Nursing Cover & Wipe Container

It has been much harder to craft with my new little guy but I was still in need of some essential cute baby items.  First, I had to have a nursing cover.  Blankets, nursing, and me don't work very well together.  Alex and I are much to clumsy to figure it all out still so I needed something that would stay up around my neck and also a way to look down at him and figure it all out without exposing myself.  Luckly my friend Leslie and other fellow bloggers have already ventured out and made one that I was able to copy off of.  It wasn't too hard I just had to think about things a lot sometimes before I sewed them.  Tutorials are a huge help!  There is a loop of wire at the top so I can look down at Alex and I also put in a few pockets on the inside to help me store anything I want.   Here is the two tutorials that I used to help me:  http://madebythemamamonster.blogspot.com/2008/04/nursing-cover-tutorial.html and  http://oursidenotes.blogspot.com/2008/05/baby-shower.html

I also decided I needed a cute travel wipe container.  I can't take just some plain old white container into the mother's lounge at church!  This project was SO easy and requires absolutly no sewing and little cost.  Just some fabric, trim or ribbon, batting (which isn't required), and a hot glue gun.  I think I might start making more for all the upcoming babies in our ward!  Here is the tutorial that I used to help me with the container:  http://www.make-your-own-baby-stuff.com/baby-wipes.html

Happy 28th Birthday Mike!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!  Mike turned 28 on the 22nd of January!  I've always just let him pick out his Birthday present and this year he got himself a video card and some ram for the computer.  We really are different in what we want for gifts!  He also wanted a big pan of cookie brownies instead of a cake so I decided to make him a big heart shaped cookie.  I also attempted to make him a big M shaped cookie cake but that didn't work out.  We love you and hope you had a great birthday!

So cute

Here are a few of Alex's newest photos.  He is my oh so cute mini Mike!  

2 Weeks Old!

I can't believe Alex is already 2 weeks old.  He has already changed in just the short time he has been here.  I love watching him grow and change.  He is such a good baby.  We are so blessed!  He loves to just lay in our arms and look around when he isn't asleep.  His favorite thing to look at is lights and our faces.  We love him so much and can't wait to see what Alex is going to be like in two more weeks.  

  

2 Week Videos

It's hard being a boy...

Yesterday our little Alex had to go get circumcised.  Makes a mom not want to have boy babies!  All the hormones running wild through my system didn't help that situation AT ALL.  I started crying before they even started cutting!  I wasn't able to even be in the room during the procedure.  All is well now, especially after infant Tylenol which put him to sleep the rest of the day. 

All parents think there child is the greatest and everything they do is the funniest thing ever and I guess we are no exception.  We got this video of Alex that I think is SO funny and makes us laugh every time.  It is probably not funny to anyone else but we love it.  I just thought I would share!

What do you do on bedrest.....YOU CRAFT!

My sewing machine and I have had a lot of time together over the past few weeks!  I am quickly running out of fabric and I might have to break out of the house and get some more so I have more projects to do.  I have also gotten to know my Mod Podge pretty well.  I was able to make a few Christmas presents which saved us some money this year.  I still can't post all of the Christmas gift crafts that I did because a few of them haven't been delivered yet.  

I made my in-laws a quilt this year with a lot of help from my mom over Thanksgiving break.  She let me use a big portion of her fabric and she helped me cut and sew it together.  Which saved me time and money.  I am VERY greatful for her help on the quilt.  I even got Mike to tie the quilt with me so he could say that he participated in some way on his own parents gift!  

I FINALLY got around to decorating the letters for my nursery.  I took all of your ideas and combined them.  I painted them each a different color that matched as closely with the nursery colors as I could.  Because of the shape and curves of the letters I knew it would be hard to get one piece of paper to fit well on the letter so I decided to do a collage of paper.  I also knew I couldn't find paper that I would LOVE or have the ability to spend a lot of time looking so I improvised and used from my scrap pile.  I mod podged the scraps on and then did coats of mod podge over top.  Thank you for everyone's ideas.  

I also made myself a few burp cloths from some extra fabric that I had.  They are a great way to use up small scraps of batting that I had left over from my parents rag quilt.  I have many more projects left on my to do list that luckily I have all the time I could ever want plus some but now I just need some more skill!

Crafts Part 2

Here is the gift I made for Justin and Janelle this year.  Actually it is for their new little girl that won't be able to use it for a while. I have seen several of them on the internet and thought they were cute.  You attach bows and barretts on the ribbon and I added hooks to the top portion for ponytails and such.  Hopefully they will get some good use out of it as Allie gets older.  

I also made a quilt for my parents this year.  I wanted to do something nicer because of the help my mom gave me on my in-laws quilt.  I decided to make a rag quilt for them but I ended up using homespun fabric instead of flannel because I didn't like the flannel fabric they had available.  I decided I DO NOT LIKE homespun fabric for rag quilts or to sew with at all!  The quilt turned out cute but I had lint EVERYWHERE even before I started to cut the seams, and I am still finding the threads all over my house.  After I washed the quilt to get the edges to frey I didn't like how extremely worn it already looked.  It took a lot more time to make because I had to put batting in between the fabric and with flannel I don't have to do that.  It looks good but I think it could have been much better with flannel.  

I made a gift for one of my friends that is having a little girl at the same time Alex should be here.  It was so much fun to make something with pink and purple.  I just decided to do a little rag quilt and some rag burp cloths.  I messed up when I was cutting the burp cloths and cut them too short but I'm sure they will still work to clean up anything that can come out of a baby. The burp cloths have a little batting inbetween the flannel.  Both items took very little time to make and I've decided that they make very good but affordable baby gifts.    

Alexander Evan

AWWW he is FINALLY here!  Our little boy, Alex, came three weeks early and looks like he was right on schedule.  We are so happy to have our little man here already and we are still getting used to parenthood.  Alex was born on New Years Day at 8:50 pm.  He was 8 lbs 5 oz and 21 in.  Good thing I didn't go to my due date because he would have been HUGE!  I wasn't feeling any contractions but on New Years Eve my water broke at 10:45 pm.  I was dilated to a 4 when I got to the hospital but unfortunately after 20 hours of labor I still was only dilated to a 7.  We decided to go ahead and do a C-Section and found out that he was sunny side up (his head was facing out instead of towards my spine) which made is so he couldn't go down into my pelvis.  Alex is doing great and not having any problems even though he came a little early.  I'm doing really well but just getting used to not having the use of any stomach muscles.  Alex was the first and only baby born in this county so we will be gettubg a special write up in the local newspaper.  Here are a few pictures!