2-Year Photo of Lana

Since I took an official 1-year photo of Lana when she was one I figured I'd better take an official 2-year photo. I stumbled across a giant '2' on clearance at TJ Maxx so with the perfect prop there was no way around it. 

I provided a summary about her when I posted her 2nd birthday party, but since then she's become quite a chatterbox and talks nonstop all waking hours. She and Clark are the best of friends and they play very well together since Lana is happy to play cars and pirate cook or whatever game Clark comes up with. Lana has upgraded to calling Clark "Cark" from "La". Clark gets rather lonely when she is napping and constantly asks "Is Lana done with her nap yet?" As with most toddlers, she insists on doing things herself when possible. We transitioned her to a toddler bed this last month and she is doing incredibly well, meaning, she generally stays in bed when she's supposed to be there. Other things I love are the recaps she loves to give of events, especially that involve one of her crying episodes. She'll say "Lana cry waaaa waaaa." She's always particularly concerned about how everyone's day is going and will ask each person multiple times per day, "day good?" or "how's day go-gin'?". She will also say some words two times for effect, e.g. "wash, wash blankie" if it's dirty or "really, really cold" if something's cold or "so, so sad" if something's sad or "walk, walk bun" when she's walking around without a diaper.

First Set of Wheels

Lana learned how to ride a tricycle a few weeks ago with a little help from her Daddy.  Since then she has practiced and is getting "so, so fast" as she says. She likes to do it all by herself but gets frustrated easily. As she's getting better, she's getting frustrated less, thankfully. I sit and watch her ride from the driveway and she shouts to me, "yook, Mama!" Of course I'm "yooking" since it's hard not to watch such a cute sight! It's fun watching her get so big but if I could, I would keep her at age two forever. 

A Dress with See-Pose

I started this dress in November but put it on the back burner until the holidays were over. I modified two pieces of an existing pattern then drafted the rest from scratch. I think it took 4 tries to finally get the collar right, and 2 for the cuffs. Not shown is the bias bound neckline inside. I'm working on seam finishes and that's my favorite for necklines at the moment. I was going to make the front pockets functional but decided I'd rather just be finished with the dress and move on. So...pretty much the zippers--or see-pose as Lana says--on the front are just decorative but she doesn't know the difference.

The Last of the Decorations

One of the favorite Christmas decorations in our home this year--and the last one to be taken down--was the advent calendar I made. I started it at the end of November, took a break to make a Christmas dress and suit, then finished it with only a few days left until Christmas. The kids don't seem to have a solid grasp of counting down anyway, so in my opinion the calendar did its job since Clark played with it all month long on my sewing room floor. I based it off of the pictures and templates from a sew-a-long that homemadebyjill did a few years back. The background is linen from Ikea and the backing is heavyweight muslin. I made three original ornaments unique to our tree: a cat (Lana seems to LOVE cats), the pinecone (I might replace this one next year with a robot for Clark), and the baby Jesus in a manger. The ornaments were fun to make and I had lots of help from Clark. Sometimes a little too much help when he accidentally ripped some of the hangers off. I'll keep my fabric glue handy next year. 

Consploding Into the New Year

We're starting 2015 off with a bang. bang, bang! I let the kids do some party poppers with some help from Dad. Lana didn't care for them, but Clark liked the confetti and "consplosions." Then we admired our gingerbread houses one last time before taking them outside and smashing them to smithereens.