Sweet Pea in a Pod

Since having Macy I haven't been able to do much in the way of crafting or sewing. I still have a thousand projects I want to do, they have just been put on the back burner, especially since she has had colic so bad. However, I have managed to get one or two things done, this one being my favorite.

It is called a Pod Swaddler and it is WONDERFUL! I came across the pattern before Macy was born, but didn't buy it then because Colby and Chloe didn't really care to be swaddled. Macy, on the other hand, almost requires swaddling to sleep, so this was perfect for us. It is a just a swaddling blanket/pouch thing that ties and actually keeps her swaddled. Not to mention, the pattern is super easy to sew. I have fabric to make another one, I just need to come up with some more time to do it!

I have made a few things for Chloe's room, but not everything is complete and I am not happy with clock I made. Eventually I'll get to those things as well. :)

Construction!

I am finally updating a little! This is all about the new bedroom that we built for Colby in our basement. The basement was finished as one large living room when we bought the house. And for the most part it has gone pretty much unused. When we found out that we were having another baby, we decided to turn the front portion of that large room into a bedroom for Colby. Curt did all of the construction himself and I am so proud! He did a great job and Colby loves his new cars and trucks room!

His bed is actually a set of bunkbeds that we converted into a loft. Colby was a little unsure of climbing a ladder to get in and out of bed, so Curt built him a set of stairs that also have a bookshelf built in underneath.

The toy box below the window was made by my grandfather. He made it for my mom when she was a little girl. It has wheels and a handle like a wagon. I love it!

The mirror hanging on the wall is from his old room. It came with his old dresser and I painted it and added his name. Lucky for me, the original colors I used matched perfectly with the new decor.

The closet was originally a storage closet under the stairs. We just added a new door and some shelving. Colby now has the only walk-in closet in the house.

In this next picture you can see out into the part of the basement that still functions as a living room. It is so much more usable now and the kids love playing down there. That is great for me...almost all of their toys are now downstairs!

This picture hangs above his bed. My grandma made this for me when I was little and it hung in my bedroom for years.

My grandpa that made the toybox also made these trucks. He was so talented and I love that some of his things have a great place to be displayed in our house. Colby loves them too!

We did not start all of this construction until after the holidays. I am still not sure how we got everything done before Macy was born. We really enjoyed doing all of the work and now have a huge list of things we like to do to the rest of the house!

Crafting Catch-Up

I guess it's time for another crafting round-up post. It seems like I haven't done a lot lately, but I have a few things to show you since my last crafting post.

First up is a little sundress and bloomers that I made for Chloe. I used the free pattern from Made by Petchy. It is super easy to make and I thought the outcome was pretty cute. I also made another one in some super cute fruit fabric, but I can't seem to find a picture of it.

We were having trouble with the kids wanting to color during church. Markers were out of the question and crayons were still getting all over their clothes, not to mention breaking in their bag. I decided that colored pencils would probably be the cleanest, least messy option. I came upon this great free tutorial from Skip to My Lou for some paper/pencil holder projects. I made one for each kid. I was pleased with how easy they were and with the end results. They are so practical and cute. This was my first attempt at machine applique. It went pretty well, but I am still definitely a beginner in that area.

As you can see, they both love these!

For Mother's Day I made our moms matching tissue holders, eye glass cases and coffee cozies. (I don't have a picture of the glasses cases.) I made them all using free online tutorials. The tissue holders were from Bella Dia. The eye glass cases were from Amazing Mae. And the coffee cozies were from House on Hill Road. All three were very easy to make and so much fun. I loved doing little projects that I could finish in one short sitting.

I ended up enjoying making them so much that I went a little crazy and made them for several friends and myself. :)

For my cousin's daughter's first birthday I made a little outfit with a matching hairbow. The skirt was made from the Oliver + S free pattern. I bought the t shirt and appliqued on a butterfly that I cut out from the skirt fabric. The hairbow was a little tricky, but looked really cute in her hair.

