Baby Doll Sling

I've been thinking about making the little boy a sling of his own. Last week when he put his buddy in his shirt the whole way to the library and kept calling it his "shirt sack," I thought it was about time to follow through with my intentions. Here's a picture of the doll sling I made and the doll that will be a gift when the baby arrives. I used the pattern for a baby sling from Amanda Soule's Handmade Home, with the modified directions for making it kid sized. I didn't worry about reinforcing the seems the way the original directions stated since the doll's life won't be relying on them. With my serger, this came together in just about 30 minutes.

Sun Ray Toy

I celebrated a friend's soon-to-be daughter on Saturday and had been struggling on what to make her for her shower gift. I was looking for another fun item to add to what I already had, including some decorated burp clothes. I'm glad I kept waiting for inspiration, since on the Wednesday before, I saw a blog post on Made by Joel for a baby sun ray toy and was ready to dig through my fabric to make it. I couldn't help but make another for our next baby. Here's the silly little toy that I hope our babies will enjoy exploring and chewing on very soon.

In Flight Entertainment

In August our family took a flight to Florida. Since the little boy is on the go all the time, I knew I should plan ahead with some in flight entertainment, toddler style, for the multiple hour flight. I've had a couple friends ask me for tips on keeping little ones entertained, so here are my ideas, but I'm sure there are plenty more things I haven't thought of.

Before flying, I try to let him walk around the terminal as much as possible to get some energy out. Also, depending on how you feel, you could board later on in the process to minimize sitting time. There's plenty to look at with all the planes, people, and luggage carts outside the window, so in-airport entertainment is easy.

When you get on the plane, make sure everything you need is within arm's reach. Keep your entertainment, food, and diapers under the seat in front of you so you can grab them easily. (Of course, make sure diapers are clean and dry to help keep a happy kid.) First off, I try to find entertaining things around us before pulling from my bag of tricks. There's a lot to look at just watching passengers board the plane and flight attendants get ready for departure. I've also found that the magazines they leave in your seat have quite a few dogs, airplanes, and other interesting things to search for throughout their pages. But a lot of our early entertainment is just talking about what's happening around us or out the window and answering the many questions that the little boy has about the unfamiliar environment.

I try to take advantage of walking the aisle when given the chance, since you aren't able to do that all the time. Also, a good game of peek-a-boo with an extra jacket or the magazine from your seat is great for getting a happy kid and wasting some time. As for the things I pack, here are some of the things I took along this time around.

• I printed off some of these coloring pages from Made by Joel and some of these coloring pages from grandparents.com based on what I thought would be most entertaining. I stapled them together into a book and punched a hole in the upper left corner. Then I used yarn to tie on a red, a yellow, and a blue crayon to prevent little hands from tossing them all over the plane when he lost interest.
• Since balls are a favorite toy, I made a pair of these yo-yo balls since they'd be better for keeping under control. I kept building up this pile of scrap fabric when working on projects and finally found a use for it when I made the yo-yo balls. It was a great stuffing for filling them up.
  
• These fabric nesting dolls caught my attention as something that could be entertaining in flight. I made the largest one a rocket ship since that's been a recent interest. The little boy found additional uses for this toy such as placing the rocket ship on the arm rest of the seat and making it blast off with sound effects.
• I made several sewing cards. I quickly sketched out items of interest and then had the little boy color them so he could participate. There was a rocket, Curious George, and an apple tree. After he finished coloring, I glued the picture onto cardboard. I trimmed it and punched holes around the edges. Then I tied yarn to one hole (with the other end secured with tape so it wouldn't fray) so it would be ready for sewing around the card. You could also use an old shoelace.
• I made a little older version of these fleece play squares. I cut various shapes and sizes from different colored fleece and a larger white piece to be used as a canvas.
• Last but not least, there's the food entertainment. I try to have a variety of easy to eat snacks ready to go - raisins, other dried fruit, fruit chips, crackers, chopped veggies, a banana, cheese cubes. Sometimes I use juice as a treat since we don't drink it normally. You can also ask for a cup and straw on the plane if you didn't bring your own.

My goal was to keep everything small and light weight. Even though I had several toys to grab when needed, they all fit into a small bag or could have been stuffed into the diaper bag. These toys have also become ones that I grab as I'm running out the door for a car trip or weekend away when I want quick toys to take with me.

Cooking Fun

We have a new piece of furniture in our kitchen. Luckily there's enough room to move around it, but I was a little nervous at first to commit to adding such a big thing to an area of the house that gets a lot of use and traffic. The little boy received a Learning Tower for his birthday, and he was excited about it from the moment he laid his eyes on it. Now he likes to hang out in his tower as I cook, helping sometimes, or just snacking or hiding next to me. He can see so well, participate safely, and generally seems to love it so far. Even washing hands has become a lot easier! Here he is enjoying his new tower.

