Pinterest Project #2

This one is a big one. It's a Christmas gift for my new niece, Melody. I made her a little quilt block I had pinned, Just following the pattern...I call it a "cuddle quilt" size. no batting, Just the quilt top with a minky back, kinda cute if I do say so myself.

I also made her a little bear out of coordinating fabrics. These were at hobby lobby in a mini "jelly roll" and "fat quarter" package. I hope she'll become attached to them as she grows up... For curiostity's sake: what were you "attached" to growing up? and are you still, if not when did you give it up. I was attached to my "blankey" I kind of weaned myself off of it when I was 12, but if I went through a break up or rough time I would bring it out of my closet and cuddle it. I still have it, in our bedroom... I just can't get rid of it!!!

I also did minimal Christmas decorating since we are going out of state this year.Which I can't find the pin so here's a picture.

Pinterest Project

So to make things more interesting for Jason here at home I made him some play dough. Yup, using this recipe. I'll let you be the judge:

"cooking" the playdough

letting it cool

and then having some fun!

Jason's first birthday: Bow ties!

My baby isn't a baby any more. He's one year old, and I didn't want to have too big of a party, but I wanted it to be memorable. Here's some pics:

made this bunting myself, going to hang it in his room later

A silly auntie holding a baby friend of Jason's

Cupcakes!!

Daddy and Jason in their bow ties... Jase wanted down lol

Daddy helping open gifts

Our pastor decided to come :) Jason loves our pastor!

Jason being a big boy!

Jason's Cousin

Another silly auntie wearing a bow tie!

Daddy in his bow tie, being a goof ball :)

Jason's smash cake... the frosting melted, it was so hot... 

It was a fun little party, and there were more pictures, but they are on my mom's phone. Funny story about the cake. Jason wouldn't touch it.. unless it was with a fork.. he wouldn't eat it either... he ate a little, but that was it. And to address the "pink" frosting, it was supposed to be red, but it wouldn't go any darker. I made the bow ties myself by the way, got the idea off of pinterest here. They weren't too hard to make.

Anyway, my boy is walking some on his own now, and it's kinda bittersweet, this has been the fastest year of my entire life. And If you could keep my little family in your prayers, we are trying to make some changes, but we don't know when/if they'll happen. Thank you and God Bless!

Confidence, Is a Woman's Necessity

This post may or may not be for you, if you don't agree with something, please let me know what you think:

"I'm SOOO fat, I need to lose weight/stop eating!" or "I'm so ugly/pale, I need tanning lotion/bronzer to look pretty" This is the constant phrase I hear from a couple of my sister-in-laws. Every single time I hear it, I really want to set them down on a hard chair and give them a lecture on how that will not work! Especially since they are as skinny as their bone structure will allow and as dark as their pale skin will allow them to go.

Doing these things, or other things will not change your view about yourself. Confidence. That is what you need. Confidence in the fact that God made you the way you are. Confidence in your own looks, because your parents/husband or whoever loves you, loves you just the way you are. If not, there's something wrong with them, if they don't love you the way you are.

You need to have confidence. If you don't you'll never be happy, with yourself with all that junk on your body, reality check, that stuff makes your skin splotchy afterwards. Starving yourself?  Your body cells hold onto more fat when you starve yourself, because they don't know when their next nourishment is coming from. So doing those things don't help. Dressing "sexy" to make yourself "feel good"? You may have just caused some poor man to lust after you, that means he's committed adultery, and his Soul is now in deep trouble....

Just dress for your body shape, not the body you want. When I was pregnant, then nursing a baby, I had to adjust some of my outfits (aka throw 'em out) because they didn't fit right, or they, um, didn't look right... Need help? Look on the internet, or better yet, ask your mother/sister/friend how they think something would look on you....

No matter what you do to yourself on the outside doesn't help what's on the inside. Pray for acceptance of your own appearance. Eat right, drink ice water (your body has to work harder to warm it up, then digest it), Exfoliate your skin ( i know how good it makes me feel, it'll probably help you too!) It's not too hard to love your body the way it is, it just takes a brain adjustment. pray for help to accept yourself the way you are.

Skirts and Jason

My son will be one this Saturday!!! I'm so excited, but I can't say exactly what I'm doing yet, and I'm slowly buying what I need, here's a little teaser: red and vintage blue. I'll take pictures when it all comes together!

