happy stuff.

a tiny friend of mine is having her first birthday tomorrow, and i had a hankering to make a dress, so i found this pattern and tutorial online and altered it just a bit to make it reversible. i used fabric from my stash.  this is an older michael miller print.  the background is actually [...]

i just got back from a fantastic concert.  the wailin’ jennys sang at the very intimate and acoustically wonderful stoughton opera house.  hearing them live brought tears to my eyes and a full feeling to my heart more than once.  laughing along with them and the rest of the audience as the fire siren went [...]

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again… i do love to watch animated movies.  this afternoon, mr. happy stuff and i went on a date to watch the most recent batch of oscar nominated animated shorts.  here’s a link so you can see short clips from each of the nominated films. if you’d [...]

when we unpacked one of the boxes from mr. happy stuff’s parents’ storage area (everyone has these boxes that slowly migrate from your parents’ house to your own house, right? ) we discovered this awesome quilt.  it’s folded over the edge of the crib in this picture, so you’ll just have to imagine that it’s [...]

our nursery used to be our office.  we’d painted it this bold red color with bright white trim and it felt cozy in this small room.  when we decided to switch it over to a nursery, the thought of painting over the red seemed overwhelming, so… we decided to work with it!  i took some [...]

this morning, mr. happy stuff took me to sardine for brunch.  we’ve been meaning to try it out forever, and today was the day.  we ate amazingly delicious food …. baked creamed eggs with gruyere, proscuitto and spinach with a side order of the most delicious cheese grits for me, grilled sausages with the most [...]

so when i first found out that the birthmother who’d chosen us was going to have a boy, i experienced one ridiculous twinge of regret–”boy clothes are so much harder to sew than girl’s clothes!” and while i’ll still admit that there’s not much that’s easier to sew than an elastic waist skirt or a [...]

baby’s first hand-knit gift–a toadstool rattle!  a friend of mind from work knit this up for us and i totally l.o.v.e. it!  mr. happy stuff thought it looked like something from mario bros.  i think that means he likes it too.

thank you for your wonderful responses to the quilt and our big announcement! let’s begin this string of baby posts with an easy, not-too-babyish project i took on a few months ago–the changing table. i love the “modern” aesthetic, but i’m too cheap to pay for the really good stuff, so i’m always looking around [...]

so the short story behind this quilt is that after 4+ years of trying various methods to start our family, we are thrilled to be anticipating a domestic open newborn adoption possibly sometime in the next 5 weeks or so.  there’s a whole lot of weighty words in that sentence, so feel free to read [...]