I'm still here!

The Easter Bunny got Luna a bubble machine!

Things have been quite busy lately. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes not. Here's a very abbreviated recap of what's been going on:

• I was sick for 3 weeks.
• Luna was sick for a week.
• Ryan was sick for a week.
• Engagement photo shoot (I'll have to post some of them!)
• We've taken care of photograpy, food, flowers, and cake/cupcakes for the wedding this past week.
• My work has been very stressful lately.
• Ryan's work is going wonderfully. I'm grateful he found one that makes him happy.
• My mother has injured her shoulder so Luna is now in daycare 3 days a week. I was upset at first, but she reeeeally likes it there. There's tons of new toys and other kids to play with that are around her age. (It's an in-home daycare so there's only 1-4 little ones there at any given time.)
• Gasp! I've done hardly crafting. I did manage to get a couple granny squares done on my afghan. At the rate I'm going, it'll be done sometime next year. I'm in a crochet mood so I'll be working on that a lot this week.
• Ryan's been enjoying his new "Monster Hunter 3" game on the WiiU. It makes him very happy. And that makes me happy (most of the time).
• I have a love/hate relationship with wedding planning. i just want all the vendors in place so I can concentrate on making pretty stuff! I had no idea how much stuff there was to plan. Let's hope I get it all done.

I'm going to try to post more often. Even if it's just a picture post every now and then. Thanks for stopping by!

-Ms. 246

Initiate Full-Time Wedding Planning

Hello strangers!

I'm sorry I've been so quiet lately. It's still a hard time adjusting to Mr. 246's new schedule. He's loving his new job and the child he's working with sounds like a really good kid. Lunabean is doing great. Her newest accomplishments: she waves! she says "dada"! she can almost pull herself up! I haven't been taking nearly as many pictures as I should and I definitely haven't been taking a picture a day like I'm supposed to. I've got a lot on my plate right now - wedding plans, new schedule, and I've been sick. :/

I've been in wedding planning mode to the extreme. It was really stressing me out at first, but now that we've picked a venue and a date I'm feeling much better and I'm starting to have a lot of fun with it all. The picture above is our venue...the Villa Privata. It's Italian/Tuscany style. We're getting married in the back, outside. The back has all sorts of awesomeness: canopy of trees, fountains, old stone and bricks, a wine cellar, arches, a fireplace. You just wait until you see it's awesomeness. Our date is 7.26.2013. :) I've started a wedding website if you'd like to check it out. It's definitely not finished yet so ignore some of the parts that aren't completed: http://wolfeanddunn.ourwedding.com/
Oh, and ignore the pictures as well. We're getting some engagement photos taken on St. Patrick's Day so I can make Save-The-Dates and all that good stuff. How fancy, right?

Anywhoo...just checking in. I'm on my middle-of-the-night pump (remember that whole exclusive pumping thing) and it's time to go back to bed. Hope you're all well!

-The Soon-To-Be Mrs. 246

Sensory Overload

There's a couple boards on Pinterest I'm subscribed too and on a particular one, these sensory, heuristic "Treasure Baskets" will pop up every once in a while. I've always said, "Yea..I should put one together for Luna!" Then I never do. Not anymore, though! I actually did today.

There is an awesome blog for this kind of thing: The Imagination Tree. I followed the guidelines in this post. Basically, you get a bunch of baby-friendly (and safe!) things from around the house and put them in a basket and let the baby guide the play. The only catch about what you put in the basket: no plastic. This can be harder than you think. I've come to realize how little natural objects I have just laying around the house. (Well, baby safe objects at least.)

Here's what I came up with...from left to right, top to bottom: a wooden pig (part of a little instrument), an old tin from some cookies, a crocheted alligator (made by Mr. 246!), a little drum, a glass jar with some keys in it (lid put on tight - she's not so advanced to take that off yet), a sewn pegasus I made last year, a maraca, empty toilet paper rolls, a coffee tin with some metal jar lids inside, a wooden train whistle, a small crocheted circle leftover.

 

 So, all I had to do is put it all in a container and let Luna Bean at it. Mostly a baby led activity and you let them discover what's inside for themselves. For reference, Luna is about a week away from being 8 months. (Disclaimer: if you make a sensory basket, please be sure supervise the fun. Babies have a knack for taking really simple objects and somehow turning them into dangerous, pro baby-injury objects. It's part of their creativity I suppose.) Here's some action shots:

 

 She of course had to take a break to pet the soft blankie: (Part of the fun!)

The winner of the sensory play items was the coffee tin with metal lids inside (like the kind of spaghetti jars and things like that). She loved the noise, and she loved taking the lids and just manipulating them in her hands.

And of course, she's into these toys all day, then when I decide to have a photoshoot, the camera is waaaaay more interesting, she kept coming over to try to get it from me. (Side note: she started crawling exactly a week ago!)

And of course, you can always put the baby in the basket. She loved that as well and it was so freaking cute.

But that's not all for today's sensory play extravaganza! We had made some sketti noodles and let her have a go at it. I over cooked them so if she put them in her mouth then it wouldn't be too much of an issue, but baby girl didn't really even realize it was food and never once tried to put them in her mouth. I was very surprised. I couldn't really tell if she liked this activity or if she was just really interesting/confused.

I've also seen online that you can put food coloring in the spaghetti for a whole different experience but I opted out of that today and I didn't really want to deal with colored baby fingers. And again, please supervise carefully (unless your kid is old enough to eat spaghetti I guess). There are a ton of ideas at The Imagination Tree for babies and toddlers for this kind of stuff. I've already pinned a bunch of activities for when she's older. I'm just so excited that she's at an age now where we can start doing neato stuff like this. I absolutely love watching how her mind works. You can practically see the little gears turning in their heads! I have to keep looking and figure out what we're going to do next!

- Ms. 246

P.S. Please forgive the spacing issues with the pictures/text in this post. Blogger seems to be giving me a chance to practice my patience today. Well Blogger, you win! Because I give up and don't understand you half the time! ;)

Finished my Mini Art Quilt!

I simply can't wait! I participated in a Mini Art Quilt Swap on Craftster and I finally sent off my quilt today. My partner was really specific about what she wanted and I think I did pretty alright! First let me show the awesome quilt she made me:

It's a Gryffindor Crest! She chose my Harry Potter theme and did an excellent job. Can you believe it's only her first time doing paper piecing? I chose her Christmas theme and although I messed up a lot of it, I think I'm in love. It's super cute. It's a table square (like a table runner). She wanted something that didn't have a "top" in the design, meaning from every seat it makes sense. She also wanted the design to work with her possibly putting flowers in the middle or a center piece. So, without further ado....

In that picture you can see the layout, but it's really the details that make me love this Mini Art Quilt. Take a look...

It was a lot of fun using all the new stitches on my new sewing machine. There was an issue, however, with the decorative stitch that I used on the binding. It's all over the place. I think I may have some practice to do for that one.

How I did it: I didn't use a pattern. I just kind of made it up. It's around 2 ft x 2 ft. I've never done machine applique but I had a general idea. There is a good tutorial here. I prefer to use Heat 'N Bond.  (That stuff is AMAZING. I've been using it forever and it never ceases to amaze me.) That's pretty much it. Then just used craft batting. The back is the same fabric as the sky and I used double fold bias tape for the binding. Easy peasy. (Hint: If you need help with binding/bias tape, there is a great tutorial here. They do a hand sewn hidden stitch on the back instead of a top stitch. It depends on the look you're going for. I like do top stitches with a machine because it's quicker and I like the way it looks. In the picture above I did a decorative top stitch -- see the green swirlies on the red border? In her tutorial it would just be plain red.)

I thought it turned out pretty good! I think I'm done with swaps for a while, however. I've got another full size quilt to finish and an afghan I'm crocheting that I'd like to get done this year. Haha. Thanks for looking!

- Ms. 246

Six Awesome Things

Six awesome things about this weekend:

1. We got a lovely flower pot and a very generous pre-wedding gift from my parents. Let the planning commence! I just love this bright azalea. I think it's probably supposed to go outside but I'm keeping it indoors for a couple more days.

