Her father's daughter, for sure

One of my favorite things in the world is when you can look at people and tell where they picked up certain traits or characteristics. Things like, "She has her dad's smile!" or, "He laughs just like his mother," are things that are just priceless to me.

When it comes to Miss A, there's no mistaking that she's the product of both D and me together. When she was first born she looked EXACTLY like D when he was a newborn baby. The resemblance was so exact that you could actually hold of pictures of them side-by-side and they looked like twins! It was truly amazing. As time has passed though, she's really moved more in the direction of me. People have commented and said that she really does look like a miniature version of me and at times when I am holding her and actually looking in a mirror with her, I can't dispute their claims.

Still, she very much does maintain a resemblance to D. She's got his hair for sure and a little bit of his nose but the thing that she has even more of him - that seems to trump everything that she has of me sometimes - is that she has his facial expressions. D, as many of you all who have never met him before, is... let's just say... a man of "many faces." In other words he can be an incredible goofball sometimes in how silly he can get and how many characters he does imitations of!

Here is visual evidence to support my claim. The other day, Miss A put her lunch in her hair and though she looks a little mad about it, she was actually laughing hysterically...

And then there was her the other day when she was toddling about the house. Her new thing - which is actually an old thing if you can recall the "squinchy face" from long ago - is making this face when she gets really really excited. I would love to get this on video but unfortunately my video taking ability is limited as I need a better video camera where you can see much better detail of her facial expression and here when she snorts while she makes this face...

Oh sweet little Miss A! Such a joy and a hoot and a half to have around!

Somebody stop me - PLEASE!!!

Look, I'm not one to be all trying' to toot my own horn about most stuff but TOOT-TOOT!!! And thankyouverymuch!!!

And now to address the FAQs...

• No - I did not use a pattern.
• No - I do not plan on trying to figure out what the pattern is so I can sell it.
• No - I will not be selling this one and I have still not opened up an Etsy store yet.
• No - This is not for Miss A.
• Yes - I do realize that spots would make this more Giraffe-like.
• Yes - The mane (specifically) did take a long time to do but doing it during a Rachel Zoe marathon made it that much more bearable. So, in the words of Rachel herself - It was Bah-NAN-Nas!
• No - I do not know how much time I actually devoted to this one. But it is worth noting that my forearms ache from all of the stitching and crocheting and this is definitely the one of the 22 finished objects that I've made that I'm most proud of.
• No - I have not cross-posted this on StuffSheMakes as that has become a now-completely-abandoned blog that I'm not sure what I will do with in the meanwhile.

And now for the backstory to answer all of the questions not addressed above!

My new job came along with a wonderful opportunity and responsibility for youth ministry. Every week I get to meet with a group of 12 young ladies (9th-11th graders) and mentor them. During our mentoring time, we get to step beyond the normal classroom/student-teacher relationship and really "bond" (for lack of better verbage) with one another. We discuss hard hitting issues as well as share our journeys of faith and challenges of living a seriously focused Christian lifestyle. It's really been an amazing experience for me as a mentor and I absolutely love the girls that I've been assigned to mentor.

When I first got to meet my girls, I had them answer some getting-to-know-you questions so that I could better understand who they were as individuals. One of the bits of info that they offered up was identifying their favorite color and favorite animal. Early on I decided to use this information to do what I know best (creating and crocheting) to make each of them a special memento for them to remember this year's mentoring experience. Including this giraffe, I've done a Jack Russell terrier (from a pattern - and I was only just satisfied with the finished product) with a satin dog collar. I've got 10 more animals to do through to the end of the year and by the end of the year every girl will have received a uniquely created animal (that also features their favorite color in some way) as close to their birthday as possible.

And that's it! This giraffe was intended to be much more cartoony in design and "feel" but it ended up taking on a much more realistic quality than I originally intended. I think it was because after spending so much time looking at real pictures of baby giraffes, I couldn't not end up in that direction anyway. Also, I almost "frogged" this part way through when the body and legs just wouldn't work out together and I had to go (almost completely) back to the proverbially drawing board to figure out how to fix it. Thankfully(!) my WONDERFUL husband, D, helped me to figure out what could be done to make it work and looking at the final result? I've finally impressed myself enough to not be able to NOT toot my own horn!

