Every girl needs a sun dress

I love my daughter. She is 12 now, I can’t believe it! I have so many good memories from the last 12 years. I was thinking the other day how cute Sara was when she was a baby. I loved fixing her hair just right, dressing her up in pretty clothes, stuff like that.

When Richard and I were young parents I learned how to sew. My Mom taught me a few things when I was a teenager, but I didn’t really take an interest until I had a baby. I sewed baby blankets for Sara, cute pajamas, dresses, jumpers … you name it, I sewed it. I think little baby girls look so cute in sun dresses, and they are so easy to make.

The past month or so I’ve been babysitting for a lady in our neighborhood. She has an 8 month old grand-daughter that is so cute, and I watch her for a few hours each day. I was cleaning out my sewing room last week and found a cute piece of fabric and thought of how fun it would be to sew a sun dress for a baby again. Turns out it’s like riding a bike … once you learn to sew you never really forget.



The little girl looks so cute in the dress. I picked up more material tonight to sew a second.

It has taken Richard and I quite some time and we still haven’t been able to adopt a baby. One day, we know a birth mother will choose our family as the home for her baby. In the meantime tending this baby girl and sewing these dresses is almost therapuetic.

I love my girls......

I love animals, I always have. I think I get it from my Dad. Growing up we always had a dog, and thru my teenage years I had a few different pets. The iguana and ferret were my favorites, although I don’t have them anymore. We have quite a few animals on the little farm we live on. Just to name a few, there is my Boston Terrier Amos, who 2 days ago turned 5 years old (and yes, he celebrated his birthday with a yummy can of doggy beef stew). There is Charlie the duck, and Hannah and Sheba our goats. Of course there are the chickens and cows and the few barn cats that keep the mice away.

The one thing that was missing from our little farm was a good farm dog. Although Amos is a good dog, he is little and he stays in the house most of the time. A few weeks ago we decided it was time to get us a farm dog so we started browsing the ads. We ended up looking at a litter of Dalmation mix puppies that were so cute. Long story short … we ended up bringing home 2 of them. They are sisters and we named them Phoebe and Chandler (we are “Friends” fans, can you tell?) We love it when people say “Is Chandler a girl name?” If you’ve seen “Friends” you’ll know what I’m talking about.



The puppies are my girls. That’s what Richard and I call them anyway. They have already grown so much in the short time we have had them. They love Amos a lot, it’s cute to watch all three of them play. Now I just need to figure out how to make them not chase the rooster.

Camp, Pools, and ... How old am I?

According to Wikipedia June 1st is the 152nd day of the year (153rd in leap years). On June 1, 1792 Kentucky was admitted as the 15th state of the United States of America. Morgan Freeman was born June 1, 1937. And in Cambodia, June 1st is National Tree planting Day. The significance of these events pale in comparison to the fact that tomorrow, June 1, 2010 my 12 year old daughter gets to go to her first girls camp!

Wow, am I really old enough to have a 12 year old daughter? It seems like not too long ago I was on my way to the hospital to have my first baby. Even more recently, we were taking her picture on the front steps before her first day of kindergarten. And now tonight she is getting the last of her things packed so that she can go to camp. Where have the last 12 years gone?

I loved going to camp when I was a teenager, although that seems like forever ago. As we have been getting her ready to go this last week I have been remembering all the fun things that happen at camp. The freezing cold mornings, the pranks we played on each other, keeping our leaders up all night with our giggling, and the silly songs we sang around the camp fire. I remember one year, a group of us went for a walk to the river. I had never seen a river as wide as this one. There were huge rocks along the bank, and the water wasn’t moving too fast, so we had the idea to set the rocks up in the water to make a small pool. Now keep in mind that “back in the day”, camp wasn’t like it was now where there are bunks and showers. We roughed it in tents and didn’t shower for the week. Being only 13 and the geniuses we thought we were, we decided to use that little pool as a bath and wash our hair. Soon the rest of the girls heard about our grand idea; it wasn’t long before all the girls and the leaders were playing in the river waiting for their turn to wash their hair. The water was freezing but well worth it.

I’m sure Sara will come home this weekend singing the same songs and talking about how much fun she had. Although I would be surprised if she made a pool to wash her hair in, as of last week the camp still had two feet of snow!

Caribou?

I’ve had a few nicknames in my life. Growing up, my dad called me “Care Bear”. Of course I loved that. I even had a Care Bear stuffed animal to go with the nickname. Richard called me that a time or two after we got married but it just never stuck. For a while Richard called me “Care Babe”. I’m kind of glad that one never stuck. Then a couple of years ago Richard and I were talking and “Caribou” was born. I immediately fell in love with the nickname and found a stuffed caribou to keep on the bed.

Fast forward about a year and a half …

Richard and I were having a conversation about why Apple has the little “i” in front of all of their products (iPod, iMac, iPhone, etc…). I just didn’t get it. Well, about a week later an iPod Shuffle shows up in the mail. It’s green, my favorite color, and on the back is engraved “iCaribou”. Love it, love it, love it!

So there you have it. iCaribou. Now, I’m not a real caribou, mind you. I don’t migrate every Fall, I don’t have antlers, and I don’t pull a sleigh on Christmas Eve (did you know caribou are reindeer?). But, I love the nickname. iCaribou!

Trying it out

Well I have decided it’s finally time for me to join the blogging world. We set up this blog originally as a place to have our adoption profile link. While we are still waiting for our birth mom to find us (hopefully soon) and looking forward to getting to know her and bringing our baby home, I decided that I would use this blog as a place to write about the things in my life that brighten my day. It may be something simple like my 2 new puppies digging a hole in my garden to bury their bone (which they just did, the little stinkers) or something one of my kids said. Who knows, but I am excited to try this out.