” Let him sleep for when he wakes he will move mountains…”
I can’t wait to watch him sleeping in his crib.
8 wks. 3 days…
Uncategorized
Easy Changing Pad Cover
This was a new kind of project for me and it was surprisingly very easy!
Here’s the link to the blog I used but I’ll be posting a tutorial soon of my next one when I make a few adjustments for my contoured changing pad.
9 wks, 3 days to go!
So we’re definitely getting there! I finished little man’s curtains and we’ve definitely got a collection of baby stuff including the car seat and pack’n play! I’m gonna work on burp cloths today and get that out of the way so I can make some crib sheets and skirt, the more fun stuff! 😉
My little bundle of laughter is getting much bigger and making his presence known a LOT more! He’s forcing his momma to practice better posture, harder time sleeping, sciatic nerve pain, leg cramps and shin splints, all of these things definitely makes me ready to be done being pregnant! I’m currently weighing in at 165 and it’s ALL baby! My feet definitely show signs of swelling if I’m on them for too long and I’m on pepcid twice a day to help keep the acid reflux at bay.
All in all we’re getting pretty excited. We took a tour of the hospital we’ll be delivering at after our last doctors appointment which resulted in me getting nervous and the Hubs getting noticeably excited ~which he rarely gets~ .
GroVia and FuzziBunz
With less than 10 weeks until our little man is ready to join us in person I’m getting SUPER excited about our CD (cloth diaper) adventure that we’re about to embark on! I have a lot of nay sayers when I say that’s what we’ve chosen to do and NO ONE understands the difference between what CD used to be and what they’ve become. We started talking about the option before we found out we were preggers because of the money side of things. You can’t ignore the fact that a flat one time cost of around $450-$500 is all that’s needed to start and that’s all you spend. Period. I’ve gotten a lot of encouragement from Shawna over at styleberryblog.com and we are diving in head first! We are collecting our stash and I can’t wait to use them on his little bottom! As of yesterday I’ve also discovered how to travel with them and I’m super excited at the possibility that we don’t have to use disposable diapers at ALL!
The brand that we have chosen to use is FuzziBunz and they are amazing! For traveling we’ve decided to use the GroVia Hybrid diapers. I love to concept and feel 100% confident that we’re gonna have an amazing experience!
Obviously I wan’t do a FULL review of either of these diapers yet because I am still waiting on my little man to embrace the world but I promise when I get the chance after we get home I’m doing my own full review so you all will get a chance to see how we’re doing the so-called “IMPOSSIBLE”!
For some more information on what sparked my new obsession here are a few blog posts from Shawna. She also has done video reviews of CDs also and here are a few of those.
I hope you are at least a little excited after really reading all about CDs and the benefits!
Drummer Boy!!!
Just a little sampling of our favorite Christmas tradition! Grace Church in Maryland Heights does this awesome, never the same twice, always packed performance with all original music every year and it’s our favorite thing to do together.
Hope you enjoy!
DIY floor length curtains
First I started by buying my fabric at the Black Friday JoAnn’s sale ~which I can’t say enough GOOD things about!~ for 50% off the original price and it was EXACTLY how much I wanted, Thank the LORD! This is by far the biggest task I’ve taken on so far and believe me I was a little scared! ~I’m kind of a scaredy cat when it comes to new things~ Once I got started I was so excited I forgot about being scared and I LOVE how it turned out!
The tutorial I found for this project was VERY helpful and VERY detailed. I myself got a little focused while I was sewing that I only took a few pictures so if you need anymore explanation check her site out!
First you want to make sure you know how long you want your final product to be and take into account all the hemming that’s involved and leave extra fabric for that. I didn’t really know how long I wanted mine and got enough so I could start and hem as far as I needed to when I got to the end of the project.
Lay out your fabric so you can measure and cut evenly.
After you’ve measured you want to iron that baby out! Trust me don’t skip this step it helps A LOT to have things nice and flat! I was warned so I’ll pass along the favor, if you don’t like to iron then you might find this project a little on the frustrating side! We’ll be doing it A LOT! Also make sure you iron the fabric on the non printed side. This is just incase there might be something on your iron, you’d avoid ruining your fabric if it’s on the inside!
After you’ve got everything ironed flat you’ll take the long sides and iron a 1/2″ seam in, follow that with folding the seam you just made over on top of itself and iron to finish it.
This is my hemming tool that I used. Helps me get a even seam!
~ironing out all the seams will make it easier to sew at the end becuase it’s been pressed~
Once you’ve got a pretty edge, you’ll do the same thing to the other side!
The top is a little different then the sides. You’re gonna do the 1/2″ in and iron but the second fold is gonna be folded 3″ instead of the same 1/2″. This just finishes the curtain on top and also gives you the loop through the top if you’ll be hanging it that way. I wanted to be able to take it down easy so I bought clips instead.
Now is when you have a couple of choices as to what to do with your curtain. I chose to follow the tutorial I was reading and buy two twin sheets from Walmart for $5.00 each for linning the inside of the curtain. Since it’s for our nursery I wanted to help make it a little darker in the room.
This does involve some extra steps that were a little tricky for me but I managed!
If this is the way you want to go ~my apologies~ I took NO pictures of this process. I was WAY too focused on actually accomplishing the task I had put before myself! I would suggest clicking on the tutorial I found and get those detailed instructions.
If that’s not what you want to do then once you’ve pinned your seams and they’ve been sewn you can hang it up! The bottom you can either have a measurement you like already or you can pin where you’d like the curtain to fall and then take it back to the sewing machine and finish it up!
This is what my completed curtain panel looks like in our baby’s room! I have yet to tackle the second panel but I still have 3 months and I would prefer to focus on all the Christmas baking and wrapping that there is to do right now or I’m afraid I might loose my mind!
Week 26 and counting…
So my sister-in-law informed me over Thanksgiving that if I’m already considering being pregnant again then this pregnancy hasn’t been hard enough! 🙂
I’m completely ok with that considering how worried I was about being pregnant in the first place! I know that there have been a few things that aren’t pleasant and I’m positive that there have been a lot of women who have had a worse time with it than I have, ~I know mine has been easy!~ but I have enjoyed being pregnant and have already considered the second time around! 🙂
A few things that I know have been awesome AND not so great so far is:
26 wks, day 4
- I’ve never weighed more than about 139 in my entire 24 years and I’m currently at 154 as of my last appointment!
- The weight that I’ve gained has been ALL baby Isaac. 🙂
- Feeling him kick and swim around has been AWESOME!
- Getting ready for him has been fun, exciting AND nerve-racking at times…
- I was only sick from about week 10-14
- I’m just now dealing with a little bit of acid reflux (which I’ve dealt with before)
- I had one case of a three-day migraine around week 11 that was HORRIBLE!
- My back and feet are starting to scream when I’m up and around ALL day (I’ve been seeing a Chiropractor my whole life so that ones not new either!)
- Having to pee ALL the time is kind of annoying considering it’s not so much of a ~I have to~ as it is Isaac is sitting on my bladder and just FEELS like I have to!
- Smells only made me sick the first two months and then that stopped
- My hair has gotten SO much more curly AND full! Seriously it stopped falling out like crazy and I’ve always had thin hair so this is a WONDERFUL change!
- If I could manage to leave the spots on my face alone I think for the most part my face would actually be CLEAR!
- I’ve learned that the cheapest, nicest place to buy maternity clothes is Old Navy!
- I love maternity pants!
- I’ve gone up two cup sizes which is VERY strange to me!
- I’ve had some strange dreams as of late, nuff said! 😉
- I’ve only gotten two nights of uninterrupted sleep, not saying I’m annoyed with this at all. I’m actually thankful that I won’t get something taken completely away from me when he’s born and wants to eat all night!
- We’ve decided to go the route of cloth for our diapers and are SUPER EXCITED about it!
- We have gotten a lot of mixed reviews about choosing to cloth diaper our baby boy and not a lot of faith that we can do it.
- I’ve learned to LOVE my sewing machine and try all kinds of new things to make for him.
- There is a reason my mother didn’t name me Grace and it’s only gotten worse since pregnancy, my balance has been HORRIBLE
- I’ve faced most of my needle fears with the EIGHT times they’ve drawn my blood, the flu shot, the shot in the bum for my migraine and the shot next appt for being an 0- blood type! I know the only one that I will HATE is the IV at the hospital… pray for me!
