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Saturday, May 28, 2011

Visiting

Nate's little sister graduated from high school on Wednesday so we decided to come see her and spend the rest of the week/weekend in Idaho. It's been 6 months since we have been able to come see his family so we've been driving all over the place the last few days to visit family and friends. It's been fun, but my kids are definitely getting sick of the van lol. I'm getting a nice little workout lugging the babies around in their seats though, no need for the best creatine supplements. The babies and Nathan have gotten their naps all messed up too, so they've been kind of fussy. But now we've visited most of the people we wanted to see so we can relax for a few days before we head home Monday. Now I better go change a stinky bum and help Hubby with tired babies.

Not ready

So I'm running a 5k in 2 weeks and am not at all ready. With the yucky Utah Spring weather and then getting sick, I hardly ever get a chance to go running. The race I'm running took me 37 minutes the last time I did it 2 years ago (there is a huge hill to go up) and my goal this time was to do it in 35 minutes or less, but I really do not think I will be able to. I wish I could just take a workout supplement, but then I read stuff like nitrix reviews and realize that good old exercise is better for me lol. It would be much easier if I had a treadmill to run on at home. I'm going to have to really get my butt moving these next 2 weeks now that I'm feeling better.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

More projects

These are a few of my recent projects. I made them for my cutie nephew for his second birthday. The first is a Superman cape with his initial. My boys love capes so I hope he enjoys it.

The other gift is a mini car roll. It was fun and easy and he really liked it. It's the perfect size to keep in the diaper bag for trips and church.


My boys have all requested car rolls lol. And I plan to make some, as soon as I get some time. This last week has been hard with a nice little cold passing through the family. The babies have been all stuffy and fussy, and sleeping worse than normal. So I don't have a lot of free time during the day and not a lot of time after Hubby gets home since then we need to work on housework and yardwork and stuff. We finally got the garden planted and Hubby gets to mow the lawn regularly (he loves yard work. If we had a bigger yard a great gift would be one of those riding toro mowers). So hobby stuff has been pushed aside for a bit. Hopefully now that the boys are out of school, and once everyone is well again, I can get those made.

Graduate


Jakey graduated from preschool today. It was really cute. They sang some songs and then got their little certificate and they all were given a Build-a-Bear. Jakey is so excited to be starting Kindergarten in a few months. He is such a small kid it's hard to think of him actually going to real school soon. I'm glad they love school so far though. It would be nice if they always loved it, but I'm guessing they'll start to get tired of it like most kids do at some point. I don't know when I started hating school but I know I definitely do not like it now. I recently registered for my classes for next semester and am not really looking forward to it. At least I didn't decide to go to medical assistant school or legal school or something. Don't think my tired mommy brain could handle stuff like that. I'm just hoping to do well in my classes so that I don't have to retake any and take longer.

Screen time

We have really been enjoying Netflix. We don't go to movies at the theater very often so we always have to wait for them to come out on DVD to watch them, and with Netflix we can get to see all those movies we've been waiting for. Right now we are watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1. So we get to see all these newer movies that we've been waiting for and decide if it's something we'd like to own. Plus the boys love finding stuff to watch using our Wii. They've discovered Sesame Street and Nathan loves it. I was hoping they had Mr. Rogers Neighborhood on there but they don't. I started watching Lost, but stopped in the middle of Season 4 cuz I just don't have a lot of time for TV. I need to finish watching before I forget everything. And now back to Harry Potter. :)

Soccer


I can't remember if I posted a picture of my little soccer players? Don't they look ready to go run around scoring goals? Unfortunately most of the games are spent with us yelling for them to look at the ball, run after the ball, kick the ball, pay attention, etc. They don't really seem to care about actually playing. Jakey especially. He just wanders around or sits on the field or comes and sits with us. Hubby gets so frustrated with him not even trying, he'd end up with stress acne and need accutane if soccer went on much longer, but luckily they only have one game left. Hopefully when they are older they will want to play more. Or they could just take after me and have no sports skills whatsoever lol.

