A Cute Toddler in a Cute Outfit

Yup.  Gratuitous Gloria shots.  Outfit by Grandma.  Smiles complements of smarties.

It’s amazing how a camera shy girl can become a super model as soon as candy comes into play!

The Day After

So this morning, the day after the party, Thomas got up at 6am, got fully dressed and then came to snuggle in the bed with us.  At about 7:30 this is what my bed looked like.

The boys were sound asleep and Gloria was saying, “Please, wake up, Thomas, please.  Pretty please.”

Daniel is One!

Ok.  So he’s BEEN one, but I’m catching up after being sucked into facebook.  It’s worse than going to Walmart!

The day he turned one we snapped a few cute photos of him in his high chair enjoying an Oreo.

Such a sweet face 

This Oreo is pretty good!

Cheese!

Camera ham!

Sunday afternoon/evening we had a family celebration.  Kane and Valerie and DeNiece came over from Georgia to participate.  Michael and Gilah also came.  Thomas was at his father’s and managed to get there after the cake and midway through the presents.

We had a yummy spaghetti dinner that Daniel obviously enjoyed.

The cake.  Makes me think of Pinnochio.

He was a little unsure of how to eat the cake at first.

But decided it tasted pretty good.

And then got down to the business of SQUISHING it.

And stuffing his face.

And trying to figure out how to get it off his fingers.  (Thank goodness he didn’t decide to flap!)

And hamming it up for the camera.

By the time he was done the yellow and blue cake had turned into teal mush.  (Michael has a good picture of this.)

We then spent some time helping him to open his gifts.  (All of these pictures are on Michael’s camera.  Hint, hint, Michael.)

It’s hard to believe my babiest boy is one already.  He takes a few unassisted steps here and there, but prefers the security of a push walker so that he can go, go, go!  He talks a lot and likes to smile at us on purpose.  He whispers "hi" and grins, says "diap’n" for diaper, says "bye" right after we’ve left, and gives some of the best hugs and kisses these days.  He’s night weaned from 11pm-5am.  Sometimes he even makes it longer with minimal fussing.  He has a strong temper and a loud scream to go with it.  He wants to do everything Gloria does, much to her dismay.  I find the urge to buy 2 of everything to minimize the noisy disagreements that happen, but I don’t really think Daniel needs his own Tinkerbell doll and My Little Ponies!

This last year has been amazing to watch Daniel grow and become part of the family.  His older siblings love him to pieces in spite of all their spats.  He and Thomas have special games they play where they fall down together.  Gloria and Daniel go racing around the house with their push walkers hollering and laughing. 

Life in the Blue House is good!

Random Pictures

  So this morning I was finishing up some paperwork for Thomas to go to a day camp at the YMCA this next week.  One of the things they requested was "the most recent picture."  So naturally, I got out the camera to take one right then and, of course, I didn’t just stop with Thomas.

Gloria saw the camera and demanded that I take a picture of her.  Since she rarely cooperates, I took two.

Here’s the mug I got the camera out for.  He’s stinkin’ cute, even if he is ornery.

Daniel hammed it up some, too!

He loves his push walker.  He took a couple of unassisted steps by accident the other day and has refused to do so since, but he sure can make that walker go anywhere he wants to.  He’s a better driver than his mother or sister!

My little speed demon!

My favorite of the walker pictures.

Gloria and pictures…

Gloria has gotten it into her head lately, that she should decide when pictures are to be made.  And mostly that means that she has decided that she doesn’t want me to take pictures of her.  So when I took this great picture of her wonderful dress:

she was saying “No daddy.  No picture.”

And trying to hide…

Daniel at dinner

Daniel had a good time eating tonight.  He was yelling at us when he would run out of food.  We had some Mexican themed chili for dinner and he was using his cup to smash the beans and then eating the beans off the bottom of the cup.

As you can see, he got quite messy…

It was really funny, because he would scream at us, because he was done eating and therefore done being in the chair, but when I said “smile” he and Thomas both would:

except when they got a little bored with it:

Daniel Speaks

So Daniel has been making sounds that sound a lot like words recently.  A couple of weeks ago, he got a-hold of my phone and began pressing buttons.  I heard him, or rather the phone,  from the kitchen and called out, “Daniel, are you calling China?” to which he replied, “Yeah, Mama!”  It was a bit growly, and he probably wasn’t assigning meaning to the words, but that’s how it came out nevertheless.  I thought Michael was going to bust a gut laughing when he heard him.

Later that same week, Thomas offered him a carrot at the dinner table by saying, “Daniel, do you want a carrot?”  And Daniel said, “Carrot.”  Plain as day.  We haven’t heard it since.

This morning though was the sweetest.  All 3 kiddos and myself were snuggling, wiggling, and playing in the bed.  Daniel laid his head down on the bed next to me so I started talking to him.  We’ve been playing a game where I say, “Bye-bye” and wave his hand for him.  It makes him giggle for some reason.  This morning I just waved my own hand and said “Bye-bye” a few times since he was laying on his hands.  He watched me for a bit, then sat himself up, raised his right hand, and clearly said “bye-bye” in a sweet little voice while waving and grinning.  Then he crawled off to play.  It was so obviously on purpose and not an accident.  And it was soooo sweet to see that little hand waving.  He looked right proud of himself, too.

Hopefully, he will get better soon so that he will stop the constant screaming.  He is such an intense little guy that when he wants something he screams at the top of his lungs to get it.  We are working on being quieter at the dinner table, but when he runs out of food on his tray or sees something on the table he wants, he screams until he gets it.  If I look at him and speak softly, he calms down for a few seconds.  I’m trying to encourage him to make a softer sound before I give him what he’s screaming for.  I’m sure he’ll get it eventually.  He’s already gotten better about biting Gloria.  (Poor girl has little bruises where he’s bitten her.)  Now if I see him thinking about it and tell him no, he stops.  Gloria tells him, “Daniel, don’t bite me.”  He backs off then, too.  And for the record, his biting happens when he wants to love on her the way he loves and squishes on his favorite stuffed toys.  He’s not trying to be mean.  He’s just caught up in the intense snuggling so he bites her.

The little guy is just INTENSE!

Paint, Paint, Paint the House

LAST week, while I was feverishly sewing, Aunt Mindy came to visit and paint the family room and our bedroom/bathroom including trim.  It was really nice having her here for pretty much a week.  She came in on the Thursday before Memorial Day, went home Saturday evening, came back Monday morning and then left again Thursday. 

She was amazingly laid back about it and worked around our family schedule very well.  And she was VERY patient with me hemming and hawing over what color to choose.  The first color that I had chosen (and purchased) for the family room looked mint green when it got on the wall.  Mindy had spent about an hour “cutting in” (doing brushwork up close to the trim) before I managed to look at it.  Mindy reminded me that I had originally chosen a darker color but was nervous about putting it on the wall.  She went back to Home Depot for me to have them darken what we had.  Unfortunately, the darker color uses a different base, so adding color to the paint we had just made it darker and more yellow and, well, just as bad but in a different way.  She encouraged me to go get my first choice while she watched the kids.  She didn’t seem the least bit unhappy that she had just spent so much time painting a color I had chosen and then rejected.  Thankfully, that was the ONLY time I changed my mind about it.

She even took Thomas under her wing and taught him better roller technique than I have.  He was in charge of painting everything from the middle of the wall down, and Mindy took care of everything above that.

I’m not sure how well you can tell from the picture, but the walls went from dark beige to leaf green in the family room.  The bedroom/bathroom is similar but a little darker and more sage looking.  The color matches well with the quilt Mom made and is called “restful.”  I didn’t have to change my mind on that one though!  I chose well from the beginning. 

By now the family room is pretty much reassembled and much tidier than it was before.  We are still missing the picture over the mantle, but I’m sure it won’t take but a few minutes to re-hang it once we think about it when we have the time to do so.

The bedroom is slowly but surely getting back into shape.  We’ve been sleeping with the bed in the center of the room like an island with all of our furniture surrounding it.  It just goes to show how big our bedroom is that we could still get in and out of bed and walk around our island of furniture.   Every day Michael puts one more piece of furniture back where it belongs.  Every morning Gloria comes in and tells us, “Put bed a wall.”  I think that the bed is the last thing that still needs to be moved at this point, but Gloria has been nagging her daddy about it.  She must be practicing for when she gets married.

Mindy is gone now.  I miss having her around.  She’s really a neat person and I wish I had more time to just visit with her and talk.  If you ever need your house painted, I highly recommend hiring her.  She prices fairly and does good work.  She’ll even travel to do it.  Now if only I could pick out a good color for the hall…

This Week’s Projects

So I’ve been working on making things for DANIEL since Gloria has so many little dresses I’ve made.  I took a pattern that was meant to button down the front like a shirt with sleeves and a collar.  I made several modifications and ended up with this:

So that was actually what I did LAST week.

Monday I got busy with some red, white and blue plaid.  I decided to modify the pattern (again) so that it had a "top" and "shorts."  And then I took a A-line dress pattern for Gloria and turned it into a matching dress with a bodice and slightly gathered skirt.

Tuesday, I worked on some seersucker type fabric that Thomas picked out for Daniel.  I decided to try some little "tucks" in the front.  I like the end result, but not so much with this particular fabric.  I think this style would have looked better with a simpler fabric.

And this one is my favorite so far.  I started it on late Wednesday afternoon and then finished it Thursday morning.  I did the little bone and brown square appliqué on the front.  I wasn’t aware that my machine could do such a thing!

I am out of the puppy fabric, but I’m thinking Gloria might need a little dress to match.  I still have enough fabric for 9 more outfits for the little ones so I am going to do my best to get that sewn up first before getting any more.

I’ve also decided that I like the snaps set up so that the back "strap" goes UNDER the front.  It makes it look more like overalls and more boyish.  I may crack the snaps off and redo them that way.  I have lots of blue snaps.  I am also considering doing two on each shoulder to keep the corners from flipping up.

So many ideas!  So much fabric!  So little time!  But so much fun!

I Made Something for Thomas!

We went shopping a couple of weeks ago for fabric and a pattern.  Thomas picked out both and I sewed up this pair of shorts complete with pockets.  Those little pockets took more time than the rest of the garment put together!  But I like them and so does Thomas.  He wore them the very next day after I made them, so they’ve already been washed in this picture.

A close up of one of the pockets that took sooooo long.  Hard to see it on the shorts with this print.