Fashion

I've never been what you'd call a fashionista. In our family, my sister Laura was always the one who was on top of current trends and styles. Me, I'll just wear a t-shirt and jeans, most days.

Unlike me, my girls are turning out to be very opinionated about their clothes! I've posted many pictures of Maisie's unique and creative outfits. It looks like Ella's got that same sense of style. This morning, she chose a blue and white flowered dress to wear. She then said "Silly!," and proceeded to pull on green pajama pants with little pink pigs all over them.

I tried to get a picture of the outfit, but Maisie immediately started clowning around. I was laughing too hard to get a good picture of their outfits, but you get the idea. :)

Memorial Day

Catching up on some pictures here... on Memorial Day, our friends Jason and Rebecca (and their daughter Sophia) hosted a barbecue. At Sophia's insistence, they put up their tent in the backyard for the kids to play in.

It was a huge hit! Maisie, Sophia, and the other kids there had a blast running in, around, and through the tent.

As you can see, Maisie wore her rainbow dress and her princess skirt to the barbecue. It's so cute - when she sees this picture (it's currently the wallpaper on our desktop computer at home) she always says "I love my rainbow dress! I love my princess skirt!" and then asks to go back to "Fia's party" to play in the tent some more.

Princess skirt!

Yesterday was my and Aaron's dating anniversary - 9 years! Mom babysat and we went out to a movie. Before we left, we told her we were coming home after she was asleep, but Maisie was apparently still very forlorn at bedtime. My mom reports that she said "My daddy lost. My mommy gone. My daddy gone. My mommy lost." over and over. How sad! Then this morning, she asked "Where my grandma go?"

When my mom arrived, she had a present she'd made for Maisie: a "princess skirt"! She made it out of sparkly blue net, a big satin ribbon at the waist, and attached all sorts of little sparkly things to the net layers.

Maisie loved it, put it on immediately, and danced around the living room. She also slept snuggled up with it last night. Then when she got up this morning, she did the same thing!

She did eventually stop dancing to play with her blocks, so I managed to get a better picture of her in the skirt - I think you get the idea.

(cell phone pics, excuse the poor quality)

Three random things

Three random pictures for your enjoyment.

First, Maisie's outfit this morning:

You can't quite tell just how cute and crazy it is from this carseat picture, taken on the way to daycare. She's wearing a pale pink turtleneck sweater dress, red fleece pants, white shoes with twinkle lights, a purple and black striped hoodie, and the pumpkin hat her Grandma Jo made her. It was quite the ensemble. I've totally given up on trying to dress her so she matches. Now, as long as she's weather-appropriate, I'm happy. Mornings are a lot easier that way.

Second: what I found in my bag when I got to the office:

A few times when Maisie's been too sick to go to daycare, or if daycare's been closed, she's come into work with me while Aaron went to a morning class. She really enjoys it - I have her watch videos on the portable DVD player so I can actually get a little work done while she's here, and people usually bring her chocolate and candy and pay a lot of attention to her. She thinks my office is one big party. Not usually! But she'll sometimes stick things in my work bag that she thinks I need. Today, apparently, I needed this Barbie (a.k.a. dancing baby, at least at our house).

Third: reserved parking.

I used to think the "stork parking" was so, so silly. But now that I have sciatica and various other pregnancy-related complaints that make walking pretty difficult and sometimes painful, depending on how far I go, I totally appreciate it, and make use of it when I can. Thanks, Sears!

A poll, and two year old fashion

Maisie is convinced that we're going to have a boy. If you ask her about the baby in mommy's tummy, she says "I have a brother! Baby boy!!" She's so certain about this that our daycare provider asked me if we'd found out the baby's sex early, because Maisie had been talking all day about her baby brother.

Well, we haven't found out yet, but we're going to - Monday morning! So if you have a guess, leave it in the comments. Maisie, Dylan, and Aaron think boy; my sister thinks girl; I have no feeling about it one way or the other. I'll post the results tomorrow and we'll see who's a good guesser!

A few posts ago I showed you what happens when Maisie picks her hat. Well, recently she has started getting very vocal about her entire outfits.

Yesterday she insisted on wearing a shirt with polka dots in primary colors, along with pink and red striped pants and a hot pink hat that I made for her. We tried to convince her to wear a different shirt (she loves those pants), but no dice. She got a lot of smiles at the zoo.

Today, we went to the children's museum.

Maisie wore the same pants with her pumpkin hat and a red striped dress. Her outfit was only slightly less crazy looking.

