Happy 3rd Birthday...plus 21 days

Taking a break from slacking, err....being otherwise busy, to finally share some pics from the Tot's 3rd birthday. Aside from him coming down with an illness about half way through the day, it was a good day. The cake baking and decorating was less stressful, the gift opening and candle blowing out was actually performed by the Tot, and the mess at the end was slightly less messy. Oh, yeah - there was the one glitch where I discovered that the reason the chocolate cake tasted just a little off was because apparently the oil that I used (at my mom's house) was oil that she had already used to make french fries. Oops. She really should keep that in a separate place - or in something other than the original bottle. While I am all for reusing, I do not recommend this particular application. Although nobody said they had an odd craving for ketchup with their cake, so it was all good.

This was the happy child during his birthday lunch of chocolate milk and toast with jelly, still wearing his jammies. If I let him, he would probably indulge in this behavior every day.




The cake - he wanted a train and rather than do any of the actual train cake designs out there, I created the scene with tracks and used a vintage wooden train candle holder that my mom pulled out of her endless supply of vintage goodies.







And, yes, he did receive a hand knit sweater which I will have to blog at a future date as he has thus far refused to model it for proper photographing.

Happy Birthday, Baby!

New Favorite Jammies

I know we all like to hang out in our jammies every now and then, but I think my latest sewing project has put the Tot over the edge with his own desire to lounge. Well...he'd actually like to wear them in the sand box and all over town, but I've drawn the line.



These whipped up rather quickly using only supplies I had in my stash. I sort of winged it on the top and the result is a rather large neck opening, but he doesn't seem to mind. I was going to make the bottoms short, but kept them long because the try-on for size revealed how cute they are full length. The light fabric makes these the perfect summer jammies. (Albeit flammable for any safety freaks out there.)



I must say...it makes me so happy that he seems to love these over the store-bought jammies with the toddler-enticing, drum-playing dinosaurs on them.

Oh...and the vintage child's hanger in he first photo was my father's.

the model

Ask and you shall receive...







And I was so pleased to get these vintage shoes from my mom's stash. These would have been one of my brother's from the 60's...well worn, but so much nicer than the crap they sell today. I even got another, less worn pair in a larger size for future use.



Now, I'm going to try not to stare at these photos all day because I'm supposed to be packing, but darn, isn't he cute!?

Dapper Dan

Well, he's not a Dan, but I must say that Finn looked quite dapper when I stuck this on him for his cousin's wedding last month. However, he does share his middle name with his great grandfather who was named Dan and he ALWAYS wore bow-ties. Still no sewing machine (getting it back in working order this weekend!), so I stitched this up by hand.



Yep, that's the seersucker from the fabric fair extravaganza. Just the touch needed to finish off his linen suit.

Week 1

I have loads of catching up to do and I hope that it will happen soon, but until then I just wanted to put this out there in the hopes that maybe I can recruit some others to play along.

If you're a flickrite, you've likely heard of this or other similar groups. 52 weeks - my kid(s) and me. The goal is to take a photo of you with your child(ren) every week for one year. I've thought about doing this for a while and now I'm going to attempt to make it a reality. So here's my first week...two pics, but whatever.



I got a remote for my camera for Christmas and you can just barely see in the second photo that the tot is the one holding it, so he actually took both shots.

If you've got a child, I invite you to give it go, share it on flickr, share it on your blog, share it wherever it is that you do your sharing. It doesn't have to be fancy and you can have someone else take the pic if you need to. No pressure, just encouragement to capture some of the daily moments that you share with your little ones. Hey, my first week is no make-up, straggly haired me and the tot in jammies - anything goes.

Summer Sweetie

Today most of the local kidlets are off to start the new school year and it has me thinking about summer coming to an end. I'm completely looking forward to Autumn, but trying to savor the remains of summer for the next month or so. I shared some shots of this little girlie on the photo blog, but thought I'd share more here. They make me completely jealous of those of you with little girls and I hope you had the chance to let yours run around barefoot in the grass in light summer dresses.








I love this shot with the bubble perfectly poised above her head.



She looks sad, but I think she's just plotting to catch the next bubble because this next shot was seconds later.



The dress in these last shots is a continuation of my vintage children's clothing obsession. My 18 years older sister had some really darling dresses when she was little and now about 50 years later my niece can wear them. You have to check out the full size photo for the detail, but it is a light pink sheer cotton dress with embroidered tulips on it. More little girl jealousy from me right there! At least I get to photograph her prancing around in them.