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!!!

Not Tomorrow

As you can doubtless see, I did not continue my blog post the next day. I am lazy.
Lots of things going on right now. I will finish telling about the 4th of July first.
After we had enough of the Freedom Festival booths, we went home to pick up what we needed for watching the fireworks and headed back down to our chosen spot. I was very worried that Lilly would freak out over the noise, etc, from the fireworks. Not so much. She LOVED them. It was so cute. She sat in Papa's lap, but kept getting up to point at them and shout and squeal. Every once in a while a big one would go off and she would be knocked back down into Papa's lap by the force of the sound. Eilee liked them as well, but instead of squealing, she laid on the blanket and kicked her fat little legs and said oooooh, ohhhhh, ooooooh. That was adorable.
Lilly ran around like a maniac that day and was feeling quite warm. Her face had swelled up earilier and gotten quite red, I assumed she was having a bout of allergies and gave her some benadryl. Well, we woke up Sunday morning to a fever. Not a big deal, watch her, take her temp, keep her hydrated. By that afternoon, however, it got up to 104. Scary. So, off we go to instacare. Doctor looks her over, thinks she likely has some virus and is about to send us home when he decides to do a blood draw. Well, it turns out her white count is almost 3 times the normal, which signifies a pretty bad infection somewhere. What does this mean for us? Oh, yeah, you guessed it. The ER. They couldn't do full bloodwork or urine at the clinic, and of course, since it was a weekend, the regular doctor's office wasn't open. I have found out why some kids are allowed to fight off infections and why Lilly is sent to the hospital. I guess with normal kids, they can lose a pound or two due to not eating. Lilly can't. She is so skinny that to lose a pound would be very bad. So the doctors want to find out immediately what is going on and get it taken care of, get her on an IV so she doesn't lose weight.
We were at the hospital for several hours, they could not find the source of infection for anything, then finally, gave her a big dose of anitbiotics and said we could take her home, just watch her and they would let us know when the cultures came back.
Well, her cultures all came back clean. What does this mean? That is was probably viral and she fought it off herself. She is a very healthy baby, but when she gets sick, she does it with a vengeance. I guess she feels like she has to make up for the fact that she never gets sick otherwise! Ugh, little punk.
In other, amusing news, tonight she painted Sadie, our lab with Vaseline and Dr. Pepper. She was very proud of herself. The dog is a mess.
She has almost learned to jump. She bounces on the beds and the neighbors' trampoline. She continues to be a daredevil, which is a little more trying these days, as she has learned to climb. Urgh. I know I am going to walk into the kitchen one day and find her on top of the fridge. My mom and stepdad's nephew and wife were visiting them over the weekend. They slept on a mattress on the front room floor, which Lilly thought was her own personal trampoline. She would flop on it, climb up and jump off, over and over again. Well, then she got bored, so what did she do? Went and got her little ride on toy, wrestled it up onto the mattress and, being a little Eval Knievalette, tried to ride the dang thing off! Fortunately, I caught her.
Last night we had our first real rain storm this summer. We had a bbq and were all still out on my mom's back porch. The summer rains here usually consist of really big raindrops coming down at a fairly good clip. Lilly had never been in an actual rainstorm before, and apparently, does not have enough sense to come in out of said rain. She wouldn't stay under the porch, but had to be out in it. She stood there with her hands in the air, squealing and getting soaked. It was fabulous. I got a couple if pics, but I can't post them yet, my computer won't cooperate.
We went to California last week to visit my grandparents. They had never seen Lilly and they are getting up there, so mom and I thought it would be a good time. This was Lilly's third major trip and 5th and 6th airplane rides. She does really well on the plane, thank goodness. In fact, several people came up to me in the airport after we disembarked and commented on how well she behaved. Which is funny, because she is a right terror most of the time. Interestingly, SLC Int'l Airport has no provisions for people traveling with small ones. Maybe because we are in baby central? I don't know. Every other airport I have been to has special lines, etc. for those traveling with little ones. That part is very nice. To the front of the line, thank you very much.
Much is going on at the mo' with my designing, etc. but I think I will post later about that as I am sleepy!
I am making a cute sailor sweater for Lilly and it is almost done, yeay!

Independence Day

Yeay, we had a happy 4th of July!

We were going to go to the parade, but we were lazy and did not get up in time. Plus, I had some wedding gowns to finish, so it just didn't happen. Later in the morning, we went on down to the Freedom Festival to see the booths and get some food. It was insanely crowded and ridiculously hot, but we stuck it out. There was a booth selling some lovely, very bendy baby shoes, so I bought Lilly a pair, and lo and behold! They were squeaker shoes. Hysterical. She couldn't figure out at first what was going on, thought some crazy squeaky thing was following her. Then she caught on and goosestepped around the place, since it made a louder sound that way. Drove Mike's friend nuts. Heehee.

As we wandered around, we ran into another of Mike's friends who owns a Great Dane. So, Mike took Lilly over to see it and she wanted to ride it. I am not sure where she gets this riding dogs thing, because she tries to ride my mom's chow (who hates it) and also tries to ride our Labs (who don't care, but don't hold still very well). Mike lifted her up onto the dog and let her sit there for a bit, it was terribly cute. Then she got down and started giving the dog loves and stuff.

Here are some pics of that.

I will have to continue this tomorrow as my battery is about to die~