawwwwww! I'm so glad her little baby girl likes it already! I didn't expect her to like it this young! That made my day!

Nancy's Baby Shower

The baby shower I went to last night was lots of fun! I went an hour early to help my friend Kim set up and decorate. I'm all about decorating and so is Kim, so we had lots of fun. She and her sister Tricia had made these lovely tissue paper balls...

And they are so simple to make! You just accordian fold the layers of tissue paper (sorry, I don't know how many layers), cut the ends if desired (that's how they got that flowery look) put the wire around the middle and make the loop to hang the ball, then fluff the layers out to make the puff/flower. (I helped fluff them out when we got to the coffee shop).

The shower was at a local coffee house, The Shirt Factory Cafe`. The building used to be, guess what!...a shirt factory! My hubby came along too for the set-up and was instumental in hanging the puffs. We only had a short ladder, so it helped to have a tall (and artisticly inclined) man to help!

And this is how it all looked when it was done! (I want to have a party just so I can make more of these pretty puffs! Housewarming party maybe?...)

It was nice to see some ladies from the Rochester church who I haven't gotten a chance to talk with in a while. Nancy (the girl the shower was for) was completely overwhelmed. She was in tears when she walked in and saw the place! I was glad we were able to be a blessing is such a simple way.

It was cute how all the little girls swarmed around Nancy as she opened her gifts!

The obligatory "pregnant women" baby shower picture! Lined up by due dates left (most pregnant) to right. It worked out well, because it just happens to be that Nancy is in the middle!

The woman at the far left with the baby is Nancy's sister, Karen, who was included because she just had her 4th child a few weeks ago. (some may alrady know about it, but check out her blog for the amazing story of her 3rd child, Jacob).

New Baby...

Congratulations to my friends Amy & Brian on the birth of their new daughter (and fourth child) Lula Mae...born Wednesday May 6th, 2008. She'll be a week old tomorrow.

Letting Go and New Life

My husband and I went to the Memorial/Celebration Service for Jacob Fahmer last night. It was beautiful. I've never cried so much for someone I've never met. After the initial service inside the church, we were asked to all go outside to the lawn, and on our way out of the church, the first 139 people would get a balloon...one for each day of Jacob's life. Once everyone was outside and all the balloons had been given out, we released them all. What a beautiful symbol of letting go and trusting the Lord.

"He left the arms of his earthly father and into the arms of his Heavenly Father."

And I found out, when I happened to check my email this morning before I left for work, that my friend Amy had her baby this morning! Congratulations Chris & Amy! Welcome to the planet Simon!
How poetically fitting. The day after celebrating the life of a child who has gone home to the Lord, we get to celebrate the Lord blessing us all with a brand new child.

Like my Dad says..."God is good. All the time."