Oh Boy

How cool is this kid?

More sewing projects...

Let me begin with this disclaimer... the following items were not sewn by me.  I was the mastermind behind the following projects, but recruited my Mom to actually complete the sewing part before she left town (if you know me, you'll know that this is my method of operation... just ask Doug)  Even though I didn't actually do the grunt work, I think they are still post-worthy.

Sewing Project #1... a hooter hider... also known as a bosom buddy (I've been telling Caleb it's a superman cape.  He's too young to learn the word "hooter".)  I couldn't find any cute ones in the stores around here, so why not make one yourself?  I googled "hooter hider pattern" and found tons of online tutorials.  My mom and I found one that was suitable (here's the link in case you want to check it out) and made a few more adjustments to make it even better... we decided to line it with a complementary fabric, and rounded the corners to make it look more professionally made.  The first time I used it, Doug asked me if it worked.  I asked if he could see them.  No.  Then it's working :)

Here's Caleb modeling his superman cape...  He's gonna really love me someday for taking these pictures...

Sewing Project #2... a removable cover for my breastfeeding pillow.  The pillow I purchased three years ago before Caleb was born (it unfortunately remained unused until now) did not have a cover that could be washed.  In my mind, all I could think about was how disgusting the pillow was going to get after regular useage.  So I pulled some fabric out of my stash, picked up a zipper, and my mom got to work.  She made up her own pattern and whipped up a cover in no time.  Check it out... Emerson's the model this time around.

My Mom is a sewing genius.  I've got more sewing projects from my house to share (house related projects, not baby ones).  Ones that my Mom helped me figure out.  Stay tuned!

And now for a craft update...

On the mornings we're at home, Caleb and I do crafts while I drink my morning coffee... make that coffees.

We've done some painting, played with playdough, glued macaroni (and ate it while gluing... Caleb, not I), we've made thank you cards, made telescopes and binoculars out of toilet paper holders... the possibilities are endless.  All it takes is glue, paint... basically anything messy.

And when we're done with the craft... we just play with markers.  Cheap entertainment.

Just when I think I'm ahead of the game...

The kids pull out a little tag team action and decide to gang up on me last night.  Emerson started out strong with an explosive diaper of epic proportions.  Caleb followed with a middle of the night nose bleed that left his bedroom looking like something out of a horror movie.  These two incidents resulted in 6 clothing/bedding items with major stains.  After soaking all morning and a full hour of scrubbing in my laundry room during nap time, this momma is winning the battle... the count is 4 to 2... four items saved, 2 will have to be left behind.

No pictures were taken of the fiasco.  However, after spending so much time in my laundry room this afternoon, I'm feeling like it could be project time again... as I'm guessing I will be spending quite a bit of time in this room in the next months and years.  Here's the laundry room when we moved in... it looks exactly the same today (with the addition of a few piles of dirty laundry :)

And how about a bit of laundry room inspiration for you?

Dreaming big with this one!

How cool is this room?  I could spend a lot of time in here... drooling, not doing laundry.

This one's more like it... a basement room just like mine...

It's fun to dream... if I decide to tear things apart, I'll let you know :)

(last three images from Canadian House & Home)

You know you've been at home too long when...

1.  Going to a baby shower means that not one, but two out of the ordinary shower activities take place... you go to a party for a baby and you actually take a shower so that you can go out in public and look respectable.

2.  You constantly catch yourself humming/singing songs from Dora, Diego, Mighty Machines, and Bob the Builder.  Then you dream about them.  (btw... why on earth do Dora and Diego both have to shout everything they say instead of just talking normally?  The shouting is beginning to drive me crazy, and also began to bother my mom after three weeks in this household)

3.  You begin to find yourself thinking... "wouldn't it be fun to go to work today?  I could get dressed up and out of the house... and oh my goodness... you actually get a lunch break AND coffee breaks!"

4.  The highlight of the morning is the mail man delivering a stack of bills and flyers... and the highlight of the weeks is the garbage truck picking up our trash-- how exciting that is in our household.  Today was extra special since the yard waste removal truck came too.  Much screaming, pointing, and jumping took place at the front window.

5.  Your ipod/iphone is not used to communicate with the outside world and is not used for listening to music.  No.  It's primary task is to occupy your three year old.  I'm pretty sure Caleb knows his way around that thing better than I do.  And by the way, if any of you receive or have received a really weird email from us it is likely not a virus, it could be from Doug it's probably not from Doug, it's not from me, Caleb has been known to send emails out a time or two from the ipod.  I've had a few emails come back to my inbox undelivered since the email address looked something like this: adlfkjetbej1039ggdfjnhmdld.

