Halloween Costume

2004 Super-Ego

2006 Rainbow Brite

2007 A Picnic

2008 Scrabble

Last year I got terribly behind with my holidays. The fall holidays seem to come so fast. First it's Halloween and then there's Matt's birthday to prepare for and then Thanksgiving is here and once Thanksgiving has passed, there's no time to prepare for a handmade Christmas. This year, I want to slow down, undertake fun projects, and fully savor each holiday.

So, I hope you can understand why it's August and I'm already talking about Halloween. Plus, I need your creative help!

Since this will be my first (and perhaps only) Halloween as a round, pregnant person (I'll be approximately 6 months pregnant), I have to take full advantage of the opportunity.

Here's what I have so far:

1. A beach ball: This costume would be really easy. I would simply paint a t-shirt to look like a beach ball.
2. A crystal ball reader: My belly would be the crystal ball, and I could pass out little fortunes that read, "Baby says..."

That's it! Please chime in with your ideas!

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Office Chair or Bouncy Ball?

I'm seriously considering trading in my home office chair (and maybe my chair at school?) to sit on an exercise ball instead. What do you think?

I definitely need to do something because our home office desk chair is giving me lower-back pain. I've read that exercise balls can be good for forcing you to sit with good posture. I do worry, however, that it might be too much ab exercise for my pregnant self. I'll have to ask my midwife about it. It's also not clear to me which size would allow me to reach my keyboard comfortably. I've read some reviews with conflicting opinions. Some say 65cm is right for my 5'7" height, while other reviews seem to suggest I should go with the 75cm.

I read this interesting article about the benefits of using an exercise ball as a chair. I wonder if I would get tired of sitting in the same position all day (with a chair, I often cross my legs up on the chair or I put my feet on the ground or I cross one leg over the other).

I'd appreciate any insight you have! I might just invest in a more supportive office chair instead...

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Baby Book

I've written my second letter to our baby (you can read the first one here). I think we're going to make a Baby Book the same way we make our own living, growing scrapbook. It's so low-pressure, and it's easy to keep up with. Our living, growing scrapbook was initially inspired by these words from Amy at Progressive Pioneer (talking about her own baby book):

I've tried to be diligent about recording Sam's life from the beginning. I decided early on that the most important thing was to simply record the important things, not to have a perfect, charming-looking album. I knew if there was too much pressure about how it looked that it would never get done. But if I could just jot things down here and there, there was a much better chance that in twenty years Sam would have something to look back on.

We simply tape pictures to white cardstock using double-sided tape, write words directly on the page, slide it into a sheet protector, and put everything in a binder.

One of these days, I might flip through an actual baby book and get some ideas about what kind of information is usually included. It would be pretty easy to type up some questions and print it directly on the cardstock that we're already using. The adorable folks over at Young House Love did something similar (but mine would definitely be a much simpler version!). I think I'll go add that to my pregnancy project plan now...

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DIY: Maternity Skirts

I'm on a roll with these maternity skirts! Perhaps it's because I live in Houston and it's hot as anything here? (Although, I do have to say that I think I am one of the few people who prefers humid heat to dry heat. I couldn't stand the heat in Las Vegas!)

Also, my belly is expanding. I can't really tell if I'm on track or if I might be growing twins (it runs in our family). The books seem to indicate that I shouldn't really be showing yet, although searching google images for pictures of other 15-week pregnant people seems to show that I'm even smaller than average. Who knows! All I know is that I am most comfortable in skirts that have no zippers or elastic. I love naturally stretchy fabrics!

For the blue skirt, I simply started with a botched dress I tried to make a while ago. I made the bodice of the dress perfectly well, but I totally couldn't finish the arms and neckline. So, I simply chopped the top off and then used the rest of the dress for the skirt bottom. I used a piece of knit fabric for the waistband. I stretched it around my body to see how long of a piece I should cut. Then I cut a long strip and sewed it together at the ends to make a circle. Then I sewed the right-side of the knit circle to the right-side of the skirt. I pinned it in four places around the waist before sewing, and then I simply pulled on the knit to stretch it, while the sewing machine attached the knit waistband to the cotton skirt. As I mentioned before, I don't bother to finish the edges of knit fabrics because they roll up on their own.

For the skirt with the Amy Butler fabric, I took the fabric scrap I had (right-side to right-side), folded it in half horizontally (to make the front and back) and then in half again vertically (to double up the skirt). I did my best to cut out half the shape of a skirt. When I unfolded it vertically, I then had perfectly a perfectly symmetrical piece. The right side of the front matched the left side because I had folded it in half on a vertical line, and the back piece matched the front piece because I had folded it along the horizontal line.

Then I took my front piece and my back piece (which were still facing each other right-side to right-side), and I sewed up the sides. Then I folded the bottom hem up twice before sewing it (to tuck in the frayed edges and make it look cleaner). Then I followed the same procedure to create the waistband using a stretchy, knit fabric.