My father-in-law made these great doll cradles for all of the granddaughters for Christmas last year. So for our niece's first birthday I made a little bedding set for her cradle that included a mattress, a quilt and a matching pillow. I was really pleased with the results, but I have yet to get around to making a set for Chloe. It will get done one day!

In addition to the cradle set, I also made her several hair clippies. Grace is teeny tiny for her age, so I made simple ribbon clippies instead of big bows so that they wouldn't over power her.

My most recent project was for a dear friend who was getting ready to have her third baby just a week after her little girl's second birthday. I made a pair of sister Molly Monkeys from mmmcrafts free pattern. I was able to find a couple of sets of fat quarter fabrics that were cute patterns and in two different color ways. I wanted to make them coordinate, but they still needed to be able to tell them apart.

And of course, I can't end a post without a couple of pics of my babies.

After the holidays, I will probably have a lot more projects to report on. Right now I am working a quilt to go on Chloe's bed (for when she moves out of the crib). Hopefully I can quit procrastinating and get it finished soon!

One year later...

I didn't even realize it until just now, but my little blog turned one yesterday. I can't believe that I started this a year ago. I have been kind of neglectful as of late, but I haven't given up! I am so behind, but I just had to jump ahead to share this little video from last night. Chloe was about to fall asleep half way through, but she perked up for the end of the performance. Enjoy the show!

After that inspiring performance, we agreed that sock puppets needed to be made today. Originally we were going to do buttons for eyes, but Colby picked out the googly eyes at the store today. I think they turned out pretty cute for 15 minutes of gluing and sewing. Most importantly, the kids loved them!

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

Yes, I said Happy Mother's Day. I do realize that the day is not until next month, but my most awesome, generous, super-fabulous husband has already given me my gift. If you haven't guessed, it's the camera, lenses and accessories pictured above. That's right, a Nikon D90 and all the fixin's!

I have wanted a DSLR for a long time, but assumed it would be years before I actually got one. Well, my world's-greatest-husband came to me a couple of weeks ago and informed me that he wanted to get me a new camera for Mother's Day. He doesn't know anything about cameras so he wanted me to choose the camera. So I started doing some looking around and found an awesome deal on a D90 with lenses and stuff. We bought the package, as well as an additional lens, and it all arrived on Chloe's birthday. Needless to say I have been a little preoccupied lately getting to know my new best friend. ;)

I can not even express how spoiled and blessed I feel. Not just because I received such an extravagant gift, but mainly because I have a husband who loves me and wants to do these kinds of things for me. Seriously, he is one of the most generous people I know.

Even with all of the new camera excitement (and a sick Chloe), I managed to squeeze in an unexpected sewing project.

I ran to the fabric store with the kids to buy just a little fabric to make a cover my camera strap. I let Colby walk, rather than ride in the cart. After a few minutes, he turned to me and said in all seriousness, "Mommy, I going to shop by myself." After I approved, he went off to look at fabric while I continued to the next aisle. A couple of minutes later I see this large bolt of fabric with little legs come walking around the corner. Colby was carrying this bolt that was as big as him with the biggest smile on his face. "You like my fabric?!" What can I say, it was the cutest thing ever. He had gone and actually found a fabric that he like...red with pirates. Of course after that I HAD to buy some of the fabric. We took it home and I turned it into a pillow. He has been sleeping with it ever since. He calls it his pirate pillow. I love when something so simple can brighten his day!

For those of you who might be wondering about Easter (Mother), I will be posting about it next week. Our day was fun, but went downhill quickly and I wasn't able to get pics of the kids in their Easter outfits. I am planning on taking pics this weekend, so I will post it all next week.

In Honor of MeMe

Mary Craig (MeMe) pictured front center, with her sisters and brother

Towards the end of January we made the trip back to Indiana for a Craig holiday gathering on Saturday and for MeMe's 80th birthday celebration on Sunday. The day on Saturday was spent enjoying the company of Curt's dad's side of the family and of course eating. It was great to see all of Curt's cousins and aunts and uncle. It is amazing how many great grandchildren there are now. All of them were able to be there except one who lives in California. Amazingly, we were able to get a picture of them all. What a treat!

We figured we would all be there for a couple of hours, but everyone was enjoying it so much that we stayed into the evening. None of the kids got naps that day, but it was worth it.

Colby and his cousin Luke

Curt's beautiful sister Julie and our niece Grace

Chloe playing with second-cousin Kennedy

Luke getting his grub on

Chloe trying to play with the dogs

Chloe and cousin Lexi (on Sunday)

For MeMe's birthday all of the family got together at a local restaurant for lunch and filled an entire conference room. There were aunts, uncles, great aunts and uncles, cousins, second cousins, in-laws and everyone in-between. All of MeMe's remaining sisters and brother were also able to come and celebrate with us. It was such a great afternoon. When lunch was over family members took turns getting up and sharing stories and memories about their special times with MeMe and the influence she had had on their lives. It was very touching and really meant a lot to her. Even though we sometimes grumble about traveling, we are so glad that we were able to be there.

On a crafting sidenote:
Here is MeMe opening a gift from us. It is a pillow that I made using the same stitchery pattern that I created for the grandma's Christmas presents. She loved it. Below that is a close-up of another one of the pillows that shows the design more clearly.

Next time on Olivia's Observations... MonsterJam. That's right, monster trucks.

Turkeys and Troubles

Seeing as how Thanksgiving is only a week away, I decided it was time for Colby and I to do a new project...turkey style.

The first step was to tear the construction paper into pieces to make the grass, sky and clouds. Of course Colby enjoyed that, but it was actually a little harder for him than I expected.

Next, we glued the torn up paper onto the appropriate sections of our "canvas." Here is were I get cheap, or maybe thrifty sounds better. Of course I am not going to use a real canvas for our projects. Instead, I take our empty diaper boxes and break them down and cut them to the size I want. They make for a sturdy surface for our projects, but are also very light weight which makes them possible to hang on the wall with just a little masking tape. Cheap and convenient.

Colby always wants to use my scissors whenever I am cutting anything, so I decided to let him try today. We cut out the yellow sun. Notice the look of concentration. Not an easy task for a 2 year old.

To make the turkeys, I simply painted his palm and thumb with brown paint. Then I painted his fingers in feather colors. Once his hand was goopy with paint, he simply pressed it onto the paper to make a hand print turkey. This, obviously, was the most important part of the project...and it almost didn't happen. He freaked out when I told him that I was going to put paint on his hand instead of the paper. "That's too yucky!!!" I finally convinced him it would be fun by demonstrating on myself and pointing out the fact that the brown paint looked like chocolate.

Once we got going with the hand painting he really loved it. After the paint dried, I went back in with markers and drew little feet, beaks and waddles.

Even though this project took us a long time, he wasn't ready to stop creating. So I turned over the paint brush to him.

Then he insisted he NEEDED to color with the markers. (Something he normally doesn't get to do.)

Then Chloe woke up and project time ended.

So that concludes the turkey part of this post. Now for the trouble portion...

The kids and I were down in the basement playing and checking email. Chloe was on my lap and getting sleepy. When that happens she starts throwing herself around and wrestling and basically doing anything she can to keep herself awake. Well, she had thrown herself backwards and when she sat back up she somehow caught the corner of my laptop with her forehead. It didn't seem like she had hit it that hard, so I couldn't figure out why she was crying so much. A minute later I noticed the nice little lump forming and glowing red on her forehead. So we headed to the kitchen for some ice.

Then tonight we were in Colby's room plugging in a space heater. We wanted to show it to him because it glows and we didn't want him to be scared of it if he woke up in the middle of the night. Well we turned it on, he turned out the light and then immediately tripped over Curt's foot. He broke his fall with his face on the end of the bed frame. We knew it was bad before we even got the lights back on. So we headed to the kitchen for some ice.

So that was our day on Thursday, turkeys and troubles.