DIY: Hooded Toddler Towel

It seemed that Elliot needed a hooded towel for his swim lessons this week and last, but the ones he had as a newborn were way too small.  So, in true Mixed Baby Greens fashion, I repurposed an old towel of ours into a new hooded toddler towel for him!  I did it during his naptime and used only stuff that I had in the house.  An hour of my time, zero money spent, and I didn't contribute to any new production of materials.  This project is a winner!

My camera isn't too good for these kind of shots, but I'll walk you through the steps incase anyone wants to make one for yourself.  I assure you... it's easy!  

1. Fold the towel in half.  Cut a diagonal line from the midpoint of the side to the midpoint of the top.  

2. Open the towel so that the new shortened edge is at the top.  Using one of the triangles you just cut off (the other won't be used), pin the triangle as shown along half of the the top edge.  Sew just that half where the triangle is lined up with the edge of the towel.

3. Now stretch the bottom point of the triangle (in the picture above) and match it to the other end of the top edge of the towel.  Sew just that line into the middle, stopping when you've reached your first seam.

4.  Now you've attached the triangle into the top of the towel along the the shortened edge you created by cutting the triangles off each side. 

5.  Zig zag the entire raw edge of the towel, from one end of the original cut, along the edge of the triangle you just sewed in, and all the way to the end of second side.  Zig zagging just the single raw edge makes the fabric naturally wavy.  The second picture is a close up.  

6.  Then add whatever silliness that you can come up with using scraps that you have.  I used felt to sew on eyes, a mouth and a spiny mohawk that goes half way down the back.  

And that's it.  A hooded towel made out of a full size towel.  The perfect size for a toddler!  

Balls Balls Balls!

Tee ball, soccer, and football... oh wow!  Elliot got to play with the big kids today at a family picnic with Andrea's coworkers.  Anna and Noah showed Elliot all about how to hit, throw, catch and kick their way through a fun day.  He absolutely loved it!

Another Delicious Vegan Meal

Only this time, even though it was our turn to host, we left the cooking up to someone else and we took the party outside.  No shopping for groceries, no cleaning up afterwards, and the best of friends.  It was a perfect night!

For our monthly dinner with The Vegans, Andrea and I decided that instead of buying groceries and making a big spread we would just take us all out to a new vegan Middle Eastern cart that has been getting good reviews.  And, it was unanimous, Wolf & Bear's falafel deserves 5 stars!

And, as I mentioned, we opted out of house cleaning and dish washing by having our monthly dinner at the park.  (In all honesty, I'm just getting over a week of being really sick and now poor Elliot has a running nose like you wouldn't believe and is craaaaanky.  We thought it best to take the party out of our tiny, germ-ridden apartment and to a place where he could have some distractions to help him get through the night.  It worked, and he didn't mind helping us finish off a sampling of vegan cupcakes from Sweetpea Baking Co., either.  I'm pretty sure that raspberry frosting has at least a little vitamin C in it, don't you think??)  All in all, it was another great dinner with The Vegans.  Thank you Wolf, Bear and Sweetpea.  Tonight wouldn't have been possible without you.  And, of course, a big thank you to He and She Vegan for another perfect monthly dinner.  xoxo.

We Heart Max's Family

We got to spend a lovely evening in Max's backyard with his mom and dad.  Michelle made a delicious tapas spread and David's homebrew was on tap.  The boys' Wednesday sitter, Tamara, even came for some happy hour fun.

Before we went over, Elliot and I took a trip to Portland Nursery to pick out a gift for Max's family.  First we picked out some flowers, then put them back for a raspberry bush, then finally settled on two perfect blueberry bushes.  The boys both LOOOOOVE blueberries, so I figured they would give Max and his mom and dad many years of yummy eating and remembering how wonderful the boys' first year was together.   (Elliot was sure we picked the right bush because he sampled the berries while we were still at the nursery.) 

As is turning out to be the case whenever I'm enjoying a fun time with friends, I end up spending more of my energy enjoying the people and setting and connections than I spend taking pictures.  When I'm home with the boys or when Andrea and I are out for a weekend adventure, I can spend as much time as I want snapping a gazillion pictures.  But on this night, I was enjoying the hanging out way too much to dig the camera out and disrupt my engagement with the moment.  So, in the end, I snapped a few goodbye shots that managed to capture the laid back, delicious, summery evening, but nowhere near the huge amount of pics that I normally have to comb through to find just the right ones to post.  Any other bloggers have this same experience?  

(Max and his Mama Michelle enjoying her yummy cobbler; Elliot and Tamara;  David on Bella duty)

Two more weeks with Max's family, then Max starts at a wonderful childcare home with a bunch of other kiddos and we get ready to head to Boise.  Max has got the perfect laid back personality to do really well in a group setting.  It won't be the same at Babytown with Elliot, but nothing will ever quite compare to the wonderful first year these two boys spent together.  

Let It Be Forever

It's as official as the state motto... we are moving to Idaho!  Our departure date has been set for August 17th.  We are off to embed ourselves in a community of grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins galore.  It is exactly what we want for ourselves and for Elliot.  So... here's to our next adventure.  May it be perpetual!

