dress making

[tutorial found here]

Now that I know my way roughly around a sewing machine, I can not stop myself from sewing whatever I can. I am already having to remind myself that just because I can make something does not mean I have to make something. Crafting is not safe from the wrath of consumerism. That is why I will never join Pininterest because I will feel the undying urge to make everything I come across, and be filled with the restless spirit of wanting.

But, I did decide I needed to make this dress I had been wanting for a couple of years now. The first attempt took place before I had the proper cutting/measuring tools and it ended up being incredibly tight. I cut it to make a shirt and it was still too tight. (Sarah Bizer, you will be receiving this shirt in the mail if I can ever get myself over to FedEx.) The second one, I did this afternoon. I took my time measuring and sewing. There are a few minor uh-ohs, but overall, I love the result. I plan on wearing it to the weddings we are going to this year and, of course, in Hawaii.

I most likely will make more, maybe even a miniature version for Madison.

Funky Monkey

... and I am not talking about some dance moves, but rather how I have been feeling. I think the over two week sickness has really thrown me (us, aspen included) off our groove.

I really thrive off of social interactions, exercise, and cleanliness. Those seem like a random mix of things, but everyone one of those items took a hit the past couple of weeks.

Because of the sickness, we were not able to attend our usual swim lessons, play dates, mom's night out, etc. I also did not have enough energy to exercise and I did not think it would be a very generous gift to give others what I had at the gym. And when I am sick, I can literally feel the germs crawling over everything, its like no matter what I do I can not get anything clean enough. So the combination of all of these things, has made my outlook a little more grey.

Madison has also had some sleep regression issues, as in she has forgotten that she needs to sleep. So putting her down for a nap, is met with a screaming fight and she has been waking up a lot more at night again. I am crossing my fingers it is just teething, but who knows. Babies, they like to keep parents on their toes.

I have found myself mentioning wanting to run away a few more times than I probably should, but I know its just because life has been a bit out of whack lately. (but I am pretty sure a part of Will thinks I might really run away, don't worry though because I would for sure get lost and would not survive a minute on my own....)

All this to say, we have not had much time to just enjoy each other and our little family. I did get out last week for a park adventure because Madison was boycotting her nap. It is always good for me to step outside of my little world and get some perspective.



How could this not cheer me up??

Tonight, Will and I have a date. One of the mom's from our playgroup so generously offered to watch Madison after hearing about our hotel stay fiasco. I also squeezed one more date out of the week by asking Will's sister to watch Madison on Thursday. Hopefully, we will be back on track and leave this funky monkey funk.

if you give a mom some free time....

Will came home from work on Friday really excited about this wonderful idea he had to take baby rock climbing with him and his sister, Becca. My first thought was no, because a baby left unattended is a sure target for Mountain lions. The second was, two absent minded people should not be in charge of keeping someone from falling from rocks and try and make sure a baby does not roll down the mountain side.

Will took my protest to be a stab at his parenting ability, but I assured him, I too get distracted when I have to multitask with a baby. So he decided on a location free of wild life and brought along mechanisms to insure baby stayed safe. Unfortunately, the snow cover was too bad and Will was not able to find a place to set up his rock climbing gear and they just ended up hiking. The point is, I was left alone for five hours on Saturday.

I am still recovering from a double ear infection so I slept in until 10 am and then got to work crafting. I took a learn to sew class last Wednesday and became familiar with the sewing machine my mother gave me. So I went crazy. I altered some clothes of mine, shortened skirts, cut off sleeves on shirts. I hemmed some pants of Will's. I made baby some cute onesies. I made a pin cushion. I just kept going until I literally could not think of anything else to sew.

Today, I used my practice on Saturday to attack a skirt pattern I had bought. After three hours of attempting to get past the first two instructions, one trip to Hobby Lobby to get more fabric (I screwed up majorly with the scissors), and one almost melt down, I finally finished the skirt. It was pretty frustrating, but I feel very proud of myself for sticking with it. I was again reminded that having a baby alters the way in which I use to do things. Sitting down in one day to finish something is just not going to happen. Luckily, Will played mom today and I could sew until I finished that stinking skirt.