2. I received my MiniArtQuilt from my Craftster swap! It's an awesome Gryffindor crest. It's beautiful and I already put it up in our hallway. (I finished mine last night, I'll have to take pictures soon!)

3. I decorated our little shelf for spring finally! It's raining and cold today (and snowing in the foothills) but last week and this past weekend it's gotten up to 70 degrees!

4. We went to Sonora on Sunday to check out some places for weddings. We didn't prepare so we didn't get much done, but we did find out that there is a wedding fair there next weekend so we're going to go next weekend. But, when we were there we checked out the shops and just had a lovely day out of town, the three of us. Look really close at the shelf above and you'll spy my newest purchase...a vintage teacup, and it's GORGEOUS! I'm in love with it. I made myself some tea in it yesterday afternoon and felt quite fancy.

There were tons of really awesome antique stores. Mr. 246 found a store that was quite eclectic. It was a cafe/old school soda fountain shop/antique store/vintage book store/museum. Whew. That's alot. The books were in the basement and it was pretty neat down there. There were a couple areas off to the sides that were blocked off, but you could see into them and it was parts of the old mines, right there under the building. Pretty neat.

We're going back next weekend for the wedding fair. There's also a yarn shop that I'm super excited about. I didn't make it back in time to check it out before it's closed but I'm excited to check it out next weekend. I peeked my head in and it looks awesome! (And they're crochet friendly, haha. Some yarn stores are uppity against crocheters. Hahaha.)

5. I actually worked on our garden some! We had beautiful weather this past weekend. Hello little daffodil! Only 84 cents. :) That's a tulip next to it. I wonder what color we'll get.

6. We broke down and got Luna a play pen since she was getting so good at army crawling. (She can move quick!) We got the play pen just in time too because....she started crawling on Sunday!! And no big surprise, she had her first bump-on-the-head yesterday. Haha. I hated the idea of the play pen at first (I called it a cage, lol.) But I really love it now. She can play and do her own thing for a while and I know everything in there is safe for her to play with. She's really good at independent play (if she's not teething), which makes it easy for us to get some chores done here and there.

I'll have to take pictures of my Mini Art Quilt tonight so I can show you tomorrow. I hope everyone else had a good President's Day weekend!

-Ms. 246

Happy Happy Love Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We don't make a big deal out of Valentine's Day, but we do take part. Here's some of our Valentine celebrations today:

Luna and I went on a mommy/baby walk while Mr. 246 had a nap. (He did ALOT around the house today and Luna has a way of wearing you out if you're with her all day, but in a good way.) We saw some kitties, and some of the first flowers of spring. :)

Mr. 246 got me some BEAUTIFUL bright happy flowers. They promptly went by the tulips (which are starting to open up). So bright and sunshiney. I love fresh flowers! He didn't really have to get me anything. He's off the hook for a while because he got me a pretty engagement ring. He still spoiled me and got me some new teas and a box of chocolates as well. (Not a fancy box, a box of KitKats. Mmmmm...) I got Mr. 246 a card and a couple IOU's wrapped up in Altoid tins. (I ordered him some things off of Amazon but they haven't gotten here yet.) The card was heartfelt though, I think he liked it.

Luna also got a card! And she got a whole set of "Fancy Nancy" books. I think those books are so cute. She seemed to like them. Her new thing, as of this evening, is picking things up and putting her hands in the air. She was fussy this evening. She's still teething and I accidentally pinched her poor belly in the buckle of the high chair. Bad mommy award. Sigh. I'm sure there's many more of those moments to come...

Anyways, hope everyone had a delightful Valentine's Day. I feel slightly obligated to write a post talking about how much I love Mr. 246 and what he means to me and on and on. I'm not going to though, because I don't currently have the patience to try to put into words everything he is to me. Plus, I don't need to tell the online world. The only person who really needs to know how I feel already knows. :) So, goodnight everyone! Hope you had a love-filled happy day!

 -Ms. 246

We got a new tax accountant...

She's so helpful. :)