Handmade Holidays: Project 6: Mother-in-Law Scrap Lap Quilt

I had grande plans to make handmade ornaments for the grandparents this year. Tiny handprints on glass ornaments with pictures of the children inside, maybe even a fingerful of fake snow to make it a bit more festive. But alas, I did not plan my time accordingly and did not manage to make the ornaments in time to send them in the mail to Pennsylvania, Albany and Ireland. Instead, I had to come up with a quick-like-a-bunny plan to be able to at least get the Irish present out in time to perhaps make it there by Christmas. Time to get creative!

I found a beautiful vintage-looking sheet at the thrift store with a yellow rose floral design that inspired me with a handful of fabric scraps that I had been hoarding. The patches were all fabrics that, when reorganizing my craft supplies, almost organized themselves in a pile together. I was initally going to do a strip quilt, to make it as quick as possible but the pieces that I had did not quite measure up to make it feasible. So instead five inch by five inch squares with the one fabric that was long enough, making strips to break up the pattern. I wanted to make a single large blanket but again the pieces didn't seem to work, so instead I made up two patterns. A smaller sized lap blanket, about four feet long by two feet wide and a larger couch blanket that is four fee wide but five foot long. I thought I had enough batting scraps to fill in the middle but none of them were big enough either so instead I grabbed some patterened flannel that I had bought on clearance. I had thought to maybe make a couple baby blankets with it, but FYI when you have a baby, you will have too many blankets, so I voted against that plan. Then it was sitting with the rest of my flannels for pajama pants but it was an awful green, brown and ickier green stripe that I had initially thought was masculine but ended up just being ugly. Perfect substitute for batting in a lightweight but still cuddly blanket. 

All in all the cutting both blankets out and sewing together the smaller lap blanket took me half of a day. It was wonderful and quick and homemade, exactly what I like to give for presents. I can't wait for the MIL to get the package. As I was sewing it, I imagined her sitting in her brisk little garden in Ireland having a cuppa and a smoke, slightly stereotypical and true. Exactly what I would love to do when I retire. 

I used to be terrified of the idea of quilting, let alone actually doing it, but last year I made simple blankets of a cotton front and flannel back, no quilting involved, then I made a patchwork wall hanging for my grandmother, not convinced enough of my skills to make a usable quilt, and finally this year I folded and made my little Cap his Harry Potter quilt and now two more quilts, it may very well become one of my things! (Don't tell anyone but I used to think the very idea of buying yards and yards of fabric to cut up into tiny pieces and then sew back together was ridiculous...now it's the best way to use up my fabric and I love it while I am doing it)

patches all squared out

Hubby modeling the finished lap blanket

Handmade Holidays: Project 5: Tissue Holders

For some reason, I am sure that it was a good one, I had bought a 12 pack of tiny pocket tissue packs. I never use these tissues so I am pretty sure I meant to make felt tissues holders originally as well but I never got around to it. As previously mentioned, I have a serious goal of destashing and reorganizing my crafting life this holiday season, so I need to use what I have. I love working with felt, its great for crafting, for kids and its cheap with no fray! For the kids, and potentially for a couple adults, I made/am making some tissue holders. 

Here are a couple that I found on Pinterest, my not-so-secret love affair:

Boogey Monster

Teddy Bear and Kitty Kat

Bunny and Robot

Here are the two that I have finished so far: 

For my niece, a little Monster High-esque maybe with a button closure

For my nephew, I love the tongue!

My nephews present, I have to get a photo in that tiny gingerbread man!!! Don't forget! I also added a tag in case he wanted to attach it to his bookbag

Handmade Holidays: Five Months old!

While I know this may not be part of a "Handmade Holiday," I did make him and it is the holidays, so here ya go my Little Captain America: 

Dear Baby Boy,

Happy Birthday Steven! I know you actually turned 5 months last Wednesday but Momma has been super busy getting ready for the holidays. I am so happy that you came into our lives, however unexpected you were. You make me smile every morning and exhausted every night but I wouldn't change it for the world. You let us sleep for at least three hours every night before you wake up hungry, then you spend the rest of the night cuddled into my arms, keeping me warm when Daddy steals all the blankets. You used to wake up crying because you were unsure of life, now you wake up smiling and the first hour you are awake, nothing could make you angry. 

Almost every morning we wake up, you spend a little time in bed with Daddy while I take out the dogs and make coffee. Then Daddy gets ready for work while we make his lunch and we wave to him from the front window when he leaves. Then we have breakfast. You have oatmeal, strawberries, bananas, pears and/or applesauce while I have my coffee and yogurt. Then we fill the day with various chores, playing with the dogs, playing piano, practicing crawling, sewing and watching Doctor Who. You were taking a three hour nap everyday for a week but you seem to have given up on naps all together at this point. You will take two or three twenty minute sleeps, just long enough for me to use the bathroom or switch laundry, barely. 

