A Little Noah Time and Almost Baby Time

Well my friends, we are down to 13 days until baby time.  13 Days!  That's nothing.  The list of 'things to do' in my head continues to get longer as my time gets shorter!  I can hardly believe it.

I feel like I have been extremely lazy when it has come to getting things ready for this baby.  Is that normal?  With Noah, I tried to have everything ready months in advance.  That has not been the case this time around.  I think part of it is because I know we will be moving...so all the effort will be short lived.  On the other had, I am not sure I have had much motivation...which is really odd for me.  Either way, we have the necessities ready - and because of so many generous friends and family, I think we will be prepared enough.   I have all her clothes washed, blankets washed, car seat ready and bed (almost) ready.  Since we will be moving a mere 2 1/2 weeks after she is born, there isn't a lot I can do.  One thing I was short on though, were burp cloths.  Everyone knows that the old school cloth diapers make the best burp cloths...so I decided to add a little girly touch to them...you know - to make them cute.

I even made a few for a girl in Andy's class, who is having a baby boy a few weeks after us...

I LOVE how they turned out, not to mention how simple they were to do.  If you want to try some for yourself, here is a great tutorial to give you a little guidance.  

I am really curious to see how Noah adjusts to having a new little person around.  Part of me thinks he will do amazing, and another part wonders how he will do with sharing the spotlight.  All in all, I think it will be really great for him.  I almost think it will be more difficult for me.  I am so excited to welcome this new baby girl to our family, but worry about leaving Noah out.  I hope to make a special effort to involve him and spend one on one time with him.  It will be an adjustment for all of us (a good adjustment, of course).

I have also contemplated trying to wean Noah from his pacifier.  I try REALLY hard not to give it to him unless he needs it, but there are those moments where he just wants it.  Usually he only gets it when we are at home (nap time, bed time etc.) or if we are out and he is especially tired.  He loves his 'bink' though, and I worry that if I try to wean him now, he will try to steal the baby's...not to mention he uses them to give us some pretty awesome entertainment!  Exhibit A.

Any thoughts or suggestions??!

Lastly, we are on about week 2 of sneaking veggies into Noah's smoothies!  I am really happy that 1) he hasn't noticed and 2) he is getting a little extra vitamins in his diet (you know, the non gummy form).  We both look forward to our daily smoothie...as you can obviously tell....

I love how Noah has pretty much the same facial expression in all of these photos, and I am the one making a fool of myself.  I kept telling him to 'show your smoothie', so maybe he was trying to concentrate on one thing at a time.  Who knows, but he sure is a cutie! (Don't worry - that white stuff on his cheek is a little cream cheese from his bagel, which he had for breakfast.  It took me a few hours to wipe it off, and I have no idea why). 

If I Had A Dollar...

...for every box I have unpacked, I would be a very wealthy woman.  I have enjoyed it though...aside from my lower back pain that is.  We have already been in Missouri for a week (a week already??) and I have spent all my time unpacking...and working on this -

Not the best picture, obviously.  I will post more when I have a chance to load pictures.  Yesterday I was a sewing maniac.  As I mentioned in a previous post...we recently purchased a new sofa...but the throw pillows were zebra and leopard print.  Not really my thing.  So I took the liberty of recovering the pillows and even making some curtains!  It was a lot of fun, and I am really happy with how it came together. 

Even more exciting news??  A little preview of our family pictures were posted on Chantri's blog!  Go HERE to check them out.  I am so happy with them! I will be sure to post some here when I get our copies.  She did such a great job.

Until tomorrow!

The Great Cake-tastrophe

Today has been a very busy day!  Today we celebrated my Grandmother's 82nd birthday.  It was wonderful...except for the one part.  The cake catastrophe.  I have been wanting to make Amanda's rainbow cake for a couple of weeks, and decided that this celebration  would be the perfect opportunity.  I spent all morning pureeing fruit, mixing cake batter, cutting cakes and placing them just right...it was off to a great start....

I even put a couple of wooden dowels down the center of the cake to keep it stable.  Now I am obviously not a professional cake decorator, like some of you, otherwise I would have thought to wait until we made it to Grandmas before I started putting the whipping cream on.   Needless to say on our way to the party, the whole thing fell over in my lap, and I sobbed.

When we finally got to my Grandma and Grandpa's I didn't even want to go in.  I was embarrassed, frustrated and just plain sad!  All my hard work was now mushed in-between my fingers!  My mom insisted that we try to fix it....good thing whipping cream is like a good pair of black pants - very forgiving!

Here are some of the comments it got...

