A New Coat for a New Baby

I finished sewing my third coat and got it in the mail, just as my cousin was going into labor. This is the first of my cousin's to have a baby since we have all reconnected via Facebook and it is so nice to see all the pictures and get the minute by minute details. I showed a glimpse of this coat behind the Bailey's tea cups, but here is the full picture. I can't wait to see an actual kid wearing it. The only size I have made fits 1-2 year olds, so it will be a little while for Adaline Rose to model it. In the mean time, here is the new baby.

And here is one more view of the new coat. It is polar fleece lined with cotton, like Lydia's coat. This is the first one I made with a collar instead of a hood. I think it is cute, but I am not sure if I prefer it to having the extra warmth of a hood. Hopefully Adaline will be good about wearing a hat! I have one more coat cut out of this same fabric and then I think it is time to tweek the pattern a little more. I want to try something differnet with how the sleeves connect to the coat. Same basic look, but hopefully a little easier to sew and to wear.
I think summer may be the perfect time for a school teacher to sew coats to sell in the fall. Any thoughts?

Shortly after I posted this, my cousin sent me this funny picture of Adeline wearing her way too big coat. She's swimming in it, but boy is she cute! Glad to know she got it!

Snow Day, the Sequal!

OK, so this looks kind of impressive, and the radar and TV weather people made this storm sound impressive, but the truth is we mostly got slush at our house. Lets and lots of slush. School was canceled before the flakes even started flying. It was supposed to get bad early in the day, but it held off. A good thing because Andrea and Alyssa were coming up to visit on Friday night. They arrived about the same time as the snow did.

We all got up on Saturday for a little slushy sledding. PJ was very patient running the girls up and down our small hill. They loved it, but were soaked after a few minutes.

The swing set proved to be a good way to get out of the slush for a few minutes. After that, it was back inside to enjoy the snow day curled up on the couch and watching old re-runs of lost while the girls napped.

Double YUM!

I'm in love with these quirky cups that I bought on e-bay. They were made for Bailey's Irish Creme and they actually say "YUM" inside the cup. So aside from having the logo for an alcohol product on the front, I think these will be PERFECT for the Mad Hatter Tea Party this summer. I know, I know, months away.... but how could I pass on this cute pair. They practically begged me to take them home! PS. I have been sewing a little more. The lovely brown and pink polar fleece behind the double Yum cups belongs to a baby gift for a ready to pop cousin in Oregon, who is hopefully too busy to check in on the blog. Oh well, just a peek for now, just in case. I promise to post better pictures once the gift has been received. For now, you will have to make do with more pictures of tea cups. Someone stop me before I collect an entire set!

Cole's Party

Somewhere between Christmas and New Year's and the post New Year's stomach flu, fell our friend's son's birthday. Cole came early two years ago and, because Jeremy and Christy hosted several New Year's parties prior to his arrival, his eagerness spoiled many party plans that year! We have forgiven him and moved on to other plans watching the ball drop, but it is always nice to gather with his family after Christmas and before New Years and celebrate his birthday. Lydia LOVES all the toys at Cole's house and whenever we go there, I see which toys she needs next. Hmm, Cole got a motorcycle this year. We may have to hold off a little on that one.

It's Raining, It's Pouring!

I finished sewing Lydia's raincoat a few weeks ago and am so glad that I didn't wait until spring. It has been raining all week in Tennessee. It's been warmer and wet and I have to keep reminding myself that spring is still a long ways away. I guess we should enjoy the rain, and the raincoat, while we can. Colder weather is certain to return.

Planning the next party!

Somewhere around the time I was hosting Lydia's first birthday party, the idea for her second birthday flashed in my head. "Tea for Two" quickly morphed into a full on Mad Hatter's Tea Party! I am falling in love with all things Alice and definitely plan on using a LOT of the original illustrations from the Lewis Carrol publication. I have been Photo-shoping during much of my time in the hotel in Phoenix pre and post marathon. I think until she is old enough to put her two cents in, and probably for quite a while after, I will plan the party ridiculously early.

And that brings me to the main point of today's post, I am grateful to have the privilege of dreaming about my child's birthday years in advance. A friend of mine is not so lucky. Her daughter was born last year and appeared to be perfectly healthy. Sadly, she did not meet her physical milestones and the doctors determined that she suffers from SMA, spinal muscular atrophy. This little girl is intelligent and otherwise healthy. Her muscles are failing her. This is a genetic disease and 1 in 40 people are carriers. People don't usually find out that they carry the gene until their child is born with SMA, and at that point it is a death sentence. Thankfully, my friend has hope for a cure.

The Gwendolyn Strong Foundation is a finalist for a Chase Community Giving Grant. This foundation is SO close to finding a cure. The award from Chase could speed things up and might mean a cure during the preciously short amount of time my friend's daughter has left. PLEASE consider going to the website and voting. You have to have a face book account to vote, but other than that it is free and just might save the lives of countless babies. Here is the link.

http://gwendolynstrongfoundation.org/chase

Snow Day!

Everyone loves a snow day! Mommy and Daddy stayed home from work and played in the snow with Liddy. Come on, she was wearing a frog hat. How could we resist!

New Years Eve

This year for New Year's Eve, we through a Redneck Themed party. It originated as an Ugly Sweater Party and evolved into all out lower culture. It was super fun and super easy to trash things up. Besides trashy food is usually fried and ALWAYS tasty. Bacon wrapped tater tots, need I say more? Everyone in my family got an ugly holiday sweater courtesy of a contribution to Goodwill. Lydia's started out as an adult sized sweatshirt with kissing Christmas scotty dogs stitched on the front. I cut it down to become a shirt dress and paired it with some bright red patterned pants. We were all having a good time until Lydia woke up after midnight and started vomiting. Over the next week we all got the stomach flu and then passed it on to everyone we know. Sorry to everyone out there who we infected! Happy New Year! Hopefully the entire year will not go the same as our New Year's Eve!

Visit from the Iowa Cousins

The week after Christmas was spent visiting with my cousins from Iowa and their kids. They braved major snow storms to get to us and were rewarded with their first experience eating Krystals. They don't even have the northern version of Krystals, White Castle, where they live, bless their hearts! We also took the kids sightseeing, like to see the holiday train exhibit at the UT Botanical Gardens and up into the mountains to see, well, mountains I guess. I went outlet shopping instead, so I'm not really sure what they saw. Regardless we had a great time just seeing them and are eager to make our annual trip up to Iowa this summer to see everyone again.

Where have we been?

Hmmmm. Momma has been taking lots of pictures. Somehow there hasn't been time to put them on the computer. Some of our distractions were fun.... family in town, parties, etc. Some have not been so great.. including a nasty stomach virus that effected each and every one of us for several days last week. We finally seem to all be on the mend and thanks to a snow day today, it looks like we may all have some extra time to rest and get this place back in order.