Elliora was so teeny nine months ago. Wow.

Anyway…does anyone remember this photo, and how I asked y’all to help me think of a funny caption, and then I did a poll to see who should win?

I’d say we have a clear winner:

Congratulations, kc! Your caption is especially appropriate because I just read all seven Harry Potter novels for the first time the week after New Year’s. I’d like to paint you a mug or bowl or something as a prize. Email me and we’ll talk details!

…commenter #8:

Congratulations, Laura! I’ll email you the details soon.

Brenda’s book tour is still going on. She’s up to letter O! Keep reading those posts and collecting the secret-agent phrases for your chance at the prize at the end of the tour.

You might remember that a few months ago, I did a giveaway of my good friend Brenda‘s first published book, Secret Agent Josephine’s ABC’s.

Spy eyes.

This book is baby-approved! (Photos by Brenda Ponnay)

I mentioned back then that Brenda had two more books she was working on, one about colors and one about numbers. Well, guess what. The spotted cuckoo is flying backwards.

They’re here! ABC’s, Colors, and Numbers! All three books are available on Amazon in paperback or ebook. All three books are full of the whimsical, clever illustrations that are Brenda’s trademark style.

Funny story about the letter U in the ABC’s book. Way back when Brenda was designing the alphabet cards that the ABC’s book is based on, she was trying to decide between unicorn and umbrella for the ‘U’ card, so she asked the nearest 3-year-old which one she liked better. The nearest 3-year-old happened to be Annalie, and she said, “Neither. You should do underwear!”)

3-year-olds: finding underwear hilarious since the dawn of time.

To celebrate the release of the third book, Brenda is doing a virtual book tour, with one stop for each letter of the alphabet. This here blog is the B stop (or one of them, anyway—thanks to a slight mix-up there are two B stops!) in case you hadn’t figured that out already. And as a special treat for you, the super-stealthy followers of the book tour, Brenda is offering you the chance to win a print of the letter B from the ABC’s book! To enter the print giveaway, leave a comment on this post…oh. let’s say, your favorite place that starts with the letter B. Comment before midnight PST on November 30th from anywhere in the world for a chance to win, and keep following the book tour for the rest of the alphabet over the coming weeks for more chances to win. (Stay tuned to my blog for the chance to win a copy of each of the books, too!)

B, I’m so proud of you for all the hard work you did getting these books illustrated and following your dream of being published! You said once on your blog a long time ago that you should do what you love, and you constantly remind me of that in the way you live your life. You complain about your job sometimes just like anyone else, but you do love what you do, and you inspire me and others to follow our passions too. Thank you for that, and for brightening our lives with your artistic talent. Good luck on the rest of your book tour!

Winners of the baby t-shirts are: Annika and Erica.

WInners of the stripy wallets are: Sonja and ~moe~.

Winner of the birthday calendar is: Katie.

Winner of the magnets is: Rachel.

Congratulations, winners! Please email me your mailing information (bethanyactually at gmail dot com) and I’ll get your prizes shipped off to you this weekend!

I dragged the lovely but annoyingly-uncomfortable rocking chair out to the minivan so we can donate it to Goodwill and lugged the ugly, awesome video chair up from the basement. I moved the changing table from the living room (where Troy assembled it) to Elliora’s room. I found the baskets we originally used for changing-table storage, found new places for the yarn and craft supplies they were holding, and arranged them on the shelves below the changing pad filled with diapers, lotion, and wipes.

All of this rearranging has activated my Must Get Rid of Excess Crap mode. I’ve been regularly donating bags of Elliora’s outgrown clothes to friends and charity in recent months, but now I’m feeling the itch to get rid of more. Books, toys, clothes, furniture, give it all away, MWAHAHAHA! Ahem.

So anyway, while I was busy this morning I had the sudden need to clear out my gift stash. I put a bunch of it into the giveaway bag, but some of the things in there I thought I might give away to you guys. These are all items I bought to give as gifts a couple of years ago but then didn’t, for one reason or another. They’re all new and unused.

Two white, 100% cotton baby t-shirts screenprinted in red with a little cardinal saying, “Cheer.” Although one is tagged 3-6 months and the other tagged 6-9 months, they look exactly the same size to me, and they’re both too small for Elliora. These were purchased from paperbluebird’s Etsy shop, but the shop is no longer open. Know any babies who’ll be about those sizes this holiday season? (Note that the ink on the one on the right, the 6-9 months shirt, is very slightly blurred.)

Two pink and green striped fabric wallets, purchased from bluejaye crafts on Etsy, which also seems to be on hiatus. I own one of these little pouches and have been using it constantly for the past three or four years. It’s a little faded, but has held up beautifully.

Mom’s Birthday Calendar, designed by Sandra Boynton. It’s a perpetual calendar, so you can write birthdays or other important anniversaries on it and use it year after year. On the right is a photo of a similar calendar (the design is slightly different; my calendar is taller and narrower) that I’ve had for years, hanging on my fridge.

Last, a set of square magnets with little nature-y sketches or motifs on them.

Would you like any of these things? Comment and let me know which item(s) you’re interested in. If you only want one or two, that’s fine. If you are interested in all of them, that’s okay too. If more than one person is interested in anything, I’ll just do a drawing. If you win an item and you’d like to PayPal me a couple bucks to cover postage that would be nice, but you don’t have to. Call this a random-act-of-kindness giveaway, I guess. I’ll leave the comments open for a day or two, and once I do any drawings I’ll post the winners’ names. If you don’t email me your address within a day or so, I’ll draw another name. Sound good? Okay then. Comment away!

