Tractor Fun

We went to a great little fair last week and Victoria loved all the attractions. She had a lot of firsts that day!
She explored a huge tractor, went on a hay ride, bounced on a giant bouncing bubble, and rode her first pony ride with me tagging along with her. It was quite the day!
Here are the few pictures I managed to take in the middle of all the fun.

Victoria could have spent hours exploring this tractor and trying to get it to move. She absolutely adored that huge steering wheel.

She was excited to meet the horse... not as excited once the ride started moving though, but she enjoyed petting this little guy's mane. Please notice me sporting the latest fashion in babywear: The Ergo skirt!

Thrifty Tuesday

I love thrift stores and finding that special little treasure that did not fit in someone's life but is absolutely perfect for my house. I decided I wanted to share with everyone some of my wonderful thrift store finds, thus started Thrifty Tuesdays!

Feel free to join in and share a link to your own find in the comments section of this post.

Today's treasure is an adorable vintage romper that I found for Victoria. The details are a bit difficult to see, but it has waist ties to make to cute bows at the waist, a Peter Pan collar, and ric-rac trimmed pockets.

Victoria was not really into this whole "photoshoot" idea... so the pictures are a bit blurry, but bear with me, you can still see how cute this is:

She was in running mode the entire time I tried to take pictures!

Come on Mom! We are done!

One last try at capturing the details... Those gingham pockets are just so cute!

Another new friend...? Really?!

I have always been known amongst my friends as the pet lover... the one who has had a "zoo" most of her life. Not only have I had my dog Lucy, for the last 10 years, but I have had cats, flying squirrels, rats, hedgehogs and all sorts of other animals including snakes in that time as well.
When I got pregnant with Victoria I told myself that I should probably keep to having Lucy since Victoria would be a lot of work in itself. However it seems that she and I share the same love of animals, and that people can see that... And so we are building our zoo again.

Last week a young man was walking down the street with a huge puppy, we stopped to pet him and compliment him, and next thing I knew he was asking me if I wanted to keep the dog as he was trying to find a new home for him. (It is a HUGE dog). This was pretty much the way in which I was given Lucy 10 years ago when she became a part of my life, so I decided to give this puppy a week-end try-out knowing it wouldn't be hard to find this gorgeous guy a home if things did not work out... well the week-end was not even ended before I had fallen in love with this little (giant) guy.
He is very similar to how Lucy was when I first got her, at only 5 months he is mostly potty trained, placid when it's inside time and goofy when it's time to go for a walk and play. He lets Victoria pull on his ears and sit on him, they both roll on the floor while she laughs hysterically, and really... I can't give him up. He is also great with the cat and absolutely loves trying to box with him which is hilarious to watch.

So now not only do we have a new cat, Edgar... but we also have this new puppy whose name I believe will be Wyatt (since it's the only one he has responded to so far). And of course Lucy, my sweet old lady.

Here is our new pup:

We are very lucky to have been gifted such a sweet and precious pup. Look at those eyes! 

This Moment-Discovering Ketchup!

{this moment}- A Friday ritual. A single photo- no words -capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, and remember.
If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. (Inspired by Amanda Soule of Soule Mama)

Thrifty Tuesday (First One!)

I am a huge fan of thrift stores and finding amazing little treasures there. It often makes me sad to think of what people are getting rid of, but I am more than happy to bring home those things that just didn't fit into someone's life but that fit perfectly in mine.
I don't go to the thrift store every week, but I go often enough that I decided I wanted to share with everyone some of my finds, and in that spirit will be having Thrifty Tuesday posts every Tuesday. Feel free to join and link if you want to share your wonderful treasures that you have found at the Thrift store! (I think yard sales would fit in this category as well!)
This week's treasure is a small one, but one that I was glad to add to Victoria's playroom as I am trying to get more of a Waldorf approach to it, and rainbows are a big part of Waldorf. It is a chunky painted wooden rainbow puzzle that looks completely handmade to me... how delightful!

So cute!

And it fits perfectly with the room.

Sweetheart Dress-My version!

I saw a post from luvinthemommyhood quite a while ago showing how she made an absolutely adorable dress with a heart cut out in the back. I was inspired to make my own and here it is, finally!
I made the dress a bit differently with pleats in the front and back instead of being ruffled, and with a big ruffle at the bottom that is asymmetrical on one side.
Of course my model was not exactly cooperating, so here are a few pictures to give you an idea!

The shoes are the only ones she will wear! Straight from the runway of course.

A good view of the back and the back pleats

She got happy because a dog was walking by.

A better view of the back and the bottom asymmetrical ruffle

Trying for the pretty in the garden shot, but she was not having it so this is the only one we could take before she left. Models!

I'm already working on version 2.0 and I'm really excited about the dress. That heart back is just the cutest thing to me and Victoria likes the dress, she even wore it while bouncing and it wasn't in her way and stood up great to rough play!

This Moment-Cuddled Close Before Sleep

{this moment} - A Friday ritual started by Soulemama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.

Water "Bubble" Fun!

I saw a post a while ago about a mom who had made what basically amounted to a water mattress for her kids to play with outside. I cannot for the life of me remember where I saw it at this moment, but if I find the link I will post it asap. (In turn, if you know who I am talking about, please share).

We have had a heat wave here with temperatures in the 80s so I decided it would be a good time to try this out!
And so... we set out with these tools... believe me the "who are we burying in the backyard" jokes were pretty relentless.

