little sketches of us…

One of my sister’s friends made her a baby bib out of an old dishtowel, and I loved it! It covers perfectly for messy toddlers when they are excited to feed themselves but everything doesn’t quite stay on the spoon. It has arm holes, a tie in back, and is long enough to cover their laps. Here’s how to make one in five easy steps:

1. Fold 1/3 of the dishtowel over (with the cute side down if it has some kind of decoration).

2. Cut a small half circle—about the diameter of the child’s neck—in the center of the fold of the fabric. Then cut a straight line from the circle’s side to the 1/3 end of the towel.

3. Fold bias tape around the rough edge of the circle, leaving enough extra tape on both ends for the tie. Sew with a simple straight stitch, being sure to catch the fabric. Finish off the stitch on the tape, and reinforce the ends by folding over and stitching.

4. Fold over and zig-zag the open edges of the straight cut to prevent raveling. But don’t worry about it too much because this is the back.

5. On the forward side, zig-zag a small (about one inch) area at the bottom of each arm hole to create the sleeves.

 

There it is! Put the child’s arms through the sleeves, and tie it behind his neck:

Then let them run wild. Without the mess!

I just love this picture. It looks like he’s sitting there wondering, “What’s it all for?”

What do a temple marriage and a high security prison have in common? You guessed it! Haha. Good thing that one is by choice and a lot more fun than the other! Congratulations to Toni and Ryan Murray on January 8, 2011. They were adorable, and I had a great trip to California. Char got to come along, which made it lots of fun, and we got to visit the Caseys in San Jose on the way up to Oakland. We also met some new friends at the pre-wedding excursion to Alcatraz Island (see below) and made sure the car was decorated sufficiently at the reception before I locked my keys in the rental car. Oops…but typical. All in all, it was a nice excursion, and I’m very grateful to Toni’s mom for making it possible for me to attend.

		Toni’s Wedding VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Look closely. It’s not just eggs and deodorant.

Here’s a better angle, just in case you haven’t seen it yet. Follow those feet hanging off the end.

There she is!

She told me she wanted to lay on the bottom so she crawled under there all by herself and fell asleep.

Yep. We had snow in Lexington. It was way more than we expected to ever see in our sojourn here. For the first skiff of snow, we all got outside and sledded on the quarter inch of frost on the grass. Little did we know that a week later we would have a full-out snow storm that would deliver enough snow for Cristian to snowboard down the hill by the elementary school on the sled!

Snow!! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I made some drapes. For Layla’s room. It was kind of long in coming because I kept getting distracted by the kids and only sewing a side at a time. Anyway, they are finally done. Check them out.

We spent Thanksgiving by ourselves this year. Though we tried to invite people and everyone had plans, it actually turned out to be a really relaxing and fun day as a family. The turkey was ready on time (amazingly and with food-safety advice from Aunt Char), and Merayla and I had a fun time setting the table with some nice dinnerware that we have not had a chance to use since we received it at our wedding. Merayla wanted to wear her apple dress, so I curled our hair (I told her she looked all grown up, and she said she looked like Grandma), and we made her earrings out of eyeball stickers. Since she was so excited to dress up, Daddy and Oliver were convinced as well, and we had a few minutes for a family picture. All in all, it was a wonderful day, and I am grateful to Merayla for wanting to make a regular dinner something special.