Christmas

Merry Christmas! It flew by too fast as usual and is a bit of a blur. I don't know how much of that is going through the holidays for the first time with two babies and how much was my poor sick two year old who was up every few hours with a cough and fever every night leading up to Christmas.

This Christmas a cough, last Christmas pinkeye...

2012

2011

Poor little man was pretty miserable both years, but after a few doses of good medicine he was up and about and playing with Christmas toys again! I'm really grateful for antibiotics--it's a terrible, helpless feeling when your baby is sick. Next year I'm going to put him in isolation right after Thanksgiving. 

P was a really fun age this year! He loved the Christmas tree and Christmas cookies and Christmas music, we talked a lot about Jesus' birthday. I got some electric candles for an advent wreath, which he didn't fully understand, but he called them Jesus' birthday candles and carried them around the house. Santa was super exciting too, he wasn't terrified. 

He got really into the old clay-mation Rudolph, from the 70's/80's. This is his "very, shiny nose."

Me, mom, sis and sis-in-law did our annual Christmas lunch at a great little place out in the country. Baby V is swaddled up and lying on the floor behind us for the photo :).

We even had some snow this year (before Christmas). P said it was "yucky."

Baby V was baptized on Christmas Adam (Dec. 23). It was a really sweet celebration and covenant with our church family. The church was decorated beautifully!

V is starting to look so big and be really interested in what's going on around him. He grabs at toys and smiles and laughs constantly.

Christmas Eve!

V was a party animal on Christmas Eve, but...

...he slept through Christmas morning.

P had a ball (even with his cough)! This is the train board we made for him. I painted water and roads and trees and such, then we glued down the pieces. It's really fun and he seems to like it. I'll post some more info on how we did it in a later post.

It was a wonderful Christmas spent with family. We are blessed beyond belief and rejoice wholeheartedly in God's great mercy, Christ came to dwell with us and to restore us to the glorious presence of God! Though there is pain and sadness and broken relationships here on earth, He will wipe all that away when He comes again. Come soon, Lord Jesus!

Tutorial: Draft Stopper + Noise Muffler=Sleep Sweeter

I love this thing. It helps me keep my sanity. 

Having two young children has taught me something: two babies awake at 2 am and howling for the attention of just one person is really not fun. The scenario is that the infant cries for milk and the toddler hears him and awakens...screaming. I decided to make a little something to keep this scenario from repeating itself every three hours until the end of time... (read that again but with a slightly frantic tone of voice). 

Don't get me wrong, there are tons of GREAT things about having two very young babies (one 2 years and one 7 weeks, to be precise), but sleep deprivation is not on my list. I'm one of those people who can't remember words when I'm short on sleep. Like last night I was trying to tell a story and couldn't remember the word...wait what was it again?...oh, yeah...werewolf. 

So I made this thing and it was really easy. It has multiple purposes--it stops drafts, blocks out noise (both while looking a little more chic and a little easier to manage than a towel stuffed under the door) and helps us all sleep a little sweeter. 

You need:

heavy-weight fusible fleece

home decor weight cotton 

   -2 rectangles

   -width= 9 inches+door thickness 

   -length=width of the doorway plus one inch

sewing machine with a sharp heavy-duty needle, thread, iron, yardstick, disappearing marker

5 lbs of rice

1) Cut out your pattern pieces. Two rectangles of home decor weight cotton using the specifications above, then back each piece with fusible fleece (leave about 1/2 inch of fabric 'unfleeced' on one short end to make it easier to stitch closed at the end.). The fleece helps make the stopper feel more sturdy, reinforcing the fabric, and it also takes up some space so you don't need quite as much rice to fill it. 

2) Pin fabric right sides together, with 1/2" seam allowance,  sew along both long sides and one short side. Turn right sides out through the open end. Now you should have something that looks like the photo below (without the two lines of stitches in the middle, that's the next step). 

3) Using the yardstick and disappearing marker, measure in 4 inches from each side seam and draw a straight line (the distance between the two lines should be approximately the thickness of your door). Using matching thread, sew along each marked line-stopping about 3/4 inch from the open end. Then you should have this:

Closed end:

Open end from top:

Leave some room so you can turn the raw edges under:

4) Sorry, I didn't photograph this next step because my hands were full of thousands of grains of rice. You could use a funnel, but I took my chances and it worked out ok. Fill each side of the stopper with rice, be sure to leave enough space for folding under and for your machine foot and don't fill the "under-the-door" part.

