Baby Bibs

In preparing for the baby I was looking around what I had in the house to make some bibs. I am a bit of a freak when it comes to my kids clothes as a baby. There isn't many photos of my girls without a bib on. I didn't want to buy any because its something I can make. So When I was looking for fabric for the nursing pillow I came across all the fat quarters that Grandma Maggie had shipped to me about 4 years ago from New Brunswick for Christmas. I was always complaining to her that I couldn't find Care Bear fabric locally and when she found some she bought it for me to make for my youngest. Unfortunately 3 kids back to back didn't leave me a lot of time to sew for her. So these got tucked away till now.

While the kids were being good and staying in their beds I got to cutting up some of these fabrics into big shaped. I then grabbed some flannel I had and picked the colours I had that matched and cut them out as well. I got busy and in no time at all I had a set of 5 bibs. I only choose a few fabrics from the stash, as I was only making newborn to 3 months size bibs. I will probably make more with the rest of the fabric though. I was really impressed I was able to get 3 bib cuts from each fat quarter. So over al I made 15 bibs. I will make a video of this soon on my YouTube channel.

All that's left for me to do is add some snaps or Velcro hook and loop tape. I think I will go with snaps though. I am really happy with how these turned out. I posted to my Facebook and got a good response from them. I think they are cute and perfect for either gender. Also love the fact that they are reversible. I can have them wear the fun printed side or the soft flannel side. I also like that I didn't end up spending any money for 15 bibs and just used about 2.5 hours of my time.

*suggestion, if you want to make your own but don't have fabric like me. See what you have in your linen closet. Do you have some receiving blankets not being used? some flat bed sheets not being used? Even some towels not being used? Really the possibilities are endless.

My Eldest is SEVEN!

Wow where have the years gone! My baby girl is now seven years old. I can not believe how quickly these years have gone by. She is an amazing little girl, who is into everything! She amazes me everyday and is learning so much so fast. The past few appointments I don't even feel like she needs me there anymore. You know how before your little ones want you to hold their hand or you need to tell them everything that's going on in a calm way before it happens. Well our last dentist appointment she was telling the dentists what they were doing and why they were doing it. She didn't cry or budge an inch when the did any of the work. This brought tears to my eyes. I am watching my little girl get stronger and stronger before my eyes. She didn't even need to hold my hand during the procedure.

Now that she is seven and has her own room she is very particular with what goes in her room, where it goes and everything. If I make her bed wrong she gets upset about it. I know your probably asking why am I making her bed, she is seven. Well she actually makes her own bed I just so happen to wash her bedding the one day while she was at school and re make it. She did thank me for washing her floor and empting her garbage bin though. Anyways to the point I am getting to, when we asked her what she wanted for her birthday she asked for a place to put her laundry. She hates her clothes all over the floor or in a pile. Normally we have them put it in a basket in the hallway, but we figured if this is what she wants this is what she will get. We looked EVERYWHERE for one, and with no luck. I finally found one I thought she may like, and well by this picture you can see she did.

For our kids, since they are so close in age, we generally don't do birthday parties that much. They just have so much and really don't need more, and we can not afford everything they want. So we pick a few things they can use/need and something to play with as gifts for them. I know this may sound silly but as they have gotten older our birthday budget has gone up. For their birthdays after 5 we said $100 would be the budget, unless they wanted a big party with their friends then that would be their gift. We don't see the point in over doing it as we want the kids to be thankful for what they have and use what they have. How do you feel about this?

Here are some pictures of our fun evening!



Update on How I am getting Organized

So earlier this year I told you about my new method of getting organize. I have been at it a month now and have to admit I am still loving it. I find myself at random times checking it and it is helping me so much. I have such a forgetful memory that I always forget what I have and haven't done, what I need to do first and what can wait. I love this little task check list on my phone. I even added in when I need to pay bills and have it remind me every month. I have started to add in things I want for around the house or need to do for the house that are just one time projects.

Now you might be reading this and saying, "wow that list must be getting long!"

Well your right it is getting long, but only the item bolded are what need to be done. Everything else can wait, and even if I miss a deadline, it isn't constantly reminding me. It will just stay on the task check list till I check it off. I wish I had of started doing this years ago, I haven't felt so relaxed and calm about everything I need to do. I always set my goals high, which is hard to achieve with 3 kids in the house, but am finding this helping me complete it and stay on task.

Car Seat Canopy Cover

So when my girls were babies we used to drape a blanket over the car seat. It would always fall down or slid of and we were constantly arranging it. Honestly when it got warmer out we just never covered the car seat anymore.

So with this baby due in April I thought I should get bus making a car seat canopy cover. I thought of just grabbing a blanket I already had and adding the straps, but wanted to go one step further. But if you are not a sewer and want this, that is an alternate routine to go. You can take scrap piece and hand sew it on and use snaps or sticky Velcro. It is really very simple.

Well last night I got busy and made this one with the help of this tutorial. It is a very easy tutorial to follow and easy to alter. I quickly went into my fabric stash and pulled out some more Dr. Suess fabric I had. I wanted to line it with black but then re thought that it would make it to dark and attack the sun more in the summer. So I went with white flannel. I was a little disappointed to find I didn't have enough to make one cut of the white, so I got creative and pieced together the white till it matched the dimensions I wanted. (this is something you can do very easily with scraps even to give a quilted look)

Now if your not like me and want to make this, take a look at some flat sheets you aren't using in your linen closet and some receiving blankets you may have. This project really has no limits and was simple and fun to make.

So there you have my new car seat canopy cover. I am debating adding a peep hole in the front. I choose to do a black bottom as yellow well look dirty fast and if it hits the ground I didn't want it showing so much.

This cover cost me nothing to make but a couple hours of my time.

So baby stuff!

So I thought since I have been feeling this pressure I would start a mini series about it.

As you know we are expecting baby #4 for us. As you may also remember we were not planning on any more children and are very unprepared for this. We live on a tight monthly budget, as I am sure a lot of people do, so having another baby and needing all the baby stuff again has been very overwhelming.

Well if you are like us and don't have a lot of money and need to prepare for baby. There are so many ways to do this. First write out the list of everything you need and want. Be realistic here though, brands, colour and style doesn't matter when it comes down to it. What I mean really is don't get to set on one thing cause it might not happen. Once you have your list ready. Then just slowly keep eyes out online on used sites, if you know a friend getting rid of stuff see if they want to sell or even give to you. Don't think you need everything at once. You have 9 months to prepare for this.

Now when it comes to some things that you do want to be particular on, give yourself a budget of what you think you can afford towards it and slowly every week put money aside for it. For example for us hubby only wants a new bathtub, and I only want a certain kind of glass baby bottles. The bath tub is not that expensive, so I will just keep eye out for when a store has on sale, as I will with the bottles. The bottles I want are $15 a bottle and I'd like to start with at least 5. I have been putting aside $5 a week towards these bottles, and then when a sale comes up I have the money aside for them, so it will not feel like a financial hit on my budget.

Another thing is to look at is if you a re crafty see what you can make with what you have to save even more money. This little series will also have me showing you some items I have made for baby.

I hope you enjoy this series and follow along as I share.

How I am going to get organized

So last year I tried this daily sheet, I would prep the sheet the night before of what I was going to do the next day and what needed to be done. I laminated it so I could easily do the wipe off method. This worked for, oh lets say a few weeks. I found when I would think of things I need to do the sheet wasn't around and then when I did have the sheet I couldn't remember what it is I wanted to do. Mommy brain!

Well this year I am going to try something new. Because I need to get organized and get things done in the house. We finally got the rooms done for the girls, I will share later. So I want to keep things tidy and organized. But simple daily chores I sometimes forget. I don't know how but I get side tracked with this or that and it doesn't end up getting done.

So while cleaning up my phone of photos and videos from 2013 I noticed the task app. I played around with it for a bit and then it hit me. Why not use this as my daily/weekly/monthly check list. So I got busy adding in my daily chores and have it set to repeat, then I added my weekly, monthly. I even added some projects I want to get done. As I think of things I just keep adding to the list. Yes, the list looks big now, and to some maybe discouraging. But hey, I don't need to do everything on the list at once.

So now its been a week of trying this method out. I didn't do so well first few days and am still working on it. But a new thing I love about it is even if the deadline has past it stays there. So for example I have put load of laundry in for everyday. I was away for a few days where I couldn't. When I got home I started laundry and checked off completed for one load. My phone tells me this deadline has past, I say okay, then it appears on my list again. Which means if I have time, do another load that day. Which I do! This way the who thought of load a day I will keep up is still in play, sort of. I mean normally I would forget I was away and didn't do laundry those days and still just do one a day and then I look at my laundry room and am wondering how I feel behind.

Needless to say, I am loving this method so far. I don't feel overwhelmed that I need to sit down at night and write out a new list. I don't feel bad and discourage when I didn't complete everything I had written on the page that day. To me I am feeling less pressure therefor I feel I am getting more done. With the new baby coming I am sure this will change a bit but if I can get a head of things now I think it will make things all that much better then.

What do you do to stay organize?

Getting fit and motivate, how do you?

So with this new year coming. I went back and organized all videos and photos of 2013. I was really working hard on taking out bad foods and drinks from my diet and slowly getting myself to lose weight. Well come July I was getting frustrated that all my new clothes were getting to tight, didn't make sense to me. Then I found out late August we were pregnant. So my whole workout plan was thrown away. I looked into aqua fit and other light things, but nothing worked with our schedules.
While being pregnant I actually haven't gained any weight since 3 months. Mind you I have been sick and not eating a lot if anything, which is incredibly bad I know. But when I eat I try to avoid fatty foods and stick with water or milk for drinks. This also being anything else makes me sick. I hope to do some light work outs each week and when the baby comes get back into getting fit and healthy. This is a BIG challenge for me as I love certain foods and drinks. I think this is a challenge for all though.
What do you do to stay healthy and get fit? I don't want to go on a strict diet or do anything to dramatically because lets face it, 4 kids and one being a baby I won't have the time to prepare those healthy meals and honestly will just forget to eat like I do now as I am so busy getting the kids food ready.
For the holidays I got what I wanted, a slow cooker. I hope to use this quite often as my cooking abilities are not as great as their dads. I am the baker of the house, I love to bake, but never eat the sweets, weird eh! Do you have any good cook book recipes for slow cookers? I got one for the holidays and it looks confusing but is still pretty awesome as it is very details and descriptive.

To motivate myself getting fit and healthy I made a video/slideshow of myself over 2013, I compared it to 2012 and wow did I gain a lot it feels like in 1 year. I look at this video and it so far has motivated me and hope it will motivate me more. Not only in weight and health but it beauty and joy as well. I mean some days I just don't feel like getting my hair done and make up, but I look at those photos and remember how great those days were and want more like that.