not dead, news, and a present for you

So, not that many people noticed my absence (that's what I get for being an intermittent blogger), but I'm back! And not dead! And decidedly less pregnant!

Meet sweet baby Jackson, born Monday, April 27 at 5:59pm. He's pretty cute. I think we'll keep him.

AND! I have a gift for you, which I meant to share months ago but didn't get around to until now. I was hunting around the internet for a printable baby book (preferably free, because, y'know... free). But I didn't really love any of the options I found. So I decided to make my own. And then I figured, with all that effort put into it, why should I be the only one who gets to enjoy it?

Click to view and download, and please tell me if you have trouble: Woodland Boy Baby Book.

I made it using PicMonkey and this user's fabulous digital scrapbook pack "In The Woods." (Don't worry, according to her terms of use, it's okay to share projects created with her stuff.) And I guess it could work for a baby girl too, if you don't mind a lot of blues and greens. I inserted the pages into sheet protectors and used a 3-ring binder (which I plan on cute-i-fying at some point).

The thing I love about printables for things like this is you can pick and choose which pages you want. I did design it so that, if all the pages are used in the order given, opposing pages will match or coordinate, but it's all from the same scrapbook pack, so it all coordinates, really. So if you rearrange things, it won't make much difference in aesthetics.

So if you or anyone you know is in the market for a free baby book, please share!

rainbow birthday

Time for the long-overdue post about Faith's fourth birthday party... which was two weeks ago. Ah well.

When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she answered "Rainbow!" And thus was born the theme for her party. It was overall pretty low-key (friends from Jack's work and their kiddos) but she had a blast.

Decorations:

rainbow crepe paper streamers and white "cloud" balloons

white tablecloth with streamers taped down into a rainbow table runner

construction paper cut into streamers

Food and drink:

rainbow fruit & veggie trays, rainbow pretzel wands

homemade pizza (pepperoni, veggie, and cheese)

rainbow punch (would've worked better with more ice cubes or a smaller container)

The cake was inspired by this one, though there are lots of tutorials out there. It wasn't any harder to make than any other layer cake, just took a little extra effort. I just used a basic 3-layer white cake recipe (this one, except I used egg whites instead of whole eggs), then divided the batter into six bowls and colored each one with gel food coloring-- the liquid food coloring won't get you an intense enough color. Then I baked each layer in a 9-inch round pan, but because they were thinner than regular cake layers, I only baked them for 15 minutes. (I had to do two baking batches, since I only have 3 round cake pans.) Then I layered them together with white buttercream.

in process

post-slicing

I would've sworn I took a picture of the finished cake before cutting, but I can't find it. Anyway, the lettering on top was just Airhead candy cut out with mini alphabet cookie cutters. The cake was a HUGE hit, and delicious too.

Here's the birthday girl blowing out the candles! (And hiding under the tablecloth... as you do.)

Activities:

We really only had one activity, since all our child-guests were preschool-aged, and apparently I didn't take any pictures of that either. I made a rainbow "punch piñata" similar to this one. It was pretty easy to make, and it was a nice alternative to the free-for-all that results with traditional piñatas (especially for my hesitant-to-join-in girl).

We also had goody bags to distribute with various rainbow-colored goodies. I try to keep from giving out total junk, and only hand out what I wouldn't mind my kids receiving. The goody bags each contained one of those cheap watercolor paint boxes, a rainbow swirl lollipop, an elastic bracelet made from plastic pony beads with each kid's name in alphabet beads (Faith strung all the non-letter beads herself!), colored Twizzlers shaped into rainbows, a small inflatable beach ball, and a pencil with rainbow lead.

She loved her rainbow party! If you're interested, here's a link to the Pinterest board I made to keep track of party ideas.

seven quick takes - ed. 27

AKA Nesting Insanity Edition!

It's funny, with each of my three pregnancies, my "nesting instinct" has taken on very different forms. With Faith, my first baby, it was all about the Baby Stuff. Set up the crib, decorate the room, sort and fold the eensy weensy clothes, research car seats, etc. 

With Josie, I knew we would be moving to Guam a month after her birth, so there was no point in preparing the house. Instead, I threw all my energy into preparing literally dozens of freezer meals so that, with all the insanity of New Baby and Finishing Residency and International Move, at least we wouldn't have to stress about what to have for dinner.

This time around, I've got a little of the "get baby stuff ready" urge, but we mostly have all that stuff already. So mostly I've been going crazy preparing the REST of the house, especially as Josie is going to be moving into Faith's room (actually she moved in last night).

So here's what I've been working on so far!

1- Painting of furniture. The furniture in Faith's room (now the girls' room) is a hodgepodge of hand-me-downs, found-on-the-curb, and IKEA. 

No before pics because I'm a bad blogger, but the table was stained in that orangey honey-oak and was from my childhood living room. The rocking chair was painted black with a gold metallic floral design, and I found it on the curb a few months ago with two spindles out of place and one split. Easy to fix with elbow grease and gorilla glue, and white gloss paint covers a multitude of sins.

2. Making of wall decor. Before I moved in the now-white table, there was a tall old table-floor-lamp combo in its place (purchased at a garage sale years ago to furnish Jack's med school apartment). The lamp part stopped working, so out it went and in came the oval side table... but it was a lot shorter and left an awkward-looking blank expanse of wall. So I made this:

A bunch of hearts paper-punched out of vellum I had on hand, stitched together on the sewing machine, and hung from an accommodating strip of foam board. Not fancy at all, but turned out cute.

3. Assembling of bunk beds: 

Excuse the sagging diaper.

Okay, it's a pseudo bunk bed. It's actually a low loft, and I stuck a bunky board and mattress on the floor beneath it. It's the IKEA Kura bed, and I love it. Oh, and no, IKEA doesn't ship to Guam; I paid for a third-party cargo company to ship it. It would've been nice to find something on-island, but not many places sell bunks/lofts that are low enough to make me feel comfortable with a 4-year-old on the top. And the room is small enough that while side-by-side twin beds would fit, they would make it pretty crowded.

4. Making of quilts! I'm actually super-excited about this. Currently the girls are using old family quilts, which are lovely, but aren't really sized for twin beds, and are kind of fragile... and being wary to wash something is not a good mix with toddlers. So I'm making them my first quilts ever! I have all the pieces cut out and all the triangles stitched into their proper squares, and Faith's quilt top is about half done (not including the border).

It's not perfect, but it's so fun seeing it come together! Josie's will have the same fabrics but a different pattern, so they'll match but won't be matchy-matchy.

5. Sewing of slipcovers. I was bored/annoyed with our two black office chairs... which are actually in our living room, since we don't have a separate office. Plus the fabric wasn't really washable and it was covered in yogurt smears. So I adapted this tutorial with some cute fabric, and now I no longer have boring office chairs, but adorable office chairs! And the covers are extremely easy to remove for washing purposes.

6. Making of a baby mobile! Faith and Josie's mobile was also handmade but was kind of girly, with ribbons and butterflies and such. So I wanted to make something more gender-neutral, so I followed this tutorial (which I only just this second realized is from the same blog as the office chair tutorial) and I loooove how it turned out!

7. Knitting of the baby blanket. I started this months ago (before we knew Jackson was a boy), but I've taken a few extended breaks. It's not quite half done yet, but I usually get an hour or two of knitting done in the evenings after the kids go to bed, so I'm hopeful that it'll be finished by the time the baby's born. (The pattern is Arabesque-- though I'm making the border as I go to avoid having to pick up thousands of stitches at the end-- and the yarn is Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in Lime.)

Next on my list, other than finishing the unfinished blankets, are non-girly curtains for Jackson's room (I'll probably use the leftover green dot fabric from the office chairs), making his name from fabric for his wall (like you see attached to the girls' bed above), sorting & purging everyone's wardrobes, and organizing the garage. Let's see how far I get!

Head over (or back) to This Ain't The Lyceum for more quick takes!

happy belated halloween / all saints' day / all souls' day

So now that we're almost to Thanksgiving, time to recap Halloween, right?

We took Faith Trick-or-Treating in our neighborhood, which is the first time she ever remembers doing it.  (I took her around to a grand total of 3 houses last year, but she was only 20 months old.)  She was a super-adorable Red Riding Hood.  Tons of people stopped us to tell us how cute she looked.

I knit the hood/cape (with cotton yarn-- this is the tropics!) based on this Ravelry pattern, but instead of buying a pewter fastener, I just knit I-cord ties.  It worked out really well!  The dress was a vintage find on Etsy, and I sewed the apron out of an old pillowcase (I am a terrible seamstress, but this was pretty easy.)

Oh, and not to leave Josie, MD out:

Her "costume" was just a set of doctor-themed pajamas which were a gift from my dear friend Laura when Faith was a baby.  No muss, no fuss.

Faith had a blast going from house-to-house, although her shyness kicked in and she was quiet at every door.  In between, she was her usual excited self, pointing at the next house and exclaiming, "Dis one!!!"  "Look!  Punkins!!"  "Oooooh, LIGHTS!!"  And when I asked her what she was supposed to say, she'd recite, "Twick oh tweat!"  But when she actually was confronted with a smiling grown-up holding out a massive bowl of candy, she'd go totally mute.  Ah well.  Perhaps next year.  She did enjoy the candy.

(Don't tell her, but we swiped some from her basket to give to other trick-or-treaters... there were so many kids that we were running out!)

On All Saints' Day, Jack and I had to work, sadly.  The girls' regular daycare was closed, along with all the public schools on the island (Guam is super-Catholic, you guys) but the child care center on base was open, so we just used that one for the day.

For All Souls' Day, I stole this idea (discovered on Pinterest):

Here was our version:

The idea is to write on  glass candleholder the names of all friends and family members who have died, to help us remember and pray for them.

We also made Soul Cakes!  We got the recipe from this website, which also talks about the origin of soul cakes and trick-or-treating.  (I cut the recipe way down, though, as it would make a huge number of cakes as written.  Good if you were going to give them out, I suppose, but I wasn't expecting any children to come "souling.")