Sunday, April 25, 2010

My Hooter Hiders and Suspenders

Nursing Cover (tutorial here)



I have barely been able to get on the computer since the baby was born 3 weeks ago, I've been too busy with kids, company, taking lots of pictures and sleeping. Anyways, things have been going great and we just adore this little guy so much! I can't believe we've only had him for 3 weeks while at the same time I can't believe he's already 3 weeks old!



My mom has been staying with us for the past 8 days which has been awesome! My hubby had to do some traveling for work and I was SO glad to not be totally on my own yet with the 2 kiddos! Plus, living so far from my family it's just really nice to get to have some girl time with my own mommy. She been helping me get everything done....including LOADS AND LOADS od laundry! But one fun thing she helped me get done during her stay was make Hooter Hiders aka Nursing Covers. I really wanted to make one before I had the baby but didn't get around to doing it. So we ran to the Hobby Lobby around the corner and found some really pretty fabrics and made 2 nursing covers for about $6.00 each at most! If you want to buy a nursing cover at a maternity store or target, they run close to $35 each. We found a good tutorial at Tada Creations and my mom did most the work on these while I took care of the baby...I did some of the ironing and cutting but she did all the sewing this time around! Anyways, I LOVE them! They were easy too! I'm so happy with how they turned out, the only thing that could be better is...well...make sure you don't accidentally buy upholstry thread like I did...we went ahead and used it and it's not a HUGE deal...but they would have turned out better with regular thread.


So I'm thinking I might start wearing some suspenders! I've been wearing a lot of gym shorts and yoga pants as I'm at that inbetween stage of not fitting my maternity clothes but not fitting my pre-pregnancy clothes either...so it seems a lot of times when I'm holding the baby, my 3 year old will try to climb up me and end up pulling my pants down. Not that big of a deal when we're just hanging out in the house by ourselves...however...yesterday I took her out to the swimming pool just outside our front door for a bit. As we were walking back up to our door to go home, my 50-60ish year old neighbor (a man) walked out with his little dog...JJ used to love dogs but apparently now she is terrified because she started screaming and trying to climb up my legs but instead....was pulling my shorts down. I was holding onto the front of my shorts the best I could but she was going nuts...I couldn't pick her up and the shorts completely came down halfway....At least my underwear stayed up! When I told my husband later...he joked "No fair, now Bill has seen you more naked than I have in weeks!" lol. (he exagerates).

Anyways, so I'm thinking until I can fit into some normal jeans...I might have to start wearing some suspenders or tying a rope around the top of everything (not really) before I leave my apartment...because I don't want people seeing my butt/underwear everytime JJ sees a little dog walk by or decides she wants me to hold her too while I'm already carrying the baby.


Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Baby Bronson


Well, Bronson is 11 days old today! ALREADY! He was born on Good Friday and He weighed 7 lbs 11 oz, 20 inches long.
We are just totally in love with him! It was love at first sight!


I had my weekly checkup on Wednesday and my Dr. was like "wow his head is really low! I wouldn't be surprised if you were back in here tonight or tomorrow!"
That night, I did start having contractions, about 30 minutes apart...then a few that were 15 but nothing consistent. They kept me up all night and I thought he was going to be an April Fool's baby, but when I got up in the morning...all the contractions stopped and I only had a few throughout the rest of the day. That night (Thursday) right when we were going to bed, the contractions started again, same as the night before...randomly every 15-30 minutes...nothing consistent and typically you don't go to the hospital until you are having contracts every 5 minutes for an hour. My Dr said I should come in when I got to 7 minutes for an hour based on his positioning, she said he would probably come quick. I had a contraction at 12 minutes...then 8 minutes, then 5,4, and 3 and they were so painful I was already wishing for an epidural! Tyler started calling Brett, our friend who lives across the street who was "on call" to come stay with JJ if we went into labor. We called him about 9 times in a row and he didn't answer and I started panicking because I knew we had to go to the hospital NOW and my friend Codi who I was also an emergency contact doesn't live that close to us. Tyler kept it together though. He grabbed everything, threw it in the car, banged on our neighbors door (an older couple) and asked them to keep an eye on JJ till our friend could pick her up. We went up to the car and before I got in, Tyler started putting down some towels just in case my water broke and suddenly I was like "oh...there it goes!". By the time we got in the car, I was having contractions non stop, like no break in between...it was the worst car ride of my life! Tyler was trying to drive fast to make sure we made it to the hospital while at the same time trying to take it easy over bumps are curves!
The car ride conversation consisted of me saying "If I don't get an epidural when we get there I'm going to murder somebody!!!" While Tyler was on the phone calling my friend to come watch JJ for us so our neighbors didn't have to watch her more than 20 minutes.