Jason's First Field Trip



Jason had his very first school field trip last week. They went to the zoo. Hubby took the day off so he could go with them, since I can't with all the other little kids. He was excited to get to ride the school bus and even though it was a cold day they had a good time. I think the last time I went to the zoo was when I was pregnant with Nathan. I remember it was quite the workout, no need for usp labs pink magic weightloss, pushing a stroller while pg around a zoo for hours is tiring. So I was kind of happy not to go and push a double stroller around in the cold, but I should plan to take the kids their sometime this summer.

Be Jealous


Yep, these adorable cuties are all mine! Seriously, could they be any cuter?! Isaac has recently started grabbing Caleb's hand whenever they are laying by each other and it's just so sweet. He always looks happy when he finds that hand to hold as well. Caleb doesn't seem to care either way lol, but Isaac loves holding hands. I wish we still had a photo printer so I could print out pictures like this to put around the house. I can't even do full color printing on our printer cuz we only have black ink lol. That reminds me, I need to update the SD card for our digital picture frame, hasn't been done since Nathan was a baby.

Catching up

I really need to get caught up on some pictures. Time is going way too fast and I just always forget to put up the new pictures. Can you believe the babies are already 4 months old?! How did that happen?!?! And Jakey had preschool graduation today and Jason is almost done with Kindergarten. Before I know it they are all going to be moving out and starting their own lives lol. I keep waiting for time to slow down so I can catch up on life, but it just gets faster. That's why I like Facebook, I can post a quick note, see what everyone is up to, and share pics directly from my phone. But the blog is nice because I can write more and look back at it easier.

Alright, just finished uploading the latest camera pics so let's see what we have!

Friday, May 13, 2011

To file or not to file

The other day we had to go through a bunch of EOBs and hospital bills from when we had the twins to see why we were being billed for something that should have already been paid and I was surprised at how many thre were! Seriously, having 2 babies makes lots of bills lol. And I never know whether it's ok to throw out stuff like that or not. I know my insurance has our claims online so those would be ok to throw out I guess, but how long should you keep hospital and doctor bills that are already taken care of? I wish I had one of those document management system things that has a scanner that copies important papers and saves them to your computer so you can shred them and get rid of all the clutter. We do have a scanner but it is soooo slow. Typically my filing goes like this: sort mail, put important stuff on counter, when the pile is overwhelming sort again and put stuff to keep in mail holder on desk, when that gets too full sort again and take the remaining stuff down to the office where it sits until the pile gets overwhelming and Hubby shreds or files stuff. Not very efficient.

So my brain is really tired and it's taken me a while to post this and I completely forgot if I was actually going anywhere with this post so I'm going to end it before it gets incoherent lol. Need sleep!

The Bi-yearly Clothing Switch

Now that the weather has warmed up I guess it's time to start switching out the boys' winter clothes for summer stuff. It's a good thing I sorted out some of the clothes a few months ago into bins, but I never got to the bigger sizes so I will have to do that while I'm switching stuff around. It would be nice if everything had a barcode and I could just take a barcode scanner to it that uploads all the info on how many shirts, pants, shorts, etc I have in each size. I'm pretty sure they have plenty of shorts since they wear through the knees on pants so fast and I just turn them into shorts. And I think Jakey and Nathan will have enough shirts, I just never know if Jason will since we don't have a lot of hand-downs for him lol. I also need to finish moving the 3T stuff from Jakey to Nathan and getting out the rest of the 4T for Jakey (yes, he is almost 5 and still in 4T, my kids are small lol). But not today, I'm tired. :)

Almost vacation time!

I'm so so excited that the weather is getting nice finally! I've been able to go running more and let the boys play outside. Next month is our vacation to Bear Lake which I am really looking forward to. It would be nice to get to go camping or something more often, but honestly with twin infants camping does not sound very fun lol. Maybe if we had a motor home. Of course then we'd need to pay for one plus the stuff needed for it and motor home repairs and all that. And we have camping stuff already which is cheaper lol. Probably won't do any really camping for a long time. I think the last time we actually went camping was 4 years ago when we lived up in Idaho. Since then it's just been our yearly stay at the condo in Bear Lake, which is just so much nicer haha.

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Swaddler Tutorial

I've never done a tutorial and the pictures I have are not very good. The next time I make one of these I will try to get better pictures. And hopefully I can explain how to do this without too much confusion.

