Getting ready for baby!

I still have almost 6 weeks to go before I'm 40 weeks, but I just have this feeling baby might decide to arrive a little sooner. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, but that feeling sure helps me get motivated to finish up getting ready!

Here is my 32 week baby belly. Pregnancy might beat me up, make me tired, make my hips hurt so bad that at times I can't walk, and keep me up at night, but I wouldn't change it for the world! This is what I've been praying for, for years and years, and I'd go through anything for this baby! I LOVE being pregnant, feeling my little baby roll around, kick me, get the hiccups, and stretch. I love how my huge baby belly looks (that will probably change after I have him, lets just be honest! lol), I love how my son and my husband give my belly love and hugs and talk to baby. But I can't wait until this is over, and I'm holding my baby in my arms! :)


This little felt garland is one of the things I made in the past few days. It was pretty simple, *here* are some easy instructions if you'd like to make one too. After making this, I am especially glad that we chose a name with only four letters! I used some invisible thread to hang this, so it appears to be floating. I also cut out some little felt stars that match the mobile that I made.


The star mobile is inspired by *this* pin. My mom and dad had some branches in their yard from a storm, and we found the perfect one for this project! I used the free die-cut machine at Ben Franklin to cut a bunch of stars from glittery card stock. Invisible thread is sandwiched in between the stars, glued together with tacky glue.


Here it is from what will be baby's view :)


And here is baby's little space, all ready for him! Until we move into our new house next spring, he has to share our room. I bought the hanging organizer from Amazon for $14, and it holds burp rags, socks, onesies, jammies, lotions, diapers, wipes, and all that good stuff. The rest of baby's clothes, blankets, toys, etc. are in a dresser in Kade's room.

The funny green stuffed animal with the blue mohawk on the shelf is from Build A Bear Workshop. Kade made it for baby, and there is a sound recording in his paw of Kade saying, "I love you baby brother!" It's adorable :)

The baby owl print is from Pseudooctopus. I found the breathable bumper at the thrift store, brand new for $3. My mom made the beautiful rag quilt hanging on the cradle. My sister and brother-in-law gave us the travel bed that we're using as a changing station. The little stars sleeper hanging below the shelf will be what baby wears home from the hospital.

Isn't there a song or something that says, "nobody puts baby in the corner"? I don't know what it's from. WE put baby in a corner, and a mighty cute one at that! It will be fun to decorate a whole bedroom for baby in a few months, but until then, I'm happy with this! Now I just need to pack some bags, and we'll be all ready for baby to come! Now that this is checked off my list, I better get to work on the other dozens of projects!

It's been a copycat kind of weekend!

Kade has a fever again (I hope he'll be well enough to go to at least one of his last 3 days of school!), so I've had some down time these past few days. I'm sure lots of you have heard of Pinterest already. I've recently become somewhat addicted to it, and decided to make use of some of the ideas I've saved!

This first one is something I've seen all over the web,
but here is the Pin:
Crayon Monogram

And here is my version:


I found these really great shadowbox frames at Ben Franklin for only $5. I decided to add some little froggies, because Kade said his teacher loves them. I hope she likes it! She really is one very special teacher, and Kade will miss being in her class!

The second one is a series of week-by-week pregnancy photos:
Belly Pics

When I was pregnant with Kade, 8 years ago, I didn't do anything like this, and wish I had! I do have a few pregnancy photos from then, but I just love how you can really see the change happening in this series, using the same background and outfit each week. Here is my take on it, using Kade's little chalkboard to keep track of the weeks:


If only I were as cute as the other girl! Also, my picture shocked me- I think I look way bigger than 12 weeks already! Oh well, no matter how I look, I'm just SO happy that I have this little baby growing in me, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world! :)

The internet can be a great source of inspiration! What have you been inspired by lately?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We love this holiday at our house! This year, my son has been very excited about Leprechauns. They've been talking a lot about them at school. Their class leprechaun, Lucky, has been leaving little shamrock footprints around the classroom, and creating lots of messes while the students aren't there. At Grandma's house, some milk was left out in a little pitcher, in case the leprechauns were thirsty. In the morning, the milk, poured into Kade's glass, magically turned green! He was convinced that if he drank it, he would be magical just like one of them. Last night, they caused more havoc in Kade's room, knocking down his giant robot.

Kade had a class assignment to create a Leprechaun trap. Here is what we came up with! The three of us made it together, but Kade did a large part of the work, and made all the decisions.

We painted a piece of cardboard green, painted a gold road, and stapled shamrock wire garland around the pathway. The straw ladder leads up to the top of a painted and decorated laundry soap container.

Doesn't it look enticing up there? We wanted to lure the leprechaun to the top of the ladder to see the pot of gold. We put lots of signs around, because as we all know, they never follow the rules!

