20 Weeks

20 weeks old seems so big!  I remember when Carrie posted Elsa's 20 week pictures and I thought "Wow!  Already?".  Well, now it is "already" with Sweet Pea.  Se was 20 weeks on Sunday.  

She sits at the table many meals with us. After her second birthday Rosebud gave up the high chair and now sits in a chair at the table.  Poor thing can hardly see over the tray, and what is there?  A shark and a dryer ball to entertain her.

 At 20 weeks she has two teeth, barely any hair, and the fastest growing finger nails ever.  She can push up on her hands and get her head and chest off the ground.  She has rolled from belly to back once!  Haven't been able to have a repeat of that, but it did happen yesterday.  We also get big belly laughs and lots of squealy screechy noises. She slept in her crib from 8:30pm until 1:30am.  Not only was that a HUGE stretch of time for her to sleep, she has only even napped in her actual crib a handful of times.

She is still pretty serious quite a bit of the time, but most of the time she is a pretty "chill" baby.  When she isn't  "chill"  (usually Sunday evenings and Mondays) WOW is she unhappy.  She is very much like LMM in that she is either ON or OFF.

She weighs in at 12 1/2 lbs and is 24 1/4"

The (not so ) Great Cloth Diaper Change 2012

I have been looking forward to today for a few weeks now.  THE GREAT CLOTH DIAPER CHANGE!  Snug and I took Rosebud last year (she was the one in a diaper) and we had a great time.  The event was held at an organic garden center and tons of vendors were there for Earth Day.  There were probably at least 75 babies and their caregivers there to participate.  It poured, but we were in a green house, so no big deal. 

 This year the event was MUCH closer to home, only about fifteen minutes, as opposed to an hour.  However, we had a really hard time finding where it was as google dumped us off in an abandoned lot.  

 This event takes place all over the world, I think I read this year there were 500 locations.  Our location?  In the middle of the city in a park.  April in our neck of the woods isn't predictable.  Today's rain and 44 degrees isn't unusual.  MAN were we chilly.

 Rosebud pretty much hated the whole thing.  #1 was a really good sport about it.  He is the greatest cloth diapering dad ever.

 These trees were the warmest thing there, trust me.

 Yup, I was freezing.  My nose hasn't stopped running since we were out there.  Luckily Sweet Pea was in a sling against my body and had her warm blanket.

 This is where our event was held.  I'm dead serious.  See that "platform" with some chairs around it over to the left?  That's where we were to change our babies.  I felt bad for the girl who was running our location as I'm sure she was picturing a much different scene.

 However, with the true grit of cloth moms (and a few dads) we participated in the change!  One of the women pictured here is a friend of #1's from high school.  Cool huh?

 We had, in the end, 21 babies.  We needed 25 to qualify.  So sad.

 I was glad that Sweet Pea was dressed warmly.  She didn't even fuss!  She fusses all the time in our warm house with toys and electricity and no rain dripping on her head.  Maybe I'll move her bed to our deck!

Yeah, Rosebud was NOT feeling the love today. 

This baby was very happy.  He didn't seem to be affected by the weather either  :o)

It was too bad the weather was so icky.  It was still fun to meet with other cloth and babywearing moms.  Despite it not being what I expected this year, I'll participate again next year too!

It's The Reptile Man Mate

 **Insert really cool and authentic Australian accent**  "Do you like my necklace mate"?  (Ok, he didn't say "mate" but really he should have)

 Do you want to wear it mate?  (Seriously, he should have been using that phrase)

 "This snake is a Bawl Python.  She's full grown.  She could eat your baby sister.  What?  You want this for a pet?  Ask you mum.  I'm sure she'd be ok with it"  (Yes, he used the word "mum".  Don't forget to read all this with above said cool Australian accent)

 "My extremely large, oddly tame snake gives nose tickles.  Here's your nose tickle mate. (Don't ALL Australians use that word a lot?  Is it weird he didn't?)

 "Alrighty then Mates, this here is my baby snake.  He's not full grown.  He is only like nine feet long.  He'll get to be like 900 feet long.  He could eat you.  But you can come up and hold him."

 "Easy now mates this big guy is heavy but he won't hurt you because he too is strangely calm and I think I might have tranquilized him"

"And now it is time for the mums to come up and hold the snake".  This mum only got to hold the tail.  So I was disappointed because I actually like snakes.  Don't particularly want to own one, but they are pretty cool.  And then the "mum" next to me decided to investigate how a snake goes to the bathroom.  Really?  You get to hold a ginormous snake and you ask that?  She's clearly not my mate.


**I so don't remember his exact dialogue so I made it up.  He for sure didn't use the word "mate" which was most disappointing, and he for sure DID use the words "mum" and "nose tickles".  That's the facts as I remember them**

The Rest Of the Story

Last post about Rosebud's birthday.  I have other stuff to post, like Little M. Man's reptile day at school and life...you know like meeting a fellow baby-wearing-Bible-believing-mom named Neptune in the organics isle of Kroger.  Stuff like that!

 So here's how we made Rosebud's Hello Kitty cake.  I got the pan with a 50% off coupon which is good because you know me, I never pay full price unless I have to.  And cake pans aren't a "need" they are a "want" so they better be on a great sale.  Anywho, I made two full recipes of Betty Crocker's gluten free cake mix (yes, it is REALLY good) and divided it into three equal parts.  If I had to do it again I'd either just do a two layer cake or buy a third box (which isn't happening, that stuff is pricey).

