Half a Year update!

Yesterday marked six months since Caroline has been born. She is halfway to being one year old! Where did my baby go? It seems like just yesterday...in fact when she woke me up early in the morning I laid in bed thinking 'this time six months ago I was enjoying an epidural!'.

She has been hitting so many of her milestones lately! She gabs and gabs and make noise over everything. Anything she can reach goes into her mouth lately-including her toes. She seems to have just discovered her feet and now always has them up and over her face. She also has found out she has a tongue and blows raspberries and sticks it out CONSTANTLY! And, she is making a lot of new and funny faces with those lips and tongue of her too. She gets up on all fours and rocks all the time too. I think we may be a few days away from full on crawling. Not that she isn't into everything already. She scoots, she rolls, she army crawls, she pushes herself...she is all over the place! She sits up like a champ and has even learned to play a version of peeka boo with me. When I put one of her burp rags on her head now she knows to yank it off and I yell 'Boo!' and then she busts into smiles and giggles. Everyday she is more fun than the last. We have done some swimming in our little blowup pool, we go on walks all the time, we sing and read books and I am trying to teach her to clap. We can't wait to see what the next six months hold for us! We are also looking forward to taking her to the doctor next week to find out how she measures up now. Although, we do have an idea...Brad stepped on the scale with and without her the other day and there was an 18 pound difference!

There's no leaving her on her own anynmore! I ran to the bathroom one day and 30 seconds later I found her like this!


Taking a try at the crawling thing...


She's got her feet...


There's that tongue!


Sitting on her own!

When I'm not cleaning, I'm crafting.

My thumb boo-boo post reminded me that I havne't shown off some of my creative side on here for a while. With the arrival of Caroline my arts and crafts side has started to take over again. Ever since I was a little girl I have loved crafting and creating. I am not too bad at drawing, I decorate cakes, I make simple jewelry and I can even work my sewing machine. Yes, I actually own my own machine:) Lately I have been making things with my little girl in mind. And on that thought, I thought I would share with you since they really all easy and some of them used recycled goods and simple supplies and take very little time.

We have one huge wall in our living room that had nothing on it. We decided we would devote it to our children and their portraits. Well, while we only have one child right now it looked very empty so I had to come up with something to go with it and the result was this:


That is a thrift store frame that I bought for $2. Removed what was in it, sanded it down and spray painted it black. Then I found some scrapbook paper that I like and cut it to fit. Brad helped me stamp Caroline's foot but her hand was not as easy. I finally gave up trying to stamp it and waited for her to fall asleep and traced it and then backed it with black. Looks good to me and I will probably continue to do it for anymore children that we add to this gallery:)

On that same trip to the thrift store I found some more frames and one of them turned into this:

Again, I took a $1 frame from the thrift store and sanded and sprayed it. I also removed the glass...a la my cut finger :) I had found the foam 'C' at Joann's a while back and kept it trying to figure out how I could use it. I went back to Joann's and found some scrapbook paper that I liked and cut it to fit the frame. Put that and the backing of the frame back in the frame and then glued the C to it. I finished it with a ribbon hanger and it is now on Caroline's bedroom door!

Now, I wouldn't have mentioned the sewing machine for nothing. I have used it to make ONE thing for her so far. She started showing favoritism to certain blankies and fabrics at different times so I took that as my cue and made her one of her new favorite things:

The pink front is flannel just like the burp cloths that she lays her head on when I burp her on my shoulder. The back is terrycloth like the washcloths she likes to chew on while I am folding towels with her on my bed :) I added some more texture witgh felt rick-rack and four different ribbons-one 'taggie' on each corner. She LOVES to chew on those. She rolls around in it on the floor and hides her face in it and on our car rides she usually falls asleep holding onto it.

And, finally if you haven't received one of these yet it's probably because you have little boys! I make hairbows now too. I figure SOMEDAY my child will grow some hair. I will be ready!

This is what happens when you do housework:

I will now confess to you that I am afraid of my garbage can. Seriously, just going into it makes me very wary today. Just last Thursday I feared no ordinary household cleaning equipment and now my trash can gives me the heebie-jeebies. I was cleaning house for a party we were having this past weekend and my idiot meter kicked into gear. Upon clearing off our kitchen counter I found a pane of glass from a picture frame I used in a craft project. I realized that I would never use this piece of glass for anything and I thought for three seconds about putting it into a box before placing it in the trash can. I should have thought it through some more. Alas, I didn't and put it in the nearly full trash can standing up on it's side no less. I thought with it being a full piece of glass with no broken pieces it wouldn't hurt anything. WRONG. About twenty minutes later I went to put more things in the trash and since it was so full I did that thing where you push down when you put things in. I caught the knuckle of my thumb on the edge of the glass and ripped the skin off. I pulled back a finger with a flap of skin hanging off of it. Great. I called Brad who rushed home to take me and my washcloth wrapped hand to urgent care. The WONDERFUL doctor who saw me cleaned me up, sewed my finger closed and told me to keep it covered and dry for two weeks and there shouldn't be any more problems. Aside from the tetanus shot I had to get in addition to the stitches I think it all ended better than it could have. I advise you to never let your guard down when it comes to cleaning your house. You may not be so lucky :)