Harvesting Sunflower Seeds

Our Sunflowers have died, so it's time to get the seeds. O and I have been working on gathering the seeds from the sunflowers. This is a great fine motor activity, and it's also a great activity for increasing concentration. Unfortunately, O lost interest rather quickly :) She decided she'd rather go for a swim than pick out seeds from the sunflowers!

You Can Fix Diaper Elastic!

I was so relieved when I found out that diaper elastic can be fixed! I bought BumGenius Seconds for O when she was about 6 months old. They were seconds, but they still weren't cheap. However, I justified the cost since I knew I could use them with any future children. I was pretty upset when the elastic gave out after less than a year. Luckily, I found this tutorial, and Guh-guh got right to work! She said it was very fast and easy :) Hooray, now all of the bumgenius are as good as new :)

It looks like the pics on the tutorial aren't work. If anyone is interested, I'll get my mom to reinact fixing a diaper and write a tutorial for it. Just let me know :)

1st Photos

We're enjoying life with 2! Ema is a champion nursling, and hopefully she'll be a champion sleeper one day :) Here are a few of her 1st photos.

Thanks, Everyone!

I just discovered that the hospital has wireless, so I thought I'd update everyone about Baby E whose blog name will be Ema (not her real name). Several people commented that it was fast, and you are SO right! It was fast, scary, traumatic, terrifying, joyful...

We went in for a dr appt at 2:15 yesterday. I was SO glad that my midwife was back because we were discussing a possible c-section since they won't induce (since O was born by emergency c-section), and they would only let me go 2 weeks past my due date. I REALLY, REALLY wanted a VBAC and had the whole planned...O was going to stay in the room with us the whole time, and she and Elliott would cut the baby's cord together. This was my dream, and I was desperately hoping it would come true (especially after the trauma of being put under general anesthesia for a c-section with O after laboring to 9.5 cm naturally).

Unfortunately, my girls like to enter the world in an extremely dramatic fashion... My midwife decided to monitor Ema's heartrate for about 15 minutes before we left the office. 15 minutes turned into 1 hour when her heartrate rarely went above 120 and went to 0, 60s, and 80s on too many occasions. They did several things to try to get a response from her...I drank ice water, turned to my side, they buzzed my tummy...nothing worked. The dr. came in and said we needed to get her out now. I was terrified, and we went across the street to the hospital.

Luckily, although things were done quickly, it wasn't done as quickly as with O, and I was able to get a spinal and therefore be awake for my baby's birth. It was so terrifying that I almost wished that I was under general anesthesia! I can't describe the relief when we heard her cry for the first time, and they told us that she was perfect. So, I didn't get the birth I wanted, but I have a beautiful, healthy baby girl and that is all that matters :) O ADORES her baby sister, and she spent the day with us at the hospital today. She was quite upset that she had to go home without us, but hopefully we'll all go home together tomorrow.

She's Here!!!

Baby E is here. She weighs 7 pounds 8 ounces and is 20 inches long.

A Crinkly Taggie Square for Baby

Last week I made several crinkly taggie squares for Little Kicker and our new cousin. (maybe she's making us wait so long because she knows we're making things for her...) These fabric squares were very easy and quick to make.

1) Cut out 2 squares of coordinating fabric. I made my squares 5 x 5. Cut a piece of crinkly paper to fit the squares. I used a cereal bag.

2) Pin the cereal bag square to the wrong side of one piece of fabric.


3) Sew around the edges.

4) Pin the two fabrics right side to right side with a ribbon sandwiched between them on each side. Sew around the edges, and don't forget to leave a small opening for turning.


5) Trim the corners, turn, and topstitch. My mom did the topstitching, since I still have trouble sewing a straight line :)


I'm REALLY happy with how these turned out! The idea for this project came from a link on a friend's facebook page. Her tutorial is much better than mine :)

Not So New Pillowcases

Guh-guh loves to make pillowcases for her grandaughters, and she had a little time to make a few last week while we waited (and continue to wait!) for Little Kicker.
She made a small pilllowcase using our old Strawberry Shortcake sheets and Holly Hobbie sheets.

Here's the Holly Hobbie side.

She also made a standard size pillowcase out of each material. The Holly Hobbie sheet was previously a curtain (about 27 years ago), and we also used both sheets on O's I Spy quilt.

