Snug-A-Bug-Blog

Once again I have to tell you how glad I am that we decided to teach Georgia sign language. She is beginning to use more and more verbal words but I am not always sure what she is saying. Since she does know some signs, she uses them while she is talking—making it much easier to understand what she wants.

I had originally thought that the signing would be primarily for when she was younger and couldn’t talk, but I find that she is using a lot more signs now and using them a lot more consistently than before.

We recently bought Baby Einstein – My First Signs as a supplement to our other Baby Signs DVD. it is a really good starter DVD with lots of basic signs that are easy to follow and remember. She enjoys watching it and the signs are repetitive which is great since it helps me remember them. That is one of the big challenges when you are teaching your baby signs, you are trying to learn them at the same time and remember what they mean.

My favourite sign is for “cereal.”

Read my previous experiences with signing:

• Georgia’s First Sign Revisted
• Georgia’s First Sign: How I Gave My Baby a Communication Headstart

Tags: baby, sign language, Baby Einstein, communication

Cafe press is now offering the Mothersucker Baby Wear in colours other than white.

The onsies are now available in pink and blue and the infant/toddler t-shirts are in blue, pink, and yellow.

The t-shirts are sized from 6 months to 4 years, and the onsies are 6-24 months.

They are a fun shower gift for the Mom who plans to breastfeed.

Tags: breastfeeding, shower gift, mom, baby, clothes, hip, new

Friday’s Martha Stewart show featured a crafter who made the cutest sweaters for children.

They are made from adult sweaters that are shrunken and then turned into children’s sized sweaters. The instructions and the templates can be found on the Martha Stewart site. The woman who was doing the felting (the applying of the appliqué) also sells her sweaters on Etsy. They are very cute and you should check out her shop, Sweetest Thing Design.

I might try and make a cardigan for Georgia but the felting looked like a lot of work and may take a lot of patience to complete.

Vintage sellers left looking for an alternative to Etsy can see the beginnings of a new website for sellers of vintage items.

The site, which is meant to fill a void on the internet, is aimed at buyers and sellers of vintage, antique and vintage inspired items. The blog has gone up and you can track the progress and leave comments about the site.

Check it out at http://www.futurevintagemarketplace.com/blog/

My Scooba died unexpectedly last month.

I turned it on to do a quick wash of the front hall and it sounded funny, like the vacuum wasn’t working. It ran for about 5 minutes and then quit and the red service me light was flashing. I took it apart to make sure there wasn’t anything blocking the vacuum, removed the battery, and then put it back together. It started again and this time it sounded right with the vacuum working but it only lasted 5 minutes before it died again.

Since I had purchased it from eBay, I was concerned if iRobot would honour the warranty. I had registered it when it first arrived with no problem, but I wasn’t sure if they might give me trouble because it wasn’t bought at retail outlet and I didn’t have a receipt other than my PayPal transaction.

The customer service rep immediately knew what the problem was and sent out a replacement battery, free of charge. Apparently, the Scooba batteries are sensitive to heat and she recommended that we keep the top open when charging and to keep it away from heating vents while charging.

The new battery arrived within 2 weeks from the US to Canada. The Scooba is back to its old self keeping my floors clean while I do something else.

Don’t forget to check out my original post about my Scooba if you haven’t read it.

I saw a great idea for a Photo Book recently. A friend of mine wanted to make a cookbook of all of her favourite family recipes and give to her siblings so she made a photo book with all her recipes. She incorporated pictures she took of the food or put in family photos along side the recipes—it was a nice idea. I have made up recipe books before for friends and family, but this was nice because it was more like a real cookbook.

You can use an photo book company like Picaboo or, if you have a mac, iPhoto to create it. They have great templates to use.

One thing I like about Picaboo is that they have lots of tips and samples of books people have made. There is a nice one under the “winter” category—it had pictures from an ice storm.

Checking out Picaboo’s site recently I saw that they expect to have a mac version out sometime this year.

8.5×11 custom photo book. Buy 1 get 1 free with coupon code: 1PB1GF-CB

People often ask me What is Minky? Minky—or Minkee, as it is sometimes known—is a super-soft cashmere-like, 100% polyester microfiber stretch fabric. It is warm as fleece but doesn’t pill like fleece.

Minky comes in a wide range of colours and styles like dot and diamond. Minky is machine washable in cold or warm water and will not shrink. A gentle washer and dryer cycle is recommended. Ironing Minky is not recommended and could smooth out your minky-dot dimples. Minky is also not flame resistant and care should be taken around open flames.

Minky is becoming more and more popular and I have seen it in all sorts of forms at many stores. There is definitely different qualities of minky. I use a very high quality minky that I get from a supplier in the US.

New Designs

I managed to find some time yesterday and have created 3 new designs with my new fabric.

Flutterby is made from super-soft white Minky-Plush backed with a whimsical 100% cotton print with 4 different themes. One is birds on a tree, “TWEET”, the next is, “KITTY” with a very retro diva cat, then we have, “FLUTTERBY” with a large butterfly and a peace sign above it’s head then at last, “ESCAPE” which is a bird escaping a beautiful vintage, wire cage.

Poppy is a retro Orange and Green 100% cotton print that is backed with chocolate Minky-Dot.

Nothing but Flowers is also backed with a lush chocolate minky dot. The print is of pink and brown flowers on a taupe background. The material is a heavier upholstery weight fabric–the type used in duvet covers–100% stain resistant cotton.

Tags: minky, minkee, baby, blanket, stroller, cashmere, fleece

I am looking forward to watching the Oscars® tonight. I have seen all the Best Picture nominees, but Letters from Iwo Jima.

Best Picture

My pick for best film is The Departed. I am a fan of Martin Scorsese and I found that he kept me on the edge of my seat until the very last shot.

Best Actress

I would like to see Kate Winslet from Little Children win best actress, although I did enjoy both Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren, who were excellent in their films.

Best Actor

I haven’t watched as many of the films that Best Actor nominees are in, but thought that Forrest Whitaker was excellent as Ide Amin in The Last King of Scotland . I would have picked Leonardo Di Caprio had the nomination been for The Departed .

Best Supporting Actress

Best Supporting actress hands down is Jennifer Hudson, she was excellent in that role and clearly stole the spotlight from Beyoncé. If you havn’t seen Dreamgirls you really should. I really enjoyed the film and I am not a big fan of Musicals.

Best Supporting Actor

For best supporting actor my pick Jackie Earle Haley from Little Children. He is probably best known from his role as Kelly Leak from the 1976 The Bad News Bears. I know that Eddie Murphy is predicted to win and I thought his role in Dreamgirls was excellent but it reminded me of his James Brown caricature from his Saturday Night Live days.

Other Awards

Best Documentary-Long Form

The only documentary I saw that was nominated was Jesus Camp. It was an eyeopener and a little creepy. If you haven’t seen it it is worth a viewing. An Inconvenient Truth is expected to win.

Best Foreign Language Film

I have not watched any of the films nominated for best foriegn film but have enjoyed previous work of Guillermo del Toro and Deepa Mehta. I am rooting for Water to win—Go Canada—but suspect Pan’s Labyrinth will take home the award.

I think the show will be funny since Ellen Degeneres is hosting. My biggest hope is that they keep the musical dance numbers down to a minimum.

There are new styles available from Snug-A-Bug Blankets. I have a couple new Animal Cracker blankets, one in very girly pink.

I have also brought back Bringing Home Daisy in a spring yellow. I have a couple of new prints: a kitchsy animal print in blue and pink, a couple retro floral prints—one in green and orange, and another in pinks and browns.

The fabric I am most excited about is an interesting modern, tattoo-art style block print. I hope to have these new styles available for sale in the next couple of weeks. So please keep checking back or add my blog to your feed reader so you can get instant updates.

Georgia was almost 1 year old when we started to teach her sign language to communicate early. She was quick to pick up the sign for “more”.

Since that time, she has learned a number of new signs including “milk”, “eat”, “change” and “dog”. She seems to go through spells where she uses her signs frequently then other times she rarely uses signs. I have found the real key to her signing is Jay and I—the more consistently we use the signs the more she uses them. Georgia is now beginning to verbally communicate—her favourite two words are “hi” and “cookie”—but is still using some of her signs.

Most studies of children who learn sign language show that they are quicker to communicate verbally and get less frustrated. I would definitely agree that Georgia doesn’t get easily frustrated and we have not had the complete meltdowns that I have seen with other babies her age. Can I say without a doubt that it is because of the early signing? No, but I am glad that we started using the sign language with her.

Read my previous post on our start with sign language, Georgia’s First Sign: How I Gave My Baby a Communication Headstart.

The two resources we used to get started with signing are:

• SIGN with your BABY Complete Learning Kit: US DVD Version, Book, Training Video (DVD), Quick Reference Guide
• Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk, New Edition