Monster birthday party inspiration

My son's 1st birthday is on the 28th - eek where did the time go?? No matter how much I tell him to stay small, he doesn't listen.

Boys.

I'm planning on doing a monster-themed birthday aka, "The Little Monster is Turning One!" but I have no idea about the details. Monster party, that's all I got. Since it IS his first birthday and he'll never remember it, maybe I should have gone with a simpler theme, but I don't want Connor to look back at his first birthday and ask, "Why did you guys go all out for Haley's first birthday but you bought a few streamers and a balloon for mine?" Man, the kid isn't even one and he's already giving me hypothetical guilt trips.

As usual, Pinterest came to my rescue. If you haven't heard me talk about Pinterest before, it's basically a virtual resource for categorizing all the things you love. It's a lot of delicious eye candy, I could sit and pin things for hours. (If you want to join the addiction that is Pinterest, email me your address and I'll send you an invite. You can also follow me by clicking HERE or clicking on my Pinterest icon on my left sidebar.)

Here are some of the monster party ideas that inspire me on Pinterest:

Monster Eye Favors from It Is What It Is

Monster Cake by Makoodle

 Monster Bib by Crankypants

Monster Birthday Invite by Posh Little

Now if I could just get off Pinterest and actually PLAN the party...

Guest posting on Sugar Bee Crafts

I'm over at Sugar Bee Crafts today taking part in Mandy's Guest Blogger Extravaganza! Today, I turned my son into an acorn with this little number:

The Acorn Knot Hat serves two purposes:

1. It keeps Connor's head warm.
2. More importantly, I think it'd be really funny to whip this picture out one day when Connor is 16 and getting ready to head out the door with his homecoming date. Revenge for those nights you kept me up, buddy!

So head on over to Sugar Bee Crafts and learn how to make an Acorn Knot Hat so you can embarrass your children when they're teenagers too.

And leave some love while you're at it ;)

Guest posting on The Dating Divas

I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend! I just wanted to pop in and tell you that I guest posted on The Dating Divas yesterday and shared my tutorial for the Necklace Tee! Sorry for the late notice :)

The Necklace Tee was actually one of the first projects I did when I really started to get into craft blogging more. I had seen these kind of shirts for adults and thought, "Hey, I could totally do that!" Those kind of projects are my favorite kind! They're the ones where you can grab a handful of supplies that you already have on hand, sit down for half an hour, and whip out an awesome project. It's even no-sew - well almost, just a little hand sewing for the ribbon bows. 

So come check me out at The Dating Divas and say hi! And while you're there, check out all the great dates the Divas have put together to bring you and your better half closer together.

No-Sew iPhone Costume

Halloween is 7 days away. Oh wait, you knew that? Apparently I chose to completely forget that fact. And also the part about how my son still had no costume for his first trick-or-treat.

We're not huge into Halloween at my house. I have no decorations up and I still don't have a pumpkin (it's probably a lost cause by now), but there is one thing I celebrate very passionately in October: candy. Halloween has always been all about the candy for me. You can keep your suckers and Pixy Stix (and if you are one of those families that give out toothbrushes I know who you are and I will be skipping your house), give me the chocolate! Specifically the Reese's cups and the Baby Ruths.

As a kid, I always made sure to go through my stash after I went trick-or-treating and pick out the good stuff to hide in my room somewhere because we all know that when parents do the "candy inspection" they're not really looking for needles and opened candy, they're looking for chocolate. Now that I have young kids, you better believe I will be doing plenty of candy inspections myself until the kids catch on.


I was feeling the pressure this past weekend since it's my son's first trick-or-treat experience, but since I was low on time and resources I decided the costume had to be inexpensive, quick, and no-sew since I didn't feel like sitting down to a major project. Then as I was surfing the net for ideas on my iPhone, then I realized the answer was right in front of me. I got to work and whipped this baby up in roughly 1 1/2 hours (the apps were what took the longest to cut out and piece together) and while I made this for my 11-month-old, it would easily make a great costume for any age. And I even designed some apps for you to print and cut out. Consider it your Halloween treat!


