A few weeks ago, at my Tuesday morning mom’s group, we were discussing buying girl’s clothing. Specifically, how easy it is to spend $$$. One of the moms said she just got done buying a complete spring wardrobe for her son at Old Navy for $40. Then, I joked you couldn’t even buy one Matilda Jane dress for $40.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to curb my spending on Daphne’s wardrobe. Not that I ever spent that much, really. I shop the clearance sales. But I do want Daphne to get more wear out of her clothes, hence the cutbacks. In fact, I’m not buying an Easter dress for her this year. She has several dresses she can wear. But if I did have, say a couple hundred bucks to spend on an Easter outfit, I would get her one of these:

Jane and Jack Rose Floral Silk Dress. $78 and SO PRETTY:

Bo Peep Set (I think from Luna Luna), also $78. Wouldn’t this knit set be cute for a casual egg hunt? I am in LOVE with ruffled capris on little girls.

French Fairy dress. It’s hard to see what it looks like as a dress, since the pic is so small, and it’s $138. Holy Hell.

And the Daphne dress from JCrew. It’s $198.

And I do really like this GenMarie dress with Jennifer Paganelli’s Flower Power fabric line. I love Flower Power and was looking forward to it being released. Not that I’ve bought any yet.

Ok, so there’s my fantasy shopping trip. Is anyone else scaling back for Easter?

- Sitting with Daphne, watching Jack’s Big Music Show (On DVD since it’s 4:30 AM).
- Looking forward to going to Austin today. I haven’t been to Austin since 1990. And yeah, this probably isn’t the best time to go because of SXSW.
- Planning out a new dress for Daphne. I bought a pattern from the You Can Make This website, but for some reason I always refer to it as So You Think You Can Make This. Which might actually be more appropriate in my case.
- Wondering why I have people following me on Twitter when I’ve had a total of 16 updates. Maybe I should start tweeting about freeze dried snacks and see if I get some survivalist followers/spam. That always works here on the blog.
- Thinking of keeping Daphne up until we have to leave so she’ll sleep in the car (She woke up at 3 or 3:30). This could work, or she’ll be crabby as hell.
- Being summoned by DVD (Daphne Veronica) to fix the DVD.

What are you doing?

A few days ago, I received a card from one of my cousins in Chicago. When I saw the return address, my first response was, “Is Helen getting married again?” and then tried to think if that would be husband #4 or #5. Anyway, out of the card fell two pictures of my grandparents. When they were really young. Very cool. One was of the two of them together, at a bar of some sort. The other was a picture of my grandfather playing at Wrigley Field in an All-Star game. He was a professional baseball player for a while until he had too many mouths to feed. Back when players didn’t have multi-million dollar salaries.

I really appreciated the photos. I think I blogged about this last year, but for the first 34 years of my life I didn’t really know what my grandmother looked like. Isn’t that weird? I’m sure I could have picked her out of a lineup, but only because I can see where my dad got some of his features. She died when my dad was a boy.

When we were in Chicago last summer, we made it a point to look through the old family pictures. I had also never really seen pictures of my Aunt Pat, who died not too long before I was born. I mention all this, because I want to be able to pass on the family history to Daphne, and the family members with the most info aren’t getting any younger. My dad was never much help. When we were filling out the family tree section of Daphne’s baby book, it went back as far as the great-great grandparents. When I asked my dad what my great grandmother’s name was, he responded, “I don’t know. We just called her Grandma.” Seriously, Dad? I had to look through the family cookbook my aunt gave me for clues until I finally came across it. I think it was Embra. And I would still like to have a picture of my dad as a baby/toddler. I think I have one picture of him as a boy, plus his senior picture and that’s it.

My husband had a similar situation with his grandfather last year, before he passed away. He knew his grandfather was in a work farm type orphanage during the Depression, but we didn’t have too many details. Chris was able to get names, dates and locations and even connected with some distant relatives in Ohio, not too far from where his grandfather lived.

My mom’s side of the family is easier, since I grew up with them. Out of my generation, I’m the one that remembers all the family stories. And since my mom has an old Bible with all the family Indian Roll numbers, I don’t think it would be difficult to go back and research previous generations.

So, now I just have to figure out a way to remember all this info. Just in case 30 years from now, Daphne has questions. And since I still have “mommy brain,” I’m not too confident in my memory, lately. I guess I need to start writing things down.

I guess you could say I’ve been bit by the sewing bug again. Here’s my latest Daphne project, a cotton top from Simplicity pattern 4203:

It’s hard to tell from this pic, but the bottom of the top is gathered and flares out from the bodice.

And the back.

Don’t worry, it was 85 degrees when we took these pics. I promise Daphne wasn’t cold. Anyway, I didn’t love this pattern and am not sure I’d make it again. I’m not sure how much of that is because I was making this top at 1am and my eyes kept crossing as I was topstitching the bodice. Seriously. I kept having to stop the machine, blink a few times and look away.

I’ll keep looking for the perfect summer top pattern, since I have a huge fabric stash to use up. Anyone have any suggestions, please let me know!

We spent the day in Brenham, TX. After a tour of the Blue Bell factory, we took some pics of Daphne in the bluebonnets. For those of you not familiar with the Texas/bluebonnet connection, they are the state flower and it’s popular to have your picture taken with them.

Daphne was in no mood for pictures (what else is new?) and I got attacked by fire ants, so we didn’t get too many shots. Maybe next time!

More pics on my Flickr account.

- Ok, haven’t we seen enough “Adama breaks down” scenes on BSG lately. It’s irritating. I haven’t enjoyed the last few episodes.

- It only took 18 months, but finally Daphne has learned to brush the hair out of her eyes. Woohoo!

- Last week as I was getting out of my car at the playground, one of the other moms in my Mom 2 Mom group mentioned that I “looked like a boxy car person.” She’s not the first person who has said that. Apparently, I give off a Scion xB owner vibe. I happen to love my little toaster. Here she is after we drove her home from the dealer:

And for the record, I do not like the new body style. It has a pissed off looking “face.”

- We are on the hunt for a bluebonnet patch for picture purposes. (That’s a Texas thing, y’all)

Wouldn’t Daphne look good sitting in a field of these flowers? I’m thinking we might head up towards Brenham and then make a stop at the Blue Bell factory for a tour.

- It has been a hard few days with Daphne. She has been so fussy!! Let’s hope this week is better.

Have you seen the Johnson & Johnson commercial with the tag line, “Having a baby changes everything”? I was reminded of that tonight as I sat in a room with two other couples, both without kids. Dogs, homes, vacations and jobs were all topics of discussion. I nodded and smiled and threw in a few comments here and there. Mainly things like, “Yes, we used to have a dog (before Daphne).” I also found myself doing a lot of mental editing. I tried not to bring up Daphne too much, because I didn’t want to be “that woman” who always talks about her kid. At least until I got to know everyone better, haha!

I really had no idea what to expect when Daphne was born. It’s interesting to me how completely my life has changed. Two years ago, I would have been all over an evening out with other childless adults. Because, let’s face it, the older you get the harder it is to find other married, childless couples to hang out with. Not that we wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with people with kids, we were just more mobile and had different interests, usually. Of course, now that life is completely Daphne-centric, it’s just weird to think about what we were like before she arrived. When we could travel, and see movies, and when I worked full time. When I could eat a meal without interruption, you know.

I’m not saying I miss the old us. Not at all. (Well, I miss the traveling part just a little.) I’ve discovered that love parents have for their kids. Like when you feel your heart will just burst, you love them so much. I’m glad I didn’t miss out on having children.

I guess I was just surprised tonight that I felt so out of touch. I need to get out more, maybe. Or maybe it will get easier to find that balance between being “Jenny” and just “Daphne’s Mom” as she gets older and more independent. Because, for the last 18 months I’ve felt like just “Daphne’s Mom”, which I suppose is normal. And now I’m just rambling on… Anyway, Daphne’s Mom is going to sleep now, since Daph has been waking up super early this week. I would like to just be “Jenny” for a morning and sleep in ’til 10. Wouldn’t that be lovely.

It was a beautiful day, so we decided to meet a few other moms at the playground. Normally, Daphne is afraid of the swings and slides. She made progress on the slides, but forget the swings.

Just a side note on photo post-processing… I follow a number of photographers who are able to use grain effectively in their photos. I’m always afraid to add grain, lest it look like I just totally screwed up and shot at 3200 ISO or something. Anyway, I wanted to experiment on this photo with a contrasty, grainy B&W conversion. Not sure about it.

And here she actually LOOKED at the camera. For a fraction of a second. Good thing my shutter speed was fast.

And finally, racing down the slides with her friend.

Don’t you just love spring weather?

As you might know, I enjoy wasting time “window shopping” on Etsy. I like to see what other crafters are doing and get some inspiration. My last actual Etsy purchase? August ‘08.

Tonight as I was looking for toddler dresses on Etsy, I came across this dress and immediately opened another tab in Firefox, so I could see how much was in my Paypal account. Oh my stinking heck, this is cute:

It’s retro (I love retro! You’ve seen my kitchen canisters and my 50’s table and chairs) and rockabilly and awesome! I can’t wait to see it on Daphne.

Check out Lover Dovers Clothing for more cute stuff.

After a few long nights, I finally got a sewing project completed for Daphne. This knot dress is from Sandi Henderson’s Portobello Pixie Claire pattern:

The happy customer. She loves dresses with attached aprons.

And the back.

And the most important part? The TWIRL factor. Heading into the twirl:

Twirl, twirl, twirl

Overall, I was really pleased with the pattern. It was simple and very versatile. We do have a pink shirt that she can wear under this dress for now, but it won’t be long until it’s warm enough to wear by itself.

I did make several changes, including squaring off the straps and making them wider, decreasing the length of the buttonholes, the bodice is cut at a 2T and the straps & skirt at 18-24 mo, instead of adding the apron band I just increased the length of the apron. The fabric is from Hobby Lobby. I think it was $3.99/yard on sale. Total cost (not including the pattern) was $10-$12 bucks. Not bad!