Hannah Grace, 13 months

LOOK at her.

Huge, blue eyes. Six teeth. Strawberry blonde (with the strawberry becoming more prominent here lately) hair. Walking everywhere. Climbing everything.

She doesn’t really say anything other than ‘mama’ and ‘dada’, but she jabbers all. the. time. Do you remember Animal, from The Muppets? She reminds me of him.

Small fits are getting thrown if she isn’t allowed to do what she wants, but they don’t last long. Most of the time she is a very laid back, happy, and energetic baby (toddler?).

She has finally started sleeping all night long.

And she eats almost anything you put in front of her. Her favorite foods are any fruit, green beans, cheese puffs, yogurt, pasta, tomatoes, and chocolate.

(she only gets chocolate every once in awhile in very small amounts)

Hannah Grace, 12 months

She expresses joy like no other.

We’ve been home two full weeks today, and it has been marvelous. Not that we’ve really done anything over the top, it’s just nice to live life in our own home.

Last week John and I went to Essex to see what deals they have going on. I’m keeping my eye on a serger that is slowly, but surely, lowering in price week by week. I’m hoping no one buys it for about three more weeks; by then it’ll be about 70% off the original price.

Anyway, while we were at Essex, John noticed they had some Samsonite luggage, so I looked through it all and found a nice looking (not to mention great quality) suitcase with swivel wheels that was price at half of the retail price. I really liked it (and have been needing a new suitcase anyway– the luggage set I got when first married was a $40 deal for a three piece set from Macy’s, and while it would probably have held up nicely for normal people who travel once or twice a year, it was starting to fall a part after our five moves and 87 trips made hither and yon). Moving on– I really liked the suitcase, but at $100 I wasn’t sure if was worth it. Then I remembered the broken zipper on the large pocket that normally holds my undergarments. Noticing that Samsonite offered a ten year warranty (and thinking about two or three trips we still plan to take this year), we decided it was worth the money and could just be my birthday present!

I’m sure that tidbit was thrilling for all of you, but new luggage is a big deal to me!

I’ve been sewing. A LOT. I mentioned a few days ago that the quilt top is complete for the small quilt I’m making for myself. I also finally got around to preparing a bunch of fabric I got several months ago to make pencil rolls. AND I’m making my friend Cherie a diaper stacker (and one other thing with some leftover fabric!) using some super cute Winnie the Pooh fabric. All of this sewing is taking place during Hannah Grace’s nap times, and I’m really enjoying it. There is something so incredibly satisfying about having pretty, practical (and not so practical) things in your house (and other people’s houses) and knowing you made it.

I’ve also been vacuuming, sweeping, laundering, cooking, feeding, and errand running all week long, but I figure you guys don’t want to hear about all that, am I right?

I’m excited (and quite honestly shocked) to say that the quilt top is has been sewn together! If you’ve been following my Tweets on the side, you’ve seen some of my progress. I’ve spent the last two days (during Hannah Grace’s monster nap sessions– I don’t know WHAT is up, but she’s been sleeping like a champ this week) sewing strips together to make 18 ‘patchwork’ squares, and then cutting those 18 squares plus 18 solid squares into 9×9 inch squares.

I just used the word ‘squares’ four times in a sentence. Wow.

I have a pretty coordinating fabric I plan to use as the backing, so all I need to do now is buy some soft batting!

In the last 110-ish days, we have been away from our home 50-ish of them.

That’s too much. Too much. Especially in such a short amount of time.

Other than a possible weekend trip to North Carolina in six weeks or so, we are staying put for awhile. We always welcome family and friends; just let us know when you’d like to visit!

Hannah Grace is at a point where a stable environment is necessary, especially if I want to maintain a schedule. Not only that, we are just drained. We love visiting with family and friends, but it comes with a cost, and at this point, it feels like we’re putting all of our energy on a credit card.

I’m looking forward to being home. To sewing, cooking, and even cleaning. We finally found a church with a great group of people, and both John and I are looking forward to getting to know them better.

I’ve spent the last day copying the last year of pictures onto Shutterfly, and from there I will transfer those photos onto a ‘share site’. This is something new Shutterfly is doing, and it will allow anyone to view my photos through this site. It also allows free unlimited photo storage, and I think it will allow others to order prints. Thanks to the unlimited storage, this also ensures that my photos will be double backed up just in case something happens to both my computer’s hard drive and the external hard drive where the photos are currently saved.

I’m also determined to complete a patchwork lap quilt by my 25th birthday at the end of the month. I cut the squares out some time ago, but the whole being gone literally half the time we’ve lived in Jackson sort of got in the way and I haven’t been able to work on it any further. Soon, though!