5) Now tuck the raw edges in, pin, and stitch across the opening--forward and back stitching securely. Trim any loose threads and slide it under the door!

I love mine! The best part is that it slides with the door, no adjusting or slipping on towels (that happened more than once in my house). They really do help block noise, I tested it. This thing is for real!

Comment if you make one and love it or if you have suggestions to make it better!

(The cute red chevron fabric came from Hobby Lobby). 

Fall

Beware, this is a picture heavy post with all kinds of fall updates! I'm trying to get ya'll filled in with details from my 5 week absence. We are enjoying Baby V, figuring out a new normal and feeling incredibly blessed!

I haven't experienced fall since 2010. In New Orleans, we enjoyed summer and spring-like weather all year long, but I have to say...I missed cool, crisp mornings and that wet, earthy smell you only get once the leaves are lying in piles on the ground. I love all the typical fall activities. Right after V was born, I took P to the apple orchard with some friends. We ate apple cider doughnuts, fed animals, drank cider slushies, slid down a slide on burlap sacks and sat on pumpkins. It was thrilling :). 

I've also had grand ideas of taking pictures of my two boys with some beautiful, fall foliage in the background. I picked a gorgeous, warm day and we tried...I took 30 pictures...this is the "good" one. 

We did get a few belly laughs out of the deal...

The leaves were beautiful at the lake this year, here's P with Papa catching his first fish. His favorite part was pushing the release button and plopping the fish back in the water then reeling it in just to start all over. 

Another iconic (at least in my childhood memory) fall thing we missed last year were woolly worms, P calls them "Squirmies" and collects them in his bike basket. 

And Halloween! Love it, just love it!

P wanted to be a monkey (an "Ooh-Ah-Ah" in his language), I picked up a costume from Old Navy. It was super warm which was perfect for the drizzly, 35 degree, trick-or-treating. V was a pumpkin. Can you get any cuter really? I made this costume and I'm going to be posting a tutorial...which I realize no one will use until next year. Maybe you want a little, baby pumpkin for Thanksgiving though? The hat is certainly fall appropriate by itself.

My Mom and I did some practice trick-or-treating with P before the big night. He went up to a bedroom door, knocked, held out his pumpkin bucket, said "Candy" and then "Thank you!"

Yes, we tried to teach him to say "trick-or-treat" but he's a very literal child. Example: most of the folks handing out candy stood outside on their porches, P walked right past them to knock on the door before backtracking to pick up a treat. I wish I had it on video.

V accompanied us, he stayed snug as a bug in his carseat, wearing his PUMPKIN HAT!!

Can't express to you how much I love this hat, it was very easy! (Tutorial to come) Please make one for Thanksgiving.

On a pumpkin sidenote, you must go to Trader Joe's and buy the Pumpkin Butter ASAP. 

Or STASAP!

"Sooner than as soon as possible." (Gilmore Girls reference for all of you GG fans). 

It is awesome, especially when you toast an english muffin, slather it with butter then add a thin layer of Pumpkin Butter. I like it so much I feel like it should have a nickname...Pum Butt (nope)...PB (already been done)...oh well. 

I made a...

QUILT!! I made a quilt, a legitimate quilt. I pieced a queen sized quilt last year but chickened out when it came to actually 'quilting' it. For this one, I was determined to do it the right way. I used a template and a rotary cutter to perfectly square up all the pieces, pressed all the seams open, and used hundreds of safety pins to make sure that the layers of batting, backing and top were smooth and flat before quilting. Bingo!

I used Jay Bird Quilts' "Large Dot Party" pattern and it was really simple. I used all prints instead of a single solid color with a few contrasting prints like the directions recommended. I'd like to try that too.

You can see here that P's room is still a work in progress. Lamps with no shades...nothing hung on the walls...no rails on the 'big boy bed.' We are slowly transitioning from crib to bed, I'm waiting to see how he does at night with baby brother's room right next door before I give up the luxury of having him contained. I love, love, love the bed! It's exactly how I imagined it (think Downton Abbey hospital beds :). It's from Pottery Barn Kids if anyone is interested, I snatched it up when they went on sale a couple of weeks ago.

The quilt is backed with a soft, black and white ticking striped, cotton duck (on sale at Hancock's right now) and I used a super low loft batting. I love the back almost as much as the front and will definitely  use both sides, depending on what sheets are on the bed, etc...

One of the things I adore about quilts is how they look after being washed and dried, I think I'll love this one even more after a few washes. There are raw edges around every circular shape. I think it will add a lot of softness and a vintage feel when the edges fray.

P had a ball pointing out animals and toys and colors. I am wild about every single print and tried to keep it playful and boyish, he will be able to use this for years. I used so many prints that I'm not going to list them all, if you have a specific question just leave it in the comments section.

The only shortcut I took with this quilt was to use the backing for a self-binding, instead of cutting bias strips and all that. I like it and don't think it takes away from the look or the quality at all. I totally finished it in 3 nap times, not bad for a twin sized quilt. (Disclaimer: my little guy takes anywhere from a 3 to 4 hour nap-so maybe a 12 hour project)

1) Preparing/cutting/assembling the blocks
2) Piecing the quilt top
3) Laying out quilt sandwich/pinning/quilting/binding

I think he likes it! Cozy!

Boys and Boots

We went to the lake last weekend with some of our close friends. They have a little man a few months older than P, and these two boys are good buddies. That doesn't mean they don't scream at each other and grab toys and rocks and food out of each other's hands, cuz they do. We had a fun trip, very relaxing--even though none of us got quite enough sleep and the refrigerator/freezer went out while we were there. Nothing some coolers and a lot of ice (with beer on it) couldn't remedy! 

The boys thought it was great fun to knock heads with W and see his reaction.

Here I am with a very sleepy, P. You can sort of see how giant I am, P has to sit alongside my huge belly now.

Swimming feels great when you're pregnant. The wake up call comes when you start to climb the ladder out of the water, and you feel heavier and more clumsy with every step. I'm holding the life jacket down because I can only buckle into the men's extra-large now... in retrospect, maybe that should have been my wake-up call.

I made a baby boot this week. Yes, a single baby boot. I'm trying to get motivated to make the second one, but it's so warm here right now that it doesn't really seem necessary. I think it's cute! I also want to make some in a funkier color. How adorable would these be with little jeans and a plaid shirt or something?!

The pattern is from a shop that I like on Etsy called Two Girls Patterns. This is the second baby shoe pattern that I've bought from them. I like that they carry boy things too, although their little slippers and things for girls are darling. The patterns have great photos and if you've crocheted before, they should be easy for you to follow.  It's sort of hard to see them in my photos, but there are straight and braided cables up the sides (check out Two Girls pic below). So cute and fall-ish.

I love the gray and yellow, hopefully my second pair will look as great as those! Either way, these will keep chunky, baby feet all warm and cozy.

Come Visit...

I shared a few weeks ago that I would be guest posting for Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy and Melly Sews for their "Sew in Tune" series. It's been really fun to see what all these creative Mamas have come up with so far and great to get some new ideas for boy projects. If you haven't already been following, take a look! My post is going up over at Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy this morning! Check it out, P and I had a lot of fun with this...there may even be a super simple, summer recipe involved.

"Tie-in'-It-Up" Tee

My blog has a new home, visit Toddler "Tie-in'-It-Up" Tee

Tutorial: Simple Button Placket

My blog has a new home. Visit to see my popular Button Placket Tutorial.

A Whale of a Tale

While there has been a good bit of this...

Happy Fourth of July, by the way!!

There's also been a bit of this...

A little romper for a friend having a baby boy tomorrow. 

And she has little girls too!

Matching bloomer shorts were definitely in order. 

Dress them matching while you can folks, because one day they won't think it's so cool. 

The whale print cotton is part of Robert Kauffman's Urban Zoologie line, love it! The stretch seersucker is from Hancock's. For the bloomers, I adapted a basic girls shorts pattern, cutting them straight down at the crotch and sides instead of tapering, gathering up the extra width, then creating cuffs out of the contrasting fabric. Big, lime green buttons accent the side of each leg. For the romper, I used Simplicity 3808 (one of my faves!) but I cut out the top front pieces using the lining as a guide because I did not want pleats. I also wanted to avoid a center seam for my embroidered panel. I kept the center seam on the lower half so that the crotch would fit correctly. Fun and summery! I hope they enjoy!