Boy, I really am a terrible tutorial writer. If you want a better tutorial, try this one from See Mommy Sew. I think my main reason for writing about my DIY sewing projects is to attempt to inspire those of you who are aspiring crafters. Have courage! Take risks! It's the only way to learn. And skirts are a great place to start.

I really should learn how to read patterns. I could expand my sewing repertoire considerably if I knew how to follow all the intricate information included in a sewing pattern. I have an ongoing list of things I would like for Christmas or my birthday. I think I'll add a pattern reading class from Sew Crafty to my list!

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The End of Summer

Lake Louise in Canada

[insert small sigh]

I'm kind of lamenting the end of summer. School officially starts today. I go back to teaching 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders at a public Montessori school in Houston. I'm excited to return to the classroom for another year (it gets easier every year!), and I am even eager for fall to arrive.

It's been a good season. I made it through my first trimester of pregnancy relatively unscathed. I also envisioned and then executed an online course about preparing our minds, bodies, and lives for pregnancy. I also went on three amazing trips: a yoga retreat, a road trip from California to Canada, and a trip to Zion National Park in Utah (with a side-trip to Las Vegas for a conference). I presented at a national educational conference. I managed to keep my two blogs up and running, despite all my travel. I learned how to use my DSLR camera on the manual setting. I helped a public school in Minnesota apply for a charter.

I'm looking forward to the fall. I love Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's. There always seems to be something exciting around the corner in the fall.

Before summer ends, however, I asked myself if there was anything else I needed to do in order to close out the summer. The only thing I could think of was to make a watermelon cooler.

It's an embarrassingly simple recipe: scoop watermelon into the blender, add ice, blend until smooth. It's so refreshing! I think I'll go make one now...

Is there anything you want to do before the summer comes to a close?

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Sleep Training

I've been reading as much as I can about how to take care of an infant. Once our baby is here, we won't really have much opportunity to consult the books!

A friend of mine recommended the book, Heading Home with Your Newborn. It's been a decent resource for me, with some topics being more in-depth and helpful than others. I know I'm dorky, but my plan is to create laminated, half-page reference cards for myself on different topics, so the information is easy to access when we're inundated with life as new parents. I'll be sure to share them, once I have time to create them.

My midwife also gave me the book, Attached at the Heart, which seems to be one of the mainstays of the attachment parenting movement. It's got me thinking a lot about co-sleeping. I definitely want to co-sleep in the beginning (I believe in the benefits of co-sleeping, as well as the major perk of being able to breastfeed our baby during the night without getting out of bed). We'll probably get something to put right next to our bed, since we barely have enough room for the two of us as it is, and I like to sleep with lots of pillows and blankets, which isn't good for babies.

But at some point, Matt and I will want to transition the baby to her/his own room. Our lives are going to be so centered on the baby all day long. At night, it will be nice to reclaim a little of our own space and to have a little time to ourselves. I feel selfish writing that, but I'm being honest.

A friend of mine (whose baby seems to be amazingly well-adjusted and happy) swears by the book: Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child. It's a "step-by-step regime for instituting beneficial habits within the framework of your child's natural sleep cycles." I know I'm the kind of person who is drawn to routines and regimes, so I need to be cautious that I don't try to exert some kind of unhealthy control over a child in order to benefit me, but I'm at least going to read the book. I'm really interested in cultivating independence in children, since I believe that independence is the root of healthy self-esteem and a high sense of self-worth. My guess is that sleeping with children for years and years can actually undermine their independence. (Of course that's easy for me to say now; I don't have any children yet!)

What Matt and I really need to do is come up with a parenting philosophy about the kind of child we're trying to nurture and the kind of environment that is aligned with that end. Again, I need to be careful not to expect the child to mold itself into a super-specific vision, but I think we could do it in a general and broad way that would allow us to think through smaller decisions in the context of the bigger picture. I'll try to work on that when I get some spare time!

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Craft Date

My dear friend, Katie, and I got together for our monthly crafting date this past Saturday. I spent most of my time quilting a mat that my students can use for the Montessori math materials. However, at the very end of our time, I whipped together a maternity skirt.

Here's what I did:

1. I folded one yard of a stretchy knit in half (with right side matched to right side).
2. I laid one of my stretchy skirts on top of it to use as a makeshift pattern.
3. I cut around the edges and the bottom of the skirt (I forgot to leave a seam allowance--oops!).
   
4. Then I sewed up the two sides of the skirt. I decided to leave the bottom unfinished because I was in a hurry and because the knit kind of rolls up anyway and creates a cute edge.
   
5. Then I cut a long strip of fabric (it must be about a yard long and eight inches high) and sewed it onto the top of the skirt. I decided to create a side tie that would allow me to make the skirt tighter or looser as my pregnancy progresses.
   
6. Voila!
   

Working with a knit was way easier than I imagined (probably because I didn't try to finish any of the edges). I've always been scared to work with it, but my design was very forgiving and hides a lot!

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