Supplies:

• Shirt that fits to use as a template
• Felt or fleece for the main fabric
• Assorted felt squares for the apps
• Free app template HERE
• Hot glue gun and hot glue sticks
• Scissors
• Disappearing ink marker

Step 1: Make your main piece.

First, fold the piece of felt or flannel that you chose for the main fabric in half with the fold on top. Tuck the sleeves in and lay your template shirt on top of the fabric to determine the length and width you want your final costume to be (extend it 1 1/2 + inches wider on each side to be safe). Using a disappearing ink marker, trace around your shirt where you will be cutting.

Cut out your rectangle, making sure not to cut across the top where your fold is.

Use your template shirt to determine where your neckline should be and how wide and deep it needs to be and mark this with your disappearing ink marker. I would make the neckline slightly larger than your template shirt's neckline because the felt isn't as stretchy as knit.

Use a CD to round each of the corners like an iPhone.

Cut out your neckline and each of your rounded corners.

Step 2: Cut out the detail pieces.

Now, cut out a rectangle for the screen (use a CD to round the edges like you did above), a small rounded rectangle for the earpiece, and a circle and square for the power button. Position and hot glue these components in place.

Step 3: Create your apps.

This was the really fun part! Determine which apps you want to make for your costume. I looked at my phone and picked several of the simpler ones. I designed the 6 you see below and included them HERE if you want to print and cut them out to make yourself. Just cut out each piece on card stock (which I prefer because it's thicker) or regular print paper, and trace onto squares of felt. Cut out each component and hot glue to assemble.

Now, just arrange your apps on the screen and hot glue them down. Simple!

Step 4: Glue sides.

Pretty explanatory. Since the sides are open, you can choose to leave them this way, but I decided to glue the sides together so my little guy couldn't wiggle out. Just lay your template shirt on top of your costume and use your disappearing ink marker to mark where you want the bottom of the sleeve to be. I marked about an inch down from the sleeve on either side. Hot glue the two sides together from this mark to the bottom of the shirt right before it curves.

And there you have it, a super easy no-sew iPhone costume!

Now obviously since this costume is hot glued instead of sewn, it's not machine washable so just wipe any stains with soap and warm water.

Check out my sidebar to see where I link up each week!

Cheating my way through a winter wardrobe

Thank you to all of you who left your sweet comments on my Babushka Doll Shirt on Monday! I wanted to get you in on a little secret of mine that I applied to that shirt. You might not have noticed, but it's a sneaky trick that I use to winterize Haley and Connor's summer wardrobes.

Did you happen to notice in my previous post that the shirt began as a short-sleeve top and ended up as a long sleeve shirt?

That's because I cheat my way through my kids' winter wardrobe. If I already have a shirt on hand that I want to use for winter but it's short-sleeved, I just add sleeves to it using one of my husband's undershirts. Cheap? Maybe. I prefer "clever." :) Plus, I really like the look of the different colored sleeves.

Since that secret is out now, I might as well share the details with you so you can save some money and cheat your way through your child's winter wardrobe too!

Supplies:

• Short-sleeve shirt that fits your child
• White men's undershirt (or any other knit shirt you may want to use)
• Disappearing ink marker
• Sewing machine and basic sewing supplies

First, find a long-sleeve shirt that fits your child well. Lay one of the sleeves on top of your knit shirt flush with one of the edges and the bottom of your shirt (this is so you don't need to hem your sleeve). Use your disappearing ink marker to trace around your sleeve, making sure to make a j-like curve at the top where the sleeve meets the shirt. Repeat on the other side edge of your shirt to make 2 sleeves.

After cutting each of your sleeves out, they should look like this when they're open:

Fold them in half long ways with the right sides together, and pin along the long side. Sew down the long side from the edge of your sleeve to the top (make sure you don't sew either of the shorts sides closed!)

Turn your sleeve inside out, and you have a completed sleeve! (sorry, I didn't take a picture of the finished sleeve, but I'm sure you all know what a sleeve looks like :) The long side you just sewed is the bottom of your sleeve.

