Hazel Checks in with No Bags

We are leaving for Texas tomorrow for a week-long visit with Mr. and Mrs. Spupspe and all the siblings, nieces, and nephews, and we will be able to see a couple of Houston friends while we're there. I should be packing right now but I wanted to check in with you all since it's been a while. I'm very excited about the trip, and being able to introduce Blueberry to more people I care about. When we first planned it, I was quite nervous about traveling with Blueberry, but time has passed, things have gotten easier, I've eased up a little, I feel more prepared, and now Blueberry and I can't wait for that plane to take off.

Blueberry is doing well, thanks for asking. She's a little over 5 months old and getting stronger and stronger as babies do. When placed on her belly, she'll stay there for a while and likes to hold her head up for longer periods and play and look around, allowing me to take photos from this angle, as I've been dreaming of doing since the Blueb was conceived. I think it's the quintessential baby pose.

It's fun to take care of her now that I've sort of gotten the hang of it. She goes through regular, predictable patterns of hunger, playfulness, and sleepiness. She doesn't sleep through the night anymore but she only wakes up once for a quick feed, which is fine with me. When she wakes up from a nap or in the morning she makes cute yawning wake-up noises interspersed with pppbbbttthh sounds. She is easy going and when she fusses, it's not annoying, but pretty cute, because she seems like she's trying to communicate rather than just whining. If something scares her she gets the cutest look on her face and I hope to get that on video before she stops doing it. Just in the past couple of weeks, she has started to reach for me when someone else is holding her and that feels pretty good.

Today my friend Lucille* came by for a visit and brought her sweet baby Almond* so that the babies could play and get re-acquainted.

I took about 30 pictures and picked the one above because it does not involve Blueberry yanking Almond's ear, picking Almond's nose, putting her hand over Almond's eyes, or moving around and making her head, arms or legs blurry.

In sewing news, I still love sewing. It was really gratifying to give our friend Rosa* a dress for her 2-year-old daughter today that I had made using these instructions. Here it is:

I really want to see what it looks like on her daughter, partly so I can make changes to future dresses in this pattern if necessary. I consider all my projects thus far just prototypes. She said she is going to take pictures and post them on Facebook, so I immediately sent her a friend request.

I also made two sun dresses for Blueberry using these instructions. One is light blue (not shown), and here's one I made in the same pattern using fabric from an extremely frilly girl's dress that I bought at a yard sale. The original dress had long sleeves, tons of ruffles, and was quite atrocious, but I liked the strawberry print, and I think on a simpler dress it looks less Strawberry-Shortcake-Goes-to-Church.

Do you know how badly I wish I had taken a "before" shot of the dress? Pretty badly.

If you want to know how the garden is doing, you should check out the Minnesota Mitchell's Garden Update, which I started so that Stanley's mom could get info on the progress of the garden she helped us plant this spring. If you comment, do not mention Hazel's House Blog, as Stanley's folks do not know about Hazel's House Blog and I would like to keep it that way.

Okay now I really must get packing.

*Names changed.