On the otherhand, for those of you who don't know, there's a BIG summer camp that some kids in my church are going to. One of them is my sister-in-law. I made her and a friend of hers a skirt:

She wanted her pockets in a different fabric

This is just a close up of the pocket, I couldn't rotate it, sorry!

This is a dark denim and that heart shape applique on the bottom is covering up a hole that I accidentally made with my serger

 The skirt pattern is so simple! and i had to make very few adjustments to this pattern. It's very modest, floor length and allows for plenty of movement... whenever the skirts show up in pictures on that camp site, I'll post them :)

New Hair, "Doings"

Apparently I've been doing something wrong with my hair  for a very long time... I've been doing some research, and you're not supposed to wash your hair everyday... I have :P I've slowly been changing that habit, but my hair is so short in the front from re growth (will all readers please note I DO NOT cut my hair. Ever. Not even a trim. Period.) as my haird had broken off from lack of taking vitamin's for a time, since i breastfeed, that resulted in a large output of nutrients with not enough intake, thus, my hair broke off... Any way to continue, all those short hairs stick straight up and I didn't want to use hair spray (drying alcohols) and water wouldn't keep those hairs down long... More research ensued. I found out there are non-alcohol hairsprays out there... I went to Walmart and grabbed the first one I saw: L'oreal's Alcohol Free Hairspray.

 I wanted to see how it did: ( based on a 1-5 scale 1 being bad) 5 for hold, I went to silver dollar city went on 6 roller coasters and 2 water rides, and my hairstyle stayed in ( a front side pouf and a back pouf [no teasing]) my hair fell later because of a bobby pin malfunction. I'd also give it a 5 for scent. It doesn't smell gross like some hairsprays, and to me this is important. It has a light sweet/floral scent, but it's not too heavy on either the sweet or floral. A 3 for cost: $5.97 for a bottle that size is not too bad but I think they could have come down a buck... or two. I really don't like that price. A 4.5 for the non-buildup feel in my hair when I wash it... It combs out fairly easy but leaves a greasy feel on second day hair, but that just may be me, because my hair has oily tendencies... for now, (as I said earlier I'm in the process  of re-training my hair)

Anyway, how was everyone's Memorial day weekend? I'm kind of disappointed how my city I live in doesn't do more, only one place I saw had a flag half mast. Every other place had sales, to commercialize. How sick can people get? Commercializing a holiday meant for remembering the soldiers who died for our freedom, that's sick and twisted to me.

I'll stop there because laundry has to be done by someone, and it won't do itself... I'll ask a question before I go though, what is your favorite household chore to do? Mine is vacuuming or washing floors.

A Skirt Inspired

Looking around on Pinterest and the internet there are plenty of cute skirts to be found, but not so cute prices.... I decided to try to do one myself with my own flavor....

 Here it is! I like the way it turned out!

 First seam rip and cut to desired length, and have a fabric chosen for your ruffles.

 Pin and sew your "rear" seam (where my sewing foot is on in the above picture)

 Then pin and sew your back "in between the legs" fabric, Since I'm making a shorter skirt, I had enough of the cut off legs, left over to re-use. Hey, waste not want not right? After that, you'll need to measure the places where you are going to be putting your ruffles, I did three so I took a measurement of where my tape is, and two more place below that at pretty equal spacing... Clear as mud?

 Now we'll make a pattern for our ruffles, I used a quilting ruler, and it has those handy dandy diagonal lines that I used to make the "side" seams... It'll get clearer as we move along. Basically I drew half of a trapezoid, to be placed on the fold of your fabric. The "top" of your trapezoid is going to be attached to your skirt, the bottom is going to be free, the diagonal lines are going to be attached to the sides of your skirt. The tissue paper below is how my pattern looks, I don't know how clear it is to you, but try enlarging the picture, if that doesn't work, let me know and I'll edit this post to show a clearer picture. Also, Be sure to add seam allowances!

 Here's one of the pattern pieces cut out and on the fabric getting ready to be cut:

 I hemmed all the way around the pieces, so they wouldn't unravel. For the top ruffle I seam ripped the bottom of the back pockets out so I could sew right over the ruffle and still be able to use those pockets.

After this point I kinda forgot to take more pictures of the process: To create more of a ruffle effect on your bustle, you'll have to add a few gathers.... That's all I can really say for now, my son woke up.... 

Southern Ma'am

My "dahling" mother in law went to a garage sale and picked up a box of old recipes and newspaper clippings and gave them to me... I immediately thought: I can post these on my blog! So without further ado, the Southern Ma'am.

