Bath and bed

When it is time for Lilly to go night-night, she has a routine of 4 B's. Bath, bottle, benadryl, bed.
The benadryl is for her allergies and it also stimulates her appetite, so she'll eat breakfast. It works pretty well.
Bedtime is daddy time. He has always bathed her and put her to bed, so if he is home, but doesn't want to do it and I try? No go. She won't have it. Daddy puts her to bed, not mamma. But, after her bath, she has this new thing she has to do. He brings her out of the bath in her towel and sets her down and she immediately has to run to me to be cuddled and warmed. It is so funny. She started doing it on her own and now she HAS to do it or she feels out of sorts. It is pretty funny. If she doesn't drag her towel with her, she looks up at daddy and motions to him to bring it to her.
Daddy then makes her bottle, gets her dressed and off to bed. She will not let me do it. I think it is pretty funny, and, to be honest, I don't mind at all. ;)

Lovely yarn

I am making a little beret for Lilly out of some yarn some nice person on Rav sent me. However, I didn't have enough to finish, so I dug up some of my handspun and dyed it to match. It came out very close and I am quite pleased with it. The pink came out a tiny bit too dark, but not much! I had leftover dye, so I dyed a skein of sock yarn. I love how it turned out.

I dyed it with Koolaid, jello, food coloring and cake dye. FUN and non-toxic, which is great for dyeing in the kitchen with a baby around!

Update

Kaytee wants an update, so here it is. ;)
Things are on the upswing here. Mike landed a couple of big contracts, so we should be getting regular paychecks soon. Hooray!
Also, my designs went to Market for the Eastern Part of the US and were a big success. I am working on the designs for Fall '09 right now and they will go off to the manufacturer in a couple of weeks and the whole process starts over again. Thankfully, we are much farther ahead of the deadline than last time and have a much smaller line, so this go-round will be much easier. I also want to get started on the Spring '10 line, so I don't have to do it all at once.
I have 3 custom gowns going right now, plus 3 bridesmaids. I have another custom gown, possibly two, waiting on the horizon. Also, Kaytee's darling baby is getting blessed in a couple of weeks, so I am also working on that dress.
I participated in the Ravelympics this past couple of weeks and knitted a cute cropped sweater for myself in just 10 days. Here is a pic of said sweater.

(it looks better on me than on the mannequin) I was quite impressed, as I have only knitted baby stuff, mostly soakers up until now. It made me want to start on another sweater that I have been coveting but thought was possibly beyond my current ability.
I also did a few swaps on Ravelry. Some lovely ladies knit up some cute stuff for Lilly in exchange for diapers. Well, two for diapers and one for a cute top for work.
So far, Lilly has gotten a beret, some awesome knee socks, a soaker and a pair of cotton bloomers. Soooooo cute! I will have to get pics of them and post.
Lilly is doing very well, she is a bit wild and very precocious. Wherever we go, people comment on how well-behaved she is. I suppose she is, but her constant exploring and wanting to walk by herself all the time can get annoying. I am constantly chasing her down in stores, as she likes to wander off. Today she wore her squeaky shoes to the store and we got stopped by several people who wanted to know where she got them. I normally don't allow her to wear them in public as they can be kind of annoying, but she got grins all through the store!
She is so funny out shopping. You can tell her mamma likes to shop, Lilly is a great copier. She walks up to racks and looks through them, pulls off things that she likes and holds them up to her. I love it.
She has two more teeth coming in, although these do not seem to be as bad as the last ones. She got her upper molars a few weeks ago (horrible) and is now getting her lower ones. Kid has a lot of teeth, which is good, as she loves to eat steak and can now actually chew it.
Lately, she has been plagued by horrible allergies. I do not have allergies, so I cannot tell when things are bad, but Mike and various of my family members do have them and they tell me they are all suffering right now. I feel for her, she has a lot of phlegm in her throat and it makes it hard for her to sleep at night. She sleeps better on her back, propped up, but it is a no go, she is a total stomach sleeper. On a sort of good note, the Benadryl stimulates her appetite, so she now eats breakfast every morning. She is doing better on eating and we have great hopes that she will hit 18 lbs by 18 months. Sad, but true. Bless her, she is so skinny. I ran into a friend of mine at the store the other day. Her boy just turned one and weighs around 26 lbs. I held him for a bit and he was very cuddly. Much different cuddling a chubby, round baby than my little bit of skin and bones! She looks normal to me, so when I see a normal baby her age, they look HUGE!
Today she wore this funny little '80's track outfit and she looked like a track star in her tank top and shorts and sneakers, because she is so thin like runners are.
Here is a little pic of her in a tutu. You can see how skinny!

Lately, little booger that she is, she has taken to hugging or kissing me and then doing something naughty. She is smart, she thinks that if she butters me up first, she won't get into trouble. Today, I was laying on the floor at Grandma's and she comes up, gives me a kiss and a hug, so sweet, gets up, goes around behind me and pulls my hair! Why? Who knows, apparently it is funny, because she gave her "evil genius" laugh (as my nephew calls it).
She has started dancing a lot more, she bops, which makes me howl with laughter. She also waves her arms around, so funny. Also, my nephew Ethan has taught her to jump. That is the best. Of course, she doesn't clear the ground, but she doesn't know the difference!
Oh, and she fake burps. Yep, she's a DeGrey!

Lilly is a wee thing

Well, yesterday was Lilly's well baby checkup. She is wee. As usual. At 16 months, the blessed baby weighs a grand total of 17lbs 4 oz. Nowhere near the chart. On a good note, she is the same distance below the chart curve that she has always been. So, she is gaining at a steady rate, I just wish it was faster. She is 30 inches tall, so not too bad there. The doctor said normally in a case where there is "failure to thrive" (hate that phrase, she is thriving!) they would look for a cause like cystic fibrosis (horror) or celiac disease, but her problem is twofold. Her intake is way low (she doesn't like to eat) and her energy level is VERY high. The silly baby does not stop. At all. Unless she is sleeping. She burns calories like crazy. She has a cold right now, but with the exception of her meningitis and the weird viral infection, she has never been sick. No ear infections, no throat infections, nothing. Dr. said she is "crazy healthy."
As far as her cognitive development goes, she is well ahead of the curve. Warning! Brag ahead! At her age, she should have 3-4 words and be able to identify 1 or 2 body parts. She has between 15-20 words and can identify 10 body parts. Her motor skills are well ahead, she climbs, is learning to jump (s0 funny!) can throw a ball, feed herself with a fork and spoon. She exhibits certain traits that show how smart she is. She is sneaky, in that if you tell her no about something, she will find another way to do it that you haven't said no to. She understands that if she pushes something against the wall, she can pull on it enough to get it away from the wall, then get behind it to push again. I am glad she is smart, it is awesome. She is very opinionated, as well. Big surprise. So, all in all, I guess we are doing okay with her. Now, I just need to feed her some butter.
Mary asked when I find the time to blog. Well, here's how. It is after 11, I should be dyeing some flower girl dresses and making a wedding gown. Instead, I am here blogging! w00t!

Fashion, baby!

Well, I just got back from a long day at fashion shows and rep meetings for the bridal line for which I design and...it was fun, interesting, educational, exciting and awesome. I feel like I am in a job that was just meant for me. I love it. I have wanted for a very long time to be a fashion designer, but I didn't really know how to break into the business, then this opportunity dropped into my lap and I am running with it. Even if things don't pan out in the long run the way we expect them to, I am learning soooo much so that if another opportunity comes my way, I will be prepared to take it.
I think it is rare that one can find a job that just fits. This fits for me. It is hard, it has crazy hours, but I get it. I can't explain what it is like. There is a little Tara shaped niche in the career world and I think, I hope, I have found it. I know, automatically it sometimes seems, what the next logical step is. I understand the industry, I understand the terms and I work quite well with the guy that owns/runs the biz. So, yeah, good stuff.

Too much to do

Okay, this will hopefully be a quick post.
Things are crazy busy and just plain crazy right now. I have started designing for Eternity Bridal, which is a national bridal line carried in around 150 stores in the US. I did part of the Spring 2009 line, sharing design duties with the owner. Things were a little behind (not me) and so from start to (almost) finish, I have been running like a maniac trying to get things done. We sent the designs off to the factory and had a brief respite waiting for the samples to come back. Well, they did and that is when things went nuts. There were some minor changes that had to be made to the dresses, but not big enough changes to warrant new samples, so I had to do the changes and make notes to send to the factory for manufacture. I had a week to make the changes, the problem was, I went to California during that week. I didn't know the samples were coming in that week, or I would have rearranged my schedule. Well, what ended up happening is, I got a few samples done before I left, then had two days to finish everything when I got back , because then we had a catalog shoot. They shot the first half, turned out terrible, so the photog and makeup and hair artists were fired and I was asked to do the hair and makeup. In the middle of all of this, I am still doing my regular alterations job, plus some swaps I promised to do, plus two custom wedding gowns. The shoots went great, but I am DOG tired. I have a fashion show I have to do tomorrow, then a few more corrections and then I think I am done. I could be wrong, though. I keep thinking I am done, then the boss man gives me something else I have to do. Not to mention that the next round of designs are due September 1st and we haven't even started those yet.
It has been really fun and I love designing and doing hair and makeup for photo shoots, but it has been really hard to work it around Lilly and my other work stuff. Hopefully, the next round will be better, because we are getting the designs in on time. This should mean that I can plan ahead for the rest of it.
Anyway, that is all for now. I have alts to do!!!