One Month

As I write this post, Madeline is a few weeks past her one month mark – she is 7 weeks old today! In some ways her birth seems like years ago, but in other ways the past 7 weeks have flown by. I have enjoyed every moment with my little girl so far, and I am trying to soak up every moment with her this last week of my maternity leave. Babies grow and change so fast! You hear people say this all the time, but it becomes especially true when you have your own little one to watch grow.

So I’ve decided I am going to try and chronicle each month for the first year of her life. Taking monthly baby shots has become all the rage, but it is really fun to see monthly shots lined up next to each other after a year to see a baby’s growth. I found some monthly onesie stickers on Etsy, and I took some photos of Madeline at her one month mark.

In her first month, she went from 8lbs, 21 inches to 10 lbs 2oz and 22.5 inches. Her growth put her at the 90^th percentile for height and 70^th percentile for weight. She also learned to lock on to our faces, is getting pretty good at holding her head up during tummy time, and right around 1 month she finally learned to take a pacifier. And let’s just say that the pacifier really does help pacify Miss M during her fussy moments!

Now we're only a few weeks away from the 2 month mark, but I'll save those updates for the next post!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I’m so glad Valentine’s Day is in mid-February, because it brings some life to this otherwise un-eventful month. I know many folks are bahm-humbug on V-Day, but I’ve always loved it. For me, it’s a chance to make homemade cards and crafts, cookies and treats, and a reason to do something special with those you love.

This year was no different. James and I had our first date night without baby on Friday night, while a friend watched Madeline. We enjoyed a lovely dinner at our favorite French restaurant, Suzettes. And then we spent the weekend holed up warm and cozy in our house, while it lightly snowed, snuggly with our little girl.

I made some Valentine’s Day banners this year just for fun. The heart banner was super easy and inexpensive to make – these are foam hearts I bought on sale at Joanne’s for $5.00, and I just sewed them into a big string. I wasn’t sure how foam would work, but it runs through the sewing machine just fine.

Then I sewed some felt letters onto burlap to make this LOVE banner – also super easy. I cranked both these out in less than 2 hours before some friends came over for coffee. It would have been even quicker, but I was trying to keep Miss M entertained on the side.

Probably my favorite thing about Valentine’s Day is making cards and sending them off to friends and family. This year I scaled back the number I normally make, and just made them for our family members. Projects take a lot longer with an infant in the house!

And for Valentine’s Day itself (today), Madeline and I made some fun little Valentine treat bags. These were also really easy to make, and I think turned out really cute. I bought some treat bags at Micheals, and then used some cardstock and stamps to make the tops and stapled them to the bags. It would probably look better to use double-sided tape and eliminate the staples, but oh well, next time. I think these little treat bags are going to become a regular in my crafty rotation – they would be great for favors at birthday parties, superbowl parties, Christmas parties, you name it. Just change up the paper, stamps, ribbons, etc.

These little bags I made for James and delivered them to him at work. He’s starting a four week detox diet this week, and for week 1 he can only eat fruits, veggies, and nuts. So I made him a trail mix bag and some almond/date bars – this bar I cut into a little heart to make it more festive.

Then I made a bunch of chocolate treat bags for my co-worker friends, and Madeline and I went and delivered Valentine’s treat bags today.

But my favorite part of the day this year – hanging out with my little Valentine!

Hope you have a great Valentine’s Day!

DIY Infant Headbands

Although my girl is not totally bald (she has more hair than I thought she would!), adding a headband to her outfit here and there definitely gives her a feminine touch. But I’m not a huge fan of really big headbands on a tiny baby’s head…large plastic flowers that cover half her head aren’t really my style. I tried to find some sweet and simple little headbands at Target, Baby Gap, Gymboree, etc, but I just wasn’t finding anything so I decided to make my own. And they turned out to be really easy and much less expensive than anything you could buy in a baby shop.

Here’s what you need:

1) 1/4" Soft stretch elastic, braided style

2) Fabric for rosettes, felt for bows

3) Hot Glue gun

4) Sewing machine (or you can hand sew)

I started by taking the elastic and wrapping it around Madeline’s head to see how long it should be. The elastic needs to be snug enough to stay on, but not too tight. Once you’ve measured around your baby’s head, measure the elastic length on a ruler—that way if you make more than one you don’t have to keep measuring your baby’s head. Then add an extra half inch or so to the length of the elastic before you cut it, and mark the extra length. This will be where you sew the overlap – I didn’t use pins or anything to hold it because the elastic is so narrow – I just held on to the overlapping section while I slid it through the sewing machine. And then you have the actual headband – easy peasy! Make sense?

For a rosette headband, make your rosette from a strip of fabric – my rosette was about 14 inches long and 1.5 inches wide. You can find tutorials for these rosettes all over the internet. Then cut out a little felt circle a bit smaller than the rosette, and hot glue gun the rosette onto the headband with the felt circle on the back. For the Felt bow, I just used some felt I had around the house to make this bow using a hot glue gun. Then cut another strip of felt for the back, attach both to a headband.

Done! All I had to purchase was the elastic, which came in at $1.60. Awesome!

Here’s my model: