The internet is an amazing thing. Completely by accident, I connected with an artist/mother across the Atlantic Ocean who is starting her own business. I happened upon Joanna’s flickr page one day and was immediately drawn to her wonderful artwork. Among other things, her art is reminiscent of images I’ve seen in children’s books of the 50s and 60s. I really liked it, so I bookmarked her.

Flash forward a few weeks when I revisited her page to look at any newly posted art. I found an image that stopped me in my tracks. It was a children’s shirt with two acorns on it. The shirt on it’s own is awesome. A perfect example of Joanna’s artwork I’d come to love. But I was also excited for another reason. Our friend Chad has a shirt which is legendary in our peer group. It is a dark green polyester shirt with opalescent snaps and a embroidered acorn on the back. It’s known only as “The Acorn Shirt”. I simply had to have this children’s shirt for his 14 month old daughter Vivienne so they can match. I posted a comment to her flickr page asking where I could get one. Joanna promptly responded and we connected via email. She offered to send me the acorn shirt for free. Wow!

A couple months went by and the official Web site for her company, Little Bird, was launched. The site currently features their autumn/winter line of children’s shirts and they are beautiful. Go check them out now, seriously. I was a bit bummed because the shirts, once converted into the current US currency of twigs and bottle caps, were quite expensive. £18.00 per shirt + £7.00 shipping converts to roughly $40.00 USD for a single child’s cotton shirt. It appears that, at least for now, these shirts are in the realm of grandparent purchases or European customers only. That’s ok, I’ll keep an eye on the site and hopefully the US economy will rebound a bit to help out the conversion rate

So I was bummed about the cost. But that’s because I completely forgot Joanna said she would send a free shirt. I was reminded of this when a package arrived out of the blue. <Forehead slap> “Oh yeah!”

In addition to the shirt, there where also some great stickers and Little Bird balloons. It was a fun collection of goodies. The shirt is of outstanding quality. I was expecting a standard Heinz shirt with a custom print on it like the t-shirt stands in the mall, or cafepress.com. NOT THE CASE! 100% organic cotton, quality printing on the front, and all the tags were custom “Little Bird” tags. Nice touch!  As was explained in the marketing materials, the shirts have a medium fit to them (not loose, not tight). It fit Vivi quite nicely and it was clear she had complete freedom of movement. It is a very nice cut. Obviously, this is a high quality garment.

Kate and I were meeting our friends for a shopping date. We asked to come over early and stipulated that Chad had to wear his Acorn shirt. We didn’t say why, just ordered him to wear the shirt.

The Little Bird shirt was a big hit. Everyone loved it, and is extremely grateful to Joanna and Little Bird for sending on a free sample. Vivienne had a good time with her new swag. And of course, she now matches her dad in style.

Thanks Little Bird!

We did, however, spend some of this time shopping for our “instant baby” bag. In the event that we get a midnight phone call that there is a baby available and we get chosen by the birthmom, we have to be ready to go and pick the baby up at a moments notice.  If this occurs, we have an emergency baby kit. Thanks to our friends Rian and Amanda, we have a great infant car seat. We also have diapers, wipes, formula, bottles, blankets, and clothes.  And of course, my favorite piece to shop for were the clothes.

I LOVE baby clothes!  It’s not just the fact that I’m in baby fever mode right now, I have always loved baby clothes, even back when I was going to be a rebel and not have kids.  It’s just that whole miniature thing. So, for your viewing enjoyment, here are the outfits we bought the baby for the emergency kit.  Those of you who know me best will understand the gray outfits, and why I actually squealed in Old Navy when I saw them. These are the first official clothes we have purchased for the baby.

Thanks for all the fun stuff, best 30th ever! Here are some pics of the shoes and sling: