In Retrospect

Sometimes, it's only obvious that something is a bad idea after it's to late. Let me explain. Saturday night we went to a concert at KidsQuest. Tim Noah was performing. Now I LOVED Tim Noah as a kid and now that I'm older and have kids I still love him. His music is fantastic. It has all the right themes.

This was the only pic I could get from his website.
(He's won Emmy's! Impressive!)

His songs from my favorite CD In Search of the Wow Wow Wibble waggle wazzie Woodle Woo include:

Zoom
If I Only Knew
If I Was
The Monkey Song
Big Booger
Tears On My Toes
Little Miracles
Sunshiney Mornin’
Musty Moldy Melvin
Friends With A Song
Wow Wow Wibble Woggle Wazzie Woodle WOO
I Can Do Anything

When I was in first grade this CD came out and Tim Noah did a tour around our area. Now I thought that he was HUGE, a rock star. Just huge. I believe it was really the first concert I ever went to and it was great. I remember listening to my tape and jumping on my bed and singing, 

"Teacher, teacher, teacher can’t you see
That Big Booger’s pickin’ on me"

 

From his song Big Booger. I was picked on a lot when I was a kid so it really resonated with me. Now as an adult I listen to the lyrics from Sunshine Morning or If I Was and all I hear is positive reinforcement. The best one though is I Can Do Anything. I love it. I think it's so important for our kids and us to remember, we can do anything. 

 

We went to the concert and it was a great venu for it. KidsQuest is a children's museum that really appeals to toddlers. It has water tables, toys, sand boxes and a thing that swallows up scarves and blows them out again. I made sure Jason sat down in front and got us a good spot before the show. Tesla had about 15 minutes of playtime before the show and she was loving it. I kept telling her okay, see the guitar, Tim Noah is going to come out and sing to us, and we're going to sit and listen okay? And she'd say, "No, I want to play." Okay fine, but when he comes out we'll sit and listen. Okay??? OKAY?? Why oh why do I try to reason with a 2 year old. Two things I forgot to mention, one was that Tesla did not get a nap. She usually naps for 2-4 hours and that day she hadn't gotten one. She stayed in her room for quiet time, but didn't actually nap. The second thing was, that I was really excited about meeting Tim Noah and didn't know if we'd be able to or not, so I made Tesla a t-shirt to up our chances. I thought about having it say, "my imagination takes me high" which is a great lyric from his song Zoom. But then I thought that sounded a little drugy or anti-drugy, it was just confusing out of context. Instead I chose, "I Can Do Anything". 

 

 

 

This is where the in retrospect part comes into play. Tesla sure did prove that shirt. She was everywhere! EVERYWHERE. Now she's a super super friendly not shy kid as it is, so for her to talk to everyone and give them toys is not unusual, just with the shirt on it was pretty funny. At one point she is in a pit of stuffed animals and she is giving all the adults sitting around it a stuffed animal, and she fixates on this one guy, and keeps giving him stuff and touching his leg, and he's looking like, what does this kid want. She just wants to make friends and play. Several times people looked around for her parents. We were there just standing watching her, it's not like she was screaming on top of being friendly (which some kids were doing). Another time she was in the tree with a woman and her daughter and you could tell by her face that she was having a blast playing with them, and when she saw me she hid behind the mom, playing. It was pretty funny. Other kids were so shy they wouldn't look at Tim Noah or others if you looked at them they were terrified. But not T.  Perhaps her t-shirt, should have said, sometimes I can be timid. Just sometimes. Do you think putting the behavior you want on your kids t-shirt would do it?

So after the concert I wanted to get a picture of Tim Noah and Tesla together. This was the best that I could do.

Good shot, no? Well fine, how about me and Tim?

See that wasn't so bad.

We also bought his DVD, which is so good, and totally works today, even though it's over 20 years old. Jason and Tesla watched it yesterday while I sewed and he was really impressed. It's really a fun DVD and so cleverly done. Tim Noah also does a children's theater up in Snohomish, and I think we're going to have to go to it. It should be fun!

I've posted a bunch of links to Tim Noah's website. Just so you know, although I encourage you to get the CD and DVD for your kids, I have no vested interested in it, other than you also enjoying his music.

More Beep Bots Love

Do you remember the PJ's I made for Nigel? Well due to a miscalculation on my part, I ended up with an extra three yards of fabric. I was using my husband's calculator and it's reverse polish notation and well I couldn't figure it out and it was late in the evening and I had to place the order right away, so I ended up with 3 extra yards. Yes in in retrospect even the next day, I was like wait, that's not right. But fortunately a friend loved the fabric and asked me to make some PJ's for her son. The bottoms turned out really good. I even added in pockets which I had never done before and I did a separate waist band in a coordinating fabric.

See the waist band, and pockets are in a coordinating fabric.

Close up of the pockets.

Well I couldn't really stop there, I asked my friend if he'd like a t-shirt as well with an appliqued robot on it. I should have taken a close up of the applique but this is as good as it's going to get.

But there's more! She also wanted a pillow with the fabric. She wasn't specific about the pillow other then it would cover a 20x20 pillow from IKEA. I originally cut it 20x20 but it ended up 20x18. Not sure how that happened, my cutting mat is upside down and it always throws me when it's like this, I could just flip it but there always seems to be better things to do. Anyway, I wanted to do a red piping on the pillow and add a zipper. Both things I had not done before and I do enjoy a challenge. I would like to say it was super easy but really it wasn't. There are not a lot of tutorials that include both adding a zipper and pipping so I had to figure it out on my own.

The zipper pretty much ended up hidden.

Her it is in all of it's glory.

Of course the pillow is 18x20 now, so I went ahead and made a custom pillow for it using some white fabric I had on hand and fill I had.

Here's John in his robot glory. I had to beg him to try it on, he looks so cute. It was worth all the begging and pleating. He looks like he's saying "beep bot, beep bot."

A Vacation!

You know it's funny, I have my favorite bloggers and get so annoyed when they take forever to blog again, so I feel bad when I don't blog too. Like I've been lazy, but the truth is our son has been knocking our feet out from under us. He's adorable, but he's waking up twice a night again, and we are tired!!!!! It's such a bummer too, because we were in this nice little routine and it was working out well for everyone. A friend gave me the Baby Whisperer so I'll try that out and see if it helps us. Her kids are all on a good schedule and I trust her for advice about this so I think it will.

Anyway, this has got to be quick, the little man is stirring. Last week I went away on vacation with Tesla  and Ben. We went to Camano Island in Puget Sound. A friend had rented a house and invited us along. It was great! At one point we had 10 kids with us! Running around, having a great time. One of my friends had bought fabric so that we could make something for the girls. We decided on skirts. In all I made 7 skirts! SEW much fun!!! Here are pictures of everyone in their skirts.

Tesla, Laura, Daniella and Dina.

Lilly and Pea. Lilly got to choose the length of her skirt and was so pleased with it!

A blanket for Ella

I really need to make some of these blankets for my kids. All I have made for them so far is two simple albiet soft flannel blankets and of course clothes, bibs, burp cloths, small taggie blankets, but I haven't made this one.

Minky Dot side. Ella is embroidered in a light pink. The actual color of the Minky is a dark pink. It's not fuchsia.

Flannel side. Summer Song Birds by Riley Blake.

All folded up.

These blankets are so soft and cuddly. I'm thinking of making one that is square, perhaps with different flannels on one side to be a play mat. Ben loves the minky though, he always calms right down if we set him on it. I really do need to make him something. Well I'll add it to my WIP list!


Don't forget to check back tomorrow to see the progress on my projects!

My Dads Rock!

Almost 2 months ago, my friend Lauren contacted me about a very special gift she wanted me to make. Back when I lived near Lauren I had given her some bibs. Frankly the best bibs ever and she wanted me to make some for her brother and his husband, who are expecting. If you remember back in April I mentioned some new fabric that I couldn't tell you what it was for, but that I would be able to soon, well this is it. I know bibs you say, what so special about that? Well every baby is special and such a wonderful joy to be expecting. I don't know if you can totally understand until you start to want one yourself. For us it was pretty easy to conceive. I got pregnant about 3 weeks after we got married with Tesla. To get pregnant with Ben it took us 8 agonizing months. I know it's crazy to think the turmoil we went through to get pregnant when all we had to do was do it the old fashioned way and wait for the right time. For some of my friends it hasn't been so easy, and for Lauren's brother and husband, well it's down right impossible. I can't imagine wanting kids and not being physically able to have them, I mean their guys in the first place so it's pretty conceivable that they wouldn't carry a kid. However, Lauren who is just about one of the nicest people I know is their surrogate. I am amazed every time I think about this, it kind of makes me teary.
Lauren is a pretty awesome person. When I moved to New Hampshire I didn't know anyone, and when I met Lauren and the other ladies of Stroller Strides I felt like I was part of an instant community. She's super confident, spunky, quick witted and funny. What more could you want in a friend. I loved the way that she talked like she'd been there done that with kids. She just wasn't going to let certain things happen, and you know I really admired her for that. I have to say that a lot of my confidence as the boss of the house comes from talking to her about her kids. She just tells them how it is and that's the way it is. I immediately loved it, because with the amount of kids that we would ideally like to have, I just can't be a push over. Thanks Lauren for being awesome.
Okay, so back to the fabric. Lauren asked me to make some bibs and burp cloths for the baby(s) at this point she didn't know how many she was having. She picked out some super cool Michael Miller prints and asked me to embroider on one of them. I am pretty sure I am going to have to make one more with the same thing written on it. It's just not possible for one baby to have the embroidery and not the other.

The four prints. I usually do a white flannel on the back but Lauren wanted a print on the back that way they were reversible.

The embroidery says "My Dads Rock!" in a copper orange embroidery floss. I tried a bunch of different colors but this one worked best to make it pop off the bib.

The bibs and burp cloths.

All rolled up and ready to be sent. Lauren originally wanted them to look like cupcakes in a box, but then said just put a ribbon around them. So I used some of this rainbow ribbon which is just so pretty and appropriate!

Lauren said the guys loved them. I was really delighted to hear and that everything is going well so far. I am hoping Lauren will want me to make some more stuff for the twins, I have quite a few ideas and I'm thinking some of the Ann Kelle rainbow stripes will get worked in for the future. Oh and I just realized that this post is just in times for Father's Day! Happy Father's Day Lauren's Brother and Brother in Law! Can I suggest a celebration of sleep? I'm thinking with twins, this may be the last Father's Day for awhile that sleeping in will be possible!!!