Working Momma

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my boys are the cutest.  Yes, that’s right: THE CUTEST.  I know, I know, every mom thinks that about their own kids (and hubby).  I just started my busiest time of year at work and I only have a sliver of free time when we get done with dinner, dishes, bathes, etc.  Not fun.  I’m exhausted.  I went to bed last night at 8:45p.  Yep, 8:45p.  I apologized to my hubby for my tiredness, I felt bad that we didn't have time to talk, he replied, “Our marriage is better that way”.  Ha ha, but seriously, he also replied, “go to bed, you’re tired, I know you have to get up in the middle of the night to feed Robert”.  Ok, that doesn’t sound sweet, but it was really super sweet (especially for my non-gushy hubby) and exactly what I needed to hear.  This has been our life for a while now, me passed out on the couch before dark. I’m sure my hubby is secretly in seventh heaven at night having the house to himself.  

  

While we are just smitten with our newest little baby (he turned 6 months old today!) I have friends that are just as smitten with their own new arrivals.  In one of my social circles I was the start of the baby rush this year with my little guy being born in February followed by three of my friends having their babies each in March, April, and May!  Followed by another earlier this month.  Can you believe it?  Four babies in four months!  Five in 6 months!  So much fun!  The other four babies were girls. All girls!

You know, babies = baby gifts!  Lots and lots of cute baby gifts.  I thought I would share some of the gifts that I made for my friends and their newest family additions.  First up are burp clothes.  All first time moms need burp clothes.  I already wrote about how much I HATED my burp clothes the first time around.  The store bought clothes just don’t cut it.  They are small, awkwardly shaped, and non-absorbent.  I showed you the ones that I made for my new baby in THE LITTLE THINGS.  The ones I made for myself were made with flannel on one side and chenille on the other.  Since that post, I have discovered that chenille is hard to come by and is not sold in ANY local fabric stores in my area (so sad).  So the burb clothes I made for the April baby were made using pre-fold cloth diapers available anywhere (I happened to buy mine at Target).  

If any of you know me, you will know that I am painfully slow at deciding on gifts.  PAINFULLY.  I take a long time to buy gifts for people because I really want them to be personalized (as much as possible) and I want people to know that I put time and effort into their gifts (especially for new babies and weddings).   So that being said, I made these burp clothes for the new momma so they were not “girly girl” because I know this momma likes more gender neutral items.   I spent a good month shopping for the perfect fabric to pair together.  Not only does this fabric fit my requirement to be gender neutral but it also fit the new momma’s nursery theme of animals.   Nailed it.

It is hard to imagine but these are even easier than the burp clothes I made for myself.  I made these while trying to get my own baby out of my body.  It was day three of being overdue and I was sick and tired of being pregnant.  I thought a good sewing project might get my own baby out of my belly.  While sewing these I was dancing to Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake's skit, “History of Rap 2”.  Over and over and over and over again (seriously, no joke).  While I didn’t think the sewing would work, I thought FOR SURE Jimmy and Justin together would push that baby right out of me.  No luck.  I hope they won’t be offended, in fairness actual labor didn’t get that baby out of my belly either. 

Anyway, back to the gift.   Super easy!  After you wash and dry all your fabric (including the cloth diapers, the only time I hope to ever use a cloth diaper), you just cut a piece of flannel one inch longer and wider than the finished product you want.  I cut mine 18” by 6”, this allows for a ½” seam allowance on each side which I find much easier to work with than a little ¼” seam, but you choose what is easiest for you.  Press your hem, pin onto the diaper, and sew.  That’s it!  Like a said: super easy. I promise.  If you feel like you need more directions, check out this great blog post by Petite Lemon. 

You can make these faster than you could read this blog post (well almost).  Later I’ll be showing you a “girly girl” gift that I made for the next baby girl.       

Blog Giveaway Winner

Me celebrating lefty day!

 

Thanks for participating in my blog giveaway. You all gave me some great ideas and I'll be writing some posts based on your suggestions real soon!

