Mr. Rodgers: Garden of Your Mind

Of course I grew up watching Mr. Rodgers. I loved pretending and imagining as a child. I am not sure exactly how our children are losing that but they are. I for one hope my children will "grow things in the garden of their mind". 
I am falling in love with Janet Lansbury's blog. I have found it to be a truly great go to resource for issues with Wade and it is completely changing how I want to interact with Ethan and encourage him to play. Honestly, I wish I had found it sooner. Of course I may or may not utilize everything taught there. No one has to camp out with just one way of doing things, but I found a particular article from this week regarding how our children are loosing play to be scary. I feel strongly about play and imagination. It was my favorite part of childhood. I want Wade to experience that in its fullest. He will have a lifetime of being "grown up". No need to rush things now. 
If you are interested in reading about how preschoolers are loosing play please read this article: Don't Let Your Preschoolers Forget How to Play

Enjoy growing things in the garden of your mind.

Handmade Baby Bow Tie

Yesterday, Jackie & I gathered at a dear friends house to enjoy movies (Water for Elephants specifically) and bake and eat Christmas cookies. Jackie had hinted at a homemade bow tie for Wade but I knew it might be hard on her already pressing schedule. She does so much! 

Well to my great surprise she was able to take an old tie and make this amazing and super cute bow tie for Wade to wear on Christmas Day (and to Christmas Eve church).

Look how AMAZING it looks with
Wade's Christmas outfit.

A bow tie for me?!

Look at those shining eyes. Learned that from Ashley Ann.

Mommy HAD to put me in my Christmas outfit. 

Thanks Aunt Jackie!

There isn't a step-by-step tutorial for this one because Jackie made it at like 1:00 A.M. but I do have the link Jackie used to make the bow tie.

Of course as with every project you improvise with your own skills and know how and with what you have. If you are dying to know how she made this baby bow tie please leave a comment. We love your comments no matter what of course!

Making Your Own Baby Doll Clothes

Before I had girls (when I only had three loud, crazy and constantly dirty little boys) I was sure that little girls and their intense love for all things pink and frilly was a learned thing.  And then came Eden.  As soon as she was talking she talked of babies.  As soon as she was walking she was pushing a buggy.   Then came Alette.  With Eden no longer the baby herself she watched me and learned how to carry her dolls on her hip and how to burp them over her shoulder.  Today Alette, while not a fan of pink or skirts as much as Eden, has an equal love for baby doll.  She is a bit more adventurous than her older sister and the dolls have seen the sandbox, the park and the unfortunate bottom of her brothers shoes.  Needless to say, the dolls clothes really tell the story, stained no matter how many washes or sun bleaching.  Every couple of months, I dig through clothes that the girls have outgrown and find some cute ones to make into doll clothes.  This time I converted one tshirt into a romper and one into a pink dress.  Can you guess which outfit is for which daughter? Here are the finals...

 Eden

Alette

While this is pretty much a straight forward transformation and the pictures tell most of the story, I can give you a few hints to success.  First, choose shirts that button or snap around the neck.  Baby dolls have a big head and skinny neck so while a jersey fabric will stretch over their heads it may still be much too loose around their necks.  I used sizes 6-12 months for my 12 inch dolls.  If your dolls are larger, just look for bigger sizes.   Remember that short sleeved shirts will most likely fall to a doll's wrist, so no hemming and still a pretty finished look.   Also remember that this project is for an excited little girl.  Perfection need not be your goal, just being rewarded with big smiles and warm hugs. 

Measure where you want the sleeve to end and cut off the excess fabric.  You could hem the rough edge (and in some of my previous attempts I have) but didn't here.

Lay the doll on the shirt to see how wide you need the armhole and torso.  I eyeballed it. 

 Sew and cut off the extra fabric.  One side down one to go...

Sew an inseam.  Again I just guessed.

Cut out the u-shape and turn it right-side out.  All done?  Yup...

I chose this shirt because besides having an owl on it (her favorite - an "a-woo") the bottom was kind of ruffled so it didn't need to be hemmed.   And even though I didn't measure a thing it fits perfect.  Luck, people.  Pure stupid luck!

And when you have two little girls, you do everything double... This second one had to be a dress.  The neck on this shirt was huge!  I tuned it inside out and folded and stitched about an inch. Cut off extra fabric.  

After taking in the back, now the front of the dress was too big.  I decided to attempt pin tucks.  If you don't mind a seam down the front you can do the same as you did to the back. 

For the front seam, turn the dress inside out, like the seam in the back.  For the pin tucks, sew with the dress right side out.

