The First Apron

Since I've had so much free time lately, I've been looking for lots of crafty projects to work on.  Yesterday, I decided to go ahead and make my baby her first apron.  She's still a little too young to really help in the kitchen but I decided that I have way more free time now than I'll probably ever have again so I might as well go ahead and get a head start on it.  I used this basic pattern/tutorial though as you can see, I made several changes.  It is a little big since it is more of a 2T/4T but that is just fine with me since I want it to last for several years.  Kira's favorite part is the butterfly.

Dressed and reporting for kitchen duty.

How did this child get such nice hair?  Definitely not from me.

Rainy Days and Homemade Bread

Today it is only 75 degrees out which is quite cool for mid June.  It is also a rainy day.  We're keeping ourselves busy by lighting candles and baking homemade healthy bread.  Hopefully, I'll be able to put 3-4 loaves of it right into the freezer which will keep us supplied with bread for 2-4 weeks.  I'm hoping that the baby will be born during that time and we'll be able to have yummy toast for breakfast.

Since the school year ended, we've had a significant decrease in our weekly obligations.  Sometimes this is nice.  Sometimes it is hard to be home all the time with nothing to do.  Other times we get super busy and I get 37 weeks tired and it is nice to be able to sit on the couch and read books all day.

Because I've had so much free time, I'm trying to work on being a more involved mom.  Kira is mostly happy to amuse herself.  When she does want me to amuse her, it is always the same couple of things over and over.  She wants me to read books, sing songs or chase her around the house.  Each day that I'm home with no big events going on, I decided that I needed to start trying to do a specific fun thing with her.  Nothing big or flashy, just something somewhat new or different.  So far I've been relying heavily on pinterest.  Today's activity was to put stickers on a piece of paper.  While cleaning out the office/baby's bedroom, I found a book of stickers that I purchased for $1 when tutoring.  About 3/4 of them were left which added up to several hundred.  I took a piece of construction paper and made little dots on it. I then handed my child a sticker at a time and encouraged her to put them on the stickers.  Most of them made on or near a dot.  At the end, I let her color the paper with her crayons.  I think she enjoyed it and I have enough stickers left to repeat this activity probably 5 more times.

In other news, we've been cleaning out our office/guest bedroom to make it a nursery.  

This is Aaron putting together the big girl toddler bunk bed while K-baby reads her books right in the middle of it all totally oblivious to the fact that she is probably in the way.  She loves to be with her daddy. We hope to have the room fully functional by early next week as I will be 38 weeks on Sunday.  Kira has adjusted well to her new bed.  As she is not a climber at all, she hasn't attempted to get out of her bed once though it would be fairly easy for her if she ever decided to try it.  Speaking of toddler beds, when are you supposed to give your child a pillow?  

I'm just going to leave you with a picture of this cutie-pie.  This is her in her jammies waving hello to the world.  She is going to be so excited to have a baby in the house.  We've already been practicing wrapping her bunnies in blankets and putting them to bed and such.  

21 Months and 36 Weeks

Baby #1
Wowzers!  She's almost two.  She is getting super smart and interactive.  I'm so glad that I have a toddler so that I can really enjoy the newborn stage again.  Here is a list of things that I want to remember about her.

• Loves to have us sing her songs.  She will often come up to me and say, "ABC?" or "Twinkle."  Unfortunately, she has a whole list of songs that she likes and when she finishes the list, she's starts at the beginning.  She also sings little bits and pieces here and there.  My favorite is when she loudly sings an "Amen" at church along with the rest of the congregation.  
• She knows 3 catechism questions and is working on a fourth.  The other day, we were asking her the questions and she answered one and then jumped ahead and asked and answered the next one as well. 
• She is working on speaking in sentences.  Such as "Where daddy go? Daddy bike."  And I've been hearing this one a lot lately, "Snack! Piece bread?" She also repeats just about everything we say.  She saw a motorcycle going down our street last night and she spent several minutes trying to say the word.  Aaron has also been trying to teach her the doxology so he will sing a couple of words and then she attempts to sing them after him.  
• She is walking and such pretty much like a normal kid (finally!).  She never tries to climb on things though.  She can't get up on the couch or any chairs by herself and she rarely even tries to stand up in her crib.  
• She knows about 5 different shapes. 
• She still loves to read books and color pictures.  She especially loves it when we read the books to her and color pictures for her viewing pleasure.  
• She loves, loves, loves her family including those members that she only sees every few months.  
• When tired, she is super duper emotional.  Everything is a matter for tears.  A lot of times I don't even know what she is upset about.  For instance, she started crying while eating corn on the cob last night. I still not sure what those tears were about. 
• She is the most snuggly she has ever been which isn't saying much.  Oftentimes throughout the day, she'll come up to me and say, "Hold you."
  

  

  This happens when I tell her to smile for the camera.

Baby #2

• I am happy to report that this has been a boring pregnancy.  It has been much easier than the first.  I think part of it is that my expectations are more in line with reality and part of it is that it just has been easier.  For instance, I had killer sciatic nerve pain for about a month with #1 and I've barely had any this time around. According to my midwife, everything is normal and I have no cause for concern. 
• I told Aaron that as soon as June starts, we are going to start actually preparing for this child.  As of right now, I have no newborn diapers.  I do have a doula hired and a cute diaper bag I bought off of etsy.  Surely that is enough.  I also try to garage sale on the weekends to find some of the remaining items on our list.  

The Blue Dress

A couple of weeks ago, I dressed my child and did her hair up all fancy-like for church.  I had this strange nagging in the back of my head.  It was like having deja vu or the feeling that I'd seen her outfit and hair-do before.  She had worn it once before and it was a hand-me-down from one of my sister. There was even a chance that I had worn the dress in my previous life as a young toddler.  Take a look and see if you can figure it out.

Any guesses?  It took me a few minutes but I finally figured it out.  

A little grainy but I think you get the idea.  

Green!

I think the main reason I like gardening is that you can celebrate each and every time something actually does what it is supposed to do.  I've been having tons of little celebrations here.   The following pictures will probably bore everybody but they make me so happy.

These are the strawberry plants I got on clearance last spring and threw into this big pot.  I kept them in the garage this winter and behold, they are sprouting flowers!  We've had over 10 blossoms so far.  I can't wait to eat fresh strawberries even if it is only one at a time.  

L-R: Sugar snap peas, garlic, and a variety of lettuce.  We are going to start eating lettuce probably tonight.  I just threw in handfuls of seeds and now I will thin it out by eating baby greens for dinner.  Hopefully, we don't eat any weeds along with it as it is a mixture of seeds and I'm not sure of each variety. 

We have rabbits.  But I also have an amazing husband who built me this little fence.  It protects both the garden and the blueberry bushes on either side.  Though you can't tell from this picture, the blueberry bushes are starting to get green leaves!

This picture makes me sad.  I planted these tomato and pepper plants 5 weeks ago and they are barely growing.  This past weekend, I took them over to my mother-in-law's house to hopefully get them to grow under her special light.  It is nearly time to plant them and they are no where near strong enough.  

Hydrangea!!! You came back.  Be still my beating heart.  My favorite types of flowers are the kinds that you can cut and make bouquets out of them.  Hydrangeas top this list.  

These are our new rhubarb plants.  They seem to be settling in remarkably well.  I can't wait for strawberry rhubarb jelly and pies.  

"You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart."  Psalm 104:14-15

Easter Dress

A few weeks ago, I made Kira a dress.  I saved it to have her wear as her Easter dress.  Here are a few pictures that we took on Easter morning.  She wasn't bad but she definitely wasn't cooperative.  We would try get her to stand a certain direction in the early morning light and she would inevitably get distracted by a bird or something and turn 180 in the opposite direction.  Aaron took all the pictures which means he didn't take all the ones that I would have taken.

Overall, I'm rather pleased with the way it turned out.  It is a little on the large size but the pattern only came in 12-18 mo and 2T-3T.  Kira is more of 18-24 mo so I made her the larger size so the dress would last for a while.  I also wish that Kira's nice sandals fit her but they are just a little bit too large.  If you would like to make out this dress, just use this straightforward tutorial.  

Thirty-One Knockoff

A facebook friend of mine is a Thirty-One Bags sales rep.  A few weeks ago, she posted this picture:

While technically it is a coupon clutch, she said that it would work great for the envelope system.  The envelope system is simply a way of keeping on budget.  It involves taking out a certain amount of cash for a given period of time (i.e. a week, a month, etc.) and then putting it into individual envelopes for different areas of your budget.  For instance, you might put $100 into an envelope marked "food" and then when you go to the store you know exactly how much money you have to spend without having to do any math or worry about accidentally going over budget.  We've been using this system since we got married and it has worked wonderfully for our family.  Aaron has told me that I can use a credit card for all my purchases as long as I stay on budget but that is way too much work.  I prefer the envelope system.  The only problem with this system is that I constantly have several paper envelopes of cash floating around my purse and the envelopes inevitably get really beat up looking and torn after a little while.  I never thought about using anything besides paper envelopes until my friend posted this picture.  I wanted it.  No, I was pretty convinced I needed it.  It even went on sale...for $28.  Um, no.  I can buy a whole new purse for that amount of money.  So I started looking on the internet for some diy tutorials.  If found this super helpful one and got to work.   

I decided to only use scrap material to cut down on my remnants in storage and to keep the project cheap.  I'm not sure if it all matches but it was super cheap.  I even had two of the zippers.  My total cost was less than $5 for the 4 zippers I found on clearance.  Here are some pictures of the finished project.  

The button + elastic keeps it all closed and tidy.

There are 6 pockets complete with zippers.  

I put white tabs on each pocket so I can write each category to keep things straight.  

At this point, my child insisted that I take a picture of the "baby" and show it to her.  This is her fake smile. 

I also put a pocket on the back for coupons and such. 

I have yet to actually use it as I just completed this project yesterday, but hopefully it will be helpful and last for years.  I'm excited!