Homemade gift exchange....

I decided to participate in Craftaholics Anonymous homemade gift exchange. Where you get paired up with someone you don't know and you have to make them something and send it in about 1 months time.

Holy flipping hard! Have you ever homemade something for someone you don't know? I asked questions and she answered but I was still at a loss.

This is what I came up with. I must say I'm really happy with how it came out! If it had been the right letter I may have kept it.

What do you think? Would you be happy to get this in the mail?

The Monday-Fussy Baby/Son Moving To Slow/Carseat Not Buckled In/Running late- Blues

You got all that?


The sad thing is I could have kept going. Like my hubby took all the bread(that wasn't in need of a trash can resting place) with him to work. So I got one of these when Logan was trying to get his lunch ready for school:
Logan: We don't have bread.


Me: Logan, we do too, you're not looking! You need to hurry up!(refer to this posts title)


Logan: So...I should just use an English muffin?


Me: What?


Logan: Mom, there really isn't any bread in here.


Me: ARGH!!(followed by a text that confirmed that the hubby took the bread and he informed me that he had to toss some that was moldy)


Me feeling bad for that proud mommy moment where I pretty much told my son he was blind...and that he lies. Awesome.


Me telling him he can have the last homemade crescent roll (http://www.howdoesshe.com/delicious-dinner-rolls Make them. Really, do it. They are soooooo freaking good! Make them a little bigger and stuff them with chicken salad...De-vine) which I was saving for my lunch.


Fast forward running out to the car-already running late- to find that I forgot that I needed to re-buckle the car seat in.


Lola has been freaking out since we got home from taking Logan to school and I'm so tired my head hurts. Ugh...Did I mention my house looks like it puked on it's self?


Now, all that being said, I feel that I need to be better about seeing the silver lining. So here are my up sides:


I had an option for Logan's lunch that didn't involve me dragging Lola and my friends son through the rain to get bread and then home to make Logan a lunch and then through the rain again to take him the newly made lunch.


I froze a whole batch of crescent roll dough, so I'm in the process of making more.


Logan got to school on time.


Lola woke up with lots of smiles, and has given me her beautiful two toothed smile several times today even though she has been super clingy and fussy today.


There are good sides to almost every situation. I really need to realize just how blessed I am even on the hard days. My kids are healthy, my husband is employed and I get to be a SAHM.  I love this song by Natasha Bedingfield called "Happy"
Someone just tell me
That it’s ok now
What are you worrying about


Got my dreams, got my life, got my love
Got my friends, got the sunshine above
Why am I making this hard on myself
When there’s so many beautiful reasons I have to be happy

Here's to finding the silver lining.

Touched OUT

You know what I mean? That moment where you realize you've been touched one too many times during the day? If you don't get it...bully for you...No, really you're blessed if you've never felt that way.  I have a baby that is always climbing all over me or screaming when I walk away or nursing--yeah, I know how rude of her to want to eat-- so by about 3pm I'm done.

This was a super fussy day for this cutie.

My poor hubby, this means that momma is not feeling lovey by the time he makes it home. It happens to be one of the days when I'm touched out, which lead me to wonder: exactly how selfish does that statement make me sound?

Don't get me wrong, It's not a daily thing and I love my kids! I mean look at them:

Aren't they cute?

Watching Star Wars together!

Have you been "Touched Out"? Should I be feeling bad about this? I don't want my kiddos to feel like I don't want them around, because I do, but momma needs some space!

Diaper Bag

So, I love the diaper bag that I made. But sometimes you just want to class it up a bit. I love the diaper bags found here: http://www.modparent.com

If I was a better seamstress I might attempt to make a fancier bag. Of course sewing at all with a clingy baby is impossible. Really the kid cries if I turn my back. Love her to pieces but momma need to get things done!

http://www.modparent.com/giveaways

Can I get a hot tub!!??

No, really, can I?

It's freeeezing.

