Baby Wearing

  

 

I have had several baby slings and carriers, but these are still my favorite.  And even better is that I made it.  I have tried the style, were you wrap them in different positions using the same piece of clothe.  But I found that I like these best, with a little up front work, it keeps it easy for me to use.  Here is a picture of me and my cousin wearing our babies.  Our babies are about a month apart.

You can have easy access to the babies from the side if they are tiny and as they grow, from the top.

The pattern is a good pattern, but the directions are misleading, to say it best.  You will need some experience in sewing, not because the techniques are challenging.  It is because the directions will not direct you to the desired finished product.  I have bought this pattern twice, most recently,because I could not find the other pattern.  The second pattern had an extra pattern piece to cut.  With that said, once you build it once, it is minimal effort to create again and again.

 

McCalls Pattern 5678

 

I have also made the sling.  I actually prefer this sling verses any I have owned.  I like that it sits the baby more at your abdomen, verses your chest.

I hope you enjoy!

~trish

Reading cushions.

  On one of my late night blog crawling, I seen a cute version of making a cushion.  I believe Pottery Barn was the inspiration.  So I took off to make one and try my hand at piping.  Oh must say, I love piping, especially since I do have a piping foot for my sewing machine.

I made the cushion 20 inches wide and 5 inches high.

  I interfaced all sides of it and also put a handle on the cushion.  I used about a pound of poly-fil to stuff it.  The cushion went together quickly.  I like the idea of the circles because I am going to make 2 more and they should easily stack.  My daughters love it.

 

Individual Cups

 

A friend read my facebook post about monogramming cups for each kids.  Well, she did it better.

 

What you see are Tervis Tumblers that are made in the USA!! I am so excited about my cup and I have been drinking a lot of water since.

Here is what I love about Tervis!

1. I can leave a drink with ice in the car for over an hour in 97 degree summer day and still have ice left.

2. It has my name on it!

3. Freezer, microwave, and dishwasher safe.

4. It has a lid.

5. It has a lifetime guarantee and it will be replaced if it breaks.

6. Made in the USA, BABY!

 

You can order them online at www.tervis.com and the prices are extremely reasonable.  I am now embarrassed to say, this is my first tervis and because of the guarantee, it can be my only one, well unless I lose it.

I am loving too that each kids has their own cup.  Thank you Heather, totally awesome baby gift for the entire family.

~trish

I want a new dress.

I love the old navy beach dress, but I have made a commitment to myself that I would not buy new clothes that are made outside the USA.  It is my little pro-american, keep the jobs and money in our country attack against the world.  So I love this dress, I imagine that it is soft and comfy.\

I also like

My only way around my shopping dilemma is to either buy it thrift or sew it.  Since it is the current fashion, I doubt I will buy it thrift.  SO I am checking out patterns.

 

sadly, both of these patterns only go to size 16 and my after baby pattern size is still about a size 20.  I am not sure why pattern sizes are so unforgiving.  So I am out of luck on these patterns.

I might have luck with this one:

 

I am really not sure how I am going to do on making a dress.  I figure, I am going to hit Goodwill and a few garage sales in the morning.  And then hit walmart for the pattern.  New Look 6774.  I will give it a try tomorrow night.  I read a few reviews on it and I hope it will be a good fit for me.  It is hard at the in between stage that I am at.  I have a big butt from the pregnancy but worst is my belly.  I know that it will go away on its own, but I am at the point that nothing fits.

 

I did try to copy a dress I already owned and it was a maternity one.  It turned out cute but a complete flop on fitting.  Try try again.  I need to go through my entire wardrobe and clean house. I have so much that I do not care for.

~trish

Potty Chair on the go.

This is our beloved potty chair.  I got it for under $5 at ikea.  I thought when putting a potty chair in my van that it is a common thing to ride with.  I was shocked that, no, not very many mommys are riding around with a potty chair.

I put our potty chair in a couple of years ago.  A small inconvenience about potty trained children is their tiny bladders at the most inconvenient times.  So I put a chair in the van and away we went.  I keep wipes in the van and water to give it a good clean after each use.  I can not tell you how many times and where it has been used.

My favorite it my son.  He does not like the auto flushing toilets at walmart.  One time, he refused.  So once we got to the van, he pulled the potty chair out, set it in the parking lot on the yellow parking line and relaxed for his 15 minute movement.  Ahh, I realized this is just mommy-hood.  I sat at the edge of the van  with the door open watching my son on the potty having a movement and watching people coming and going.  Thankfully, we had a car parked next to us, so noone really could see him. UNTIL!  A car pulled in to park across from us.  I thought she was going to need the chair, she almost peed herself, laughing so hard.

