Christmas 2013

We try (and I emphasize "try" here)and keep Christmas low key, trying not to go overboard with consumerism and just the plain ole desire to give my children lots of good things.  We do that in a couple of ways.  One, for us, is simply setting a budget on gifts for each child, and sticking to it.  (that's the hard part for me, guys.  I'm a gift giver!  I love it!)  Another way, is by, loosely some times, following the "Something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read" for gifts.  We're almost finished shopping for the kids and thought I'd share.

Olivia:
*Jammies for Christmas Eve (I just bought these on Clearance yesterday for $4!)
*Outfit from Gymboree
*American girl books (the old school ones.  I bought them used. :))
*toy tbd

Austin:
*Jammies for Christmas Eve (again, clearance!)
*sweater from TCP (to go with his blue eyes.  *swoon*)
*space encyclopedia
*Over the door basketball hoop our nerf one just broke.  it was never that great.  We got this one from Costco, though.

Isaac:
*Jammies for Christmas Eve
*sweater from TCP
*book tbd
*sleeping bag from The Land of Nod (I won this at a friend's party last week!  Woot!)

Eliza:
*Jammies for Christmas Eve (same as O's)
*this shirt with matching velvet leggings
*The Moo series board books
*Kids indoor trampoline  (we got this at Essex for a SUPER good deal, guys!  $30!)

While it seems like we're making progress here, we still have the boy's birthdays to shop for, my parents, E's parents, and my brother and sister-in-law.  I love including one hand made gift for everyone, too, if I can swing it.  Last year, it was mostly crochet items.  This year, it'll be a mix.

(btw, I'm still looking for suggestions for books for Isaac or a toy for O, who is 8.5)

Birth Ball Cover tutorial

I won't go into a lengthy introduction here.  This tutorial has a very specific audience.  I get that.  But, I know there's a need for this out there.  When I was looking to make one for the birth ball I carry to births, I could only find pictures of covers or very simplistic instructions (ex, "1 yard of fabric to make a birth ball cover", with no details beyond that.)  I bought myself some super cheap, and highly discounted, fabric to play around with and here's what I came up with.

Supplies:

Scissors

Sewing Machine or needle and thread

Coordinating thread

1 yard of stretchy fabric (I used jersey knit)

elastic cut to a little less than the circumference of your ball (the width of the elastic itself is determined to your preference.  I did one cover with 1/4" and one with 1/8" elastic)

1. Wash and dry your fabric

2. Fold your fabric horizontally, like a hamburger (versus a hot dog  Not sure where I got those analogies) with the right sides of the fabric facing each other.

3. Sew each of the sides shut with a straight stitch.

4. If you desire, go back over each seam and do a quick zig zag stitch. 

5. You now have a large "pillow case".  It should look like the picture below. 

6. Take your elastic and use it to measure around the widest part of your ball.  Really stretch it here. It just barely has to fit over this part of the ball for the cover. 

7. Create a casing for your elastic. Fold the fabric 3/4", so the wrong sides are facing each other (the cover is still inside out at this point) and sew all the way around, making sure to leave a small section open to insert your safety pin and elastic. (If you're using anything but a jersey knit fabric, you may have to fold over a 1/4" first, then fold over 1/2" to create a clean edge then sew your casing.  Jersey knit doesn't fray.)

8. Insert your elastic (not pictured).  I take a safety pin, attach it to my elastic, and thread it through the tube I created.  When its all the way in, sew the elastic together, snip any left over threads,  and stitch the opening closed.

9. Turn your cover right side out and shimmy it over the ball.  It should look like this: 

See why we wanted the elastic tight?

10. With the elastic part of the cover on the floor, find your side seams.  Pick them up at the "corners". (Sorry about the blurry.  Its hard to get a birth ball to hang perfectly still.)

11. Overlap the corners, pin, and sew on both sides of the pin.

12. You're done!  Hurrah!

She only likes her hot dogs with bits of plastic

Thursdays are school days for Isaac, which happens to coordinate well with my trip to Aldi every week. (Isaac's not a huge fan of Aldi.  Something about not having cookies.)  Today is one of my bi-weekly trips to get produce, etc.