Pecan Pie

1c white corn syrup

1c dark brown sugar

1/3 c melted butter

1 heaping cup shelled pecans

3 eggs (beaten)

dash of vanilla

pinch of salt

Mix above ingredients well and pour into an unbaked 9 in pastry pie shell. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes in your oven. Let col and top with whipped cream or ice cream... or just serve plain and enjoy!

If you try this, let me know how it turned out for you!!

I'm Back!

First, It's great to be back! Second, I'm typing this with one hand as Jason nurses. Third, have I got a slew of posts coming to (possibly) rock your world! Fourth, I love pinterest, and I have some projects inspired from there to make some posts about with my own little twist of personality... so here it goes.... typing galore! oh, and here's a pic of Jase:

Him this spring at the bookstore!

Sorry!!

I'm currently unable to post anything, my computer is completly zonked. Kaput. DEAD as a doornob... get the picture? lol So no posts until joel and I get a new laptop... soooooo sorry folks, when I get back up and running I'll probably have a whole notebook of posts written up! lol I'm working on a few things right now... So see ya when I get back!

Jason Has ARRIVED!!

I can hardly believe it, he's 2 months old already, and he's changed so much since he's been born. Here's how it happened: ( Viewer discretion is advised: I'm telling how it happened, as many gory details as possible while still preserving my modesty so read on if you like, there are a lot of details)

On Wednesday August 1st, I had a doctor's appointment at the Pregnancy Clinic, they were going to see how dilated I was and do the regular check-up. I weighed in at 180 lbs! and my blood pressure was normal. I then went into a little room to have Jason's heart beat checked, it was normal too, I was then told to take of my bottom half of clothing so the could check me and gave me a thin sheet to cover up with. Dr. Gordon came in. She was nice, asked me how I was doing, how I felt. Told her about my back pain and I was ready to get him out, I wanted to meet him so bad. she proceeded to check my cervix, and it hurts... really bad. Especially when your baby's head is so low they have to reach around him! The past two times I was checked, I was at 1, less than half way effaced. Dr. Gordon finished checking me and was proud to say I hit a 4! (Keep in mind we are trying to get to a 10) she asked If I wanted to have him tomorrow or Friday, or let it go naturally, I thought about it... I wanted my husband to be with me every step of the way, he could easily get Fri off so I told her Friday. She asked if I was getting an epidural, I obviously said YES! She scheduled the induction and epidural and said she'd see me Friday. Called Joel from in the room and asked him how would he like to have Jason on Friday? Joel was excited! In shock, but excited.

Fast forward here to Friday at 5am... walk into Labor and Delivery ward, the hook me up to an IV give me some Potosin (sp? the stuff that starts contractions) an they put a monitor belt on me... and I was already having contractions... the stuff hadn't even started working yet... then the epidural lady came in, game me a little sting in the back to numb the area then stuck the wire up my back... I couldn't feel a thing... pretty soon I couldn't feel from my hips down... All went well for awhile, couldn't feel any of the contractions that were showing up on the monitor... Then all of a sudden they came on stronger, and they gave me a bit more pain meds... They were regularly checking my cervix... and at about 10:30 am I was at a 10... Jason was almost here... All of a sudden a whole bunch of fears flooded my mind: What if I was grossed out by the blood? What if when they took him away to clean him up and I couldn't remember what he looked like? it sounds silly I know, but they were very real at the time...

I put them from my mind and pushed... for 14 minutes... at 10:44 am Jason was on my belly instead of in it... and he was beautiful... the blood didn't matter and I could never forget that face:

About 3-4 hours labor and 14 minutes pushing and here was an adorable baby, that looked exactly like my husband's side of the family.
Here's more pictures:

Right after he was cleaned up

me and Jason moved out of the delivery room

Jason at home :)

The Bump

So I know I haven't been on here for awhile, I thought everyone might like an update... I have 2 weeks left *gasp!* I know right!! Little Jason is almost here and you haven't heard from me, you haven't seen any of his furniture or anything! Well this post is going to change all that :)

Sorry if the photo quality isn't the greatest.... but this is me and my Daaahh-ling husband (like my southern drawl?) just this sunday before church.

You can really see my belly in this one... it's at 36 weeks along... obviously I am HUGE!!!

Here is Jason's crib put together by my sweet husband! :)

And here is our baby's dresser... and yes that is the color of the carpet and no we cannot change it without our landlord's permission, and he won't do it... So Joel and I made the theme for this room "Farm/ Farmall tractors" and I want cows... lots of them.

