A Rainbow Day

Hi all,
Sorry I've been away. My day time recreation has been dramatically cut by a little one with back to back colds and in the evening the computer is being used by my husband who is completing some post grad study. This is actually about two weeks old. We haven't had any playdough around here for a long long time but we finally got around to making a batch. This is the usual recipe. I don't add the food colouring until after it's cooked then Rainbow and I knead different colours into each portion. Rainbow requested we leave one portion white this time.

This is actually Moonshine's very first ever play with playdough. You can see how fascinated she was. I can't believe she's already rolling it (with chants of 'roll roll roll')!

Then as we already had the food colouring I decided to dye some new pasta for threading. Big pieces for Rainbow and little ones for Moonshine. Normally I put it in a jar and shake it but we didn't have any with lids so we ended up stirring it in a bowl. In this picture Rainbow is painting the food colouring onto the pasta. I did hear later, from Rainbow's grandmother (who is a kindy teacher) that they dilute dye with water and briefly immerse before spreading out to dry.

This is Moonshine having her first attempt at threading, onto a chopstick standing in a lump of playdough. A stationary pole is a good starting point. With Rainbow we then proceeded to the stiff texture of pipe cleaners (chenille sticks) before moving to shoe laces (or wool with tape wound around one edge)

Firsts

Guess who drew this?

Yes, it's Moonshine's very first piece of art. She kept at it for quite a while and was very interested in trying out all of the textas. Though in true one year old style she was paying attention to all sorts of going ons in the room as she drew.

It's got me thinking about how I can include Moonshine in some of my Rainbow and my craft sessions - particularly when she eventually gives up her morning sleep.

Also as far as firsts go - Moonshine is doing a little walking. I say a little as the most she's done is 5 steps and the steps are not necessary in the direction she's heading. She took her first step about two weeks ago and it (like most of her walking ventures so far) was from where she was sitting to me. She's a true Mama's girl at the moment.

Something else exciting that's changing around here is Rainbow's drawings. Her drawings appear to be showing her experimenting with conventions. We've seen the addition of sky and some background information and also she's playing around with animals facing side on rather than towards the audience (as you'll see in the next photos). I remember touching on the development of drawing at uni but it's amazing watching it first hand.

Let me show you this sequence. These drawings are all elephants, drawn about 4 months apart.

This is mid June 09. This was one of her very first drawings. It has a smiley face, a trunk in the air and a tail.
This is mid October (I think). It's a bit hard to see but it now has more correctly positioned ears, tusks and a trunk and four legs.

This was last week. The face is still facing the audience but the trunk is now in the direction it's heading. Absolutely fascinating....

For me at least!

Moonshine's party

We had a lovely picnic yesterday to celebrate Moonshine's birthday. I think everyone had a lovely day, except perhaps Moonshine herself - who like any sensible one year old would of been happier curled up with her Mama playing with toys. Moonshine did have a change of heart on seeing her birthday cake. She absolutely loves strawberries so spent the birthday song frantically gesturing and babbling at the chocolate dipped strawberries.

I kind of think 1st birthday parties are really a celebration for the family rather than the child so it was a little more restrained than Rainbow's party. We did though make some pretty cool party bags.

These strawberries were filled with heart shaped lollies, heart shaped chocolates, cherry coconut chocolates, bubbles and heart hair clips for the girls.

This really cool template can be found all over the place on the Internet but most people seem to credit it back to this site. This site is a bit of a gold mine full of great templates.

I ended up redrawing the template as I couldn't enlarge it to take full advantage of an A4 page. To give the strawberry more definition I went around the edges and the fold lines with red chalk and added white chalk seeds.

Each curved portion is then punched and a piece of green twine is weaved through. Both ends are then threaded through the leaf to form the stalk.

Nesting - fabric bowl tutorial

Don't get too comfortable Flitter - the nest is about to get very crowded. (Slight Cesarean accident involving unpicking a seam and accidentally cutting off the corner of the tail has delayed his sister's arrival.)

The nest was very easy and rewarding to make. I tossed around with a few ideas

• hexagon base with 5 sides - this is the bowls you find on google
• a round base with a rectangular side.
• a variation of a fabric ball

I went for the latter. Incidentally the bird pattern (care of little EGGie)is also a variation of the fabric ball.

The only vital point is the angle of the points otherwise it's very adjustable. If you extend the sides of the pointy ends you will get a bowl with a bigger base and if you extend the long parallel lines you'll get a taller bowl.
1. Cut this shape out 6 times along the grain so that it doesn't distort. In this case I did some fabric piecing first so ignored the whole grain issue).
2. Sew it up the same as for the fabric ball. Here's a tute. But basically you sew three pieces together. Then sew the other 3 pieces together. You then put one half sphere inside the other half so that the right sides are touching and sew it up leaving a small gap for turning quite close too one end. Pin carefully first so that you get all of your points touching. Pull one end through the hole so that you have a deflated ball.

3. Now if you're making a ball you'd stuff and sew it shut. For a nest / bowl collapse the top half of the ball into the lower half. I chose to have the opening on the outside. This gives your nest an inside and an outside. I then pinned where the points meet on the inside and the outside together and top stitched a small border around the rim to hold it together. You could do a few stitches where you pinned.

4. I then closed the gap I left for turning with kind of a whip stitch. I'm not really good at closing softies and the like.

The inside:
The outside: A home for Flitter:

I can see myself making a few more fabric bowls. Wouldn't they look pretty holding all of the girls' little things.

Oh and in case you missed it here's Moonshine's ball. She does play with it. It has quite a nice roll.

Sweet Heart Party - the invitation

The day of Moonshine's party is Valentine's Day so I've decided to go for a sweet heart theme. It suits my little girl as she is so loving. She is so generous with her snuggles.

This picture doesn't quite look right. It is actually flat. This is how it looks when you take it from the envelope.

Then you gently pull up the row of hearts.

These are made using this very clever tutorial from Paper Cookies. Go and have a look at her design - it would make a great valentine. It is very simple and easy to make. If you like I can even e-mail you the word document that I used for the box part which has all the fold lines marked on it. The slide up picture I made using the hearts and circle design set on Publisher.

Moonshine the Model

The girls and I had a pre-birthday photo shoot for Moonshine at our local park. We must have looked a strange trio. Rainbow and I had been gardening so we were in our old shorts and t-shirts yet Moonshine was frocked up. In hindsight I should have brushed her hair.

I need to choose a photo for Moonshine's birthday invitation. Some of them I'd crop to fit or make her central. The invitations are pink, red and grey. Do you have a favourite?

Art for Babies

The last post was about "Rainbow the Artist" so here's Moonshine finger painting with home-made jelly (100% orange juice + gelatine). Yes she did eat some.

I've been thinking I should give her more opportunities like this - tomato puree, yoghurt...

How did you start art with your little ones?

those eyes - a baby for my baby

Those eyes are inspired by

and seen on

A new baby for Moonshine's birthday. Moonshine loves dolls. She spends a lot of time giving them cuddles and often crawls about with a little plastic doll under each hand or a doll sticking out of her mouth.

This doll is using the free black apple tutorial. The tutorial is very simple to follow though I must say I had some problems with fraying and ended up starting again and zigzagging all my edges. She's also a little asymmetrical but I'm telling myself that adds to her individuality. I also think a doll has to be able to stand up to a lot of use. It's a good doll for a baby as it has no loose parts.

Short Pants

I've been busy this week designing and making costumes for the next birthday party - a mermaid and pirate party. I will post pictures as soon as it's finished and some clues as to how to go about making your own. To make Moonshine's costume 'crawler friendly' I've opted for shorts. So the first task was recutting an existing pattern for pants into shorts. Here's the test model.

Look who's crawling!

Moonshine crawled for the first time yesterday. It was suddenly like she knew what she was meant to be doing with her legs. She had previously been moving her arms then bunny hopping her knees. The first time she lifted one knee she lifted it so high that she fell over sideways. Then after that she worked it out. The first crawl was just to her toybox. Since then she's done a lot of practising. The most she has travelled in one go is about half a metre and already she's getting up to mischief. She crawled over to suck on the bead at the end of the blind cord. She's pulled every single nappy wipe out of a box and eaten everybit of paper left lying around.

Quick thought

As of yesterday Moonshine has now been out of my tummy longer than she was in it. Unbelievable!

Mischief

When Russell went into collect Moonshine this morning the first thing he saw was her nappy on the floor. There she was sitting at the top of her bed in a rather large puddle. So now I have two girls who don't want to keep their clothes on! Thank goodness for our warm climate.

Baking a Silver Lining

The past two mornings have started at 4.40. Damn you West Aussies for voting no to daylight savings!

Every cloud has a silver lining. It's amazing to have the kids dressed and fed and Moonshine down for a nap before Russell leaves for work. I've also had time for some baking.

Yesterday I baked a Nigella Lawson chocolate cake. I found this one on the Internet. It's not a sinful as most of her cakes almost a bit like a chocolate sponge. It looks really impressive and serves well so would make a great entertaining cake. I just did a half batch (and 1/3 of the fudge icing). Nigella had another layer on top so hers must stand 8 or 9 cm tall. She suggests it serves 10. They must be massive slices.

I also made Moonshine some baby pancakes. She loves them. They're very healthy with no processed sugar and very little fat and don't contain egg white or milk. They're very sweet with the banana and fruit juice. Moonshine's also had sultanas as I used muesli rather than oats.
I found them a bit sticky to cook as a pancake so cooked them for about 15 mins in the oven on baking paper (like cookies) and turned them half way through.
That got me thinking anything pureed could be turned into baby biscuits. So this morning I was making porridge with apricots and banana. (1/3c oats, 1 chopped banana, 4 dried apricots, 1 1/2 c water. Cook for about 10min. Mash or puree) So I dolloped some on the baking paper and there we go. The resulting cookie was a little flat so I rolled it up 'baby cigar'. (Perhaps not the best title!) Perfect finger food.

Tomorrow I'm planning on baking chocolate chip cookies for a friend and her two (almost three - 2 weeks to go!) boys. A year or so back I went on a hunt to find the best chewy choc chip cookie and this is the best! The problem is if you count on a child's sleep they'll do the opposite so we'll see.

Nothing crafty to show this week - my beloved machine is away being serviced. I have two hand sewing projects that are oh so close to being finished but I'm too tired to do it. It took me so long to get Moonshine to sleep this afternoon that Rainbow fell asleep on the couch waiting for her story. I then tried having a sleep but Moonshine woke after an hour. (See what I mean -you can't plan around children - she normally sleeps 2 hours in the afternoon!)

Moonshine's latest trick is that she can get from lying on her back to a sitting position (via rolling over and hands and knees). She gave me a real fright last night when I went to her. I could hear her crying but couldn't see her in the cot. Eventually I found her sitting in the corner. She then proceeded to pull herself up to her knees using the side of the cot so we'll be lowering the mattress this weekend. I'm excited for her that she's learning all these new skills. It's going to be life changing for Rainbow and I.

Up Up Up

Can you tell what this is? The photo isn't so good and I kind of squished it with the tweezer.

Look who got their second tick! What sort of mother takes a photo before removing parasite from baby. Our ticks don't have lymes disease (like the ones in the northern hemisphere) or cause paralysis (like those in the eastern states). By the time I got the tweezers it actually had let go so Moonshine has no effect. Unlike me who's covered with itchy sores from weeks gone by. They seem to particularly like me. Two new ones from the weekends trip. I wondered at one point whether maybe they were breeding on me but they don't breed on animals. They drop off lay eggs in the grass. Then once hatched they climb up long grass where they stand with their front arms raised waiting to leap on a passing animal. Isn't that a cute image - little insects chanting 'up, up. up'.

Little purple caterpillar

We had a heat wave last week. 37.9 degrees in October! It got me thinking about summer sleeping. In our dink days we put separate air conditioning units in to our bedroom and the living room as our roof was too low for ducted. The house gets hot and the house gets cold. In winter Moonshine sleeps in a fleece sleeping bag and flannelette sheets. (Home made when I wondered if Rainbow woke at night because she was cold - No it didn't help her sleep!) In summer I always slept Rainbow in a singlet and nappy. Moonshine is a little different. She likes pressure. She was a baby who appreciated being swaddled and now sleeps in a sleeping bag and firmly tucked in. Also the main way we help is by holding her in her bed with our whole arm resting along her body.
So I re purposed some size 2 singlets (a pack of 5 brought for Rainbow but never used) extended with a panel fabric from my stash. Closed at the base with a drawstring.

(She can't lie still in it.

The whole time I fed her prior to her sleep she was jumping around,

pushing her feet off the fabric)

(Look she's doing the lying like a frog that babies do! So cute!)

Moonshine is wearing it for the second time tonight. The first time she wore it was a day sleep and she put herself to sleep without help for the first time in weeks.

I'm thinking of sewing 4 more but I need to iron out some problems.
I had hoped that I could just pull it on over her head but found the panel doesn't fit over her head even though I had

1. Sewed the panel (a very stretchy knit) so that the stretch ran across, the same direction as the singlet's stretch.
2. Used a fine zigzag stitch on the machine recommended for sewing knits.

This lack of stretch at this join also means I can't do a nappy change without undressing her as I can't pull the bottom up over her nappy.

Putting it on feet first is fine and hopefully once I stop feeding her all night I can stop night time nappy changes without dealing with wet sheets. It also means I could just end it with a seam.

I'm only concerned though that it will stretch the neckline. So how can I change that join. I don't want to gather the panel as I want it to be firm fitting. I did wonder if I could sew the bottom of the singlet and the panel on either side of a wide piece of elastic. It would look ugly but would it work. Any ideas?

What came first the chicken or the egg?

This is another blog that I'll probably regret writing. It doesn't really fit under the bilbification label. People without little children 's eyes gaze over when mothers of babies talk about sleep.

Moonshine's separation anxiety has been building up over the last few weeks and with it the return of her sleeping problems. It's frustrating - she is the most delightful happy little baby - until sleep time. The mere sight of her cot starts her crying. The same little baby who since about 4 months has pushed and kicked and thrown herself backwards to avoid sleeping in arms will now some days choose to sleep on the breast or in my arms rather than in the cot. What came first - Is she not wanting to be put in the cot because she doesn't want to be apart or does she get increasingly anxious because she's overtired from not wanting to sleep. The chicken or the egg.

Moonshine is getting oh so close to crawling. I'm guessing she's about two weeks away and will eventually crawl to reach food dropped by Rainbow. She's stretching from a sit to all fours to reach something and has a real motivation to reach things put out of her way. Does separation anxiety cause motivation to crawl. Or does the motivation to crawl make her realise that Mama can move out of her reach and cause the separation anxiety. The chicken or the egg.

The last few days Moonshine has started that endearing stage of wanting to climb her Mama. No longer does she want to sit beside me instead she wants to pull herself up to stand. Once standing she smiles and chats or snuggles in. Does separation anxiety fuel this desire to stand and eventually walk.

Am I looking in the wrong nest?