So our green potty is always in the van.  And I am excited to have #3 using it on our trips to the lake.  She is still wearing a diaper, but her daddy invited her to use it after her sister was done with it.  Of course, sitting under a nice oak, is a nice place to relax.

 

~trish

Finishing up on the Smokers Chair

 

Remember my post that one of the things I wanted to get done this summer was to finish my ashtray chair.  Well, I got started on it!

So I just took a knife and started cutting at the seams.   I realized very quickly that I had no idea what I was doing.

Then I realized that this thing has had water damage.  And then I knew what I needed to do to make this chair right.

So I took the hardware off at the bottom and took it to the curb.

~trish

Winn-Dixie sale

When the day just doesn’t start off right.

Enough said!

Yah right, like that is all I would say.  Well, I just might be a little hormonal.  Not too bad, pretty mild for me, but I am FREAKING OUT HERE PEOPLE!  Well, no not that bad.  Lets see, I have already public apologized for being me, see earlier post on Miss Bossy pants.  I have thrown myself to the Homeschool moms forum that I might be inadequate, because I can’t get myself into a routine with my children, even though I have a 4 week old attached.  Miss Type A is trying to take over again, I must STOP her!

 

Well, the blessing in homeschooling year round is that you can take time off.  So seeing that I have a newborn, I am attempting no curriculum progress for another 2 months.  So I believe that would make our unit study start date august 10th. Hmm, that is my wedding anniversary.  Well, I better keep the poppa happy, no rice dinner for him, we might start the following week.  I do want to keep them learning, almost unconstructively, so here is what I plan to mildly work with them on:

1. Monthly Calendar (got all the pieces from the Dollar Tree)
2. Numbers
3. Alphabet
4. Weather
5. Lots of reading (We will be exceeding our limit at the Library this summer)

I plan to do all this with games and nothing too structured.  I might even throw in some file folder games that I already have made up.  I did find a neat blog Confessions of a homeschooler, she has a ton of ideas that I might have to copy from.  I love the use of her workboxes and it makes me want to try them.  But then again it goes into me trying to do too much.  For this summer, I am trying to keep it simple.

Oh, so what better way to keep it simple than to make a few goals for the summer.  I am trying to keep it to a minimum here folks, but I am a task master and if I do not have a list I will never get it done, the traits of a reformed/rehabilitated procrastinator. So here are my plans/goals.

1. Potty Train #3 (I really should say, coheirs my darling husband into training her, like he did for the last one)
2. rebuild my wardrobe by making, thrift, or refashioning.
3. Recover my nasty ashtray chair, so it will be useable.
4. Take the kids to see my sisters
5. See a play with the kids
6. Take the kids to a Museum
7. Start making my Christmas gifts (also meaning I have a list made on the who and what)
8. Work on building a routine (maybe that we just play school between 10-noon), engrain the rules, distribute chores.

I think 8 items for the next 2-3 months is reasonable.  I am so excited, I will have to make a list on sidebar to show them and cross them off as I go.  Sounds like a reasonable, I am not letting the “Type A missy have a mile, but I will give her an inch” thing to do.  I will even try not to add to it, but I can not make any promises.

I am excited, I wrote this last night.  I just found out that you can go to www.kidsbowlfree.com and sign up to 6 kids to bowl 2 free games this summer until the end of August.  For $25 you sign up 4 adults to join in on those free games.  How awesome is that!  So I am happy to be adding a little fun to our summer at little cost to us.

~trish

House Rules

I finally got motivated to post the rules in our home.  Now, I feel a bit bad as a parent to finally post them, but well, if you can’t read what does it matter?  Well, I am realizing that I need them to keep me consistent. This is not really my great idea for the saying our rules or a cute way to post them.  A while back I seen something similar and saved the pic for later.  Now I have no idea where I found it, but I loved it enough to copy it.  I hope this will keep us on the right track and being able to follow through. 

I posted a couple of copies around the house.  My colorful one, I used scrapbook paper to jazz it up.  I hope to get a piece of wood to modge podge it to and make it something cute for my house.  here is the original that I wish I could give credit to its creator.

If you know who created, let me know, so I can give them credit.

~trish

Baby Bonnet – Simplicity 3840

  

Years ago, I was at a moms meeting and a new mom showed up with a very similar hat on her baby.  I instantly loved it, but I guess we did not click, because I think I chased her badgering her for more information on the bonnet so I could make one too.  I did fudge one and made a pattern for #3.  Well, I found this pattern at a simplicity pattern sale.  Now I bought this after I swore off any more children, so my mom scratched her head on why I would still buy it.  But I had to have it.

I used all the scraps I could find to make this one.  It came together quick.  There are 2 pieces to cut, first you cut 2 layers of fabric and 1 of interfacing.  The second, is the overlay.  I almost skipped the overlay, but decided to try it any how.  I love it, it makes it so cute. Now the nice part about this pattern is this specific pattern gives you the pattern for each size.  How nice that I did not have to be stuck making a copy of the pattern.  I will say, I did not bother reading the instructions.  I just threw it together.

