Elvis to keep away the terrors and some other things I have been up to

My hubby is watching a horror movie and even smidgins of it freak me out. With noise cancelling in-ear phones blaring Elvis into my brain I still seem to look up just when some little girl is puking blood or a freaky ghost is standing behind someone. I have therefor moved to our dining room table (actually just dining table, we wished we had a separate room hahaha) which has no view of the tv and resigned to writing this overdue post on Saturday night.

Listening to Stitch's Elvis song on this great spotify Disney playlist 50 best of family and kids movies.

I have been up to a lot lately. Too much to remember which sometimes leaves me doing stupid stuff like playing the Simpsons App until I get my thoughts straight.

I have been working on making a small picture book for toddlers to learn sign language. If you find that interesting please let me know. That would be a great boost to finish it.

Saying I love you

I decided to make a whole new bear for my etsy store which is easy to make, looks cute and can be dressed. I plan to make them all unique, each one coming with a little subscription of their character and a matching set of clothes. Also I want to sell clothes and patterns on the side. It seems fun but my babe holds me back sometimes as I cannot use the sewing machine when she is not in her playpen or when she is asleep because it will wake her (our appartment is tiny.). I finished my second version and it looks great so I am starting production soon. Now onto the clothes! Fun :)

First prototype, his arms are already falling off...

Furthermore I just put all my refined sugar stuff into a box, and it is a BIG box, goodness. My decorated cake shop has all but closed because I cannot make myself bake anymore of my usual recipes or use fondant to cover anything. I do not know how I am going to get rid of all this refined sugar. I think I am going to make things and try to sell them until I run out. It would sure clear up a lot of space in my kitchen.

BIG amazon box full of refined sugar stuff and I have another one nearby, what to do, what to do...

With both my nieces birthdays coming up I do have to think about how I am going to make them pretty cakes. Therefore I am starting a search for the perfect unrefined decorated cake. I have started work on a sugar free marzipan fondant that can be rolled out. If I find it you will be the first to know of course :)

Cake idea for my niece who is turning 1!

Next week I will be posting a recipe for sugar free pumpkin pie and I am trying to update the site with small things like hover pin it buttons and a printer friendly version so keep checking back!

How to of baby sign language part 2 and why you should persist!

We starting signing to our daughter when she was 4 months old. After reading wonderful reviews saying that their kids already knew 10 signs at 6 months, and 50 when they were a year, I was really optimistic. At first it did seem to work well. Our baby learned Sleep really quickly and it was wondrous! Our tiny infant could tell us she was tired and when we put her to bed she wouldn't cry at all! It was a parent's dream come true!
It was one part where we did not have to guess and so our baby was almost never cranky from lack of sleep :) It was a flying start... but not much more. At 8 months she hadn't learned any other sign and at 10 months with just the sign for Milk added, we stopped actively signing. But I did not want to give up.

I used Babysignlanguage.com to learn the signs and they have an overview of 10 starter signs. The site says Mommy and Daddy are some of the signs baby can learn most easily as she has most need of them. Sounded like logic to me so I signed Daddy for months when calling him when she went to sleep.

How to of baby sign language part 1

It took me a while to start blogging again. I guess that is what happens when you give birth to this amazingly happy and pretty little girl, she just takes up most if your time. Right now she seems to be fighting a cold her grandmother kissed on her, which means she sleeps a lot more than usual. So, I decided it would be way more productive to start my blog writing again than playing the Simpsons app...

While watching Ellen Degeneres I learned about baby sign language. My girl was just 3 months old but she could already get frustrated so I was super excited about teaching her some useful signs. I found a great website babysignlanguage.com and after reading the tips I decided to start off with the signs for things she was doing the most. I also did not want to do too many at once because she was so little. I figured it would just look like a chaos of hand movements to her and not like a sign. So I started with milk and sleep. Especially the last one seemed very useful as it was hard to tell the difference between just lazy and really tired.
The signs for both activities are really easy but when to sign them was not. When I put my girl to bed I sign sleep. That is easy enough but when she gets milk there just is not a good moment to sign because she gets breastfed. I try to sign right before the feeding, but she does not seem to make that connection and when she is already nursing she cannot see the sign very well, and frankly does not care either. So therefore after a month she signs sleep very well, and milk not at all. I might just drop milk until she is a bit older and start with mommy or something.

But to conclude my first try at baby signlanguage: it is amazing! If you have a baby, you should definitely try it. It cuts down on a lot of crying do to misunderstanding. When my girl signs sleep, I lay her in bed and she will not cry because that is where she wanted to be. Sometimes she does not even sleep right away but plays for a while first. Gives mommy some free time too :) sweet!

Check out part 2 HERE