There are no super-nice things to say about the person who made the item for today’s giveaway, since that person is me. I CAN, however, say a ton of nice things about my friend Megan. Megan taught me to knit, encouraged me to stick with it when I was frustrated and was unbelievably patient when it came to helping me undo my mistakes.

Megan taught me to knit almost exactly 1 year ago and this scarf is the first thing I ever finished. I thought it was the greatest knitting project ever. (Also, Little Evan totally wore those jammies last night. Time to go jammie shopping.)

And in March of this past year, one of Megan’s dreams came true and she opened a yarn store here in Connecticut.

Megan’s Shop: Mothers of Purl Yarns

As a gift for Baby Girl, Megan gave me what might just be the most adorable knitting pattern ever: Phoebe’s Sweater. Not only is it a knitting pattern for a little girl’s sweater, a stuffed mouse, a dress for the mouse and a mouse-sized sweater, it also has a very sweet, beautifully illustrated story about how Phoebe Mouse’s mom knits her a new sweater while she waits for her new baby to come, so even if you DON’T knit it’s a lovely children’s book. To go with the book Megan gave me enough yarn to knit 2 Phoebe Mouses (Mice? Meeses?) with instructions to give one away to you lovely people. And so I did.

Hi, I'm Phoebe

And then because I love knitting, I also made each Phoebe a mouse-sized jacket out of beautiful red tweed.

Your Phoebe will have gold buttons. It's embarrassing how long I stood in the button aisle picking out exactly the right ones for a MOUSE DOLL SWEATER.

But Phoebe really is cuter if you have the book (plus, if you do happen to knit you can make MORE dresses, in different colors! Or the little girl sized sweater!). So I bought a second one from Megan to give away.

You may win everything you see here! Besides the throw pillow. I bought that at Walmart. But you do get the jacket.

The book is even signed by the author and the illustrator. I can't be the ONLY person obsessed with signed books, right?

And in case you think this kind of thing is cute, your Phoebe Mouse will have been hugged by Baby Girl's Phoebe Mouse.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. THAT’S IT.

Tell me who you would give the mouse to (you can say you would keep her)! Tell me what you had for dinner last night. Tell me that even though I’m 32 weeks pregnant today I don’t need to freak out yet about having ANOTHER baby.

Giveaway open until November 7th, winner will be chosen using Random.org and notified via email so make sure you use a real one when you comment. I’m willing to send Phoebe and her book anywhere, so giveaway is open to EVERYONE.

Disclaimer bit: Megan gave me three balls of yarn and 1 copy of Phoebe’s Sweater so I could make a mouse for my baby and a mouse for you. Little Evan ruined the first book with…I don’t even know what. Something sticky. Plus I still need  a copy of the pattern to make Baby Girl a child-size sweater. So I bought the book I’m giving away. Plus I put in many many hours of knitting time when I should have been playing with my kid, so the giveaway is literally priceless. How’s that for the most unclear disclosure statement ever?

Day 1 is open until November 1st! Allora Handmade
Day 2 is open until November 2nd! Uff Da Designs
Day 3 is open until November 3rd! Taradara
Day 4 is open until November 4th! Peggy Ann Design
Day 5 is open until November 5th! aPearantly Sew
Day 6 is open until November 6th! Gussy

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Emily who had the most adorable daughter ever in the whole wide world. Because her kid was too cute for normal baby clothes, Emily started sewing her custom dresses, bibs, and hair clippies. (Also: WANDS!) When the public saw these adorable handmade goods, they demanded Emily make them available to the rest of us…and thus, Uff Da Designs was born. Now Uff Da has grown to include vintage baby and toddler clothes – something Emily knows quite a bit about, having owned her own vintage shop for several years pre-baby.

I’ve been internet friends with Emily – first on her blog and then on The Twitter – for a long long time now. Her daughter, Poppy, is only a few weeks (days?) younger than Little Evan. I could write a whole novel about how Emily is the best person on the internet, but I’ll try to keep this to a reasonable length. She’s super cool, super nice and super super talented.

Check out this baby dress:

FOR BEBEH GIRL! Plus one of Uff Da's trademark poppy clips!

And I’m not even gonna lie – I totally bought one of those poppy clips for my own self, waaaaaay before I was pregnant with #2. Hey, mamas like to be pretty too!

Recently, Emily sent me one of her baby bandanna bibs for Little Evan:

Isn't that orange and blue plaid PERFECT for him?

It’s a bib! It’s a bandanna! It’s functional! It’s a fashion accessory! It’s great for drool! Or milk! Or water! Or just to make your already super cute baby even cuter!

And um………..just in case your baby is a dog:

Please forgive me Emily. I promise never to do it again. Although Brutus thinks he looks super stylish in the bandanna.

If your kid isn’t a ginger like mine, there are tons of non-orange options too. Emily has an amaaaazing eye for vintage-y type fabrics and colors.

I love them all.

And today, Emily is going to give one of my lucky readers a free bandanna bib in your choice of fabric!

All you have to do to enter is visit Uff Da Designs and leave a comment telling me what your favorite item is. So easy! Well, except for the choosing your favorite item part – they’re all amazing. (Did I mention Emily’s totally internet famous now, since Girl’s Gone Child bought one of her clippies? INTERNET. FAMOUS.)

