Vintage Is as Vintage Does

A few months ago I purchased a fantastic vintage apron pattern. I realized had some pretty lemons print fabric that seemed fitting, so it was time to give it a spin. It would do a grave injustice to the pattern to make the apron on my fancy Babylock machine, so I pulled out my mom's old 70's Sears Kenmore machine that was given to me a few years ago and decided I needed to give it a go.




The machine is a beast. It took me no less than an hour to figure out how to thread it. Another 20 minutes to figure out how the little plastic jobbys change the stitch, and another 20 to get the tension right. Once that was done, I got to sewing.

I've learned that patterns of yesteryear assume a pretty high level of sewing knowledge. There are terms I've never heard of and relied pretty heavily on YouTube videos to figure out some of the techniques. But when all was said and done, I made me a purty apron! Here it is...never mind that the fabric is technically upside down. It's right-side-up when *I* look at it from above. ;-)

My twice yearly Max update.

I may resolve to blog more often...I haven't decided yet. But until then I'll give the requisite Maxine update for those that have been asking!

Maxine is nearly 23 months. I can't believe she'll be TWO in July! She's a happy, funny, sweet, kind, and generous little girl. She is shy in front of strangers but in just a couple minutes she'll turn from not making eye contact to giving you all of her toys, one by one. If she likes you that is. ;-) Good thing she likes most everyone she meets.

She's currently in speech therapy. She was evaluated by county services around 18 months, and qualified for speech services upon a second speech-specific evaluation. All the rest of her development is either right on average or a little above, which was reassuring. Since Max has always done things a little late (sitting up, crawling, walking, and now talking), I wasn't that concerned, but I wanted to be sure if there was an issue we caught it early. So we went ahead and started therapy, in the 'better safe than sorry' mindset. Her speech and vocabulary exploded within weeks; she even went from 3 words to about 30 in the weeks between qualifying for speech and actually starting it. So I am not convinced the therapy itself has done much that wouldn't have happened in the natural course of her development. But, she has fun in speech, her therapist comes to the house once a week and plays just with her, and she loves it, so we'll continue until she's solidly at or past normal developmental patterns. She has probably between 75 and 100 words right now, and is putting together 2-3 word sentences. Favorites are 'all done milk' and 'night night daddy!'. Some of her favorite words are animal names and noises; duck, moo, horse, and 'dac' which she's still working on making sound like 'cat'.

She is silly as ever, and loves to run and tumble and play gymnast with the 'rents. She likes to do forward rolls, hang upside down, and fall dramatically to the ground then giggle madly. She's a good runner, but still gets tripped up on her toes pretty frequently, even just walking. She lives in pants or capris/leggings now because she is more or less guaranteed to skin her knees in just a dress or shorts. Many of her pants have holes in the knees from her tumbles. She's still pretty accident prone, falling from chairs or even just from her feet at least every week or two, but she is a trooper and usually just brushes her hands off and moves on.

Now for some photos of the last SIX months!


January, with the purse mama made her, off to conquer the world.


One of her favorite activies, swinging. She could swing for hours.


On a cold winter day


Winter swinging


March twirling


Before the great haircut of '09


After: The Suri.


Very dramatic


What happens on laundry day.


Happiest upside-down


More twirling, in her elephant shirt from my dear friend's Etsy store.


A favorite indoor pastime. She loves closing clips on whatever she can find.


Busy at her sand and water table.

WHEW! I'm clearly going to have to post more frequently. That was nearly 3 seasons of photos. Can't have that again. ;-)

An overdue Max update

It's been ages since I've posted, so I figure its about time for a big Maxine update! Lets see...

She started walking the week before Halloween. That was right at the 15 month mark. She walked with our assistance starting at 8ish months, but she only just got the nerve to let go! She was walking with one hand for a month or two, then one day got confident enough to try it on her own. Once she figured out she could, she figured out she could also stand up by herself in the middle of the room. We got some funny face-plants while she was learning though! She still walks with her hands up by her ears, since she's been doing it so long that way. She's starting to drop them, but throws them right back up when she starts to wobble and lose balance.

She has just recently decided that it's ok to try new foods that are savory, instead of sticking with our beloved fruits. She's tried everything lately, from chicken nuggets to fried okra (plus some healthy things in between, I promise). She doesn't love it all, but it's progress just to have her be willing to give it a shot.

She's learning to use a spoon and fork, and while she still needs us to put the food on the utensil for her, she's pretty good at getting it into her mouth. She's also learning to use an open cup. I'm sure that one is a long way off, but she has a lot of (wet) fun trying.

She's not talking yet, but she makes the general sounds of words - 'a' (like at) for cat, 'il' for milk, so she's getting there. I don't qualify it as real words since she doesn't repeat them or use them to ask for things, and really, lots of things are 'a' these days. But she's getting there!

Now on to the good stuff...some photos from the last few months!

From Maxine Month 15

From Maxine Month 15

From Maxine Month 15

From Maxine Month 15

From Maxine Month 16

From Maxine Month 16

From Maxine Month 16

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

I recently had a 'spa afternoon' at a local salon. I had an eyebrow wax, massage, and ended with a haircut. The wax/massage were great, but EEK on the haircut. The stylist did the whole thing - wash/cut/dry in about 25 minutes total, and sent me away looking like this (taken as soon as I got home from the cut)

From worst haircut ever

I think when I walk out of a cut/style, my hair should look better than it'll ever look again! And while the stylist didn't butcher me, my hair didn't look particularly good either.

Once again, a well thought-out letter saves the day. I let the salon know of my experience, maturely and calmly (and in detail), and the owner re-did my hair this afternoon. She showed my original photos to the stylist who did my hair, and when asked what he thought of the cut he said 'BLECH!' without realizing he had done it. They were both extremely apologetic about my experience, and now I have a great cut and they have a happy client. Ahhhh I love good service! Here's me now. :-)

From worst haircut ever

No TV Before 2...

I guess this is why that recommendation is there!

From Maxine Month 14

I don't think I'm frying Max's brain by letting her watch Sesame Street, but I can see how it could get easy to stick your kid in front of something captivating so you can get a few things done.

The summer of contests!

Here's yet another amazing one I found!

Win a Bum Genius 3.0 Starter Kit from Nature's Child - Wholesome Goods for Mothers and Babies

Holy Babywearing!

Win the Essential Babywearing Stash from Along for the Ride (one Beco Butterfly, one Hotsling baby pouch, one BabyHawk Mei Tai, one Zolowear Ring Sling, and one Gypsy Mama Wrap)