Cheese!

Lately, we have been having fun learning about pictures.

Sydney loves to have us take a picture of her and then look at it an giggle. She will point to the camera and say "Cheese! Cheese!" Then she will give me her best cheese face which ends up looking more like a grimace or a growl. All of our pictures have her making this silly face. 

Here are a few of her cheese faces. 

Mrs. E

A Monkey in Monkey PJ's

Sydney has an obsession with her "jammas". 

David always manages to find the cutest pj's for her to wear. A lot of them are a little bit boyish but she loves that they all have animals on the feet. Her new favorite pair is her monkey pj's. Here is our little monkey in her monkeys. 

Mrs. E

An Ultrasound

Yesterday was so exciting for our little family.

We got to see Squishy in an Ultrasound! I found out the gender but David doesn't want to know again so it will be a big secret. Everything seems to look pretty good. Baby was wiggly and happy but was facing forward and would not let the ultrasound tech get a picture of the spine. This means that I will have to go back again next week to try to get a few photos extra photos taken. 

The tech spent about 40 minutes with me in the room taking measurements and pictures. When Sydney and David came in the room to see Squishy had moved into a pike position which you can see in the bottom photo. I don't know if Syd really understood what she was looking at but David did his best to explain it. For those of you pregnant ladies reading this blog, I also found out that the placenta is posterior, which is why I can feel so much movement this time around. So exciting!

All we can say for now is that we are thrilled! 

This next picture is my favorite because squishy is in the pike position! Folded in half with feet up by the head!

Mrs. E

19 Weeks

At 19 weeks...

Weight gained: Just over 10 pounds

Baby gender: We find out on Thursday!
Belly button in or out: In but very, very flat.
Food cravings: Spicy food, Fondue, Fresh Salad
Food aversions: Still meat...
Appointments: Ultrasound on Thursday!
How I am feeling: I feel pretty good actually. Really tired because I am not sleeping as well but better than I was feeling last week

Exciting milestones: Tons of movement!

Things I am looking forward to: I am really excited to find out what we are having!
Things that I miss: I am missing my old wardrobe and wine and sushi.
Thoughts: I am counting down the days to all of the Christmas festivities. I know that I will be tired but it is all going to be so much fun!
Daddy's thoughts: 
Sydney's thoughts: "I can't wait to find out if I am having a brother or sister!"

Mrs. E

DIY ~ Felt Christmas Garland

Ok... so obviously Sydney and I had a very crafty weekend. 

We had a million projects that needed to be finished and we finally sat down to tackle them. You may remember my recent post about the Fall Felt Garland that I put together for our mantel. Well, it was time to change things over to Christmas from fall, so Sydney and I sat down to make a new garland for the mantel. 

The Supplies:

~ Felt in coordinating colors (we didn't want to go with typical Christmas colors so we settled on red, blue, grey and white)

~ Sewing machine

~ Thread

The Process:

~ Get settled in and put on a good movie (in my case it was a few episodes of sesame street)

~ Mixing and matching size and color, cut out a million circles (well maybe not a million). My largest circle was about 2 and a half inches wide and the smallest was about an inch wide.

~ Once you think you have enough circles, find a place away from busy meddling toddlers and lay out the garland the way you will want it to appear when complete. 

~ Syd managed to come over and knock a few circles out of place anyway.....

~ Then stack all of your circles in order and set up your sewing machine. This is the fun part....

~ Leaving a 6 inch trail of thread to start, feed the circles through your machine in the correct order. Make sure that you are sewing down the center of the circle (more or less) and that you are not overlapping the circles but you are placing them right next to each other. This will ensure that they will twist and move but that the garland is still strong.

~ To hang ours on the mantel (please ignore the crafting mess) I hammered two finishing nails into the wood at either end. These nails stay there permanently and we just change up the garland. Tie a knot in the ends of your threads to make large loops and drape the garland across the nails. Done!

What do you think? Will you be tackling home made decorations for Christmas this year?

Mrs. E

DIY ~ Yarn Wall Letters

I have been trying to tackle our new house one room at a time. 