To attach the long sleeves you just made, turn your shirt inside out and stuff the existing sleeves of your shirt inside. Locate the original seam where the existing sleeves are sewed onto the shirt. This is where you will be attaching your long sleeves you just made.

With your long sleeve right side out, insert the sleeve inside of your shirt's armhole, matching up the raw edges of your sleeve with the edge of the armhole.

Pin your sleeve to the armhole and sew all around the armhole to attach your sleeve.

When you pull your sewn on sleeve inside out, it should look like this:

Turn your whole shirt right side out, and now your short sleeve shirt has been winterized! You can do the same thing with little boy's shirts. It's a little addictive. Especially if you stock up on cheap, end-of-the-season sale shirts from summer.




The only downside is your husband will start to wonder where all his undershirts went. Just tell him you're saving money on your kids' winter wardrobe :)

A difficult anniversary

I wrote this post to share with you the details concerning my difficult pregnancies, but also to encourage those of you who have also experienced high-risk pregnancies due to a small cervix. The post is long, but I hope those of you who need it are encouraged by my experience.

Today is an anniversary of sorts. Not a wedding anniversary, but one that changed my life just the same.

A year ago today, I was 31 weeks pregnant with my son. Despite the fact that I was feeling larger by the minute, I had been having a really great pregnancy. I had all the normal pregnant-woman-type things happen to me throughout my pregnancy - strange cravings for hot dogs and Cheetos, exhaustion, soreness - but this one was certainly not going the way it had when I was pregnant with my daughter.

Me 5 months pregnant with Haley and dressed up as a baby for our office Halloween party in '08

For those of you who probably don't know (because I started this blog after I had my daughter), I found out several years ago when I was 11 weeks pregnant with my first that I had a smaller than usual cervix. In order not to bore you or talk to much about girly parts, the cervix basically keeps the bun inside the oven while he/she bakes, then the internal timer goes off at 40 weeks and ding, the baby is done. For someone like me who has a short cervix, the oven door has been broken and the bun could come out of the oven way before it's done baking. This is especially a problem when you're only 11 weeks pregnant.

When I was told this information, I was laying on the exam table getting my first look at my little wiggling fetus on the screen. I wasn't prepared to deal with a faulty cervix, it didn't run in the family as far as I knew. All I knew at the time was that I was having my first child and I was over the top excited about it. My body was supposed to know what to do, I couldn't be bothered by this nonsense about a short cervix. Where was the receipt for this thing anyway? I didn't sign up for a faulty cervix.

As the days went on, I went in for visits every 2 weeks to monitor my cervix to make sure the baby wouldn't be born too early. I loved each visit because it meant that I got to see my little developing baby wiggle and squirm on the ultrasound with each visit. Before we knew that Haley was a girl, we called her Babby, a nickname that stuck with her even for a little while after her birth.

Haley at 22 weeks

Things went well for awhile and little Babby continued to grow, but as we neared Christmas, my faulty cervix had had enough. At one of my routine visits right before a planned road trip to visit my in-laws for Christmas, it was discovered that my cervix had begun to dilate. At only 27 weeks pregnant, I was admitted to the hospital for some tests which proved that I was contracting. I was devastated. There were tears (and a cancelled road trip) and I was told go home on bed rest and to restrict my activity to showers and sandwich making until the baby reached a safe level of maturity to warrant more activity. 

At the time, I was upset to know that I couldn't go about life as usual. As a young, very active person, I hated knowing that I had to be chained to the bed for at least 7 weeks with people waiting on me for all of my needs. This may sound like vacation to you, but believe me when I tell you weeks and weeks of watching TV with no option for any other activity gets pretty old. Looking back, I should have kept my mouth shut and been more thankful for the breakthroughs we've had in medicine that help to prevent people like me from going into labor well before the baby is at a mature level of development.

For someone like me who has a shortened cervix, there is a very real possibility of losing the baby or for the baby to be born too early and have developmental issues. How lucky was I that I had a doctor who knew enough to tell me to shut up, take my medicine, and think about the health of my child?

So I did just that. Except for the one time my in-laws came to town and wheeled me around the outdoor shopping mall in a wheelchair.

Escapee!