I feel like if we really wanted to, we could get Maisie to wear less flamboyant outfits. Maybe we could buy all matching clothes, or something. But I feel like as long as she's dressed appropriately for the weather outside, we're okay. And honestly, I kind of love how colorful and bright her clothes are - I feel like it matches her personality!

This is what happens...

when you let your toddler dress herself.

"Maisie, it's cold outside. You need to wear a hat. Go choose a hat, and then we can go." So, she chose a hat! My fault for not being more specific about what kind of a hat, I guess.

She did get lots of compliments on it, though!

Crafty interlude.

So as I mentioned before, I've been working on crocheting - I thought I'd share some of my creations.

I made a hat and some baby booties for baby Trixie recently!

The purple booties go with the hat; the orange booties are for someone else, actually. Both the hat and the booties were quick and easy to make - the booties more so just for their size. They are so wee!

As you can see here, they're actually a mary jane-style bootie, with a faux strap and a sewn-on button. I know buttons can be a choking hazard, and I usually don't put them on things for babies. Don't worry, I sewed the button on really tight! Plus, any babies with feet small enough for these booties won't be able to pull off the buttons.

But so it turns out, I really enjoy making toys - no pesky sizing or swatches needed, they work up quickly, and they're fun for both giver and recipient. Everybody wins!

My most recent creation is a crochet Cthulhu.

I made it using the pattern found at the Cthulhu Crochet blog. Cthulhu, if you didn't know, is a colossal ancient monster from H.P. Lovecraft's writings. I mean, though, it's obviously a horrible monster and not at all cute, right? I made him for my friend Kyle who's a huge Lovecraft fan, using yarn that Jo gave me last time we were in Iowa.

I also recently made Maisie a dinosaur.

I got this pattern from Jo last time we were visiting. She is clearly my crafty inspiration. Thanks Jo! It was fun to make, although the pattern is kind of weird and I think I have figured out how I will be modifying it next time I go to make a dinosaur. I think it looks very happy, although sometimes Maisie uses it to attack my feet while she says "RAHR!" Super cute.

I'll end with another monkey.

I think he looks like a Chicago Bears fan, don't you?

Spring has really sprung

Happy spring, everyone! I know that the season officially started about a month ago. But here in the Twin Cities, the last of the snow has finally melted and the daffodils are starting to poke their shoots through the soil. So, it's finally really spring.

This weekend we spent a lot of time playing outside!

Maisie's dealing with a little bit of a cold, but it was too nice out to stay inside all weekend. Plus, Maisie really loves playing outside. Yesterday we played hide-and-seek around a box elder tree in our backyard.

Today we did all kinds of outdoor activities. I think the most interesting was when we went to Minnehaha Falls and walked all around. We saw the waterfall from the top of the falls, which Maisie thought was really interesting. Then we went down, right to the riverside. Maisie really wanted to walk right into the water, but we wouldn't let her - it was cold, and moving really fast!

Maybe later this summer when it's a little slower, we can go wading there.

But we made up for the totally unreasonable parenting choice by having some raspberry chocolate chip ice cream when we got back up to the top of the falls.

By the way, check out Maisie's cute hat! Her grandma Jo made it for her, out of yarn made out of corn. Isn't that interesting? Maisie really loves the hat - when we saw "Time to go outside!" she'll run to her room to get her hat before we head out the door.

All better!

Well, Spirit Week came to an early end when Maisie was sent home on Thursday with a high fever. So you can pretend that this picture is from either Thursday (mix & match day) OR Friday (pajama day), since my shoes totally do not go with those jammies.

(It is actually from today. Maisie really enjoys putting on my shoes and trying to walk in them. She hasn't been able to walk in them yet, though. My feet are just too big!)

So, Maisie had a very high fever on Thursday that we got under control with some ibuprofin. Oddly, she had no other symptoms... so when we got her in to the pediatrician on Friday, she was diagnosed with a mysterious "fever virus."

I left work early on Thursday, Aaron stayed home on Friday. We gave her lots of fluids, naps, cuddles, motrin, and TLC, and that combination seems to have done the trick.

She was fever-free by Saturday, and back to her happy, energetic self today. We even went for a walk around the block!

We are so glad our Maisie is healthy again!

Wacky Hair Wednesday

We had grand plans for what to do with Maisie's hair today. We considered a faux-hawk, Kool-aid dye, and even tons of little braids, Coolio-style. But when it came down to it, we overslept a little and were kind of rushed and just did not have time to get any of those things done.

So, we ended up with the topside ponytail. Not truly wacky or outrageous, but it still looks pretty silly, and that's good enough for a Wednesday.

Hat Day

Today is Hat Day at daycare! Maisie wore her cute Hershey's Kiss hat that her Grandma Jo made for her.

You can't quite see it in this picture, but the ribbon on top has Maisie's name embroidered on it. Maisie even kept it on once we got to daycare (she normally rips her hat off the minute we get inside), so I think she must see how cute it is, too!

Yesterday, Special Toy Day, was not nearly so successful. Apparently the kids were all fine with bringing their special toys in, but sharing them with the other children was another story. Oh well, said our daycare provider... they all learned something!

Hard at work

Maisie takes her work - er, play - very seriously. Yesterday she spent a long time building towers with her blocks, then taking them apart, and rebuilding.

She was working really hard at it! And when she got the tower built, she was very pleased with herself.

We sure seem to have a lot of pictures of Maisie in her jammies up on this blog! I'll try to get some pictures up of her actually dressed in normal clothes. This coming week is Spirit Week at her daycare, so each day has a different theme. It should make for some interesting pictures, especially Wednesday's Wacky Hair Day.

I think their Spirit Week is the cutest thing ever and I am really looking forward to it. If anyone has any ideas, though, what to do for Mix & Match Day (Thursday), let me know! I am stumped...

Sunday with friends

Sorry about the long time between posts! A whole work week without new Maisie pics... thanks for hanging in there with us.

Today we went to a baby shower for our friends Nicole and Martin, who are expecting a little girl in a little more than a month. It was hosted by our friends Rebecca and Jason, and their daughter Sophia, who graciously (as gracious as a two-year-old can be) shared her toys with Maisie and the other young guests.


One of the great favorites from Sophia's toy box was this unplugged old keyboard. As soon as it was pulled out, all the kids started banging away at it. You could just tell that everyone was told not to play with them at home! They loved it.

Also - do you love Maisie's "question authority" onesie? It's one of my favorite of her articles of clothing.

After the shower, Maisie and I went to visit our newest friend: Trixie!

You may remember that we went to another baby shower not too long ago. Well, Trixie was born to Bethany and Patrick on Saturday at 8:41 a.m. She is absolutely beautiful, and I am sure that she and Maisie are going to be great friends. She is another blogger - there's a link to her blog on the left.

Not such a big girl, yet.

I know Maisie looks like a big girl, no longer a baby, in a lot of these recent pictures... she's walking around, she's had a haircut, and all of that. But she's not such a big girl yet.

She can still sit underneath the end tables, after all.

If you're wondering if she's wearing red Converse high-tops in this picture, the answer is yes. Maisie has super tiny feet, and it's hard to find shoes to fit her. The Chucks come in small enough sizes, plus she actually likes them. We bought her some Stride Rites, which she tears right off. But these shoes, she'll bring to us and ask them to put them on her! They're so cute, how can we refuse?

Fun in the car seat

One thing Maisie really likes about her new carseat is that she can reach her feet.

She loves to pull off her shoes and socks, wave them all around, and then throw them around the car. As you can see, she thinks it is hilarious!

Shoes

I'm not sure if it's a Minnesota thing, a midwestern thing, or a land of ice and snow thing, but around here, it's pretty standard to take your shoes off inside and leave them by the door. You don't want to track all the melting ice and snow, plus whatever's in it (sand, chemicals, etc....) into the house, y'know.

We leave our shoes by the door on a rug that my aunt Donna made for us for our wedding. It may not be a beautiful use for what's undoubtedly a beautiful rug, but it is useful.

It cracks us up to see Maisie's wee soft-soled slippers there next to our shoes, which seem so huge by comparison! That pair only just still fits - she'll outgrow them soon.

Baby legs

I bought Maisie some legwarmers.

They're actually special baby legwarmers, called "babylegs" which I ordered from the Babylegs website. Totally ridiculous, I know! But I love them!

You can see the website has lots of reasons why babies should wear babylegs - easy diaper changes being tops amongst them. But mostly, I think, they're just really, really cute.

Baby fashion

Before we had Maisie, I knew that babies wore all kinds of ridiculous things. It seems like baby girls, especially, have silly clothes (though maybe that's just what we were looking at...) - they are subjected to garters on their heads, and tons of frills, ribbons, bows, and gathers. We've mostly shied away from the super-girly baby clothes, but still end up with some silliness. For instance, Maisie has a pair of carpenter-style jeans with a hammer loop. A hammer loop! It's not girly, but talk about useless!

But as for my favorite silly baby fashion, I give you:

the track suit.



It's cozy and warm, but really. She looks like she's going to go running or something - in this picture I think she looks like she's doing crunches - when the truth is she can't even roll over consistently.