I found this amazingly cute little book and was lucky enough to get it as a gift this summer: it's called Baby Stuff by Aranzi Aronzo, and it's full of adorable little sewing and embroidery projects for babies and kids. All the animals in the designs have wonderfully simple faces and details.

For my first project from the book, I settled on the felt finger puppets. There are ten animals in all, and I started with the tiger. I photocopied the patterns onto cardstock to make patterns I could cut out and reuse, I delved into my stack of felt, and I started cutting out this adorable little guy and putting him together.

Kent was very excited that I was making a tiger, though I'll admit that I sort of want to keep it myself and wear it on my finger constantly. Since it's felt and the little arms and ears are just one piece thick, I made sure Kent knew not to pull on them. He, like I, mostly likes to carry it around on his finger and admire it. For the record, this puppet also makes a lovely chapstick cozy. That's where it slept last night.

More animals to come include the penguin for sure, probably the pig, and whatever else I feel like making. It's a relaxing little project, and I'm excited for Anilia to join in the fun at Thanksgiving; I've already invited her to make some finger puppets with me if our children will allow us to put them down for any length of time.

Labels: craftiness, photography, what to read

• posted by erica 11/08/2009 08:08:00 AM
•  1 comments

I've gotten some ridiculous spam subject lines, just as everyone else has, but this one had me scratching my head: "Life is full of emotions only when you are healthy." Right. Because sick people aren't allowed to feel happy. And sadness isn't an emotion. Um, yeah.

So quick update on us: We went to a great Halloween party on Friday and took Kent trick-or-treating for the first time, finally. Our parish had trick-or-treating on Saturday, but LSU was also playing Saturday night, so a few neighborhoods (including one where a friend of ours lives) changed their trick-or-treating to Friday so it wouldn't interfere with tailgating, game watching, and binge drinking. This town is really, uh, unique. Anyway, the party was lots of fun with a bunch of our little friends in their costumes — it was even funnier when the spray hair dye got passed around and a lot of the kids and moms ended up with purple, green, or pink hair. We only walked to about ten houses before it started raining, but it was the perfect amount for the under-four crowd.

Kent isn't quite old enough to have an opinion on his costume, so after thinking for a while about what characters/animals he might actually enjoy dressing up as, the perfect character occurred to me: his father. Kent dressed up as Jack for Halloween, and he couldn't have been happier. I put him in a button-down shirt, tie, and dress pants, punched the lenses out of some sunglasses, and drew a goatee on him with eyeliner. I told him I was going to put makeup on his face to help him look more like Daddy, and at first he thought I said "bacon", so he went and told Jack that he was going to have bacon on his face. Still giggling about that one. The eyeliner worked beautifully and came right off in the bath, thank goodness. I had been sort of curious if we'd have a two-year-old with a goatee for a few days.

I'm having some glorious time to myself this morning while Jack and Kent take the communion bread to church in time for the early service. I don't get a lot of silent time, especially lately since Jack has been studying so hard for his exam coming up on Friday. I finally got to return to prenatal yoga yesterday morning — Jack urged me to go because he knew how desperately I needed a break — and the yoga felt glorious in its simplicity and in the way it transformed my body and mind. There's one leg exercise that I find really difficult, and I realized I was cursing to myself when she told us we were going to do it a second time. I'm pretty sure yoga isn't supposed to include cursing. It's good to push myself to achieve difficult things, though, and the whole hour was a nice experience, even with that leg exercise.

Our instructor does a deep relaxation part toward the end, which reminds me a lot of the relaxation exercises we used to do at my elementary school; the teacher would come around after a while and lift up our limbs to see if we were relaxed like "wet noodles" and I prided myself on being really good at it. Yesterday, after our instructor had us focus on relaxing different parts of our bodies, she left us with the suggestion that we think about all the things we're thankful for, so even though my body was relaxed, my mind didn't stop buzzing. I'm thankful for so many things in my life, and I needed that chance to remember and relish them. I've been very emotional lately about a lot of things having to do with pregnancy, and anxiety about how things are going to change when Dean is here, so feeling the Om is a welcomed change.

Labels: holidays, Kent, photography, SAHM

• posted by erica 11/01/2009 09:10:00 AM
•  6 comments

Our fall-back morning greeted me with three unexpected things: Kent actually observed the time change for the first time in his life, sleeping well until it was light outside (and we don't know why!); I randomly had a stiff neck; and I had an overwhelming craving for blueberry scones.

I knew we had just about all the things I'd need to make scones, so I pulled the last baggie of summer's blueberries out of the freezer and went for Tyler Florence's recipe for the first time (thanks to Joanna). Jack got to mix up the pastry, because I hate cutting butter into flour, and I got the rest of the dough together. Tyler told me to pat out the dough and cut it into triangles, but it was pretty soft and I wasn't sure it would actually hold its shape from the counter to the cookie sheet, so I just made round scones instead, and they worked fine. The recipe includes a lemon glaze, but we didn't have any lemon juice or lemons, so I made an orange glaze, and I halved the glaze recipe because it seemed like it would be way too much. Perfect amount, and there's still glaze all over the counter that ran off the edges. Yum.