Thankfully, my body cooperated a little longer and Haley was born at 35 weeks, perfect in every way. She was tiny at 6 pounds, 2 ounces, but she had no issues whatsoever and was able to leave the hospital after a routine length of time in the hospital.

When I became pregnant with my son, I was prepared for the same song and dance. Every doctor's appointment was nerve wracking as I waited for the nurse to look at the screen and tell me "Your cervix is dilating again, to the hospital with you!" but those words didn't come. My appointments were still more frequent than most because of my previous complications, but by my 25 week check up when I was again told that nothing was wrong, I relaxed with the thought that I was in the clear.

At 30 weeks pregnant, my friends threw me a "baby sprinkle" (a baby shower for someone who has already had a baby before and has most items she needs). I had a great time, and felt completely blessed by all my friends who came. While I was there, I kept feeling what I thought was just the baby repositioning himself. Nothing painful, it just felt like he was poking his head hard into my abdomen.

Me at 30 weeks (photo courtesy of Christan Yarger)

I returned to my appointment several days later for a routine check up and while laying on the exam table getting the ultrasound, I saw a familiar image on the screen. The look on the nurse's face confirmed it. A dilated cervix. After confirming the diagnosis, the nurse left me in a room to wait for my doctor. "How could this happen again?" I wondered, "Everything has been fine." I was again wheeled over to the hospital and plugged up to multiple machines to check my vitals. It was confirmed that I was contracting again. The roller coaster ride began again.

The next 2 days are probably 2 of the worst days of my life. I was put on a high dosage of magnesium right away. If you've never been on magnesium before, it's horrible stuff. It's usually meant to treat seizures and kidney problems, but it's commonly used to stop contractions as well. What it does is relax your muscles, which of course stop the muscles causing the contractions in my case, but it not only relaxes those muscles, it relaxes ALL of your muscles. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open and when I was able to keep them open, I had double vision because my eye muscles were too relaxed. To simply roll over in bed, I had to muster all the strength I had to grasp the handle on the opposite side of the bed and heave myself to the other side. It also makes you nauseous. The only way I can describe being on magnesium is to tell you that it makes you feel like you're drunk, on muscle relaxers, and have the flu at the same time.

Thankfully, the doctors were able to get my contractions to stop and I was eventually able to be taken off the magnesium and have a meal. My friends who threw me the shower came to visit me and brought lots of fun goodies with them to cheer me up (which was my inspiration for The Hospital Survival Kit). One of my favorite things that they brought was a pair of cat socks that weren't very functional, but had great entertainment value.

Cat socks (sorry for the bad quality, it was taken with my phone at the hospital)

I spent the next 4 1/2 weeks on hospital bed rest. I went through a grieving time at first because I couldn't understand how this could happen to me yet again after things were going so well. My doctors had to talk me down quite a few times after begging them to let me go home. As I cried a lot at first, but I eventually understood and agreed with my stay there. I took medications to control my contractions and was constantly monitored. My days were very predictable, but I was also very lucky to have a boss that allowed me to work from the hospital, so that helped me break up the monotony some. I learned to deal with, and eventually tolerate (I can't say like because I would have much rather been at home with my husband and daughter) my stay at the hospital.

I was sent home at 35 weeks, still pregnant and with a good outlook. My son was at a good weight, and he was at a place where his development was not in question. He was born 2 weeks and 2 days after, at 7 pounds even.

Haley meeting her brother for the first time

While it's been hard, I am a better person for all that I went through because I appreciate the blessing that is life that much more. While on hospital bed rest during my last pregnancy,  I heard stories from the nurses of the other girls on my floor who went into labor very early in their pregnancies and gave birth to very small babies with problems, some who did not survive. I am one of the lucky ones who managed to stay pregnant and give birth to 2 healthy babies thanks to God first and foremost, but also thanks to all of the efforts of the doctors and nurses from both pregnancies who took the time to counsel and care for me and my unborn children.