I have family coming into town this weekend.  There's four of them.   I have to feed them, obviously, and us.  It'll probably be close to double what our family eats considering O and Eliza probably add up to one regular kid.

I'm concentrating hard on how much food I need to buy, etc.  Eliza is in the back of the cart because 1.she climbs out of the buckle and out of the cart if she's in the front and 2. I didn't carry her because I was going for a run after our shopping trip where she needed to be strapped down.  I felt bad having her "confined" for too long.  I'm putting most of my groceries in the back with little Miss.

 I stop and get two different kinds of hot dogs.  One package of turkey dogs for Eliza and I because I prefer them and they're cheaper.  One package of the, more expensive, all beef bun-length hot dogs.   That way everyone else can have the more expensive ones, yadda yadda yadda.

I round the aisle, focusing on the veggie produce area, turn down the fruit aisle (so, half and aisle total) and I glance at Eliza.   There she is, an entire hot dog in hand, chomping down like its a banana or something.

First reaction:  gross.  Cold hot dog.

Second reaction: ugh.  She got hot dog juice all over her outfit.

Third reaction: how did she get that?!?

I finally glanced down in the cart and she had gnawed her way through the plastic packaging, bitten off most of the tips in the process, until she made enough of a hole to slip a hot dog out.

Can you guess which ones she opened?

Yeah.  The beef ones.

The lady at the check out: "Do you know these are open and... eaten??"

Me: "yes."

After my run, I thought I'd go ahead and actually make Eliza that hot dog she desired in the grocery store.  I heated it up and gave it to her.  What did she do?  She turned her nose up at it, said "uh-uh" in her caveman voice, and threw it on the ground.

Clearly, cold hot dogs, wrapped in plastic, are much more appealing to her pallet.

(Also, I'm thinking the "bun length" all beef hot dogs may be a little shorter than bun length.shhhhh)

"Woo hoo"s and "Boohoo"s

Woo Hoo:
~I'm back on the couponing wagon, at least for the kids' foods.
~I went on a girl's night last night.  It was super fun! It was nice to catch up with friends.
~Isaac seems to be mostly potty trained!
~Eric took me out on Tuesday night and we got smart phones!!!!  (I know, I know, welcome to the 21st century.)
~I'm listening to ocean waves music on Pandora via my new phone.  Soothing music.
~I just drank a yummy dairy and soy free salted caramel latte, made by muah.
~Eliza is saying "mama"!
~Eliza is taking a few steps here and there. (It has happened more than once, so I guess I have to count it.)
~Eliza is waving, and saying "bye-bye".
~When Isaac spells his name aloud, he says "I-S-A-B-C" which cracks me up.  He insists its a "b" and not an "A".
~Now that I've been soy free for a while, Eliza is giving me 4 hour stretches of sleep at night.
~I got a doula client!  (This is a big woo hoo!)  I'd been praying/thinking about when, or even whether, I should get back into attending births.  Then, a lovely couple called me out of the blue- getting recommendations from two separate people. 
~The day after my meeting with my new doula client, my OBGYN asked for some of my business cards to pass out in her office for people asking for doulas.  Seriously! 
~The weather is cooler this weekend.
~School starts in a little over a week. (See below in 'boohoo's.)
~I ordered one of these in the blue for Eliza for "school" (if she's walking). I got it for $15!

Boohoo
~I've had to do coupon shopping with 4 kids.  Let me show you how it ended today. Its pretty self-explanatory.

~The reason for coupon shopping??  My kids are making us food poor.  Its a good thing, that they're eating and all, but it seems non.stop.
~I've had a headache all day.  I think from going out with my friends last night.  I don't drink much, and I had some wine and sangria.  I think I'm dehydrated today.  Also, I had trouble falling asleep from socializing.  I know.  I'm weird.
~Isaac has runny poo.  Fun for potty training.  Also, just an FYI, pull-ups do not keep diarrhea in.  at. all.
~My dairy and soy free salted Carmel latte had homemade caramel syrup.  Which didn't turn out the way it was supposed to.  Its not Carmel colored, and it turned into a candy type thing.  This is what the pan looked like after I scraped as much out of it as I could.

~Eliza's still getting up twice a night.  I'm still tired.  Less tired than before.  But, still tired.