You can also read Emily’s blog, follow her on Twitter or like Uff Da on Facebook, but it’s not required.

Giveaway will be open until November 2nd, winner will be chosen using Random.org and notified via email, so make sure you use a real email address when you comment. Emily said she’s willing to ship anywhere so feel free to enter, my dear Canadian friends!

Giveaway is now closed!

Disclaimer bit: Emily sent me a bib to photograph and review for this post, but I bought the dress & two clippies from her with my own moolah. No additional compensation was received. And she really is the best person on the internet. No one can buy a title like that.

Day 1 is open until November 1st! Enter to win from Allora Handmade here

Sorry, I know I’ve talked about names about a zillion times already, but E came home last night and declared we HAVE to know what we’re calling her before she’s born. So this is basically just me telling him what names he gets to pick from. Because we have a super nice healthy relationship where most communication is done via blog posts and text messages. We are…an American family. (TEN POINTS to the first person who names the movie! Mom, you can’t play!)

Definitely one of these:
Caroline
Corinne
Louisa
Merin/Marin
Eloise

Probably not but still in my brain and you never know what I’ll do after labor and/or possible middle names:
Piper
Persephone (Penny)
Violet
Layla
Hazel
Claire
Mae
Natalie (if she’s born on Christmas)(Because it means “born on Christmas”)

And per Swistle’s suggestion on my first baby name post, if she’s born on Christmas Eve I’m totally using Eve as a middle name. I would use it as a first name but it’s WAAAY too close to “Evan”.

(I put Persephone on the list after I heard it somewhere months ago and totally forgot about it until I was re-reading the draft of this post. I sort of love it an abnormal amount, despite the fact that I simply cannot imagine calling my relatives and announcing “We named her Persephone!!”)

So, you guys, in honor of Baby Girl’s impending arrival and a year of owning my domain and the holidays and just my general love for blogging and the internet and YOU…I’ve got something exciting coming up.

This is all you get for now, but I can assure you it’s going to be worth your while to come back and take a peek every single day between October 25th and November 1st.

Although feel free to skip Sunday the 31st if you don’t like mouse dolls knit by yours truly. My knitting may not be up to the quality you’ll get from the rest of the participants. Seriously, I’m so out of my league in my own giveaway it’s not even funny.

I’M SO EXCITED!!!

Giant pile of baby clothes

This is our guest room. Or at least it used to be our guest room. At the moment it’s an extremely large storage closet for Baby Sandy’s things. In that giant pile of stuff, I purchased exactly TWO items – the onesie I got at the Handmade Market and the Uff Da dress right in the front. (Because literally SECONDS after I found out the baby was a girl I was stalking Emily’s site like it was the last source of baby clothes on Earth. I CAN’T WAIT to have an actual baby to wear that dress. And maybe this dress. And this clippie. Which I totally did not buy “for the baby” but wear myself. Nope.)

The REST of that pile is hand me downs. Three giant boxes from my incredibly generous local friend Julie (some of which are second hand hand me downs and yet practically new) full of PINK PINK PINK, two boxes from the gorgeous and stylish Emmie Bee stuffed with Baby Gap, adorable Christmas PJ’s from my friend Sarah, and tiny sized cloth diapers from my friend Cheri.

And then there’s this:

If the shelf looks crooked it's because IT IS. The top part broke from the weight of that many dresses & sweaters.

Those are the vintage baby clothes my mom saved. Some of them are HERS, as in, she wore them as a baby. Amazing. Oh and that shoe holder in the door is 50% bonnets (BONNETS!!! NOT EVEN HATS!), 25% bloomers and 25% shoes or tights. I squee every time I go in there.

And then I cry a little thinking about where I’m going to put it all.

The sad part is this is not the nursery. It’s a guest bedroom we actually plan to use for guests several times in the coming weeks and where my mom will be living when she comes up to rescue me from total exhaustion and failure help with the new baby. Eventually all the baby stuff is supposed to move to the current master bedroom/future second nursery + playroom and our master bedroom will move to the third floor/current junk room + second guest bedroom if we’re REALLY desperate. This pile and closet are just a temporary solution until we can get the rest of the house sorted out – a task I was SUPER EXCITED about for exactly a week, until I actually went up to the third floor and looked at how much stuff we have. Too much. Way too much. I was all set to begin the organizing and moving and getting rid of stuff! Making room in my life! I could totally host a show about how decluttering is the key to true happiness!!

Until I went through a giant box of clothes I haven’t fit in since 2004 and only managed to give away 4 pairs of pants. And one skirt. Things I did not manage to give away include a pair of bleached, holey jeans embroidered with flowers, a tank top that says “bride” in rhinestones, and plastic pink high heeled flip flops (yes, you read that correctly).

There are at least seven more boxes like that one. And that doesn’t include E’s stuff.

Maybe I should stop taking people’s hand-me-downs until I can get rid of some of my own.

Or maybe I’ll just move it all to the basement and try to forget about it. Baby Sandy doesn’t REALLY need a nursery, right?