eager little mind

From my Flickr stream, and in no particular order And I suppose I should just call this post, My Favorite Daphne Photos of 2009. You’ll see why.

Bono. Yep, one bucket list item could be crossed off when we saw U2 in October.

Daphne and Torah shopping at the Children’s Museum in August.

Elmo party and the Elmo cake from hell.

Daphne’s 2 yr photo shoot. My favorite-

And my husband’s favorite from the same shoot-

And another picture of Daphne. This really captures her well. She’s always a complete mess.

Bath time-

First bluebonnets picture-

Modeling the very first dress I made for her-

And now for something completely different, here’s my husband being a total goofball. I actually have no idea what he was doing, but when I saw the shot I immediately thought zombie. So I zombie-fied him. You know, zombie is a fun word to say. Zombie, zombie, zombie.

We hope to start off the new year with a photo walk, probably downtown or in the museum district. A great way to start off 2010.

Until next year!

It just doesn’t seem possible that a year ago I was writing a “2008 sucked. Welcome 2009!” post. Where did the year go? Not that I’m complaining. 2009 was a horrible year for our family. It just pounded us in to the ground. My dad even said, “Well, at least you know things can’t get much worse.” That was in August. And guess what? Things did get worse later in the fall. And I’m about to do something that bugs me to no end when I see other bloggers do the same thing… I’m not going to give you the details. Not here. It’s not a pride thing, but more about privacy. I don’t want to put out my dirty laundry for future employers to see. But, if you want to sit down over a cup of coffee, I’d be glad to tell you my 2009 Really, Really, Really Sucked tale.

It’s probably my fault for being so optimistic about 2009 (haha). Chris and I have this running joke that whenever we want to spend quality time together, or go somewhere fun, we say something like, “Are you ready to have a really horrible time?” Because inevitably, if we say “We are going to have a wonderful time today!”, things just go to hell in a handbasket. One of us gets sick, we have car trouble, both of us wake up on the wrong side of the bed and argue all day, or Daphne breaks down. You name it. Yep, what I should have said is 2009 is going to be a terrible year.

So, looking forward to another crappy year in 2010. Woohoo!! Let’s see, I hope to get Daphne potty trained and ready for preschool. I plan on going back to school full time, and I’m actually really, really looking forward to it (I’m like a Cylon. I have a plan!! U of H here I come, probably. Unless someone else can give me a better deal. But more on that later.) I hope to get away for a weekend, just me and Hubs. Improve my sewing technique. Be more frugal. And the usual, eat better, be more active, be a better mom/wife/person.

And to pull out another cheesy sci-fi reference, I need 2010 to be the year we make contact. Things in my life need to start coming together. Dreams and reality. And I hope we are on a path to make that happen. I hope.

Are you looking forward to 2010?

Guess who didn’t take a single picture over Christmas? *Raises hand* How is it possible that I took hundreds of pics at the U2 concert in October, but failed to catch any pics of my darling girl opening her Christmas gifts? All I can say is that I was trying to be in the moment, and sometimes the camera gets in the way.

So after Christmas Eve service and dinner, we visited with my dad. Daphne got a soccer ball set, complete with goal, and lots of fun books and educational items. Christmas Day we did the usual stockings and presents thing with my mom and step-dad. Daphne was so overwhelmed. And she really didn’t have a crazy amount of gifts to open. At one point she stopped and didn’t want to open anything else. Then we had a pancake brunch and vegged out until our Christmas dinner guests arrived. Our friends, Jacob, Meghan and Torah came over to eat. Torah and Daphne are so funny together. They had a Kai-lan gift exchange. Torah got Daphne a bath toy Kai-lan, and Daphne got Torah a Kai-lan doll. What would Kai-lan say? Xie xie? See, I have the ability to block out most sounds so I really don’t pay attention to Daphne’s Nick Jr. shows.

Over the weekend, my brother moved his family from Missouri to Houston. Daphne just adores her cousins (2 girls, ages 5 and 3). You can just see it in her eyes that she thinks they are the coolest big girls ever. We are glad to be able to see them more often now.

Other than that, it’s been laundry, dishes, dishes, dishes. Pretty uneventful. Glad we didn’t have any bad weather to deal with.

I hope that you had a great Christmas!

Almost exactly 3 years ago, I started this blog. Little did I know that 8 months and one day later I’d be in the hospital giving birth and this would become basically a mommy blog (Happy 28 months Daphne!). What a completely insane 3 years it’s been. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

Debating on Christmas? No, no, not debating with relatives or anything. Although, on Christmas Eve my husband and I were debating the health care bill while going to grab some lunch, and Daphne told us to be quiet. That little monkey! And I’ll let those of you who know us figure out who was for or against. Ha!

No, right now I’m debating on whether or not to take something to knock me out. It’s 2:38am and I just can’t seem to turn off my brain. Hate that. Especially with such a busy day ahead. I’ve felt less prepared this holiday season than any other Christmas I can remember.

I’ve been checking the weather reports for OK and MO. Wondering how my in-laws are faring. Hoping the winter storm won’t affect my brother’s family moving to TX this weekend. My brother has been here for a few months getting things ready for the big move, now that my niece’s first semester of kindergarten is over.

I’m excited to see Daphne’s reaction to Christmas morning present time. This will be the first year that she’s really understood what is going on. She’s already opened one of her gifts from me. A fire truck. She’s completely obsessed with fire trucks, so I thought, “What the heck!” My husband thought it was a weird gift for a two year old girl. Pfft.

I’m feeling like I should be up cleaning, or making a breakfast casserole. Too tired to do either, but not tired enough to sleep. Totally sucks. I need to remember to put the wine in the fridge for mimosas. Wishing I could have a few mimosas right now.

I got some new fabric the other day. 4 1/2 yds of Martha Negley prints and another really random abstract, almost Asian inspired floral. And I only spent $13. Martha Negley prints aren’t normally something I would pick out, but I do love how Matilda Jane uses them in their clothing lines. So, I’m thinking a knot dress, or peasant top, or twirl skirt for Miss Daphne will be in the works.

Speaking of Miss Daphne, all of a sudden her feet are huge. She looks like a puppy with huge paws. She’s just about grown out of her size 7 shoes and is ready for 8s.

Wishing Santa would bring me some Nicey Jane, Meadowsweet, Woodland Delight, Flora and Fauna. My fellow fabric nerds understand what I’m talking about.

Thinking about the craft workshop I’m going to lead on January 23rd at a women’s conference at church. If you are in the Houston area, come watch me make a complete fool of myself. I’ve never been much of a public speaker. I think I can, I think I can.

And last, but certainly not least… I’ve been thinking about some big plans for 2010. Trying to decide how to put my plans into action. But more on that later.

Merry Christmas everyone!! I hope your day is full of love and laughter.

After my last post I thought it would be nice to move on to happier crafting ideas.

How about some fun clothing ideas for your little one?

Snowglobe shirt tutorial from Lil Blue Boo. I love this. I might use a similar technique to do a fish bowl shirt for Daphne this summer. So, so, so fun!!

And also from Lil Blue Boo, a Frog Prince shirt. What a great alternative to the often tacky (sorry, I had to say it) Disney character clothing. We looked at The Princess and the Frog shirts today at Walmart and Daphne just loved the frogs.

From Samster Mommy, Painted Jeweled Onesie. Totally going to do this for Daphne.

Ruffles and Stuff, Flower Cluster applique necklace. Super cute!

And I’m completely in love with this ruffled jacket from Wonder Woman Creations.

So, my crafty friends… are you thinking about your spring projects yet? Once the weather warms up in Feb and March, Daphne will have nothing to wear. So I know I need to sew a few things. Please share your projects. I can always use more inspiration.

I’m 0-2 this year on handmade gifts for my husband. I’ve never really tried to make him anything, because he’s usually pretty obnoxious (hehe) about his gifts. Every time I get creative, the gift usually flops. FLOPS, I’m telling you. And maybe it’s because we’ve been together for 18 years, but he’s past the whole “fake it and tell her I love the gift” thing. I usually find out he hates it. See? He’s totally obnoxious. So, I ask him for his list, purchase an item off the list and call it a day.

But this year? *Sigh* I’m doing this whole Handmade Holiday thing and making gifts for everyone on my list, and limiting my store bought gifts. And I’ve made a lot of nice things, but both stinking items I made for my husband totally didn’t work out. #$*&%#!@$*

First gift- “Frak Off” soothing eye mask. I used an eye mask tutorial from Sew Mama Sew (I think?), had planned on freezer paper stenciling “Frak Off” using a Battlestar Galactica font I found on dafont.com, and planned on filling it with rice. My husband has a ton of sinus problems, so I thought he’d like being able to heat the mask up in the microwave. And the Frak Off thing was just a little BSG joke. You know, to let the world know he wasn’t feeling well and to leave him alone. Soooo… the eye mask pattern was a lot smaller than I thought. Barely covered your eyes once it was filled with rice. If I made it again, I’d increase it by at least 35 or 40% on my copier. And the BSG font? It was completely, totally, frakking impossible to use as a freezer paper stencil. I would need to run some fabric through my printer instead of trying to stencil it on. A few nights ago, Chris came home and wasn’t feeling well, so I gave him my screwed up eye mask to use, without telling him I made it. You want to know what he said? “This STINKS! What’s in here?” (I can’t win, people!!) For the record, I didn’t think the rice was smelly. It reminded me of Daphne’s rice cereal when we were starting her on solids. But he did appreciate how the mask worked.

Second gift- Moleskine notebook cover. Chris has a ton of moleskine notebooks and he always uses a specific Sharpie pen that doesn’t bleed through the moleskine pages. So, when I saw a moleskine notebook cover with a place to store a pen, I knew I had to make one. Using another tutorial from Sew Mama Sew, and the fabric from a pair of his holey old black twill pants, I went to work. The fabric was really hard to work with. My sewing machine ate the pen pocket. And when I went to try it out on a notebook? The ^$*@&!( thing wouldn’t fit. Didn’t come close. Completely defeated, I went in to the living room and showed my husband what I’d attempted. And he actually really liked the idea. I just need to make my own template, which is probably not happening before Christmas.

But, it’s the thought that counts, right?

Look, it’s Daphne and Santa. And no crying!

She was just in it for the candy.

Is anyone else completely stressed that Christmas is just around the corner? I have so many projects to finish. And what do I do instead? Oh, clean house, do laundry. Typical Jenny procrastinating. In my defense, I need some time without Daphne hanging on me to sew, and I need my husband’s help/input with a website we are building. So, after picking up and doing laundry, I made this yarn wreath while watching Daphne color.

Photo processed for that “straight out of a 60’s craft magazine” look, lol!

I never make anything for myself. And since I’d been drooling over several yarn wreaths on Etsy, I decided to look in my stash and see what I could come up with. Not as cute as the Etsy wreaths, and boy did it not photograph well. It’s all cute and sparkly in real life and the glittered leaves and flowers closely match the yarn colors. But considering I only had to buy a $4 styrofoam wreath base, I guess I’m happy with it.

Now to put Daphne down for a nap so I can get some real work done.

Only 12 more days.

Daphne recently started watching Ni Hao, Kai Lan. And for those of you without toddlers/preschoolers, it’s a show on Noggin/Nick Jr. that is very similar to Dora. But instead of Spanish, Kai Lan speaks Chinese. And for a while, Daphne didn’t realize her name was Kai Lan. She just called her “Ni Hao.” Which we thought was pretty funny and just chalked it up to an Annyong Bluth thing. But now she realizes that ni hao is a greeting and uses it pretty frequently. Tonight she yelled “Ni hao, Jesus!” from her carseat at a nativity scene in someone’s yard.

And speaking of Dora, she’s started to say her colors in Spanish more than English. Now everything is rojo and verde. Rojo truck, rojo flowers, rojo stop light. While she was sitting on my lap, looking at pictures of my new nephew Oliver, I asked her who was in the picture. “Grammy and the baby!” she said. And what color is the baby’s hat? “Rojo!” After that it became the “Grammy and the baby rojo” photo. When she says “rojo” I usually follow up with something like, “Yes, it is red. And rojo is how we say red in Spanish.” And then Daphne gives me this, “well, duh Mommy!” look. Anything Dora says, Daphne absorbs like a sponge.

As if understanding a 2 year old isn’t hard enough, now I have to listen for Chinese and Spanish words.