- I have hip dysplasia which has added some extra pain and considerations for me including some physical therapy and a possible c-section (hopefully not!)
- All of this and not to mention the time the Hubs and I have discussed what kind of parents we’ll be, are we ready, what we NEED for baby, what we WANT for baby, what we DONT want for baby, figuring out all the insurance, focusing on staying out of debt, etc……
I’m sure that parents are never READY to have a baby the first time but I want to be as ready as we can be and that freaks me out sometimes! Next month we start our lamaze classes and the month after is our two-week appointments then our four. He’s coming whether we are ready or not and all we can do is be aware of that! I’m gonna LOVE every minute of it and I’m SO stinkin’ excited to meet him and hold him for the first time!
Behind the New Look, pt 2
Let’s keep this ball rolling shall we!
Sorry it’s been so long since the last post, I’m getting ready for a baby AND Christmas after all!!!
As I promised I will be dealing with the html code and how I changed it to do what I wanted it to do, but first you need to know how to get your link to your picture. If you have a wordpress blog like I do, go to your dashboard and find your media tab/section. There you can upload your pictures/graphics. Once it’s uploaded you can click on the name and there will be a link for the picture.
Now here’s the code I was working with:
~it’s from http://www.styleberryblog.com which is an AWESOME BLOG!!!~
<div align=”center”><a href=”http://www.styleberryBLOG.com/” title=”styleberryBLOG” target=”new”><img src=”http://styleberryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/styleberryBLOG-buttonv2-125x125px.png” alt=”styleberryBLOG” style=”border:none;” /></a></div>
I know that seems like a lot of mumbo but it’s easy and we’ll go slow, I promise!
Now once you have your link for your picture/graphic/button ~whatever you’re calling it!~ you want to take that link and replace the section in between the quotation marks with it, here:
<img src=”http://styleberryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/styleberryBLOG-buttonv2-125x125px.png“
ALWAYS REMEBER TO PLACE YOUR INFROMATION BETWEEN THE QUOTATION MARKS!
After you’ve got that done you’ll want to link it to the website you want to go to right? Right! 🙂
For my button I wanted it to link to my pinterest page so I pulled it up in another tab and copied the link of my homepage at pinterest and placed it after the <a href=” before the title=
like this:
<a href=”http://www.styleberryBLOG.com/“
WE’RE ALMOST THERE!
Next I changed the title= section and the alt= section to say what site I was wanting it to go to. The Hubs explained to me that it’s not completely necessary but would tell someone where it was suppose to take them if they clicked on the button and it didn’t work. That AND I like to have things categorized and orderly so I like to do it. 🙂
This is my result:
everything I changed is in bold….
<div align=”center”><a href=”http://pinterest.com/cloningerlives/” title=”pinterest” target=”new”><img src=”https://cloningerlives.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pinterest2.png” alt=”pinterest” style=”border:none;” /></a></div>
Now just for the sake of looks something a little extra is to add <div align=”center”> to the beginning and then </div> at the very end. This will center your button for you!
You can always change it to left or right also!
And there ya have it! If you have any questions at all please feel free to leave a comment and I’ll be more than happy to work it out with you!
Happy Blogging!
Catching up with friends
We are in Schaumburg, IL this week for Eric’s work and I’ve been really enjoying it. We’ve gotten to be part of all the banquets for the churches and I’ve loved getting to meet new people and seeing some I’ve gotten to know over the years.
The highlight so far though has been yesterday. We got to go to to a good friends house for dinner and catch up. It been two years since we’d seen them and they got to see the baby bump and we got to meet their newest little boy! He’s adorable with the cutest little chubby cheeks ever! This picture however is their oldest boy and the last time we saw him was when they moved two years ago, he’s definitely not the same kid! So stinkin’ funny! We’re hoping to go to church with them on Sunday and see them one last time, they are some of my favorite people!
Fun Craft Idea’s
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| the creative pagie |
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| brown paper packages |
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| apartment therapy |
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| shanty2chic |
These are all things that I’ve found while poking around on the internet that I have every intention of doing at some point in my life! The wreath is actually on my table I just have to get the pumpkins and letter for it!
Just click to see more about each idea!
cloningerlives.wordpress.com 
