Baby Update

Only 5 weeks to go!!! And I'm hoping for 3 :) We had a 3d ultrasound today, and Miss E. Buhstasia Pop was not very cooperative (that's the name O gave her...we are going with the first name, but we'll probably choose a different middle name :) We didn't get any good pics of her (her face was pressed into my uterine wall the WHOLE time), but we did find out that she probably weighs about 5 pounds, and it appears that she has lots of hair. It will be very surprising if she really has hair since Elliott, O, and I were all bald babies!

We are slowly getting things ready for EBP. My mom and I spent hours and hours and hours turning our junk room into a livable space for EBP. However, we still have lots to do. My mom has finished fixing the elastic on all of our cloth diapers, and now we just need to strip them. I bought a swing off Craigslist that I am very happy with. I'm planning on ordering the car seat tomorrow, and hopefully we'll get the bed within the next week or 2. Since we are cosleeping, we are putting a double mattress on the floor of EBP's room instead of using a crib (we had a crib with O and only used it once!). I still need to make the mobile for her room and decide on the wall decorations and make them. Elliott has to put together and paint a shelf that I bought from IKEA. We don't have a place to change diapers, so I hope that EC goes really well :) I'll post pics of her room once it's finally finished...hopefully within the next 2 weeks!

On the Go Dollhouse

Here's the rest of O's handmade Birthday gift! The on-the-go dollhouse is made from foam core board that Elliott painted with magnetic paint. I then painted the rooms different colors using leftover paint from our house. I wanted the walls to be magnetic because I took pictures of various art and pictures that are on our walls and printed them on magnetic paper for O to have to decorate her house. I bought the kitchen furniture when it was on clearance at Pottery Barn Kids. I'm not sure if I'll buy furniture for the other rooms, or if I'll make it...I'd really rather buy it :) The idea and directions for making the foam core board dollhouse came from here. O LOVES her dollhouse, and the magnetic walls have worked wonderfully. I also gave her magnetic decorations by Mary Englebriet for her house, and she has had a great time decorating the rooms. Everything fits nicely in her decoupaged suitcase.

O's Easel

We gave O this great easel from IKEA for her birthday, and she is SO excited. She said this area of the room is her "art station." She painted and painted and colored and put stickers on the paper for hours :) I bought several cups from IKEA to hang on the easel for extra storage, and she arranged them all just how she liked them. I was excited about the no spill paint cups that I bought from Amazon because we can just leave the paint at the easel so that it is always accessible. (I hope this isn't a mistake!). We also gave her an art tote from Let's Explore with several goodies in it...crayon rocks, window crayons, etc. She's very impressed with the window crayons and intrigued by the crayon rocks. While she was working at her easel, she said she was "arting." She also said "I am SO tired, but I just can't stop doing art. The art won't let me!" Interesting...

A Taggie Giraffe Softie Tutorial

My mom and I made taggie giraffe softies for Little Kicker and a couple of our friends' babies about a month ago, and I'm finally blogging about it :) They were so easy to make that I decided to do a tutorial.

1) I drew a pattern on newspaper and cut it out. I then pinned the pattern to the wrong side of a piece of fabric and traced around it with disappearing ink. Then I cut the giraffe pattern out of the fabric.


2) I pinned the fabric giraffe to the wrong side of a coordinating piece of fabric, traced around it, and cut the giraffe from the other fabric.


3) I pinned the 2 fabric giraffes to each other- right side to right side with the ribbons pinned in between them.


4) Here's a better picture to show the ribbons pinned between the 2 pieces of fabric.


5) I handed the giraffe over to my mom, and she sewed all around it leaving a small hole for turning. She sewed over the ribbons 3 or 4 times to make sure they were securely sewn.

6) We turned and stuffed the giraffes, and my mom sewed the small hole closed.

7) Ta-da!


O was a little disturbed that the giraffes have only 2 legs :)

We Came Home To...

a treeful of peaches!!! We were so excited when we saw all of the ripe peaches when we drove into our yard. We had fun picking them, and then we went to check our earthboxes on the deck. We had about 15 tomatoes, around 20 grape tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, 1 zuchini, and 1 rotten bell pepper. We also came home to a broken hot water heater and a house that is a disaster :( I really hate unpacking!

Matching Continents

I was excited when O chose to match the continents from her puzzle to the control map today. She really enjoyed it, and we sang the continents song while she worked. You may notice that she is wearing babylegs on her arms and legs in the picture. She was a ballerina and she was adamant that "I KNOW ballerinas wear them on their arms AND legs." She also mentioned that she was cold. Surely she was teasing since I'm pretty sure the temp was in the 90s today!

I'm going through my posts and finding a few saved in draft that I never posted...this post is at least one month old :)

I don't want to go home!

We've had such a great week on vacation, and I really don't want to go home! We have been vacationing at the lake in a free condo that one of Elliott's friends let us use. At first it seemed a little strange for us to go on vacation to the lake since we live on this same lake (on the other side in a smaller lake), but it really has been wonderful. We are only 30 minutes from home and 30 minutes from my hometown, so it was convenient for our family and friends to visit us.
We've enjoyed exploring little beaches along the lake. Elliott and O explored while Little Kicker and I relaxed in the boat :) We also had several picnics on the beaches which was lots of fun.

