I imagine there comes a point in the life of every mother of a girl when she feels the urge to sew a dress for her daughter. And I suppose that every mother of more than one daughter wishes to put them in matching dresses at some point. While mine are still too young to balk at the idea of matching or at my sense of style (or lack thereof), I decided I’d better get on it.

Due to my self-imposed limitation of sewing only straight lines and right angles, I bought 2 matching t-shirts and made gathered skirts to attach to them, naturally turning what should have been a 2-hour project into an all-day affair. That is what I do best, after all.

They came out looking like dresses, so we’ll call this a success. Anna loves hers, and even though Sarah is in an “I’m going to freak out about trying on new clothes” phase, she got used to it, so I’ll take that as a compliment. :)

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I sew sometimes. Not very well, and not very often, and definitely not very efficiently. But I had this idea to try to make a swimsuit cover-up for Anna out of a towel, and I thought certainly I wasn’t the first one to have this brilliant idea, so I went Googling… and I found a great tutorial! It’s even cuter than what I had envisioned, and the pieces are all rectangles and the seams are all straight lines, so that’s my kind of sewing!

Next I’m going to make one for Sarah from the other end of the towel. Maybe I’ll even start making them to sell! At the rate I sew, I’d have to charge about $100 each to make a decent hourly wage… you think I’d have any takers? Nah, neither do I. :)

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In an effort to post something on my blog between weekly menu plans, here are some things that have been going around in my head and our home.

I’ve been feeling musical lately. I’ve started trying to practice piano again—not just sit down and play, but really practice and work on something difficult and get better at it. I manage to do this for about 20-30 minutes after Anna’s nap while she’s sitting in her high chair eating raisins and graham crackers. It takes about 10 minutes to warm up, so I only get a few minutes to actually work on something, but it adds up, and I’m making slow progress. I’m working on Felix Mendelssohn’s Praeludium in E minor. It’s a rich, fluid piece, fairly short, a little challenging without being insanely hard. I’m done trying to learn stuff that’s so incredibly difficult that only professional musicians play it, and stick with pieces I actually have a shot at playing well. Maybe I’ll play it for you someday. But probably not. I’m just doing this for me, to remind myself that there’s still some talent buried in there somewhere.

David’s parents visited us this past weekend. Anna doesn’t see them very often, but whenever they come, she warms up to them in just a few minutes and is all over them. How many adults does it take to accompany a toddler to the park? Four. To storytime at the library? Four. None of us wanted to miss out on anything! They enjoyed getting to see Anna do the fun things she likes to do, and Anna loved the captive audience and undivided attention all weekend!

I’ve been trying to get back into the exercise habit. A few weeks ago I heard about the “Miles for Milestones” 5K on October 31 and thought it would be a good goal to work towards. I’ll be satisfied if I finish in 31 minutes; happy if I finish in 30. Now if the weather will just cooperate that day. It’s at 8 A.M. (Why do they have these things at 8 A.M. in the cold-weather months?!? Wouldn’t 10 A.M. or noon be much nicer?) It will be chilly, which is fine if it’s dry, but I’m not running in 40-degree rain. I don’t have the right kind of clothes for that anyway.

I think I want to paint the kitchen and living room. I haven’t told David this yet. Hey, honey, I think I want to paint the kitchen and living room.

Is there any way I can tell you just how enamored I am with Anna? She is one amazing kid. She’s been especially sweet lately. She is such a blessing! She is so funny sometimes. The other day in Wal-Mart we were stopped next to the milk, and she smiled, stuck out her tongue, and went “AAAAAAAEEEEEEEHHH.” I looked up to where she was looking, and there was a picture of a cat on a big sign hanging over the pet stuff. Yep, that’s how she makes her cat noise. I hope I can get her animal sounds on video sometime! They’re too cute.

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“You have a baby! In a bar!”

Indeed we did. Well, officially it’s an Irish pub, but basically, yeah, a bar. We took Anna to her first Irish pub session tonight at Cregeen’s in North Little Rock. For the first part of it, she slept as soundly as she’s ever slept. Maybe I need to record a noisy pub session and play it in her room at night.

At one point while she was taking her bottle, she was sucking to the beat of the music. That’s my girl!

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Today we went down to North Little Rock for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, sponsored by the Irish Cultural Society of Arkansas. Here are a few highlights:

Some of our Arkansas Celtic Music Society friends:
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So the point of this post is to show off; I guess there’s really no other reason for it! :-)

I finished piecing Anna’s quilt. This isn’t part of her bedding; it’s more of a playing-on-the-floor quilt. The lighter fabric that it’s lying on is the back, and it will also be the binding. It’s a very simple design, but it’s only my second quilt, so I didn’t want to get in over my head. I probably won’t quilt it until several weeks after she’s born; I do it on the big machine at the quilt shop, and that requires standing up the whole time.

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I had a pretty big weekend—an Irish house session on Friday night and Anna’s baby shower on Saturday.

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On Friday night, some gracious friends of one of our ACMS musicians hosted a party. They invited musicians to play, dancers to dance, and many of their friends and neighbors to listen and watch. They have a great old house with plenty of room for everyone. It was a wonderful evening.

These photos were taken by Mark Wagner. You can see all 151 of them, if you choose to, here.

Judi and Cory on fiddle:

Joe and Peggy on bodhran:

Dancers from the O’Donovan School of Irish Dance:

Me, to prove I was there:

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Anna’s baby shower was held at my church on Saturday. Thanks to all our friends and family who came to help celebrate, and thank you Emily, Kim, Bonny, Rae Lyn, and Tanya for putting this together!

The cake was made by a sweet lady named Susan, who generously donates her time and talent to make the baby shower cakes for our moms-to-be at church:

Me and the moms—mine on the left and David’s on the right:

Me and my little helper, who always made sure I had just the right present to open next:

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Even so, I managed to make my own crib bedding—a dust ruffle and bumper pad! And it even looks like… well, a dust ruffle and bumper pad! I wasn’t really expecting anything different, yet somehow I surprised myself when it came out looking like actual crib bedding you’d buy in a store. Here’s a pic (no sheets yet though, and the pad isn’t tied on everywhere):

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