Old Navy Sweaters!

I participate with a group called Crowdtap. I get to give my opinion on all sorts of stuff and sometimes they ask people to try products and give reviews. I recently was selected to try out Old Navy's sweaters! The best part is I got one for me and one for a friend for FREE!! Who doesn't love free clothes!! So my friend and I went shopping, tried on a bunch of sweaters and each found one we loved! While I must say that unfortunately the '80s has made a come back - I don't need a sweater with an owl, fox or sheep on it. Or giant polka dots. Or an ugly Christmas sweater. Here are a few of the ones I did try on.

I really liked this one, but decided I needed to branch out from blue

Liked the cardigan, but like the pullover better.

Went for the pullover in RED! (store lighting makes it look orange, but it's a nice red)

Didn't get any pictures snapped of my friend, but she got this same sweater in a nice lavender. It was fun to go shopping for free & to have a nice new sweater for Christmas. So thank you CrowdTap and Old Navy! Let's do it again sometime!!

3 Months!

I can't believe that our little girl is 3 months old already! She's a cute little thing who loves to coo and smile and talk. And now, the many faces of Jovi:

And last, but not least, Jovi doing what she does best:  :)

 

Jovi Elizabeth

I suppose I should show off my sweet little girl!

Getting her here was a piece of cake! Everything went quickly and smoothly. Curtis loves his little sister and has a hard time letting other people hold her.

Naming Jovi was quite the process. Travis thoroughly brainstorms when it comes to baby names. I felt the need to remind him that we were having a baby and she was going to be a girl. Here's a very small sample of his brainstorming.

You'd never know that I had that little girl just a week before. :)

Jovi is a great sleeper. She only gets up once during the night! It makes a world of difference to get sleep in 4 or 5 hour chunks instead of 2.

And here she is at 1 month just as sweet as can be. :)

Waiting

I have never claimed to be a patient person and waiting for this baby to come has taken it's tole on my limited amounts of patience. Thankfully I do have some self control and Curtis is a pretty good kid. But I decided that I needed something to distract me for a while. So with the encouragement of a good friend I put a quilt top together. Thankfully it was fairly simple and small and I got it done in an afternoon/evening. The other great thing was that I got to use fabric that I had on hand. I'm also lucky that my good friend is picking up the back and front today and is going to quilt it for me! I love friends!

 This little monkey doesn't like to smile for the camera anymore he just wants to take pictures.

For those who are wondering when this little girl is going to get here: I have an apt with my OB this morning and we will be discussing induction! She should be here before the weekend is over.

Mommy & Me

After a little nudge from a RS lesson I decided that I needed to find more things to do with Curtis. Sure, he's great at playing by himself, but I wanted to have more interaction with him. So on the hunt I went. I've found a few things and will hopefully find some more, but here's what we've been up to.

We made finger paints

Then got Curtis prepped with is apron. Doesn't he look excited!

That's a little better.

Then we were ready to paint on the table covered with freezer paper. Freezer paper is great b/c the back has a plastic coating so the paint doesn't seep through!

Curtis liked it for a little while, but he really didn't like having his fingers dirty.

So we got out the crayons and moved to the other end of the table.

I drew at his direction and he drove his cars.

A few days later Curtis found my molecule building set. It may not have proven useful in Intro Chemistry in college, but Curtis sure loved it!

"I see you!"

Anyhow, we'll see what the next couple of weeks bring, but I hope to be able to do some more fun things with Curtis before his little world gets turned upside down. And any suggestions are most definitely welcome.

New Look

I thought a pink background would be a good way to prepare to introduce our new little addition. She's not here yet and hopefully won't be for another 2 weeks. I at least need to get through all I have going on this week and then she can come whenever she wants. :)

Nursing Poncho

The credit of this great pattern goes to my SIL J. who taught me how to make these. So a big Thank You to her!

Materials:

1 yard fabric - cut into 2 pieces that are twice as long as they are wide. A good size is 18" x 36" - You have 2 options for cutting your fabric. 1. you can use pinking shears which will make hemming a bit easier, or you can just use regular scissors and have to make one more roll when hemming. (more on that later)

A small 2" x 1" rectangle of fabric

Matching Thread

Iron

2 pieces of fabric

To start sew the short side of B to the long side of A: 

Next, sew the short side A to the long side of B:

If it's been sewn correctly then when the points are aligned it should make a square:

Next, press both seams open:

Now to open up the neck. Choose side will be the front and make a 1"-2" vertical cut down from the neck opening:

Now, press back the fabric on both sides to to open up the neck:

To finish off the neck fold under the raw edges and sew around; playing with the fabric as you get to the back seam.

To add a little reinforcement to the front neck opening sew in the small 1" x 2" fabric piece:

Now just hem it all the way around!

 I should have taken a better picture of folding the corner, but just do a nice job of folding the corners over:

And you're done!

I hope that this is easy to follow. Please leave a comment with any questions or clarification that you may have/need.

Family Photos December 2012

It was great to see my family for Christmas and even better that we got to have pictures taken together!

Front-ish L to R: Doug (brother), Holly (SIL married to Michael), Riley (niece) Mom, Shelly (sister), Curtis, Me

Back-ish L to R: Michael (brother), Mikeala (niece), Dad, David (BIL, married to Shelly), Travis

My super cute nieces and an oh so cooperative Curtis: