1st Birthday Celebration #3

Ok it is over. We have done all the first birthday celebrating we are doing with this kid. Yesterday was the party with my husband's family including loads of relatives. We had 25 people in the house and enjoyed having pizza delivered and eating cake. Henry is already getting used to large groups. But his naps were all thrown off and he was a bit of a crank for a lot of the party. Luckily there were lots of people around to give him attention.

Mostly he wanted to read books and he even started saying 'ook' or sometimes just 'ouh' but definitely with the meaning book. I want to hear it again today before I really accept that he has said his first word. It is completely out of the blue, he still doesn't even seem to understand mama or dada.

A visit from boozo the clown - a perfect joke for my husband's family.

Opening a few presents.

Throwing his cake on the floor.

And reading with Grandma.

Dinner Rolls

I have a recommendation for a dinner roll. I made it as dinner rolls to go with an asian soup last week. (Because asian soup definitely doesn't go with my usual crusty loaf.) But I will definitely be trying it out as sandwich buns in the future - one of the few things that I still buy bread for. It is much softer than my usual bread and substantial but not too dense.

As you can see from the picture I just blindly followed the recipe and made 24 for some reason. So I have been popping the leftovers for snacks and also spreading some tinned salmon on them for lunches.

It is a really easy quick recipe with just a few minutes of kneading - just enough to make you think 'yes I really am making bread'. You can find the recipe on the Mother Huddle here.

One more Hat for Henry

I made one more hat for Henry last week. The warm weather actually got me thinking of sun hats. But since it is still February, I came to my senses and made him a winter hat instead. But I used this free sun hat pattern from McCall's. The only thing I changed was to add an inch to the height of the crown to get a little more forehead coverage. And sized up one for the added bulk of the lining.


I used a corduroy for the outer and fleece for the lining. And added ear flaps to the straps. So it actually is quite cosy warm I think. And I made the sides turn up cowboy-style using velcro so you can also take them down for added sun protection or a different look. Like so:


And now he's my little cowboy! So sweet!


PS - I am now labelling Henry-related posts as toddler instead of baby!!

3 Foot Giraffe

One of Henry's presents gets a special post because I am that proud of it. (So proud that yes I just had to include all 9 pictures of it in this post.) I made this awesome 3 foot tall stuffed giraffe. It is really a present for me because it is clearly decorative and will go in our living room which is of course now a living room/playroom.


I love how it turned out! The pattern is from Soft Toys A to Z but I made it twice as big as in the book for added awesomeness. I used this fabric that I had lying around and that I had previously used for stuffed-giraffe making as well as other things. I had just enough fabric left, had to employ some patchwork for the big pieces.

It's a really cool pattern. The creator seems to have gotten the slight bends in the leg and the look of the face and ears just right. It was simple to make other than the stuffing. The skinny legs have bamboo stakes in them and stuffing them was very very difficult. Getting the stuffing in there was hard enough but then came the endless task of maneuvering the stuffing till I got the whole thing just right. I could have kept fiddling forever, had to stop myself when the seams started showing wear.

1st Birthday Celebration #2

We had some more birthday celebrations yesterday on Henry's actual birthday. Just low key this time. Henry got to open some presents from us, had a visit from his Grandma and Grandpa, had all of his favourite foods: banana, clementine, hummus, broccoli, and got to turn the house into a disaster area by getting all his toys out. We had to start putting some away when he started getting upset that he couldn't walk anywhere.

He got to practice his standing outside for a bit - what a big boy!
One of his presents from us was this crawling tube but he is so over crawling that he kept trying to stand up in it!
Daddy gave him a special story book made with pictures of Henry. Henry has yet to sit through a reading of it but I'm sure he will love it eventually.

Henry is One Year Old

Henry is one year old! One year ago today I was waiting in the hospital for my baby to come out.

Here's a look at him over the past year.

1 day

1 month

2 months

3 months4 months

5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

10 months

11 months

12 months

Heather Ross' Summer blouse #2

I made a second summer blouse from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing. And I think I got it just right this time, a definite improvement from blouse #1. (There was also a blouse #1.5 that has since made its way into the scrap bucket due to a combination of deciding that I actually didn't like the fabric I was using and trying to make my own bias tape not on the bias, very silly I know but I only had a small bit of material that I wanted to use.) I used actual fabric from the fabric store for this one (was so nice to use real, brand new fabric for a change). I took it in quite a bit and I think I found just the right balance between being flattering and comfy - it's a delicate balance with woven material. Now that I've perfected the pattern for me I have a million more ideas of little variations I want to make.

And I did a 3/4 length sleeve which I really like. It's funny because what first attracted me to the blouse was that I always think wearing long sleeves is really quite a hip thing to do in the summer. But 3/4 length is still quite long and feels less bulky under a cardigan.