New Year's Motivations

I know, I know... I'm a day (or 23) late and more than a few dollars short, but things have been busier than usual around here. I have a backlog of new posts in my head that have yet to make it to the blog, so hopefully I can get them out in the next week or so.

I dislike the term New Year's Resolution, because I feel like if there are changes that you want to make to your life, you shouldn't wait for a specific date to make it happen. I do, however, feel more motivation to make changes at the beginning of the new year. This is probably due more to the vacation days around the holiday and the impending easing of schedule (which oddly never happened) than anything else. There are a few areas of my own life, that impact not only me but my family, in which I feel motivated to better myself during this time of "new beginnings".

1. Let N be more independent.
This is a hard one for me. It's easier to swoop in when N is eating, getting dressed, putting away toys, etc, and do it myself rather than let her do it at her own pace. Which is maddeningly slow. I've seen the impact that it's made on her especially at mealtimes. Since I have to split my time between N and D, D has gotten very proficient in feeling herself and can eat faster and cleaner than N can, even though she's two years younger. We never let N do it for herself when she was little, and now she doesn't want to. I've got to back off and foster more independence in her life. I bought her special "4 year old" dishes that she can get from the cabinet herself. She loves them! Incidentally, this is also a visual reminder for me to control their portions better. 1/2 the plate for veggies, small sections for kid sized portions of meat and starch.

 

What big girls!

 

D has decided that she's too grown up for a highchair or booster seat, even though she can barely see her plate!

Using a fork and everything. :)

2. Be funner.

This is my main "resolution" for 2012, so there will be an entire blog post about it later. It's very easy to get into a rut of staying home. We drift through our days (still!) watching too much TV and doing... I'm not sure what. The days blend together sometimes and I hate to think that NOTHING got accomplished. The end of December and January has been a bust for playdates since daddy was home more, but we'll be getting back into that soon. The main thing I need to get into a better habit of is just plain making a mess. I hate cleaning up, so I'm loathe to get out the messy (fun) play time items. I've recently become addicted to Pinterest (more on that in another post) and it's definitely inspiring to see pages and pages of super cool kid crafts. This month I've gotten out the paints, play-doh, Elmer's Glue, and those toys with too many little pieces that N loves and D eats.

Super simple craft with construction paper, glue, and dried beans.

Marble racer N got for Christmas. I hate this thing. N loves it. I just need to make sure we clean it up before D wakes up from her nap!

3. Be more positive.

This is really tied in with #2, but I need to enjoy my time home more. Don't sweat the messes, but get into a better habit of cleaning up. When the house gets to a disaster-type state around here, it affects not only me, but my husband and the kids, too. When I'm feeling positive and happy, it's easy to breeze around the house and pick up the ENDLESS messes that crop up. I also need to remember to take a break and do things that make ME happy, too. After the girls go to bed (still 7:00, weeee!) I whirlwind around the house and clean so I have time to crochet in the evenings while I listen to audiobooks. This is awesome, relaxing and productive all at once! Currently, I'm desperately trying to finish D's little afghan in time for her birthday party. *Finger's crossed*

I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday season and is back into the swing of every day life. It's hard to go from "vacation" mode to "serious work" mode, and this is our first week of it here. I'm ready to lock & load and rock & roll and... do stuff. Yeah.

Little Girl's Sweater Dress Tutorial

A few months ago, I ran across a tutorial for a toddler's sweater dress here, at Smashed Peas and Carrots. This chick has a fabulous blog with lots of fun DIYs for the kids! When I decided to make a few for N, I discovered that I could simplify it by several steps and make a larger dress for a pre-schooler. It would also work as a tunic size for older kids.

I started with a goofy short sleeved sweater that I would never wear and found a dress that fit N well.

 Trim sweater on the sides, leaving 1/2" seam allowance.

Trim down arms to a little girl width. I left mine wider, so I didn't measure, but you can lay the dress' sleeves on top to get a measurement for the width and length. Since the sweater I used was short sleeved, I didn't have to worry about length. Make sure you follow the line of the original sleeve, rather than cut it off square.

Choose a stretchy stitch on your sewing machine. I have a Husqvarna Emerald, and it has a "stretchy" setting, so I used that. A simple zig zag stitch would work just fine, though.

Fold the sleeves so that they're inside out and pin the seam. When sewing, be sure to leave 1/2" unsewn at the armpit side to attach to the dress!

Turn the body of your sweater inside out and attach your arms. There are two ways to pin the arms on. You can leave them inside out and pin to the dress like Smashed Peas and Carrots did, or you can turn them right side out and lay them inside the dress to sew. I decided to try the latter this time, and I thought it worked out really well. I tried to take a good picture to illustrate what I did. Basically I lined up the edge of the arm with the edge of the dress and pinned from the inside of the arm.

It seemed a little less awkward for me to sew it this way, but either way works just fine. Start at the armpit and sew up, over the shoulder, and then back down to the armpit, rotating the sweater as you go.

Ta-daa! This is the finished arm and unfinished side seam. To sew the side seams, leave the dress inside out, pin the sides secure and just sew from armpit to the bottom hem! I always have a little hole in the armpits where the seams don't meet completely which I hand sew up with just a few stitches.

Here's a shot of the finished dress! I've found that sweaters are very forgiving, so you don't have to be too exact. I'm not a very good sewer, so I leave a wide seam allowance and then I go back to trim it up. Definitely give the original tutorial a look if anything's confusing.

N loved it and wore it to school the next day.

Haha, I can NOT get a serious picture out of this girl!

Nice and stretchy to play in.

OK, all done. Can we go outside?!

Thanksgiving & Craft Reveal!

