Out with the old, in with the new

It’s been a while now that the baby girl’s shirts and pants have been a little too short on her, but it’s gotten to the point where I can’t ignore it anymore.  Poor girl has been walking around in crop tops and high waters.  So, I’ve started putting away her 2T clothes to make room for larger sizes.  In the process, I found a bunch of 3T clothes that a friend had given me when baby girl was just born that I had forgotten about.  At the time, it seemed like forever until she’d be in 3T.  In reality, it happened in the blink of an eye.  It’s so cliché, but they do grow so fast.  I think it wasn’t until I had children that I became so acutely aware of the passage of time.  They mark it for me, every time they grow out of their clothes, go up in a shoe size, say something that makes me wonder, “How’d they know that?!”.

Putting away outgrown clothes is bittersweet.  I feel conflicted about them growing up.  I really miss that baby stage, because it was so brief.  What’s sweeter than that teeny tiny creature passed out on your chest?

But I also love seeing them grow into these precocious little beings who direct me to, “Take my picture, Mommy.”  And how could I not?

(It’s not quite her birthday yet, but she’s taken with this shirt.  :)

One of my sewing resolutions this year is to make more of her wardrobe, so I purposefully did not buy a lot of 3T clothes for her.  I was going to start with t-shirts, but the pile of hand-me-downs we got included a lot of t-shirts, so I could probably go directly to dresses.  They are more fun anyway.  My second sewing resolution is to blog within a week of completing a project.  Otherwise, I put it off even longer.  :(  I enjoy blogging and talking about sewing, but 2012 somehow just blew through like a tornado and carried me away and before I knew it, it was 2013.  Hoping for calmer weather this year.

Catching up!

I'm still here, I promise!  I was sewing this summer, but we were out and about a lot during the day, and I was exhausted by the evening.  I couldn't quite get motivated to sit down and blog.  We definitely made the most of the summer before the little guy started kindergarten.  Life is so different once they start school.  No more sitting in our pjs all morning if we want to.  :)  I was also busy this summer, because I was winding down at work.  Yes, I left my job in August to be at home with the kids full-time.  It was something I'd thought about for a while, and I finally took the plunge.  With kindergarten, preschool and the kids' various activities, I've been keeping busy, but maybe I'll have a little bit more time for creative pursuits.  Maybe...

I thought the best way to catch up on the blog was to do one big post about all my projects from the summer.  Some of these pictures Most of these pictures are from my phone, but hey, if I waited until I could get my good camera out and photograph them, I'd probably never get this post published.  :)

Poor blog...

has been totally ignored.

I've been missing the creative life.  For some reason, fall has been busier than even the summer.  We've been camping and enjoying the outdoors as much as possible.  I'm liking the fact that the kids are shaping up to be wilderness kids.  Baby girl loves playing with sticks and dirt.  And the little guy keeps asking to go camping again.  We didn’t do a lot of outdoors stuff when I was a kid, so it’s been fun for me to explore new trails and parks along with the kids. 

We live in a great city, where beaches and mountains are just short drives away, and there’s so much natural beauty to take in.  And it’s cheap entertainment for the kids, too.  :)

 
I can’t believe it’s already mid-October.  I need to get working on those Halloween costumes! I’ve been trying to get a work project out of the way first.  Pesky work!  Anyway, I had a request for another clue on the Halloween costumes, so I wanted to post for anyone who may be waiting.  :)  I thought my clues from the previous post were kind of vague, but one of you actually guessed it.  You guys are good! 

So, here’s another clue that should totally give it away:

The days are long, but the years are short

This is my current favorite quote on motherhood from this book.  Sometimes dealing with the everyday monotony of taking care of little children gets tedious.  But it goes by in a flash, and I’m trying to remember every day to savor every moment.

So...I already felt behind on my summer sewing, and now I’m seeing Christmas fabric on sale.  Christmas fabric?!  I guess it makes sense.  You do have to start early if, say, you have a big Christmas quilt to make or something.  I did briefly consider buying some of that Christmas fabric to make stockings. 

I had wanted to try to sew some stockings last year, but ended up ordering them from Pottery Barn instead.  They turned out to be way too big.  I mean, I hung them on the fireplace mantel, and they almost touched the bottom of the fireplace.  They were personalized, so I couldn’t return them.  In any case, I might try to make some again this year.  But July is still too early to think about this. 

And that’s probably why I didn’t quite get around to making those stockings last year.  heh. 

Anyway, summer is just going by too quickly.  The days are longer, the kids end up staying up later, we’re running around outside a lot more.  And (same old story) I squeeze in sewing time here and there, but never get as much time in as I’d like.  But that’s ok.  The little people are time consuming, but they are also very entertaining.

 
So, what have I been up to sewing-wise?  I’ve cut out a couple of dresses, and they are waiting to be sewn up (hopefully will be done while she can still fit in them).  My latest completed project is this toy bag: 

Last days of spring cleaning

I recently had a burst of energy and felt the need to organize.  A couple of weeks ago, I went through our linen cabinets and got rid of some old sheets and blankets that we haven’t used in a while.  That cleared a couple of shelves.  For...

Remember my tub of fabric?  Well, that’s grown a little bit.  I remembered this blog post about using comic book boards to make mini fabric bolts.  I went back to search for it, and ordered a 100-pack of the boards from amazon.  And, ta da!

Little projects

Good things happening lately:
1) We’re enjoying some lovely summer weather around here lately.  (See how baby girl is enjoying wearing her summer hat?)
2) After 13 months, baby girl is sleeping through the night.  After about a week of sleeping through the night myself, I feel like a fog has lifted: less cranky, brain is working a tad faster (you know it’s bad when you forget what the word for “door” is and have to explain to your husband, “you know, that thing you open, with the thing...” oy) and, of course, not dog tired all day long.  Drinking less caffeine.
3) I’m back to working part-time.  I’m looking forward to enjoying the summer with the kids.

I’ve been doing some little projects lately:

What a week!

My son is having a Beatles-themed play at his preschool, and I made the costume for him to wear.  Which turned out to be kind of a disaster.  Oh, where to start... 

Lovely weekend!

Even though it involved very little sewing.

Working more these days makes me want to soak up the weekends with the kids as much as possible.  We had such wonderful weather this weekend.  We went out to the botanical gardens with some friends.  My son loved hanging out with his friends.  He’s at such a great age.  He loves exploring everything and wants to learn about everything around him.

Watching the bullfrog and fish at the frog pond.

Literature lovers in the making

The subtitle of my blog is “Motherhood, craftiness and other stories,” so since I have no sewing to post about, I’ll focus on the "motherhood" and “other stories” part of the blog.  :) 

As a literature nerd, I was happy to see my son devour books from an early age: