DIY mamas-to-be and wannabes: This is one easy project that will give you bang for your $5.

When shopping for receiving blankets, it seems that there are 3 kinds of totally WRONG kinds of blankets: cute but stretchy, too small, or not square. Uggh! For a true Harvey-Karp-style swaddle, you need a biggish piece of flannel or muslin fabric cut in a square.

Excerpted from both our book, Rookie Mom’s Handbook and our real lives is this super fast way of making the best big-enough receiving blanket:

Activity # 11: Make the best (or worst) swaddling blanket

If making something with your hands is fun for you and having a well-rested baby is something else you like, then this activity is right up your alley.

Buy a 40″ by 40″ piece of flannel with a cute pattern and then finish (or hem) the edges. A perfect square makes the best swaddler, but any shape will do for a stroller blanket or play mat — so if it comes out deformed, everybody still wins.

Pay no attention to the couple piles of adorable flannel in my sewing pile… I swear that those are for friends and their future babies, and not cuz I couldn’t handle this project.

Related links:
Happiest Baby on the Block (dvd) – to teach you to wrap your perfect swaddle
Rookie Mom’s Handbook – to teach you how to enjoy becoming a mom
Activity #387: Make or buy a fuzzy, sassy, personalized baby blanket – to teach you how to make a totally cute stroller blanket

How cute is this series of photos from Hey Jen Renee? She created a printout for each month of her daughter’s first year and took a photo of her baby girl “holding” it.

At the end of the year, she printed the twelve photos and placed them in an accordion fold-style photo album so that they could all be seen next to each other.

And because I love YOU so much, I created a Word document that looks like Jen’s calendar page that you can use and update each month to fit the day that matches your baby’s birthdate. Download it here.

After returning from a jaunt to Tahoe with his toddler, Ainslie, I asked our friend Doug for tips on fun stuff to do in the snow (that’s right old friends, I’m embarrassed to admit it but snow is something we visit out here — not endure. And we “jaunt”).

For the baby set:
walk around with bjorn and congratulate yourself for being active.

Sharon reports:

We would have normally planned to go snow shoeing or skiing and planned a romantic dinner out. But we spent our time walking around the village, shopping a little, having a nice dinner, going for a long walk, and taking lots of pictures of Ainslie.

Our friends, Doug and Sharon, are total bad-asses. So, when they recommend to take it easy with your rookie baby, you should listen.

Last year, Whitney and I did their 22 mile charity bike ride and were proud to complete it. Sharon did the whole thing 6 months pregnant while Doug had a 30-pound toddler in the bike trailer.

Little pre-walkers need lots of practice and encouragement. Walk around slowly holding junior’s hands.

If possible, get someone to take a picture from behind with baby and your adult hands supporting him – super cute!

Last week I saw a post with 25 ideas for scrapbook pages for your baby.  It reminded me to share three ideas with you for second children. We don’t want them totally neglected in the baby book department.

Holding a framed photo. My friend Emily snapped this picture of her baby boy Desmond at 6 months holding a picture of his big sis Etta when she was 6 months.  This is one of the many delights of having two children – the constant comparing and contrasting you can do.   (This adorable picture could be taken with of a rookie baby holding a baby picture of the parent she most resembles.)

In front of the computer. Digital photography means that we experience most of our pictures on a screen. Isn’t that representative of this generation of babies? In this photo, baby Milo is being compared to big brother Holden at the same age. Heather simply brought Holden’s one month-old picture up on the screen and held Milo in front of it, snapping another photo.

Who’s who? I put baby Scarlett in the same sweatshirt her big brother Julian had worn for his first ride in the baby swings. Same park, same hoodie, same milestone picture.  Am I setting her up for a lifetime in his shadow? Maybe. Anyhow, I then cropped the pictures similarly and put them in a grid. I sent it out to friends and family, inviting them to guess who was who.

Are you guys scrapbook-y? I’m not, but I think a well-done scrapbook page is beautiful. If you’re into it, check out Wendolonia and Hey Jen Renee. If you want to take a baby step towards this craftiness, try this list of Valentine’s Day projects. (Plenty of time to finish them if you start now).

I am the first person to delete the blurry pictures and the closed-eyes pictures from my computer. Despite what my MIL might think, I make a strong effort to edit what I share with the world.

What about the funny, goofy faces? Do those get chucked out too? Well, how sad.

Do yourself a favor and make a little collection of those faces only a baby can make and you’ll see the immense cuteness. I found this collection of Cricket’s silly faces over at Mama C-ta eons ago.

Once you have a good series going, you can make a framed set of 3, an easy silly photo book, or a full-on kooky Tabblo.

Here’s a gift idea. Make a personalized version of the game Memory. You know, where you turn over two tiles to try to make a match. Each time you make a match, you remove the tiles until you have matched all the pairs.

I made this for my grandparents one Christmas. It is about half-way done in this picture. My sister painted it before we gifted it to them.

To make something as awesome as this, you need to spend a little money on supplies. We bought blocks and the tray at a craft store (Michael’s). I cropped and resized the photos until they were all 1.5 inches square and all on the same document. If you are not proficient at any graphics program, you can actually do this in Word. Cut out the images and use something like Mod Podge to adhere them to the blocks. Put another layer of Mod Podge (stuff in the decoupage section of the store) on top.

My sister is going to spray them with a shiny protective coat when she’s done.

We actually also typed up directions for playing the game, just to make the gift a little sweeter, and titled it Family Memory.

We hope my grandparents will have hours or at least a few minutes of fun with this.

Sometimes young babies make annoyingly weird faces when you’re trying to take a picture to prove to the world how cute they really are.

In the first couple months, I found that Julian was actually a very good model while he slept. He didn’t cry or cross his eyes or make a rooting face. He was peaceful and pleasant and I’m glad I captured it on film. I ended up using a sleeping photo for our holiday card.

How to do it:

• Locate a well lit corner of your house
• Place unswaddled baby on solid colored piece of fabric, such as sheet, blanket or pillow case
• Stand above baby looking down to shoot picture
• For best results, do not use zoom or flash– move camera or lighting instead

Continue to try on all the new outfits you got as gifts, no matter how silly you think they are, and photograph him in the clothes before he outgrows them.

Remember to take pictures when outfit is fresh (it took me 3 tries on this outfit and I finally dressed him in the living room out by the chair!) — if your baby is a puker like mine, this is especially important.

Whitney calls this activity “playing baby doll.” After all, why did we have children if not to pretend they are our favorite toys?

This is my favorite format of a Mom’s Group picture. If you have the chance to imitate it, please do!

I saw it on the Facebook page of a former co-worker and he gave me permission to publish. Thanks, Rookie Dad Eric!

San Francisco-based photographer Nancy Alcott is a rookie mom who is on a mission to save you from yourself when it comes to producing a photo appropriate for a holiday card. Her aesthetic is clean and modern. No holiday sweaters allowed.

Here are Nancy’s tips:

Dress them like kids, not elves.
The holidays are festive but be careful not to overdo it on the outfits. Avoid busy holiday motifs or bold patterns and stick to simpler, solid colors to ensure their faces are the hero of your photo, not junior’s explosion-at-the-candy-cane-factory jumper.

Lineups are criminal.
For truly distinctive shots, forego the typical family lineup by paying attention to backdrop and poses. I like keeping subjects away from walls and busy backdrops, opting instead for cozier, more natural settings. Also play around capturing your subjects in ways other than dead-on facing the camera. A slightly turned head or angled shoulder turn can be the difference between capturing a cast of characters versus a night at the precinct.

“A” is for Auto. “B” is for stop doing that.
Automatic mode can help ensure a decent photo but to get the best effects for close-ups on faces, choose “portrait” mode, or for the more adventurous types with more advanced cameras, “aperture” mode. Experimenting with these modes can create beautiful artistic effects by blurring out the background and drawing attention to your subject’s face.

Teach your camera colors.
Learning advanced features can be daunting so I always tell amateur photographers to experiment first with white balance (sometimes abbreviated “WB” on cameras) because it will have the biggest impact on creating true colors. Believe it or not, your camera can only guess at precisely what colors it’s looking at. Setting your white balance (sunny, cloudy, fluorescent, etc.) ensures your colors are accurately portrayed.

Testing 1, 2, 3…
99% of the time, my best results are when the subject least expects to be photographed. Candids tend to draw out your subjects personality, before they go rigid readying their pose. One trick I use to get great semi-posed portraits – tell your subjects to pose for some “test” shots to help you prepare your camera. If they think it’s not for real, they’ll tend to be much more expressive and natural.

Get more inspiration from Nancy by browsing the photos at her website.

Now that you have your very own baby, your Halloween costume options have really expanded. If your baby is pretty new, she can be carted around with you, with no regard to bedtime. Enjoy it while it lasts.

A few ways use your baby as a fun prop or sidekick to your own costume. Some of these are very easy on the degree of difficulty scale and some require some more effort, so you can decide.

I would love to hear from someone who incorporates some sort of gear – a backpack or stroller – into their costume.

1. Mom is princess, baby is frog (Optional: daddy is prince).
2. Parents are the Wonder Twins. Baby is blue space monkey, Gleek. Heather has wanted to do this for years but her husband thinks its creepy to be siblings.
3. Adults are characters from the Wizard of Oz. Baby is Toto.
4. Mini Me as suggested by a RookieMoms.com reader, Sean
5. Celebrity baby. If you have even the vaguest resemblance to Jennifer Garner, Heidi Klum, Gwen Stefani, put on your rock star clothes, wear baby in a sling, and carry a Starbucks cup. Alternative to the sling for lesbian moms: one mom is the celebrity, and the other partner dresses as the nanny and carries the baby.

We have some other Halloween costume ideas and tips for babies and toddlers:

• Keep it simple and low-key
• Have fun with it whether you make or buy

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