Have we turned a corner?

I may be getting excited way too soon, but it appears we had a major food breakthrough last night.  Spencer ate some of the pieces of chicken cacciotore I made AND some pasta.  He also consumed an entire banana before going to bed last night. This may not sound like a big deal to most people, but this is from the kid that hit one year-old and stopped eating all but like four things.  He hasn't eaten more than two bites of banana since then.  And even before he turned one he would slurp the sauce off of pasta and then spit it back out.  After he turned one he just stopped eating it altogether.

Everything is a phase, right?  That was my parenting mantra pretty much the entire first year of his life. This particular lack of eating phase just happens to have lasted for six months!  That is one long phase for a little kid.  So here's hoping.  Maybe he'll realize just how great food is and that he's totally been missing out. :)

Baby Afghan

I used to crochet a lot when I was in high school and college, but what that means is we own a ton of afghans and don't have enough people around here to use them, so I haven't done any crocheting in recent years. :) I didn't make an afghan for Spencer when he was born either, but I decided a week or two ago I wanted to make one for this baby, so I did!

This went really fast.  I essentially made it over the weekend when we went down to Cedar City for a family reunion.  It's made out of granny squares, which are apparently really common, but not something I've ever run across.  I like how it turned out.  I'm not a huge fan of pastels for little girls, so I went brighter, though nothing crazy.  Spencer loves it, so I imagine our little girl will too. :)

Another project finished

I haven't so much been nesting this pregnancy as wanting to do tons of craft projects.  I just finished another one today.  I had a couple cross stitches I did in high school that were Precious Moments themed.  They were super cute and a few months ago I found patterns for four more.  I felt a little goofy cross stitching, but I found a surprising amount of enjoyment out of finishing them.

I've never really had a place to put them, but I've hung on to the originals since I first made them and I decided to finish the other four so I could put them up in the kids' bedroom.  I picked up some cheap frames the other day and spray painted them different colors.  Don't look too close.  Some of them really didn't turn out very smooth, but as a whole I like the look.

Dogs

Smoothie Cup Love

He loves this cup.  He totes it around by that little loop pretty much all day long.

Computing & Sewing

No real words needed.

I made a new carseat cover in a girl version.  Just finished.  It's adorable.  Bill picked the fabric. He has fantastic taste.

Newest Spencer-isms

Spencer has finally discovered that holding our hands is a good thing.  I think it clicked when he realized he could direct us places if he was holding our hand. Now he grabs them all the time and pulls us where he wants to go.  It's adorable.

Grandma Suzanne got Spencer a crazy straw cup when we were in Henderson a few weeks ago.  It has become Spencer's go to cup for smoothies.  It has a little loop in the straw on the top that he sticks his finger through and then sips the straw that wraps around the cup and comes up the side.  I'm going to get a picture of it. It makes me laugh every time I see him do it.

Spencer thinks diapers are called poopy.  He knows what being poopy is too, but he absolutely refuses to say diaper.  The first thing he says when I go into get him from his nap or in the morning is "poopy!" and then proceeds to point to his diaper.  Except usually he's not poopy.  It's amusing.

The only animal sound he knows right now is for a dog.  Dogs say "rawr rawr." Every other animal does too apparently.  And every other animal is a dog.  We're working on that.

He's finally able to climb up on chairs and he absolutely loves it.  Sometimes he climbs up on my computer chair and fiddles around with the computer as long as I'll let him.

He loves Bill's bell kit we brought back from Henderson.  I'm really impressed with his precision in playing it too.  This kid definitely has music in his genes.

Spencer thinks eating with silverware is by and far the best and only way to eat these days, which is totally fine with me.  Sometimes he'll let me feed him still, but he seriously loves to eat on his own.  Here he's enjoying some peanut butter sitting on the kitchen floor.  That's another favorite of his, eating while sitting on the floor.

Finished!

I'm quite proud of this little project I just finished.  I've never thought I was all that creative, particularly in comparison to several of my siblings, but over time I've discovered it's more that my creativity just comes out in different ways than theirs.  I'm not so good at original thoughts, but I can copy and modify like a champ. :)  The middle stocking is what I had to start with.  My mom made it for Spencer last year and I love it.  She made similar ones for me and all my siblings when we were kids, and it's one of those memories I love and wanted to pass on.  I decided to make matching stockings for Bill and I and our new little girl, but I came up with one additional idea too and just decided to go for it.  If we have a girl for our third child instead of a boy I guess I'll just have to make another. :)

I crocheted the snowflakes and did the rest out of felt.  I also added a snowflake to Spencer's stocking to help it go more with the general theme.  These things seriously cost me like $10 to make including everything.  Okay, maybe $15 because I had to buy the liner I used twice since I cut it out too small to begin with.  Oops.  You can see the red polka dots just peeking out of the stocking on the far left.  The lining isn't sewed in on that one because I don't have a name on it yet.

I wanted to get our names embroidered on them, but it is seriously expensive to do that, like $10 a piece or something crazy, so I ventured into the world of hand embroidering.  I wouldn't say it's my favorite thing to do.  Well, that's an understatement.  I really didn't like doing it and it took forever, but it turned out so well.  I'm quite pleased with the finished product and am just super happy I'm done embroidering. The penguin one is for our new little girl, but I'm not ready to post her name on my blog, so you'll just have to wait a couple months if you don't know it already. :)

So I really like how they turned out.  We haven't had stockings since we got married, so I'm glad we do now and I just love them.  Hopefully the kids will appreciate them when they're older.