Brrrrr....Bonus of Babywearing

We went to the Elmira Maple Festival on Saturday. Really, it should be called the Elmira Food Festival. There's not a whole lot that is related to maple syrup, except for the Mennonites selling it at the side of the roads leading into Elmira, a maple taffy demostration, fabulous pancakes soaked in real maple syrup ($4 for two HUGE pancakes the size of the paper plate, swimming in syrup poured fresh, and a drink!), and a free tour of the sugar bush. We've been once or twice before, and somehow previously we knew to get to the far side of town and take the wagon ride from the parking areas (as you approach the town from our direction, there are cars lining the street everywhere, and you think 'OMG', but we knew the secret). We did have a brief discussion on which 'other end' of town to get to, but of course, I was right :)Rob wanted to bring the wagon, caused a few issues on the crowded hay wagon ride, and I was a little concerned about pulling it behind us in the crowds. A stroller is in front of you, and at least somewhat high, but the wagon is very low and people aren't looking down. They see a gap in the crowd at eyelevel and don't realize that there is something there at ground level. But it was better than hearing one or both of them whine about walking! It was so cold. Lucy is wearing Huey's jacket liner under her coat. Our hats were a last minute addition. We thought it might be warmer by the time we got there, but it was chilly!! I was wearing Megan on my back, and it was a good thing Rob threw in her winter jacket. She could have worn her snowsuit!
We had the delicious pancakes, and Rob said he'd carry Megan for awhile. I said you've got to at least give the FrankenKozy sling a try--it was so crowded, I really didn't want him to try to hang on to her while getting through the crowd. He was willing to try it out!


He didn't put her down while I tied it around them--I felt like such a newbie, LOL. I've never tied one on someone else before! I really like this carrier, I started it in the fall, but finished the leopard print one for the winter and left this one to finish in the spring. The other side is a blue flowery chintz. It was going to have butterscotch coloured straps (the colour is in the chintz fabric), but when I went to FabricLand a couple weeks ago to get thread, they had all these summery fabrics....so I made the straps double sided. I was also worried about the strap length. When I tried the leopard print one, it was inside my coat, and the straps were long, so when I cut the brown straps for this one, I made them a bit shorter and tapered the ends. But then I started carrying her on my back, over my coat, and the straps were just long enough. i couldn't add extra length to the brown straps very easily because of the tapered ends. So I cut off the tapers, and sewed it together with the blue fabric, so about half of each strap is double layer, adding extra strength and support (I don't think the blue fabric would give enough support by itself) but the part you actually tie is only the blue layer. Aren't I clever? LOL. It's so nice and flowy and summery. Now, if we could only have spring again!

You can also see Megan's homemade "BabyLegs" baby legwarmers. A must for the slung baby, it fills the gap when their pants ride up, LOL. They were just a pair of girls' knee high socks, with the foot cut off. Didn't even finish the end. It rolls up, and you don't notice.

I teased Rob that the only reason he wanted to carry her was to keep warmer. He laughed, but didn't deny it :)