And my sister-in-law Grace let me and a friend take some pictures during our family vacation... and she edited this one we took in the car :) my belly at 26 weeks....

So that's mainly it for now, just a quick little update. If you're wanting me to post about certain things about pregnanc just send me a little email, I'll either make a post about it (Sure, I can keep you anonomous [that isn't how you spell it is it? oh well, pregnancy brain does exsist]) or I'll reply to you!

Lots of love, and God's blessings!

We have Internet!

That's not the most important thing on this post though.... For the readers who don't know: Joel and I are having a little baby.... and the gender of this baby is now known... and I'm going to keep you in suspense until the very end of this post! :)

You may have noticed I posted a few posts at a time for awhile because we didn't have internet so I would type them up at home then I would post them when I got to a place that had internet.... rough exsistence I know... but anyway, that shouldn't be a problem anymore... because we have internet :)

Also I know everyone wants to see the bump, but I've gotta get my pictures in order first...

Ok I'll tell you: We're having a little boy!!! His name's gonna be Jason, and he has big feet based on the ultrasound picture! Any way, that's all for now folks.... This pregnant woman needs a snack.... she's hungry :)

Maybe it’s just me….

I don’t know how other pregnant women feel during the various stages of their pregnancy, but even though I can’t see my toes, and I’m “losing my girlish figure” (sorry that makes me laugh inside myself) I don’t care about those things, all I can think about is the little miracle growing inside of me.

A true testament to Joel and I’s love: a baby, that was conceived soon after our marriage…. Unplanned, but loved. Now, since I’ve seen our baby on ultrasound, and we’ve both felt baby kick (myself, periodically during the day, Joel,only once so far) this baby seems more and more real to us… Not that the baby wasn’t real before, it’s just baby now seems to actually become a little lovely person!

Feeling baby kick that first time, was, in short, surprising! Then I felt a whole big wave of love for our little one!! Same with “seeing” baby for the first time on the ultrasound!

As you can see, the minor discomforts, and the weight gain really don’t matter to me at all, because it’s all for a little, wonderful baby I’m bringing into this depressing world.

Anyway, I had to get all these thoughts off of my chest before I could possibly work on any more school work! Ta ta for now dear readers: I have school work to finish!

A Few Thoughts

I wish there was some sort of wisdom I could give everyone, something I could say to make your life’s journey easier. I mean being married and everything, I would have thought that there would be some wisdom gained…. And the only thing I can think of, is when you choose your wedding dress, and get a slip to go under the dress, get it to wear it’s not tight on you at all…. it will be twice as tight on the wedding day.

All I really know for sure is that I’ve learned a lot since the wedding day, although it’s not exactly “wisdom” I’ll share my most random of thoughts with you:

1.) Always write on the outside of the box what you’re packing inside (and if there are books/papers WRAP THEM IN PLASTIC BAGS!)

You’ll never remember what you put where once you get to your destination. And wrap up those books, wouldn’t want to take the chance that they get wet!

2.) Organize things as you go.

This is a given: as you take things out of boxes, unpack from a trip, or even as you fold clothes, wash dishes etc. it makes the job less of a hassle to put things away

3.) When pregnant, keep lifesavers/crackers in purse at all times. Also pack extra prenatal vitamins along.

It helps with the queasiness when hungry. As for the Vitamins: you never know if you won’t be eating at home because your husband might surprise you with a night out ; )

4.) God is always there. Pray all the time, He’s always listening, when you need help or strength: He’s there!

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

Isaiah 41:10

That’s all I can really say at the moment.

Moving In

Joel and I moved into our little trailer here on Mountain Pine… Quaint little place, makes you think of little camping trips in a cabin. I love it! Even though, it’s dark paneling on the walls. We aren’t even all the way unpacked yet! The Problem is: not enough places to put things... But here are some pictures of the moving in process:

You can only imagine How tired Joel and I were after cleaning everything… And I washed out all the cabinets and I had to clean so much grease off that stove… And moving that couch in: It couldn’t fit through the door… we had to take the two doors off, and the feet of the couch, and “shimmy” it through the door! Ugh! I don’t even want to move the thing out of here!  Any way: Top most picture: Living room before and after, Then the kitchen, and two sets of bedroom pictures.. All of the pictures are Before and after shots. (This was our first place and I thought you dear readers might like to see it, we’ve moved out of there and into a house :)