Updated 13 Oct 2011: Comments are closed. I’ll post the winners tomorrow.

Commenter #4, Leta. Congratulations, Leta! Email me your mailing address (bethanyactually at gmail) and I’ll get that book sent to you soon.

Did you know that Brenda has published a book? She has! The first one (she has at least two more planned) is based on the alphabet flash cards that she made a few years ago for Bug, and they’re just as adorable in book form. You can even buy a Kindle edition to keep your kids entertained in the car or while you’re cooking dinner!

I bought a copy of the book for us, of course, and one for my 20-month-old niece just because. My mom reports that Aurora LOVES the book and has wanted to read it approximately 11 billion times since they got it. My brother has been working on teaching her the alphabet and she already knows most of her letters! This book is right up her alley, since she can practically read it herself.

Hearing how much Aurora loves this book made me think, “I should buy this for all the littles I need to give Christmas gifts to this year, and all the babies I know who are being born in the next few months!” Brilliant idea, right? So brilliant that I figured I should share it with you all. You’re welcome!

On another note, I’m so tired of being sick. Everyone in the house has been taking turns with a summer cold, the kind that leaves you listless and stuffed up and coughing. I’ve been fighting The Annoying Cold That Will Not Die (h/t Sonja) for what seems like forever. A few days ago, just as I was starting to feel better, I got a plugged milk duct! Those suckers can turn into mastitis, which I’ve never had but am scared of because I hear it’s quite painful. So I was stressing about that till it (thank God) cleared itself up. And then Monday, just as I was ready to tackle packing for California, I woke up with a fever and chills. What the heck, immune system!?

That is actually quite typical of me. Last year when I was pregnant, I was basically sick for two months with one virus or another. I think my immune system must be easily overwhelmed; once it’s working on one infection, all the other germs say, “Hey, she’s distracted! Quick, slip in while she’s not looking!”

Anyway. I’m feeling better today. I’m taking Emergen-C and drinking tons of fluids, and am trying really, really hard not to go overboard trying to make up for lost time, wearing myself out, and ending up right back where I started. Except for, um, making banana-coconut muffins and doing laundry and loading the dishwasher and sorting clothes to pack. That’s not overboard, right? Sigh. I’m doomed to be sick till September, probably.

But hey, California! Have I mentioned that we’re going to California for two weeks? Just me and the girls, making a cross-country trip to visit friends and family. We already have a ton of fun stuff planned, and my mom is going to be there at the same time as us, visiting her sister in the next town over from Brenda. Poor Troy has to stay home and work. Poor Troy, with the house and the TV and the bed alllll to himself for two weeks. I’m sure he’ll miss us terribly.

Although the travel prep is probably going to kill me, I’m quite looking forward to our actually being there, hanging out with old friends and introducing Elliora to them and my mom’s side of the family. Annalie is beyond excited to stay at Bug’s house.

I’m pretty excited that I’m going to be able to get Brenda to sign my book for me in just a few days. To celebrate that, and Brenda’s first published book, I’m going to give a copy away! Just leave a comment telling me if you’re a list-making, pack-weeks-ahead organized kind of person, or a wait-till-the-last-minute-and-oh-heck-I’ll-pack-my-laundry-they-have-washing-machines-there kind of person. If you actually buy a copy of Secret Agent Josephine’s ABC’s, forward me the Amazon order confirmation (feel free to delete your address first) and I’ll give you four extra entries in the drawing!

I’ll close comments after we arrive in California on Friday afternoon. Good luck!

This post has been brought to you by (1) me finally feeling something like normal for the first time in weeks, and (2) Elliora’s unexpectedly, blessedly long afternoon nap. That long nap was probably due to the fact that Elliora ate almost an entire grilled cheese sandwich (provolone and cheddar, ‘cuz we’re fancy like that) for lunch today, cut up into bite-size pieces and dipped in tomato and roasted red pepper soup. She loved it.

Comments are now closed. I’ll post the winner soon!

Perhaps you’ve noticed the excellent banners this blog has been sporting for the past couple of years? Brenda designed them, of course, just like she designs monthly banners for her own blog. One of the reasons it’s awesome to have a talented graphic illustrator as one of my best friends is because sometimes she gives me banners as gifts and lets me trade baking and crocheting and popsicle makers for them. Now, she wants to share the banner love with my readers too!

Brenda is offering a super-secret special for my readers and friends only. Banners at the low rate of $50. That might not seem low, but usually banners take her between one and four hours each, and I personally can vouch for how hard she works on them because I’ve watched her do it!

WordPress is being weird and not emailing my comments to me right now. (That’s why, if you’ve commented with a question, I have probably not replied to you because for some reason I suck at remembering to check the comments on my WordPress dashboard.) So if you would like the super-secret code, email me—bethanyactually@gmail.com—and I will email it back to you. And then you can talk to Brenda about getting a snazzy blog banner of your very own!

Heh. Not really, of course. But doesn’t it look like Elliora is getting ready to catch a mini-Annalie!? This cracked us up when we saw it.

Can anyone out there think of a better, more hilarious caption? There might be a prize in it for you if you come up with a really good one. Maybe some dottery or something crocheted. Wow me, I dare you!

(DISCLAIMER, because I know some of you are looking at this photo and thinking, “Aack!”: No babies were harmed during the taking of this photo. It was safer than it looks. We have a king-size bed, and Elliora was on one corner with me right next to her, while Annalie jumped straight up and landed on the pillow in the opposite corner, about six feet away. Elliora wasn’t even jostled.)