Bethany - Seven Months.

Bethany being six months old has been, without a doubt, the most amazing period of her life so far. She's learned so many things in a short amount of time. The weekend we went to Florida she learned how to clap and blink. We don't see much blinking any more, but the clapping continues, and is beyond precious. (Of course, I might be biased.) Here she is, immediately post-clapping. You can see the glee. ;)
We've had the opportunity to see lots of friends this month. Kenzie (above) is the daughter of our dear friends Erik & Naomi. Kenzie is a big Bethany fan, and worked hard to help her sit still for this picture. She also tried to help Bethany learn to dance. Let's just say we're still working on that particular skill set.
Uncle Dr. T. was in Atlanta for a wedding, and we got to spend a bit of time with him one evening. Bethany loved to look at him and smile at him, but this is about as close as she wanted to get. Bethany has now met almost all of the Tulane crowd, so the three slackers (ahem, Bear, Wascom, & Raegen) need to get their act together and come visit!!
Our little girl is a stander-upper. She's liked this for a long time, but now she's to a point where she can support most of her weight without collapsing while we hold her. This is fine, except when we need her to sit in our laps and all she wants to do is stand. She does not handle disappointment well, and generally lets everyone in the vicinity know that we are refusing to meet her standing needs.
To celebrate our nation's independence, Bethany decided to become an independent sitter. She's pretty good at it, and still has the occasional head-bonk. Combining clapping and sitting might just be her favorite hobby.
(I just love this picture.) Bethany's favorite part of Goodnight Moon is "the quiet old lady whispering hush." She thinks it's spectacular, and usually gives us a big smile, then goes about her business trying to eat the book.
Baby pool = massive failure. Enough said.
Aunt Julie & Aunt Melissa came up to Atlanta to take some of Bethany's six month portraits. We were SO glad to see them, and the portraits are gorgeous, as per usual. You can see those here and here. We are forever grateful to have friends like the two of them. :)
Since BEB has become a sitter, bathtime has gotten more interesting. This is the day she first realized she could sit up in her whale tub. You can guess how she's feeling. The slobber is just a bonus for you.
More friends! This was a great day. :) Two of my friends from Macon, Laura & Jenn, brought their daughters, Susanna & Allie, to play with Bethany. They are a bit older, but Bethany was entranced by them, and just could not figure out what she was supposed to do. It was probably the calmest I've ever seen her. Here are Susanna & Allie in Bethany's room - the group would not cooperate to get a good picture of all three girls.
And the (terrible) family shot - more fun to look at the camera than at the mirror, I'm afraid.

Phew. I'm exhausted just reliving all this. Maybe next month we'll have a tooth to show you!

There is more to my life than that baby.

But not much. :)

One of our big adventures for this summer involves me learning to eat more some vegetables. In order to do that, we made the rather enormous decision to buy a CSA {Community Supported Agriculture} share. Every week, we'll be picking up a box of fresh-grown veggies from Scharko Farms at our friendly neighborhood farmer's market. Our first box arrives next Thursday, and I'm pretty excited. Of course, when it's entirely full of things I don't eat, the enthusiasm may dim somewhat. Fortunately, we split our share with our friends Mark, Shelly, & Conner, and Shelly is an amazing cook, so hopefully she'll be able to inspire me. (No pressure or anything...)

Eventually, Lindsey would really like us to have a decent garden of our own, but that will involve some massive tree surgery on the giant oak that shades pretty much the entire backyard. This year, he's content with three heirloom tomato plans from a coworker.

I am also sort of determined to start making "stuff" again - I've been missing it, and I have a few crafty ideas up my sleeve. Since they're all supposed to be speedy projects, maybe I'll get them done by September??

Happy weekend!

Bethany - Four Months.

Figured I should do the four month post before she turns five months. :) At her four month checkup, Bethany weighed 14.4 pounds, and was 26 inches long. Her head also measured in the 98th percentile. We are attributing that to her immense brain, not just an enormous skull, though the truth remains to be seen. As you can see, our first St. Patrick's Day as a family of three was marked by wearing an inappropriate symbol, and enjoying a very rainy day. Wildness and craziness all around. (Ha.)

She continues nursing like a champ, and decided shortly after turning four months old that she no longer wished to be swaddled at night. This was not happy news for mommy and daddy, because she still has a pretty strong startle reflex, so she is up much more at night than she had been. She also wants to sleep on her side (like the grown-ups in this house do, we think), so that adds a layer of excitement to her nighttime flailing.

Ignore the sunglasses that ruin this otherwise sweet picture. Now that the sun occasionally shines in Atlanta, we spend a lot of time walking around the park. We have also enjoyed several outside restaurant meals, which are much better for babies than trying to be quiet and still inside a restaurant, or at least Mommy thinks so.

