memorial day weekend

Charli & I had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend with Nana & Opa!  We were up at their camp most of the time, but unfortunately, were unable to sleep over.  Someone didn't want to fall asleep!  Monday was a lot of fun.  Charli went into a swimming pool for the first time!  She didn't like the cold water at first, but once she got used to it, she enjoyed splashing & kicking.  Nana bought her a nice swim tube that has a canopy to keep the sun off of her.  She also had fun riding in her brand new jogging stroller.  Why did I not get one of those sooner??  Of course, she loved swinging & we found out that she love, love, LOVES watermelon!  Thanks Nana & Opa for a fun weekend!  And thank you to all the men & women, past & present, serving our country & keeping us safe.

 twins

 yum!

whee!

tutu tulle

I found raspberry-colored tulle at Pat Catan's!  I think I need to make more tutus...

my little girl

When I was pregnant, I was so excited to welcome a healthy baby girl into the world.  I didn't have the slightest inclination that anything would ever be wrong with her, in fact, while reading, I skipped over the chapters discussing colic, GERD, etc.  I shouldn't have done that.  Anyway, we're dealing with those issues, no big deal.  She should outgrow the GERD any day now. 

As she's grown, it's been difficult for me not to compare her with other babies.  We are blessed with so many friends, family & church family members who have had babies around the time we had Charli.  I'm excited that she will be surrounded by so many friends, but I have also seen these other babies learn to roll, sit, crawl, pull up, stand, even walk before Charli.  She was almost 7 months old before she rolled for the first time on her own.  I cried.  I even had to stop reading books & weekly emails about what my baby should/could be doing because I was becoming so discouraged.  Everyone continues to tell me that it's a good thing that she just sits still because I don't have to chase her around or worry about baby-proofing everything.  Maybe I wouldn't mind her just sitting if she was content while she sat.  She seems to have little patience for anything.  All that being said, I called the Alliance for Infants and Toddlers to schedule an appointment to have Charli evaluated to see if she will qualify for services from Early Intervention.  She is 11 months old today & still does not do very much, but I feel encouraged that through Early Intervention Services, she will someday!

two tutus

My most recent Charli's-first-birthday project was making a tutu.  Unfortunately, I had two ideas of what I wanted to do.  Even more unfortunately, 2 Michael's stores did not have what I needed, so I had to reform my ideas.  For the first tutu, I cut a 17" strip of 3/4" no-roll elastic & stitched the ends together.  I read that you should use 4 strips of tulle for every inch of elastic, so i cut 68 18" pieces of tulle.  My pattern was fuschia, light pink, fuschia, lime green.  I didn't feel like that was enough, so I cut an extra 4 pieces.  I tied them onto the elastic using a slip knot, & this is how it turned out:

My next idea for a tutu was to make it mostly lime green & tie fuschia pieces of tulle around the ends of the lime green.  I measured the same length of elastic, but this is where Michael's disappointed me.  The two stores I went to were out of more fuschia tulle, & Walmart didn't have it, either.  So I bought the light pink & my pattern for this tutu was lime green, light pink, lime green, light pink.  Because I didn't have enough fuschia, I only used 52 strips of tulle.  Each of these strips were 20" long, & I used the slip knot for these, also.  I tied 6" strips of fuschia onto the lime green pieces of tulle only.  This is how this tutu turned out:

I don't think I like the second tutu as much as the first.  It's not as full as I would like for it to be.  I will probably use the first tutu for Charli's birthday party, but maybe she'll enjoy playing dress-up in the second one, too!

camping with charli

When my mom asked me how our weekend was, I said, "It could have been much worse!"  Camping with a kid is definitely much more difficult than camping without one, but all in all, it wasn't too bad!  Earlier in the week, Charli had two nights with episodes of night terrors, so I was concerned about taking her camping when we would be separated from our neighbors by a thin layer of canvas & 20 feet.  As it turns out, she did very well at night. She even slept in later than she does at home!  Must be all that fresh mountain air!  She loved our 10 mile bike ride on Saturday & enjoyed going down to see the water at Ohiopyle.  She had her first taste of ice cream, but wasn't too crazy about it.  She'll learn!  Late Saturday afternoon, we all got a much-needed nap & then walked down to the dam before dinner.  I don't know when we'll go camping just the three of us again, but it was a good experience. 

 Charli & Mommy's bed

my first attempt at hand embroidery

I have been planning/crafting things for Charli's 1st birthday for about 5 months, now.  I'm a little obsessed!  My most recent idea for her butterfly garden themed birthday party was to get a pretty white tablecloth for the dessert table.  Unfortunately, I was unable to find an inexpensive, and also pretty, white tablecloth.  I decided I would buy the cheapest white tablecloth (at Walmart for $11.92) and try my hand at embroidery!  Because it's a butterfly garden theme, I already had butterfly templates that I thought I could just trace onto the tablecloth.  I figured I was just going to use what's called a running stitch, but then I thought I'd actually do some hand embroidery research, & I found this very helpful website with excellent video tutorials.  I chose to use the very pretty stem stitch.  I used $0.35 embroidery floss from Michael's.  DMC colors 518, 602 & 704.  I started with the pink butterfly with a small stitch.  It took forever.  I also didn't pull it very tight, so it's not great-looking.  The next one I did was the blue butterfly.  I used a much larger stitch for this one.  It was done much more quickly, but I think it looks sloppy.  For the green butterfly, I compromised my stitch length, & I think it turned out very nicely.  Now I just need to decide if it's worth embroidering butterflies on each corner of my tablecloth, or just keep it the way it is.  Comments are appreciated! 

summertime!

One of my Mother's Day presents from Charli was this adorable inflatable whale baby pool!  Being a beautiful sunny day, Charli & I decided to try it out!  I used the hose to fill it, but also carried some buckets of hot water from the kitchen sink to warm it up a bit!  Charli was unsure of it at first & fussed a little until she figured out she could splash in the water just like in the bathtub!  She had so much fun, & I enjoyed watching her.  She kept putting her face in the water to try to drink it!  She was surprised that her face got wet every time.  Thank you, honey for a fun way to play with our little lady!  I think maybe she will get Bert some pool toys for Father's Day!