We watched Elliott jump off cliffs and swing from rope swings. O was very impressed and said she wanted to jump with dada. Ummm, no!

We took several walks on an abandoned bridge that is just for pedestrians now. O loved racing on the bridge with dada. We also took a walk with her in her wagon one morning, and that was lots of fun :)

O and my niece, M, had fun excavating treasures from the ice. I brought a Mickey Mouse cake pan and filled it with Cinderella figurines and water that we then froze. The girls had a great time, and this kept them busy for quite a while. We refroze everything, and they had fun with it again a few days later. This activity is quite a hit!

O had fun trying out her new rod and reel that her Grandpa gave her for her birthday.

We grew another growing animal...an alligator this time. I thought an alligator would be appropriate since we are vacationing in an area where there are alligators. Although, we were surprised that we didn't see any. O has gotten much better at driving the boat...at idle speed. I am amazed by how well she knows her left and right (better than me!), and she confidently follows directions and drives very well with Elliott sitting across from her instead of right beside her.

Fun with Household Items

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O had a great time playing with this extra storage container turnstile at Guh-guh and Grandpa's house last week! She put the 7 dwarves and princesses in it and said it was a carousel. It's fun to watch a child's imagination at work!

3 Years Old!!!

My baby girl turned 3 years old today! I can't believe how quickly the last 3 years have passed, but I can't really remember life before O :) She's the joy of my life and I treasure every moment I spend with her. I'm so glad that I started this blog and our private family blog to record all of our special moments together. It's such a treasure to look back and show her all of the things we've done and the fun we've had.
O was very excited about her #3 shirt that I made using a freezer paper stencil. We had a very busy, fun, and wonderful day today. Our day started with breakfast in bed for the birthday girls (my mom and O share a birthday). They had cinnamon rolls (O's favorite), watermelon, cantalope, blueberries, and organic milk. After breakfast we took the boat across the lake to a small waterpark where we played for about 3 hours. O said she had FUN! She was very brave and swam by herself with her froggie vest on (usually she won't let us let go of her). After playing in the water for about 3 hours, we went out for a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant where O had her first taste of flan. She loved it, of course :) We decided to watch a movie since we were having an afternoon thunderstorm, and we enjoyed watching Shark Tales. We ended our day of fun by having Guh-guh's favorite cake...angelfood cake topped with whipped cream and blueberries. What a wonderful day for our 2 birthday girls!

A Recycled Ring

The idea for using a milk top to make a ring came from another blog, but I can't remember where :) Sorry about that!
O decorated the ring top with puffy fabric paint.

She added a flower to the top, and she was done!

O also cut and painted straws to string for a necklace, but we never actually finished that project. So many projects, so little time...

Big Sister/Baby Sister Shirts

My applique obsession continues! I told O that I was going to make a "big sister" shirt for her, and she said "and you need to make a baby sister shirt for my sister." I thought that was a SUPER idea, and it was so sweet of her to think of her sister :) It was a bit tedious to cut out the letters, but I like how they turned out. There are so many edges that I think it is likely that they will fray. However, I plan to wash them (inside out) on delicate and hang them to dry. Also, I may iron over the letters again after each wash in the hopes that they will last longer.

O's 3rd Birthday Party

O's 3rd birthday party was on Saturday, and we had a GREAT time!

We had a bubble table that was quite a hit!


On Friday night, O told me to make sure to write "Happy Birthday" on her giant chalkboard.


The kids each filled a bag with treats of their choice. O asked if she could fill a treat bag, too, because she really wanted glitter glue and a fruit strip.


I don't normally buy individually wrapped snacks, but I made an exception for O's party :)


My sister put a towel under the sweet pea teepee for the kiddos. O sat under the teepee with her friends to open her gifts.


The highlight of the party was this incredible inflatable water slide that O's Grandaddy Harry bought for her! She's still a little intimidated by the large slides, but she likes the smaller, tunnel slide, and the bigger kids had a blast! (Elliott was deflating the slide when I took the picture).


It was a wonderful party, and we are so thankful for everyone for helping us prepare and for attending :) After the party, we rested and cooled off before taking the boat out in the lake for a while. Then we packed up and left for vacation. I don't recommend leaving for vacation on the same day as a party...it's quite stressful, and I forgot to pack SO many things! Blog posts may be scarce this week since we are busy relaxing, and the internet connection is spotty.

It's Potty Time!

Well, not yet, but we're getting ready! We're planning to start EC (in conjunction with cloth diapers) shortly after Little Kicker is born, so I was excited to buy these potties from IKEA. We'll keep one upstairs, one downstairs, one in the car, and one at Guh-guh and Grandpa's house. O is so excited about the potties. Her baby dolls have been using them, and she thought it was hilarious when she sat on one of them :)

After reading the comments, I realized I might need to clarify...the potties are for the new baby. Click on the EC link to read more about EC...it's very intriguing :) We used EC with O starting at about 10 months, and she's been potty trained since she was around 17 months old (although she still usually wears a diaper at night...her choice).