~I'm so pumped about my doula stuff, but incredibly nervous at the same time.  I ordered some things online (lavender massage oil and peppermint roll on stick) but I'm not sure what is best to bring. I've got a birth ball, music, those two oils, a messager, but I know I need more.  Not sure what, though.

~ A is having his repeat sleep study tomorrow night. 

~I'm still iffy on whether or not to send Eliza to "school" one day a week with Isaac. I can't decide.  I hate decisions like this.

~Our state recently set a law that schools couldn't start back until after the 20th.  We were supposed to start school Monday.  My kids are suddenly extremely bored and naughty.  I think parents should've been consulted before changing schools schedules to benefit "tourism".  Either that, or they come save my sanity.

~Eliza is growing up.  Too fast.  I can hardly stand it. *sniff*  I'm really boohooing.

Come and Knock on My Door

My local mom's group did a craft swap last week.  I missed the last one they hosted, and was so disappointed!  When they announced this one, I jumped on board immediately. 

I browsed Pinterest for ideas, and finally settled on a burlap wreath.  However, as I've mentioned in the past, I'm a crappy searcher over there and never seem to be able to find *exactly* what I want/need.  (of course, now that I go back and look, I see one that is just about what I did. Hmph.  What.ev.)  So, I modified different tutorials to meet my needs.

Here it is!  I wish, now, that I would've made two!  I love it so much!  (By luck of the draw, my bestie actually got my craft.  So, I have visitation rights and such.  Plus, her door is red, so the colors in the rolled flowers look fab and complimentary and stuff.)

Fresh Diet Pink Lemonade

The weather has been ah-mazing here.  Upper 70s, lower 80s.  I love it.

With the warm temperatures, I've been craving some yummy, cold, refreshing drinks.  Like lemonade (the real stuff!)  Aldi's happened to have lemon's on sale for $.99 a bag!  Then, I rounded the corner and found the $.79 strawberries!  I snagged a few of each the other day and decided to make some pink lemonade this week. 

I don't know if I'm just a lousy searcher, and I don't use the right keywords when looking for things.  Or, if there truly wasn't a good, yummy, fresh homemade recipe for Strawberry Lemonade (that didn't include club soda or simple syrup) on Pinterest.  Either way, I searched and searched and couldn't find one.  So, I made my own.

The awesome part about this lemonade?  Its diet and it only cost me $1.92 (with tax!) to make the entire pitcher.

My Fresh Diet Pink Lemonade

Ingredients:
6 Lemons, room temperature
1 16 oz package of Strawberries (washed)
7 packets (or more to taste.  I like my lemonade kind of tart) of Stevia (though Splenda would work well, too)
1 cup of water (and about 1.5 quarts added at the end)
Ice
Sprig of mint

You'll need a lemon juicer and a knife to cut your lemons and strawberries

*Wash and cut your strawberries. 

*Put into your 2 quart drink container and set aside.  I mashed mine a little bit with my pampered chef mixing do-dad.  But, you can mash yours with a fork a little bit if you want.  

*Roll each lemon back and forth a few times before cutting it.  I read something somewhere (isn't that the way it always is?  I can never remember WHERE I read it.) that you get more juice from your lemon if you roll it before cutting and juicing it.  It seems to work well.

*Juice each lemon half.  (I absolutely LOVE my lemon juicer from Pampered Chef.) 

*Pour the lemon juice over the strawberries and let them sit together for a while.

*Meanwhile, heat your cup of water up per your method of choice. I  put mine in the microwave for about 1.5 minutes. 

*Stir in your packets of sweetener. 

*Pour water/sweetener mixture over strawberry and lemon juice combo.  Stir well.

*Add extra water and ice until you have 2 quarts of lemonade.

*Pour into your pretend-I'm-on-a-tropical-island-alone-glass, garnish with a lemon slice and a sprig of mint, that you took from your neighbor's herb garden, and enjoy. (You could even go further and do a little sugar on the rim of your glass if you wanted to be super fancy)

I did find that wasn't super pink the first day, but the second day it was a glorious color!  I'd recommend making it a day ahead to achieve a beautiful color pink.



It was so.stinking.yummy.  Normally E doesn't really care for my low-calorie re-dos.  However, even he raved over this, saying "its very refreshing!" 

There you have it.  Diet Pink Lemonade.  Yum!

Hmmm... candy candles

I, like most people, am currently in a heated love affair with pinterest.  Most of the things I make work out great.  Some, well, some don't come with the disclaimer "not appropriate for homes with 2 year olds".  But, really, I should know by now that 2 year olds love candy.

I saw this on pinterest and loved it. 

  So, I went to the store, bought the supplies, and assembled my candle/jar with pretty conversation hearts and set it on the table.

It looked lovely.

About two hours after I set it out, I saw Isaac had something in his hand and stuffed in his little chipmunk cheeks.

Conversation hearts.

"See mommy!  Want some candy?"

"What's in your hand?"

"Candy. Here."

Needless to say, the candle/candy combo was kind of a miss in our house.  Well, a miss if you ask me.  A "totally awesome" if you ask Zeke.

Pintrest FAILED me! *gasp!* (a small tutorial)

I have been wanting to make Eliza a headrest for her car seat that would not interfere with the safety of her seat.  (Technically, anything, after market, that goes between the baby and the car seat could be a potential safety hazard.)  Yesterday, I had a few hours free, while Isaac was in MMO, set aside to tackle this project.
Except, well, I couldn't find a tutorial for what I wanted.  In fact, I couldn't find ANYTHING  that didn't include that back part of the headrest that goes behind the baby!  I scoured Pintrest for hours a while, hoping to find something that would give me the faintest idea on what to do, where to start, etc.

Nothing. I didn't think it was possible. But, Pintrest failed me! 

So, I decided to get to work myself.  I took my old headrest, and did some funky measuring with my handy dandy measuring tape.  From that, I enlarged the measurements a bit to make room  1. for my seam allowance and 2. I wanted Eliza to be able to grow into it. 

Here's what you need if you're following along.

• 1 piece of minky, or other equally soft and luxurious fabric, measuring 21" x 10" (Our car seat is a big one, that goes up to 30 lbs.  if you have a smaller one, I'd probably only do 19 inches in length.)
• Coordinating thread, (or neutral color if you're lazy like me and don't want to swap it out. it doesn't really show on the minky)
• stuffing (I used some of the insides of an old pillow that I was going to through out anyway.)
• scissors
• an absurdly cute baby to model finished product

First, take your minky fabric and measure the length and mark with chalk (or a pen.)

Then, measure and mark your width.

Take your sharp scissors and cut your fabric.  (If you're using minky, like me, hold the fabric kind of tight. Minky is slippery.)

Next, fold your fabric, like a hot dog, right sides together. (bumps on the inside. ;) )

 Now sew the edges together, being sure to leave a small opening somewhere.  I left my opening right in the middle of the longest side, since the seam will be pretty much hidden when the headrest is in use.  (I normally re-enforce the front and back of the opening so that it doesn't come apart when I'm turning the fabric inside out or stuffing it.)

As a quick side note, I never pin minky.  I've tried and tried, but it always works out better for me if I just go with the flow of the minky.  When I try to pin it down, I always end up with a crinkly/wrinkly spot somewhere.

I failed to take pictures for the next few steps.  Sorry! 

*trim any excess fabric

*Take your tube-like fabric and turn it right-side in. You can use the eraser end of a pencil (if its sharpened) to help you get into those corners.

*Next up, the fun part!  Stuffing!  Take your stuffing and push it through your opening, taking care to get it in each of the corners.  Stuff as little or as much as you'd like. 

*Hand stitch the opening closed.

Wah-lah!  You have a safe car seat headrest!

Cue the cute baby:

I think she likes it.

$4.25

Garage sales in Michigan, where we are visiting my parents, draw a much different crowd than they do down at home.  At home, it seems as if only those who are vastly interested in things to hoard frequent the sales.  You know the type.  The ones hauling around trucks, completely full of junk, pulling a trailer filled with the same.  (Not that I'm not up for a bargain.  I am.  I just can't possibly understand the need to fill the back of a truck AND a trailer with other people's things.  How can you possibly NEED all of that stuff.)

