backwards blogging

Disclaimer: I am on vacation [and there for should be held to no blogging standards!]

These imaegs are from a couple weeks ago. Bella and I spent a week with my Grandma and Auntie in Ferndale, WA. Ferndale is just north of Bellingham and only a short 30ish minute drive from the Canadian border. Its a very cute, small town and of course has a special place in my heart because, well, thats where my grandma and auntie live!

I wish I had more pictures of my Grandma's yard. She puts a LOT of work into her flower gardens and had fun letting Bella pick one of each different kind of flower to make a bouquet. Bella soon after fell in love with Grandma's yard and now enjoys running around for hours there [sometimes naked]





During our week in Ferndale there was a heatwave(a Western Washington type of heat wave) It was in the mid 80s the whole week we were there. We headed over to Cornwall Park to cool off. It looked something like this:
Disclaimer #2: These are not the most flattering pictures, but I feel they really captured the "mama is having so much fun playing in the water and Bella has no idea what is going on or why mama is acting like a 5 year old" moment.

Good Zoos!

Yesterday after debating whether thirteen dollars was worth a visit to the zoo [and beautiful pacific northwest aquarium all in one] we headed out to Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma. A little farther than we were from our Houston Zoo, but it was a nice along the Puget Sound drive. After living in Houston I forgot how not living in the city means more driving time to the city. The good news is: we were pleasantly surprised when we got in for FREE! Yes free, with our Houston Zoo membership! But where are the pictures? you may be asking yourself. It just so happens this zoo is on the steepest hill ever and I was too busy working up a sweat pushing my 25lb toddler up and down the side of the zoo for three hours! Its funny I do not remember the zoo being on a steep hillside, but the last time I was at the zoo I was probably closer to 10yo. My mom reminded me, we would run up and down the hill side without a moments thought and promptly pass out in the car before we were out of the parking lot. hehe. I was very much looking forward to Bella's passing out in the car, but did it happen? NO! We went our first day without any nap at all. Well, she did! My mom stayed awake to watch her while I napped. Thank goodness for mothers!

Home

Ok, so it took me a couple weeks to get into the swing of things. Hopefully this includes blogging and it won't be another 4 weeks before I post something new. It takes awhile to stop being sad about my cats being left in Austin [ok im still a little sad whenever I see a cat], and saying goodbye to our friends and our home in Houston. Although, some say I "complained" about Houston a lot, it really did nudge a little soft spot in my heart. That being said, I've met up with friends, had a vegetarian potluck, spent lots of time outside in beautiful weather and spent plenty of time with family I've missed and plenty of time resting while Bella plays with family.
It's good to be home!

I finally broke down and bought Isabella an Art esle. We tried it out yesterday with markers on the white board side which I thought was amazing! But she insisted it was more fun using markers on the chalk board side.


After a long and somewhat cranky day [mostly on my part] I decided we needed some big plans to get out of the house! So bright and early we started packing for this:




What an experience, sharing my childhood favorite place to be with my daughter. Lucky for me she loved it. She was so busy collecting rocks and making sand pies I even had a chance to glance at the book I brought! And the best part is at only 7 miles away and free we can go back as often as we like! I hope the weather stays as it is. I think I might even convince Bella to get in the water with me. Eventually. She is a native Houstonian you know.

Oh, and we've been doing a lot of this:

first swim of the season

so we woke this poor girl up early so we could hit the pool

after the initial shock of big boys doing back flips off chairs into the water, Bella enjoyed finding leaves and flowers in the water when not clinging to me for dear life.

this felt more eventful but really we walked to the pool sat in in for 30mins and walked home. i think i felt the need to document this because Bella looked so so so cute in her bathing suit. SO SO cute.

one more because i really just can not believe how big this girl is. has it really only been 18 months?

i feel like ive known her forever.

Sew Fun With Dresses and Friends

So I have been squeezing out some sewing time almost everyday! YEY for unemployed time management! Here has been my last weeks worth of [big] projects:

A dress for our dear friend Helen's 5th birthday [my first big girl dress]


Don't get too close, Toby is on watch!
I have a feeling i am going to wake up one morning and find Toby wearing the dress.
Bella's soon to be shirt and matching dress.


[should i be embarrassed to post a picture of my living room in such a messy state? this is life. so i am not]
Daisy came over Monday and played for an hour and Bella and her actually engaged in play without fighting for a couple minutes at a time.

A Usual Monday

Bella's [late] introduction to one of my favorite foods, bagels with cream cheese. In her defense tofutti cream cheese does look a lot like sunscreen so her rubbing it all over her arms and face isn't that unusual.... right?


After snack Bella drug me outside to show me her garden. We planted about a billion wild flower seeds right after Easter and, with no help from me, some sprouted!



After poking around in her garden Bella decided the birds needed to be fed. And some how got a hold of the new snack bag I made and turned it into a bird seed holder. Fine with me. I love her love for birds.

sandwich bags and

First off let me say: welcome home good friend!

My machine was gone for two weeks. Now that it is back I am making up for lost time.

I've been working on this idea I had for reusable cotton sandwich bags. I need some feed back on these so feel free to comment with your opinions and ideas.

The pocket is for a napkin, love note OR condiment but mostly for looks because everything gets cuter with a wee sized pocket.

They are also good for using up last bits of fabric I've had laying around from years worth of projects. It feels good to use something that has been held onto for so long. Like my efforts in saving and moving them twice was worth it.


My girl, doing her thing. If she isn't eating, nursing or pooping she is digging in the dirt. My little gardener.

I tried to distract her from the dirt [since i had already cleaned her off about one trillion times today] with this tray of ice cubes.

That lasted about 3 minutes. When I said ice she thought I was saying eyes. So she put her tray down to point at her eyes, then promptly forgot all about the ice and went back to the dirt. Well, I tried!