The Smith Crew

I bought some fabric the other day to make Ezra a tag blanket - it’s so cute!! And he seems to be pretty impressed with it

Folded up (reverse has little cars on it - can’t really see them in the photo tho)

I made this mat today for Ezra. We have been putting him on the floor on various quilts we have around the house, but I wanted something a bit more ‘purpose-built’ so this is what we have now:

I stitched around most of the big circles on the fabric - and to be honest the stitching is horrendous… I used the ‘freehand quilting’ option on my machine, and figured it’s one of those things that takes a bit of practice (also don’t actually have the right foot attached, but hey, it was fun!) It has a waterproof backing, which is why I didn’t stitch through all layers just the wadding and top layer (the PUL on the back wouldn’t be quite so effective with holes all through it! ;))

I made this mei-tai for a friend a few weeks back. I also made another one yesterday for a swap I was a part of, but can’t post pictures of it until the person I sent it to receives it

Modelled on my duct tape dummy with a doll

March was an incredibly busy month at our place (I realise some may think that it’s always busy here… but the last month has been even more so!). As well as all the ‘normal’ things we do from week to week, in March
* Brianna turned 5 (I don’t feel old enough to have a 5 year old!)
* and started playing hockey,
* we had our church missions conference,
* took two day trips to the sunshine coast to visit friends,
* Ellia broke her leg and was in a cast for a week (after two late night visits to the childrens emergency department with Daddy) then a brace for another three weeks,
* Heidi (a friend of mine) and I started a new program at our church for littlies (2-4 year olds) on wednesday nights,
* Daddy went to Kingaroy for two days,
* the rest of us went to see the QLD orchestra play Peter and the Wolf (Mrs John came too)
* Brianna and Malachi spent two days at Granny’s house,
* we had a busy easter with a trip to the redcliffe festival of sails and to rocks riverside park for a bbq with friends,
* did lots of sewing as we prepared for Adrian and Julia’s wedding (also in march, 4 of us were in the bridal party - Malachi wore his first suit!),
* Daddy turned 28 and started playing basketball again and
* Ezra started rolling over!

Now for the photos

The Smith Crew and the Caitens Clan @ the Sunshine Coast unit the Caitens were staying in.

We all went and played putt putt together. It was slightly crazy, but enjoyed by most!

The two little men particularly enjoyed the helicopter inside…

and the motorbikes!

Miss Grumpy-pants with her leg in a cast (she wasn’t actually grumpy, she just didn’t particularly want her photo taken)

On a ride at the redcliffe festival of sails

Enjoying sno-cones

With the Caitens and McClures @ Rocks Riverside

The first hockey game!

Uncle Adrian and Mr Malachi in his suit (it’s serious business!)

Ezra pulling faces earlier in the month… he’ll be 5 months old on Thursday… time has disappeared!!

I made some shoes for Ezra last night (Actually I made two pairs but the first pair were far too small!) using the tutorials here and here.

Please excuse the blurry photo.

So Cute!!!!!!

I thought I would do a post with *my* interpretation of apron/non-apron tying of mei-tais.

So to start, when referring to an apron…. it’s not this:

but in fact this (the ones grandma has ;)) :

So to tie a MT “apron style” would look like this:

(The body of the carrier is coming from the bottom of the waistband and will come around baby’s bottom and back up)

Non- apron style is the opposite:

The body of the carrier is coming from the top of the waistband.

For a front carry, the main difference then is just the height of the carrier. For Ezra (now 3mths) in this particular MT, apron style means that he can see out:

Non-apron is more helpful for sleeping - the back of the carrier comes up higher on him. (scuse the goofy look on my face, i hate taking photos of myself!!!)

I don’t have any MT’s with angled bottom straps, but I would imagine that it would be virtually impossible to tie it non-apron style. However, with a straight strap on the bottom or a padded/wide waist, either work!

This video is how i currently put Ezra on my back up high, toss and then tie apron style (when i bring the bottom strap under his bottom i flick it under - i thought i was more obvious when i was doing it but apparently not!) oh and the delay once he’s there that you can’t see is because i was struggling to move his arm into the carrier to bring the strap over my far shoulder.

I can’t get the silly thing to embed here…. so here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgxvs9yxqmQ

Oh and in the 10 minutes since sitting down to write this post…

(I think he likes it!! ;))