Crystal Madrilejos

We’ve been making Q’s food at home because:
1.) We can rest assured knowing exactly goes into his food and
2.) It’s cheaper. One jar of baby food can cost upwards of $1.00 for one serving jar. You can get a week’s worth of sweet potatoes for the same amount if you make it yourself (or even less if you grow it yourself).

We were lucky to have gotten the Beaba BabyCook and a Beaba portion freezing container as gifts for our baby shower. It makes cooking convenient, but I can imagine that it would be just as easy to do without the fancy gear. All you would need is a steaming basket, a hand blender, and ice cube trays. It also makes feeding time prep easy since you can just heat up a couple cubes as you need them.

Here are green beans from the garden for Q.

Yum!
-c.

Remember this sweater I made when I was pregnant? Quil wore it on his first outing to his Lolo and Lola’s for his Cousin Layla’s 1st birthday party.

He was so tiny!

-c.

Quil is approaching 8 months-old! I can’t believe how fast these past months have gone. I looked back at the pictures we’ve taken of him and realize there are so many baby projects that we never revisited after Q was born.

The co-sleeper is still attached to our bed and now that Q is sleeping in his crib (another project we never posted about!) I’ve gone back to using the co-sleeper as my nightstand. He slept in the co-sleeper for about two months before he grew out of it. One thing we learned—the wool side extenders weren’t necessary. They looked nice, but we ended up taking them out. He moved so little at that age and the co-sleeper was so close to the wall, there really wasn’t any possibility of him rolling out.

Here he is being cute! He slept on a Sassy Vented Sleeper Wedge (which I hear now is a no-no!) because he had reflux and having him on a incline helped.

–c.

After I made the first Q video, I decided that I’m going to try to make a video every three months. Here’s number two in the series. Enjoy!

*Update: Forgot to mention, the song is “The People Who Raised Me” by Gregory and the Hawk

–c.

I am proud to say that we have some crazy talented friends. Our great friends Toby and Angela came to visit from NYC a couple months ago and one day we sat around and made Onesies for Q. I’m pretty sure he has already outgrown them by now (he could probably squeeze into one with a paper diaper but not his bulky cloth ones), but these will definitely be going into the memory box! We used plain white Gerber Onesies and TeeJuice fabric pens.

Drawing by Toby Goodshank

Drawing by Angela Carlucci (the same lovely lady who made our wedding papercut!)

Thanks yous twos!
-c.

P.S. Andrew, my brother and I all made a Onesie, but I haven’t gotten good pictures of those yet. Will post one day…

Remember this guy?

In the months before Q was born, both Andrew and I had a surge of productivity. I think it was our collective subconscious preparing us for a drought. We’ve been fortunate that Q is a good sleeper now. After his bedtime and before he wakes is our free time and both Andrew and I have been able to work on some new projects.

I figured an update is in order for the projects that we worked on before Q arrived.

I should preface this update with the fact that the majority of the time Q wears Fuzzi Bunz cloth pocket diapers. We were lucky enough to have generous family and friends who bought us these fancy pants (since they can be on the pricey side).

In making the wool diaper covers I was preparing for the possibility that we might not be gifted any fancy diapers. In that case we would have to use the more cost friendly pre-fold cloth diapers that require a water resistant covering. There have been times when we ran out of the pocket diapers and had to use the pre-folds as a back up. Despite my initial skepticism, the wool covers work unbelievably well. The amazing thing about wool is that it repels water and absorbs moisture at the same time! If you want to read more about the wonders of wool, you can read more here.

Here is Q sporting a pair of diaper covers made from a repurposed wool sweater that I felted in the washing machine:

The crocheted cover and the knitted cover were also a success! The crocheted ones are still a bit large, but he’s already outgrown the Vanilla cover, so I’m in the process of knitting a larger size.

-c.

I just wanted to pop in and say “hello” while Q is taking his nap. It’s officially been almost 4 months since our last post! That’s the longest stretch so far that we’ve gone without posting since the start of this blog. Needless to say, much has happened since you last heard from us. We missed you!

Q is growing by leaps and bounds. He surprises us everyday with some new antic! We have projects that we want to share so keep you eye out for some new posts on the horizon. Until then, enjoy this little video I made of Q from his first 3 months of life. When I was shooting the videos I didn’t have any intention of making anything with it so I shot them pretty small just to save space on my memory card (this is all shot with my little digital camera). So the quality isn’t great, but I had fun editing it. Some of you may have already seen it on my Facebook and Flickr page. The song is “Radar Detector” by Darwin Deez.

Q: 0-3 Months from Crystal Madrilejos on Vimeo.

– c.

He’s here (if you hadn’t figured that from our lack of posts)!

Quil was born happy and healthy on February 23rd and he has been keeping us busy! We will probably be taking a break from posting for a little while, but we’ll be back with lots to share. Three cheers for our little boy!

– a + c

Less than a week until the baby’s due date! Whether baby will be here on said date is the question on everyone’s minds. I think this waiting has to be the worst part of the pregnancy thus far. It’s maddening!

In the meantime, we’ve been trying to keep busy. I’ve had a few projects going because I get more and more restless as the days go by and I can’t seem to focus my energy on just one thing.

I just finished this knitting project a couple days ago, the Vanilla diaper cover, designed by knitter Kelly Brooker. I found the pattern on Ravelry (and if you are a knitter or crocheter and don’t have an account, I highly recommend signing up on this site). You can find a link to the Vanilla pattern, as well as others she has made, on the designer’s website, knit.so.quaint.

I love this pattern. Since I’m relatively new at knitting, I found that Kelly does an amazing job of breaking down the process step-by-step. Not once did I feel overwhelmed or discouraged by my lack of knitting knowledge and I actually ended up learning a ton. She also has instructions for multiple sizes and the pattern costs only about $6.00 for a pdf download. I used Lion’s Brand Yarn: Fisherman’s Wool in the color Oatmeal. I’m thinking of starting another one, you know, while we’re waiting!

–c.

While cruising around Etsy a little while back I found a pattern for sale of these cute little booties! They are called Buccaneer Booties and were designed by Etsy seller Mamachee. The pattern comes in four different sizes from newborn to 18 months. I made these in the newborn size, but I don’t think they will fit the baby right away since I used some fat yarn and they came out bigger than the pattern intended. I’m going to try to make another pair with a lighter yarn and see how they turn out size-wise.

–c.