 The plan was to do a three layer cake having one be yellow, one orange, and one pink.  I read up online about how to do natural cake dye, and read several places that 2 TBS of beet juice should do the trick.  See how pretty pink it is?

 See how pink it isn't?  The cake on the left is the pink one.  Once it baked...no pink.  Just disappointment.

 Anyway, I put the three layers together and "caulked" it with gluten free frosting.  I mean I literally took my (clean) fingers and shoved frosting up in it so that it was all the same height and not sagging anywhere.  The edges were a bit frosting-y.

 Next I carefully put on a thin layer of frosting all over.  Using my fingers.  The cake was really crumbly and wouldn't tolerate a knife.

 My mom volunteered to do all of the little piped starts, and I let her.  I did it once for Snug's second birthday cake and vowed I'd never do it again.  Thanks to Grandmommy little girl had a beautiful cake.

Ok, now to the pom pom how-to.  First you need 8 sheets of tissue paper.  Nothing fancy.  I got 32 sheets for $1.

 Accordion fold the paper in about 1 1/2 in folds.

 Use florists wire to secure in the very middle.  I forgot to keep taking pictures, but next you round off each end with sharp scissors.  Then you carefully pull the entire thing apart.  I do one side at a time

 When it is all fluffed, hang it up.  If you want a face, cut out and hot glue on whatever you want.  I'm going to try and do an Angry Birds one for LMM's birthday.

 Here is the completed cake.  We used leftover Easter jelly beans for the eyes and nose.

This is how the color layers turned out.  The top is what was supposed to be the pink one.  Hmmmm.  It tasted good though.

Rosebud's Second Birthday

Rosebud turned two yesterday!  So hard to believe.   Her party went well, and in her own two year old way I hope she enjoyed it.  Sometimes she was a bundle of tears and had a hard time with all of the attention, cameras, presents, and general hub bub.

 I have a post to do about how I made the Hello Kitty pom pom, if you're doing a Hello Kitty party, it is really fun to do!  The balloons were both decoration and party favors for small guests.

 A rare smiley picture from the day.  I made her a banner to go behind her chair where she opened presents.  I used my same template from the place cards/plate decorations.

 We did a brunch, and alone with two egg bakes I made a variety of muffins, and had fruit.

 These muffins were the BEST.  I made them in both gluten free and "normal".  I can't post the recipe because I got it out of "Cooking For Isaiah" but if you have anyone in your life who can't eat wheat, it is worth buying. Tons of great recipes.

 The adults must have been getting their food because all I got was a picture of the kiddos.  We had grandmas and grandpas, and some close friends over.

 When it came to blowing out the candles, she had no trouble.  We "practiced" a bit throughout the week, but never with candles.  I'd just sing to her and then blow.  I think she got it!

I will also do a post about her cake, which my mom did a beautiful job on.  So many posts, so little time!  Happy Birthday Rosebud!   (21.4 lbs, 31 3/4")

Birthday Preview

It was a good day.  More to come  :o)

Birthday Week: Place Setting How-To

I LOVE birthdays.  I love planning my kids' birthdays. As you well know, I'm a budget-er and I like to do things cheap...er...frugally.  For the past couple of months I've been on Pinterest (LOVE this) getting ideas for a Hello Kitty birthday party for Rosebud.  

After looking around and getting some ideas, I also came up with some of my own.  We have these really pretty glass dinner plates that I bought last Easter time.  I love doing things seasonally around here, and justified the cost (they were from Kroger, so they were not anything super expensive) by deciding that they'd get used also for Rosebud's birthday parties!   I wanted to do something Hello Kitty theme for the table, while still using the glass plates. I decided to make place setting cards for each guest to put UNDER the plates.  Here's what I came up with.  

 First I took scrap paper and played with her face shape.  I kinda guessed a few times and then once I liked it, cut it out.

 I then traced it onto white cardstock.  I love scrapbooking (have ZERO time for it) and have several file folders that each hold a different color of paper that has been previously used, but has some leftover.  That is what I used for this project.  After cutting out her head, I used a Sharpie to outline and add features.

 I had watched a couple of tutorials I found via Pinterest and saw how other people made her bow.  It is asymmetrical and pretty easy to sketch out.  Again, I made a template and used it to make several colors of bows.

 After cutting it out, I used the Sharpie to add more detail.

 Last I glued on the bow and some whisters (more cardstock scraps).  This is how it looks under the glass plate.  This is the table cloth I'll be using that day too.  I'll add each guests' name to the ear and wah-la!  Placecards!  They also double as making our plates fit the theme.  

Here they are all finished.   I like how the colors in the cloth go with the bows.  I made some Keropi frog ones too for our male guests.  He was just the same head as Hello Kitty with the ears rounded off completely.  I then added two round circles for eyes and, of course, used the Sharpie for his features.

I have a few more DIY things up my sleeve that I'll share later!

Happy Easter 2012

First Tooth

 On the day she turned four months old (today) Sweet Pea also broke her first little tooth through her gums.

 She has been wearing her amber teething necklace for a couple of weeks as her drool was soaking her shirts and bibs...I knew something was going to happen.

We only noticed the bump maybe two days ago, but today when I felt it, the tooth is indeed through.  Wow.  It seems like she was just born!

Her first tooth is SO very similar to when Rosebud got hers at four and a half months.