Only problem now? I've raised the bar on myself significantly! Who knows where this whole endeavor will end up by the end of the year when I'm done!

So fierce!

Four postings in a row? And all in one day???!!! Well, GrammyE (and coworkers!) will at least appreciate such an overload!

Probably a month ago Miss A and I were in Target picking up a "few things." On our way to the checkout lanes we passed through the shoe section to maybe pick up a reasonably priced pair of extra sneakers and/or "Baby Uggs." We ended up with neither but we did find some cool house shoes AKA slippers!! Yay for Hello Kitty!!! Why Hello Kitty? Because - if you didn't know - there is an unwritten rule that all Asian girls must have a significant part of their wardrobe be of the Hello Kitty brand. These little slippers are the second official representation of Hello Kitty now - the first is a really snazzy fleece jacket!



It's taken Miss A a little bit of time to master the skill of walking in them because it's probably a little bit like walking with pillows strapped to the bottoms of your feet but she's a pro now! I put them on her a little more than 20 minutes ago and since then she's done no less than 20 laps around the house at full speed!!! She is hilarious. She is absolutely hilarious! Don't you love how the first picture makes her look a little like a baby godzilla with fuzzy slippers on?

BIG thrills for the pint-sized

To be fair, I think Miss A is a little less than pint-sized and would be more accurately described as "fun-sized" but whatever. The point is that no matter her size, it has been officially confirmed that she is a seeker of BIG thrills!

Internet, we have described the joy of SLIDING! On your marks, get set, GOOOOOO!!!






Can you guess what Miss A's next big plaything will be??? Goodness gracious it's a good thing that we are finally in a house with a yard!!! Now it's just a matter of us showing some restraint with how big her own personal plaything will end up being!

Makin' memories of us

Right now I should be doing one of two things - cleaning the house OR participating in "family nap time." (I'll give you one guess which one I probably prefer more than the other!) Well, life is full of shoulda, coulda, wouldas and I'm happy to say that I've learned enough to this point to realize that being more up to date with this blog is becoming a very important priority for me to keep. Yes - it even trumps a measly little nap!

Friday evening right before I turned in for bed, D mentioned that he was waking up extra early on Saturday to meet up with Godfather E (that's Miss A's godfather to be precise!) for a running race. It was going to be happening at a local area park that Miss A really loves to visit so it was decided that Miss A and I would tag along to enjoy the park and cheer on all of the runners. As it turned out, D ended up running (unofficially) with Miss A in a full 5K and it was so much fun for all of us that we decided it was something that we all should do more often. I didn't run and sat on a bunch and crocheted some but I DID stand at the finish line and that was plenty excitement for me! I tried my best to get a decent picture of D running with Miss A but it was hard. People's "run/finish line" expressions can be pretty crazy looking when you snap them. But I guess I can understand that because running can be pretty grueling - which is why I don't do it myself...



After the race, we gave Miss A a little time for her own enjoyment on one of the many massive jungle gyms. She's still a little bit too young to enjoy most of what it offers but she did enjoy the different perspective she got as we walked her around and perched her places that were high up above the ground (well, high up for her at least).



After the playground, we went out for breakfast and then met up with Godfather E and Miss C at a local Pumpkin Harvest type event. There was music and games and face painting and hot cider and all kinds of fun stuff for families! Miss A very much enjoyed herself and spent a little time toddling around the haystack maze bit for people her size...



We, of course, forced her to do the most unenjoyable thing in the world for a toddler to endure - facepainting!!! It was only $1 and I told the lady to do whatever was the easiest, fastest, and least complicated design since Miss A was likely to not let us do it at all. True to my prediction, Miss A squirmed the entire time and every picture looked like we were subjecting her to some weird kind of torture.


Amazingly, the heart design that the girl managed to paint on didn't come out too bad...


And then, of course, because I just HAD TO get the quintessential "baby surrounded by big pumpkins" picture, we forced Miss A to pose with the pumpkins.


She was less than thrilled to oblige us and even though I am happy enough with what I got, none were really that great or good enough for me to want to print and save.

What WAS worth the memory making? Well... you'll see in the next post!