Up, Up and Away

At the end of September, Isabel and I packed our bags and hopped on for a 20 hour plane ride.

With our bags, blankets and respective babies (my baby = Isabel. Isabel's baby = that weird pink 'My Little Pony') , we headed for home.

My home.

Where we did mundane things...

And visited places

Saw chickens...

And zebras.

Had food

Lots of food

Lots and lots of good food

And the obligatory McDonald's thrown in too

But most importantly, we surrounded ourselves with family

   

 

And friends

Thank you to each and every one of you who made time available to visit with us. We are truly blessed and extremely grateful for all the love, friendship and support.

And Isabel loved getting spoilt.

And you can see that she was.

She most definitely was.

The Things We Do At 3.30 In The Morning

My little ah poh (granny)

Shuffling around in my new fuzzy slippers...

Jam Face

What is this gunk?

 

Toast with a LOT of butter.

Because Isabel was only interested in the raspberry jam once she tasted that part of it!

A Clutch For Momma This Time

And another "I love unbleached cotton" post. I have a feeling that there'll be an abundance of those coming, just so you know.

I bought my very own computer (fine, netbook) recently. And I had to make a clutch/case for it because I'm wild like that. And there was this adorable tutorial for a ruffled laptop sleeve....

Second time working with a zipper. It's really not too bad. And working with what I have on hand (and because the line at the fabric store was RI-DI-CU-LOUS!), I used 2 layers of fleece fabric instead of fusible fleece.

To prevent frou-frou overload, the fun print is on the inside.

My stuff fits inside perfectly. And can you say, PINK?!!!

ASUS Netbook, External hard-drive, laptop sleeve

I think you can pretty much bet your bottom dollar that when I finally get a new place, it'll be uber girly!

Diapering Tales

I have a new love affair...Unbleached cotton from IKEA. At $2.99/yd, it's cheap, and I love the "natural-ness" of it.

The bag that I've been using as a diaper bag right now has absolutely no compartmentalization. So my diapers have sort of been swimming around, picking up random bits of crumbs and dirt. Say it with me....EWWWW!

I've been meaning to make a diaper clutch for awhile, but haven't found a (free) tutorial that I liked. Until I perused One Pretty Thing and found this one from Noodlehead

 

Now my bag is nicely organized! (at least, it'll be like that at the beginning of the day)

And almost everything is PINK. Double yay!

Meet My Brother

No, not the human one, this one:

Woot! My new sewing machine! So happy that I have one again! Although I have to admit that I broke a needle just hours into its maiden voyage. Ah well...I never said I was a good sewer.

Vain Pot

Artsy Fartsy

Isabel's daycare recently hosted an art show featuring work from the kids...

This is Isabel's masterpiece...

And then after that, there was lunch provided. She was so excited to have me there to sit on a little chair next to her.

I am so glad that I made the effort to go for this because almost all the kids had a parent there. And I hate to think of her sitting alone without anyone by her side.

And just because it's so rare for me to have a picture WITH Isabel, since I'm usually the one behind the camera, here's another one from later that same day...don't we both look so different from the picture above?!!

20.5 months

Weight - 29.4 lbs

Height - 34 inches

90th percentile for both

She's all ready to go out the door:

Hat  - check
Coat  - check
Shoes - check
Bucket - check

Walk!

What happens when we don't take her out for a walk...

She's on her doll stroller, with her baby and her sippy

Questions

Isabel practicing her sounds:

What does a dog say? Woof

What does a cow say? Moo

What does a sheep say? Baa

What does an aeroplane say?  Nyooonnngg (the whir of the engine)

What does a mouse say? Cheet cheet

What does a chicken say? Puck

What does a cat say? Meow (actually, it's more like "mau")

My favourite - What does a baby say? Wah wah

What does a truck say? Broooom

A Real Farm

It was time to introduce Isabel to a real farm...after all, now that she's a proud farmer herself, she needs to learn the trade...

First, she hopped into a wagon with a sidekick aka her "uncle" baine

There were pigs...

Horses that look like they were long overdue a visit to the hairdresser

Chickens...

Look at this fuzzy little fella...

And an odd otter or two...

Fascinating...

Florence and her son, Baine were our companions for the weekend

There was a playground at the park too....the slide was killer...And the little stinker only wanted to go down the BIG one...so up 2 flight of stairs, across a bridge it is.


I was dizzy after 2 runs..but my daughter LOVED it!

 

I was definitely pooped after the end of the 2 hours.

I Didn't Realize...

That my daughter is now 20 months old.

I feel like I've been missing out on the past few months of my daughter's life because I've been focusing my energy on something that was, and is still, futile. Going forward, this is going to change.

Little Izzy Has A Farm....

E - I - E - I - O!

I have been wanting to join the Quiet Book/Felt Craft group for awhile. Matter of fact, I've had a stash of felt sitting in the craft closet for a substantial amount of time. It was cohabitating nicely along with the numerous amount of yardage of fabric. I'm apparently a hoarder.

But anyway, with the breakdown of my sewing machine (R.I.P), I've decided to finally start on a quiet book for Isabel. (handsewing is......calming) With the progress that I am making, and with the decision to cut spending, I may be able to produce a book with 10 pages, oh, by next year!

Good thing I had all the necessary supplies for the first page ( I used white cotton for the page itself, and felt for everything else. I obviously did not read the "try to use fabric where possible for easy clean-up" tip. I'm rectifying that for future pages)

 I started with a barnyard scene - I took inpiration from Jill's book here (ok, it was almost a blatant copy!), as well as from other farm scenes from Isabel's substantial book/puzzle collection. Drafted it out....

And well...it didn't really turn out exactly - I got lazy. (Note to self - do not be lazy - always pin, pin, PIN!)

I may or may not continue to add more details to the scene. We'll see how OCD I get.

So, who's in the barn?

Hello!

We have a little pig for the little pinky finger, a cow, a duck and a chicken.

 They are little finger puppets

And who's hiding behind the top barn window?

Peek-a-boo!

Or maybe "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" would be more fitting....

Tested it out on the core user...

Isabel likes the pig.

Working on a doll's house concept right now...Not sure if it will turn out exactly the way I envisioned, but I'll update when it's done (don't hold your breath for it, though. It'll probably be awhile)

Life With A Toddler

Sunday evening
Izzy is playing by the storm door. Momma walks by

Izzy: Bug
Momma: Where?

Izzy points to a fly on the glass door

Momma: Momma right back

Momma comes back with a flyer, rolled up

SWAT

Momma and Izzy looks at each other
.
.
.
Izzy: No more bug

Sweet Temptation

"Up, Momma!"

Why would she be so intent of climbing onto my lap?

Couldn't have anything to do with this plate of brownies that are sitting on the table, now could it?