Colour Does Make People Happy

As promised, here are a some photos from Lois's birthday party. We had it at one of my favorite places in our neighborhood, a paint shop called Colour Makes People Happy. I wrote a post about it here a while back. A paint shop might seem like an unusual place for a birthday party, but this is no ordinary paint shop and it's one that happens to be great for kids. It was a joint party with one of Lois's little buddies. We managed to cram 20+ kids in with their parents but it didn't feel as cramped as I was expecting. We had light bites, a movie on in the back room (the cinema room...how fun that a paint shop has a little cinema room?), face painting, and lots of spin art painting. The kids each had a turn on the spinning wheel, making some really fun pictures.

Birthday Baking

Last week Lois had her 5th birthday. I can't believe she's already five! I think everyone who has children can't believe how fast their children grow up and remark on that as they get older, but time does fly. We had a really fun party over the weekend. As soon as I get the party photos on my computer, I'll do a party post. But before the party we had to bake a few things.

Gone Glamping

For this past bank holiday weekend we went glamping in East Sussex. It was so much fun! (Okay, well, we are a family traveling with kids, so naturally it included a few tantrums, whining, spills, and general disagreements, but I imagine that's a given. But the weekend tilted on the fun side of the scale.) I had been looking around on the Cool Camping web site for a few weeks to try to find something that suited all our needs, mainly to be fairly close to London, near a train station, and with things to do in walking distance. It's not easy to find glamping sites that meet those requirements and are available on a holiday weekend with fairly short notice (I started looking about 3 weeks before the holiday weekend). But I happened to get a booking with The Original Hut Company because they had a cancelation. Lucky us!

Birthday Dress!

This week I made Ellie a birthday dress to celebrate her upcoming first birthday. Already one! I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. I've had the Oliver + S Family Reunion pattern for a while now and have been meaning to make one for Ellie and Lois. I finally got motivated with her birthday coming up and got to cutting and sewing. I was tempted to buy some nice, new fabric, but really I have plenty to work with, and especially for such a wee dress, you don't need much fabric. I used some navy stripe shirt fabric my mom gave me a while back and some Liberty fabric for the neck facing and buttons. I've been looking around for a while now at what sorts of fabrics I like for this dress (lots of ideas here on pinterest), and found I like simpler fabrics for the base with a bit of contrast. It was so much fun to make!

Four!

Lois celebrated a birthday a few weeks ago. We had a great day on her actual birthday. We made a cake, same as last year (a delicious cake!), went to her favorite candy shop, and she got a new haircut. Then on the weekend we had a fun party with some nursery school friends. I made a batch of party hats, which took about a week. They were just for a handful of kids, but they are time-consuming to make, and I'm a little out of practice making them. But I'm glad I did.

One!

Today Lois turned one! We had a great birthday picnic party. Perfect weather, great friends, and lots of fun. I can't believe how big Lois is now. She's growing so fast and starting to look more like a little girl than a baby. She's also on the verge of walking and talking. She's saying momma, dada, hi, and baby but never really at the right times yet. These are just a few words we say all the time that she's starting to repeat. She's also starting to walk around furniture or with a little help from mom and dad or with help from a big toy that she can push around while holding on to it. She loves to play with other babies and kids and thinks our cat, Sophie, is one of them (or just a fun, furry toy to chase around). Lately she also holds the remote up in the air and aims it at the TV. We must be watching too much TV around her! And she loves music. Sometimes when we play music she puckers her lips and throws her head back and forth, just like a little rock star. She's so cute, especially when covered in cupcake. Here are a few pictures from her big day. Happy birthday Lolo!

11 Month Birthday

Just a few more weeks until the big ONE! I'm so excited I'm already planning her dress and party hat set, which might be made with a special Liberty print! For now, though, we're still celebrating her monthlies. Yesterday we went to the park where I took these pictures of Lois playing with, and trying to eat, leaves and grass. She's wearing a Tea Collection top, or dress really, that my sister gave to me at my shower. What a cutie! She's doing all kinds of new, fun things lately. Her favorite things to do lately are: walk around furniture, try to take off her diaper (not looking forward to this progressing), try to feed herself with a spoon, try to feed me (she hands me little pieces of food, which is really cute), open and close things, and unfortunately she's fascinated with the toilet. Oh and I almost forgot, she LOVES music! At the first sound of any music she bops and sways to the beat. And she's starting to clap her hands sometimes, too. Here's to the last monthly birthday until the big one!

10 Month Brithday

Today Lois celebrated her 10 month birthday! For this monthly birthday I put her in something extra special: a dress my mom made. It's baby pink and smocked at the top with a heart motif. It's really sweet, and I know my mom worked very hard on it. Thanks, mom! My mom had a smocking business when I was growing up and made a ton of dresses for me and my sister (matching dresses, of course). She gave them to a needy neighbor who had three or four little girls years ago, which was very nice, but I know she wishes she had kept some of them. Lois gives her good reason to start again, though. Unfortunately our little photo session was not very successful. It was so hard to get her to look up today! I don't know how photographers do it. I really needed Andrew or someone with me to help distract her into smiling and looking at the camera. When she would look up, by the time I could get her to smile or make a cute face, I missed the chance to take a picture. Plus she kept getting really mad in the dress because her knees were getting caught up in it and she had trouble crawling around in it. Ah, oh well. I will try to get some more pictures of her in the dress before she grows out of it. At least you can see what the detailing looks like in the picture below. Very pretty, don't you think?