Bethany celebrated her first Easter with lots of friends in town (more on that in a later post), including her first Tulane Girls' weekend. We really missed Aunt Raegen, but Aunts Feather, Caro, and Lala were here to indoctrinate her. The indoctrination was very successful, and we cannot wait to get EVERYONE together to meet her.

On Easter Monday, she also was able to meet Uncle Ralph very briefly, as he was in Georgia to attend a practice round at The Master's with Grandpa B. & Uncle Andrew. As you can see, he still has the magic touch with babies.

{Notice in the family picture that only one of us is getting cuter.} Bethany continues to amaze us with what she tries to do and what she won't try to do. She has no interest in grabbing her feet, but does grab everything in sight and shove it in her mouth, including very small things that we don't realize she has the dexterity to grab until she does it. She also refuses to roll all the way over, but then sits up in the bathtub.

She really likes sitting on the couch (because she thinks she's just a short grown-up; I can't wait to tell her how wrong that assumption is!), and spending time on the porch swing. Her eyes are still very light, and we can't tell if they're going to be more grey or more blue. (Or mess us up completely by turning brown.) Her hair is getting longer and thicker, but still maintains a buzz cut look overall. She talks A LOT, and recently mastered what I like to call the Vikings-Are-Coming-to-Pillage-Our-Town shriek. Overall, she remains a very sweet and easy-to-care-for baby, and we are VERY grateful.

Since my child has put herself to sleep...

... thought I'd share some photos of her (finally) (almost) finished bedroom.

We caught a lot of flack from folks when we didn't know what gender our baby would be, and we told them the room was blue. LOTS of people immediately replied with, "well, you'll have to change that if she's a girl." Um, no. It turns out that we like the color, really like it with red accents, and guess what?? Our baby has remained a girl despite the blue room.

We'll start with her crib, which came from IKEA. Notice how pristine it looks? Notice how there are multiple death traps near it? (Soft toys, hanging blanket, pillow...) That's because she's only used it for the occasional nap, and now she's starting to hang out in there a bit while we're in her room so she'll get used to it. This is the secret to having an immaculate crib - don't use it! Print on the wall is by the amazing Black Apple, and the pom poms are a MonkeyBean creation from my first shower. (Awww.) The blanket you can't see was mine, made by a great-aunt, and has the tightest crochet stitches I have ever seen.

Next we have the rocking chair, source of immense angst for my younger brother. Mom had a different chair for each of us, and this is actually his. However, when we moved to Georgia, Mom put my rocking chair in his room, so he's attached to that one. Thus, I have his for Bethany. Confused? Imagine how I felt when we tried to sort all this out when I was 9 months pregnant. Yeah. The gorgeous afghan was made by Lindsey's sisters' step-grandmother. More Black Apple art on the wall, and another print by an artist whose name I've forgotten, so I'll have to look that up and report back.

This is the crazy amount of stuff I have temporarily put on her bookshelf. I know that it will all have to go when she starts pulling up, but for now, I like it. You can see some of her MonkeyBean newborn portraits, as well as a Pete the Cat print - he's riding the St. Charles streetcar, of course. A whole bunch of vintage books, a vintage baby bonnet, a doll I bought in Prague, and a little ceramic box made for me when I was little round this out. You don't want to see the shelves - trust me.

The color on this shot is off, but you can see the canvas piece Kinsley made for Bethany, as well as my very clever (ha) use of a picture display mobile for Bethany's art cards. This is hanging above her changing table, which is really a pad on top of a dresser. Couldn't get the whole thing in a remotely decent shot, so you'll just have to imagine the dresser. Bethany loves to stare up at both of these things, since they're black, white, & red.

Finally - gratuitous cuteness.

Backing Up... The TU Visits

Two of my dearest friends from Tulane have visited Atlanta since Bethany arrived, so I figured I should post their darling pictures.

The Uncles Jason (Jason F. & Jason B.) came just a week after she was born, and brought her a darling I *heart* NY bear. Jason F. held her for a solid two hours, and I secretly want to know what his magic is. :)

Then, Uncle Petey visited at the beginning of January on a frigid day. We ate some yummy barbecue, and then toured him around the hood. As you can see, Bethany took a liking to him, as well.

Back in September...

My good friend Lauren (who is already Auntie Lala to precious little James, and will be Auntie Lala to the Brownie as well) came into Atlanta for a little reunion weekend before, you know, our lives change forever. That's us in the top photo. She was able to arrive in time to attend a fabulous shower thrown at the MonkeyBean Mansion. Having friends who are photographers is very helpful, and Melissa ROCKS for taking these amazing pictures, even though it meant she didn't show up in any of them. BOO! I'll let them speak for themselves, with just a little captioning for fun.

