Angel Wings Pinafore

My little Bennett Mae is due in July, so naturally I'm nesting.  Not so much in the cleaning my house like a madwoman kind of way (though it's highly needed) but more in the crafting until all hours of the night kind of way.  I wish I had more time to blog but there are SO many projects that I want to do that I don't even post about the majority them (obviously, since I so rarely post these days).  It may take only an hour to complete a project, but by the time you document with photos, edit your crappy photos (in my case) and blog and edit for spelling and grammar (occasionally) you've wasted TONS of valuable crafting time.

All the while, you should have been cleaning your messy house.  (Or is that just me?)

Messy house aside, I found a sweet pattern via Pinterest called the Angel Wings Pinafore.  I repinned it immediately.  And then I grabbed some yarn and about 2.5 hours later, I had a newborn-sized pinafore completed.

I used Martha Stewart Crafts Lion Brand Yarn Collection- specifically the Extra Soft Wool Blend in Buttermilk.  What a gorgeous name for the color I used--Buttermilk.  Oh Martha, you never cease to amaze me.  I love this particular yarn.  Another great option for this pinafore would be Lion Brand Cotton Ease.  I have become a Lion Brand devotee, can you tell?  Cotton Ease is a nice cotton to work with, washes up well, and it's affordable.  Win, win, win.  The Martha yarns are a bit more expensive than the other craft store yarns, but so far they've proven themselves to be worth the extra cost in my opinion.

I used pearly buttons for the back.  So precious, and a great adornment considering babies are often thrown over the shoulder--why shouldn't the back have beautiful details?

To add just a bit of color. I wove ribbon into the yoke and stitched it in on the back to keep it in place.  I think Martha Stewart would have liked my ribbon color choice--a calm celery green.

I bought leggings at Gap Kids before purchasing the coordinating ribbon.  Gap Kids really has great style and awesome colors.  I looked in a few cheaper places for newborn leggings and was pretty disappointed with the offerings (primarily hot pink and black)--but Gap had so many fantastic babyish colors that it was hard to decide.  One particular store tried their best to sell me on their infant "Jeggings" (jean-looking leggings, for those of you who don't know) and I don't think I held back my look of horror at the suggestion.  Let's just say this sweet little pinafore was not intended to be worn with Jeggings. 

Jeggings.  Ha.  What a funny word. 

Oh, and wish me luck.  I'm going to my first kitting class tonight.  My goal for the night is not necessarily to learn to knit, it's more along the lines of not poking anyone's eyes out with my knitting needles when I inevitably get frustrated and lose my temper.

Kids say (and do) the darndest things.

In two months, I'll be the mom of a three year old.  How did this happen?!

In three months, I'll be the mother of two girls.  Pretty sure I know how that happened.

Our almost three-year-old with her almost three-year-old mentality never ceases to entertain us.  Elliott incessantly talks about her upcoming birthday party and specifies what she wants as a part of her special day.  Things that have been mentioned more than once as "I want that for my birdday" (misspelling is intentional as this is how she pronounces "birthday") are as follows:

1. Green
2. Hippopotomus
3. The song "The Greatest Love of All" by the late and great Whitney Houston

Let the party planning begin, right?!  Dang, that was NOT what I had in mind.  (If you're interested in MY party planning ideas, you can check out the Elliott is turning three, Come and celebrate with tea Pinboard on Pinterest.)

Elliott is majorly into pop music these days--specifically Bruno Mars.  If you ask her who her favorite musician is, without hesitation she will state "Bruno Mars".  I may need to nip this pop obsession in the bud--I still haven't gotten over the shock of hearing her try to beatbox to Jesus Loves Me during a song service at church.  (We worship without instruments, so believe you me, beatboxing children stand out like a sore thumb.)

In other musical entertainment news, she was recently singing along to some of her favorite tunes in the car (specifically they were tracks from NBC's the Sing Off) and she made a high pitched squeal when going into falsetto... and promptly stopped singing to say "Sorry guys.  I didn't mean to make that noise".  We're still laughing at that one.

Elliott's love of music is matched only by her love of dance.  Unfortunately, she inherited my dancing ability--or lack thereof.  What we lack in skill we make up for with unabashed enthusiasm, funny faces, complete obliviousness to the fact that we look like robots on crack, and plenty of pelvic thrusting.   The world is not ready for our dance parties, so we keep 'em in the safety of our living room, which, as long as my husband is not around, is a judgement-free zone.

Moms of gals out there--when is an ideal time to get your daughter's ears pierced?  I hear it's during infancy, though it's not something I cared enough to do at the time.  However, my little gal has really taken a liking to earrings.  Elliott is constantly asking if she can wear this pair or that pair of my earrings, to which I simply reply "You don't have holes in your ears so you can't wear earrings yet".  I guess I hope that she thinks holes will magically appear in her ears one day when she's ready for earrings.  She has different ideas, naturally, as you can tell by a conversation we had yesterday.

Elliott: Mom, I want earrings too.
Me: But Elliott, you don't have holes in your ears yet.
Elliott: Maybe Santa will cut holes in my ears.  With scissors.

Sheesh.  Remind me to lock up all of my scissors.  While most moms are concerned about the rite-of-passage self haircuts that so many toddlers manage to achieve, I'm concerned about my child slashing holes into her earlobes with my rusty coupon-cutting scissors.

In short, I'm rather enjoying this stage in Elliott's life.  I can't say I've enjoyed every moment like so many Moms seem to do (or at least they pretend better than I do).  I still remember Elliott's infancy as a thankless and frustrating time--and don't even get me started on the sleeplessness. Those beautiful Hallmark images of motherhood and warm embraces while light seeps through gorgeous open windows are truly few and far between here in our home--but laughter?  That's daily stuff around here, and I'll take it, thank you.

Til next time,
Tristin