Curtains are Hung!

Hooray! The hubby and I worked together to get Baby's curtains up. I made them, and he did the carpentry!

The man in action.

Thanks, Hubby!!

Make It and Love It

So I'm rather obsessed with another blogger, Make It and Love It. Pretty much everything she makes, I want to make. and she makes it seem so doable!

First I made Seth these rings:

Tutorial Here
Easy...Just sew some tubes of fabric, stuff them and stitch them together round each other.

Next I made Adam his Father's Day gift.

I guess the pictures aren't the greatest, but it's a clay pot filled with candy. :)
Tutorial Here
Again, easy! paint a pot, sew a tie using her pattern, glue together & fill with candy!



Then I made some comfy flip flops.

I got some cheap Old Navy flip flops, which I usually can't wear because they rub between my toes and I can't stand them. But her tutorial gave me a nice way to fix that! These ones are a little loose, but I can redo them easily if I want AND I have 2 more pairs to do. Now that it's cool out...haha. 

Finally, I made Seth one of his Christmas presents:

I'm pretty excited to make more of his Christmas. :) Here's the tutorial. She's got so many other projects I can make, too! And in truth, most of them don't take *that* long to do. yay!

It's so nice that he takes naps in his crib now & goes to bed around 7 so I can get some of these things done!

Baby Room Curtains

Well, Seth is already over 5 months old, but I finally finished the curtains for his room today. :) (My excuse is that he came 2 weeks early!!)
I kind of made them up on my own, but I used inspiration from Sallie's kitchen curtain and this random blog -- scroll down to find her curtains. :)







I found 3 colors of fabric that would go well with the "giraffe" themed room - all cottons. I took fabric #1 (the top section, green fabric) and cut 1 strip 16" tall. I used my rotary mat for this. (Tip: fold the fabric in half with selvedge edges matching to cut a shorter piece & then it fit on one mat!)















I hemmed the selvedge edges 1" on each side.

I folded it in half, right sides together, lengthwise and sewed the unfinished edges @ 1/3".












 
I turned the fabric right side out, ironed @ the seam & the fold, so the tube became a panel.

Then I sewed a seam 2" from the folded edge to create a space for the curtain rod.






With fabric #2 (brown/accent color), I cut a strip 4" tall, then folded it in half lengthwise and sewed the seam 1/4" from the edge to make a 1 3/4" wide strip.

I ironed it just as with the first piece. I also found that if i ironed the seam like with a quilt while it was inside out, it was easier to get the seam to lay right.

I sewed up both edges so that the strip was the same width as fabric #1.

 Then I took fabric #3 (yellow, bottom piece) and cut a strip 12.5" tall.I hemmed the selvedge edges so the strip is the same width as strips 1 & 2 - using a 5/8" seam.

I hemmed the bottom edge (folded it over 1/2" and sewed @ 3/8").

I sewed the top edge to the back side of strip #1 @ the seam with a 1/4" seam, then ironed it flat.

Then I made 2 strips just like #2 only cut the fabric in half so the strips were half the length. I sewed them on 8" from the middle of the curtain.

Then I sewed the long brown (#2) strip on top of the curtain. I placed it just above (about 1/8") the seam from before and topstitched it together.
























Now all we have to do is get my hubby to put up the curtain rods, and Seth will finally have his mommy-made curtains up!

Double Duty

I am definitely learning the struggles of being a Mom and a Deaconess at the same time. I absolutely love both of them, but this is the most intense juggling act I've ever done.

For those of you who don't know, I am a part/full time Deaconess at a church in Iowa. I try to average about 30 hours of work a week. And get in as much time with my son as I can. I always wanted to be a stay-at-home-mom, so I am reluctant to give much of that up to anyone else! Fortunately, our pastor's wife lives right up the hill from church and is the *perfect* candidate to watch Seth when I can't.

Our church has been very gracious in letting me take Seth with me to work when I want to. They are more concerned with the end result (have I gotten the newsletter out? Was I able to run choir practice successfully? etc.) than how I got there. So Seth has been able to see everyone at church during the group meetings. He has taken naps in my office. Our Office Manager gets her baby-fix and likes to hold him once in a while. She has 3 kids of her own, so she has mastered the art of one-handed working as well.

This has taught me to work both slower and faster. Sometimes things just take longer than I'm used to! But other times, like during nap time, I need to get in gear and work work work!

When Seth is awake, I try to focus as much of my attention as possible on him. That's the fun part. I'm working on finding the balance of being able to get my work done while he's asleep or with his baby-sitter.

Trying to do it all is quite an adventure.


:)

What my sleeper looks like when I'm working.

Backlogged

I have a few crafty posts I've been meaning to post, but my camera/sd card are never around when I have the time to post. :)

Seth has come such a long way since my last post! We've worked very hard on naptime, so now if I'm home I can put him in his crib for all his naps...finally. Sometimes, like yesterday, he wakes up often, but that just meant I put him down more often...and was still able to get quite a lot done. The biggest improvement, though, has been that I don't have to wait until he is 110% asleep before putting him down. It's amazing.

He's been changing things up lately, too...falling asleep in the swing...falling asleep on his own. Ok, the latter only happened once. But it happened, and I was flabbergasted.

He has been experimenting with different sounds his mouth can make, which is very cute. He has finally started laughing! (Friday!) Just like his smiles were (sometimes still are), it's hard to draw a laugh out of him, but when he does, it is so cute.

He loves to sit up, supported. Laying down is for babies, Mom! He just started grabbing his legs, and finding his feet. I'm sure rolling over will come soon. He still does not like tummy time, unless you catch him in the right mood. I tell him if he rolls over on to his back, he can end tummy time. :)

Saturday we go for his 4 month pictures, and Monday are his 4 month shots. What a wonderful birthday gift! Not...! :)

We get lots of visitors...Grandma Barkley this weekend, seminary friends Monday night, then my family plans to stop by on their way to MN...and we'll go to MN for 6 days too!! Lots of fun!

I love this age :)

Wee Wee Wigwam

I stumbled across the blog "Make It and Love It" (thanks to  Sallie I believe) and she had a tutorial for Wee Wee Wigwams (her own Pee-Pee Teepees). I needs them!
[Right now we just use half a wipe, which only lessens the damage during accidents.]

Step one: Cut circles of 2 types of fabric. Then cut in half.

Step two: Sew the two pieces with right sides together, then turn right side out.

Step three: Top stitch near the edge.

Step four: Fold in half & sew the rough edges together.

ta-da! Wee Wee Wigwam. Simple as that.

Oh, and I held Seth the entire time I made it. hooray!

More Active

Yesterday Seth turned two months old.

Today I feel extremely motivated.

This will probably turn around and bite me in the butt (aka I'll probably try to do too much), but I'm going to start a sort of "2 months resolution". That is, I'm going to start to try to do more than just my silly games on Facebook or the iPhone.

Don't get me wrong, those games were lifesavers, especially during growth spurts, but now it's time to wean myself off of them!

When I am absolutely stuck on the couch, I'll try to at least blog a little more!

Seth is what some people like to refer to as a "high needs" baby. Mostly this just means he needs a little extra lovin/attention. And of course nursing :D Many people (mostly well meaning) try to tell me I need to put him down more, but it really doesn't benefit either of us... He simply won't stand for it; he'll cry and cry & work himself up...I'd much rather have a happy, calm baby. As he gets older, though, we both get better at a couple minutes here or there apart (he doesn't always start right in on the screaming! just whines about it). So I'll go grab a bite or find some papers, etc. Moral of the story is, sorry people, I am going to continue to hold him a lot, even if I won't be able to with subsequent children. 

But. We are getting better at using the Moby wrap. Since he comes to work with me all the time for now, I usually use it during the afternoons at work, but I think we can step it up a notch. So when he's in there, I can usually do something else. Perhaps not what I was planning on, if he wants me to keep walking, but at least more than just being a couch potato!

Also, if I am a little more disciplined, I know we can get him to nap in his crib. It's just a matter of paying more attention to when he falls into his deep sleep. I often miss it and then would only get a few minutes of him being down before he's ready to be picked up (or if I try to soon, he'll wake up again). Generally, I'd just rather have him have a good nap rather than wake up because I try to put him down...then he gets cranky!

But like I said, we are growing up!

So some things I would like to do:
knit! (obviously hehe)
finish his curtains (one is almost done!)
Take some ideas from http://makeit-loveit.com/ and make some cute things, especially her yoga-band dress.
Scrapbook (well, most of that will happen on church-scrap days)
help my hubby more around the house! (can I just say how grateful I am to have him??)

I'm sure there's more, but I better not think about it too closely.

I will also try to post pictures of my crafty accomplishments...and of my son.
In fact, here's one for you now :)

God's blessings :)