After the exhausting attempt to have Lois produce a picture perfect smile, I thought she could use a break and a snack (me too). So after I changed her clothes, I put her in the high chair and gave her a teething biscuit. She looked so cute that I got the camera back out, and there you have it--not what I originally had in mind for this monthly birthday, but very cute nonetheless. Doesn't she look so grown up? She's acting very grown up, too. She says, "la, la, la" all the time now and loves to babble to herself. She also pulls up on furniture and walks around it while holding on. I think she'll be walking really soon. And lately she crawls around with toys in her mouth like a little puppy, and she loves to take things in and out of other things, like taking toys out of bins and clothes out of drawers. She's so cute.

9 Month Birthday . . . from the beach

We're at Edisto Beach having fun in the sun, and Lois has been modeling her collection of bathing suits. She has more bathing suits than her mommy and boy does she look cute in them. Lois celebrated her 9 month birthday on the 10th, but I thought it would be fun to wait until we got to the beach to take her birthday pictures. We don't have internet access at the beach (a good thing, really), so I'm at the local bookstore writing a few posts until we have access again, and keeping them short since the caravan is going to leave me if I take too long. Here are pictures from yesterday--Lois' first day at the beach! It was so fun.

A Birthday to Come

Today was Lois' 9 month birthday! That's a big one for the under 1 year birthday monthlies. I put her in a pretty white ruffly dress for her photo shoot, but she got really dirty before I had a chance to take the pictures. A mixture of dog sludge and her mushy turkey and veggie lunch did the trick and canceled the photo shoot for the day. I was at my sister's house, and the only other clothes I brought over there were dirty too, so her official birthday shoot will be in the next few days. Or maybe I'll wait until we get to the beach. In any case, they're coming soon. To hold you over, here's a shot with the iPhone--Lois in her glam baby sunglasses kickin' it in the backyard with her cousins earlier this week. Life is good. Tomorrow I'll post some pictures from my sister's house. I'm so excited to show you those.

A Birthday

On Saturday night we went to Caroline's birthday party. It was only our second time out without Lois. Can you believe that? She's almost 9 months old and we've only gone out without her twice! We didn't worry at all because a friend was actually watching her. Caroline's party was so much fun! Nice people, good music, cool space, homemade cake, oreos, punch (our contribution, requested by the birthday girl), what else can you ask for? It was great. Oh, and thanks to Lisa for letting us borrow her great punch bowl.

8 Month Birthday

Last week Lois celebrated her 8 month birthday. Yesterday, before we left San Bruno, I sat her down at the end of the trail for a little photo session. I wasn't able to get the family pictures I was hoping for this time because we didn't bring the tripod. She looks cute all by herself anyway. I had no idea her little vintage pillowcase top would look so pretty with all the flowers. I found that top at a thrift store a while back and had it listed in my etsy shop, but I decided it was too cute to sell so I took it out of the shop.

Her most recent development is crawling! She's all over the place! She often has this expression pictured above on her face--a baby on a mission, she is. She also has two bottom teeth poking up now. She stopped waving (I guess she grew out of that already), but she loves to yell. She's also making more interesting, sophisticated noises too. We've tried some finger foods, like mushed bananas and teething biscuits, which has been lots of fun. I can't wait to see what she does next!

Belated Birthday

Yesterday Lois celebrated her 8 month birthday. We haven't taken 8 month birthday pictures yet, though, and I probably won't get around to it until this weekend. I want to try to get a few pictures of me, Andrew, and Lois together, so I need to wait till he's off work and with us to do that. My brother-in-law and photographer, Brandon, took some family photos of us when we were in Atlanta, and they turned out great! I don't have prints yet, but maybe I can show you some of those soon, too. Until our 8 month birthday shoot, here are a few pictures from last month during her 7 month birthday week. These were taken in my mom's yard with Lois sitting in a little bumbo seat. I handed her a pansy to get her to look up, and of course it went right into her mouth!

7 Month Birthday

I'm a few days behind with Lois' 7 month birthday pictures, but it was worth the wait. I wanted to wait until we were here to put her in her bathing suit for her first dip in the pool (an itty bitty pool with about 2 inches of water). Aren't baby bathing suits the cutest things ever? I almost bought her a yellow polka dot bikini, but I didn't want her little belly to get too much sun. So we went with a one piece heart print suit. Here she is in my mom's backyard yesterday. It was so much fun! She also had her first swing on the swing set and her first slide at the playground (with grandma holding her). A day of firsts.



It's been a few weeks since I posted these 7 month birthday pictures, but I realized that every time I post her monthly birthday pictures, I'm in a hurry for some reason, and I never mention her developments. I have a feeling I'll regret that later, so I decided to start mentioning those too. This was the first birthday photo shoot where Lois could actually sit up on her own. She's sitting up really well now and only falls over after a few minutes or when she tries to grab something. It's so much easier now to take her picture. Before I'd be holding one arm, and quickly let go to take a picture, then grab her arm again so she wouldn't fall over! She's also waving lately. I think it's intentional sometimes, but she's probably just interested in her arm and hand. She's rolling all over the place, and she also scoots up on her feet with her behind in the air but manages to move backward more than forward. It's really cute, and we call her "scooter" lately. She also does this thing where she makes a sound like ahhhhhhh and moves her hand, balled in a fist, over her mouth in an up and down motion, which makes a wa, wa, wa sort of sound. Every day is exciting with Lois. It's so fun to see her learn and grow.