dinosaur blanket

I made a blanket and pillow case for Wyatt's birthday.

pillow case

Quick post, I made Jackson this Thomas the Train pillow case a few days ago. He loves it. Thanks Aunt Dorian for sharing the tutorial with me!

Still on my To Do list is to add more birthday pictures to the blog.

belt

Jackson's pants always fall down. The pants that do fit his waist make him look like he's waiting for a huge flood, so those don't work. I saw an idea to make a belt with snaps and I still have a ton of snaps (from making diapers). On Etsy, they have these belts with super cute elastic, but I don't have any cute elastic, so white will do. It works pretty good too!

A sewing caddy

I saw this sewing caddy and thought it would be perfect for my sewing machine! It went pretty quick, the worst part was ironing on the interfacing. I also made the detachable pin cushion (after I took this picture). I used some old fabric I've had for a few years, I don't think it's super cute, but it's very functional. Now I need to do some more sewing to use it!

colors, more rolls, and pretend

We've been working on colors lately. Here he is saying "blue."

Then I asked him where yellow was.

I made this roll for my mother-in-law, Marti.

It ended up being long, 45 spaces for pencils and then two bigger pockets for an eraser or whatever.

I also made another one for myself. It's for my sewing things. I planned it all out, choosing what I use the most. I don't have a sewing prep area, so I have to bring out my stuff and cutting mat to the living room. So it's really nice and quick to grab it and my mat.

I added snaps to the sides to keep everything in when I roll it up.

Jackson likes to pretend to sleep. I think it's pretty cute, especially since this was his idea.

a knitting roll!

I decided to make one for myself! My Grandma gave me a bunch of knitting needles (thank you Grandma!) and it's hard to find the match and size I want, so I made a knitting roll! I looked at several tutorials online and sort of just did it how I wanted (so no link, because I didn't really use one). I think it turned out great. And again, I used supplies on hand. And as much as I wanted to buy new fabric, I need to use the fabric I have first (makes it a little easier when I really like this fabric too).

Helper & Crayon Roll

Jackson is such a great helper. He loves helping with whatever we are doing. He's getting good at helping put away clean dishes and helping put clothes into the washer or dryer. He'll say "Jackson helper?" when he wants to help.

When I went to take pictures of this new crayon roll, he wanted to help too. I told him to lay down and he did and he added a "cheese" for the picture.

Jackson got a 16 crayon roll from Aunt Courtney for Christmas, it's super cute. I decided to make an 8 crayon roll for my purse for whenever. I found this tutorial online for the crayon roll at The Pleated Poppy. I started and finished it this morning, it went quick. It was very easy too and I love it when I have all the supplies already needed for a project.

Jackson wanted to help again.

With Daddy, granola & a 'recycled' soaker and longies

These are a couple pics from the other day.

I made some granola! I've been wanting some for my yogurt and strawberries, but didn't want to buy some because I think it's expensive. So I finally made some and it's really good! So glad I did it, plus it was pretty easy.

Here is what I made from an old wool sweater of mine. This was my first attempt at recycling a sweater and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I can't believe I didn't try it sooner. I also made another pair of longies (pants) and some shorties (shorts) with an old gray sweater too.

Quilting and Playing

I've been wanting to make a quilt for awhile now. I see all these neat quilts online (I like her style here), but I'm overwhelmed with the idea of doing one too. I saw at Joanns, they have a couple quilt kits that has all the fabric and step-by-step instructions for making a quilt. I finally got one with a coupon the other week and started on it a couple days ago. It's super quick and easy to do. The instructions were great. However the instructions have you make it without batting. I thought about adding some, but figure since summer is coming it will be fine to have a lighter weight blanket. I still did some quilting after this picture, so this isn't the final product but pretty close. It was fun to do. I learned some things and think I'm ready to try one on my own now.

Jackson has always loved to play and climb under the chairs. He climbs over the rods and all around under them. It's like his own climbing gym.

dressed up

This is from two weeks ago. I saw it again and forgot to post it.

