Taggies, Scraps & Big Brother Gifts

When I found out my sister was expecting her second baby I knew I wanted to come up with something special for her baby and after a few months of thinking and looking around while considering this is her second little baby boy in two years I had some good ideas.  I had ideas but not a whole lot of time.  When I found out I was going to be lucky enough to get to go and meet the little guy in person but also that my sister didn’t really want to take anything more than they already had on the plane ride home I decided to wait on it.  Maybe something would strike me when I met him in person.  Samuel is a beautiful baby boy and what struck me when I met him and when I thought about my sister was that he should have something made in brown and green and upon my return home I set to work.  What I thought was really funny later was that Rachael posted pictures of her nursery for the baby on her blog and her colors… were brown, green and cream!  Now I didn’t have Peter Rabbit or even little bunnies but the colors were right!!!  I had no idea!  Great minds! 
Being that this was Rachael’s second boy in a row I didn’t just want to get him an outfit or something that he already had enough of.  And I thought about what I would have liked and came up with a couple of things.  A WASHABLE changing pad… I don’t like disposable things and our society is too disposable AND I shudder to think of always using plastic changing pads in public restrooms and never cleaning them and just shoving them back into the diaper bag on top of that.  So a nice soft changing pad was in order.  I looked through my scrap box and found some excellent fabrics that I thought would go together well and be nice for baby.

On the left are the fabrics I chose.  They are made of cotton fabric for the trim and back while the front is made of flannel and super soft minky.  I then quilted batting to the back of the pieced front and stitched the edges of the backing onto that, wrong sides together.

Then I found a long scrap that was the exact perfect width with plenty of length for a coordinating bias binding.  Velcro was then stitched on two locations at the front and back of the changing pad so that it would fold and hold securely together for traveling.

I nearly forgot to round the corners but looking at my child’s plastic changing pad, ironically hanging up on the clothesline after attempting a machine wash, reminded me to do this.

I pinned and machine stitched the binding to one side of the changing pad but then my machine objected to stitching through the minky and through the thickness and I found I needed to be very careful with rounded corners as well and so I slip stitched the binding by hand on the other side.  This could be done while watching a movie!

Voila!  A soft and washable changing pad that looks nice and folds for easy traveling.  It is several inches longer than a traditional plastic changing pad also, which I think is a plus for changing babies who are no longer newborn.

Then I made Taggies to match which are just soft, comforting and tactile.  I love the brown and white minky fabric.  On the left is an “S” for Samuel.  It is stitched together and sort of looks like an 8 but I thought it would be safer for a baby if I stitched it like this.  The other one is just a larger rectangle.  I ended up not liking the ribbons that I put on this one originally and so ripped the whole thing apart again to replace the ribbons.

I then packaged these gifts with homemade labels or tags and ribbons and they were ready to go BUT… there was a very special big brother who is just two years old and is going to play a big role in Baby Samuel’s life, most likely being a hero to him in many ways and so two year old Porter would need something to open too.  After all, he is still just as special as he was before and he needs to know that.

So Porter got a Super Boy/Super Brother-Super Hero cape which is reversible depending on his mood or what is needed for his story line and I whipped one up for him one Tuesday night.  Blue is Porter’s favorite color and the blue fabric matches Nathan’s hero cape.  I had a huge amount of this handed to me a few months back from a friend.  The other side is red and I also had a huge amount of this handed to me from my Aunt a few months ago.  The stars are scraps from Kaitlyn’s Super Hero cape that she picked out at the store herself.  Then I made a second cape identical to this one to give away as a birthday party gift for an imaginative little girl we know.  This cape is loads of fun to wear when you are in the mood for “Super Boy to the Rescue” and features a Velcro closure at the neck for safety.

Then the superhero cape was tagged and the gifts were wrapped for the two boys.  In the mean time I got another bright idea into my head.  I imagined what I wished I was around to do if only my sister and I lived closer.  The reality is we live over 2,000 miles apart.  And I think it is always nice to get a present as a new parent.  It hardly ever happens but it is super nice.  If I were closer I would have made her dinner and brought it to her… Impossible from this distance!  Gift card… well, I don’t really know what’s out there and that just didn’t seem personal enough.  I was hoping for something special so I tried to combine all of my ideas together and decided to make two dinners for Rachael and her husband.  If I couldn’t bring them to her I could at least send them to her…

Being so far away my choices here were pretty limited.  And yes the baby is two months old by now but I figured you are still busy and it’s always nice to have help with a meal.  Hey!  I’d like help with a meal!  Even if your baby is six months old you are still really busy and tired and then add keeping up with a two year old.  So I set about making (and trying out a few new ones) mixes that would taste wonderful and be easy for my sister and her husband to finish into meals.  The first meal included a Sloppy Joe mix, an Italian salad dressing mix and a homemade pudding mix.  The second meal included Taco Seasoning Mix, Homestyle Buttermilk dressing mix and another pudding mix.  One pudding was chocolate, the other being Vanilla complete with M&M’s included for sprinkles.  Each mix came with the recipe to complete it and in each meal I packaged I included a suggested menu with a pantry/shopping list to create the suggested meal.  I also included my favorite dinner roll recipe that I use for Sloppy Joes just to share but suggested simple hamburger buns purchased at the store for the meal.  She can do it either way.  I hoped this would make meal creation as easy as possible and that Rachael’s family would enjoy the homemade mixes I create to make busy life both healthier and easier.  I use homemade mixes pretty often.

I placed the two packaged meals in a basket together, wrapped everything up and boxed the whole thing together.  A little something for everyone  because everyone is special.
Nathan was eager to help me deliver this parcel to the post office which is now at the end of our street.  We walked over, each of us holding a handle to the bag carrying the box, and as we approached the building Nathan looked at me and said “Is Porter HERE?”  Wouldn’t that be nice???  No, he’s not here.  He lives far away.  Nathan said “Can I go to Porter’s house?”  I told him that we were giving the box to the postman and it will keep passing from one postman to another until it gets to Porter’s house in about a week.  But I bet that Porter will be happy to get a surprise from Nathan’s house and I’ll bet that Porter will like his Hero Cape just as much as Nathan likes his.  I really enjoyed putting this package together as a fun surprise for Rachael and her beautiful family.  Hooray for babies!  Hooray for family!