The cauldron holds a ton of gold
(little rocks that were rolled around in gold paint).

It sits at the back, so the leprechaun has to step onto the disguised trap to get to it, and he'll fall into our little playouse.

Inside, Kade made a very comfy pillow to land on so the leprechaun won't get hurt. The floor is covered in plush blue fleece carpet. The cardboard table holds a little bowl (the dome top of one of those quarter machine ninjas) filled with Lucky Charms cereal. A "TV" on the wall is on for his enjoyment. There is even a cute window, complete with curtains. But how come he can't see outside?

Peek-a-boo! There's Kade, lifting the secret flap on the outside to peer into this tiny playhouse and see if he has caught anything!

We hope we have made this little trap so inviting, the leprechaun won't even want to leave! I am excited to pick up Kade from school in half an hour and see what happened. But if we don't catch any this year, we can always try again next year!

The Venus Flytrap

A few weeks ago, Kade had a school assignment to choose a plant and make a project about it. He chose the Venus Flytrap, of course, because "Mom, it eats MEAT!!"


I love them too, in fact, I used to have one! But it died. I tried to catch some small bugs, but failed, so I fed it little pieces of meat, as a gardener at the nursery I bought it from told me to. However, it seemed to just spit the meat out. Doing research with Kade, I found out why- when a bug gets trapped inside, it wiggles to try and free itself. There are small sensor hairs inside the "mouth", and when the bug wiggles, that tells the plant that it has caught a live animal, not a piece of dirt or something. If what the plant catches does not wiggle, the plant opens and lets whatever it is fall out.


Kade chose to create a diorama of a Venus Flytrap habitat. Did you know they only grow in the wild in North and South Carolina? Pretty amazing! We also found out some other cool facts. Each leaf can only eat three times! After that, it turns black and dies, and new leafs grow. Also, it takes ten days to eat a fly! It also eats ants, spiders, other small bugs, and even tiny frogs!!

I have hundreds of bottlecaps that I use for making magnets. We decided they make the perfect little venus flytraps! Kade painted them green, and I helped him make tiny white hairs that we glued around the edges. I cut out red felt circles and Kade glued them to the inside. I hot glued green craft foam onto pipe cleaners to make the stems.


We had some plastic flies leftover from some Halloween project, so we used some of those in the diorama too! Kade even had the idea to tie invisible thread around one and hang it from the top, so it looks like the fly is hovering over the flowers.


It was a really fun project, although I have to say it was difficult for me to step back and let Kade do most of the work! haha. He wants to get a real Venus Flytrap, now that he has learned so much about them and finds them so interesting. Maybe we'll try again, I'll let you know how it goes, if we do!

Boys can craft, too!!!

I had a conversation with another mom the other day, about teaching our kids how to sew, embroider, and just be crafty in general. This other mom was a bit afraid that teaching these things to her young son would somehow make him less boyish. It's mostly the sewing, I think, that had her scared. She wondered what other kids would think of him if they knew he sewed, and if they would make fun of him for it. I started talking to her about a project Kade just started on, and she thought it was actually really cute!

Personally, I think that if a guy can sew, that's awesome!! Kudos to him. It definitely doesn't make a guy (or a little boy) more girly. I mean, it's the same deal with girls that can build things like bunk beds and kitchen tables. Why should one type of art be looked upon as something only guys do, or only girls do?

I'd like to let Kade express himself however he wants to, whether it be shooting hoops, scoring goals, painting, singing, anything... whatever makes him happy! Right now, he REALLY wants to take swimming lessons. He's so proud that he knows how to hold his breath under water, and wants to learn more. He's also interested in martial arts, and we might put him in some classes at some point. We read an article in Family Fun magazine about building tiny tree houses, and he is so looking forward to doing that as a project this summer.

Another thing he is excited about doing right now is sewing! And boy, there is probably not a more boyish project than this. He decided himself that he wanted to make a Batman plush. He drew the design all by himself.


I enlarged the pattern a bit. Then he cut it out and pinned it to the felt.


I was super impressed by the pinning- what perfect placement! One in each limb, and look at the eyeballs...


After cutting out the felt (I helped around the corners), we'll do another one, pin them together, and he'll hand sew around the outside with embroidery thread. Then he can stuff it and sew the opening closed. Final touches will be adding the belt, eyes, and mouth. We haven't gotten that far yet, but I'll post pictures when it's done.



I think it's adorable, and I'm happy he's learning something that I love to do. It's great for exercising his fine motor skills, and his creativity. It's going to be such a sweet keepsake to look back on some day in the future. Even if he grows out of his sewing interests, it sure is fun for now!



*Oh, as soon as I upload all the new pictures from my camera, I have to show you the amazing Star Wars cake my mom made for Jer this year!! Check back for photos... =c)