making christmas - crocheted scarf

after doing so much sewing, it was really really nice to take a break and crochet this scarf for aunt janie. i was a bit sad when it was finished because it was such a nice change of pace! i used the same pattern that i'm doing for the baby's sweater - i figured if i did that, i'd be able to remember pattern when i picked it up again after the new year!

making christmas - wool dryer balls

for mom i made some wool dryer balls. these are another fun little project, and we've been using some for a few months now. you really just get 100% wool yarn and make balls and let them get all felty by running them through the washer and dryer. i was so happy to find that scrap of fabric and that one piece of brown cardstock to package them up with. i also felted the cord for the bag!

making christmas - car playmats

so these were a really fun project to work on.. i made car playmats for sammy, aaron, and oscar.

sammy's was finished first (since it needed to be shipped to ohio) and i used ribbon ties on his. he also got a park with a lake that he could drive to and a store.

after making his and having a couple weeks of other projects in between, i decided to use something different to fasten the folded mat together:

aaron and oscar got tabs on theirs with velcro. i liked this solution a lot more, and wish i had thought of it the first time around.

instead of a park, they both got a used car lot. aaron loves to line up all this cars in a row, so he needed some extra parking lots. i was working on oscar's at the same time, so i made it the same as aaron's in hopes that he wouldnt figure out it was his.

he did notice there were two different ones, but figured that one of them was for sammy.

making christmas - pj pants

and for dad and the brothers, some soft flannel pajama pants. it is so hard to come up with ideas of things to make for men!

trapping

one night oscar and jeremy set traps all over the apartment using oscar's stacking cups and play food.

then while they weren't looking, i snuck in oscar's room and grabbed a pile of stuffed animals and filled all the traps.

trapping became oscar's favorite activity for the next few days.

i bet you didn't know you could catch giraffes with shrimp and frogs with english muffins!

stash update!

so today i was washing baby clothes and diapers and thought i'd share an update of the fluff stash! i bought 2 dozen newborn prefolds and 2 dozen small prefolds from green mountain diapers because i had read really great reviews about their prefolds. kristen had a baby that outgrew the newborn prefolds in no time, so i bought 11 more from her. i have 5 covers with velcro and 3 covers with snaps, and that should be plenty! other new additions to the stash are the various prefolds, the two brown/pink fitted diapers, and a bag full of rockin' green detergent from the baby shower. also, i bought an orange fuzzi bunz diaper - love it! and when i bought that i got a free light purple bum genius 4.0. i also got a wet bag to shove yucky diapers in in my diaper bag and a pail liner to haul those stinky pants downstairs.


here they are all washed, sorted and ready to go. the small and regular sized prefolds dont fit in there, but by the time i'm using them, most of the newborn size can come out. (there's also a cameo of the belly in that shot)

tada!

things still on my list to get: the pail to put the pail liner IN, diaper sprayer, wipes, some sort of wipe solution (though i will probably try making my own), and maybe some diaper rash cream that's ok to use w/ cloth diapers.

busy boys

i haven't been the only busy one this month, i've also put the boys to work crafting-


oscar and aaron both made some martha stewart puppets that i had picked up on clearance a couple years ago. oscar did santa

aaron made a reindeer.

it was a really easy craft to do with them - all peel and stick. a lot less time consuming than gluing their advent chains together!

oscar also got put to work making cookies with me. he was the official butter unwrapper.

and also helped to decorate the cookies. he did a FABULOUS job decorating cookies. you can't really tell the difference between the ones jeremy and i did and the ones oscar did!

making christmas - brother-in-law magnets

for the brothers-in-law, i made some magnets with images from their favorite football teams.


ohio state for mike (of course)

these were a really fun little project, and i ended up making a bunch with the international breastfeeding symbol for the ladies at work.

and auburn for vic.

the glue we had was quite fume-y, so jeremy ended up finishing the auburn ones for me. here is the tutorial for those.

making christmas - sister aprons

for robyn and angie, i whipped up some aprons. i'm really super excited about these aprons and hope to make one for myself.

instead of a loop or tie that goes around the neck, these have two long straps that are connected at the top which go over the shoulders, cross in back, slide thru loops at the waist, and then tie in back. a bit hard to explain (i included a drawing of what it should look like in the back when i wrapped them up).

this was my own invention, so hopefully they will get used and then robyn and angie can tell me if the design needs tweaking before i make one for myself. (dont worry, i did iron these a bit before wrapping them!)