Those who know my history with pregnancies always ask, "Do you think you'll have another?" The answer right now is yes, we have always planned on having a third. We've discussed that topic at length, and our family doesn't feel complete without a third little somebody. All of this of course depends on our financial situation, but we would like to have a third eventually. I know when the time comes, I'll probably have to have a cerclage (where the doctors will sew my cervix closed to keep the baby in until birth), and this is something that I'm nervous about, but I'm more concerned with the health of my future baby.

If you have (or have had) a high-risk pregnancy, I would love to talk to you and encourage you as well as answer any questions you may have to the best of my ability.

Tag team

Sometimes, I think my kids get together and coordinate efforts to keep my husband and I up all night. The minute you get one calmed down, the other one starts up. Their timing is just too perfect for it to be coincidence.

Last weekend when I participated in my first craft fair, my husband watched the kids all of Friday night and Saturday until 5:30. When I got home, both of us were utterly exhausted and looking forward to bedtime. The kids went down without a fight and instead of going to bed early I was glued to the TV watching Prison Diaries on TLC, which is one of those shows that I probably wouldn't have watched normally, but for some reason was extremely entertaining at 9:30pm.

10:00 rolled around and I went through my normal bedtime routine and finally fell into bed around 10:20. Right as I was drifting into a warm, peaceful sleep, my daughter woke up crying. To help us both get a good night's sleep, it's usually my husband's responsibility to handle my daughter if she wakes up and I handle my son. That night I took pity on my husband since I had to leave him with the kids for half the weekend, so I got up to console my daughter who, in a half-asleep daze, claimed she had to go to the bathroom.

I suppressed the urge to remind her that it was 10:30 at night and she was wearing a diaper.

After dragging her little half awake body to the toilet and back, I settled back into bed. As I started to drift off again, my sweet husband rolled over and informed me that he had an annoying song running through his head. As he rolled over and went back to sleep immediately, Annoying Song proceeded to play over and over again in my head for the next 20 minutes. Annoying Song eventually tapered off and I finally managed to lull myself back to sleep. And it was at that moment that my son tagged in.

After lots of rocking and singing, I managed to get my son down again and get about 7 hours of sleep myself. This may sound like a lot but for me, this is just enough to function but not enough to be quick on my feet. This meant that everyday tasks the following day took about twice as long as they usually do because of lack of brain function. Brushing my teeth became a 10 minute event and grocery shopping lasted 2 1/2 hours. In my defense, there were a lot of new holiday snacks in the snack aisle that needed close inspection.

Is it bad that I'm kind of looking forward to when they're both teenagers and sleep til noon?

The craft fair

Well, I can finally say that I've participated in a craft fair! This past Friday and Saturday, a couple other girls and I shared a booth at one of the local craft fairs in Memphis. For the past month, I've been cranking out bibs like crazy and managed to make around 30 of them for the festival. The other girls brought a variety of painted canvases, bows, and other goodies for kids and babies.

I think we had a cute little booth :)

One of the girls had an old window that she used as both a decoration and a sign to list pricing of all the items.

I hung my bibs at the front of the tent so people would see them as they walked in, and they'd hit them in the face when they left ;) I used Picnik to make a sign to advertise the bibs, which I modeled after this sign I found on Google. I wanted the sign to have a "country" feel to it - I really like how it turned out!

The festival was fun but really exhausting! I have a lot of respect for all of you who do festivals every year! I may do another one in the future, but for now, I think I'm going to focus of making things for my Etsy shop that I want to start very soon.

So what do you think, would you want to buy a bib if I started to sell them on Etsy?

Mandy over at Sugar Bee Crafts has some awesome tips on how to prepare and decorate for a craft fair - her booth is so cute! Check it out HERE

My end-of-season steals

Nothing else gets me like having to pay $30 for teeny baby jeans that they'll grow out of in a month. I mean, babies are like 1/6 the size of a normal person, so lets take that price and divide it by 6. I'd happily pay $5 for baby jeans. Sadly, I don't think retailers will ever agree with me. And that's why I love end-of-season sales so much.

