5 months old

Daphne is 5 months old today. It’s amazing how much she’s changed in just the last few weeks. Here’s the latest:

• A few days ago her hazel eye changed color a little bit. It’s now only about 50% hazel, the rest is now blue. Very odd.
• This week she has been trying out her voice more than usual. She especially likes to shriek. You know the sound the Nazgul’s flying creatures made in the LOTR movies. Yeah, it’s like that. Pierces my brain. She thinks it’s hysterical.
• She loves her Jumperoo. She jumps like a Riverdancer on speed.
• She’s started putting everything in her mouth. While we were reading a board book a few days ago she liked to play with the pages and then try to eat them. It’s funny to see her lunge forward, wheels in her brain turning, trying to figure out how to get the page in her mouth.
• She spits on Chris. Well, not spitting really, more like blowing raspberries. She doesn’t do it to me.
• She hates to recline, even just a little (which she gets from me, I’m the same way, especially in a car). In fact we had to pack her swing away in the basement because she wanted to sit up and would throw the whole thing off balance.
• She’s almost grown out of her 3-6 mo. clothes. But still wearing 0-3 mo. shoes. She has peanut feet.
• It takes a little bit of effort to lift her these days. We think she’s around 15 lbs now.
• She’s going to be a daddy’s girl.  They love to spend time together.

Even though it’s only been 5 months it’s hard to remember what we did without her.

Sublime Stitching

Sublime Stitching has some really fun embroidery patterns on their site. I’ve looked at them a number of times but never had a specific project in mind so I haven’t purchased any.  I might have to buy a few.  Today I was checking out the Sublime Stitching Flickr pool and got inspired.  Check out this embroidered skirt from Jenne Girl.  How cute!  And the patterns are really inexpensive.

All of these embroidery projects reminded me of some clothing my mom made for me as a little girl.  Here’s one of my toddler shirts:

I like how she did my initials at the collar.  On the back yoke is a row of kitties.  I actually remember wearing this.  So, I think I might give it a try for Daphne.  One good thing about embroidery is it’s easy, cheap and I can do it while sitting in front of the TV with Chris. Now I just have to decide what pattern to choose.

Cabin Fever

January is always a rough month for me mentally and physically.  Besides the after-Christmas let down, Chris & I are normally sick for at least part of the month, there’s not much going on in town and it’s too cold to be outside anyway.  I can’t wait for spring.  Basically I’ve had a few really “down” days this past week.  I’m at a higher risk for post-partum depression but I don’t think that’s what is going on now.  But just in case Chris is always on PPD patrol.  Before I gave birth to Daphne I made him look at a few passages from Brooke Shield’s book, Down Came the Rain.  I gave him the instructions that if I start acting like that to please call my Doctor.  Not that he needed the instructions, he’s been around long enough to know what my depression looks like.  But like I said, I don’t think that’s what is going on.  This year I’ve got all the normal January things, plus a baby to take care of, plus adjusting to life as a stay-at-home mom.  I think it’s probably understandable to have a few rough days here and there.  I just need to get out of the house.  It’s going to be 63 tomorrow, Daphne and I need to go to the park.

Hello Dahling!

Daphne is a glamour girl:

Pom Puppies

When I’m an old lady I’m going to own a Pomeranian.  I say “when I’m an old lady” because I’ve heard Poms can be very snippy and they are little delicate dogs… not good to have with small children in the house.  Then when Daphne and possible baby #2 are older I’m sure Chris will want to have some slobbery big outside dog for them to wrestle with.  Anyway, until then I’ll just have to make do with these little crocheted Pom puppies.  How cute are these?  Download the pdf here from Roman Sock.

NOLA Cuisine

We’ve lived in the Deep South for 5 years now, and even though it’s not a place we want to live long term we’ve had fun exploring another part of the country. (And trust me, sometimes the SE feels like a WHOLE other country) Pre-Daphne we took many long weekend trips: Savannah, Atlanta, Hilton Head, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Chattanooga, Mobile, Gulf Shores, Panama City, Pensacola, Gatlinburg, Memphis. One of the places that we visited briefly but didn’t get a chance to really explore was New Orleans. We had planned a longer trip but then Hurricane Katrina came and we had to cancel. Too bad really because we both love Cajun and Creole cuisine and enjoy New Orleans jazz. I’d still love to go, but not with Daphne. In the meantime I’ll have to make my own red beans & rice and listen to my Preservation Hall Jazz Band cds. I need to buy Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen cookbook. Although I’m not sure I can ever really cook authentic Cajun/Creole food. I’m not a big fan of andouille and so many recipes start off with “take the heads off the shrimp and put them in a pot to make the sauce.” No… hell no. I pay good money to have my shrimp come without their heads thank you very much. If I have to see the heads I won’t want to eat them anymore. I don’t even like peel and eat shrimp because I have to touch their little feet. I have issues.  Like in A Christmas Story when they eat Chinese for Christmas and the duck is “smiling” at them.  Yeah, I don’t like my food to look at me.