Here you see Kinsley, with her extremely awesome cupcake, and also the tissue pompoms that Melissa & Julie made - three of them are going to be installed today (!) in the baby's room.

And here are Julie & Natalie working hard on making little bibs for the Brownie. You can almost tell that Natalie is pregnant in this picture, but now she's not! (Baby Avery arrived on the 18th - yay!)

Because Amy asked so nicely...

Here is the most recent decent picture of the Brownie. We've had one more since this one, but even the midwife who "took" it said that it looked more like a Halloween decoration than a baby. Turns out this 3-D technology isn't perfected, and if some other body part is in front of the face, you get a spooky image. This one is actually from September - sorry.

At this point, the Brownie was head up (boo!), but now s/he has complied with modern medical practice, and is head down, so that's one less reason to end up with a very unwanted c-section (yay!). At the last appointment, I also got to watch him/her doing practice breathing, which is pretty cool to see.

We have had several lovely showers, and people have been very generous, so we feel like we're in good shape for the Brownie's arrival in about a month. I managed to forget the camera at every single one of the showers, so I am at the mercy of others to have the time to download photos and send them to me. I am being patient, since I still have photos from APRIL on my camera. Ugh.

I am aiming for massive progress in the Brownie's room this weekend - we moved a bunch of furniture out and did some rearranging on Halloween (in between giving uncostumed teenagers one piece of candy each - boo again!), so it's almost time for the decorating & organizing, which we all know is my favorite part, vastly preferable to actual cleaning. You might get lucky and get to see the results of that in photographic form, but it also might be March before that happens.

Happy Wednesday!

Oh yes.

Courtesy of my brother - a little Macon love for all of you. Though this does prove that Jack McBrayer is more than a bit older than I am, because gym uniforms were happily forgotten before I started high school. Kenneth is on tonight, of course, along with the rest of the 30Rock gang...

Merit pay has been the hot topic for those of the teacher ilk here lately - our state legislature just approved extra pay for people who teach *some* subjects - what a crock. Anyway, I loved what this blogger had to say about merit pay in general (quit rolling your eyes, Petey).

And because y'all know I have some mad Mr. Rogers love, and because I forgot to remind you about his birthday this year, I thought you should know that you too can own your own trolley:

I know. I want one, too.

All is right with the world...

The windows are open.
Our neighbor is babysitting his granddaughter - she's making mudpies.
The daffodils are blooming.
The snow in our front yard has finally melted.

Hard to believe that cute picture below was just less than a week ago!

Days like today always make me wish I was with my college roommates "studying" in Audubon Park in New Orleans - we'd take our books & a blanket & fall asleep within the hour - it was great.

Happy weekend...

Merci beaucoup.

Big, huge, gigantic, slobbery thanks to everyone who answered the poll. I owe each of you some additional individual thanks, but please know already you've been a big help.

In other news, if you have not yet seen last week's 30 Rock, I sincerely recommend that you hightail it over to Hulu and watch it. Then, report back. It is, without a doubt, hilarious.

That is all for now.

Vintage Heart Swap, #2!

vntg heart swap 2
Originally uploaded by from my cherry heart

The lovely Dolly, who writes at From My Cherry Heart, is hosting her second annual Vintage Heart Swap. Sign-ups are open until January 9th, I believe. This is a fun one. To see my treats from last year, just look here.

In other news, I had an email today that the Handmade Toy Saving initiative is currently #1 in its division at change.org, but we don't want anyone else pulling ahead here at the last minute. Voting continues through the 31st, so click on that link on the sidebar. NOW! GO!! Thanks. :)

My friend Lennye makes me cry.

If you're feeling just a little bit Grinchy or Scrooge-y this Christmas season, I highly recommend you read about what my friend Lennye was able to do for a student. Sometimes, I think we look too far heavenward for miracles, when most of the time they happen a lot closer to Earth.



This one touches me particularly because I taught this little guy, and he is, without a doubt, one of the most precious children on the planet. When I had him in my class three years ago (has it really been that long?) his life was challenging, but not nearly as difficult as it is now. I know I speak for Lennye & everyone else involved when I say that we would covet your prayers for K & his family, particularly his sweet mom, that they might be able to enjoy this Christmas in spite of everything.


Merry Christmas, y'all.

Holiday Traditions Swap Treats

From the lovely Sarah M.:
Absolutely gorgeous washcloths. As in, so pretty that you're afraid to use them. They are perfectly knitted, and make my crocheted ones look like a preschool craft project! Sarah also included a bar of this soap, which we love. We love it so much that we just finished our bar, so she saved us from having to buy more! That is serendipity in action, friends.
This bag was FULL of killer shortbread. As in, the best I've ever eaten. It was amazing. I took some to work today, and it was a hit there. In the spirit of Christmas, I was even honest, and didn't claim to have made it or anything!
And the grand finale - knitted elves. Their little hats & scarves are knitted around corks, which is just about the cutest thing ever. I have a thing for elves, and these fit in perfectly.