Measure (guess) how long the doll's torso is, leave about an extra inch and then cut off the bottom of the shirt.  Save the left over fabric, this will become the skirt.

With the shirt inside out, stitch to create the arms and torso like the owl romper.  Cut off the excess fabric again and turn right side out to attach the skirt.  Since this was a short sleeved shirt, the length of the sleeve was fine, no cutting or hemming necessary.  Yay!

With the bottom of the shirt that you set aside in mind, decide how long you want the skirt to be and cut the skirt to that length plus a half inch more.  Baste a stitch and pull the thread and gather the skirt until the width of the skirt matches the width of the top.

Distribute the gathers evenly.  Sew the gathered skirt over the top, right side out.  Attaching the skirt this way  creates that sweet ruffle detail around the waist.

Eden and Alette are simply over the moon with their new baby doll clothes.  They are dreaming up new ideas for our next sewing session.  Who knows, if I can get a few free (after kiddie bedtime) minutes between now and Christmas, there may be a whole wardrobe of homemade doll clothes under our tree!

Something special and something new for our little
baby boy to come. 

OK. Christmas aside for a minute. I just had to share this little sleeper that I LOVE because of the colorful farm animals and it's overall cuteness. I couldn't help to buy it at 50% off. I like the unusual and unexpected. The sleeper seemed to fit in to our lives a bit here at the suburban blue house filled with chickens, rabbits, dogs, and a hope of other farm animals someday.

Hopefully, it isn't too big for our new baby to come. I carefully checked the size and weight for this sleeper but Wade would have been too tiny to wear it when he came three weeks early. A special outfit for a coming baby to wear home is a huge step for me towards being prepared for the baby's arrival. It won't matter though when he can wear it because he will look cute wearing it no matter when he does...

I know, it might seem silly buying a special outfit just for a car ride home but there are a few things I like to do to prepare for a new addition. A special outfit is one of them. Another is to make something special for the baby to wear. For Wade I made some onesies that had cute "man" ties and his initials on the front but I also have to make the new baby's name in wood letters like I did for Wade. I will reveal the name with the new letters.

What special preparations do you go through for the arrival of a new baby?

A Little Boy's Cars

Wade amazes me. His love for cars is so boy. We didn't have to teach him. Daily he plays the majority of the time over and over with his cars. I am not talking about baby cars. Little plastic toddler toys. I am talking big boy cars. Gary has been collecting hot wheels, motorcycles, and large scale metal cars for years. Corey kept some of them in boxes & on shelves when he lived in West Virginia. Somehow Wade was given or shown these cars when he could just sit up and it has been all he has wanted ever since. Other things casually distract but the cars are ever there.

Cars: they fill my life and follow me around. Wade brings you them to play with him. Car noises are a must and are made quite routinely. The other night it was priceless as Wade came and got Gary and myself out of the kitchen and into the living room. He used the only forms of communication he knows... his "help" sign and his "more" sign. As we followed him into the living room he proudly led us to his large model cars that he had lined up neatly and purposefully on the hutch our TV sits on. It was amazing, awesome, and so boy. We stopped everything to play cars with him. I just marvel how his imagination is forming. 

I want for Wade to have a wonderful childhood, filled with imagination and play. Just like mine was and I LOVED my box of cars. I even had a plastic city play mat that I drove them on. I see Wade enjoying cars for a long time in it the future. I will have to see about making him his own play mat! What are your kid's favorite toys?

Stork Is Coming!

We are extremely excited to announce that February 27 (give or take a few days) Gary and I will be welcoming our second son into this world. In addition, we also finally settled on a name for our new bundle of joy. I am simply in love with the name and after months of feeling like we couldn't settle on the right and perfect one (as we did very early on with Wade's name) I can now think of my growing baby as his name and not baby boy.

I have hesitated to talk about the pregnancy on the blog before this because I know that there are readers out there struggling with infertility and longing for a baby. I feel for you. I know of deep heart pains and hurts that don't go away and just can't be explained. The reasons why this is what you have to suffer through I can't explain. I was very surprised to have gotten pregnant so soon after we began trying for the second baby. I was worried that they would be father apart then I had hoped for. It took us over a year to conceive Wade and it wasn't without help. I spent several hundred dollars seeing a doctor that specialized in human replacement hormones that my insurance didn't cover.

My health problems and the fact that I had taken birth control since I was sixteen for cramp control (without knowing the side effects of birth control) truly affected my ability to get pregnant the first time. Without seeing that doctor it could have taken years more to get pregnant.  Within a month of starting the replacement hormones my blood work showed I needed I was pregnant with Wade. It wasn't an easy pregnancy though. It was horrible actually. Severe "morning sickness", followed by the worst heart burn constantly of my life, I was extremely emotional, couldn't sleep and would sit upright in bed or a chair to combat the heart burn. Then the swelling started with high blood pressure. By the time Wade came three weeks early I was exhausted.

