I know that I say...

the bigger the bows, the better....
But, Brig from Sheer Genius totally proved me wrong!

All about our BIG weekend!

Chloe Jo and I had a big weekend! We didn't go out of town, but I did a lot and Chloe Jo decided to do some exciting stuff, too!

First, my Mom and I made this easter basket!
I bought the basket at our local craft store for $2.50 and asked Mom to make a lining for it. After she finished that (in about 5 seconds!) I embroidered Chloe Jo's name on it. I think it turned out great and am excited to fill it up and give it to Chloe Jo! Also, we made it so we can just reuse it year after year and I won't have to buy new baskets each year. That does mean we will be putting it up to where Chloe Jo can't get to it!
Chloe Jo has become more interested in dolls over the last month. This makes me soooo happy! I loved my Cabbage Patch Dolls while I was growing up and I am going to pass them down to her. I really hope she loves them as much as I did. They may have to take the place of a real sibling!

This is a picture from Friday. Chloe Jo started standing more and more and then on Sunday....

All of a sudden, she just started walking. She is so extreme. When she decides to do something, she just does it! She had taken a step here and there, but not more than one and then she took 8 all together! I got a little teary eyed over it.

I hope all of you had as great a weekend as I did! Thanks, as always, for reading Blogger Buddies!

Peek-A-Boo

This is Chloe Jo's new favorite game to play!



P.S. My Dad's nickname for Chloe Jo is Alina.

Infertility Song

While I was uploading a video on Youtube I came across this. Some of you may need to have tissues ready.

What?!?!?

There's no ice cream????

Oh the joy!

My sis and I are finding out just how difficult it is to take a picture of a little baby and a littler baby.
We're doing pretty good here. Now let's take away the hands....

Brianna: "Wait a second. This is not what I want!"
Chloe Jo: "Aunt Chelle, what is wrong with her??? She's crying! Do something!"

Chloe Jo: "Forget this! I'm bailing!"

Milestone

On Saturday Chloe Jo took her first steps. This is such a big milestone for her. She doesn't want to walk if she is just on her own, but Aunt Chelle and I sat across from each other and she would take a step toward me...and then faceplant!

Another big thing that happened on Saturday is that this picture was selected to be in a book! It is going to be in the 2010 edition of The Most Beautiful Babies in America. I'm so excited that she was one of the 1,500 chosen and that there were hundreds of thousands of pictures submitted! I also was able to write a paragraph about her bit personality to be published beside her picture. This is what I wrote:

"We prayed for a baby for three years and Chloe Jo is the answer to all of those prayers. She is a high spirited little girl who is not afraid to make her wishes known. She loves to give kisses, hugs and high fives. She demands attention and loves to play games like peek-a-boo and Ring Around the Rosie. She will wear headbands and bows for hours and loves to look and laugh at herself in the mirror or in pictures. She likes to wear dresses and will run her hands over them as if to say "look at how pretty my dress is." She always wants to play with Momma's jewelry and will get really excited snd bounce up and down if Momma will put a necklace or bracelet on her. Chloe Jo is always on the move and doesn't like to hold still. She doesn't like to be messy and will not touch many foods. She will try anything, though, if you feed it to her. She loves to go to the park to swing and watch the other children play. She is a blessing in our lives and brings joy to us every single day.

"Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward." Psalm 127:3"

Are you wearing green?

Surprisingly, this bow is the only thing that I found for Chloe Jo to wear today. At least she won't get pinched!

I did have this necklace on her, but she thought is was better as a chew toy than an accessory.
It was mine when I was a baby and she is going to wear it for her 1 year pictures. Hopefully she'll be more interested in the photographer than the necklace!

Lisa's Little Lovelies

Lisa's Little Lovelies is now open!



If you have a little girl that you need presents for or are simply curious, please stop by my brand new Etsy shop!

11 Months!?!?!?

With Chloe Jo's first birthday just looming on the horizon, I look back over the last 11 months and think "where has the time gone?" I can't believe she is going to turn 1 in less than a month and that I have her birthday party planned.

So what is little Chloe Jo doing these day?
She is getting faster and faster at crawling and she also stands without assistance. I've been saying this for weeks, but she is days away from walking.

She says a few words, including "ball" which she said for the first time last night.

Kisses and hugs are especially sweet from this little girl. She also waves "hi" and "bye" and gives fives.

She is now basically on table food completely. I have a few containers of baby food left just in case we go somewhere where there isn't anything on the menu that I'm comfortable giving her. Once those are gone, though, they are gone. I'm not buying anymore. I can take yogurt or something like that. I really thought she was going to gain some weight once I put her on table food, but she is just as skinny as she's always been. She's so busy that it isn't really that much of a surprise and I should have known. She still takes two naps a day, but I'm going to have to put her on just one soon. Her morning nap is getting into her afternoon nap time and then she wakes up way too early for my taste. She woke up at 6:30 this morning and I just can't deal with that! I'm hoping the time change will help her with sleeping a little later.

The best thing is that she is super fun to play with and giggles and laughs all the time now. Chloe Jo is the joy of my life. I don't know how I could love her any more than I do! She is a blessing.

We went down the road

Chloe Jo and I took a day trip three hours down the road to see my sister and her new baby, Brianna yesterday.
Brianna is pure preciousness! She is three weeks old and I haven't been able to see her since the day she was born. We were so excited to go!
Aunt Chelle even let Chloe Jo hold Brianna...that is, until she started poking her ear and smacking her in the tummy. I must work on being gentle with her before we see them again. Brianna is the only one that seems to make Chloe Jo look small.

Brianna was quite annoyed that I wanted to take pictures of her, though. I didn't get a really good picture of her. Sadness.
Chloe Jo seemed pretty proud of herself when Aunt Chelle let her hold Brianna a second time. She was so funny with her throughout the day. When we first walked into their house, Chloe Jo just stared at her for a while. Everytime Brianna would cry Chloe Jo would look at her and then look at Aunt Chelle and then she would whine if Aunt Chelle didn't fix the problem right away. It was almost as if she was saying, "Brianna is crying. Go help her." It was super cute and sweet. She'll make a good big sister some day.
We had a great time with Aunt Chelle and Brianna (and Uncle Chris at the end of our trip). We can't wait to see you again!

American Baby Cover Contest

I have entered Chloe Jo into the 2010 American Baby Cover Contest. I was able to upload 6 pictures of good quality from the last 30 days. Please go here to rate, recommend and comment on her photos!

Chloe Jo has...

5 teeth now! The fifth just popped through this week.

Also she has expanded her vocabulary by one word today: Yum!

Other words that she says are:
Momma (for the record, this was her first word!)
Dadda
Book (more like boo, but she always has a book in her hand when she says it)

She also waves "bye bye" and gives kisses and hugs.

We are blessed!

Round-Up

While I'm waiting for pictures to upload to my blog, I play Spider Solitaire. I am totally addicted to it.

I have been doing pretty good at working on projects. I went through the pictures on my jump drive and deleted bad ones or ones I didn't want and that was a few years worth! I also finished one big project and started on another. Hopefully I will get another one done this week...or next week...or the week after that.
We didn't have Tuesday Ladies today. Sadness. I always enjoy going and having a good time.

I've been starting to work out again. I really like my WiiFit because I can start my step arobics program and then change the TV setting so I can watch HGTV while I work out. I have been doing that for thirty minutes since Sunday. I'm going to keep that up!
Chloe Jo and I have also been going to the park. We've gone every day since Friday.

There is a paved walking track that is a 1/2 mile. I was able to go 1 mile on Friday, 1 mile on Saturday, 1 1/2 miles on Sunday and 1 mile yesterday. The distance I get to go is dependant on how happy Chloe Jo is.

The WiiFit recommends I lose enough weight so that my BMI is 22. I set my goal so that I would be, but last summer when I was working out so much after Chloe Jo was born, I wasn't able to lose that much. I wonder if my body doesn't want me to be that weight. I wasn't ever able to get under 152.

Since Sunday was such a gorgeous day, I let Chloe Jo swing for a while after we took our walk. She had such a great time. She just bounced up and down and was super excited!

She was even happy when we left and got in the car to go home.

The bow holder I made a while back doesn't have enough room now for all of the bows and flowers that Chloe Jo has. I wasn't very happy with the way it had turned out anyway so I went ahead and made a new one yesterday. It took a while, but it is so much cuter than the last one!

I'm really excited with the way it came out. I am in the process of opening a shop on Etsy and I am going to sell the old one. If it sells well, then I might make a few more to list. We'll see. I have some bows that I am going to list soon.

The name of my shop is Lisa's Little Lovelies if you want to check it out in a few weeks. I don't have anything listed right now, but I'll be sure to post when I do! If you are interested in making your own bow holder, the instructions are in the post below.

Princess Dress Bow Holder Instructions

Supplies:
1/2 yard of fabric for the bodice
10 yards of tulle for the dress
Quilt batting
Foam core board
Spray glue
Pencil
Hot glue gun
Ribbon in three different sizes (3/8 in, 1 in, 1 1/2 in)
Exacto knife
Lighter
Needle and thread
The first thing you need to do is make a pattern for the bodice of the dress. Fold a piece of paper in half (I taped four pieces together to make it the size I wanted) and draw half of the bodice with the fold in the middle.
Cut the pattern out while paper is still folded.
Open the pattern and it will be a symetrical pattern.

Lay the pattern on top of the foam core board.

Trace around the pattern with the pencil.

Cut the bodice out of the foam core board with an exacto knife. If you need to protect the work surface, you can cut on top of old magazines.

Your foam core board should now be cut out in the shape you want your bodice to be.

Take your spray glue and spray one side of the foam core board. I took mine outside to spray so it wouldn't get everywhere. If you do spray inside, make sure there is adequate ventilation.

Lay the quilt batting on top of the side of the bodice with the spray glue.

Cut the batting out around the bodice leaving at least an inch of excess batting around.

Lay the fabric for the bodice over the top of the batting.

Cut the fabric around the batting leaving an inch of excess.

Make cuts around the neck hole so you can fold the batting and fabric over.

Using the hot glue, put a bead of the glue on the edge of the back of the foam core board and glue the batting down.

Do the same with the fabric pulling it tight across the front of the bodice.

Set the bodice aside. Cut your tulle so that you have two pieces that are 5 yards each. Baste stitch (simple in and out) the top edge of each piece of tulle (where it is folded in half).

Pull the tulle tight on the thread gathering it at the top and tie it off.

Hot glue the gathered edge to the bottom of the bodice, one above the other. Cut the bottom so that both pieces are even.

Cut 5 lengths of the 1 inch ribbon to match the length of the tulle skirt. Heat seal the ends by running the lighter across the edge. This will seal the ribbon so it won't fray.Glue just the top of the ribbon above the tulle skirt on the bodice.

Cut two lengths of the 1 1/2 inch ribbon to go around the bodice and top of the skirt.

Hot glue each of the 1 1/2 inch ribbons on the bodice, covering up the gathered edge of the skirt and the glued tops of the 1 inch ribbon.

Finish your bodice by embellishing it with bows, ribbons, flowers or whatever you want. Glue a length of ribbon to the top of the bodice to hang it with.

Clip your little girls bows to the skirt ribbons and enjoy!