We have been living in a construction zone since we moved into the new house and I am just now starting to get some more things on the walls. One of the rooms that I want to finish right away is Sydney's room. She is constantly playing in there and loves when we add new things to her wall to personalize it. So I decided to put together some letters to spell out her name. 

I didn't want to do anything too tacky or expected so I turned to good old Pinterest once again. I found these super cute yarn wrapped letters and thought they would be perfect with the vintage girly vibe in Syd's room. They took time to put together but they were completely worth every minute.

Supplies:

~ Wooden letters (Mine are white 10" block letters from Michaels)

~ Yarn in multiple coordinating colors

~ Hot Glue Gun

~ Scrap Fabric 

The Process:

There really is not much I can say about putting these letters together so I will give you a few tips instead:

~ Choose softer colors to avoid having the letters look cheesy or dated

~ Plan out how you are going to tackle each letter before you begin. It can be tricky to get good coverage without having everything looking messy.

~ Don't skimp on the hot glue in difficult or angled areas. If you do not secure the yarn with enough glue, you will run the risk of having the yarn shift on you.

~ Play with the flowers to get the shape you want. I tore strips of fabric that were about two inches thick and I wasn't afraid to let the raw edges show. The flowers are also great to hide spots that you may have had trouble with.

~ To hang letters on the wall just use small hanging nails. They will catch the yarn so you can adjust the letters to ensure that they are level with each other.

I still have to hang Sydney's letters in her room. Hopefully I will have time to tackle it tonight!

Mrs. E

DIY ~ Our Growing Family Growth Chart

I have been meaning to tackle this project for a while now. 

David and I have wanted to start tracking Sydney's growth on a height chart. She is getting so tall and is the height of most two and a half or three year olds. The one thing I did not want to do was write directly onto the wall. I am not worried about having pen marks on the walls. What I worried about was what would happen to that piece of our family history if we moved away or painted the walls a different color. 

I started searching for a solution. I needed something that would go with the rest of the house and something that would be easy to move with us. I hit up Pinterest and managed to find quite a few cute ideas. In the end I fell in love with creating a giant ruler on beautiful raw wood that would hang on one of our walls. 

Here is how I did it:

Supplies:

~ One piece of 6x1" wood that is cut to 6 feet long exactly (I found a gorgeous fence plank at Home Depot for $8)

~ White paint (I used plain acrylic craft paint available at Michaels or $1.50)

~ Clear coat varnish

~ Thin paint brush

~ Computer and printer

~ Tape measure

~ Pencil and Pen

The Process:

~ Sand the ends of your plank smooth and make sure that there is no dust or dirt on it as well

~ Choose the side of the board that you would like to use and measure out every half foot (6 inches) with your tape measure, marking with your pencil

~ Cut a strip of paper that is 2 inches long and one half inch wide. This will be your template for the large tick marks.

~ Starting at the first marker (6 inches from the bottom) center the template on your measured mark and trace with a pencil or a light pen. Do this on every other tick mark (every foot)

~ Cut that template in half to create the half foot markings and repeat the same process as above on the remaining tick marks. 

~ Paint all of these marks with your white paint and allow to dry (They should dry in ten minutes or so)

~ While your tick marks are drying, open up a new word document on your computer. Type in the numbers 1-6 and select a font for your numbers. Re-size the numbers so that they will be approximately 2 inches tall once printed. 

~ Print the numbers on plain printer paper and cut them apart (you do not actually have to cut the numbers out in detail)

~ Line the numbers up with the large ticks on the board starting with 1 at the bottom and working your way up to 6

~ Holding the letter in place or sticking it down with tape, trace around the letter with a ball point pen pressing very hard. When you lift the paper letter you should see the outline of your letter on the wood. The second option for tracing the letter is to color the entire backside of the letter with a pencil and then use the ball point pen to trace around the number and transfer the pencil to the wood.

~ Once all of your letters are traced onto the board, paint them using the same white paint as before. 

~ Allow the paint to dry for at least 12 hours

~ Seal the entire board, front and back, with the clear coat varnish and allow to dry

~ Attach a hanger on the back of the board and hang on the wall so that the bottom edge of the board is 6 inches off of the ground 

We will be writing on our board with a fine black sharpie. I can't wait to see the board fill up with memories as the years go on. My hope is that one day I will be able to pass the growth chart on to one of our children to carry on with the tradition. 

