1000 gifts: #122-130

yummy banana bread, made with my little helper

taking time to play

having the priviledge of leading worship at a friend's wedding - what a joy to play to a packed house!

baby babbles - "mum mum mum"

finding neat homemade gift ideas, and actually having the time/supplies to make them

a surprise pulled off

an evening of delicious food and wonderful company

a house that is well-suited to hosting and entertaining

my watch found!  (it had been missing for about a month, and Annika found it today under Emmett's car seat)

This moment - snowsuit

"A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember." SouleMama

Refashion: dress to skirt



October 2009

Annika has this dress that I am absolutely in love with.  I bought it in 2009 from The Children's Place and it's a size 18 months.  However, she just recently stopped wearing it - 2 years later!  Once the length was no longer suitable as a dress, she wore it as a tunic top with leggings.  The full-length sleeves became 3/4 length sleeves.  However, now it's really too small in the shoulders and so I was getting ready to put it in the "too small" pile.  Then I came across this idea - turn a too-small dress into a skirt!  Genius!!  Here's how it turned out.

 By the way, the color has not faded that much - just poor lighting for my photos and too lazy to try to fix it!



Before



After




Yay!!

Birthday vs. Christmas

Now that Halloween is over, we have 2 significant events that we're looking forward to - Emmett's first birthday and Christmas.  It's kind of funny, I had told Annika that after Halloween was Emmett's birthday, and then Christmas.  So the day after Halloween, she woke up and the first thing she said to me was "how old is Emmett?"  I had to laugh (quietly, so she wouldn't be embarrassed by her mistake), and then explain to her that his birthday wasn't right after Halloween, but in about a month - many, many days.  :)

Anyways, Emmett's birthday is coming up on December 2nd and of course, Christmas is on December 25th.  I had never planned to have a December baby, and in fact, it was the one month that I really didn't want to have a baby in.  But I guess God had other plans, because here we are with our December baby and I wouldn't trade him for anything.  My due date had originally been December 15th, and I prayed and prayed that he would be early, or at least not late, so that his birthday wouldn't be overshadowed by Christmas.  And he cooperated!  Actually, he was not just 2 weeks early, but 4 weeks.  After he was born, the nurses at the hospital told us that the due date was wrong, and he was actually about 4 weeks early.  We had had fetal assessments in the month leading up to his birth (due to high blood pressure and the fact that I was measuring small), but they figured everything was okay, since he was already weighing about 7 lbs (which was his birth weight - can you imagine if he had stayed in for 4 more weeks!!  Yikes!).  However, the nurses could see signs in his development that told them that he was a bit more premature than we thought (despite the fact that he was a decent weight).  Luckily everything turned out fine (other than some initial feeding issues and unpleasant glucose-level testing), and he was able to stay in the room with me and we could all go home together.  So, even though I now had a December baby, at least he had picked a day that wasn't too close to Christmas and everything worked out okay.

So now that his first birthday is approaching, I'm making plans for it, and also getting ready for Christmas.  I don't know why - maybe it's all the stuff in the stores - but I felt like the day after Halloween was over that I should start getting ready for Christmas.  Now that there's a little snow on the ground, it feels even more Christmas-y.  I'm one who likes to have Christmas decorations up for quite a while.  Last year I think we put up our tree in mid-November already, although that was due to different circumstances (I knew I wouldn't feel like putting up a tree after the baby came, so I wanted to get it done beforehand).  However, I was thinking about it the other day, and I came to the decision that I will not put up any Christmas decorations until after Emmett's birthday (I can do other Christmas prep, like baking and shopping or listening to Christmas music, but not decorating).  I want his birthday to be about him.  There's lots of time for decorating, and enjoying the Christmas season, after that.   I think this will probably be how I do things from now on.  This year presents a challenge with Christmas decorating anyway - with Emmett crawling around and "exploring" everything (i.e. pulling things apart, putting them in his mouth, throwing them around), I don't think we will have a Christmas tree anyway!  We will probably just put up a small one in our wall niche, or somewhere out of his reach.

