Magnetic Dress-Up Dolls

O LOVES her new magnetic wooden dress-up dolls! These were a birthday gift, and they are definitely one of her most played with gifts :) She plays with these dolls everyday, and I am planning on eventually making an O doll that is the same size. So many plans, so little time... The dolls are made by Melissa and Doug. They are very sturdy and will last a long time...if we don't lose the pieces :)

Using an Abacus

I recently bought this abacus from IKEA, and O has really enjoyed counting with it. I was surprised by how her interest in counting and numbers has really spiked since adding the abacus to our shelf. I'm looking forward to working with the abacus often in "school" this year!

My Music Girl

My music girl is so happy to have her cd player easily accessible to her. She's gotten quite good at choosing her own cds and putting them in the cd player by herself. We listen to a lot of music!

Zoo Pals Masks

O and I had fun making animal masks using zoo pals paper plates this week! I never buy paper plates, but I couldn't resist buying these plates to make masks after seeing this activity on this blog a few months ago. I used scissors to make eye holes in the masks, and O glued a jumbo craft stick on the back of each mask. She enjoyed using her glue stick, but I also added a little school glue to make it a little sturdier.

Belly Cast Baby!

We had a photo shoot yesterday with Ema in her belly cast, and we were all surprised by how content she was as soon as we put her in the cast :) We also took pics of both girls in their Big Sister/Baby Sister shirts, and we had O's annual wedding dress photo shoot. Fun!

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 :)