After all that, here are some pictures of my finished work.

This is the headband I knit my friend Claire, hope you like it Claire. I am also wearing the shirt I cut the sleeves off of. It was an old shirt from my brother's high school days, now it is a little more feminine.

These are some of the onesies I made Madison. So much easier to use the machine than do them by hand.



Clearly, I have no idea how to properly model clothes. I was trying to make it known that the skirt has pockets, which means I figured out how to put pockets on a skirt, so fancy.

We also had an adventure to the rock climbing gym since Will did not get to climb on Saturday. We took baby and she did so great. Everyone loved to look at her and she loved to look at everyone and everything. I even managed to get myself up the wall after having not climbed for over a year.

Seven Months

* She still weighs about 15.5 lbs. I had to take her to the doctor for her cold and they weighed her again.

* She can sit reliably on her own. She can even catch her balance if she drifts to the side, can fall forward, kick her legs out, and start rolling where she wants to go. There are still the times where she just eats it and we can hear that huge watermelon thud.

* Speaking of falling, Madison did a "first" yesterday. First time to fall off our bed, our bed that is raised eight inches higher than a normal bed. She just rolled right off, I actually have no idea how she got off the bed because I was being mom of the year and not supervising her. I keep telling myself it happens to every mom, right?

* She seems to have figured out sleep. With a little help from us letting her cry it out at night so she gets the hint she has to fend for herself. She still wakes up, but usually puts herself back to sleep. I have been feeding her around 5 am and then she goes back to bed until 7 amish. So she is in bed from 7 pm until 7 am, 12 hours, I can take that.

* She is starting to show some attachment to me. Sometimes if I leave the room when Will is home (because, I clearly never leave her in a room alone) she starts crying. I have been dropping her off at the gym when I work out and so far she doesn't even notice I am gone. I am sure she will go through a screaming phase soon.

* She has gotten really great at mimicking our noises. She is an expert at saying "hiya" "helwo" and "yay." No "dada" or "mama" yet. But, we swear she knows hi. Because when we go in to get her out of her crib, she welcomes us with a "hiya."

I am incredibly thankful for this baby girl. Even more thankful she is finally letting us sleep. I am really enjoying being a parent when my brain is some what able to process properly.
I love that I get to witness Madison's entire life first hand. I can watch her learn and grow with every passing day. I get to try and know her the best I can before she officially becomes her own person.


1. "oh, hey, mom is that the edge of the bed I rolled off??"

2. "I just need to stretch my hip. Can you help me pull my knee down just a bit further?"

3. "Gosh, I forgot about these."

4. "Is this what you wanted me to do? Smile at you? But, I just can not let my feet out of my sight again, they are way too hard to keep track of, especially if my legs are out straight, they just disappear."

photographs

1. This is what Madison looked like in the morning when my mom went to get her. I think that Madison might have woken up my mom even less than her dog, princess, does.

2. They spent a lot of time playing on the floor, but Aspen had to supervise.

3. Snuggling with grandma. Madison already misses her and is bored with me.

4. Helping grandma put clean sheets on the bed.

5. Eating like a big girl at the table.

More swim lesson photos. It is nice to have my own little paparazzi following me around. I can not wait for Madison to explore the water in Hawaii (two more months, eek!)

These pictures are from before my mom came in town. She was trying out different ways to wear Will's hat.



This is also before my mom came. This is when the big snow storm hit.



This is the dress I found to wear at the Military Ball my brother is taking me to in Hawaii. I am really excited about getting dressed up for something. Will thinks I should just wear it around the house, but what do men know?

I think that pretty much sums up our past two weeks. Madison is making the grunting noise in her room that signals it is time for me to go get her.

I will put her seven month photos up later, yikes, seven months!!!

When comparison tries to steal our joy...

