Here's Molly enjoying her special day with a much needed cat nap!
We partied, of course! Complete with candles in their baby food peas and pumpkin muffin. 
As for gifts, the kids helped me finish a project we had started months and months ago... Huggy Cats. You know those baby blankets with the animal head on a small fleece blanket? Well, Carl & Gretchen each have one from before they were even born. Carl's is a bear on a blue blanket. Gretchen's is I believe technically a cat on a tan leopard print blanket, but at first we thought it was also a bear... shhh... she doesn't not know it might be a cat. They are both named Huggy Bear. Yes, we have lovie blankets named after a pimp. See, we didn't' remember that pimp from Starsky & Hutch when we named them. C'mon. We were busy... we had newborn twins. So, the name stuck before we realized our faux pas. Too late. The names have stuck.
April 2006
March 2011
Now, if you happen to be reading this before you have kids (or maybe grandkids) take this advice. Once your child/grandchild becomes attached to a stuffed toy.... buy a lot more of them! You will know if this toy is The One. And, for crying out loud - buy more before you can no longer find them on the store shelves! I do not have it all together, but I do get a big ol high five for being smart enough to buy 2 of Gretchen's and 5 of Carl's. Yes, we have 5 blue Huggy Bears. Then - once you have your stash - you must - and this is vital - rotate them right from the start. Huggy Bear was washed and put up in the bag every 3 months. Then, I'd grab a different one to put into play. All 5 HBs are aging at the same rate. Shhhhh.... he honestly does not know there are 5 of him!! I'll admit, Gretchen was not as attached to hers and we have been doing fine with only 2. But, he is still in her bed most nights now, even at age 5.Wow, this has gotten way off track. But, there you have my parenting tip on stuffed comfort animals. I have many friends who let the Bear #1 get so loved and old and couldn't substitute another one.
So, Gretchen & I started making Huggy Cats for Molly and Angus along time ago. We picked out fleece for the cat heads and the blankets to attach. Cats love fleece. Understatement.
But, what got me held up on the project was how to design the faces. Buttons for eyes? No, they'll try to eat those off. I couldn't picture the finished faces, so I couldn't make them happen. And therefore, they sat undone in the laundry room for ages.
Well, for some reason, this time, an obvious solution hit me right away. Use the faces of the cats on the pictures that hang in the twins' room for patterns and embroider the whole face. For now, I only have this photo from last year, with a fisheye lens. It's hard to see, but you get the idea.
Do you recognize the frames or the cat? Do you remember Pine Parties of the 1970s? I cannot find anything on them online, but, the original framed calico animal that came from one of those parties was a dog. That must still be at my mother's. These cats are the ones my Mom & Dad made by copying the dog one. Dad made the frame and Mom did the art work. The burlap matched the dog one, but the cat pattern was actually made by copying an Avon pin. The old ones that had a tiny circle of solid kids' perfume inside them. I was able to find an image of those. I recognize all of these. They are probably upstairs in my old jewelry box. the kite and elephant do not have perfume in them. Remember them? Go to ebay and search 1970s Avon pins and a bunch come up in the $8-12 range. I have no intention of selling mine. 
So, I embroidered the faces and then the kids stuffed the heads before I sewed them onto the blanket part. 
Here is Angus helping me do some of the blanket sewing. He liked his new present before he even knew it was for him!
Test run on the table after their birthday meal. 
March family photo...including the cats, of course. 
No comments:
Post a Comment