Similarities & differences

left to right:Stacy (abouts 2 months old)-Phoebe (1 day shy of 2 months old)-Renée (4 days shy of 2 months old)

Quite often Phoebe & I get a comment about how much we look alike. As a baby, I saw a lot of Mike in her and only some of me.
Well, I think Renée looks more like me as a baby than Phoebe did. Here are our 3 baby shots to demonstrate.
Come on! That cute little one on the left made some of the cutest babies, don't you think?

librarian for a day and a joke

Today I was librarian at my school. I got to read to little kids and check out people's books. I was librarian for the day because I earned 250 AR points. AR stands for accelerated reader. To earn points, I had to read certain books that had a star on them or were on the AR list. My favorite books are the Harry Potter series and Boxcar Children series.

I also made this joke while we were driving around town: Why is the crosswalk hand always red? Leave your answer in the comments. I will tell the answer the next time I blog.

Great vats o' lotion!

During Mom and Sarah's visit, we made lotion. Mom found a recipe on the net for Family Dollar lotion: 2 bottles baby lotion, 2 vats vitamin e cream, and a petroleum jelly. That was the ratio we made and there are all sorts of other ratios online.
Now, upon hearing this concoction's ingredients, I floundered as I am not a petroleum jelly person. Hate the stuff. It is used to feed cats for hair ball treatment, not for skin. It is just so smarmy. Well, I am a convert now. I can't detect it.
Mike's family visited this past weekend. Rita & Suzanne liked the lotion and took a coffee can full of lotion home to share. When we go visit, we are going to swap our altered lotion recipes.
Now, to mess with the ingredients and make it more my own:

• replace the petroleum with vapo-rub to appease my love of menthol,
• add lavender,
• use non-baby lotion to up the adult smell,
• add lanolin,
• add vitamin e oil,
• add tea tree for anti-fungal foot softness.

What else would be good to add?

baby wearing

I wore Phoebe in a ring sling all the time!

It was one item I specifically requested at my baby shower. At Church when she was 6 months old, I was given a hard time because they finally got to see her entire body. Rita has a great shot of us vacuuming. That sling was fantastic!
I wear Renée also. The best part is that Phoebe now wears her koala! I love seeing her parent her little fuzzy girl.

With Renée, I need a better selection of baby wearing devices and ones that keep her upright. Her spitting up and this mountain cedar pollen makes her unhappy. My friend has a Moby wrap. It is a long piece of knit fabric wrapped around the body to distribute the weight of the baby equally on the body. I wanted one and made my own! Hobby Lobby had some lightweight grey knit with silver sparkles on clearance from the holiday season. I followed the directions and got 3 wraps: one 20", one 25", and the remainder for Phoebe's koala. Total cost of fabric was $9.38 for the required 5 yards. Renée doesn't get too hot because it is such lightweight fabric.

There is the downfall for the wrap: it is 5 yards long and needs to be wrapped around my body. It isn't like I could go to the HEB and start wrapping in the parking lot and then unwrap when we are done. The fabric would get dirty!
So, I also wanted a simpler carrier that would distribute the weight equally but wouldn't require the wrapping. I made a Mae mei tai. I love it because I can change out the panels to suit my moods.

Renée and I are still working out the mei tai wearing. I haven't gotten her quite nestled comfortably into it yet.
The most exciting part of these added options for wearing Renée is that I can wear her on my back. We have a Kelty baby carrier for actual back packing, but she needs to be older for that. She can be worn for an outing in one of these.
Once I get some photos of us, I'll post.

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Futon Revolution

For some strange reason, I didn't post about the crazy-killer deal from Pottery Barn for our down couch. It is a pre-story to the futon part of this post.

On my way home from vacation this past summer, I stopped by the Pottery Barn outlet. The place was totally trashed! I climbed my way over junk and broken bits to the back and realized I had no intention of scouring the store for something I didn't need anyways. So, I meandered my way toward the front of the store when from the corner of my eye-there it was: my slipcovered, sage, microsuede down couch (edit-added picture as I saw it at the outlet). I sat on it to enjoy that which I couldn't afford. Again, the corner of my eye was caught by the red markings on the price tag. Why would such a lovely piece of furniture have red marks on its price? They were indeed there slashing through price after price after price. $568! I asked an employee what was wrong with the couch as the others like it in the white twill from store floors were priced $1200. Nothing was found. Better condition that any other. Mine! Mine! Mine! Final total after a mall discount and tax $534.
So, that is the story of the great suede-down couch. On to the real reason for this post: the futon.
We had to move the futon to the livingroom so the couch could take its place. The futon though just didn't work there. We have had this beautiful futon for 8 years now and the mattress had become funky from being folded in half. It wasn't comfortable as a couch. Upon some thought, Mike and I decided to perform some furniture trickery and magic and make it really comfortable and usable. We also didn't want to destroy it or alter it so much that it couldn't return to its original futon-ish ways.
The mattress had springs. Mike disassembled it reassembled it. I sewed the cover back (it looks like a Frankenstein mouth). Voila, a new cushion. It stayed backless during the holidays. Mike figured out a way to lower the back by altering where it is placed and reattached with furniture brackets. It is low enough that it isn't stupid placed in front of the window. The slats help with that aspect also as they let in light. (forget about the myriad of pillows I have added) It is narrow enough to act as a couch yet wide enough for one person to lay down & sleep comfortable. Some microsuede (love the stuff) pillows and we are good to go!
We got to keep our extra sleeping spot and got a great piece of customized furniture!

21st family

What does it say about us that we have the robot entertain the baby?
Go Robosapien!