6.  In your mind, the most genius creation known to man is the Starbucks drive thru.  Both kids are tied down buckled in and you have a few moments of peace to order your coffee without arms full of bags, a carseat, and a three year old who is attempting to pull every $10 ceramic mug off the shelf for inspection.  Then you have a few minutes to enjoy the first few sips of coffee as you drive... and if you're smart, you'll take the long way home or just do a few extra laps around the block.

Well folks, consider this a brief glimpse into what life is like around here.  I love it.

Getting girly around here...

Emerson needed some girly things... I did my best to find some gender neutral clothes and blankets from Caleb's stash, but we needed to introduce a little bit of pink around here!  Since newborns basically live in sleepers and pajamas, I figured Emerson could use a few feminine blankets to wear!  Time for a project.  Last weekend I did a bit of online shopping on one of my favorite sites to order fabric and found  some really cute flannel that was perfect for making baby blankets.  Luckily it was on sale!  And after searching online for a coupon (found one for 20% off) my menno heart was happy.  The fabric arrived at my door three days later, and I got busy sewing!

Here's Emerson modeling my newest creations.  

Blanket number 1...

And number 2...

And the girly-ness continues around here.  My friends and family threw a baby shower for Emerson and I last night.  We brought home a ton of cute, pink, girly clothes and blankets to add to her closet.  Thanks ladies!

I knew Caleb might be a bit envious, so this morning I woke up early and re-wrapped all of the gifts so Caleb could re-open them for Emerson.  He had a blast pulling the tissue paper apart and showing Emerson all of her new things.

And why not throw a picture of Caleb in?  He may not be girly, but he's cute :)  This week I did my best to do a few crafts with him in the mornings while Emerson was sleeping.  I was having a bit of trouble coming up with projects... finally I remembered one of my favorites from children's church when I was a kid-- the classic shoestring licorice fruit loop necklaces.  You all think I'm so creative... not so when it comes to kids crafts.  Caleb may have had more fun eating the craft than making it, but in the end we had a necklace to show off... for a few seconds at least.  Here it is!

Do any of you moms have fun craft/project ideas that Caleb and I could attempt?  I may be able to stitch a blanket or two together, but I sure am not all that crafty... any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Photo Shoot

A talented friend of mine came to take pictures of Emerson at our place three days after she was born.  She also took pictures of Caleb a few years ago-- check out this post.  The pictures of Emerson and the rest of our family turned out so great, that I thought I should share them with you all!

Here are a few of my favorites...

If you're interested in checking out more of my friend's work, you can take a look at her facebook page:

Anj Peters Photography

Happy Face

So as I'm trying to capture this moment with a picture I ask Caleb to act normal...

Here's what I get.

He calls this his happy face.

Much better.

Give Emerson a kiss?  That I can do.  Act normal and smile?  Not a chance.

I'm back!

As you can imagine, life has been a bit busier than usual around here... Hence the week long break from this blog.

Where do I start?  I know that some of you are die hard labor story fans... without sharing all the gory details (this is a blog for people of all ages and genders) I'll give you a brief summary...

The day after my due date I woke up with contractions-- had them off and on for most of the day but didn't pay too much attention to them as I figured it could easily be false labor.  Went to bed that night... water broke at midnight-- started to have more intense contractions.  Doug called the hospital at around 1:00 am and they wanted me to come in immediately since this birth was going to be a vbac (if you don't know what that means, you probably won't be interested in the rest of this paragraph so feel free to scroll down) and they needed to monitor me and the baby closely.  Went in, even though contractions were irregular at times they still admitted me so that everything could be carefully monitored.  And then we spent the rest of the night and morning making it through one contraction at a time-- not fun.  By the time the morning rolled around, I was tired (didn't get a wink of sleep that night) and not enjoying contractions  so my nurse offered me the gas-- I accepted.  As I start puffing away, Doug asks the nurse if she's ever seen the gas make a woman in labor start laughing-- only once before, she says.  Now she can say she's seen two...  I sucked that gas back like my life depended on it, and at times broke out into uncontrollable fits of laughter during contractions. Doug quite enjoyed this part.  By noon, I wasn't laughing anymore.  Labor sucks.  I had been in labor for 12 hours but wasn't making any progress.  So, even though it can be risky for a vbac, my doctor decided to give me oxytocin to try and speed things up.  As she was telling me about the oxytocin, my doctor suggested an epidural, as the oxytocin at that stage in the game was going to make things pretty intense, and they didn't know how long the day was going to be.  I told them to call the anesthesiologist.  They started the oxytocin drip, things got intense as promised, anesthesiologist arrived an hour later (he was stuck in another procedure).  At that point I was mad at him-- couldn't understand why it was taking so darn long to get it started... worst part of the entire day... having to sit still while they started the epidural.  And 10 minutes after it was in place, I was at 10 cm's and ready to start pushing.  An hour later... Emerson was born.  There were a few crazy moments at the end when they discovered that I'd had a placental abruption (placenta separates from the uterus... blood can't get to the baby, is fatal for the baby if it's not caught in time).  I won't go into the details of what happened as a result of the abruption, but let's just say that it's a good thing Doug has a strong stomach... and that I couldn't see what was happening.  The nurses all told me that it was good that I had gone into labor that day so that it was caught while I was in the hospital.

And that's it!  Within the hour I was up and out of bed, took a shower, and felt amazing!  Again, I will say that labor sucks... but Emerson's birth was definitely much easier than last time around.  When Caleb was born three years ago, I was still in the hospital at this point in the game.  While I still have the usual aches and pains, I can't believe how fast the recovery has been.  I would take this over a c section any day!

Now... let me fill you in on the first week at home with 2 kids!!  For the most part, it was great!  Thankfully my parents were around (my mom is still here until the end of this week) and they were able to give Caleb lots of much needed attention.

I think my Dad took Caleb out to Tim Hortons most mornings.  Caleb wanted to get there at the crack of dawn to make sure he got the "white" donuts (strawberry filled timbits covered in powdered sugar) before the other children took them all.

And here's my parents with their two grandchildren.  Caleb sure loves Papa and Nana... and I'm sure Emerson will too!

Emerson has enjoyed her beautiful room.  She's sure loving her sleep... I can't seem to get that girl to stay awake!  Doug went to put Emerson to bed the first night and totally cracked up when he saw how small she was in her crib.  He decided to take a picture to document the moment...  

Emerson has spent many mornings and afternoons sleeping in the bassinet we keep in the living room... every once and a while she decides to wake up and entertain us.

Caleb has had a pretty interesting week adjusting to life with his new baby sister.  He doesn't seem to mind having Emerson around (even though he was disappointed that he didn't get the baby brother he was hoping for), but is noticing that he doesn't get the same amount of attention.  This has resulted in the occasional temper tantrum.  So, Doug and I have made an effort to get him out of the house with either one or both of us apart from Emerson when we have a few minutes and someone to watch our baby girl.  We've gone for slurpees, to the spray park, out to Tim Hortons... it's seemed to help.  We've also noticed that Caleb seems to more readily enjoy getting attention from strangers when he's in a public setting-- he's become quite the entertainer.  The other day Doug took him along on a trip to Safeway.  Caleb went on to sing the song "Hi... my name is Joe..." over and over again at the top of his lungs-- down the aisles, in the checkout line-- to the amusement of everyone else in the store.

And on occasion, I catch him enjoying his role as big brother.  The other day I walked into the living room to find him "playing" with Emerson-- which means that he was loading her bassinet up with toys.

We managed to get out of the house a few times throughout the week.  My mom took off for a few days to the island... so on Friday night we decided to go on a family adventure.  We made a trip to Ikea (I needed to pick up a few items for my next project... don't worry, I'll show you what I'm up to soon!) and stopped at the mall on the way home.  Emerson got to wear "real" clothes for her first big adventure out of the house.

In the car on the way there, Caleb was quite annoyed with the sun in his eyes.  I finally gave him Doug's hat to wear so that he could cover his eyes.  Amazingly, he sat in his seat with the hat covering his face like this for probably half an hour-- didn't make a peep.

And on Monday I had quite the mommy success... during Caleb's morning snack I managed to convince him that dried apricots (he calls them africots) were an really special treat.  He ate tons of them like candy.  Later on that night, I told him we could have a special picnic snack because he had been such a big help cleaning up the living room.  I gave him three snack options... one-- dried apricots and crackers, two-- ice cream (that's what I was hoping for) or three-- a cookie.  He chose the dried apricots :)

Here we are having a picnic snack in the living room.

Well, that's it for today!  More pictures to come soon...