I'm going to show you how I took this ugly old gigantic maternity shirt:
And made a swaddler:

I used my Miracle Blanket as a template, and then made a few changes. You can use a large shirt for this or probably about a yard of fabric. The length is 62" so if you want to make it without a seam across the length you will need a longer piece of fabric. First I will show you how I did it, then I will give you a pattern at the end for it. Here are the basic measurements.

First I cut along one side seam of the shirt and around the sleeve to open it up:At this point you can remove the sleeves, which will be used to make the inner arm flaps of the swaddler.

Then I laid out my swaddler and traced around it. Because I planned to use bias tape instead of hemming I didn't add any extra around the edge, but if you want to hem the edges add about 1/2" around the pattern. I wanted the pouch to be longer so when I got to the curved edge I added a few inches.You can see my shirt wasn't long enough for the whole length, so I then traced out the end flap onto the shirt to add on.

For the pouch I folded in the extra material on top of it so I could trace around the pouch, again adding the extra length. After cutting I put this piece on top of the main body and made sure the length matched up (which I was surprised it was pretty close since I free-handed it lol).
The last pieces were the inner arm flaps. I used the shirts sleeves and traced around the flaps, using the sleeve hem as the straight side. They came out shorter than the original flaps but still a good length. You will make 2 of these.
Cut out all pieces. (Yes, I am using little kid scissors. Sadly those are the sharpest scissors in the house. I really need some sewing shears!) You will have the long piece for the main body (including any extra length to stitch on), one pouch piece, and two arm flaps.I added bias tape around the edge of the arm flaps (the straight edge was already a finished hem, if not using a sleeve hem go ahead and just hem that side under) and along the top edge of the pouch. You can see the measurements here for the flaps and pouch. Also, my pouch narrowed towards the top, but I think it will work better if you just make it straight like the lines. Also optional is just hemming the top of the pouch under to allow it to stretch as needed, or making your own bias tape that allows for stretch. The store-bought stuff doesn't stretch and it makes it hard to get baby into the pouch.
I sewed the additional length I needed on now (yep, it's a bit wonky, I accidentally traced it on the wrong side so I had to flip it and try to get it to match up ok lol).
I then added the pouch by pinning the curved edges together to match up wrong sides together. You can go ahead and stitch along the curved edge but since I was adding bias tape around I just pinned it and stitched it together while adding the bias tape. If you are not using bias tape you will need to put the pieces together right sides together and stitch, then turn right side out. I went around (most of) the whole thing with bias tape. I ran out so I didn't get the top done, but luckily that was already the finished edge of the shirt so it's ok until I can get more so that it matches and the top isn't so much stretchier. Then I folded the raw sides of the pouch under and stitched them to the body.
Now it's time for the arm flaps. The bottom of each flap will fit just inside the pouch and the top will come almost to the top edge of the body. (my pouch was also a little wonky so the flap on one side went farther into it.) Just sew each straight edge down. I did two lines of stitching just for a little extra strength.
And you are done!

This was actually very quick and easy to put together. I had a few little mistakes and some pieces were wonky (and I love saying wonky!) but it works just fine. I'm sure my next one will come out much nicer. To wrap up baby, place baby in middle of pouch/flap area. One arm at a time, take each arm flap and tuck it over the arm and under baby's back snugly. Tuck baby's legs into the pouch. Bring short end of body piece over baby, then wrap long end around baby until all wrapped. You can also look up videos on youtube on how to do it.

And now for a pattern for those of you who want one: Swaddler
I have not used this pattern, it's just what I came up with according to the basic measurements, so anyone who tries it out let me know how it works!

*Please make sure you are using the blanket correctly. Look up how to use a Miracle Blanket on their website to insure proper swaddle. Loose blankets and other items can pose a suffocation hazard to babies. I am not liable for any injury caused by use of this item.*

Gift for a tired mommy

Mother's Day is next week. I don't really need much for it, the best gift is my adorable little boys. And I don't wear a lot of jewelry so I don't need any diamonds international jewelry. Hubby usually gets me some flowers and chocolate and a card, and that's really enough. What would be great is to sleep in lol. These days I'm running low on sleep so if Hubby could take the babies downstairs in the morning and keep the kids quiet, and maybe make breakfast in bed for me, then I would be in heaven!