Mrs. E

From Blankie to Lovey

All toddlers have their comfort items, those things that they need to have with them at all times.

Sydney has two comfort items, her soother and her blankie. Before Sydney was born I made her two of the most beautiful blankets I had ever knit. They were both a beautiful hounds-tooth pattern and they took me months to finish. She has slept with them ever since she was allowed to have blankets.

A few months ago she started destroying these beautiful blankets. She wasn't doing it on purpose but it still broke my heart. She sticks her fingers in the strings of the blankets and pulls. The result is a blanket with long strings hanging from it that looks like it is a million years old. I usually wouldn't worry about her carrying around a ratty blanket, but we started to worry that the long strings could strangle her in her sleep.

This past weekend I took some action and decided that it was time to get rid of the blankets. In order to give her something to cuddle still I decided to make her a lovey that was a mini version of her blankets. I knit the entire thing in one night. My fingers were completely numb by the time I finished. In order to keep her from sticking her fingers through the lovey to pull the strings out, I had to give her something else to put her fingers through. So I sewed on tags around the entire thing.

Here she is getting acquainted with her new lovey:

I even managed to teach her how to put her fingers through the tags and not the lovey itself. They are the perfect size for little fingers. 

She has had her lovey for two nights now. There have been a few tears over the whereabouts of her blankies and a few tiny strings have been pulled out but it is still substantially better than having her carry around a giant stringy mess of a blanket. 

The next battle will be the soother....

Mrs. E

18 Weeks

This week's photo is a little preview of our family Christmas card.

At 18 weeks...

Weight gained: Maybe 10 pounds

Baby gender: Unknown, but we find out next week.

Belly button in or out: In but very, very flat.

Food cravings: Pretzels, ice cream and anything spicy still

Food aversions: Fewer things are grossing me out these days. I am eating more meat and I am starting to get my appetite back.

Appointments: My next OB appointment is November 27 and my ultrasound is November 29!

How I am feeling: I am still very sore. I have started sleeping with an army of pillows surrounding me and my hips are killing me. I have been having Braxton Hicks contractions on and of for about a week now and the round ligament pain is intense. I have been getting incredibly sharp shooting pains in my stomach on a regular basis and I am starting to get tired of them. 
Exciting milestones: A flattening belly button 

Things I am looking forward to: I am really excited to find out what we are having!

Things that I miss: I am really missing sushi again and I would love a good glass of wine.

Thoughts: I am so unmotivated to work right now. All I want to do is go home and work on the house and cook. 

Daddy's thoughts: "Sometimes I wonder if you are really in there."

Sydney's thoughts: NA

Mrs. E

My Love/Hate Relationship with Movember

I love when people get involved in great causes. 

I come from a family that has always been heavily involved in their community and I love that. For the last 2 Years, David has been involved in Movember. As much as I love what it stands for and the money it raises, I hate how it makes my handsome husband look. Especially when our company Christmas party is on November 30th! That means that all of our nice photos of that night will include David in all of his Mustache glory and then it comes of the next morning!

Please donate to him HERE if you can. Here is a taste of what I have had to look at for the last 20 days...

Mrs. E

A Little Bumble Bee for Me

I love having a little girl. 

Little girls love to play dress up and wear cute things. Their dad's let them do almost anything they want and they look so darn cute no matter what they do. 

Yesterday I came home from work to this....

David has been accumulating dress up outfits for Syd lately. He is taking advantage of all of the post Halloween sales to ensure that she has lots of little outfits to keep her entertained. When I opened the door to the house Sydney ran over and started flapping her arms like crazy. I asked her if she was flying and she didn't respond. She was too focused on trying to achieve lift off. When she was finally done, she looked up at me and said "flying!"

The only problem with the whole thing was that darn stye that she has on her eye. We have been working on making it better but it is being super stubborn. It doesn't seem to bother her but it sure doesn't look nice. Nonetheless, she had a great time playing the role of Bumble Bee. 

The only problem with having wings is that you don't fit into hiding places as easily...

Hope this brightens your day!

Mrs. E