I cannot wait for her tiny head to get bigger and for her to be able to hold it up on her own.  She will be the cutest.  Yes, I did put this on her to model while she was sleeping.  That is what proud mommas do.

~trish

Bean bag numbers!

Traveling through a new blog last night, I found the coolest little project.  So I had to make it.

 

I found Sarah at Create Studio where she has a ton of great ideas.  She made similar bean bag numbers, using rice.  She has the templates for you to print off to make your own.

Now I found her somewhere after midnight, between all night blog crawling and a nursing session.  I had to quietly search the porch for extra scraps of fabric.  I had that cut before I went to sleep and spent a little time here and there to stitch them.  They are raveled edges, which made them very easy to put together.  Now, as I filled them with rice, I knew why you need to use rice.  Beans will not fit.

So hopefully, my children will enjoy them and learn their numbers. Just in case you ever wondered how I get things done.   Well, this is what my computer sees when I am blogging.  I took this picture using my webcam.

~trish

A bossy know it all!

Get me out of my routine and the worst of me comes out.  This is terribly hard for me to write.  For those who know me well, like my mother or even my mother in law, this post would only confirm what they know to be true.

 

I might, who am I kidding, I am really bossy with my OPINIONS. Ouch, they are just opinions.  See I might be am a know-it-all, as my father in law calls these wonderful people, KIAs.  Get it, Know It All, KIA.  Well, see this bit of a KIA problem might have a little bit to do with that train I want to drive.  As a want to be train driver, the engineer in me sees things so blue and white gridded lines with a ruler and pencil. 

I am so bad, I will walk in my mother in laws house and tell her what needs to be moved to make a better flow and efficiency to her home.  I must have some mother in law, because anyone else will tell me where to go and how to get there.  My mouth will literally spout off exactly what I am thinking before my good sense had enough time to stop it.  Get me a perfect stranger that might want to be a good friend and I will run them down in 3 weeks top by telling them how to be “better”.  What a jerk I am. 

I think this might be a pride thing. And if I am noticing that I am bossing everyone around and telling them how to be better (shamefully, like me), then God has a huge slice of humble pie for me to swim in just around the corner. I will eat the last bit of it embarrassed and ashamed of my sin and ugliness.  I will ask forgiveness of my pompous air from people, wonderful people, who had finally had enough of me.

This is how it goes for me.  I spend a bunch of time alone (adult alone), me and the kids doing our thing.  During these days, I seek advise from others (Christians) to be a steward of my blessings (i.e., children, order, home, etc.).  So I spend my time in a relative isolation sharpening my skills with satisfaction.  I am blessed with wonderful friends who limitedly enter my home by God’s hand to help refine me.  I get so comfortable with my blessings and work my craft efficiently.

In my excitement at how wonderful things come together, I cannot help but share the knowledge I gain. When I say share, I am talking about anyone who is not walking fast enough away from me and I somehow have managed to sit on them.  You want to talk to me, it will be about my favorite topics:frugal, kids, birth, raising mindful kids, homeschooling, sewing, or being efficient.  Go outside that, I won’t have time for it and I will justify it.  See, what a jerk.

Now after a while, I will find people interested and then you get this “WOW” factor from them.  This is my problem, at this point my head inflates and my heart is deflated in comparison.  My head is so busy being great that I forget to put my heart into the conversation.  I begin to act and treat people as if the only way to be good enough is to be like me.  Ahh, this is when my heart breaks because this is not how I want to treat someone or anyone.

With my pencil and ruler I will draft out a better way for them, for their home, budget, children, kitchen, or anything else in the homemaking craft.  My straight forth demeanor will seem as though I am throwing sledge hammers into a glass shop.  Unfortunately (told to me by many a boss) , I call it like I see it and lack the tack to gently present it. Either you will love me or you will hate me and you will know soon enough. 

Sadly, I am doing this because my heart wants to best for you and want everything you are and have to be better for you.  I have no ugliness desired about it or sense of I am better than this.  But it doesn’t matter, the devil will help inflate my head so much and I will get so busy fixing everything and everyone that my heart won’t even be part of it anymore.  In fact, I will go back to my unsaved dumpster mentality that I am busy fixing, because nothing is good enough or anyone, most of all, me.

So the Miss Bossy Pants who happens to Know-it-all has surfaced and I must squash her out.  But I know there is no way to do that without His help.  And you know, that Miss Bossy pants can‘t figure out what to pray for forgiveness for! How could I be a sinner when I know it all. AHHH! When my pray life is lacking it is because SHE showed up with her big headed pride.