Train Bean Bag Toss

The little boy had a small birthday party last weekend, and it was a train theme since he either wants to play baseball or play trains nearly every waking moment. I've been meaning to make him a bean bag game for some time since he enjoyed it at a Halloween party last year. We had a rainy day the week before the party, so we set out to work. Here's the toddler friendly train game (no scoring involved!). We even saw the little guys working together, as one would stand in the back and hand the bean bags back through the holes as they were tossed in.

I sketched the train onto the back of an old car seat box using Crews' "Freight Train" as a reference. Then the little boy helped me fill it in with construction paper. After tracing the edges and cutting a couple holes, it was ready to go. To complete the fun, I made several bean bags (some scrap fabric and dried beans for the inside) with stripes like a train engineer's hat.

Another Baby, Another Bunny

My cousin's baby girl was born earlier this month which called for a new bunny. Here's take two of a project I posted about earlier in the summer. I'm happy that my supply of worn in jeans continues so that these friends are soft and ready for snuggling. Also, I had help from some little hands this time around which made it more special.

Children's Apron

My little boy turns two next week, which calls for a special gift. He's been a big help in the kitchen lately, so I know he'll get excited to have his own apron. Usually I wait until after giving a gift to post it, but since he's not yet reading blogs, I decided it would be safe to share pictures of the apron fresh from the sewing table. After searching the internet, I found a children's apron pattern at Sew Liberated that comes with high reviews. Hopefully everyone else's trial and error will result in a great apron the first time around.

This apron only took a little over an evening to complete. I was excited to pull out some fabric I bought years ago for...something...and now I have a something to use it for. I'm looking forward to watching the little boy throw the apron over his head and set out to work next week (maybe in time to help make the cake for his party), but for now it's still pretty cute hanging on its own.

Here's a picture of the little boy's current cooking attire. He's standing proudly by a tester cake we made to see if I knew how to use the train pan before the main event. The picture was snapped just before his little hands reached up and grabbed the smoke stack to see if it tasted any good. Luckily he approved and now likes to request "happy birthday cake" at various times throughout the day.

Homemade Popcorn

I've been meaning to try this for awhile. Tonight I was in the mood for a slightly salty snack, but I was trying to keep it on the healthy side. I grabbed a brown lunch bag, put 1/4 C of popcorn kernels in it, folded it up, and put it in the microwave. Less than 2 minutes later, I had a nice warm bag of fresh popcorn (listen for the pops to be a couple seconds apart just like with the commercial bags). The best part is, you can add whatever toppings you like - plain, salty, sweet, spicy. Spray the popcorn lightly with cooking spray or a mist of cooking oil, then sprinkle with your favorite herbs, salt, sugar, whatever you like. Tonight I had a little bit of salt and cinnamon. I look forward to sharing this trick with the little boy.

Play Ball!

Last weekend we picked up a couple items to make the little boy a new bat. He was given this great bat for his birthday, but he's still a bit too small to swing it well. We've been intending to find or make a lighter and smaller version for him for some time and finally did it.

We picked up a wooden dowel and some pipe insulation for a couple dollars. After tightly wrapping one layer of insulation around the dowel and securing it with duct tape, we put a second layer on the upper portion of the bat to leave a handle on the lower end and then wrapped the whole thing in duct tape. Even when we were just picking up the materials, the little boy was yelling, “Bat! Bat! Bat!” I'm not sure how he knew, but luckily our concerns that he wouldn't want to use the new, lighter bat were relieved. Now he's happily and comfortably playing ball...ALL DAY LONG!

Rainbow of Peppers

We've enjoyed all colors of peppers the last couple weeks, either eating them raw as a snack before meals, on our pizza, or in other dishes (delicious fajitas recipe coming up soon). The little boy also enjoys requesting the peppers by color, usually asking for the orange or yellow ones but eating all that are on his plate. If only there were blue and purple peppers available, too. Just after I took this picture, he said a very happy, "Yum."

He got so excited about decorating the pizza that he placed his final pepper strips on it after it came out of the oven. Peppers must be a good pizza topping both cooked or raw.

Operation Rainy Day Entertainment

In the middle of the winter when we kept getting snowstorms, I decided to brighten up the view in our kitchen with some kid crafts. We used some finger painted projects to make a mobile, and since the little boy likes to count, I used his paintings to make a counting wall with red and white circles. I had intended to add to the wall with more colors and shapes, but then things started to warm up, and we were outside most of the time. Last week we had a rainy day that required a full day of indoor entertainment. We started with some finger painting, then origami, before several long reads, and a long nap. Now the mobile has a mama made and a baby made butterfly joining the previously hanging ladybug and fish, and the counting wall has more colors and even a little frog hopping around. Looks like we'll need new windows to count beyond nine.