Daphne had a great time last weekend at her friend Jonathan’s birthday party. Slightly bittersweet, since now that he’s 3 and in a different Sunday school class, Daphne won’t see him as much. But she still sees him at our Wednesday morning moms group.

This afternoon I was asking Daphne who she played with and she mentioned Jonathan. No big surprise. So I asked her what they played. Daphne’s response- “We ran and I hugged him and kissed him. Mwah!” Er, what?! Really? Running after boys and kissing them starts at age 2? I really don’t know, since I never did that. Ever. Ever. Evah. And that’s nothing that we’ve ever discussed or encouraged, obviously. Not that it’s a big deal, more funny than anything. But now I have to think of a way to explain to Daphne that we don’t kiss on our little boyfriends. At least not until she’s much, much older. Like 16. Right Hubs?

- You might have heard that Ree Drummond’s (the Pioneer Woman aka probably the most famous Okie blogger ever) Black Heels to Tractor Wheels story is going to be a movie. I like Ree. She’s from Bartlesville, OK, which is where my mom’s family is from and where I lived from the 1st - 7th grades. Occasionally I have a “Oh yeah, I remember that!” moment while reading her blog. Like when she showed a picture of the junior high that I attended and today when she posted a recipe for Murphy’s hot hamburgers. I remember going to Murphy’s with my grandfather. Now if Ree would just work on a Goldie’s knock-off recipe. Or a Washington County Hamburger Stand burger. Yum, lots of good burgers!

- I finally saw New Moon last night. My husband flat out refused to take me to see it in the theater and told me to go with one of my girlfriends. Of course, if I really wanted him to go he would have. He was just blustering. I wasn’t that interested in seeing it anyway. (Twilight lovers, just stop reading here!) I remember enjoying the books, but the movies are just ruining it for me. They are really terrible. Bella is annoying. Her relationship with Edward is absurd. The only redeeming part was the shirtless wolf pack. He he. Don’t send me any Twilight hate mail, you know I’m not a chick flick fan. But guess who watched the movie with me… yeah, my husband. The best part of the evening was recapping the 3rd and 4th books to him at his request because “I’m not wasting any more of my time on this crap!” He laughed and laughed at the Breaking Dawn story.

- I started Daphne’s Easter dress last weekend. I measured her and decided to cut out the size 2. Just as I was finishing up the lined bodice, I decided to try it on her. And, yeah, it was skin tight and about 3 inches too short. It was like Shrek vest. WTH? It’s my fault for not doing a muslin first. But I’m impatient. I’ve going to try it again with a size 4 and hope I have enough fabric

- I’m still having a hard time getting Daphne to try new foods. I know that’s part of being 2. I had some success a few weeks ago getting her to eat oatmeal. She loves to help in the kitchen, so I had her mix the oatmeal. I sprinkled in a bit of cinnamon and told her to smell her oatmeal. “Smells like a cookie, doesn’t it Daphne?” Daphne’s eyes widened. “A cookie!?!” Then I sprinkled a little pink decorating sugar over the top and called it a bowl of princess cookie oatmeal. She ate the whole bowl. I wondered if other gimmicks might work, like making her food into animal shapes, and was reminded of all the cute bento box ideas for kids. Like little panda shaped rice balls, or boiled egg molds. So I started researching and came across a website that sells Japanese bento supplies in the US. Cute stuff. As I was looking at the website’s navigation bar, my eyes stopped on the Adult Toys tab. Not because it said Adult Toys, but because Hello Kitty was on the button. What!? Hello Kitty adult toys? I won’t give you all the details, since this is a family blog and all, but let’s just say Hello Kitty has an entirely different side. What a bad kitty

Daphne got invited to her first non-family birthday party. Her little friend, who I talked about a few posts back, is turning 3. And yeah, Daphne still talks about him all the time. I admit, I have no idea what to buy little boys. Little boys just aren’t on my radar for crafting and gift purchases. I have a lot of catching up to do, especially since I’ll need to start collecting great ideas for my little nephew Oliver.

Knowing that the birthday boy’s mom is very creative and likes crafty things (and would probably appreciate a handmade gift), I decided to make him a car caddy from Homemade by Jill’s tutorial. I’d fill it with Hot Wheels and tuck a few car stickers and Hot Wheels coloring books into the gift bag too. 3 year olds like Hot Wheels, right? Gosh, I hope so.

