I am a gift-giver. I think I've said that before. Even when I was little I would sometimes get in trouble for using all of my birthday money to buy people's Christmas presents, but this is how it is when you have a November birthday.
But when it was a week until Hannah's birthday and we had already decided what we were going to do and get her to celebrate (super low-key), I decided to squeeze in one last thing. Despite initially thinking that I wanted to pick out special fabric for the doll's clothes, I decided that I had to use what I had on-hand, which made it a little bit of a game too. But I ran out of stuffing after doing just her arms, so the doll cost me about 5 pounds, and I still have 3/4 of a bag of poly-fill left.
But I think it was worth it. Don't you?
I loosely used this pattern, but added a seam allowance, and changed the hair to look more like Hannah's shoulder-length curls. But then I gave her a neck, which seems to be a rag doll no-no, because then their head is top heavy and flops around a but. And it made the supposed-to-be shoulder-length curls into chin-length curls, which wasn't what I was going for. But I still like it.
Hannah did too.
Actually, she saw it partially assembled on my desk one day, when the head was attached to the dress, but it wasn't all sewn together or stuffed. She said, "Ooooo. Pretty baby dress!" before I covered it up with some papers, so that counts.
When she unwrapped it on her actual birthday, it was in a box with a piece of fabric over it like a blanket, and she snatched up the fabric and snuggled it to her cheek as the doll fell to the floor and said, "Aww, pretty blankie."
And it couldn't hold a candle to the bottle of bubbles that I got her. Of course. :) The rascal.
We left the green house and headed out back by the Rose Garden Tea Party that had recently been set up.
By this time, we were all pretty pooped. Hannah had already fallen asleep in her stroller, and Jayce was trying to fall asleep.
So we stopped off one of the paths, parked Hannah in the shade in her stroller, and Chris and Jayce grabbed a sunny spot nearby for a mid-day, full-sun snooze.
I thought it was kind of funny and just wanted to take pictures, 
but it turns out that Jayce couldn't sleep, so he joined me,
and we took some pictures together.
Then he wanted to use the big camera for a bit,
one of his pictures, above, 
and I took one of him with my phone, in another one of those "I'm taking a picture of him taking a picture of me" circles like I've talked about 
Then we found one of those machines that presses your penny and turns it into a souvenir and Jayce was SO excited about it, as you can see. In Hannah's sunglasses. And the rest is history.
We packed a picnic and enjoyed the sunshine, and Hannah stuck flowers in Chris' nose while he tried to sleep. :)
Jayce was such a helpful little guy that day, and kept chasing after Hannah who kept trying to make a run for it in every direction while we ate. Luckily, it is a big enough place that we can give her some free reign to run around and still keep an eye on her, but whenever she started to get a bit too far away, Jayce would go round her up and drag her back our way.
But eventually we stopped torturing them with eating and let them get on with the playing. 
There is an indoor bug and garden themed play area that they ran around in for a bit. (They are looking at live butterflies in the picture above.)
Then we eventually headed outside to play.
I got this dress for Hannah for her 1st birthday, but it ran big, and she ran small, so it literally was down to her feet. This year it fits great, and I thought a little "party scene" dress was just right for a 2nd birthday full of fun.
After we played on the playground for a bit we decided to explore the grounds, and ended up in one of the greenhouses that has an aquarium in the bottom level. 
Jayce was enamored. He seriously loves fish and fish stuff, so he thought it was great.
More soon.
At the beginning of the month Chris left for a conference that would take him away for 8 days and nights, and let me tell you, I was not looking forward to that. On the morning that he left, Hannah and I dropped Jayce off at school, headed over to Starbucks for breakfast, and then to my 
Then I held onto it for almost a month, making various dresses and tops, but afraid to cut into it until I had found just the right thing because it was just too pretty and perfect.
I decided to do a simple A-line dress, patterned from a dress that she already has. Nothing fancy or fussy, I wanted the incredible fabric to be the "star."
I forgot about the seam allowance to attach the top to the bottom. Then I cut the bodice too tight. And I re-cut the bottom, disassembled and reassembled the top. Detached the skirt, re-attached the new skirt, and realized I still had the same problem as before. And a bunch of other random little things.
And you should see the inside. The finishing is not beautiful.
And it cracks me up how 70s it looks, no matter what I do. I had her hair in a pony tail the first time that I tried it on her, and it almost seemed like I was trying to make her look 70s-ish. So I left her hair down this time, but with her fluffy crown and curly flips on the bottom, it still looks 70s. So we're just going with it.
I added a little pin tuck to the back of the dress, and 2 tiny pink buttons to close the bodice. I love it.
The moral of the story is 3-fold, I think.