I am buying a King Cake this year for Mardi Gras. I really wanted one last year but was trying to limit my sugar and all since I was pregnant. The first company I worked for here in B’ham had an office in New Orleans and that branch would always send us King Cakes. Yum. Although I’ve been dying to try the cinnamon roll recipe from the Pioneer Woman (I just figured out not too long ago that she’s a fellow Okie).  And nolacuisine.com has a pretty good looking King Cake recipe.  Hmm.. not sure which will win out.  But I’m hungry just thinking about it.

Nursery Design

I’ve been spending some time at different design blogs/forums getting ideas about some redecorating projects I’ve started. Looking at all the nursery designs on ohdeedoh and craftster’s completed project forum makes me realize how many things I would change in Daphne’s room. I’m not going to, she doesn’t get a room re-do until she is ready to move out of her crib. I guess I just wish I had added more personal touches. When I had a hard time finding a crib bedding set I should have just made one myself. I should have created some artwork for the walls. Something. But I guess I can’t be too hard on myself. The job I had before Daphne just beat the life and joy out of me. I didn’t have any energy left over to be creative. Oh well, I’m already contemplating Daphne’s toddler room. The main feature will be this ridiculously cute little white bistro set that I bought at a garage sale before she was born. In fact, I’m not even sure we knew we were having a girl yet. I saw that set and had to have it. It’s a little white metal round table with scalloped details on the edge and two little white metal bistro chairs with pink upholstered seats. So I’m thinking her toddler room needs to be just an explosion of girly-girl and pink (but tasteful and age appropriate). And she needs a chandelier like this one from Pottery Barn Kids. And staying with the bistro theme, maybe some French accents. And a really cute tea set. Let’s just hope Daphne is a girly-girl like her mother.

Stuck in the Land of Lost

We finished up Lost season 3 a few days ago and Chris decided he wanted to watch season 2 again.  Argh.  I’m going to be burned out on Lost before season 4 starts next week.  See, Chris has been a Lost fan since day 1.  I was more reluctant.  Mainly because I just don’t trust any JJ Abrams series to last more than a few seasons without disintegrating into crap.  Felicity, Alias- both started out strong.  I’m still bitter about Alias.  I loved that show, first two seasons especially.  Then it went downhill.  And after they killed off Vaughn in season 5 I was so pissed I completely stopped watching until the finale.  And I’m still irritated they killed off Jack and that Irina turned out to be a bad guy after all.  And that Rambaldi stuff was really stupid.  Anyway- back to Lost.  I know that JJ is not the only creative mind behind Lost so hopefully this series will be different.  But there has been such a buildup that I’m not sure they can ever resolve everything in a satisfying way.  For example- Chris had never seen Gone With The Wind.  So we rented it one night and watched it and after the final scene Chris turns to me and says, “You mean I sat through this whole movie and THAT’S how it ends?!”  Um, yeah.  I’m afraid that’s what’s going to happen with Lost.  “You mean I sat through all these seasons of Lost and THAT’S how it ends?!”  We’ll see.

Testing the Rag Quilt Technique

I had to take a break with my quilt project because I managed to completely kill both of my rotary cutter blades. Neither one would cut even a single thickness of cotton. So tonight I went out, got a new blade and the rest of my supplies and made a small test quilt.

So far I’m pretty pleased. I was really concerned when I was clipping the seam allowances, it looked really bad (I mean REALLY bad), especially at the intersections. But once it was washed and dried everything blended together. Now I need to decide whether I want to run a quilting stitch in an “x” pattern over each block. Technically I shouldn’t have to since I’m not using batting. The flannel that is in the center of each fabric square “sandwich” shouldn’t shift or break down. Hmm… Any opinions? I’m concerned if I don’t it’s going to pucker (see the top row), but even if I add the quilt stitches it does pucker a little anyway (bottom row). I’m leaning toward not quilting each square. Here’s the back:

Clutterbags

I finally got my Clutterbags order this week.  The Chez Moi Sophie Market tote and matching diaper & wipes case wristlet were my first two Etsy purchases.  It did take a while to get (I ordered on 12/28) but I highly recommend Clutterbag’s Etsy shop.  Both items were very well made with a great attention to detail.  Here’s a picture of the bag:

I think it’s going to work very well for a spring/summer diaper bag.