I feel sad saying goodbye to the last of the blueberries, but this was a nice farewell. Falling back is treating me well so far. I wish springing forward felt this good.

Labels: kitchen adventures, photography

• posted by erica 11/01/2009 08:44:00 AM
•  3 comments

Currently making these adorable yarn apples. I knocked out six of them during Kent's nap. He loved throwing them around when he woke up, and now they're sitting in the middle of our fall table with the pumpkins and little gourds. Aren't they delicious?

It's pretty awesome to find almost everything you need for a new project already in your craft closet. That's one advantage to keeping all that stuff around. The only thing I had to buy was brown pipe cleaners, because believe it or not, I had all those colors of yarn AND I already had a package of green pipe cleaners. I'm sure I haven't used the green pipe cleaners in at least five years, and I don't even remember why I bought them. Maybe it was for tissue paper flowers or something.

In any case, these are a fabulous little fall project, and kids slightly older or more manually dexterous than mine would have a blast helping out. You know, I should really give Kent a shot with the winding part. No pre-judgment. I'll report back.

Edit: Kent wound most of a green apple with a lot of help, but he really liked helping and having his "own" apple. Duh, Mommy. Let him be involved.

Labels: craftiness, photography

• posted by erica 10/26/2009 02:42:00 PM
•  4 comments

This morning, I am highly amused by my son.

When I came out into the kitchen this morning, Kent was eating breakfast and Jack was doing some dishes, and Kent immediately started to tell me that he had asked for a waffle (gesture to waffle), milk (gesture to milk), and water (gesture very excitedly to water).

While we were watching the end of Hello, Dolly! for about the 30th time, he informed me that after the "Hodo Lolly part" (i.e., her torch song in her apartment in the second act), "we are gonna see the restaurant part." Thanks, kid. I forgot the sequence of events there for a sec... yeah, right.

He just found a penny on the floor and is now trying to put it in the pocket of his pants. Our friend Mary, who babysits him a lot, always gives him pennies in his pocket, so I guess he thinks that's where they belong.

I've had a rough few days, emotionally speaking, so I'm trying to put a good spin on the week and come up with some fun things to do. I've been thinking lately about putting together a dress-up box for him, though I'm not sure what to add. Suggestions? It should be cheap or free: no professionally made costumes, because we're kind of poor. I'm thinking of cutting up a sheet to make him a cape, finding some old hats in our closet, etc. I need help filling it out. No idea is too crazy, I promise.

Labels: Kent, SAHM

• posted by erica 10/26/2009 09:39:00 AM
•  4 comments

I finished Dean's sweater some time ago, then knitted up another one as a gift for my niece, who's scheduled to arrive sometime in late December. I took this picture right after I finished the one for my niece, but I wanted to wait to post it until Morgan's baby shower, which is happening right now. Ha ha haaaa. So the little cousins, who'll be about a month and a half apart in age, will have coordinating sweaters; it would be even better if we actually lived near each other and could have the two of them in one room at the same time. Stupid huge country.

Eco-Cotton by Red Heart was my yarn of choice for this Baby Yoda sweater pattern: vanilla and midnight marl for Dean's sweater, and chocolate and rose for Baby Gaga Pietryka's (her first name will only be revealed after she's born, so this is the nickname they've given her until then). There may be coordinating hats and/or booties that get made to go with each of these, but I'm sort of on a sewing kick now, and I tend to stick with either sewing or knitting for a few months until I vacillate back to the other.

I also embellished a little sunhat for Dean this morning. I found this very simple light blue hat at the Dollar Tree when I was looking for a onesie for Kent to decorate, and I thought it would be the perfect hat to adorn with some stripey grosgrain ribbon from my stash. Kent wanted to wear it at first, but he realized it was too small for him, which led to yet another conversation about how Dean is going to be very tiny when he comes out but how someday he'll grow to be big like Kent. It's a fun, mind-bending challenge to explain a baby to a two-year-old. The hat is now sitting in the Dean box, along with the sweater and the other things we've collected for our little babe, and the Dean box waits patiently in the nest/guest room.

Labels: craftiness, Dean, nesting, photography

• posted by erica 10/25/2009 03:04:00 PM
•  0 comments

Kent just referred to Green Eggs and Ham as "Sam and Ham." Between that, the panda sneezing video, and my accidental invention of the word "pajeemas" (cross between "pajamas" and "PJs"), I can't stop giggling.

Jack tells me I'm very punchy tonight. I blame the pumpkin pie.

Edit: I just got a word verification word on someone else's blog that reads "sphit". This is getting out of hand — it's like the universe *wants* me to giggle all night.

Labels: language, observations

• posted by erica 10/23/2009 09:28:00 PM
•  0 comments