momma bird and baby birds

A gift I made this Christmas for my mom (whom I call Mutti sometimes because she's a sweet German who gave up her life in a country that looks like a fairytale just so she could come over here and live with a super cute GI and make some super cute babies and become super Americanized with her best super German traits still shining).

I got a little obsessed with birds, and birds on wires this past year. Andy, my dear closest friend who brightens my days like a little chatty bluebird, has affectionately called her kids her "baby birds" for a long time now. We'll be on the phone and she'll say "gotta go feed the baby birds." I love it. It inspired me. It COULD have inspired me to chew up food and spit it into my children's mouths, like a mommy bird truly does. But it didn't. I just started coming up with all sorts of ways I wanted to decorate with birds. I made my TMOMS girls decorate a calendar with birds on a wire. For our anniversary I made Bobby buy me a cute little mirror that has two little birds staring at each other in the mirror.



So I guinea-pigged my mom's Christmas present out!

There's one bird for every single one of my mom's baby birds (so far). Those consist of either children or grandchildren. She has three children and 11 grandchildren. And she's not even finished yet. There's still one baby bird who is not yet married or a mother. It'll happen, and when it does I'll pull my sewing machine out and add a bird or two or three or four or five. (Sophie? Stop me when I get to the right number). Those two tiny birds are the two smallest grandchildren (twins). They're the only real designated birds on there. The rest of them are just arbitrarily whoever they are.

In my research for cute ideas for a pillow with birds, I found the cutest things people have been doing with birds. Here are a few of my favorites:

And more important than cute pillows, here's my Mutti herself...with a horse (RIP Beau), a goat, and a baby bird.