Easter Pictures!

Aunt Jen and I took Lydia to JCPennys to have her Easter pictures taken. As usual, I am very happy with the result. Lydia is finally old enough to do some of what the photographer asked her to do. Here she is with the rabbit for whom I sewed a new outfit, mentioned in the last post. More pictures were taken, but I feel like I should spread them out over the next few days.

The Well Heeled Hare

Well, I suppose this little guy will be the March Hare at Lydia's Mad Hatter Tea Party Birthday. Mostly because it's March and he is a hare. I spotted him at Goodwill and thought he had personality. Lydia said "bunny" which I took as her agreement that the one dollar price was acceptable. He is in really good shape, just missing his clothing. So Mr. March Hare is getting a new wardrobe and a healthy dose of Lysol. I should have gone to bed early tonight, but this naked rabbit was calling out for my attention. So it is WAY past my bed time, but I was so energized by the fabrics I had on hand and the ideas that were popping into my head that I pushed on and have him almost finished. Just a little hand sewing, a few buttons to add, he needs a tie, and maybe a puff ball tail. Not bad for one dollar, one evening, one antique handkerchief, and scraps from an old pillow and a pair of plaid shorts. Hoppy March, Mr. Hare!

Jen's Hat in Progress

This is not my sister, nor is this her hat. It is the same idea that she came up with for her Alice in Wonderland themed Mad Hatter Tea Party hat. I must point out hat she had her idea without seeing this hat. After she told me her idea, I happened to google tea and cup and hat and found this one on Etsy. I like the tea bag taf hanging down Minnie Pearl style.

So, a while back Jen said she wanted a tea cup hat and I found a very ugly, but very lightweight plastic tea cup at Goodwill. I paper mached it to a paper plate so they were connected and uniformly covered and painted. Then I got a little stuck on the details. Too much blank canvas and not enough of an idea what my sister wanted. I toyed around with a napkin and a spoon. I feel like the lonely tea cup needs something next to it.

After actually asking my sister what she wanted to wear on her head, it was decided that the cup needed to go ivory instead of white. She had the brilliant idea of forming the words "Drink Me" in the cream in the tea. LOVE IT!

She also suggested painting it to look more like fine china, so I suggested mimicking my grandmother's china, which she and I both inherited. It isn't finished yet, but you can see the formation of the design. Now we just have to settle on what is going on that very fancy, but yet very empty plate. I think I have talked her into a cookie that says "eat me". Any other ideas?

Thrifty Thursday

Spring break has flown by, but I got one unexpected day to do what ever I wanted. On Thursday, Lydia was well enough to go play with the kids at daycare and my mom was visiting a friend from Chattanooga. I should have done practical things, like my taxes, but instead I went to my favorite thrift store. I found several very nice and very needed clothing items for myself. That is rare, because I usually have Lydia with me so no time to try stuff on. I always find good stuff for Lydia. My favorite thrift store gets donations of Gymboree and Children's Place clothing and they only charge 89 cents for all kids clothing. I buy way too much, and way too far in advance, but I try to stick to a specific color pallet for Lydia and usually am able to put together full outfits by the time she wears them. I LOVE thrifted cloths. They are cheap enough to be disposable, you know that they have already been washed so any shrinking has already happened, and even if they don't work out your money is going to charity. Win/win. Beside, you can find some really unique items. Thursday, I found this Indian Sari, for $9. It is two pieces of dyed and painted fabric that are each 18 feet long. I think these will show up as table coverings at the Mad Hatter Tea Party we are throwing for Lydia's birthday. After that, who knows, Halloween costumes, decorations for my classroom?

A few more tea party finds. I have been wanting one of those 3 tiered cake stands for a while. I saw a blog post where someone made their own by attaching plates to candlesticks. I may be doing something similar with these vases. The best thing is they are plastic, so they won't weigh much and can't break in transport. The white tea cups are ceramic, so we will have to be careful with them, but I thought they would be a good cheap addition to our decorations considering each of these items was less than 50 cents (and I think I got 25% off that!)

Happy St. Patty's Day

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, Lydia hunted down a real live leprechaun! It helped that the church youth group members were all dressed as leprechauns last Friday at our annual corned beef and cabbage dinner and auction. We had a great time that night and have been having a great day today. Lydia has been hyper, chatting and playing like her old self....possibly a little amplified. She got pain medication at dinner time, but that seemed to hype her up, so we only did Tylenol when she woke up last night. At this point, I think we will stick with Tylenol and not worry about the prescription pain meds. She hasn't had anything since last night and has been bounding up and down the stairs. All functions seem to be functioning normally, food and liquid passing, etc. Here is a picture of her painting this morning. My new Easter bunny (which will double as the White Rabbit for Lydia's Mad Hatter Tea Party) did a great job of supervising. Happy St. Patrick's Day and thank you all for the prayers and well wishes yesterday.

Lydia did GREAT!