I am astounded every day how big you have grown. Seventeen pounds already! Over twice your birth weight! You are eating tons of baby food, handmade by your loving momma, with no known allergies, high five! You like to help me sew but want to touch the needle, so you don't help too often. You might be starting to teeth since you put everything in you mouth now but I have thought that since you were 3 months old. You love eating paper and your socks. You like it when the dogs lick your feet and face and hands and legs and arms and hair. You laugh when I nibble on your baby fat neck and chubby little thighs. You prefer when Daddy changes your diaper because he made up the Diaper Song that I can never remember and when I try, it sounds lame with no rhythm at all. 

Thank you Steven, for helping me find a life that makes me the happiest, for being happy even though I have no idea what I am doing and for helping Daddy and I continue building our family together. We love you a googolplex!!!

- Momma

using our newly found arm muscles, but mostly getting angry at being on our belly!

Wearing a tux to Brother's winter concert!

the happiest baby and the best thing to wake up to every morning (sorry Hubby but it's true)

Handmade Holidays: Holiday Party #1

Hubby had a company holiday party this past Sunday so there was minimal crafting done, with all the pumping and prepping and showering that I had to do prior to leaving Steven with his grandfather. This was really the first time that I have left him alone. I have left him once before, for an hour for a drink with friends but he stayed home with his Dadda. This time, Hubby and I were both out from 6:45pm until 11:21pm. Not that I kept track of the time or anything.  

It was tons of fun, James even bought me a new outfit and I got to wear shoes that we bought two winters ago for the first time. I absolutely love the top that we bought (thank you Target), it was light and airy, glittery and just drapey enough to cover the baby belly without being frumpy. James insisted on wearing my Van Gogh- Doctor Who skirt from Hot Topic, very cute and not something that I would have bought without him, but it turned out to be really comfortable. 

The food was awesome, the people he worked with (he just transferred to another store so we have another party next week!) are awesome and fun, we danced and other then a sore on my toe the night was awesome. Halfway through, my best friend (since fifth grade) went over to the house and dressed the baby up for bed and she finally put him to sleep, after my dad tried twice! They both said that it wasn't too bad so I am hopeful for next week. On the other side of that, Steven might have been horrible and they are nicely lying to me. James' mom told me when she was over that James was four before she left him with anyone else. They left James with his grandmother and she swore that he was happy and perfect the whole time, while his aunt tattled and told his mother how he wailed the entire time they were gone. I imagine that it was somewhere in between. My friend also bought Steven two new pajama sets and she sent me a picture of him in it, which made me cry in front of a table of James' coworkers, embarrassing but I missed him!!!

very blurry because of the poor lighting, but yey us!

Terrified face on my little reindeer baby!

One of my favorite ever pictures of us

Handmade Holidays: Project 4: Soap and Candles

Another super easy project that I wanted to do this year was to make soap and candles. I do not make soap or candles completely from scratch, at least not yet, but the craft stores have easy and pretty kits that are great for beginners, or for those of us that are making them with an infant attached to the hip. I was going to try and make these with the kids, but at this point in the game, if I have the time, energy, supplies and infant cooperation, I do it. I had made soap last year to presents (and made way too many of them) so I had some left over for this year, which was good considering the 24 people that will be at dinner, plus presents for those that won't be at the meal. I also wanted to de-stash some of my crafting supplies, so I ended up using up all of my candle and soap making supplies, all I have left are some wicks which I am going to hold onto and maybe make crayon candles with the kids this winter. 

I started with herbal soaps, making oatmeal, patchouli and lavender bars for a grown up option. I still had more soap left, as well as coloring and scents that came in the kits that I had bought last year. I made super-saturated colored ones for the teens on my list, in my heart shaped silicone mold. I most definitely recommend using silicone molds for soap and candle making, they say that you can use metal pans but, in my experience, the ease of the silicone molds is incomparable. I let the soaps sit for maybe an hour, in the fridge, and they were completely set and ready for wrapping up. I just wrapped them in cling-wrap, since that is what I had in the house and we never use it for food (I couldn't even figure out why we had bought it in the first place, although I may make sugar cookies later this month and I may use it then). 

my messy workspace, aka my kitchen counter

After making all the soap, which really consists of just melting the soap in the microwave, adding color, scent and pouring it into the mold, I started on the candles. This I had never done before so it was a little bit of trial and error but I think that they turned out nicely.  I didn't use the molds for these because they were all filled with soap, instead I reused jars and glasses from spent candles. I bought white wax, no coloring and no scents. For the first bunch, I coloured them with three green crayons and scented them with the leftover bits of pine scented candles, they smell slightly but not as over-powering as the originals, which I actually ended up liking. I had enough of that to make five of the green and still have a fair amount of wax left. I crushed up dried lavendar and grabbed two purple crayons to color the wax, hoping that they purple overpowered the green, which it did. The second batch made a large candle, a tiny jar candle and three tiny jarred candles from the scents I had used in the soap. I don't know how well any of these will burn, but they look really pretty and I will probably test them out soon. I managed to do this entire project with Steven in his bouncy seat or on my hip, so it wasn't difficult at all and I really enjoyed it. The smells were amazing!