making christmas - rice heat therapy bags

next up i made some rice heat therapy bags for auntie margy and nana.


i was hoping to use purple fabrics for auntie, but dont have much purple in my stash. i actually bought some purple fabric and then returned it because it was just too ugly (i also did this with some cars fabric). i used this tutorial and it was a pretty quick project. there is also a link to printable tags for your bags.

my neck and shoulder have been so sore lately, i'm hoping i get a chance to make some of these for myself! the small bag is filled with flax seeds and fits neatly in a quart size freezer bag for storage in the freezer. i didnt put them in the freezer to test them out, but since i filled them up with flax seeds that i store in the freezer, i know they get nice and chilly!

making christmas - abby's baby carrier

so one of the things i made for christmas was a baby carrier for my niece, abby.

i used hobo mama's tutorial and leftover fleece from an orange carrier i made for myself.

i included some directions on how to use the carrier

and abby used it to carry around her turtle baby on christmas! (picture stolen from robyn)

baby shower

a couple weeks before christmas, we had our christmas party/district meeting and my wonderful coworkers threw me a baby shower! when i arrived for the meeting i got locked out of the room so they could finish setting up, and i teared up when i saw all the work they put into it. it was so sweet! i know michelle must have spent a lot of time pulling it all together, she's got the biggest heart ever.

32 wks

here we are at 32 weeks already! it's been going really fast and really slow all at the same time. been having lots of pregnancy aches and pains, but the midwife said that besides a muscle relaxer (which she knows i wouldnt take anyway) there's not much to do besides ice packs and rest. but there's so much to do! my schedule has been pretty packed with boys, crafting, and work, but hopefully once christmas is over i'll get a little breather before last minute preparations for baby.

i'm hoping to spend some time on the baby's sweater as soon as christmas is over with. so far i have two front panels finished. i also have this baby bedding which i love, but dont plan on using a crib with this baby. i'm hoping to come up with some ideas for repurposing it.

busy crafting!

here is a little craft i did for handing out at the health department yesterday. since i'm working on a handmade holiday, i've been super busy sewing, gluing, painting and crafting. unfortunately i cant show anything i've done so far because i would ruin lots of christmas surprises! so i thought i'd go ahead and share the candy cane thing and let you know that i'll have lots of things to post about on december 26th!

tree fetching '10

i have been SUPER busy around here lately, but we did manage to get our tree up and decorated on schedule! jeremy and oscar put most of the ornaments up while i sat and unwrapped, but we got it done and it's the most beautiful christmas tree we've ever had (it always is). i almost brought my tripod along this year so we could get a better picture, but that sure did sound like a lot of work!

i noticed that we had all worn our converse (oscar calls his rockstar shoes), so we got a family foot photo, too!

oscar singing a song for sammy

oscar wanted to record a video for sammy when he got out of the shower this evening!

pumpkin carving

hard at work on those pumpkins. pumpkin carving is one of our favorite halloween traditions.

here they are all finished

oscar making silly faces

jeremy's pumpkin. he wanted to do a happy pumpkin this year, which was quite a surprise.

and oscar wanted a scary pumpkin, which was NOT a surprise!

mine was a miserable pumpkin

and then i did a happy little baby!

26wks

a few pictures from week 26. today (halloween) i am 27 weeks and have officially made it to the 3rd trimester!

my pregnant witch silhouette

and one more with oscar b/c he's so darn cute!

the big reveal

we have been getting tons of requests for pictures of oscar's halloween costume, so here they are! for those that dont know who billy the exterminator is, he looks like this.

this was the first year that oscar picked what he wanted to be for halloween. here is goes looking for snakes...

so - about the costume - we started with a black tshirt and some pants and shoes that he already had. i ordered some studs and spikes and black pleather online to make his vest, gloves and wristbands. i'm glad i dont have to sew pleather very often - what a pain in the butt! i ironed on some logos on the shirt and painted the logo on the back of the vest. finishing touches were the necklace, the chain belt which didnt even show, the belt buckle (hot glue and silver paint), that fabulous hair-do, and his little soul patch (face paint).

and while i had the face paint out, nana wanted a camo face. i didn't really get any pictures of myself or jeremy. thursday i was a vampire and saturday i was a witch. jeremy also had some vexcon logos ironed on a black tshirt.