Here’s the interior:

And the exterior, all folded up and ready to go:

Here’s what I did differently than Jill, and a few things I wouldn’t do again. First, I didn’t use duck cloth for the interior. I had duck cloth, bright red, staring me in the face on the table. I just didn’t want the super blue denim, the red, black, yellow and white to look like it came from an early 90’s Gymboree outfit. If you know what I mean. So I used some Heather Ross cotton. I like the look, but it was way too light and flimsy. So I decided to fix that problem by using a thin fusible fleece on the back. Nice idea, but the fusible fleece puckers where I’ve folded the caddy. Crapola. I notice it, but I don’t think it will be a big deal to the gift recipient. So, don’t do what I did.. just use a thicker fabric to begin with.

Also, I only have 12″ squares of black felt, not long enough to span the 17″ cozy. I guess I could have pieced it together, but I didn’t want to do that. So I made a grassy area and a bridge (yes, that’s a bridge not a butterfly bandage or a squared off maxi pad). I stitched the green felt about a 1/2″ from the edge and fringed the edges with my scissors to give it a grass look. I think I like it.

On the exterior- I was trying to answer a question from my husband while I was cutting out the main denim piece and being distracted, cut it an inch too short. Crap. I solved that problem by stitching a little extra to the end to make up the difference, and tried to give it that “I meant to do it” look by just going ahead and stitching the ribbon into the seam. The ribbon was from the handle of a Cars gift bag, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I was going to do something different with the front.

The ribbon strap wraps all the way around to the back and is secured by Velcro. Since it looked like a road, I thought it would be cute to have two little cars “driving” on the front. The cars are from Jill’s original tutorial, just reduced by 50%. And I just used super strength Heat and Bond and didn’t bother stitching down the edges. I think it will hold.

And I suck at topstitching. I so want my topstitching to be perfect, and it never is. I have to remind myself that the imperfections add to the homemade charm. Yeah, that’s the ticket. I thought I was going to have a problem sewing through all the layers of denim, but my machine didn’t hesitate. I don’t even think I put in a jeans needle. And I was not sure what color to use on the topstitching. I like my topstitching to match my fabric, so I just used a denim color, but now I wish I would have used a tan or something on the interior. I know it would have shown up more on the road and denim caddy area, but it wouldn’t have been so distracting in the center. Oh well. I’m not upset enough about it to rip it all out and do it again.

Anyway, it was a great tutorial and I hope the birthday boy enjoys his gift.

We decided to take a little road trip today. The weather was gorgeous, Daphne was getting stir crazy and it had been a year since our last road trip. A year. Wow! We thought about just running down to the beach and then we remembered “oh yeah, spring breakers.” So, armed with our book, Day Trips From Houston, we picked a direction (west on I-10) and hit the road.

First stop, Columbus, TX. According to the book there were a lot of historic homes and buildings, quirky museums and even an interesting cemetery. It ended up being a somewhat cute little town, and surprisingly busy. They’ve done a good job with signage on their historic district and even have a radio tour. But it certainly didn’t take long to check it all out. And the cemetery? The guide book said it contained the gravestone of Ike Towell, on which he had the following engraved: “Here rests Ike Towell - An infidel who had no hope of heaven nor fear of hell, was free of superstition, to do right and love justice was his religion.” Ok. Wonder how that worked out for him. Anyway, we couldn’t find it. Total bust.

I think living and traveling in the SE has spoiled me for places like Columbus, TX. When you’ve been in the cemeteries in Savannah, GA and seen hotels that housed pirates in the 1700’s and traveled to St. Augustine and been through buildings over 300 years old, it’s hard to be wowed by small town Texas late 1800 stuff. Unless something really important or interesting in Texas history happened on this spot. Yeah, I know I’m jaded and annoying. I think I was just really impressed with the older areas we’ve traveled too, because growing up in Oklahoma, you just don’t have that sense of history as far as buildings and landmarks. I mean, I was in elementary school when Oklahoma celebrated 75 years as a state. And back to Columbus, you know it’s a small town when you are reading the Wikipedia Notable People from Columbus entry and one of the men listed was a contestant on the Price Is Right. Yep, being a contestant on the Price Is Right was enough to get him on the notable citizen list. Hehe.

After our tour, I saved my husband from an unfortunate meal at a local BBQ joint. We like to try out local restaurants when we travel, and stay away from chains. Normally I research places to eat before we leave, but without knowing exactly where we were going, I couldn’t. In that case my rule is, if it’s not packed, we don’t try it. If you see a bunch of good ol’ boys at the local Whataburger, then you know the random BBQ joint next door is crap. Once we went to Oklahoma Joe’s in Kansas City, a BBQ joint inside of a gas station. Yes, a normal gas station. The line for BBQ went all the way through the store and out the door around the building. Yeah, you know it was good. When we got home I did my research and sure enough, the place my husband wanted to try wasn’t rated well.

Even though I know I sound whiny, we did have a good time. It was just nice to get out and look at new things. Our next trip? Back to Brenham for bluebonnet pics. This was little D in the bluebonnets last year:

Oh, the bluebonnets? That’s a Texas thing. Last year I was immediately attacked by fire ants, so we only got about 10 or 15 shots of Daphne. And she was really unhappy sitting in the scratchy field. This time I’ll come prepared with real shoes (and socks!) and long pants for Daphne. Wish me luck! Does DEET repel fire ants?

Yesterday, my husband won tickets to a Tweet Up at the IMAX inside the Houston Museum of Natural Science. They were showing a preview of the new Hubble 3D movie. I suggested he take Daphne, since she’s been obsessed with space lately. In fact, just the day before she wouldn’t leave the house without her “space monkey”- a monkey in a space suit that we bought her at NASA a few years ago. And she watches Space Buddies every. single. day. Childless people, if you want to annoy your friends and relatives with children, buy them any of the Buddies movies. Daphne calls Space Buddies, “Puppy Paws in SPACE!” Emphasis on the space. And Puppy Paws is from the Santa Buddies movie she watched at Christmas.

Daphne was thrilled with the IMAX experience. She got a Hubble patch and pin and settled down in her huge seat with her 3D glasses. My husband said there was a scene in the movie where the shuttle takes off and Daphne couldn’t stop saying things like “Wow!” “Yay” and “Blast off!”, as loud as she could, all while clapping. She also had to point out the moon, stars, and space planes (what Daphne calls the shuttle) and probably bugged all the adults sitting near them. And I think they even met an astronaut who had worked on the Hubble.

What a fun evening!

It’s almost time for my annual St. Patrick’s Day post.  An oldie, but a goodie. Yep, it’s Leprechaun in Mobile.

And the rap version:

I’m not sure what I find more humorous, the amateur sketch, or Mr. T in the rap. Happy St. Pats!

I need some advice.  Maybe you can help…

First up- if you haven’t clicked through from your feed reader recently, you might not realize I’ve redecorated.  Just another step closer to what I have envisioned for the blog design.  Still not perfect.  Someday I’m going to sit down and learn to create my own Wordpress theme.  You know, when I’m not chasing a toddler, sewing, doing housework, sitting through 10 hours of Lynda.com training videos on sharpening in Photoshop, trying to get a new photography website and blog up and running, considering opening a studio space, all while pondering a scholarship essay.  So, basically, sometime in 2011.  In the meantime, I just tweaked a free theme.  This is what it looked like before I started making changes:

I swapped out all the images (the header is a mix of a free blog header template from Pink Ink Studios and some digital scrapbooking elements), changed the background, changed the font size, tried to remember how to change my favicon, poked around online to find a service to convert it into a .ico file, spent an hour trying different bits of code in an attempt to get my header to be clickable (it worked!), and changed the spacing of a few elements.  There are a few things really bugging me… like the fact that the Comments and Tags section of each post is practically sitting on top of the next post title.  And the extra space between the post title and the text.  I managed to fix the post title/text spacing problem when you view just an individual post (I think I adjusted the padding), but for the life of me can’t duplicate that change when you are viewing all the posts on the home page.  What am I missing?  Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Next problem.  I think I’ve been too inspired by all these jersey/knit makeovers on various sewing blogs.  So when I tried this on the other day at Old Navy, I bought it.

It’s apparently made for an Amazon and not for someone who’s barely 5′3″ with her shoes on.  I figure I need to cut off at least 4 or 5 inches to make it more flattering.  But, I don’t have a serger.  Can I cut off the extra fabric, use an overlock or knit stitch on the edge (my Janome HT2008 has a few stitch options), then turn and hem?  I don’t want to stretch out the fabric and have it look wonky.  Can I use a straight stitch when I hem, or should I use a knit stitch?  Do I need a stabilizer?  Can you tell I have zero experience sewing with knits, lol!!  And some tutorials I’ve read mentioned hand stitching the hem, er no…  I got the shirt on clearance, so it’s no big loss if I screw it up.  But I’d rather not.

If you follow me on Twitter, or are one of my Facebook friends, you know I’ve been pretty excited about the Liberty of London line at Target.  Target is my crack.  And I’d always wanted to purchase some Liberty of London fabric.  Anyway, my husband surprised me with the Garla quilt yesterday.  I love it.  I was so excited.  Can’t remember the last time my husband was so spontaneous.

I freaking love it.  It’s perfect.  We don’t live in a climate where it’s practical to own a big comforter, so this thin quilt is just right.

I ventured out to Target this afternoon to check out the toddler girls clothes, and unfortunately all of Daphne’s sizes were already gone.  There were three  women picking through the small rack when I walked up. I liked the Sixty dress, but thought the color wasn’t right for Daphne.  And the rompers were adorable, but how practical is that for a tentatively potty trained 2 yr old?   And honestly, kid girl had much cuter Liberty of London clothes than toddler girl.  So, the clothes were a bust, but the women’s accessories and home goods were so freaking adorable.  Made we want to completely redecorate.  I’ll have to settle for a new quilt for now.

Do you follow Rachel Denbow’s blog?  (No relation to us, although it’s not a common last name) She has some adorable pics of her daughter Ruby on the Garla quilt.  Funny, because I was thinking how nice it would be to have a Liberty of London quilt in Daphne’s big girl room.  Yeah, she’s not getting my quilt.

I know several sites that share Etsy faves on Fridays, so I’m jumping on the bandwagon.  And since I’ve had turquoise on the brain lately (hey, it is the Pantone color of the year!!), I’m going with a color theme.

Edible butterflies from Sugar Robot. These are beautiful!

Mini Goals Chalkboard from MaryKateMcDevitt.  I need this.  I’m a compulsive list maker and prefer to write things out, rather than just keeping a list on my computer.  Much to the chagrin of my husband, who at the drop of a hat can give me a list of a dozen sites to help keep me organized.

Oh heck, how cute is this vintage jumper from FlamingJuneVintage?  It’s got a little Velma in it.

Teal Cotton Denim Pocket Skirt by outofline.  Love the pocket detail.

And finally, some Peacock Poppies Bobbie Pins by Dashley Designs.  I love this entire shop.

Besides sewing up a storm, I’ve also started a project for Daphne’s room.  I’ve had this table and chairs set for nearly three years now, with the intention of painting and reupholstering when it came time for her big girl room makeover.   It’s a cute set, mostly metal, very sturdy.  And only $20 at a garage sale.  Woot!  But I’ve struggled with how to blend the style with my style.  Right now it looks like an old-timey ice cream parlor set.  And the seat fabric, even if it wasn’t stained from the previous owners, just won’t work.

So, I’m spray painting the set a robin’s egg blue color and will reupholster the seat with a laminated cotton fabric.

Before and after:

Here’s my dilemma, fabric lovin’ friends… what should I choose to cover the seat cushion??  Her bedding will be a hodgepodge of various colors, a polka dot sheet set, all pulled together with a quilt (that I haven’t made yet) from Sandi Henderson’s Ginger Blossom fabric.

I know I can find a few laminated cotton Ginger Blossom prints that coordinate with the blue on the chairs, but I don’t want to be too matchy-matchy.  So, maybe a Nicey Jane laminated print?  I like Cherry Hop Dot, especially since Daphne has a retro, red play kitchen.  And turquoise/red is one of my favorite color combos.

Any other suggestions?  Do you think the laminated cotton will work for this project?  I’ve heard it drapes better than oilcloth.

Or does anyone want to come over and spray paint this set for me?  I hate spray painting.  Hopefully before she turns 3 I’ll get this set (and the quilt) finished.