Off we go!

Rylee and I are taking wing to Michigan again. Some cousin-y goodness, some grubby camp fun and then some beach time with Daddy. Should be a hoot!

I'll try to post pictures and what-not.

Disney Princess Dress

My very first commission! I made this for a friend for her daughter's birthday. She bought the fabric and paid me in a precious barter more valuable than gold: a night of baby sitting. Woot!

It's the same design as Rylee's ladybug and monkey dresses. Time to get away from licensed fabric for awhile, but children want what they want. :)

A certain, covetous two-year old had to keep repeating the mantra "is add'son's pre'cess shirt"

An object lesson

Since I was up -  courtesy of my beloved daughter - at 6am on a Saturday I figured I might as well make pancakes. I retrieved all the fixings from the fridge and Rylee asked to see the eggs.

Figuring it's never too early to teach her to cook I opened the eggs and let her carefully examine the four in the carton. She wanted to hold one so I pulled one out and handed it to her, all the while admonishing her to be careful and gentle.

As I was explaining that eggs are fragile and will break if we drop them, the remaining three eggs fell out of the carton and on to the floor.

And we thought our babies grew up fast

On June 7th I first noticed our hummingbird mommy sitting on her nest. I had noticed her flitting about a day or so before and I think she laid her eggs right about this time.

On June 24 I took my first peek into the nest and found a little blob already about 3-4 times the size of the egg (or shell) in the nest with it.

Things moved quickly after that. Mommy sat on the nest less frequently, but came by often to feed the baby. I never managed to capture her actually feeding, but here's a picture of her on June 26th.



I did catch a video of the little one giving himself a bath, though, on July 3rd.





And we started seeing a lot of this greedy little mouth sticking up higher and higher (June 29).


Yesterday I noticed he was getting a bit too big for his quarters. Beak and bottom were both sticking out all the time.

Today I noticed him trying his wings a little and I thought it might be The Big Day. But then he snuggled down back into the nest as if perhaps the thought was still too scary.

When I saw him venture out of the nest onto the light I grabbed the camera again.




I watched for awhile as he screwed up his courage. I put the camera away and came back to the window to watch just a little bit more.

And as I was watching, he flew away.

Decisions, decisions

We finally got a decision on wearing yesterday's character tops.  And the winner is...

Dora!

But wait. What's the touch of green at the neckline? And why does Rylee look a little puffy. And what's that green bit protruding from the bottom...?

And at the sleeve?

Yes, indeed. We've reached the stage of life of a toddler dressing herself and her choice today was not to choose! It was too hot for two shirts, though, so before leaving the house we had to wrestle her out of one of them. She was distraught until handed two scraps of fabric. Then all was well. I should have kept my scraps and sewed a big, makeshift lovey out of them.

Happy 4th!

These tops are licensed for home use only

Rylee's current obsessions - held with the ferocity and transience typical of toddler obsessions - are Dora and Toy Story. So what's a mommy to do but bust out some licensed fabric for her precious?

Behold the Dora top, with another pair of shorts made from the same pattern as her birthday shorts.

The polka dot fabric was supposed to be for a dress someone asked me to make her daughter, but it didn't match the main fabric for that outfit. The perils of online fabric shopping. Lemons into lemonade at the neckline and in the britches.

Woody and Buzz don't have matching bottoms, but we have plenty of shorts to match this peasant top.

Here was her reaction when I showed them both to her and asked her which one she wanted to wear. We have the same problem when she's trying to decide which one to watch. Why not both?

And here's her reaction when she figured out I was taking pictures of her reactions.