Have I mentioned lately how thrilled I am that Daphne has enough hair to use accessories? This green dress was a shower gift from a friend and I love how the turtle clips bring everything together.

I have to be careful with what I say. For example, the other day I was in Daphne’s room, cleaning, while Miss D was in her crib playing with her toys. I was thinking about stripping the sheets off her crib when I realized that Daphne very rarely messes up her bed. Before she was born I bought all these sheets, thinking I’d be changing them all the time due to spit-up or diaper blow-outs. Nope. Never. That is until I mentioned it to Daphne (yes, I talk to her all the time just like she’s a little person and can understand me). Two seconds after I praised her for not messing up her sheets, she looked at me and pooped. And yes, it got on the sheets. She also pooped on her sheets today. Stuff like that happens all the time. I mention how great Daphne has been sleeping, then she suddenly stops sleeping. I need to keep my mouth shut.

So this weekend I was very cautious in mentioning what a good time Daphne & I were having together, and how everything was going well with Chris out of town. Because I knew as soon as I said something that all hell would break loose. I was also remembering the business trips my step-dad would take when I was growing up. The company that he worked for manufactured oil exploration equipment and one of their big clients was the Chinese government. For a number of years he would spend a good bit of time in China, maybe 3 to 6 months each year. Sometimes he’d be in Beijing, sometimes he’d be in the middle of nowhere. And this was in the 80’s, before everyone had cell phones and internet access. So it wasn’t easy to communicate with him. Anyway, whenever he would leave something would always blow up at home… an appliance, car, something. Which left my mom to deal with the situation. While Chris was gone I was waiting for the washer to leak or dishwasher to explode, something. Luckily everything was just fine. But now that I’ve said it I’m sure the next time he goes out of town something will break.

Our little ballerina girl:

The grumpy “I’m not taking a nap” ballerina:

For the last 3 or 4 weeks Daphne has not been sleeping well.  At first I blamed it on teething, then her sickness.  All understandable.  She’s feeling better now, and I don’t notice her being in pain from teething.  So I don’t know why she’s still waking up so much.  For the last few nights she’s been up every hour, or every two hours.  I don’t get it.   She didn’t wake up this much as a newborn.  And it doesn’t matter if she’s in her crib, or in bed with us.  Of course, she doesn’t want to nap either.

She really hates naptime.  Let’s hope this stage passes quickly.  I’m completely exhausted.

I watched the movie 300 again this weekend while Chris was out of town. Just a couple random observations:

If you’ve seen it, did you notice that all the guys have exactly the same abs? Like turtle shells. I wonder if they are CGI. Or did everyone have the same trainer? How did they get identical abs? I swear I spend half the movie staring at their abs trying to figure this out. But I suppose that’s the point of this movie, right?  Otherwise they would fight in more than little leather Speedos.

The guy that plays Leonidas reminds me of a younger, hotter Brian Blessed in Flash Gordon.

Anyone else see the resemblance? Maybe it’s just me.

Congrats to my brother-in-law, John and his new bride, Terrie who were married today!  Sorry Daphne & I couldn’t be there for your special day.  We wish you a lifetime of happiness!

I need to get out more.  Look what is still on my front door.

Yeah, that’s my Christmas wreath.  In my defense, normally we go in and out the garage.

As you can tell by my last post I’m still sewing on the kitchen table. Right now my new sewing desk has a bunch of junk all over it and I’m still working out where to put everything. Then I can start the painting process- both the room and the desk. I hate painting. Since moving into our house over 4 years ago we have painted every room (including the basement and some rooms twice), every bit of cabinetry (which I’ll never do again) and even the exterior of the house. I’ve also painted furniture- the coffee table, our dresser, daphne’s changing table & dresser, my vintage vanity, a shelf. Argh. No more painting after this room. I’m burned out.

So I’m choosing not to think about the painting part and am jumping right into the decorating. I have some vintage enamel flower parts coming from an Etsy seller which I hope to fashion into knobs for the desk. I love some of the knobs from Anthropologie but I’m not paying $12 per knob. I only spent $40 on the whole desk, you know. I think I can come up with something similar. Also, I need to make a sewing machine cover for the Janome. Not sure what material I want to use. Probably something red and white. I also want to make a pretty pincushion and some pin toppers. I’ve seen several pincushions on Etsy made from teacups or other small containers, like this one from onlyu:

This one is way too fussy, but I’m thinking about doing something similar with this little milk glass piece I’ve had forever:

It’s about 3.5″ tall and I think will be perfect. And I want to make some decorative pin toppers like this one from Pinks n Needles:

How cute is that?  You have to check out the rest of the shop… so many adorable pins!  Add some artwork/photos, maybe a hanging lantern and my side of the room will be complete.  I just need a little painting fairy to do the hard part so I can get to the fun.  Any volunteers?

After some more tweaking I finally found a headband design I was happy with. Taking foofanagle’s tutorial as a starting point I adjusted the shape slightly and this time used interfacing and topstitched. The result is the one in the middle:

I was a bit like Goldilocks… this one was too big, too stiff and just not right. So I made another that was slightly smaller with no interfacing and wasn’t too happy with my sewing (the top headband). Next was headband #3 (not pictured). Again, playing with the shape. This one was so wonky it didn’t even get elastic added. Finally I got it right on the 4th headband of the evening (it’s a good thing they don’t take long to put together). The bottom band is the one I wore today. It’s basically foofanagle’s narrow pattern but increased in length and I covered the elastic. And can I just say that I never want to see another Amy Butler Lotus print again?!? Between Daphne’s quilt and these headbands I’m SO over these prints. I wore the full moon dot headband out today and I’m not 100% sure I like the print. Is it too Minnie Mouse? I might make another with the morning glory print.