Back to my point.  Visiting a subdivision garage sale is a little more fun here near my parents.  Lots of kids things, in very good condition.  For $4.25 I got quite a few goodies. 

The breakdown:

$1.25 Addidias warm up outfit for O for the fall. 

$1.00 for four board books for Zeke.  Two of them were ones with sound (and both of them worked!)
                       (not sure what happened to this picture. sorry!)

$2.00 for two pairs of shoes for Zeke.  One for right now- they are a pair from BRU that look brand new!

 

The second pair was a super good deal. Here's a new pair just like them, but in a darker brown for $23.95 plus shipping. I paid $1. Not bad, huh?


O and A also spent a $1 each on various toys.  A's toy probably had $1 worth of batteries in it.

From Boy's jeans to frilly skirt, in less than 1 hour

I've had this idea floating around in my head for a few weeks now.  Probably since A put the 4th hole in a pair of pants that I had patched 3 times.  Originally, i was just going to make it a denim skirt.  Sew the crotch areas together and be done.  But, the jeans kind of screamed "BOY!" so I needed a way to girl it up a bit.  Hence the need for frills.

The entire project, from start to modeling, took less than an episode of Grey's watched on my computer. (why yes, I do sew at my computer desk...  Its multi-purpose like that.) So, definitely less than an hour.

Boy's Jeans to Frilly Skirt

Materials:

1 pair of holey jeans

scissors

sewing machine

2 pieces of fabric, cut in a rectangle shape. (the width really depends on how many ruffles you want and how big your jeans are.)  Mine were about 12 inches tall and 4 ft wide.  I just used scraps from another project.

Start with your jeans.  Cut just below the back pocket.  Then cut out the inside seam apart. (I didn't photograph this.  Sorry!)

I missed a few steps with the camera here, too.  Take one of your fabric pieces and hem the bottom.  Then, sew a very loose stitch close to the top (opposite the hem) of the fabric.  Make sure to leave extra thread at the end (so don't clip your thread, yet!)  Take one piece of the thread and gently pull, pushing the fabric gently down the thread to create a gathered effect. 

It should look something like this:

Now, take the raw edges on the sides, and sew, right sides together, to make a circle of fabric. 

Slip the fabric over the jeans, face down, with the hem up.  Next, figure out where you want the first tier to start. sew, with right sides together, just above your gathering stitch (you don't want your gathering stitch to show.)

 

Flip it down to admire your work. 

Repeat the process with the second tier.  

Trim off extra denim underneath. Then flip your layers down and admire again.



Finally, get a super cute, almost 6 yr old, to model for you.  (okay, so maybe this step isn't necessary...)

Tada!  You made a frilly skirt from boy's jeans!

A Merry Christmas Card

Its November.  I know.  I know.  I can't believe it, either.  I can't believe that Christmas is only 6 weeks away, (not to mention a certain baby boy's birthday and, my dear, E's 30th birthday.) 

Its around this time of year that we normally load up every one and haul ourselves to a cheap photo studio, wait hours upon hours to get our picture taken, (I'm not kidding here.  The weekends are a mad house there!) find one or two pictures we like, (which infuriates the photographer that we are only getting one or two poses.) wait for them to be printed, pick up the prints, and drive the 45 minutes home with everyone in tears.  Then, we have to find a Christmas card we like, cut up all of the pictures, and stick them in.

In a gigantic effort to simplify Christmas this year (I'll have to write more on that later. We're cutting back on a lot of things!) we are forgoing that little escapade.  Instead, we are doing our OWN Christmas cards.  Well, sort of. 

We spent about 20 minutes Sunday evening taking pictures out in our back yard with our camera and a tripod that my friend D lent us.  A lot of the pictures were a bust, but a few turned out great!  We are taking one or two of those photos and getting cards made through Shutterfly. 

I'm not sure which card we'll get printed, but there are so many cute choices, don't you think?

Since I'm, hopefully, going to be getting 50 of them free for writing this blog post, I am thinking about ordering some of these.  I love tags.  Love them!  These are super cute, (especially the brown one with gifts on it!)  They seem pretty reasonably priced.

With I's 1st birthday and E's 30th birthday all mixed up with Christmas, we were thinking about doing a combined party/holiday celebration.  There are all kinds of super cute invitation designs here.   I think this one is kind of cute.