Since I have nowhere to put a hot tub, I decided to start making an afghan out of some left over yarn. I need to make one for my niece Brooke, but I can't find the right colors. So while that search continues, I making another one. I have a lot of soft black yarn and a smaller amount of hot pink(it's called watermelon, I think I'd be afraid to eat a watermelon that color!) so I'm going to do random pink stripes throughout. I'm using a half double crochet stitch on this one.

I should brush up on my knitting ~cough, cough~ skills. I am horridly slow when it come to knitting. I think I do it to tight. I'll have to look into it.

***I got a request for a picture of the afghan. Be prepared to be amazed...by how little is done. Have you ever tried to crochet with a baby in your lap? It is darn near impossible. The good news is Lola loves being on the floor now and no longer thinks that she is some how still attached to me. So here's what I have so far.

 Not really something to write home about, eh? I was just going to do the pink and black but I have some gray that needs to get used up so I'm doing smaller strips of that.***  

A Baby Girl To Hold

She's here. This post is a tad late as she will be a month old in 3 days, but she's here. We have waited for this beautiful life to come to our family for a long time. She is such a joy to care for and snuggle and really, just to hold. She looks so much like her big brother Logan.

The fact that she's here means I can put her in all the cute things I've made. The crocheted hats(only 1 has fit so far and is already too small), the blanket(she's more on that then in), the onesie dress(still a tad big on her)...I can't wait to make more things for her! I have already made another hat. So cute! I'll have to take a picture of her wearing it.

On another note: I have decided to make as many Christmas gifts as possible. We shall see how that goes! I need some more ideas...

What say you?

Onesie Dress

I made the cutest onesie dress. I thought I was done sewing for the day but I just couldn't stop **Nesting anyone?**. I didn't think about taking pictures along the way until I was about 95% done with the dress. So I'll just tell you what I did.

Step one: I used a NB onesie that was passed down to me. I measured about an inch down from the sleeves. This one was 6 1/2 inches across. Then, by not thinking, I cut right around 30 x 10. I would have made it smaller but as I started thinking about it I decided that was probably as good as any size since I was going to be gathering the 30" edge. It was perfect.

Step two: Use a gathering stitch (or just loosen your tension) across the 30" edge. I did about 1/2 an inch from the top. Gather.

**You need to decide where you want the fabric to sit on the baby. Like I said I wanted mine about an inch from the sleeves.

Step three: Make sure you have it gathered to the right size--If you gather too little or too much it wont turn out right so wrap it around your onesie and adjust if need be--and sew the seam up the side.

Step four: Hem bottom of fabric. I did a 1/2 inch and then folded it over 1/2 inch again. You can iron if you want, I just pressed with my fingers and then pinned. *Lazy*. Sew 1/4" from the edge.

Step five: Pin fabric to dress. Right side out Make sure you don't pin both sides of the onesie! I started with my seam on the side, you can put yours on the back if you want I just think it looks better on the side, and work my way around with my hand in the onesie. This made it easier to control which layers of cloth the pins were going through.

Step six: Sew carefully around the onesie. Try to sew over the gathering thread. You can stop here. I didn't.

Step seven: Hand sew lace, in effect hiding all the machine sewing at the top edge of the fabric. I, again, started at the side seam and slowly worked my way around. I wanted some of the fabric to be seen up over the top of the lace.Again, you can stop here and again I didn't.

Step eight: I added cute little "Yo-yo flowers" to the left shoulder. Here is a good video tutorial on how to make them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt9-y0adfUA

Here is a picture of the ones I made. I used a large spool of thread for the small circles and the spool from the lace for the larger size. In the middle are just random buttons I had on hand. Then I just hand stitched them onto the onesie.

Now for some pictures of the finished dress.

The best part is this:
Onesie: Free
Fabric: Yard sale over a year ago for 2 bucks(I still have about a yard left)
Lace: Bought 2 years ago at 50% off= around .99.
Buttons: From random clothes over the years.
Total: less than $1 to make the whole thing. Can we say SCORE!