John in Atlanta, me hanging out with family. This is his last (praise the LORD) week of training, and I am beyond looking forward to spending more than 13 days at a time in my own house. I realize I don’t have to visit family every time he goes to Atlanta, but really, what else am I going to do? Once we’re back, we’ll stay put for awhile. Then everyone can come visit us!

Hannah Grace’s birthday party on Saturday was fun. My parents and our friends Andy, Cherie, baby Zachary, and Amber made the drive over, arriving early afternoon just in time for Hannah Grace to wake up from her morning nap and take a quick bath. I had lasagna, green beans, buffalo chicken dip and peanut butter dip waiting, and after everyone had visited a little bit (and Andy and Cherie cleaned up Zach’s massive diaper explosion), we devoured the food! I think everyone agreed that the buffalo chicken dip was the best, and if you’ve never tried it before, you’re seriously missing out! I used this recipe, and it was SO good! I had gone by a different recipe the previous times I’ve made the dip, using frozen chicken and cooking it, but canned chunk chicken (I used Tyson), is definitely the way to go, especially since it’s so much quicker! I also increased the amount of buffalo sauce and ranch, and I only used 12oz cream cheese. This recipe is REALLY hard to mess up, so you can use whatever measurements you like without having to worry about it coming out wrong.

Anyway, back to the party. After eating we let Hannah Grace open her presents. . . rather, I opened them for her. John and I gave her the Fisher Price Little People Animal Farm, the Leap Frog Fridge Farm, animal/alphabet flash cards by Eric Carle, and two Eric Carle books: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See and a book on colors that lets you match the color to a coordinating picture. From everyone else she received a couple of books, toys, and clothes. She loved it all, especially the wrapping paper, ha!

After presents I stripped Hannah Grace down to her diaper to get ready for the super messy smash cake experience. Only I had forgotten to make the smash cake, so it was more like a smash slice since I just cut a piece of cake from the one I made (which was yummy, semi-homemade strawberry cake). And Hannah Grace didn’t make a mess. At all. She took two little fingers and picked a few pieces of cake up and ate them, and that was it. No major icing-all-over-the-face-hair-body-floor-mommy-experience. She was a little sticky afterward, so I went ahead and gave her a sink bath.

Andy, Cherie, and Amber hung out a couple of more hours before heading back to Nashville. My parents were able to stay the night, which was handy  because I still hadn’t packed and had a house that needed to be cleaned so my mom helped me out. Sunday morning we left by 10 and were at their house by 2:30 (thanks to awful traffic in Nashville and stopping for a late lunch).

And here I am. Yesterday I cashed in on some photo deals from Pampers, York Photo, and Shutterfly. By last night I had ordered one 7×9 photo book, one 5×7 photo book, 45 4×6 prints, three 5×7 prints, and one 8×10 print and paid less than $15 after shipping! Pretty awesome. Now I can get caught up through February on my photo album!

Since this

Yesterday was Hannah Grace’s 1st birthday! Since her party is on Saturday, our day was pretty normal. I took her to the park where I had intended on letting her play after we walked on the trail, but there was a field trip with about 60 third graders running around, so I nixed that plan. We did have lunch at Chick Fil A, where Hannah Grace got to eat real chicken noodle soup (as opposed to the Gerber Graduates version). Now that I think about it, I could have let her play on the little playground they have. Oh well. . . at that point she was falling asleep. We stopped by a cupcakery and got her a strawberry shortcake cupcake so John and I stick a candle in it and sing Happy Birthday after dinner. Ha, that went over well. That evening, after lighting the candle in the cupcake and setting it on Hannah Grace’s tray, the cupcake toppled over, ‘blowing’ the candle out on its on. Apparently that freaked Hannah Grace out, because she started crying and would not eat the cupcake on her own! John and I were able to feed her a few bites, but for the most part, she didn’t want any part of it, ha! Oh well, maybe we’ll have better luck Saturday!

This is one of the few pictures I got when she wasn’t crying, ha.

Look what I made while we were in Florida!

Pillowcase dresses are so pretty, and I’ve wanted to make a few for Hannah Grace for awhile, but I never could find a tutorial that explained them in plain English! While we were in Florida, my friend April (who had made one for her baby girl) showed me how easy they were to make, and I was able to sew these pretties up in just a couple of days! They only take an hour to do if you sew the dress in one sitting, but I was sewing these between playing with Hannah Grace and our vacation excursions.

Once these crazy temperatures warm up, Hannah Grace will get to wear these out!