gardener

Man, this kid loves dirt.

future gardener

   

 

what’s the word?

Cat. It will surprise no one that Liam’s first word (or approximation thereof) is “cat”. It sounds sort of like “acht” and is the only word he even attempts to repeat. Sadly, Mickey left us last week after a few months of illness (tumor), vet visits, and various attempts at pain management. So, talk around the house had been even more cat-centric than usual. I guess the little man picked up on it.

On a more upbeat note, Liam waves hi and bye and signs more, cookie, all done, milk, and is starting to do eat. We’re emphasizing eat and drink, as he gets frustrated when we don’t realize that he’s hungry or thirsty.

Check out the new “crawl”. The boy doesn’t like scraping his knees on the concrete, yet insists on playing in the driveway.

elephant walk

 

pool boy

Puckerman’s above ground pool cleaning business has nothing on our main man’s full service operation.

pool boy

scrub, scrub

use the tools

not afraid of a little dirt

PS. Guilty revelation: I heart Puck.

 

thanks, martha

Well check us out. Our Superbowl Cupcakes from 2008 were selected as one of Martha Stewart’s Cutest Cupcakes 2009 contest winners.

Martha Stewart's 2009 Cutest Cupcake

We won a copy of Martha’s Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone’s Favorite Treat. And bragging rights, of course.

 

up and down

One of Liam’s new tricks…

down

 

up

Yes, it’s November and yes, it was warm enough for water sports on Saturday. More tomorrow.

 

welcome to bedrock

Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween. We sure did.

Barney, Betty, and Bamm-Bamm Rubble

my cavemen

so, this is candy...

yeah, chocolate!

digging for treats with regan

So, in typical fashion, I sewed the costumes on Friday and Saturday morning. Nothing like a deadline to get the blood pumping. Fortunately all the costumes were fairly lightweight. It was 84 degrees on Saturday. Ugh. The boy was still a bit warm, but not too bad.

Bamm-Bamm was a simple skirt cut to the approximate size of a pair of good fitting shorts and a sash that was draped to fit. The costume may have taken an hour start to finish, perhaps even less time. Both pieces were faux fur. The tiger print was soft on the back, so wasn’t lined. The sash was a bit scratchy so I lined it with leftover fabric from Barney’s costume. We found a squeaky club at a Hokus Pokus costume store and picked up a dog bone at Wal-Mart to complete the look.

Barney was cut following a modification of the tunic from McCalls 5683. The fabric was stach stretch faux suede. I cut a single front piece and single back piece and clipped all the edges.   Here’s the full review.

Betty was cut as a simplified McCall’s 5654 using some stash blue mystery fabric. I omitted the pockets and simplified the straps. I love the box pleats, but the dress is a tent. If your a tall, very, very thin girl (which I am admittedly not), it may be wearable as a real dress. On me however, yikes! The funniest part of my costume is invisible. I had to sew an old bra together in the middle to draw the straps in at the front. Unbelievably unattractive and fairly uncomfortable, but it kept the girls in check. Hoo-rah. Here’s the full review.

 

memories

Watching the Phillies’ game last night reminded me of our last trip home (in August) and the wiffle ball spectacular, spectacular in the yard. How did I forget to post these until now? The mind wobbles, doesn’t it? (the line is about 13 minutes into the episode…).

colm explaining the rules to uncle b.

is this legal?

too close to call

play at second

what form

 

sneak peek

look, ma, new teeth!

 

mama’s new baby

Singer Curvy 8780

Mummy got a new sewing machine for her birthday. It is amazing. I love it. It’s the Singer Curvy 8780 and it has 225 stitches (including a block alphabet) and the Costco set came with every foot you can imagine. Seriously, I’m giddy with presser feet. The only one that didn’t come in the box is the circular stitch foot that I must have, if only for the sake of a complete set and my own greed. Currently, Curvy lives on our dining room table, though she’ll be relocated to the craft room after Halloween. Here’s my review of the machine on patternreview.com.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I made a quilt for Regan’s birthday. Like Liam’s Circles and Stripes, it’s another pattern free, wonky quilt that measures about 30″ x 40″. The quilt front is composed of four wonky log cabin blocks made from two adorable fat quarter packs I found at Wal-Mart and the back is half fat quarters with two strips of stash fabric. I used the built in serpentine stitch in rows spaced 1.5-inches apart (sort of, my straight lines aren’t really straight). The fabric is 100% cotton (pre-washed) and it’s sandwiched with low-loft cotton batting. I didn’t pre-wash the batting, only the fabric, so once the finished quilt was washed it got extra crinkly. I hand embroidered “Regan” in split stitch in the lower right corner using pearl cotton.

   

There were some scraps left over from Regan’s quilt so I put together a single wonky log cabin block to make a mini-quilt for Penny, Regan’s lovey. This marks my first attempt at free-motion quilting. Not great, but not as terrible as I feared either.

   

The photos could definitely be better, but with so many “helpers” you do what you can.

i’ll help you mommy

no, let me.

is this better?

 

fall-ish

what's wrong with dirt?

So, it cooled down here for a minute. It’s back in the 80s again, but the trees tired of holding their leaves anyway. The boy loves playing outside. He is, as you can see, a big fan of dirt. He has a funky new crawl that he uses outside. He uses his left knee and right foot (so his right knee never touches the ground). It’s pretty funny.

Inside he crawls on his hands and knees, belly off the ground much more often these days. Liam can also stand unsupported for like 30 seconds, longer if he’s engrossed in something.

One of the big guy’s top teeth finally broke through. The other should cut any day now, perhaps even today. His mood greatly improved once that tooth popped through.

here. this is for you.

So, we’re officially done with bottles. I haven’t pumped in over a week. His grandparents have one last bag of frozen milk that he’ll get on Tuesday and after that it’s straight from the tap or nothing. Usually, he nurses upon waking and before bed, and sometimes before nap(s) and that’s it. However, he actually refused to nurse during the day all weekend, which is a little sad. I’ll keep offering during the day for another week or so, then give up the ghost on daytime sessions. He’ll be 11 months next week and eats so well that I’m not concerned about nutrition, but still… Those first weeks of breastfeeding I never (NEVER) would have believed that I’d be sad to see the end of nursing. Guess we’ll see how long he wants to do the wake up and bedtime feeds.

stylin' and profilin'

In other weekend news, Liam attended his very first birthday party for our neighbor Regan.  How cute is he in that shirt (thanks Laurie and A. Joni)? Liam adores Regan and whenever possible tackles her for kisses. It’s quite cute. Maybe not from her perspective, but what can you do? We  made her a quilt, which I’ll post about tomorrow.

That’s all for now. Have a good one.