This is a gift I made for a friend that just had a baby girl. I love this fabric, if I had a girl I'd make a ton of diapers out of it. There are two bibs (one small, one larger), burp cloth and a tag blanket.

sewing

Here's what I've been up to lately. I'm doing 10 right now. I use the fitteds that I have sewn more than the prefolds right now, so I needed more!

sewing diapers

I've been sewing some more diapers for Jackson lately. He's just about out grown some other smalls that he has, so he will be in need of more soon.

And here he is wearing the new one!

No eggs yet, still waiting. Hoping to have some soon. This is one of the hens, we call her Blackbeard.

More sewing

I sewed some more diapers. Joann's got some patterned knit fabric in and I had to buy some! These have some minor sewing flaws, but oh well, they will still work. The camo one on the left is a size small using the Mama bird pattern and the cute doggie print is a newborn with umbilical scoop from the Nappy Network site.

Food

Wyatt got some food on his head while eating lunch today.

And notice the cute jungle bib with pocket that I sewed!

Homestudy was yesterday!

We had our homestudy visit yesterday! I'm so glad it's over. The caseworker was super nice. She said it should take her about 2 weeks to write it up. I hope it's done before the baby comes, just to have that checked off and make things go smoother.

She was here for about 2 hours 15 mins. Asked us a bunch of questions about family, marriage, life, discipline beliefs, faith, etc. She was easy to talk to though, so it went smooth. She then took a quick tour of our home and did a home safety checklist. Asked where a fire extinguisher was, asked about smoke detectors and then told us a new requirement is that we need a fire escape plan. I should have known. I knew fostering/adopting through the state would require one, so I should have just had one already made up just in case. So I asked her if it would be ok to just draw one up real quick and she said yes. It didn't take me long since I've helped numerous kids draw their's out for fire prevention. Once I finished, she checked us all off for the safety checklist.

Today we had more snow. It's almost all gone by now, but I'm so ready for nice weather and summer to come! I'm tired of the cold!

Here is my collection of cloth diapers, covers, and accessories. My plan is to use mainly prefolds with covers and fitteds with covers for awhile. I have some all-in-one diapers to make changing easier when we are out, but at home it will mostly be just easy prefolds and fitteds.

Here is what I have been sewing lately. These are cloth wipes and newborn cotton flannel fitteds. I don't want to sew too many fitteds, because what if he doesn't fit right in them. I might need to change the pattern some. I think I'm pretty set on newborn sizes though (hopefully!). Then I made a couple smalls and mediums, but like I said, I don't want to sew too many of those quite yet. They are soo much easier than I thought it would be too. I found the patterns online for free on a couple different websites. I just started doing searches for cloth diaper patterns and there is a ton of information.

sewing, puree, kitty napping

I can finally post this picture. I sewed these for a friend and just gave them to her at her baby shower this weekend. I forgot to take a picture of the matching soft cube and little baby security blanket that I also made. They were pretty cute too. It was fun to make it all, pretty easy too. The items shown in the picture are: 4 wipes, 2 bibs, 1 changing pad, 1 onesie, 1 pacifier holder, and 2 burp cloths.

Friday I pureed two pumpkins for the first time! It was a lot easier than I thought it would be too. The two pumpkins made 19 cups of puree. I froze a bunch and kept some in the fridge to make a pie or bread with soon. I have already made some pumpkin muffins and they turned out great!

Kitty has found a new place to nap. He is on the changing table of Wyatt's pack 'n play. It's been pretty cold outside lately, so he has been staying inside more now.

Did some sewing this morning

It is pretty much a yucky rainy fall day outside today, so I did some sewing.


I made a new bib with a pocket. I have never sewn on a pocket before, but I think it turned out ok. And matching wash cloth wipes.


I love some of the camera straps that are sold on etsy.com. One time when I was browsing I saw a camera strap cover instead of a whole new strap. So I made one myself! It was pretty easy, took me two tries though to get it perfect.


And from this book by Lotta Jansdotter...


...I made this draft snake. Our bedroom gets cold in the winter even though the rest of the house will be warm. We aren't sure why, but I made this to help and next on my list is to make heavy curtains for the windows and door to help more.