The surgery is over. No pictures today, but she did GREAT! The doctor got in and out in less than an hour and was able to reassure us that we definitely made the right call going ahead and having it done. In his words, it would have never healed on its own. So I am glad it is done before potty training and years of antibiotics, urinary tract infections and catheters. Lydia was up and wanting to play most of the afternoon and finally settled in for a long nap late this afternoon. She has slept past when she was able to get another dose of pain medicine, so hopefully that is a good sign that she is not in too much pain. She had about a 3 inch incision that any proper bathing suit should cover. Oh, well. Looks like I have more mom ammunition against too revealing clothing. Too bad!

Surgery on Tuesday

When Lydia was 12 weeks old she and I both got sick. I thought we had the same thing, but her fever kept getting higher. Turns out I just had a bad cold but she had a urinary tract infection. Apparently that is pretty rare in such a young baby so it was a big red flag that something was wrong. She was quickly diagnosed with renal reflux, which means that urine is able to flow back up to her kidneys where it can cause infection. So, for a year and a half she has been on an antibiotic to kill the germs in the urine that is still flowing back into her kidneys. The worst thing has been that anytime she has a fever we have to assume that it might be kidney related and have a catheter ran to test for a UTI. It pretty much sucks. She has also had to have the test to look at her kidneys twice now, first when diagnosed and again at a year to check for any improvement. Think of it as the mother of all catheters, only they are injecting liquid into your baby's bladder while baby is strapped to a board, and while baby is tilted so gravity can make the liquid flow toward the kidneys, and all of this while baby is screaming hysterically, and while the nurses are discussing if she should have been sedated. So the test revealed that no improvement occurred in the last year and in my heart I can't bear the idea of another year of constant catheters and another round of that awful test. So the surgery has been scheduled for a while. I have been told that parents who have it done are very grateful afterword, but right now I can't get my mind off the 5-7 day recovery time or the idea of her needing pain medications or incision care post-op.

Oh, I guess I planned this post to show you all what we are having done. Basically they are laying the malfunctioning tube down into the muscle of Lydia's bladder so that gravity and pressure can help keep urine from flowing backwards. It's routine. The doctor has done thousands of them. He has a 100% success rate with this surgery. I know this needs to be done, and yet it is going to be hard to hand her over. I'm not sure what else to say. Think good thoughts for a smooth recovery for her and us.

That's all.

I should be in bed.

Long day tomorrow.

My hat

The Internet went down at work the other day, so I couldn't upload my grades, but I could paint and glitter and glue while my students finished their lingering assignments. So here is my finished hat to wear to Lydia's Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland, Tea for Two, Second Birthday Party Extravaganza! It doesn't have any playing cards sticking up behind the flowers. I liked the idea of that but never managed to remember to bring a few cards to work. Now I am not sure where I can squeeze them in. It is getting awful crowded on the side.

I was able to add a few scraps of fabric from Lydia's birthday dress last year and the teal ruffle was left over from her crib quilt. I like that the hat I wear to her second birthday party has pieces of things I made for her before her birth and for her first birthday.

What I am making right now.

My sister had the revelation several months ago that hosting Lydia's Alice in Wonderland themed tea party would mean wearing fabulous hats. Initially she was going to buy a real hat, but then she stumbled on the idea of making something a little more fun and funky. Technically, she stumbled on the idea of having ME make something, but I liked her idea and am enjoying making it. It is fortunate that my students are doing paper-mache right now, so I have been getting my hands gooey for a few minutes each day. I thought my hat would end up being similar to hers (hmmmm. I haven't actually shown you what I am making for her yet. More on THAT another day.) I saw THIS hat on Etsy and KNEW that my hat would be different than my sister's hat. My husband is going as the Mad Hatter, but I couldn't quite bring myself to wear the Queen of Hearts crown. (She's KIND of MEAN!) But THIS idea. The roses that had to be painted red, the paint brushes that didn't get cleaned out, PERFECT for an art teacher!

So, here is my work in progress. I made a top hat out of 2 Solo cups and a paper plate. Hopefully you can't tell! It is not finished. I am thinking about letting the newspaper words show through the final paint. I am also thinking about including a playing card and maybe a watch face, or an old key, or all of the above. Anyone feel strongly about a color? Part of me sees it as a black top hat, but part of me thinks that is boring. Speak now, or off with your heads!

Auntie Made It!

Jen made this adorable dress for Lydia as a Christmas present. It needed buttons, which shouldn't have been an issue, but it took a while to remember to shop for them, and then a little while longer to pick them out, and then a while to remember where I had stashed them, and then the weather started to get warm and I had to get the buttons on if Lydia was going to wear it this season. Luckily it looks like it will still fit this fall. It is gorgeous and we are very appreciative of auntie's talents!

It's March!

Finally, February is done and March has brought with it the hope of trees blooming and days lengthening. I feel fairly certain that snow days are gone as we are gradually having more sixty degree days than below freezing days. Jen and I did our seven mile marathon training outside today. After her nap, a good long one that let me get several sewing projects dealt with, Lydia and I went outside to "wing" as she would say. It was a lovely Saturday.