Joshua M. was the lucky winner! Joshua wrote, "simple gifts: simple ideas for crafts that can be made or customized quickly for last minute hostess gifts, special thank yous, or little love notes".

I love this Joshua and I have some great ideas already! Watch soon for this post!

I also got a request for freezer meals and crockpot meals! With a new baby in the house, I got a bunch of these recipes that I love. Watch for that post in the up coming month as well! Another entry wanted to know advise for starting a family....well, any excuse I can get to chat about my lovely boys, I'll take it!

Congrats to Joshua who has some fun cards headed his way! Thanks to everyone who participated.

On a side note, today is national lefty day! To all my left handed friends, get out and celebrate with ice cream, you deserve a treat for living in a right handed world!

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Wedding Showers

Well, I hosted a wedding shower for my baby sister several weeks ago. I thought I would share some of the details here. My sister loves wine. No joke. Some might say she loves wine more than her soon-to-be husband ( ok, I said that, and i hope it isn't true). So there was no doubt I wanted wine incorporated into the theme.

Look at all that wine!

I think she was a little frustrated that I didn't send her an invite to her own shower but that's because there was a big surprise on it. I asked all the guests to bring a bottle of wine for the new bride but it wasn't that simple.

I supplied each guest with a hang tag for their wine bottle and each guest wrote a question on the hang tag that my sister and fiancé would have to answer together before they could drink the wine. Once everyone was settled we used these tags as an ice breaker.

Everyone introduced themselves, explained how they were connected to the bride, and then read their questions out loud. I was impressed by the questions, some were really good. Examples: how many kids do you want? Where do you want to travel together? Where will we be in 5 years? Who's your favorite aunt?

Our cousin, grandma, and aunt

We played a game that I thought I made up called, "He said. She said". Guests would have to guess if an answer to a question was his reply or her reply. We gave out mustaches for "he said" and lips for "she said". I thought I was a genius for coming up with this game but a one second search on the Internet will tell you otherwise! Apparently this game has been around for awhile and i'm not the genius that I thought I was. It still was fun. Thanks goes to another bridesmaid, Brittany, for making all the lips and mustaches!

My sweet baby. He'll grow into it!

Everyone had their own mugs with a paper straw and oreo truffles. You can find these straws everywhere right now, including Target. I bought these on etsy from Moresprinkledjoy because I wanted specific colors and the chevron pattern (most are stripes). I got some vinyl chalkboard at Michael's (on clearance!) and ran it through my die cut machine with the hearts print die cut from papertrey ink. Chalk pens are next to impossible to find in stores around here so I also bought that item on etsy from swigshoppe.

There was an Italian soda station where everyone everyone could make their own flavor. Italian sodas are easy, it is just flavored soda with a splash of half and half or creamer.

I got these for a steal at World market for only $1.99 each! Super sale. There was also a wine punch (of course, you saw that coming right?)

I loosely followed the recipe I found at the daily meal so that I got the quantity of alcohol to punch correct for a large group. I also bought my wine from trader joes, aka "two buck chuck", their brand is called Charles Shaw and is literally under $3 a bottle (my sister needs to remember that cost savings tip).

The door prizes were cute. Each bag had a mini bottle of wine, a wine glass, nail polish, and some sugar scrub (thanks again Brittany!).

The sugar scrub is super simple to make and works great on the hands (I had to test it before giving it out). You simply fill a cute jar with white sugar and add in some Dawn Hand renewal dish soap until you reach the desired consistency. When using you simply spread it on your hands, scrub for a minute or so and rinse it right off.

Since my sister and I both love crafts, we set up a craft station. I told you a little bit about it in one of the Make-It-Monday posts I participated in back in June.

I set out pictures of my sister and finance and ask everyone to doodle on the front and give her some wedding advice on the back. The hope is to add the guest's picture with the bride to be on the back side with their message.

It seemed like people had a lot of fun making these, and I loved seeing what people came up with. I'll post the finished book once I get it completed! It was simple enough that even a non-crafter could do it without feeling intimidated.

Here is a little banner I made for her special day. This was made using the boxy banner dies from papertrey ink, by far my most used set because of this and this and this.