I'll have to post what we end up choosing for you all.  I'm sure you are waiting on the edge of your seats....

A day for random updates

• Its raining here.  Finally.  Its been like the desert, (and our water bill reflects trying to water the desert soil to grow grass.)  Sometimes I love a good rain. 

• 
  
  My baby boy turned 4 a week and half ago. We had a small party on friday. It was hot, but it was fun. He had a blast with his friends. E decided to get all of the kids water guns to take home. Not just the cheapies, but the actual Super Soaker brand kind. They had a great time (including all of the dads. Which, thinking back, the water guns may have been for them in the first place.)

• The cake turned out so-so.  I wouldn't put the fruit in the middle again.  It was fine for party day, but I think the fruit has gone bad so there are no leftovers.  Boo.
• The kids are watching Fraggle Rock.  You know, the show from the 80s.  "Dance your cares away.  Worries for another day. Let the music play, down in Fraggle Rock."  Ring a bell?  I love the Wii.  And Netflix.  Best.invention.ever. for people like us who don't have cable.

• Zeke is waking up from his nap right now, and I can guarantee that he's standing up shaking the sides of the crib.  Yes, that's right, I said STANDING!  Its his new trick.  A trick that he likes to do all day, every day, and even sometimes at night.  He'd prefer to stand than sleep, I think.  In fact, today, he was propping himself up on the side so he couldn't fall asleep.
• O starts Kindergarten in 2 weeks.  Two weeks.  Two freaking weeks!! 
• O's kindergarten list says to buy 8 jumbo glue sticks.  Do you know how much those cost?  Around $2 a piece.  That's $16 in glue, folks.  I just want to buy the mini ones and say "take it or leave it", but probably won't since I always do what I'm told.  E wants to check Amazon to see if they have them cheaper (this is just SO him... lol.)
• I rarely order things online.  Mainly because I hate not being able to return it, or paying to return it.  But, I went to TCP last week to try to find some jeans that fit miss O.  The 4s were huge in the waist and the legs were just a tad too short.  I asked if they carried 5 slims.  Which, they don't.  But, she gave me a free shipping code to order them online.  Woot!  I used another code from http://www.retailmenot.com/ and I ended up getting them cheaper than in the store.  Double woot!  Let's just hope they fit now.

• In the spirit of online shopping, I bought a dress at Gap online today.  I think it'll look nice. It was only $9.99 so it might look nice no matter what.  At least for around the house. 
• E got a bonus a few weeks ago.  We planned to do some decorating stuff with it (well, technically, E told me I could "do whatever" I wanted with it.  But, that quickly changed to buying a few things that we need and putting the rest in savings.  Again, so totally E.  but that's why I love him.)  One of the things we were going to buy were these iron chairs for our front patio from Costco.  I went to buy them, and they were all out.  Darn!  They are too expensive elsewhere.  I just need them to look pretty, not be comfy really.  I can't bring myself to pay much for something to just look pretty.  *sigh*
• We did end up buying a pretty picture to hang above our fireplace with the money above, though.  We went to Old Time Pottery and scavenged through all of their stuff.  (E kept making comments like "let's just get out of here!" and "I hate stores like this!".  I think the clutter makes him nervous.)  I love the way it looks with our new paint color.

For a rather abrupt ending to my posting, that's my list for today. :)

T-shirt to skirt

I've been really into wearing skirts lately. As in, I'd rather wear a skirt than shorts or any other piece of clothing, really. However, due to budgetary constraints, I cannot throw out all of my other clothes and buy 10 skirts. That, and its probably not at all practical to get rid of ALL of my other clothes.

E and I have recently started a pile of clothes designated to go to the thrift store. It almost pains me to get rid of that much extra fabric. But, all of my castoffs would do more good in the original form of shorts, jeans, or dresses than they would do sitting in my sewing drawer.

I did save a few pieces, though, to play around with. I kept the above t-shirt. Its a bit snug in the chest region, but I figured I could fashion something out of it.

Wa-la. A skirt! (thanks to O's photography.)

Here it is again.

I may try to scavenge the pile again to see what else I can fashion into a skirt. E's work shirts maybe?