If I follow the typical routine.  I will aggravate and alienate most everyone.  I will go back to solitude and seek council to be better. Sharpen my skills with success.  Tell everyone in sight and get ugly all over again. 

SO the best thing I can do is stop it all before it continues along.  Trash my pride and give it to the Lord.  Ask for forgiveness from everyone I have been around for any length of time at one sitting.  Shut my trap and open my ears.  And if someone wants to know, then tell them.  But what works for me, doesn’t mean it works for everyone.

Did I also tell you, that I feel led that my job from God is to share with others how God has blessed me to be a good steward of my blessings.  And that sharing in this blessing, I need to teach others.  Hmm, I am walking a fine line.  Is it that when you are doing God’s most profound work, the devil will work hard to distort it anyway he can.

So I pray I am on God’s path and I will work at sharing my experience as God has given me and to keep my mouth shut more than it is moving and my ears open, before my mouth gets to yapping.  I better get busy apologizing.

 

(Thank you Lord for letting me smell humble pie and giving me the choice in eating it or not, amen.)

~trish (had to give a picture of my favorite Miss Bossy pants that fills up my heart with goodness.)

Menu planning for a healthy marriage

This is my first time, but I am so impressed with this post that I need to send you there.  Maybe it is a cop-out for writing my own post with the new baby, but i agree with it and I couldn’t have delivered it better.

Husband on Wife-Imposed Rice Diet

I had to laugh as I read this article thinking of of a true diet of Rice and vegetables, I considered the wife very self-centered and almost intentionally pushing him away, without ever considering the sense of intimacy connected. Hmm.

 

Well That is all I really want to say.  Please enjoy reading it and comment back to me.  Then I will put my 2 cents in.

~trish

Keeping the grocery bill LOW?

Scratch, Scratch, Scratch.  No I do not have an itch!  The easiest way to keep the bills low is to only buy the staples and make things from scratch.  This is a picture of my chicken pot pie.  The biscuits are  another round I made from scratch.  I froze the rest, so that they will be convenient later, for biscuits and honey.

Now I love couponing, but after a couple of months I remember, all I am really buying is a bunch of processed food.  Remember those packages of short bread cookies I got for $1 a package, still have half of them.  I do not really even like eating them, but I am in major calorie intake mood with nursing.  So couponing is a luxury, since I spend more and on things I do not NEED.

So I have 2 major fundamentals when it comes to shopping for food: 1. Cook from Scratch and 2. Buy in bulk on the big items.

I am always encouraged when I check out other families who are keeping their grocery bill down.  I read 2 articles this evening that made me want to share this with you, the first at  life in a shoe and the second at frugalhacks.com

I realize there are a lot of other things I do that help.

1. Soda is a luxury item.  When I buy it, it is for the sole enjoyment of my husband and me. So it is generic root beer and a diet soda.  The children will have a treat of root beer, once in a while (like once a month).  Why? Soda is yummy!  You can drink and drink and never be satisfied.  I can gulp water and be satisfied, I can go through 4 cans of soda and still not have my thirst quenched.
2. Buy excessive amounts of meat when it is on sale at an unbelievable price.  Stock up!
3. Control on the snacks.  Now our one outlet on snacks is the little snack cakes and the powder donut bags.  Why? because I can get them on the super cheap at the day old bread store.  Just the other day, our store had buy 10 bags of donuts for $3.  That is unheard of as a price, so I bought 10 and froze them.  I will buy the boxed snack packs for less than a dollar. (I do buy generic oreos, this is my husbands weakness.  And he only eats 3-4 cookies each night with his glass of milk)
4. Milk is costly, never waste great fresh milk to cook with, use dry.
5. Use what you buy!

 

Now one thing that was listed that I have not given much thought about was buying in bulk produce in season.  I buy in bulk to can, but did not think to buy in bulk for fresh consumption.  Mostly because I am wishy washy on what I feel like eating fresh.  Now we are blessed in this part of Florida, because we have a lot of large volume farmers markets.  I mean where they have nothing but a box truck full of green peppers only.  I like the idea of eating what is in season and cheap.  My fear is, it is a 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive to get there and would my small children be able to keep up with the amount of food I would get from a box of each and only having 2 things.

One way I could work around this, would be to get a couple of families to get in as a co-op and make food boxes every 2-3 weeks. Or instead can/ freeze my left-overs. So I will think about this a bit more and figure out how to incorporate it into my life.

 

Good luck saving.  I keep thinking about this couple I met, while I was still fresh in college doing an internship.  Denny and Pat, senior volunteers, who lived by and constantly chatted the same slogan every day, “Waste not, Want not”. Ten plus years later, this slogan resonates in every part of my life. And grows to take over other parts.  Funny is that this seed was planted for ten years before it ever took root.

~trish