Welcome to the world, Margaret Alisse Eckstein! My beautiful niece was born at 2:24 AM, Tuesday, November 29, 2011. She weighs 7 lbs., 1 ounce and is 20" long.
Here are a few pictures that I just had to share...
Maggie and Rikki - face-to-face...isn't this sweet???
She's so smart - she's saying, "Touchdown Mountaineers!"
If I do say so myself...over the past few years, I've done some pretty cute birthday party invitations for Elizabeth and Alex as evidenced below:
Elizabeth's 1st Birthday:
Alex's 1st Birthday (where I learned so much more on Photoshop):
E's 2nd Birthday (was a book of pictures of her throughout the year...) E's 3rd Birthday (definition of over-the-top, the entire Candyland party was actually), which I blogged about here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2009/01/birthday-party-preparations.html. E's 4th birthday was my first attempt at a pop-up card. I blogged about that as well as her Sesame Street themed event here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2010/01/happy-sesame-birthday.html. Her 5th birthday were pretty awesome, too...I love Dr. Seuss and blogged about the invites and party here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2011/01/elizabeths-dr-seuss-5th-birthday-party.html.
For some time now, I've known that I was going with the "A Very Hungry CATErpillar" theme for her her first birthday. (The kid loves to eat!) To be honest, I bought some of the party supplies back in May...so this has been a long time coming. The invites alone, I think are worth doing this party theme! Here's what I've 
done and what it took to get there (work in Photoshop excluded):
First, I started with a spool of brown satin ribbon 1/4" thick. Cut the ribbon into 3" long pieces and heat sealed the edges (that's what the matches are for.) I then hot glued matching brown 'fuzz balls' on the edge of one end of the ribbon. You need 2 ribbons with balls for the antennae for each invitation.
Next, you glue (craft glue works just 
fine) the ribbon onto the back of the caterpillar's face. When you glue them down on the back side, make sure the fuzz ball is on top of the ribbon so when the antennae flop down on the face of the caterpillar, they will be on the correct side. (You don't have to be exact with this as this entire invitation is very forgiving for those of you, like me, who don't really like to measure anything...)
Then, I started assembling. I did a red brad on the part with the face 
(you'll overlap one circle with the next). When you are lining up the circles to make the holes for the brads, make sure you overlap enough that the hole and subsequent brad aren't too close to the edge. Based on how I did the circles in Photoshop, after the red brad for the face, I alternated a dark and a lighter green (coming as close as I could to matching the edge -- and yes, that involved special ordering brads from my favorite local scrapbook store!)
The brad work well as the finished 
product then can be wiggly and inch along, just like a caterpillar. It also allows the flexibility in the invitation for all of the panels to fold around (think like a fan when folding) so that the invite fits well into an envelope to be popped into the mail...
Here's the final product all unfolded (click on any of the images to make them larger):
Where, oh where, has the time gone? I can't believe it's now officially days until Cate is celebrating her first birthday!!!
Cate officially has 4 teeth - two lower and two upper. She is still drooling like a St. Bernard. We may have finally beaten the diaper rash that plagued her for more than a month...thanks to the diaper cream that Anne sold me on by Arbonne.
She took her first
independent steps this month. Major accomplishment!!! She is even climbing up a couple of steps -- no idea how to get down yet...She's becoming such the big girl!
She is completely on solid foods (soft ones), so it's just table food now. She continues to make more sounds, but no words other than "dada" and "mama." She does shake her head no when she isn't wanting a certain type of food that is placed in front of her. Either that or she will swipe it off her tray and onto the floor...
Cate is still a wild woman in the bath. She just loves the water. Now, if we could only get her to love getting dressed, or to love being still for a diaper change...or to love sleeping through the 
night...
Halloween was fun - Cate didn't jump once at the Boo at the Zoo (despite riding the train on my lap and I jumped when someone came out of the bushes at us!) Kitty Cat Cate was adorable (thanks, in no small part to Nana for sewing her costume - and Elizabeth's matching one!) We all went trick-or-treating, and the fun was enhanced by the Koeglers joining us through the neighborhood. The girls' costumes were so cozy that Cate fell asleep while we were out trick-or-treating!
Football season is winding down (and with the season the Toppers have had, I can guarantee you Daddy is looking forward to basketball more than ever!)
Here is her latest quilt picture. Click on the image for it to be larger (actually for any of them to be larger.)