Labor was long and disheartening. Thirty-two hours of labor, exhausted and hungry, I couldn't have the birth experience I had so wanted and researched. The doctors put me on Pitocin after I had refused for as many hours as possible. The contractions were major with no progress. I had to get rest and I knew it. Crying, shaking, and scared I agreed to the epidural. If I didn't rest my body I wouldn't be able to push. Above all else I HAD to avoid the C-section I knew the doctors would jump at if I said I wanted it. I also knew the epidural would really mess me up and it did. They gave me hours and hours of medication into my spine. It took eight weeks to leave the fog behind. Trying to nurse my epidural drugged baby was more than a challenge. It ended up not working for us and I was heart broken. My body was still sick and didn't produce the milk Wade needed.

This time around though will be different. I have made very determined strides to heal myself. Of course I know I have a long way to heal but via diet, limiting stress, and getting proper rest things are already different this time. The pregnancy, not without it's minor inconveniences, has been a breeze so far. As I said, getting pregnant was easy this time. I haven't had any swelling. My blood pressure is normal. I feel great honestly. Tired of course but great. People comment about how healthy my hair looks, how I barely have put on weight, how I look healthier with the second baby. No one said that with my first. I wasn't any of those things.

I have a lot more to say about how I am feeling better and about how this time my pregnancy is different and better. I have been doing even more reading and research. I attribute the finding of traditional foods (real food) as having had a lot to do with it. I have focused on eating proper protein and fat and getting significant rest. I am convinced that diet plays a huge roll in the making and having of babies. While I am no expert I will share what I know and have learned before the arrival of baby boy number two. Who knows. Maybe it is something that someday will help you as well.

Toddler Rock Backpack

First let me say this: girls are different than boys. From the womb. My boys are loud, messy and in constant motion. What a change when I had the girls. Eden at a very young age could barely walk but still knew to get a towel when something had spilled. She and Alette play babies in their room quietly for hours and days. Their fascination with dolls alone is a stark difference from their brothers. With all the contrast there is much in common to. Insatiable hunger. Seriously, these girls can hold their own with their big brothers. Fearless. All my kids have no sense of what could possibly cause serious bodily harm to themselves and/or others.

And rocks. What kid could resist. I remember even into my college years gathering a shoe box of rocks. Of course, I was a geology major. Anyway, the girls are definitely into rocks. Climbing, tossing into puddles, and of course collecting. While the boys have experimented and pushed my limits of where to keep their rocks, they are finally at the age where they know and understand where it is appropriate to hoard them. As a toddler, Eden would just pop them into her mouth, lick them clean and spit them out. I know, disgusting. But my littlest one, her obsession with rocks goes beyond normal. Everywhere. I find them everywhere. Drawers. Closets. Piles on the edges of counters. Cupboards. Cups. Pockets and therefore in the washer. Cuffs of my jeans! This last one is what finally drove me to make something of her own to drag around full of "baby" rocks, as she calls them.

Between projects on an already busy day, I made her this little backpack. Scrap fabric, both inside and out and two strips of jersey for the drawstring and she's an (adorable) happy camper.

She wears it all. the. time. And she's also at that stage where she spends plenty of time, ahem, without clothes, so sometimes it is all she is wearing. I'll spare you that photo... for mommy's eyes only!

The soft drawstring lets her feel accomplished opening and closing it all by herself.

Let me tell you, that little bag can hold quite a few pounds of rocks. We will see how long this lasts.

And the print is so cute. I can see her toting this little bag around filled with other things she adores... like strawberries, frogs and grasshoppers. Just not all at the same time...

A Year Ago and Now

Wade Richard Klouda

One year. 

"There's nothing like a newborn baby to renew your spirit - and to buttress your resolve to make the world a better place."  - Virginia Kelley

I can hardly believe a year has past. I look back at the pictures of my baby son and I try to remember the days. I have to fight back happy tears. I remember years of loving on each one of Jackie's children and how much they mean to me. Holding several of them just hours after their birth. I remember little Seth holding my finger as we walked into a Target store and him asking me when I would have children that he would play with. I know he meant playmate. Now Seth could be babysitter. On one visit this winter Seth, Cade and Jude (Jackie's gentlemen) had fun doing the math of "how old they would be when Wade turned ___".  I am just focusing on year 1 for today and looking forward to year 2. 

Funny how life works out. Happy Birthday Dear Ones.