Homemade Silly Putty

O LOVES playing with putty, so we decided to make some of our own. It was super easy and fast to make.

To make the putty you just need 3 ingredients...white school glue, food coloring, and liquid starch. (Thanks, EB, for buying the ingredients for us!!!)

1st we mixed a 1/2 cup of white glue with a 1/2 cup of liquid starch. (We originally mixed in just 1/4 cup of starch, but added more later to make it more firm and less gooey.)



Then O added in green food coloring and stirred it with a spoon. We let it sit out to dry for several hours.



Then it was time to play! This putty is MUCH more slimy and messy than the therapy putty that O typically plays with. I'm keeping it on the kitchen counter, so that she only has it when she is closely supervised. I spread out a washed, unfolded cereal bag for a play surface so the putty would not stick to the grout and tiles on our kitchen countertops.



O LOVES this putty, and even though it is potentially very messy, I'm sure we'll be making more soon!

Sewing Bear

O and I had fun with her sewing bear this week. She has not been very interested in lacing/sewing activities lately, but this kept her attention for a little while :) The bear comes with lots of different outfits, shoes, and accessories. After you choose what she will wear, you then sew the clothes onto her. I found this at a 2nd hand store, and I hope it will continue to spark O's interest in sewing/lacing.

Hoping and Praying...

that today is baby day! Little Kicker is due today, and it's Elliott's birthday, so we're hoping today is the day. We had a false alarm last night and spent many hours at the hospital. It was reassuring to hear Little Kicker's heartbeat, and it was nice to have a dry run, so O knows what to expect. O was perfect and cuddled with me on the bed and watched Noggin until we finally left at midnight. So, I'm off to walk, maybe go out for a bumpy boat ride, and bounce on the birthing ball :)

UPDATE...Thanks for all the baby dust and labor vibes. Unfortunately, today wasn't today. Maybe tomorrow :)

Cutting is Fun!

O LOVES to cut!!! She especially loves to cut magazines, and she is obsessed with babies. This catalog with Halloween costumes for babies was perfect for her! I have a drawer for magazines under her art shelf, so that she always has magazines available for cutting :)

O's Dress-Up Area

O loves to play dress-up, but she was losing interest in it until we set up a dress-up area for her. I took her dresses out of her dress-up suitcase and hung them on accordian style hanger on the wall. We also hung a full length mirror on the bathroom door next to the dresses. She LOVES to sing and dance in front of the mirror!

O's Playdough Shelf

O had started to lose interest in playdough recently, so I revamped her playdough shelf (it's right next to her art shelf). All of the playdough tools and accessories are in the glass jar. The playdough is stored in magnetic glass containers (from IKEA) that hang on a magnetic strip (also from IKEA). She plays with playdough almost everyday, and she plays with putty multiple times per day.

Edit to add:  Homemade playdough does not store well in these containers.  There is some type of chemical reaction that occurs eating a hole in the metal of the container. 

Sifting Sand Activity

O had a great time learning to sift objects out of sand! To make this activity, I put play sand in a wooden box (the box that her Melissa and Doug Unit Blocks came in). We put shells in the sand and covered them. Then I showed O how to dig around with the sifter to find the shells, shake the sifter to remove all of the sand, and put the shells in the glass bowl next to the box. The sifter has 2 points on one end which made scooping the sand a little difficult. I think we may try a slotted spoon next time.


After she finished the activity, she REALLY enjoyed playing in the sand with funnels, scoops, and measuring cups. She was having so much fun that I couldn't convince her to go down to the beach with me to play!


Then, she and Elliott had a great time pretending that the sandbox was a desert habitat while playing with her small desert animals.

Elliott is REALLY good at pretend play with O (better than me!), and she especially loves it when he plays "baby dolls" with her!

A Lesson Learned...

Don't let your kiddo "decorate" the box from IKEA until after you open it to make sure you bought the right thing! O had a fantastic time coloring the box and then pretending like it was a stage for dancing. Then, Elliott opened the box to put together the shelf and discovered that my sister had bought the wrong thing for us...I wonder if IKEA will take it back since it is so beautifully decorated. I also wonder when in the world we are going to find the time to go ALL the way to IKEA...maybe Christmas :(