When we got to the hospital, Tyler asked me "Where do we go?"
me- "They said D for Delivery!"
Tyler- "where's that?"
me "Just follow the signs!!!"

(D in on the opposite side of the hospital from the emergency entrance FYI)

So we pulled into the D parking lot and immediately parked the car...the hospital entrance was down some stairs so we started heading down the stairs...me in agony and barely able to make it as I exclaimed "I deserve an Olympic medal if I make it to the bottom!" We go down the first flight of stairs and realized there was ANOTHER flight of stairs, and also that we could have driven all the way down and parked in front of the door. Tyler offered to run and get the car to drive me the rest of the way but I was just cried "no I can't do that..I can't get in that car again! We have to keep going!"

We made it to the bottom and when we got to the door...all the lights were dark and all the doors were LOCKED! Tyler was banging on the doors and trying to pull them open...I was bent over holding onto my knees (pants and legs all wet from the water breaking) trying not to fall over and crying out "WHY!!!!! WHY is it LOCKED!!! They said D for Delivery!" Tyler just took off sprinting, he ran to the next building down and started banging on some doors and a security person happened to be walking by. He was like "My wife is going to have our baby on the sidewalk!" so they came sprinting back...in the meantime, I was waiting there crying out the same thing to nobody "They said D for Delivery!!!!" meanwhile envisioning myself lying down and giving birth on the cement. When Tyler and the security guy arrived, he opened the door, grabbed a wheel chair and they got me up to labor and delivery.

As soon as we go in there, they gave me the gown to change into...I went into the bathroom and just started vomiting because the pain was so awful. Tyler was holding onto me so I wouldn't fall over. Then they got me to the bed and were trying to get a Dr. in the room ASAP...I wanted an epidural and all the nurses kept talking about was "oh, guess what? She has a little girl named Jordan who just turned 3!" Every person who walked in the room...the same thing over and over...I was getting so annoyed hearing them repeating the same thing over and over finally after hearing it for what seemed the 10th time I was like "STOP TALKING ABOUT HER!!!" they seemed a little surprised...but you know...when you are lying on a bed in agony and people are just asking questions and talking about irrelevant things...it's pretty easy to get annoyed. Then Tyler said to me "Just go to a happy place." I think I might have given him a look of death and said "Don't EVER say something that stupid again!"

It was all happening VERY fast. The nurse then informed me "honey, you're not going to like this, try to stay calm...but there isn't time for an epidural, you are going to have this baby within 5 minutes" I'm sure I looked completely terrified because I was. All I could say was "but I'm not prepared for this!" I had no intention of doing a natural birth so I didn't go over any special techniques or anything...I was SCARED! I was already in so much pain! That's something you need to mentally prepare yourself for. I couldn't imagine any more pain than I was already in.

The nurses kept telling me not to push because they were still trying to get a doctor in the room. But it was futile, I couldn't help it, the baby was coming out whether anyone else was ready or not! As an on call doctor walked in, he started asking some questions and was quickly cut off as the nurses were basically like -no talking, get the heck in there and catch the baby!

In no time, our little boy was born...healthy and hungry! As far as how I handled the actual birth...I'll just say this...Tyler says if they ever make an Exorcist 5, I could be the star. Thank goodness it was quick!

When it's all said and done...we now have this beautiful amazing little newborn son and it was totally worth it without a doubt. Even though babies are born every day, all over the world since the beginning of mankind...it's still a miracle every single time.


oh..and Brett had his phone right next to him the whole time but it never rang! It was meant to be...if we would have gotten a hold of him...we would have waited for him to get up and come over...I really think I might have not made it to the delivery room if things went as planned! So I think it was a God thing that his phone messed up! Knocking on our neighbors door and leaving ASAP saved us! Otherwise he might have been born on the sidewalk outside the locked Labor and Delivery entrance.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Easter Baby


So I've been away for a while! My little boy arrived 8 days early on April 2...good Friday! It's been so crazy and I haven't had time for the computer but just wanted to quickly announce the good news! I will tell ya'll about it more later but right now, I'm too tired and I don't know how much sleep I'm gonna get so I'm off to bed to get whatever shut eye I can before the night time marathon eating begins!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

March eHow Earnings


Wow, I just noticed my eHow earnings for March....you know...the residual earnings I make off of articles I've already written and posted and forgotten about until I see a payment in my paypal account? Anyways...I don't know what happened in march, I wasn't very active on the site and am not aware of any of my articles being featured (could have been the case) but to my surprise, my earnings were up over $100 than usual for the month! WOW! Exciting! That's a pretty huge jump for me! I hope April turns out to be as profitable!

If you haven't read about how I create this easy income from home, you must look into it now! Check out my Work from Home (Page at the top of this blog) to read about it...along with other great ways to make money from home. Anyone can do it and it's free!


UPDATE (4/8/2010): Just after posting this, I found out that eHow is having some major changes, and is switching over to having all content written by writers through Demand Studios (the parent company). I was transferred over and will be writing from the platform from now on...so if you do what to write for eHow also, rather than just signing up for a free account and writing whatever, you can still do it, but you would need to apply to by a writer through Demand Studios and get approved. I don' t know the exact process, I haven't had time to look into any of it yet though. But just thought I'd let ya'll know!

Friday, April 2, 2010

Eastery Cookies


Well, while waiting for something more to happen with these contractions, I decided to make some Peanut Butter cookies and open the big bag of Easter M&Ms a little early...there will still be plenty for the Easter basket! I thought that after pressing the peanut butter cookies with the fork, it would look sorta like a bird nest so I added 3 M&M "eggs". Only problem, I keep finding chunks of cookie hidden around the house because my daughter just wants to eat the parts with candy.

I just used a basic recipe from my BHG cookbook.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Cake and Strawberries! Plus Cake Stand Tutorial!!!


So I had previously posted a picture and a link to these adorable ideas I found through V & Co. featuring a strawberry shortcake and set of fabric strawberries. This was something on my to-do list that I ACTUALLY got done! I made these for one of my daughter's 3rd Birthday gifts. I used THIS free tutorial for the fabric strawberries and could have bought the tutorial for the cake HERE, but I was too cheap and just stared at the picture instead and decided to figure it out. If you decide to make this cake, maybe buy the tutorial...you'll save yourself some time and frustration. Mine is REALLY "fudged" but with the frosting on it looks decent. I decided to make my frosting reversible so my daughter could have strawberry shortcake or a lemon cake! Anyways, it was a hit! She has really been enjoying this play set, and it goes perfectly with her new tea set! I also made the cake stand, it only took about 10 minutes...if you include waiting for the glue gun to heat up! My daughter loves switching the frosting around and piling on the strawberries....then pretending to take a great big bite right out of the cake!

Fabric Strawberries
I found the little yellow basket for the strawberries in the Easter Section at Hobby Lobby for 50 cents! I thought it was PERFECT!

Strawberry Shortcake


Lemon Cake


Super Easy Cake Stand Tutorial


To make the play wooden cake stand, here is what you'll need:

glue gun
foam brush
acrylic craft paint
wooden candle stick
wooden circle-
(found mine near clock making supplies at the craft store)

Pull out the metal thing that holds the candle. (my husband used a butter knife to pry it out).

Decide which way you want to use the candle stick, I actually used mine upside down, it looked better f0r the cake plate design.

Heat up your glue gun.

Find the center of you wooden disc/circle

Apply hot glue to the end of the candle stick and carefully aligned and attatch to center of wooden disc.

Using your foam brush, paint an even coat of craft paint. That will quickly dry and you can do a second coat if needed.

THE END!

And if you need a real cupcake stand that can be thrown together in a jiffy and on the cheap, check out my super easy, frugal cupcake stand tutorial.



Another great bargain seen here? I got that dress my daughter is wearing last year from Gymboree on Clearance for under $10, it was originally around $40. I bought the next size up and now it fits her perfect for this spring/summer season! I LOVE getting a good deal!