Easter

Saturday the 23rd we went to an event set up by my local mom of twins group, a Multiple Birth Awareness Stroller Walk, with breakfast and an egg hunt. It was really fun and we had a great time. The weather was even nice enough not to dump the forecasted rain on us.

As we walked around the park:
The boys with their egg hunt spoils:
That night we dyed eggs:
And hid them in the front yard for the boys and their little cousin:
Easter morning they got to search the house for their Easter baskets:
We had a really nice Easter, even though it felt like we were on the go the whole weekend and Nathan got sick.

Interrupted

We rarely actually watch real TV now that we have Netflix. In fact I hardly watch even the Netflix myself, it's usually something for the kids. But if we want to watch something like the latest episode of The Office (so going to miss Michael Scott! Bye Steve Carell!) then we have to switch it over to the broadcast TV. I'm always surprised when we start watching because I'm not used to seeing commercials anymore. Yummy fast food commercials (why do they always run those late at night to make me hungry?!), lawyers, car dealerships, etc. It was interesting to see what new commercials have come out since I stopped watching TV as much lol.

Biz

I used to think it would be cool to own our own business, or even a franchise of a chain business. But I have a friend whose family owns a business and as a part-owner she is responsible for a lot of work. She has to spend a lot of hours at work, plus a busy church calling, then all the activities for her kids. She's a supermom for sure being able to juggle all that! So I decided that I'd rather not have us own a business and be responsible for how much work it take to run one, at least not while we have small children.

Be a quitter

Some ladies from one of the messageboards I read were talking about those electronic cigarettes to help quit smoking. I'd seen commercials for those and wondered exactly how they work, but never looked into it (since of course I don't smoke lol). They posted a link to electronic cigarette wholesale sites so I finally checked it out to see how it works. Basically it looks like a real cigarette but there's no tar and junk like a cigarette, just nicotine inserts that they can decrease over time so they lessen their addiction to it without having to try to cut the "smoking" habit cold turkey, plus since it doesn't have all the chemicals and stuff as cigarettes it's not as unhealthy for them and those around them. I think it's a pretty cool idea for those trying to quit.

Sew cute

Here's a few more crafty things I have recently made. The first is a cute little purse I made for my little sister for her birthday.It turned out really well and was easier than it looks, even with adding piping. I want to make a bigger one for myself now.

And then I used our Miracle Blanket swaddler to make a similar blanket. It was super easy to make, though I ran out of bias tape so I need to get more for the top edge.I made it longer than the original Miracle Blanket, and the arm flaps a little shorter. I actually used an ugly old maternity shirt for the material. My mother-in-law brought me some material this weekend and I think I will make another from some of that.

Taxed

I'm always relieved at tax time that we don't have more difficult taxes to prepare, and am so thankful for computer software to fill it all out. I looked at our tax form to see how many papers would have been included for a full paper return and it was over 100! There's all those forms for self-employment income (from my childcare last year and stuff), student info, info about the kids, etc. And the more things you have like social security disability income, family members in the military, business expenses, etc all add a bunch more to the tax papers. It's a huge relief not to have to print out all those papers and mail them in. And I'm sure whoever at the IRS processes the returns is glad they don't have as many paper returns to comb through. Hurray for software!

Teeth

Jason is getting close to losing his 4th tooth. He's going to have such a silly little smile when that one falls out lol. It's fun getting to play tooth fairy with him. I had wanted to buy gold coins, the dollar ones, for him so it would seem extra special, but after the first one he asked the tooth fairy for "a cash", aka paper money lol. Silly boy. I remember when I was a kid I was lucky if I even got a quarter! Half the time I literally lost the tooth and never got anything from the tooth fairy for it. Now I just have to figure out what to do with Jason's teeth after they are out. Do I keep them? Seems kind of gross. But I have a hard time just throwing them away. What do other people do??

Dark eyes

The other day I was at my mom's house and both my mom and brother asked me if I had a black eye. Luckily I do not lol. I just have dark circles under my eyes from needing sleep, plus I wash wearing eyeshadow that day which really irritates my eyes so I kept rubbing it, adding to the black eye look. I no longer need to figure out how to remove pimples, but I do need some new concealer to get rid of these under-eye circles so people don't think I got beat up lol.