'It looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa!' - Pretty much everyone

'Oh, someone made an upside down cake!' - Grandpa

' How did you get it to be like a cone?  Did you bake it in different sized pans?' - Aunt Kay

I graciously informed Aunt Kay (whom the cake was actually for, she celebrates her birthday two days after Grandma) that if she wanted a cone shaped rainbow cake all she had to do was toss it on the ground and put it together again.  Very simple technique!  Thankfully, the dramatic effect of the rainbow didn't fail me, and every last bite of this cake was gone - imperfections and all...

I have definitely learned my lesson, and will surely be making this cake again.  But for now, here are some pictures to document the real celebration!  Grandma's Birthday!  

I have really been blessed with such a wonderful family, and will miss being able to spend so much time with all of them.  I am a lucky gal!  To top the weekend off,  I was able to finish a lot of sewing projects this week!  Two diaper caddy's, a nursing cover, a receiving blanket and even this new addition to my bag collection...

The fabric is Hunky Dory by Moda and I am in love with it!  I am pretty sure that collecting fabric is hereditary, because my Mom is already rubbing off on me.  The pattern didn't call for the wide strap or pockets...but I decided to add both.  I am really happy with how it turned out...just in time for summer!

PS.  In honor of tomorrow's very special holiday,  I wish all you Moms out there a 

VERY HAPPY Mothers Day! 

 

Yes, We Are Alive...

I hope you will all forgive me for waiting TWO weeks to update the blog!  I have been taking care of this little guy, who has been sick. sick. sick.

Yes it is March and those are Christmas pajamas.  Yes that is oatmeal ALLLLL over the place.  Yes he had pink eye in BOTH eyes as well as a sinus infection.  Just as he was getting over that he seemed to catch a flu bug.  I hope he is finally on the mend, if it weren't for his allergies and his constantly runny nose.  Anyway, you get the idea - I have been otherwise occupied with very important things!

I can't believe it will be April in two days. Has it really been over 3 months since Christmas?  3 months since we last saw Andy?  Crazy.  We are down to less than two months until Andy comes home, and I couldn't be more ecstatic.

We've also had some special visitors over the past week!  Nana and Aunt MacKenzie (Andy's Mom and Sister) came to visit us for MacKenzie's spring break.  It was SO wonderful having them here.  We kept ourselves busy with lots of sewing, a birthday celebration and little shopping trips here and there.  It was awesome.  For her Senior project MacKenzie made 3 quilts.  One for herself (a Young Women's value quilt) and two to give away.  We all pitched in and helped...especially my mother.  We had a great time and I think MacKenzie is proud of her work!  Beware, this may be a picture overload!

Two of the quilts will be going children who have a deployed parent.  I think this is such a wonderful idea and will be such a special thing for these kids to have.  We had so much fun making these!

Whew! That was a lot of pics...but wouldn't you agree that the quilts turned out spectacular?  Three quilts in one week is pretty awesome if you ask me.

We also had a little BIRTHday celebration for Kenzie.  Although it wasn't her actual birth DAY, we wanted to surprise her while she was here.  For anyone who knows MacKenzie, they know about two of her favorite things.  Bacon and Jacob Black.  So in honor of those two things...we came up with this....

A bacon cake. Granted this was my first time EVER working with fondant (and just may be my last)...and granted it may look more like camo than a piece of bacon.  But just use your imagination...Kenzie loved it, and that's all that mattered! In case you were wondering...NO, there wasn't actual bacon in the cake. I am not sure anyone but Kenzie would have enjoyed that.  :)

As for gifts...she got what she always wanted!

Jacob magnets and a Jacob T-shirt.  I think she was one happy little lady!

Anyway, as you can see...life has been a little busy lately and we are getting back to reality! Here are just a few more pictures for your enjoyment.  As if we didn't have enough already! :)

Is that Joe?

Yes my friends...here is Noah with his best impression of Joe Jonas.  Pretty striking isn't it?  haha (Andy and I got these glasses when we went to see Avatar.  They are 3-D glasses, and Noah loves them!)

 
Also, I finally finished this little project I have been working on for Noah's birthday!  Plush magnet refrigerator letters.  I already let him test them out and I think he likes them (he better anyway, they took me long enough to make!!)  I love how they turned out and will definitely be making more of them!! 

Charlie Brown

For Halloween this year we decided to dress Noah up as Charlie Brown (Andy's idea). I wish I could have gotten more pictures of Noah at our church 'Trunk or Treat' but these were the best I could do. He was VERY tired and it was all I could do to get him there and back in time for bed. Needless to say he fell asleep while we were trunk or treating. So here are a few pictures I took of him before we went.  We ended up having to dye the shirt yellow because we couldn't find one! I think it worked out perfectly. He sure makes a cute Charlie. PS. Yes I drew a curly-q on his forehead with a marker. So what.