Homemade Wooden Growth Charts

When my brother Patrick and I were little, my parents would measure us and mark our heights on a wall. I remember always being so excited to see how much I had grown. But we ended up moving so much, and we lost those precious mementos of growing up. I'm sure my family will be moving too, so instead of marking heights on the wall, I wanted to do it on something transportable that the kids could keep and eventually show their own children. I looked online and found several growth charts that you can buy... but I thought it would be much more fun, meaningful, and less expensive to make our own. So, Alayna and I had a craft day and we had a great time making these wooden growth charts.



In case anyone is interested in making these, here's how we did it:

We took a trip to the hardware store and found some nice white MDF boards. They only came in lengths of 8 feet or longer. So I got one 8 footer and had them cut it in half to make two 4 feet pieces. 4 feet is a little long for a growth chart, but I figure that way both girls can have their own chart and it goes all the way from 2 feet to 6 feet tall!



I bought some little painted wooden cut-outs of flowers, butterflies, and animals from Walmart and Hobby Lobby, and grabbed some acryllic paint, glitter paint, and a black paint pen from one of my many boxes of craft supplies. These are some of the cut-outs:




Alayna helped me paint the background colors on the wooden boards, and I painted on some grass, stems, leaves, and embellishments. I placed a flower at every half foot and animals in between. The flowers on Alayna's chart were much smaller than the orange ones on Cecily's, so I painted around where I wanted each small flower cut-out to go in order to make them look bigger. Then, Alayna helped me glue the cut-outs on and we added glitter to give them a little sparkle. I used the paint pen to mark out the inches and feet, as well as write the girls' names on top. Here are some close-ups.





I had Mike measure it out and hang Alayna's on the wall. Here she is getting measured for the first time. She's 39 inches tall today!



The MDF boards are kinda thick and heavy so I might have gotten something lighter if I were to do it over again, but they were easy to paint and seem nice and sturdy. Overall I think the growth charts turned out great and it was a really fun project! Plus, I'd estimate that they cost less than $10 each to make.

And I just had to add these pics of Mike and Alayna heading out for a daddy-daughter movie date to give mommy a much-needed break today! Plus a few of me and my sweety Cecily. They're getting bigger every day - good thing we have our charts to keep track now!

Smiley Cecily

Here's a little video of Cecily smiling at me when I was talking to her. I'm constantly amazed at how sweet and happy Cecily is. She only cries when she has a clear reason to, like if she's hungry or tired, and it's easy to make her happy again. She smiles all the time, especially when she's calm and you start talking to her. She even started laughing a little at around 5 weeks old and regularly laughs in her sleep. Are most babies like this? It's just such a difference from my first colicky, fussy baby Alayna!

Mellin Patch hand quilting service!

Just before we left for Tennessee, I was contacted through my website, Mellin Patch Quilts, by a customer who wanted me to hand quilt a twin-sized antique quilt top for her. This was my first paying client, so I was very excited to do it. Since I had a couple of weeks in Tennessee when I would have help with the kids, I figured that would be the best time to work on it. So, I asked the client to send her quilt top straight to my parents' house, I worked on it every spare moment while I was there, and got the whole thing quilted in two weeks! The piecing wasn't perfect, but it was a beautiful sampler and had a lot of really cool vintage fabrics. It was so much fun to work on and I think it turned out very nicely! Here are a few pictures:



If anyone knows someone who needs custom hand quilting done, please send them my way!

Cecily meets the Simpsons

After the wedding, Mike, Mom, Alayna, Cecily, and I drove back down to Tennessee. Yes, it was a very tight fit in Mom's car! Thankfully, both of the girls are very good travelers. Mike had to fly back home the next morning but the rest of us stayed for a couple more weeks. We always like staying with Mom, Dad, and Grandma and we were glad some of our Simpson relatives got to meet Cecily. Here we are celebrating Jessica's birthday with Grandma and Joyce!



Cecily started smiling while we were there. Isn't it beautiful? She smiled like CRAZY at Aunt Patsy, ha ha!
\

It was VERY HOT and HUMID, so we had to bring out the little pool to cool off in. Even Cecily stuck her little feet in!



G.G. (for Great Grandma) and Ceci were so sweet together!


And Alayna was loving her Papa!


We had a good time, but it's always nice to go home to Daddy. :)

Jason & Joanna's Wedding

Mike's brother Jason and his fiance Joanna had their wedding in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania when Cecily was one month old. So we decided to fly out to Tennessee and then drive up to Pennsylvania. That way, we could bring my mom with us to help out with the kids and I could spend some time in TN after the wedding.



We had such a nice time visiting with all of Mike's family. We were especially happy to meet our new niece, Karina, and Alayna loved playing with Andrew and Alyssa. Here we are at Hershey's Chocolate World a couple of days before the wedding.


The wedding was held in a gorgeous catholic church in downtown Harrisburg. It was a full-mass, traditional Latin service, which was very beautiful. It was about two hours long, though, so as you can imagine it was hard on us with little kids. Poor Christa had a crying baby and missed most of the service. Mike was the best man and he looked so handsome in his fancy suit and pink tie! :) Joanna was beautiful and Jason had the biggest smile on his face the whole day - it was amazing to see him so happy! Here are some pictures from before and during the wedding:




The reception was fun too. Mike did a wonderful job with his best man speech and Alayna danced like a crazy person the entire time.

!

Finally, I wanted to include a picture of the quilt I made for Jason and Joanna's wedding gift. It's a kaleidoscope pattern done in their wedding colors. I hope they love it! We welcome Joanna to the family and we wish Jason and Joanna a lifetime full of love, happiness, and blessings!