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving, I know I did! We hosted the day at our house, same as the last 2 years. My turkey turned out perfect, I'm happy to say. I only make it once a year, so I tend to forget what I did the year previous. I need to stop reinventing the wheel and just write it down or something. In addition to the turkey, I made stuffing (of course!), deviled eggs, spinach Parmesan dip, cranberry sauce, croissants with pumpkin butter, and rice pudding. With the dishes that everyone else brought, we had quite a spread. I didn't get very many pictures since I was so busy hostessing and running after the girls. The stamps that I made last week made a cameo at the table:

I think they turned out really nice! We also made the traditional turkey handprint and I tried to make a cornucopia out of D's foot. I think it would have looked more like a cornucopia if I had painted her toes different colors. Still cute, though!



Hopefully in the next week or two, I'll have time to feature the sweater dress tutorial I found. I hope everyone made it through Black Friday alive! We hermited in the house and didn't go anywhere. Perfect day for me ;)

Two Steps Back

I had an absolute armpit of a day today, which is really disappointing because I feel like I've been doing so much better lately. I think D is teething, so she's been in a rotten mood the past few days. Both my kids were painfully slow teethers. Emphasis on the *painful*! D only has her four top, four bottom and four molars in. I noticed her canines poking through this morning, so hopefully we're in the home stretch.

I swear I spent over half the day either crying or trying not to lose my shit. I really need to pay more attention to my personal habits, too. I know I skipped breakfast and forgot to eat lunch until almost 2 in the afternoon. That certainly doesn't help my mood.

N's been getting more possessive of her toys, too. Today she had a huge setup of Littlest Pet Shop animals and a building block city on the couch. Right at D level. As soon as D would come within a 5 foot radius of N's bustling metropolis, N would shriek at ear splitting levels and whack D on the chest. Everyone crying again. I need to make a little D-free zone for N to have her imaginative play time, because that takes up a large portion of her day.

The last recurring trial of the day (really the last week or two) is that D is obsessed with the "potty". I hate to discourage her, but she only wants to play in the bathroom. If I bring the little potty out of the bathroom for her, she wants nothing to do with it. She wants to sit on the big potty and play with N's toys, which inevitably fall between her legs into the toilet. Then she wants to get down and rummage in the extremely un-kidproofed closet. Ten times a day. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that one. Like I said, I don't want to discourage her from potty stuff if she's interested, but I suspect she's just using it as a vehicle to achieve fun times in the bathroom.

Hopefully, the coming holidays will be a bit of a break with A home. We're having everyone over to my house for Thanksgiving, so I'm really excited about that. I have photos of the stamps and the craft we used them with to post, but I'll have to save that for another day. I have to go clean!

Tomorrow will be better, right?

Craft: Home Made Stamps!

So this is my first attempt at a tutorial-type post. I'm making Thanksgiving place cards with the kids (probably just N) later this week and I didn't have any fall themed stamps. I had a mini-epiphany on how to make my own (it's so easy that I'm sure there's an identical tutorial out there somewhere) with stuff I already had.

You Will Need:

Puffy Paint or Glue Gun
Adhesive Backed Foam Sheets
Flat Glass, Mirror or Ceramic Surface
Washable Marker
Scissors

 I'm terrible at writing backwards, so I used the back of a plate to lay out my text.

 Press the foam sheet to the marker before it has a chance to dry.

 Ta-daa!

 I did one word at a time so that it didn't dry.

 These words were a little small for the puffy paint, but I wanted them to leave room for N's decorations on the place cards.

 These will take about 24 hours to dry, so plan ahead!

 For the decoration stamps, I just freehanded some fall-themed pictures directly onto the foam.

 If you need a stamp RIGHT AWAY you can also use a glue gun. It's not as smooth as the puffy paint and the lines are thicker, but it dries in just a few minutes.

 Pilgrim hat!

 Here they all are :)

After they dry, I'll trim them a little closer and adhere them to... something. Maybe I'll get A to cut me wooden blocks. Those small cardboard disposable jewelry boxes would also work well. We'll be using sponges to apply poster paint to the stamps in a few days. I'll update with the finished product in a few days!

Attack of the Toy Fairy

If you've been keeping up, you may have read about the Toy Fairy. I have threatened to leave toys out for the Toy Fairy in the past, and this usually spurs a little cleaning frenzy. N was feeling particularly obstinate the other day, so when she refused to help me clean I said "That's ok. I'm just going to clean this up for you and since you can't take care of your toys, I'll just leave them on the front porch for the Toy Fairy. She'll have lots of fun playing with your toys." I got through three bins of toys before N came to help me finish. Whenever she passed the kitchen window and saw her toys on the porch she got a little sad. The next morning they were gone. That day was fine, but the next morning she wanted to build a tower. I told her that if she helped me clean up all the toys that were out that we could write a note to the Toy Fairy asking for her toys back.

N dictated the note, decorated it and signed the bottom. She even drew a picture of the Toy Fairy in the bottom left hand corner. The little blobs above it are her wings, haha! After all that she *still* had to wait until the next morning to get her toys, since the Toy Fairy (like most fairys) only operates at night when you're not looking. For the most part, she's been better about cleaning up lately. We'll see if this made any kind of impression on her next time I need to pull it out!

Postception?

I know a post promising that I'm going to post a post is a little redundant, but maybe if I put it out there it will actually get done.

I think I want to redesign a *little* to include a crafty section for my blog. It will give me something positive to write about as well as motivate me to craft more and document what I'm making. Coming soon... sweater dress, bear ears, home made stamps, ummmm... maybe a hat or two? Most of these won't be tutorials since what I'm making was picked up from another blog or website, but I'll link back to my source so that y'all can try it out if you want.

I'm excited, how 'bout you?!