Sarah also sent a tutorial about their family's advent tradition, which was really interesting. Our advent calendar growing up (handmade by the Motherina) was different from this, and much less interactive, so it was cool to read about doing it in a different way.

Thank you SO MUCH, Sarah, for such a great swap!

Definitely out of the ordinary.

Photo from www.nola.com.

Bear emailed me this morning to let me know the snow was on its way! This is just the most amazing image - decidedly not something I've ever gotten to see. To celebrate, we had yummy dinner, but we still haven't seen any flurries.

Family Togetherness.

*Courtesy of Monkeybean Photos.*

Girls' Weekend: Recap

Mom & Aunt Mary Beth - practicing for their matching rocking chairs.

Very Laura.
Very Amy.
The weekend before Thanksgiving, my Auntie MB and cousins Laura & Amy converged on the ATL for a girls' weekend with my mother and me. It was a blast. Of course, I only got the camera out once, so these photos will have to do. Picture it: new Beaujolais, shopping, giggling, art museums, and more! All in less than 72 hours. We even bought matching purses. We even let Lindsey join us for one meal.

Crafty update.

First off - the infamous diaper cake. These are de rigeur at school showers, but apparently something of an oddity at St. Paul UMC. Who knew?
Who knew, too, that the parents-to-be (our pastor and her husband) would register for non-bleached environmentally friendly diapers that are, um, beige? Beige = not good for diaper cake making. I did not know this, of course, until I opened them. Thus, the cake is a little dingy-looking, but I think you can still get the effect.

I also decorated some onesies for them, which were then strung on this clothesline. I had thought we would use some vintage tablecloths of mine for these tables, so the onesies were WAY too heavy for the plastic. Fortunately, thanks to the magic of Mr. Stapler, we got them to stay up for the duration of the shower.
Moving on to fall - for KK, here's the mantle:
I took my leaves and used glue dots to stick them to my IKEA tree. I waited overnight to do this, which wasn't bright, as they would have been much easier to glue fresh. You will notice the lack of acorns this year - no little wormy friends, either...
There are a couple of additional pre-Christmas projects coming down the pike, I think, but there is definitely Christmas crafting to be done. Whoo-hoo!!

While you're surfing around blogland, be sure to check out Julie's fun blog (I've linked to it before) and etsy shop. She's having a fun little contest right now, too. Her shop is chock full of the results of her gifted thrifting - she's got some books that are making me very envious!

Happy Tuesday, everyone.

Good times.

I was going to post about the time I had dinner with Bill Ayers, but Lindsey said I shouldn't.

So, instead, I'm going to show off one of my amazing friends.

Go read what Barrett wrote today (and props to him for F-I-N-A-L-L-Y starting to blog). Then, remember that he's a full-time computer geek, and be even MORE impressed that he used the word nascence.

When you're done with that, go outside and pick up a bunch of different-colored leaves and put them somewhere in your house. I'll show you what mine look like tomorrow.

Happy Thursday!

Something we should ALL do.

Even those non-sewing boys who lurk here but never leave comments...

First, visit SouleMama's post from today. Then, link over to her new craftivism effort, Mama to Mama, and read about a simple way to help new mothers in Haiti.

Convinced? I thought so.

But for those of you who aren't nudged to action, you should read Meg's amazing post about the effort, and Haiti in general.

Now I know you're going to help, aren't you?

When you're done with your project, read anything ever written by Edwidge Danticat, and you'll see why this is so important.

Those, friends, are your cryptic instructions for the evening.

Happy Monday.

Ye Olde Weekende - thus far

Spent last night with these lovely people at the Chamblee High School homecoming game (obviously, it's a picture from a different event, as even Chamblee does not have statues). Chamblee skunked the opposition, so much so that it almost wasn't worth watching. The company was great, though, which made it worthwhile.

Today we volunteered for the middle school's Quiz Bowl tournament. (We could also call this event Geekfest 2008.) Since this is how I spent many weekends from, oh, 1992-1998, you could perhaps call me one of them. I will contend, though, that I was much better behaved. It is sort of funny to sit in a room full of kids who get mad at themselves for not remembering that the Sudan is the largest country in Africa.

We also achieved one wedding gift and one baby shower gift. I am clearly getting old and cranky, because my new rule is that even IF something appears on your registry, if I think it's junky or overpriced, I'm not buying it! There was an incident earlier this summer where I really had a hard time buying a gift because I thought the person's china patterns were too hideous for words. I think this means two things:

1. I am a snob, and I should get over myself.
2. I am a snob, and I should get over myself.

Noah's Ark tomorrow - there should be some quality Roy G Bivishness for Monkey!

Happy weekend!