If you like this banner, I'm selling it in my etsy shop! Get it before it's gone!

Normally, I would tell you all about the food but since this happened to be the day that I ended up in ER and I lost my gall bladder, I just can't talk about the food I ate that day. Have you all had that happen with food? You get sick from it and can't eat it again? Yep, sloppy joes and whiskey sour meatballs caused me to loss an organ, it wasn't their fault really, I'm sure it was just bad timing on their part. A few more months and I'm hoping the hard feeling pass because those whiskey sour meatballs are the bomb!

My sister loves red velvet cake, so I made these red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. The super cute paper cups were bought through Tomkat, check out their site, they have some pretty cute stuff! I even found these cups on clearance!

Being the only boy at a party is exhausting!

I think a great time was had by all (even by this little guy) and that my sister enjoyed her special day.

Posted with Blogsy

Let's Celebrate!

My little blog reached over 100,000 blog views (102,006 to be exact)!  YiPPPEEEE.  That is even with my my recent health issues!  Yep, they have continued!  Minor but bad enough that it has kept me away from here....well....along with a new baby and all.

To celebrate, I'm giving away a set of cards to one lucky winner.  To enter, all you need to do is answer one simple:

What do you want to see me blog about next?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

That's it.  It is that simple.  So get busy telling me what you want to see here and one lucky winner is getting a fun stack of cards! Hurry, you only have till 11:59 pm on Monday, August 12, 2013.  To enter, click on the question listed above and it will take you to the site to leave your answer!

Thanks everyone!  I'll be back real soon!  PROMISE! 

Sour Lemons

Hi Everyone! Sorry for the break. Life threw me some sour lemons these past few weeks but I'm back on my feet. I'll be back later this week with a post on my sister's bridal shower.

Speaking of my sister's bridal shower.....I kind of had a gallbladder attack in the middle of her shower. Funny because just days before I canceled my doctor's appointment to have my gallbladder suspicions confirmed By my doctor because I was too busy planning for her shower. Ironic really. Well those suspicions were confirmed by the emergency room staff hours after her shower ended and further confirmed when the surgeon pulled my gallbladder out the next morning.

Here we are: me in the middle of an attack

Unfortunately when they decided to send me home the day after surgery, things got worse. Really worse. I didn't know it at the time but apparently a stone got "stuck" somewhere in my system. I sat home for two days in the most unbelievable pain of my life (thinking that's what you should feel like after surgery...you know....like death is breathing on your neck). A despirate call to my hubby to come home and take me back to the hospital got me the drugs I needed...IN FIVE LONG AGONIZING HOURS. I swear, the pain from a teeny tiny gallstone is worse than child birth. Honest. Funny (not in a haha way) how my body was made to carry and deliver a 7 pound baby but not a tiny stone. Ugh. The stone freed itself from my body, luckly, so i avoided a second surgery, but not before leaving me with a case of pancreatitis.

I've been home now for a week. In fact, I was released the day before father's day. I got to snap a few lovely pictures of my hubby and the boys as we enjoyed our day as a family quietly at home.

Nathan and the boys on Father's Day 2013

I feel bad we had to cancel our camping plans but I'm pretty sure everyone is just happy I am back to my old self, of course now short a gallbladder.

Father's Day 2013

My hubby really picked up the pieces from me being out (with help from some family and friends). Probably helps he's been through this as well, so he knew the pain I was in. Just a short five years ago when our first born was an infant, my hubby lost his gallbladder and battled a bad case of pancreatitis. Apparently we don't give up organs easily in this household.
There was a couple days when I didn't get to see my boys, so when they walked into my hospital room one night for a visit, I cried. Nothing heals a momma faster than seeing her children.

This was one of the hardest challenges in my life. I don't wish the pain I felt in that week upon anyone. When I called my own father on Father's Day he asked me, "well who's turn is it next? Nate's, Johnny's, or Robert's?". My reply, "Oh dad, I would do that 100 times over again if it meant my boys would always be healthy". It really is the truth.

Posted with Blogsy