The nasty cold bug hit our home hard this past week. First, Will had the typical symptoms of sore throat, achy body, obnoxious runny nose. Then Madison caught the cough one night and was drowning in snot the next morning. I was the last victim. We were (or still, its lingering) all pretty pathetic. This would not have been as big of a deal any other time of the year, but this particular week was one we had been anticipating. It was the week my mom had agreed to come in town so that we could have a weekend away from Madison duties. We had booked the hotel two months ago and had been day dreaming about all the activities we could do with out baby (run, hike, rock climb, and on and on...) This also happened to be a weekend where Will had work to do from home. So our weekend consisted of me in the hotel bed shaking with a fever and Will working from his laptop in the hotel lobby so he would not disturb me.

This was the point where we had to fight really hard our tendencies to compare. We have both struggled with this individually and now as a couple. We tend to look at other couples who have children and seem to just go about their normal way of life. This is wonderful for them, but we just do not have the resources to drop Madison off anywhere. If we need relief, we have to plan months in advance and fly a family member into town.

So, of course, our situation seems bleak in comparison to other people's. But, we had to decide to step back and refuse to compare our situation. We have everything we have ever wanted. I am able to stay home with Madison, we live in the mountains, someone is willing to pay Will for his knowledge, we have a beautiful dog, we have family that is willing and able to help us, and the list could go on.

There will always be people who seem to be "winning" in this rat race. But, my prayer for our family is that we decide to run our own race. To make sure we are placing our worth in something other than home ownership or fancy dinners out. It is easy to get caught up in the comparison cycle, especially with the world of Facebook and tweeting and blogging. We have to make sure we are filling our minds with reminders of what we are living for.

Even though our weekend was not what we had envisioned, we feel rested, closer, and thankful for all we have been given. Not too mention, how wonderful it was to have my mom get to know Madison's personality and spend so much quality time with her. And who doesn't want a mom to come in and take care of you when you are sick?

Because this turned into a novel, I will post all the pictures in the next post.

Whiskey, Shakes, Park, oh my!

This past weekend we went on a tour of a local Whiskey Distillery. The majority of the tour was a bit over my head because I am more of a visual learner and needed to see the process versus just hearing about it. I also do not know much about making alcohol so the terminology left me scratching my head. The most interesting part was the way in which the wooden barrels used for storage add so much to the flavor and how subjective the entire process actually is. They designate one person to pick which barrels go into each batch of whiskey, so every bottle is a bit different.

Everyone in the tour got a big kick out of Madison being there. Making jokes about sticking her pacifier in the whiskey, ha. She behaved the majority of the time, she just doesn't understand how to not interrupt people when they are talking yet, so there were a few squawks at inopportune times.

Madison has been spending a lot of time rolling on the floor lately. I started having anxiety about her never learning to crawl or walk because I hold her all the dang time. So now she is spreading her wings and rolling about.

I have been going through a vanilla shake phase. Like, I want a vanilla shake every day, maybe even more than once a day. I don't feel so bad about this because it will help prevent me from losing any more weight. Well, it turns out, Aspen also likes vanilla shakes.

It has been beautiful the last couple of days here, so we have taken advantage of the outdoors. Unfortunately, the geese who poop like every two steps, also take advantage of the outdoors. So even though this looks like a relaxing trip to the park I was constantly gagging because there was geese poop within every inch of my baby. Do not even get me started on the pile I put my hand right into, I am still gagging just thinking about it. But apparently, that did not stop me from feeding my daughter in the poop infested field. Mom of the year!

Does she not look like she is grown? Sitting up all by herself, eating unassisted, so big. (except for the few moments before this when gravity rolled her all the way down the hill)

And here are my attempts of capturing a cute baby photo.

1. "Hey mom, is this the goose poop you were talking about? Are you sure I can't eat it?"
2. "Ha, you thought I would look at the camera, but no, I am just going to stare right past it."
3. "Oh, is that Aspen? Aspen, whatcha doing? How come Aspen gets to eat the goose poop and I don't"
4. "Mom, seriously, just give me the camera."


I did manage to capture one decent picture.



And that is a wrap!
Can you tell I am getting more sleep?