After folding the huge plastic sheet in half, I did a fancy "double fold" and duct taped each of the sides one after the other, leaving a small opening for the water hose of course. Taping that corner was a bit more difficult, but we just added a lot more duct tape to that corner and managed to keep it from leaking.

It was a success! Victoria loves stepping on the water bubble, and playing on it. And it's lasted the past 4 days! I thought for sure it would pop within the first hour of play, but this has been out in the backyard for a while, even the dogs stepped on it, and it is still standing. 

Testing the bounce!

I was making waves by lifting a corner up and Victoria loved it

Serious business this water bubble...

Victoria signing "More", she was asking for more waves.

Happy little hands.

Can't resist those little hands and feet.

Whew!

I have been at my little girl's beck and call the past four days as she is fighting a cold, but I will have some new posts for you starting tomorrow!
Until then, Victoria and her first "buns"

Baby's First Bath

I just read an article on Baby's First Bath from Bellies and Babies here. It reminded me how thankful I am of the fact that I was able to have a home birth.
The first bath was one of the things that I was worried about as an expectant mom. From all the literature I had read, talk that I had heard, my baby was going to be taken away from me and washed minutes after the birth. I came hesitantly to my midwives asking them what they were going to do about cleaning my baby after the birth, it was so ingrained in me by our culture that a bath was normal, that if I remember correctly my question was "So after the birth how soon do you have to give the baby a bath?".
The question reflected very well my position. I wanted my baby on me and nursing, not away in another room being washed. I wanted to smell her and love her and did not want the interruption. However I did not know if that was possible.
Luckily I had the very best midwives, and they raised an eyebrow at me exclaiming "We don't wash a newborn!". What a relief! They then went on to explain how beneficial the vernix is to babies and why we wouldn't want to wash her right away. It all made sense to me in a medical sense, but there was a deeper feeling to it, really... I didn't want my baby's first experience out of the womb to be a brutal uncomfortable bath to "clean" her of me... of us.

After the birth, she was on me warming up and nursing for a while before we even cleaned of the blood that had coated a bit of her hair, and after that there was no need for anything more, truly. The vernix was absorbed into both her and my skin, she smelled great... that new baby smell that I sometimes miss so much now that she's toddling around. She was not dirty... she did not need a bath... There would have been no reason for anyone to take her away from nursing and bonding with me for it.

Our first bath, the next evening I believe (those days are a bit blurry now), was exactly as the one shown at the end of the Bellies and Babies post as what should happen.
We poured a bath for both me and her, and I just held her in the water swaying her slowly in, bringing her head down and covering her ears a bit here and there, softly moving her hair from her scalp to make sure I washed every bit of her. And she enjoyed it so thoroughly. She was so content in that water and I couldn't be happier that I was able to wait for her to truly enjoy that experience.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there...
And an especially happy Mother's Day to my mom who is reading this blog from France. We love you so very much and miss you all the time.
Thank you for having been the most amazing mom from the very beginning, only now that I am raising Victoria do I truly understand everything you have done for me. I love you.

This Moment-Peekaboo

{this moment} - A Friday ritual started by Soulemama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.

Quick Embroidery

I have a few onesies for Victoria that are very plain. I enjoy embroidering things, so of course it all came together in this little blue bird that I put together during one of Victoria's naps.
I was going to have the little blue bird sing some notes, but we have been focusing on our French over here, so I decided that he was going to have to be a French blue bird saying hello.
And of course when I think French, I think elementary school cursive... It was such a part of my education while I lived in France as a little girl, and I love the look of it.

Victoria is now walking (running is more like it!) and so all the pictures I tried taking of her with the shirt were completely blurry. I finally managed to take some after she passed out on the pile of laundry to be folded! Such glamorous modeling...

Trampoline!

We are lucky enough to have access to our friend's new trampoline and Victoria is in love... I might as well just let the pictures speak for themselves:

First....

First duckling of the season! Spotted a few days ago at the park we walk to every day. He was all by himself, no brothers or sisters yet, and his mom was not letting him go anywhere far.
I love watching the Spring babies appear!

We also were lucky enough to spot the first swallows of the season, of course my photography skills leave to be desired, and as they were swooping and flying all over the place I did not get a chance to get a good photo of them. But I was so overjoyed to see them as they are simply my favorite birds to watch in the Spring.

A new discovery: Bleach Dyeing

I promised a very long time ago a good friend of mine a cute dress with a print of the Elder Sign on it.
I knew that I was going to use bleach to make the print since I wanted that specific look of spreading stars that you can get with spraying bleach on black clothes.

So armed with a small bottle of a 50/50 solution of bleach and water I started spraying a cute black dress that I thought would work well for the project (this takes a lot of faith that everything will go well, believe me! I am not one to enjoy destroying anything, so not being sure that this would work was a bit scary).

I simply cut out the shapes that I wanted out of cardboard and set them on the dress, sprayed around and over them and waited for things to dry.
The Elder Sign is a bit abbreviated as I am not quite sure how to get small details in yet, usually it was a flame inside the star. I added a few tentacles to the dress as well as I liked the contrast of the black and rust color that was coming out. And then I decided to make another shirt for her. She just adopted a hedgehog... so I made a "hedgehog love" shirt for her.

The first dress was 100% cotton and took forever to dry. The bleach solution was also not working very strongly on it, so I actually added a few drops of pure bleach here and there. The shirt on the other end was a polyester mix and ended up changing colors really fast, I had to rinse it out almost immediately for fear of creating too much color change.

Here's what I came up with, I think they ended up quite nice and hope my friend will love them.