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Style // moonkids

Maja is the very talented, very crazy, very magnificent Swedish bombshell that designed my wedding dress. She and I are kindred spirits. And, yes, I trust her impeccable taste so very much that I had her design and make my wedding dress from across the Atlantic. I, in California. She, in Sweden.

I saw the dress for the first time three days before the actual wedding.

The Swedish and Moi

As Dory would say, “Trust. It’s what friends do.”

And yes, that would be Finding Nemo I’m quoting. Do I not live with a two and a half year old?

Anyway, since I’m biffles with a fashion designer, I’m fortunate to receive a package of goodies designed by her hands around this time of year. Everything from dresses, to bags, to tops, to scarves have found their way into my wardrobe thanks to Maja and her line PINELLAPI (she’s doing the bag thing in a big and awesome way right now).

She freelances for H&M and the Scandanavian children’s clothing company, moonkids. In her package that arrived yesterday, two beanies for the girls were tucked inside. While I went out to dinner with a friend, James made a thank you video for Maja. Because when we’re overwhelmed with things to do, he and I tend to turn to timesucks like photography and video to really procrastinate the actual work at hand that must be done.

I guess you could call me and Jamesy kindred spirits, too.

The FGPs & The Purple Cow

These are from mid-November, but I only recently looked at the images and had to share these of Sunny and her Fairy Godparents and the Williams Purple Cow.

Love.

Photos: Courtesy of Kate Drew Miller

Sodium Bicarbonate

Our budding chemist. Making her Doda and Auntie Kimmy proud.

And, yes, that’s baking soda poured all over the bed. It’s to help combat the epic spit up puddle that Courtland generously bestowed upon our bed earlier that morning.

Magazine Christmas Tree

Given that this DIY project has far and away been my most popular tutorial, I decided to update the post with a video of the magazine tree making process to help clear up a few questions that we’ve received from readers. To date, it’s one of my favorite DIYs. Fold away, friends!

My favorite DIY projects are always those that involve minimal expense and materials. The best of the best DIY projects require recycled (read: FREE) materials, and little else but some time and crafty gumption. Enter the DIY Magazine Christmas Tree. For a gal like me who has stacks of magazines piling up around the house (I am SO my mother’s daughter), this project inspired me to clear out my magazine rack and bring a little (more) Christmas cheer to our abode. This is a particularly wonderful craft to do with children, no sharp tools necessary. Merry merry folding!

Materials:
Magazine(s)
Seriously, that’s it.
No, really. All you need is a magazine, or magazines plural.
And two hands.
Ok, a paperclip could help.
And glitter or metallic spray paint if you want to get all fancy pants.

Directions:
1. Dive into a pile of old magazines and chose those which you don’t mind being turned into mini-trees. Then, pull the cover off the front and back of the magazine and break the spine.

2. Lay the magazine out, and you’ll fold each page in the following way:

3. Now settle in, and fold fold fold! Slowly, you’ll begin to see the tree take shape.

4. Depending on the girth of the magazine, you may need only 1 magazine to complete 1 tree (in which case, just use 1 paperclip to attach the front and back page). If you feel that the tree could use more density, then just fold up another magazine and attach the two back to back with paperclips. And if you want some glitz and glam, you can spray paint the tree and sprinkle on some glitter.

Photos: Courtesy of Ashley Weeks Cart

Month 4.

haley Baby,

As I write this, you are peacefully napping, which is horribly ironic as this month shall go down as the slow decline into sleeplessness. The past two weeks have found me and your daddy stumbling around the house, downing shots of espresso by the gallon, and sleeping in separate bedrooms to try and overcome this severe sleep regression. We’re in survival mode. Daddy and I alternate nights with you so that on any given evening at least one of us gets more than two hours of consecutive sleep.

It’s not only me and your Daddy that I worry about in this scenario. I’m concerned that you are no longer sleeping more than an hour or two in a row. That most certainly can’t be good for your development, and yet, we haven’t figured out the solution to your fitful sleep habits. You see, you’re now far too big for your bassinet. I went back and realized that we had moved your sister into the crib and her own bedroom at 10 weeks, and here you are, four months old, and we haven’t done so with you for any number of reasons. 1. We can’t risk you waking up your sister every hour with your wails of discomfort and fury, as it’s difficult enough at 3am to have one grumpy kid on our hands. And 2., a part of me isn’t ready to admit that you are so grown up.

Your Momar told me that it’d be like this. That with the first child, you look forward to every milestone and next step. But with the second, you mourn each new development as it is a tangible sign of the time that you now know from experience is so very fleeting and precious. To admit that you are grown up enough for the crib would be to admit that you are no longer my newborn. I know that you are not, and yet, it tears me up inside because I don’t know if I will ever mother another new life. I don’t know if this infancy is my last.

Your Mama, Ms. Mellow Dramatic.

I go back to work on Monday, and that milestone hurts the most. Not the act of returning to work so much as the act of saying goodbye to this unbelievably special time that we have shared. The past four months have been a period of hibernation and bonding. Of growth. Of building. We are now a family of four. And that is a truly incredible thing.

Thank you for that.

And while my Twitter stream is now just a series of midnight rants regarding your sleep habits and my lack thereof, I realize that in a year’s time, I’ll miss those wild smiles of delight at four in the morning. The way you cling to my fingers and shirt. The way you kick and stomp and do crunches – yes crunches! I swear by six months you’ll have a six pack – by my side in the wee hours of the morning, as you learn how to instruct those limbs to bend at your will.

