Avery's 1st Day of Beauty

Dearie's most treasured tradition, for forty-one consecutive years, I have set aside the last day of the year for primping and pampering self and have shared the spirit of the day with so many friends over the years. But this year was truly special, it was Avery Kathryn's first Day of Beauty!!

Daddy and Riggs had many errands to tend while Mommy recovered from some virus and Avery (who had been planning to attend Day of Beauty with Mommy) was delighted to share in the regimen once Daddy dropped her off!

She sat in her "own" chair and was thrilled to have the baby lotion smoothed on her face, hands and feet. Mommy had sent her nail clippers but Avery wasn't into to the mani / pedi element of the day.



I think she's really excited about sitting in her own chair while getting her foot rubbed!!



After smoothing the baby lotion on her face, Avery wanted to make sure I knew how pretty she was!! She loved the one-on-one attention!!!

It wouldn't be right to spend a day primping without constantly munching on goodies like the big girls were doing so, Dearie cut up a little cheese so that Avery could have her own plate of goodies!



Such a little lady, Avery let Dearie feed her one bite of cheese at a time (not necessarily her favorite way to consume little munchies!!).



Avery arrived just after we'd all finished watching "Gone With the Wind" and she was not going to be happy until Dearie put the DVD back in for her to watch the movie!



We'd moved from the living rooms where there were far too many things of interest for Avery to the bedroom where she could get comfortable (and hopefully nap) while we watched the movie. Alas, Avery was completely consumed by the film!! More so than I've witnessed with Baby Einstein, she kept her eyes on the movie, bobbing her head when there was music and the best? When Scarlet would get a little emotional, Avery joined right in though I have no idea was Avery was telling /agreeing /arguing with Scarlet, she definitely was into it all. I don't know that Avery has much to learn from Scarlet . . . perhaps she could have taught Scarlet a thing or two??

No nap. Cheese, juice bottle, water bottle, three pamper changes and half the movie later, Daddy came to fetch her. Clearly not happy to leave, Daddy had a bit of a struggle getting Avery into her bucket! Once situated in the car, I leaned into to give her one more kiss and she did it . . . arms outstretched for "hold you!"

Happy New Year everyone! Mine is going to be great!!

My 2009 in Review

January
Darlings Avery Kathryn and Riggs Trey are born on the Feast of the Epiphany
My dearest friend, Susie Daigle, joins me in helping unpack Anne and Tim in their new home while Anne recovers from the delivery of My Darlings

February
Begin the pattern making for the Darlings' nursery ensemble and help Anne and Tim get situated in their new home
Help my sister, Stephanie, successfully get out of a pretty troubling situation

March
Getting my Darlings' birth announcements delivered to Anne complete with envelopes
Cutting pattern pieces (while matching the giraffe print at seams) and stitching for the Darlings' nursery ensemble continues

April
Filling Easter baskets with non-edible goodies for My Darlings
Trying to figure out means for connecting stiffer fabric to supple fabric and stitching for the Darling's nursery ensemble continues

May
Nursery ensemble completed just days before the Baptism of My Darlings
Six rooms of my home destroyed by a raccoon resulting in no place to live for seven weeks

June
Going through tons of "stuff" trying to decide what should be kept and what should be pitched
Decisions, decisions, decisions

July
Going through the "stuff" continues
Puppy sitting for my first darling, Abigail Leigh

August
Spectacular early birthday dinner with every one at Clair and J's home
Fifty-seventh birthday spent down with the flu

September
Spending quality time with My Darlings after workday projects
Getting ready for the garage sale in November

October
Having the garage sale of the century and finally emptying the POD of all salvageable contents from the raccoon attack
Hospitalized with paralytic ileus -- not a fun experience but was well tended by Tim, Anne, Clair and Buddy

November
Helping Anne and Tim with My Darlings when the babies had tubes put in their ears
Thanksgiving at Buddy's and getting to meet Frankie Biggs for the first time

December
Fashioned Christmas stockings for My Darlings and watched them with pure delight on Christmas morning
Forty-first Day o' Beauty shared with Darling Avery as she experienced her first one

Messages from Santa Claus for my Darlings

Avery's message

Riggs' message

Ah, children and the holidays

Merry Christmas!

I know its been a while since I've published a post (though I have written many!) but this one had to happen today! A couple of weeks ago, Anne began pulling things together for her first Christmas party here in Lafayette. She'd just returned from Thanksgiving in Louisville where she must have had plenty of time to scour numerous catalogs because she had very definite ideas on how she wanted to decorate the house. Amidst all the collecting, gathering, ordering, and organizing, she found it necessary to have CUSTOM made stockings for their new mantle! This was after I'd strung lights on both my Christmas tree she's using AND lights on garlands around the front door. She managed to find all the various fabrics and notions . . . and what can I say, I'm a sucker for anything that has to do with My Darlings . . . nothing is too much!

By last Saturday, the parts and pieces were delivered to my home. Anne has this thing about piping and seems everything I make for her is piped (though I never enjoyed making piping, I've gotten pretty darned good at it in this past year!).



I thought about this stuff all night long. Anne's most specific requests were that the stockings be large enough to actually hold gifts AND that each of the stockings (oh wait, did I mention that the number of stockings had grown to include one for both Mommy and Daddy!) should contain one element of each of the five base fabrics and notions! Okay. No biggie, except I didn't sleep restfully because I was too busy trying to collect and arrange all of this in my head!

Alas, I woke on Sunday morning, drew the pattern pieces for the stockings,



cut them out: boys in the beige linen and girls in the sage suede cloth, and arranged stuff on each one (its really difficult to come up with four stocking designs that coordinate, range from frilly to non-frilly AND the ultimate . . . meet Anne's test!). I called Anne and she came over around noon thirty to pass her eye of inspection on what I'd laid out. Here's Avery's pinned up for her to view:



The stockings (at least My Darlings' stockings) had to be ready for the big z'affair! With her approval on the layout, I've spent a little time each evening of this week working on putting these things together. Well, Anne has this way of finding fabrics with totally different weights . . . she's a textures girl . . . and, that was the case with the sage suede cloth. Too flimsy to support the weight of the trims. I didn't have time to get out to the fabric store so I used some left over linen I had in the closet to (you got it!) cut out another pair of stockings to interface the sage ones! One more thing, both sides of the stockings are trimmed . . . double the fun!

Well, long about Tuesday, Anne told me she'd found someone who could embroider the names on the stocking cuffs! Yippee!! Anne said that I should go ahead and do cuffs for Abigail and me! All cuffs were already cut but before I'd trust anyone to do the embroidery on the cuffs I had to give 'em specific instructions! Boy, did I!!!!



The cuffs were returned to me on Wednesday, perfectly embroidered. But, I had to go to see My Darlings Wednesday and Thursday night so there was little time for stitching!

But oh my goodness, I woke this morning and with a vengence I got moving on the stockings for Avery and Riggs. Though not yet lined (I can't seem to locate any lining fabric in my house and clearly I don't have time to get out to the fabric store!) but more than usable for hanging on the mantle for tomorrow evening's z'affair . . . .





Wish I could be a bug on the wall to hear how Anne tells folks about the stockings!!