Image by Emily Wick of Two Eyeballs

Scenes From A Sunday Picnic

It's Like Having My Name In Lights

Sara is an old high school friend who I have reconnected with thanks to the blogging world.  It has been so wonderful to get to know her family through her blog posts.  They are sweet and funny and loving.  Sara is actually the one who inspired me to start my blog, and for that I am eternally grateful.  Mixed Baby Greens has brought me endless enjoyment over the last year.  I love blogging and the connection it gives me to myself, to Elliot, and to all of you out there who stop by to peek into our life.

So you can imagine how excited I was when I opened Sara's blog this morning and saw my name shining back at me.  It felt like I was famous!  I won a giveaway that she hosted on her blog to celebrate her 500th post.  What fun!  Maybe I'll host a Mixed Baby Greens giveaway here and you all can enter to win some crafty, repurposed, home-sewn goody.  Wouldn't that be fun?!

Portland's Downtown Farmer's Market

We are working on switching Elliot from 3 naps a day to only 1-2 naps a day.  To help with the process we need to find engaging activities to keep him awake through the morning.  This weekend we ventured down to the amazing Portland farmer's market.  We got organic veggies that we put in our dinner, ate fresh cherries, saw beautiful flowers and listened to fun musicians play guitars and drums and banjos.  All three of us loved it.  A perfect Portland morning.

The Little Things

Elliot is learning so many big things right now... namely running and all things gross motor.  But he is also, quietly, learning little things, too.  Like all of a sudden he has figured out how to stab his food onto his own fork.  We don't need to steady it for him or apply the pressure or coach him with our words.  He can just sit there, eating his food with a fork.

And then, after a lifetime of watching us eat with chopsitcks, he one day picked up the clothespin that is used to hold his bib on, poked it down over a blueberry, and lifted it to his mouth.  Quietly.  All by himself.  Learning so many little things about his little world.  Simply amazing.

Cousin Annalei

I spent the most wonderful childhood summers in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont with a pack of siblings and cousins. We loooooooved each other. Our summers were the highlight of my year.  They were magical.  At least that's how I remember them. Laying in Aunt Nancy's garden eating raspberries by the handful, picking bachelor buttons to make flower leis for one another, swimming in lakes, eating lots of delicious farm fresh food, and hours upon hours spent intertwined with the girls.  Me, my sister Mira, and our cousins, Annalei and Amalia.  We helped each other learn all of the intimate details every girl needs to learn to transition from childhood to adolescence.  And now, as grown women, most of us with our own kids, we still looooove each other, even though we don't have each summer to look forward to spending with one another anymore. But we did just get an oh-so-lucky visit from Annalei, who took a trip without her kiddos to come and spend some time with us.  Elliot loved her, of course.  We spent a few lazy days together eating, talking, relaxing, catching up.  We were happy that she was here for one of the free summer evening concerts on Mt. Tabor.  We packed a picnic (one of my favorite things to do!) and headed up for a fun night of music, food, and silliness.  It was lovely.  (As a side note... I have to say, one of my favorite parts was that I took leftover homemade blueberry cupcakes and turned them into Cupcake Jars... layers upon layers of cupcake, fruit and whipped cream.  A whole jar full.  Yum yum!)  We can't wait to take Elliot to Vermont so that he can run through the fields, swim in the lakes, lay in the gardens, and get to know all of his cousins there.  There is a special place in my soul for my Vermont family, and I can't wait to share more of it with him.

4th of January, er... I Mean July

Even though the sky looked like this:

And their faces looked like this:

We still did this (!):

Yep, 4th of July in the Pacific Northwest.  You make your deviled eggs, you have your pool party, and you enjoy the holiday weekend, even if the sun chooses not to come out and play.  

Peek!

Elliot has really started to love peek-a-boo games.  Whether it's peeking out from behind a wall, up from under the table, or just from having buried his head down into the carpet, he loves to look up and hear us exclaim, "PEEK!"  He squeals and kicks and flaps his arms with delight.  And now, he's also found out how much fun it is to have someone wave a blanket up over you and let it fall down to cover you up.  You know how exciting that feels, when someone's making the bed and you dive under as they whip they sheet up into the air?  That gush of air swirling around you, then the excitement of being totally covered, in the dark, hiding under the blanket.  Everybody loves it.  Elliot included.  He freaks out flapping happy when the blanket is swooshing above him, he squeals and throws it off his face with a huge grin as soon as it covers him up, then he immediately does the sign for "help," as if to say, "help me have that experience again... i loved it!"  And so, in true toddler form, we do it over, and over, and over, and over again.

Amumas and Ponies, Oh My!

We were lucky enough to have a mid-week visit from Elliot's Amuma and Andrea's Auntie Teresa--a well seasoned Amuma herself.  As you can imagine, there was a lot of love going around.  And we were very excited to find out that Auntie Teresa, who has always lived out in the country and kept horses, has recently added a miniature horse who pulls a buggy to her collection--just for the grandkids!  Needless to say, we spent some time on You Tube seeing what ponies pulling buggies looked like, and we cannot wait until we get a chance to ride Twinkie ourselves!  Thanks for the fun visit, Debbie and Teresa.  We love you!