Happy Fourth!!

Hey everyone,  Happy Fourth of July!!!!

-Audrey

When a girl meets her cat.

Last week we house-sat for Stephen's brother and his beautiful wife. In doing so we got to spend a whole week with our awesome cat Oden (they are watching him for us because where we are living doesn't allow cats). It was so much fun to see him size up his sister.

Oden is one year old now and still totally a kitten . Although I do miss the days when he looked like this.

spending the week with him really reminded us how much we miss having him around. It was a great week ... He only tried (and failed) to step on Scarlett once . How have your pets been this week?

One month already?

My baby girl is one month old!!! 

It feels like it was yesterday that I was getting to hold her in my arms for the very first time. 

 

Its genuinely amazing how quickly you can fall in love with someone you don't know. 

For everyone wait on the birth story I'm really sorry,  my little Scarlett got a bit sick this week so I have been otherwise occupied. I am trying to finish it and get it up here soon though. 

Back in action,

Hey everyone, Its been way to long since I posted anything. now my beautiful Scarlett is almost one month old and I am jumping back on the blogging bandwagon. Its amazing to think that in just 9 months my baby went from this 

 to this

to this

we love our little one so SOOO much. I will be back tomorrow with our birth story and later this week with our experiences so far. 

Productive at last!

For the last few  weeks I have been feeling super unproductive. In the last few days I finally pulled myself up by my boot straps and accomplished something. I only actually got 2 things on the list I posted here done but I did figure out the rest of my list. 

- make a pack-n-play sheet

- pack a L&D bag 

-paint my rocking chair

- cover the cushions on our rocker 

- make a few freezer meals

-finish registering

-Attend a birthing Class

- wash carseat and stroller covers 

-make a just in case bag to put in the truck

- put carseat in car

- purchase a case of wipes

-write a baby announcement and list of receivers 

Needless to say I am feeling much more prepared. I feel like if our little girl came today I would be almost ready. : D

DIY Diaper strap.

One of the Projects I made last week was a diaper strap. For those of you who may not know a diaper strap looks like this:

As you can see I loved them so much that I made two. Basically its a tube of fabric with velcro on the back and a bit of girly embellishments on the front that hold your diapers and wipes together in your diaper bag. 

I didn't have a wipes case available when I was taking these pictures so I strapped my 2 reusable diapers to a stack of reusable wipes. Although when we are out and about I fully intend to use disposable wipes. Here is a shot of the velcro up close. The great thing is that the strap is adjustable, So it works for one diaper or three.

I got both my inspiration and a wonderful tutorial from here if you ar interested in making one. Mine ended up being about 24 inches long which is great for cloth diapers which are a bit more bulky then the disposable ones. I think this is going to be very handy for keeping my diaper bag organized and cute. For all you other mama's what other things do you find that come in handy when keeping your baby mess to a minimum ? 

Best Brothers Ever

Happy Siblings Day yesterday! 

      I know I missed it by a day but I just wanted to share how much I love my brothers. And of course a few embarrassing pictures from over the years. These 2 boys may be the best thing that ever happened to me. I learned more about life and love and laughter from them than anyone else. They are funny, carismatic, clever and the best brothers a girl could ever ask for.

 Us as babies :D 

Family photo from.... awhile ago

After a haircut... no drew doesn't make a habit of sitting around half clothed. 

And this is the last time I saw my boys :( but on a brighter note they are coming down this summer and I can't wait to see them. Its been over a year!

Can't wait to see you boys! 

-Audrey 

P.s. Leave a comment and tell me what you Love about you siblings 

Easter Weekend

Stephen and I had an absolutely splendid Easter weekend. Not only did we have family in town but the sun came out and it was glorious. Here are a few of my favorite photo's from the weekend. 

On Saturday we dyed Easter Eggs. Why yes that is a handy garbage bag poncho my nephew is sporting .

As is tradition in our family we went up to Rocky Butte for a family sunrise service. We snapped a quick family photo before we all started to freeze (it is always very windy up there) although it was surprisingly warm this year. We were unfortunately missing one family in our clan but next year I'm hoping we will all be together. 

Then we had breakfast (my sister in law made some delicious caramel cinnamon rolls)  and headed off to church. After church we had some fun egg hunting. My handsome hubby took these for us. 

After lunch we went outside to get more sun, we started off playing with a tennis ball and racket but then one of the Moore's neighbor's brought over this giant beach ball and we played with it all afternoon. 

And one belly shot for posterity.

Overall it was a beautiful and wonderful day. 

How was your Easter? Hope you all had fun and some sun.

-Audrey 

Blankets galore

I worked on many projects over the last week. Mostly blankets. Here they all are hanging over the edge of our Pack-n-Play,

These projects like most started with purchasing a big pile of fabric from Fabric Depot and then bringing it home to wash it all. 

Then I just had to decide how I wanted to make them all. I kept it pretty simple because I am by no meas master of the sewing machine yet. For the first two I just sewed them peices together in a square leaving a gap so that I could flip them right side out. Then I sewed around the outside once just to keep it all together. The dino one is for me sweetie... just so he could have a more masculine one to wrap our precious girl in .

I think this one ended up being my favorite. I just love the pattern.

With this one I tried something a little different ... it worked out alright. Because I had a bit more of the owl fabric then the polka dots I made the Prefect corner blanket. I followed this tutorial. so now my owls are edging the dots. I really like it as well.

The last of my blankets were just crocheted. I used a double crochet stitch and made them the width I wanted and crocheted all of the two skeins I had. These two ended up a bit smaller, I think they will be great for swaddling and the cloth blankets will be great floor play blankets... at least at first when she is so small. 

I hope these blankets will keep our little girl warm for many years to come. What projects have you guys been up to lately?

Reusable Wipes

In butt news I am thinking we might try to go the reusable wipes route. We have already decided to use reusable diapers,

For many reasons 1.both Stephen and I have some skin allergies and I figure better safe than rashy 2. Because it saves a ton of money. We have 11 newborn sized diapers and 4 one size fits all diapers in our stash so far and have only spent 70 dollars. Although we do have more to get I have read that you can spend about 400 on your diaper stash for cloth diaper and over 2000 dollars on disposable diapers birth to potty training. That's only for one kid, the savings just go up if you reuse the cloth diapers with subsequent children.  And last but not least I think that cloth diapers are super cute. All that being said I figure I will be doing laundry anyway so maybe reusable wipes wouldn't be so bad. So I made a few, I followed the tutorial  found here and came up with these little beauties :

I totally love them. I think they are really cute and hopefully they are practical. the best part... they were so easy to make. Essentially all you have to do is cut out the size of wipe that you want out of your 2 fabrics, place them front to front and sew around the edges leaving a 2-3' gap, flip them right side out and sew around the edge on the top to keep the 2 sides together. I purchased 1/4 yard of each fabric (its flannel) and I got 5 wipes of each kind. I made a few different sizes to see what I liked the best. I got a total of 10 wipes (5 in each pattern) from my cloth. We will see if I like them when little Scarlett comes out. I will keep you updated. 

33 Weeks

I am officially 33 Weeks pregnant today! That means only 7 more weeks until I get to meet my baby girl.

Today the baby center update on my phone told me that we only have 49 days left... I find that both thrilling and terrifying. Im so excited to meet our little one and yet I feel like I still have a bunch to do. Over the last week I finished a bunch of the projects I was working on but I still have a few to do. My list looks something like this:

- make a pack-n-play sheet

- pack a L&D bag 

-paint my rocking chair

- cover the cushions on our rocker 

- make a few freezer meals

-finish registering  

and I'm sure there is more but I can't seem to remember anything these days. 

MARCH!

March was such a fun month, Stephen and I had many adventures. Here are photos of a few of our fun days.

Early in this month we went for a walk and saw a beautiful sunset, These both make me smile:

We had the honor and priviledge of being a part of the now Mrs. Alisa Georgeff's beautiful wedding. And here is the lovely bride now getting into a gown that fit her beautifully.

 As you can see we had alot of fun. There are more beautiful pictures of Alisa's wedding on http://blueshoephoto.smugmug.com/  and Here is a direct link to Alisa's picture. All of these are taken by the very talented Eric Farewell.

We also got to celebrate a great friend's birthday. We all went skating at Oaks Park. its super hard to tell but that is Stephen in the black shirt with words.

My lovely sister-in-law and I at the Roller Rink.

 I also went to Fabric Depot and bought a bunch of beautiful fabrics for projects.... more on that soon.

Last but not least we helped move Thomas and Ashley into there new place. Oden (our/their cat) who adores boxes was a big help. 

There you have it. A few of our adventures in March. How was march for you? Any weddings? Anyone move? I would love to hear all about it so please feel free to leave me a comment. 

Yes you CAN!!!

I recently learned how to crochet and I realized that I needed a good project to get my feet wet and keep me motivated. My hubby and I lead a Sunday school class for ages 2-5 every other sunday. I noticed that their play food was looking a bit worn out so I thought I would try and make them a few more. Little did I know there are TONS of free food patterns online. I have been having so much fun making all this stuff.

I couldn't find a pattern for any canned food so I decided to make my own. Keep in mind this is the first pattern I have ever created so its not prefect but I love the way they turned out.


Supplies
Worsted weight yarn in grey and the color you want your can label to be.
Size F hook
Scissors
embroidery needle

These are all crochet in continuous rounds, I did not join any of the rows.


Tuna Can
Top (make 2)
1. Sc 5 in a majic circle
2. sc 2 in each (10)
3. sc 2 in each (20)
4. Sc around (20)
5. *Sc 1 SC 2 in next st* around (30)
6. * Sc2 Sc 2 in next st* around (36)
7. Sc around (36)

Label (make one)
1. Ch 6
2. Sc in 2nd ch from hook
3. Sc 4, ch 1 turn
4. Sc 5, ch 1 turn (repeat for 28 rows leave tail for finishing.

Assembly
1. With and embroidery needle and yarn stitch the words you would like on your can and any additional decoration you would like. ( I learned the hard way that it is much easier to stitch the words first and then any additional decoration you want.)
2. Stitch one lid around the top of the face.
3. Overlap the face (if necessary) and stitch down side of the can
4. stuff 1/2 way
5. stitch bottom on 3/4 of the way, finish stuffing and finish off.

Olive Can
Top (make 2) - crochet rows 1-5 of tuna Can

Label (make 1)
1. Chain 10
2. Sc into the 2nd stitch from the hook, sc  to end of row
3. Turn and sc to end of row (repeat until your label fully encircles the top)


Assembly
1. With and embroidery needle and yarn stitch the words you would like on your can and any additional decoration you would like. ( I learned the hard way that it is much easier to stitch the words first and then any additional decoration you want.)
2. Stitch one lid around the top of the face.
3. Overlap the face (if necessary) and stitch down side of the can
4. stuff 1/2 way
5. stitch bottom on 3/4 of the way, finish stuffing and finish off.