{Not} Living Vicariously

Happy Six Months Tadpole

We celebrate six months with (what else?) an ice cream cone cookie from Julia's Homestyle Bakery.

Why yes, I did try to take a bite . . .

week twenty five

Week twenty five had us attempting to get photos of some of the cuteness. Why is it that as soon as the camera comes out, he stops being cute? Or the light is wrong . . . or we have blurry . . . or is it we just aren't that good at this? Anyway, enough of the whine, give me some cheese!

We call this "itsy bitsy" - when he gets sleepy and is eating that last bottle of the night he likes to put his hands up and play with his fingers. Of course, if we turn up the lights to get a good shot, he stops what he is doing to watch us. So, this is probably the best I'm going to get. Everyone chant along now:

    Itsy Bitsy Spider crawled up the water spout.

    Down came the rain to wash the spider out.

    Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.

    So the Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed up the spout again.

My babysitter suggested that we "practice" with a straw while Tadpole's "sucker" is still sucking. Apparently it is much easier to teach how to use a straw when they are still used to sucking on the bottle. We seem to make a mess, but he sure does have fun.

This has been lots of fun. He is very interested in both the cat and the dog these days, they make him giggle everytime he sees them. We have been rewarding the fur babies with treats when they let him pet him and this night Lindy got LOTS of treats while we got LOTS of giggles.

And that is a quick look at our twenty-fifth week. I can't believe he turns six months on Monday!

Nursery - Fabric treatments

I created three pieces in Tadpole's room from Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric I purchased off of fabric.com. They were a lampshade, a valance, and a window seat cushion and I only had to pull out the sewing machine for the third one. First up is the lampshade.

For this one I bought a lampshade kit at Hobby Lobby and just followed the instructions. Easy Peasy! I covered the raw edges with ribbon on the inside of the shade so you only see it when the lamp is lit. We go back and forth on if I should actually trim the outside as well. I am still debating with myself here . . .

Let me know what you think.

Second is a valance I created with the same material.

I used the instructions found here to create it. We really like the way it turned out.

Last was the window seat cushion and this one took the longest mainly because I had to pull the sewing machine out. Bless my wonderful husband who gave me those hours on Saturday to get this done! I started with an old eggshell matress we had around the house. I seem to collect these due to my mother's love of a soft bed. This one had a rip in it so I cut it down lengthwise to what I needed and then hand sewed it to triple thickness for width.

Next, I took an old sheet we had around (again with a hole in it) and made a cover so the blue wouldn't show through the end fabric.

And then I took the VHC "picnic" fabric to create a slip cover. Yes, I made it as a slip cover. I want to be able to remove it for washing. We have a little boy AND a cat AND a dog. It will get dirty!

My goal has always been to have a "finished" nursery by Tadpole's six month birthday. I have SEVEN days left. I'm almost there . . . almost there!

Project Life - Week Twelve

Wow! I can't believe it. I'm getting yet another PL post done today. This will be the last one though. I'm going to quit blogging after this and go back to my other projects in the last hour of peace and quiet I have ;-)

We had fun at the beginning of May. We enjoyed celebrating May Day with our cookie tradition. Unfortunately we couldn't find any pinata cookies - we did go out for Mexican food though and enjoyed a photo prop. Tadpole also prepped to go on a 5K with Daddy but they got rained out. He does enjoy his hat and sunglasses though.

He also had a great time singing along with one of "his girls" and they took some wonderful pictures for me. I'd be sad about all that I'm missing while I'm at work however with today's tech savvy teenagers, I get plenty of pictures of what he does all day. When I say Thank God for these women, I mean it with every breath in my body. The love they have for my baby boy shows in every moment. OH dear. Now I've teared up. I love my life! I'm off to go live some more of it . . . enjoy the rest of your Saturday!

Created by Becky Higgins, "Project Life provides an ultra-simple solution that helps us get those pictures into albums without draining our time, energy, and wallets." Learn more about it here.

Project Life - Week Eleven

Oh what a week this was. Our little guy got his first boo-boo. If I look closely I can actually still just barely see the scratch on his cheek. Aaron thinks I'm imagining it. And I might be. Whatever . . . as I like to remind Tadpole . . . "chicks dig scars!"

We also let him start to sleep on his stomach. Judge us as you may, we couldn't stop him. And he has definitely never even come close to leaving his nose buried in the bed. As you can tell though, we did rib him about his toots, especially when he had an animal on his bohiney. Baby clothes are so darn cute!

Daddy has decided that Tadpole looks like Mommy. Mommy thinks Tadpole looks like his Uncle Ryan. Either way, it does appear he has got the maternal genes going on at this time. Of course, this could change. In fact, Mommy is hoping that when it comes to teeth and personality he has his Daddy's gene pool. She will take her eyesight though :-)

Created by Becky Higgins, "Project Life provides an ultra-simple solution that helps us get those pictures into albums without draining our time, energy, and wallets." Learn more about it here.

Project Life - Week Ten

I've been spoiled with some alone time so I'm having great fun working on some stuff for the nursery (I actually pulled out the sewing machine AND remembered how to thread it!?!?!?!) and Tadpole's Project Life album and even some blogging. What can I say? I know how to have a crazy good time . . .

Looking back at week ten it amazes me how small he is and yet the personality is already starting to show. He has really started to hold on to various objects and even likes to pull at times. We continue to encourage the frog theme. I sure hope this boy of mine is filled with "snips and snails and puppy dog tails" or the frogs are going to be disappointed!

I remind him in this spread how it came to be that he has the baby sitters he does since I had to go back to work at the tail end of this week (remember, my week is from Tuesday to Monday and I went back to work on Monday, April 22nd). I also mention all the board books we give as gifts to the new babies in our lives. While he definitely doesn't quite get the "reading a book" thing yet, we do surround him with them at all times so he will understand how important they are to us.

Created by Becky Higgins, "Project Life provides an ultra-simple solution that helps us get those pictures into albums without draining our time, energy, and wallets." Learn more about it here.

twenty four (and a half) weeks down

Yeah . . . so I'm really behind on this post. All I can say is being a mother and working full time and being a wife and family and friends and church and chores - they can really take it out of a girl! Well, that and I got sick this past week. I have the best husband and tadpole has the best daddy ever. I couldn't have done it without him . . . Some quick favorites from week twenty four include

how fun is this? riding on Daddy's shoulders! we aren't quite sure how we feel about this yet . . .

any Klassen fans out there? This is Not My Hat!

trying mushy peas and calling Dr. Seuss . . .

I do not like them Sam I Am!

I can't blame him on the mushy peas. This is the first food we've tried that he really struggled to eat and since they smell horrible we didn't make him continue. He loves his avocado, carrots, and sweet potatoes. Today he'll get to try green beans. And soon? Soon we'll start on fruits. Happy days!