So that's my plan.  Does anyone else struggle with the dilemma of birthday vs. Christmas?  How do you make it work??  I'd love to hear some other ideas, especially when it comes to gift-giving.

A quick refashion - romper into shirt

Now that I'm addicted to sewing, I spend time (probably more than I should) looking at other sewing and crafty blogs and see what other people are making.  A big thing is upcycling or refashioning - taking something old and creating something new out of it.  It's a great idea, as you can get a lot more wear out of your existing clothes (a definite plus with kids clothes that they grow out so quickly!), or you can take something not-so-pretty and create something totally new out of it.  It takes a bit of a mind-shift though, to start looking at things and not just seeing what's there, but what could be there.  I'm slowly learning, though.

So here's my first refashion project.  It's fairly simple, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.  I loved this romper on Emmett (not sure why, maybe it's the little tie), but unfortunately, the weather turned cold before he even grew out of it.  With girls' summer clothes there are ways to extend their lives into fall (e.g. add some warm tights and a shirt underneath a summer dress), but not so much with this romper.  I don't think Emmett would look good in tights, and I think Carey would probably kill me if I attempted it!  So rather than pack away this little romper with a sigh, I found a way for him to get more wear out of it - I turned it into a shirt.  Here's how I did it (it's very simple!).

Take the romper...

Cut off the legs (use a shirt that fits to check for length)...

Hem the bottom and you're done!

I thought about trying to sew on sleeves (cut off from a long-sleeved onesie that doesn't fit anymore) for the faux-layered look, but I gave up on that idea, and decided to just layer it over a long-sleeved shirt instead.  Pretty cute and now we can get a few more wearings out of a fav!

Calm down jar

I posted a few months ago about the "thundering threes" that Annika is going through.  Things have not improved too much since then.  Sure, we have good moments, or even good days, but overall, it's still pretty challenging.  Some days I feel like pulling my hair out.  Sometimes I'm at a complete loss as to what to do - how to handle the tears and the tantrums and the complete meltdowns; what to do when no punishment seems to have an effect.  The past month has been particularly challenging, since we've been very busy and it seems to have taken its toll on Annika.  I'm hoping that this next month will be a little more relaxed, and that more routine and predictability will help Annika (until December comes and that all goes out the window with Christmas coming!).  :P

I came across this idea on Pinterest, and I want to make one of these for Annika.  Hopefully it will be helpful for her.  It's called a "mind" jar or a calm down jar.

Source: herewearetogether.com via Pamela on Pinterest

       It looks sort of like a snow globe and the purpose of it is to help your child take a few minutes and calm down when they're stressed or upset or angry.  You shake it up and then watch as the glitter swirls around and then gradually settles down.  It can also be used as a "time out" - they have to sit and watch the jar until it settles down, which takes a few minutes. 

I don't know if it will make a difference or not, but at this point, I'm willing to try just about anything.

UPDATE - December 12, 2011 - click here to read my update on how the calm down jar worked for us.

The jumper

Last week Wednesday, at my last sewing class, I started working on a jumper for Annika.  Well, I was so excited about it, I couldn't help myself and I finished it by Saturday.  Those of you who attend our church got to see it in person already, as I made Annika wear it on Sunday (she was enthusiastic about wearing it on Saturday, but had changed her mind by Sunday morning.  I made her wear it anyway :P).

Here are some pics...

The pattern is very simple - no buttons or zippers - and now that I know what I'm doing, I think I should be able to make it again fairly quickly.  I will probably make another one (or a bunch more - the pattern goes up to size 6x) in a lighter fabric by spring time.  I'm pretty proud of myself that, except for getting everything ready and cut at my sewing class, I did all the sewing (and figuring out) all by myself.  There were a few things I didn't quite understand and I made a few mistakes (thank goodness for Google and a seam ripper!), but I persevered and it turned out really well.  I love how simple and neutral it is - she can wear it with pretty much anything.  I'm still debating as to whether I add a few buttons on the front or just leave it as is.