Gemma's birthday, cont'd

I mentioned that Gemma was rather overwhelmed with birthday gifts from her loving extended family :) but I thought it would also be fun to share the little something I made her for turning 3.  It's a little bath set for her baby, who has been named "Bio Bio Bio" once and for all, I believe.  :)

Poor Bio Bio Bio . . . she got dropped in a parking lot last September, and I believe that she had a rough encounter with a car.  We're just thankful that we found her after the fact!  When Gemma first saw her, she put heart stickers on her eyes, but now she has come to terms with her dolly's permanent injury.  If asked, she repeats what we explained to her: "Baby's eyes are a little broken, but she can still see!"  In public, people frequently ask if Baby is an old family hand-me-down, but she has just known that much love from Gemma in her two years of ownership!

I had some leftover terry cloth, seam bias binding, and fleece, so I put together a wee hooded towel and sponge.  These little projects just delight my heart!

I packaged them up with an empty baby bath bottle which was a hospital freebie.  The writing is coming off, but Gemma doesn't seem to mind.  :)

Whenever Gemma takes a bath, she likes to have Bio Bio Bio bathe in the upside-down bathroom stool, so I staged her this way for you.  :) Besides that, we just bought her a new pack of undershirts.  How many things does a kid need, right?  She and her sister's birthdays are both so close to Christmas, that it just makes sense to keep things simple, at least while they're little.  Maybe we'll start a tradition of taking them someplace special instead of buying them something special as they get older.  But for now, it was nice at least to spend some time making her something.  :)

Little Bear Birthday

Gemma's been three for almost three months, and just today I went back to look at the pictures from her party!  Well . . .

As promised, we planned a Little Bear party for her, based on the books by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak.  They are just precious little books, and we love them!  One of the stories is called Birthday Soup, and inspired by that and this sweet theme-based celebration I found through pinterest, we planned our little party for Gemma on December 7, her actual 3rd birthday.  :)

We had birthday soup with carrots, potatoes, peas and tomatoes, of course :) and also some chicken, cream, wine and seasonings.  That was it, besides crackers, some apple slices, and a big cake, of course! 

For decorations, I put up my trusty re-used doily garland and a bunch of balloons in classic colors.  John helped me print off fun paper placemats (from here), and Grandma supplied the snowflake napkins. Nice and simple!



Gemma was eager to help with the balloons, and to make sure that her babies were properly seated and attired.  :)



I loved the idea of having the children dress up like the characters in the story!  Inspired by the blog I mentioned, I wanted to make animal ears out of felt.  Then Mom found reindeer ears at the dollar store (which were actually 2/$1) which already had felt-covered headbands.  So, I just hacked them with some scissors, hot glue, and additional felt and quickly put together headbands for Cat, Duck, Hen, and, of course, Little Bear!  They are very imperfectly done . . . but Little Bear didn't seem to mind.  :)

Two of the headbands already had feathers on them.  Perfect for Hen and Duck!  We made Duck a bill with some cardboard and yarn, too.  

Since we were in NY at the time, all of John's side of the family and my Grandma, Gemma's Great Grandma, were able to be there, which was really special.

Her Aunt Abby gave her the birthday candle when she turned 1, and we've been burning it every year!

And the checkerboard cake with chocolate buttercream was delicious, if I do say so myself.  :)

After that, we let her open presents in the living room and all the cousins played.  I was fooling with some of the settings on what was then our good camera, and had no idea what I was doing!  That's why they're grainy and weird.  I can hardly believe I was to be upgraded so quickly!  (Stop talking about your new camera, Gretchen!  Augh!)

Gemma was just showered with things . . . I kind of wish I had said "no gifts!" But she was very sweet, and very generous with her "Cockoo!"s.  She still wears her Little Bear ears all the time, so they have been well worth their 50 cents and 5 minutes of glue!  

Happy three years old, big girl!  How very quickly you are growing!

Announcing . . .

Theodoric Fritz!  

We praise our loving Father for the safe birth and recovery of mommy and baby . . . about 19 hours ago!  

We could hardly be prouder of the new gentleman in the family . . . and yet the proudest of all are clearly the new Mommy and Daddy.  :)

Family and soon-to-be-family flocked to admire the wee lad . . . 

The royal baby doll took a rest under the bassinett.  ;)

The long, tiring journey of motherhood has begun!  And what a joy it will be . . . 

Sprout is here!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Year of the Hat

I thought it was time for a "knitting lately . . ." post.  :)  Funny, but my last, hrm, six projects have all been hats!  I did a newborn icord beanie for Derek and Liz's little sprout (41 weeks and counting! We can't wait to meet you!).  Then the twin toddler nieces got red Christmas pilot caps, finished just in time for our family celebration. Both of those patterns have just about become old favorites of mine!  (Ruthie's currently wearing Gemma's pilot/pixie hat, as you can see in this little post about her coat.)

The new patterns I tried this year were Esme (for Gemma) and Rikke (for mom).  Rikke was a pretty pattern, but I adjusted the gauge wrong (again, *sigh*) for the pretty wool I had chosen and it came out a bit too tight.  Esme is my current favorite.  :)

I have to give credit where it is due--the tam with a bow was completely inspired by a hat Elizabeth from path-less-traveled made for her daughter a year or two ago.  If you see this, love your ideas, Elizabeth!

Gemma's wearing her hat in the picture above.  :)  She just loves it, which makes my heart so happy!  I had yarn leftover from making Ruthie's (too-big) coat, so Gemma wears them as a set and looks just . . . English and 19th century and darling!  I did "yarn-overs" instead of "make-one's" for the row of increases because I wanted to create eyelets for the pink bow.

I had enough yarn to make another, so I decided to make one for our niece turning 11.  11 seems so long ago these days, but I wanted to make it a tad more grown-up looking than the version with the bow.  I considered adding just a button to fasten the brim, as the pattern calls for, but ultimately decided to play with what I had at home and make a felt flower.  There are plenty of tutorials on pinterest to consult!  I stitched a pin-back behind it, and think it looks quite sweet!

Still playing with the new camera, as well. :)

Welcome, new year

January is halfway over, so I guess it is time for a new year's post!  Here's a little synopsis of our 2013:

In 2013,

We took several trips to see our families in NY and one big flight to San Jose, CA (business for John, pleasure for the rest of us!)

Gemma had 2 Urgent Care visits and one ER visit, all for asthma.

Ruthie had 2 ER visits and 1 Urgent Care visit, plus 2 visits to the eye dr, 1 to the surgeon, X-rays, an MRI and a spinal ultrasound, all to determine that her giant eyes are normal and healthy (not to mention gorgeous in Mommy's opinion!)

Gemma (mostly) potty-trained, started talking in sentences and sleeping in a big-girl bed and turned 3.

Ruthie learned to smile, laugh, roll-over, crawl, sleep through the night, cruise and almost walk, and turned 1.

John did some major interior painting and Gretchen helped the painters with our mandatory exterior painting! And we both hit some big age milestones.

All-in-all, it was perhaps a less exciting (and crazy!) year than 2012, but it was certainly full and exciting enough.

And here are some of our goals for 2014, in no particular order:

Read the Hobbit

Read the Bible in a year

Read 3 books a day to the girls

Outside play time for the girls every day, weather-permitting

Finally start composting

Work on baby books, print photos

Start Ruthie on the potty

Start running again and do another race (maybe a 10k!)

Well, happy new year, my friends!