Speaking of last November...

I'm pretty sure Kyle and I have hair, but apparently we did not pass on the "has hair" gene to any of our children, all of whom have been born bald and stayed that way beyond the first year and basically to this day. Erik and Ellie have each had less than a handful of trims in their lives. This is why the "it will always grow back" consolation does not apply to cutting Ellie's hair, and why Mish and I were a little nervous and a lot silly to attempt it ourselves.

This is also why I did not include an "after" shot of her haircut. Through this embarrassing and very disappointing experience, I discovered that hasty self-confidence (and a pair of blunt kitchen scissors) less than qualifies one to be a hairdresser. I hope none of you are as surprised about this as we were. This was last November, by the way. I have since had her bangs corrected (hehe, the hairdresser had some fun things to say about the way I'd left them), but it would've cost money to fix the rest, so we do pigtails a lot and try not to care about people who judge us.

Also last November, Ellie made her performance debut at the conclusion of an eight week ballet class Kyle's parents gifted her for her birthday. (hello anonymous nose picker!)

Carter provided some pre-show entertainment because, honestly, he and Ellie's friendship is completely centered around being ridiculous.

I wish I could upload our video footage of the performance so everyone could witness such graceful moves as the shifty waddle and bum patty-pats, as well as half of the class sporadically running to the back of the stage to hide in the curtains.

I think I actually taught her more real ballet moves at home than she learned in her class (and I've never taken a ballet class so maybe "real" is a generous term for my skills), but the whole experience was so delightful and pretty darn cute and apt to be repeated many a time in the future.

Speaking of cute, how about a nesting-themed baby shower? Pretty much the cutest theme ever, I know, but I didn't think of it. Nests have been around for a while. I threw this last November and I just realized I should probably blur out the name, address, and phone number on that invitation but I don't know how. Nobody stalk us, okay? (And can you BELIEVE the stamps cost extra because of that piece of yarn pasted to the card? I'm losing faith in humanity, people.) (Okay, not really.)

I was actually inspired to throw Mary's shower a-la-nests-and-birdies because I'd been wanting to make a birdie baby mobile for her for almost a year. They were not nearly as orderly under the amateur guidance of my hands and a sewing needle as they appear here. Especially un-orderly during the mobile assembly process.

See, the mobile was supposed to look like this. But my birds were heavier than my twigs, so they looked more like this. I cried some emotional tears over this and brought my dramatically unfinished gift to the shower in a torn paper bag.

Some months later (this month, actually), I finally forsook the branches and came up with this instead.

Here's the baby's view -- I did make a point of having the birdie bellies be just as visually stimulating as their tops.

They were already glued onto the branches when disaster struck on Mary's Shower Eve, so clearly I had to improvise, but there's nothing a little (or a lot) of ribbon and hot glue can't salvage and cute-ify, right?

I sure wish I knew how to take a flattering picture of anything. Oh well. Just believe that it's cuter than it looks.

Okay, back to November. There were chocolate chow mein nests as party favors (which I forgot to distribute before most of the guests left, naturally).


There were Easter and spring-themed decor I serendipitously swiped off a craft store clearance rack.


There were some nest-ish muffins (which I reeeeeeelly wanted to look like this, but was persuaded by a younger and much wiser sister of mine to simplify), pink deviled eggs, and fruit salad.

There was also a little prank I played on the guests. I purposefully neglected to mention that one of the muffins contained a little maternal surprise; whoever discovered a baby in their muffin would be the next one to have a baby!

Yeah, you probably guessed, but the joke was on me. I was the one to bite into this breech baby behind. Such a disturbing little prank, and not just because the baby has a uni-brow. (shuddering even now at the thought of another baby)

There were the obligatory baby-themed games, but I hope not of the most cliche variety.

I sure am fond of this Mary kid. And she's so good with babies (just look at how much Charlie loves being held by her.)

As a final note, I bring you Black Friday winnings. I uploaded these pictures many moons ago so don't ask why I thought this was an important note to end on. End.