If you've been reading for awhile, you know that I hate paying full-price for stuff, especially clothing, which is probably why I love making clothes for my kids so much. When I go shopping, I usually walk in and make a bee line for the clearance rack. When it comes to clothes for myself, I have an awesome sister-in-law who dresses me, so she's just helping to enable my cheapness even more. And I love her for that. And don't even get me started on my husband. The man would be happy to own a pair of cargo shorts and 2 baseball tees, one in black and one in gray.

So back to baby clothes. At the end of each summer and winter, the hubs and I make a trip to some stores and stock up ahead of time for the coming seasons, which helps us get a lot of cute clothes for the kids at prices we would never be able to get in season. We happened to be in Babies R Us recently to find a new car seat for Connor, and they had an amazing clearance event that I couldn't pass up. Everything was discounted already with an additional discount on top of it PLUS a buy one get one free deal.

It was on.

Here are some of the cute things we scored for next year:

A bunch of cute matching graphic tees and comfy shorts,

(I just love the blue striped shirt for some reason, the color is so pretty! ...I mean manly.)

And of course, I had to get a pair of swim trunks for Connor for next summer. He's going to look like such a big kid :(

For Haley, I found this adorable ruffle skirt,

Jean shorts for $3!

And assorted other pants and shirts. But my favorite had to be these:

Adorable rainbow sneakers! Love love love. They match everything, so that's a major plus :)

Is anyone else an end-of-season shopaholic like me?

Guess who's mobile?

Yup, this little guy here is finally crawling.

It took him about 9 1/2 months, but Connor is officially crawling EVERYwhere. He's been rocking back and forth for awhile now, but he finally got enough coordination to go for it. And I couldn't be happier. Most of the time, he sits and plays well but then gets bored and cries for us to carry him somewhere new. Now, he just goes places himself.

He's still a little tipsy, but that makes him even more adorable. Watching him crawl in these early stages is hilarious. He looks like a little bulldog when he's crawling at you with a concentrated look and short, quick steps.

Life is just more interesting when you can go places yourself.

And now that means Connor finds wires to chew on. And random pieces of stuff on the floor end up in his mouth. And books get torn up. I'm going to have to hide everything. Again.

But I can't be mad at this face, can I?

Mystery project reveal and a winner!

Many of you made some good guesses on the blog as to what I've been up to lately, and if you follow me on Facebook I threw out some hints about what I was working on. I think I'm pretty terrible at hinting. That's probably why I only made it through 3 hints before someone got it. I'm also really bad at lying which I suppose isn't a bad thing unless your 4 years old and your dad tells you that he got your mom towels for her birthday and to keep it a secret. I'm sure you can guess how that one turned out. I kept that secret for a whole 15 minutes.

So the oh-so-secret mystery project is bibs! Not just any bibs though, fruit bibs! Why? Because fruit-themed anything is awesome. Remember the California Raisins? Exactly.

I'm participating in my first craft show this week, so I whipped up about 25 of these babies to sell at the show. I think my hands are permanently cramped in a claw-like position from all the sewing I've done recently. I really love how they turned out though, too bad my 2 1/2-year-old doesn't like things tied around her neck and my (almost) 1-year-old has started to pull a Hulk move and rip bibs off his neck with excessive force lately. Sigh.

They really turned out better than I hoped though. They get me in a very fall-ish mood, which is my favorite season next to spring by the way. I think I'd be ok if we did away with summer and shortened winter some, or at least required winter to stay above 50 degree temperatures and snow on command on days when I felt like seeing all the pretty snow. Not to much to ask, right?

They were inspired by a shirt I made, similar to the apple bib above, for a friend 3 years ago when I first started sewing. I then saw this pin on Pinterest and thought, why not combine the two ideas? I'm calling them Fruit Basket Bibs, and the fruits include an apple, pear, strawberry, and orange. I think the orange is my favorite, even though it took a lot of patience to stitch each individual fruit section on. Times 8.

You all made a lot of great guesses that came close, but Rebecca made the right guess on the Facebook page.

Congrats, Rebecca! You will be getting your very own orange bib in the mail very soon! The craft festival is this coming Friday, and I've never done anything like it, so wish me luck!

I'm linking up to the parties on my sidebar, as well as the Point of View Autumn Link Party and The CSI Project: