hellooo there...

Hey there. Been a little busy lately.
or lazy.
or both.
but not at the same time, cause that's basically impossible.

The bottom line is that the blog has been seriously neglected.
But my kiddos haven't.
So that's good.

In an attempt to catch everyone up and preserve some memories for myself, I'm going to go back to where I left off back in March.

During March, Avery started dance lessons.
Her BFF Faith is in her class too - how fun is that?
And how cuuuute are they in their little leotards?
My goodness.

We spent some time at our city's Children's Museum during spring break from preschool.

We took Daddy "roller 'kating" during his day off.

And visted the Botanic Gardens for some outdoor fun.

We enjoyed a day at the park with friends...

We had brunch with Daddy at the yummiest breakfast place in town...

and caught a little street music downtown.

We did lots of playing...

And - yes - I even made my very first outfit for Avery during my Craft Club.
It only took me 3 weeks to finish.
Three.

More to come soon!
Jen

help a sister out

O.k. ya'll...
I've entered Charlie's Nautical party in a little contest over at The City Cradle.

The winner of the contest will receive a $100 Anthropologie giftcard... which would be beyond lovely.

SO - head on over to The City Cradle and vote for me tomorrow!
I'll be your best friend.

dad-isms

I love my dad.

My dad is the KING of "dad-isms".
You know, Dad jokes, Dad quotes, Dad sayings, Dad trivia.
Dad-isms.

Tonight, while we were hanging out at my parent's house, my dad (with the tell-tale gleam in his eye which preceeds every really great dad-ism) said, "Charlie, I was a little worried that your momma was going to dress you like Little Lord Fauntleroy, but I'm pleased to see that she hasn't."

Eh?
What's that Dad?
"Little Lord Fauntleroy"?

My first reaction to the announcement was that "Little Lord Fauntleroy" had to be another one of my Dad's random names for things: some crazy, made-up name meaning "pansy kid".

The name kind of stuck with me.
It's kind of a silly one.
And fun to say.

After some extensive googling research, I discovered that "Little Lord Fauntleroy" does in fact, exsist.

Are you ready?
According to wikipedia,
Little Lord Fauntleroy is the first children's novel written by English–American playwright and author Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was originally published as a serial in the St. Nicholas Magazine between November 1885 and October 1886, then as a book by Scribner's in 1886.

The Fauntleroy suit, so well-described by Burnett and realized in Reginald Birch's detailed pen-and-ink drawings, created a major fad for formal dress for American middle-class children:

"What the Earl saw was a graceful, childish figure in a black velvet suit, with a lace collar, and with lovelocks waving about the handsome, manly little face, whose eyes met his with a look of innocent good-fellowship." (Little Lord Fauntleroy)


The Fauntleroy suit appeared in Europe as well, but nowhere was it as popular as America. The classic Fauntleroy suit was a velvet cut-away jacket and matching knee pants worn with a fancy blouse with a large lace or ruffled collar. These suits appear right after the publication of Mrs. Burnett's story (1885) and was a major fashion until after the turn of the 20th century. Many boys who did not wear an actual Fauntleroy suit, wore suits with Fauntleroy elements such as a fancy blouse or floppy bow. Only a minority of boys wore ringlet curls with these suits, but the photographic record confirms that many boys did. It was most popular for boys about 3–8 years of age, but some older boys wore them as well. It has been speculated that the popularity of the style encouraged many mothers to breech their boys earlier than before and was a factor in the decline of the fashion of dressing small boys in dresses and other skirted garments.

 
Hmmm...
I'm still trying to decide if I should feel complimented or dissed.
 
I'm going to go with comlimented.
 
I'm not going to lie. I love me some cute kid's clothes. Especially cute, handmade, traditionally southern kid's clothes.
Give me a shortall or smocked dress over a pair of jeans and trendy top any day.
In fact, with the exception of the time that she peed her pants at school and had to wear the school's pants home - Avery has never even worn a pair of jeans.
Neither has Charlie.
I just prefer sweet clothes on sweet little kids.
 
But this - this was never my idea of cute.
 

In fact, that's just plain creepy.

So Dad, for the record - I promise not to dress Charlie like your boy "Little Lord Whatnot".

Sincerely.

winter break time!

Please excuse me while I play a little game called "bloggy catch-up". It's what happens when you have the stomach bug, no computer, and no time. 

The week before Valentine's Day (see, told 'ya - catching up), our family ventured down to Dallas to accompany David for his pastor's conference there. 

I'm glad that we made the trip with him, because otherwise, I would have missed these beautiful KIDS jackets for sale for mere pennies at a Pilot gas station. 

.. every mother dreams of seeing her little ones in matching pleather biker jackets. 

And yes, I took a picture of them while I was in the gas station.

Yes I did.

We were super-worried about traveling all the way down to Dallas with 2 little guys in tow. 

And we should have been.

What normally would have taken 8 hours took us 11+. 

Thankfully, we had the genius idea to purchase a couple of these bad boys at Wal-Mart before the trip:

I'm pretty sure that my 15 month-old watched enough t.v. over the trip to ensure future hyperactivity issues. Awesome.

Nothing like a few hours of Diego to boost brain development.

He made up for it at the hotel by doing a little reading before bed.

While Avery opted to do a little freshening up. Right before bed.

We woke up the next day to this:

In Dallas.

Seriously.

Crazy, huh?

David used the opportunity to teach our 3-year-old how to make dangerously large snowballs.

And then to pose sweetly before chunking them at the hotel door.

Classy.

Later, we met up with my Aunt, Uncle, Grandmother and cousins for a little family time.

Charlie had so much fun playing with my cousin's little boy.
He liked dinner a lot too.

Those are peaches, by the way... nice and sticky...

The next day, while David went to his conference, my Aunt (a shopping goddess/guru/genius) took me to IKEA...

Oh Ikea, why do you only exist in cool towns? Won't you consider coming to the third most miserable city in America? Please? Pretty Please?

I'm going to take a moment here to show why Ikea completely and totally rocks.

Ready?

Here ya go:

And who doesn't love these teeny tiny shopping carts?

Or a giant igloo?

Fun times.

That weekend, my cousin Hunter drove in from her college to hang out with us.

Avery was in looooove with Hunter.

Seriously smitten.

Charlie didn't seem to notice 'cause he was gettin' himself some good Mimi lovin'.

After a few days at the hotel, Charlie started feeling more "at home".

We stayed at a hotel with some really amazing beds. Big, huge beds. 

Big, huge, king-sized beds.

The kind that you can really stretch out in.

Or so I heard...

On our last day in Dallas, I visited with my sweet college friend, Colin and her family.
Look at this cute little pizza she bought for us:

Charlie loved the pizza almost as much as he loved sitting in Colin's tiny chairs. 

It had been a year since Avery and Colin's little boy, Tyler saw each other last, but they lost no time getting to know each other again.

How cute is he?!?

We had a great time on our little Winter break. Everyone should take a week in February to get the heck out of Dodge and take a little vacation. Don't you think?

introducing: danger boy

whoa.
boys.

first official haircut

I took Charlie to get his hair cut the other day and would be totally remiss if I didn't post the pictures on the blog...especially since my blog ends up serving as an online baby book for my poor, neglected second child most of the time.

It's so sad that Avery's baby book is filled with random, silly facts about her eating habits, sleeping patterns, and bowel movements, but poor Charlie's is totally empty.

I stink.

So I guess you'll have to bear with this guilt-ridden mommy as I blatantly post braggadocios and completely obnoxious mommy photos for the sake of memory keeping.

...Or you can just go on to the next blog in your Google Reader.

It's cool.

Really.

You won't hurt my feelings.

I promise.

Go ahead...

On to my post:

Here's my little Shaggy Shagster before:

(loving on his "buddy". A fact that makes my heart a little too happy for words.)

During:

(somebody wasn't liking it)

And After:

 

 

Such a Little Man.

O.k.

That will be all.

Carry on.

so - a needle pulling thread

I come from a family of extremely talented women. Women who can sew, crochet, quilt, and embroider like champs.

I have some priceless memories of my grandmother teaching me to hand stitch quilt pieces when I was a girl. I've been intrigued and inspired by women who have the ability to create beauty out of simple fabric ever since.

With that in mind, you can imagine how excited I was when my mother-in-law gave me a sewing machine last Christmas. Excited...and completely overwhelmed. So overwhelmed, in fact, that I didn't touch my machine for the first 6 months that I owned it.

One day last summer, I got fed up with my whimpy-ness and decided to do something about it. With the help of some very patient friends, I managed to make this nursing cover:

...and I didn't touch the machine again for another 6 months.

Finally, one random day in November, I got an amazing idea: a stroke of genius. I decided that I would make dolls for Avery and Charlie for Christmas. Dolls like my Great-grandmother made for me when I was a little girl...sweet, pretty, handmade dolls.

What better way to learn to sew than by making something that your children could enjoy for years to come, right?

I could just picture Avery ripping open the wrapping paper to reveal her lovingly hand-made doll. Her big brown eyes would well up with tears, she would wrap her sweet little arms around my neck and whisper, "Oh thank you, Mothah... It's the loveliest doll I've ever seen. I am the luckiest girl in the whole, wide, world."

It was going to be awesome.
 
I wasn't quite sure how I was going to make the dolls happen, but they were definitely happening.

I found Bit of Whimsy Dolls on etsy - the dolls were adorable and just perfect for my little guys, and each pattern came with step by step directions.

I took my doll patterns, my tiny sewing machine, and my delusions of grandeur to Craft Club for some tutorage from my more experienced girlfriends.

That night, I made half of a doll.
In 5 hours.
If you're doing the math, that's some seriously slow sewing.
Some seriously slow, seriously pitiful sewing.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that I ripped more seams than I actually sewed that night.

My doll looked like Flat Stanley after a fight with Edward Scissorhands.
Not pretty and definitely not whimsical.

I took my little Mutant doll and went home feeling a little tired and slightly disillusioned.

That's when I realized that my expectations may have been a little high.

But here's the deal: If there's one thing I am it's stubborn.
The dolls were happening.
They may be horribly disfigured, but the dolls were happening. Period.

So I tried again.
And again.
And...

It started to get a little easier.

Until I got to the legs.
Then the doll looked like this for a week.

That's when I started to think that maybe the dolls weren't happening.

It took a pep talk or two from friends, but eventually, I got back to work.

After way longer than any doll in history was ever taken to create, Avery's doll turned out like this:

She was unclothed, but she was finished.

After I finished Avery's doll, I started feeling confident... and if I'm honest, pretty darn proud of myself.
But pride goes before the fall, people...and I have the photo to prove it.

While making Charlie's doll, I sewed THROUGH MY FINGER. Don't ask me how it happened...'cause I have no idea.

What I do know is that jamming a needle through your finger hurts.
A lot.
Thankfully, my pal Scooby Doo helped me avoid hemmoraging to death.

I have to say, the image of my finger with the needle going in one side and out the other is one that I may carry with me to the grave.
It haunts me.
Truly.

Dispite my horrifying needle experience, I managed to finish Charlie's doll just in time for Christmas (I told you I was stubborn).

Giving Avery her doll turned out to be a little different than I thought it would be. It went something like this:
"Oh. My Doll. She has bony tails (a.k.a. pony tails)".

Then she put it down.
That's right, SHE PUT IT DOWN.
And went on playing with her other toys.

Isn't that just about right?

I did manage to get a picture of her pretending to love it for the camera. She named it "Princess Daisy" and insisted on wearing her own "bony tail" for the photo session.

Little Charlie loves his doll and has from the moment I placed it in his arms.
He hugs and pats his baby regularly and with vigor.
A fact that makes stabbing my finger almost worth it.

Since Avery's baby dolls live happily in a mini nudist colony located in the corner of her playroom, I probably could have avoided making a dress for "Princess Daisy". But this week, I bought Bit of Whimsy's peasant dress pattern and made a little dress for her.

Thankfully, making the dress was much easier than making the doll itself. 

Could I have bought a doll and saved myself a lot of blood, sweat, and tears?
Sure.
But I did it.
I may do it again, too.
In like 20 years.