There are times when you’re in your bouncer or chewing on your feet (a new and exciting discovery just this week) that you remind me so very much of your Big Sister. And yet, as you drool a lake and feverishly suck your fingers, or scream if you are not held just so, or smile unabashedly at every passing face, or squawk and coo in intonations new to my ear, that I note the distinct differences between you two. You are your own little person. And we adore you so very much. Even in the middle of the night. On only 45 minutes of sleep.

How could we not? You are our beautiful second born, and it’d be boring if we had the same experience as we’d had with your sister. Bring it on, kiddo. Your Daddy and I are ready for whatever you throw our way.

But take it slowly, okay? I’m trying to soak up each of these moments so I can recall the peace they bring for the rest of my life.

Happy 4 Months.

143 Mama

Sweater Soap

Last December we fell in love with Biggs & Featherbelle after test-driving some of their amazing all-natural soaps and bath products. This year. they sent us three bars of their specialty holiday edition soaps, and, not surprisingly we adored the festive, seasonal scents coupled with the all-natural ingredients. The perfect stocking stuffer? We say YES! You can find the holiday soaps here.

To jazz up these delicious bars, I wanted to swaddle them in felt much like last year’s Coal Soap Tutorial. Unfortunately, due to the square shape of the bars, I could not master even felt-coverage of the soap. Discouraged, but still intent on giving the bars a snuggly cover, I turned to my knitting needles. Using 100% wool yarn, I knit these little sweater covers. A washcloth and yummy holiday soap all in one! Be sure to use 100% wool fibers as the wool will shrink and felt around the soap much like it does in the wet-felting process. Also, wool is naturally anti-bacterial, so these soaps won’t get funky hanging out in your bathroom.

Pattern:
* Cast on as many stitches as needed to accommodate the width of your soap (even number of stitches). I used 20 stitches, using two strands of yarn and US 9 needles.

* Knit 1 row

* Knit the length of the soap as follows: Knit 1, *Yarn In Front, Slip 1, Yarn in Back, Knit 1,* repeat until last stitch, Knit 1 (that means there will be two knit stitches at the end of each row). Repeat row until the project is long enough for your soap.

* Once the yarn is long enough to accommodate the soap, use two other needles and transfer the stitches over onto the two needles – opening the hole that has been created in the middle of the pattern, like so:

* Slide the soap inside and transfer the stitches back to one needle. Cast off the final row.

Now get to gifting and scrubbing.

I couldn’t resist keeping a bar for our household, so Sunny enjoyed giving it a test-drive during last night’s bath time. She selected the Bay Rum & Lime scent. She must know how much Mommy and Daddy love a dash of Gosling’s Black Seal Rum in our egg nog (or cider or ginger beer).

Week 16

The toddler won’t stop moving. And the baby won’t sleep.

I’ll leave it at that, for fear that Sunny may dismantle the entire Christmas tree in the time it took me to write this post.

Courtland: 16 weeks
Addison: 30 months

Just like big sister.

Remember this?

Meeting the man in red.

Yesterday we drove an hour to the Yankee Candle Flagship store, i.e. compound, to meet The Man in Red. Sunny was super excited about the day’s adventure, until we arrived at the store and she began expressing reservations.

You see, she’s scared of Santa’s hat.

Also, ‘Rational’ is her middle name. Much like her Mama.

Fortunately, this Santa was sans chapeau! Crisis averted! Thank you, Yankee Candle, for predicting my toddler’s Santa Hat phobia and proactively avoiding a meltdown.

There were no tears, and Sunny very enthusiastically shared with Santa that she would like a grocery cart for Christmas, a thank you very much.

She takes her surname very seriously. And now James and I have our work cut out for us to make this dream come true. Chances that our Food Co-op will let us purchase one of their kid’s carts that inspired this gift request in the first place? We shall see. But I’m planning on making a midnight trip to our local golf course, because we totally need one of those “Park Your Carts Here” signs to compliment the gift slash be all sorts of predictably punny.

I jest. James wants to avoid his wife landing in jail mere days before return to work, so he’s already purchased this one.

Courtland, despite her unpredictable, explosion nature, was very intrigued my Santa’s bristly beard and refrained from causing a scene.

All in all, a successful visit!

You can see the 2010 Santa Experience and the 2009 Santa Experience.

Designer Duct Tape

Santa’s workshop is set up chez Cart, and now it’s time to dive in and get to wrapping. One of my favorite materials to use as wrapping paper is brown paper grocery bags. And this year, I have stacks of my daughter’s artwork from preschool that I can also repurpose as wrapping paper.

Now, in terms of trimmings for said wrappings, I usually opt for ribbon and twine, but this year I was sent a pack of Designer Duct Tape and I’ve become a junkie for the stuff. We all know duct tape is the standard fix-it-all. My husband swears by the stuff. The fact that I can now use it as decorative accents is just pure awesome.

Here’s how I adorned an array of gifts, including some shipping boxes, for this year’s holiday.

I even tackled an enormous box that arrived for me and James that we were instructed to not open until Xmas. Rather than stare at a brown box under the tree for the next two weeks, I decided to gussy it up with some duct tape.

You can nab the tape in 14 different patterns here.

I’m also scheming of ways to make ornaments, garlands, even duct-tape wrapped pencils for stocking stuffers with the leftover rolls. Here’s a video to really kick start your creations!

LINK: PLATYPUS DESIGNER DUCT TAPE