I used chopsticks to keep the wicks centered and upright

My five pine tree scented candles sitting while the lavender wax melted on the stove

this was the final result. 50 soaps and 10 candles (notice the adorable R2D2 soaps? I have a huge Star Wars fan on my list)

My little Holiday Helper! Thanks Granmichelle for the owl pillow!!

Handmade Holidays: Project 3: Birdseed Ornaments

I have been looking for a couple of presents that I can include the kids on so I have been stalking Pinterest (again!) for a couple ideas. I found one, here , but of course I decided that this was the exact project that I wanted to do and then realized that I did not have all the ingredients. So we had to improvise a little and they did not come out as beautiful as the ones in the pictures. But the kids had fun making them, although next time I will use two separate bowls and separate molds so they each can have their own space, sharing became a little bit of a problem. Maybe even invited their cousins over and make a little buffet of different kinds of seeds and mixtures that they can add. We could also collect seeds throughout next summer and fall, throw them in the freezer and use them as well.  

We ended up using raspberry gelatin which turned it red and I have since found a few other recipes that may be a little easier to use. Overall it was fun, it took about forty minutes to make but we let them dry for a whole 24 hours. We may end up making more after the holidays since we have tons of bird seed, lots of hungry birds, and cold weather activities will be in demand. It was fun and will make a cute little present for family and their feathered friends on Christmas day. 

 

bits of bird treats and one to hang on the tree in a little tin foil cookie package 

while Brother and Sister were making bird treats (and let's be honest, squirrel and deer treats) Steven ate some sweet potatoes 

Handmade Holidays: Project 2: Ornament Exchange

 This year I joined an ornament exchange, somewhat foolishly perhaps, considering I have in infant and household to run, but I joined nonetheless. During the Thankful Project sponsored by the Chasing Happy blog, she also hosted the Merry Mail ornament exchancge. I had four other women that I needed to make ornaments for. I wanted to make something small, cute, handsewn and, honestly, with supplies that I already had (remember I am on a destashing kick). I have a fair amount of felt, ribbon and tons of buttons. You know how you buy a pack of buttons and really only needed two? Those buttons, and the old-school cookies tins from my mother and grandmother, although those didn't come into play for his project.  I love handsewing, I am not great at it, but I love doing it, so I definitely wanted to incorporate that as well. To Pinterest I went!!! 

I found inspiration here and here.

And here are the results! I also made very simple hand made cards to go along with them. (I really have got to figure out a better photo taking for this blog) I actually enjoyed them so much that I ended up making a few extra as presents for my own family!

Handmade Holidays: Project 1: Baby Quilt

My first project for Christmas ended up being a complete by chance sort of thing. I have a problem. A problem that I have heard many crafters have, and that there may be support groups for. I collect craft things, tons of craft things. Even before I was working in a craft store, I had tons of bits and bobbles. Then I worked in a fabric chain store for a year and goodness did the collection grow and spawn. It was/is a problem. Hubby gives me the "look" when he glances towards my corner/closet/room/pile of things that will become other things one day. With that look in mind, I am making in a serious focus this month to make as many presents as I can manage, thus eliminating a fair amount out of my stash and saving us money on shopping (kind of, considering I have already spent the money). 

I was in the middle of sewing super hero themed curtains for my nephew (there will be no photos because they were a ton of fabric and by the time I was done sewing, I was soooo done looking at them. Plus, they are wrapped already), and I found a pile of handkerchiefs that I had bought from evil WalMart, probably five years ago. They are the white fabric with gray owls and little stars on them. I imagine, when I bought them that I had a plan. What it was? I have no clue. But they were adorable, I have a thing for owls and considering Baby had a loosely Potter themed nursery, the print was actually kind of perfect. I had matching gray fabric left over from RenFaire costumes, yellow scraps from a box of my mother's fabric, white flannel that I had bought for burpcloths (before realizing that I never use them) and a package of crib sized batting that had been on clearance for 3.97. So I had everything except for binding. Hubby suggested an orange colour to match the little owl beaks, and I agreed.

When I made the two older children blankets last year, I just used sating ribbon folded over as binding so I figured that I would do that again for this blanket. Foolishly, I thought when I couldn't find sating ribbon, that acetate ribbon would work just as well. I was wrong. Very wrong. Don't ever do that! I washed it and it fell apart so horribly that I was very tempted to toss the entire blanket in the garbage. But I had already stitched in Steven's name and the date. So out came the seam ripper and two evenings wasted, then out to buy actual blanket binding and a night to sew that on correctly. Note to self: do it correct the first time, you cheapskate! We also went to the secondhand bookstore to pick up a copy of Harry Potter to go with the blanket for his first reading book. I can't wait to start reading my favorite series to him. I am secretly hoping that the older two kids cuddle up and listen too. So, after using four or five yards of fabric that I had laying about and a slightly stressful binding experience, Steven's first Momma-made blanket is all finished, folded and waiting to be wrapped. 

Piecing together the squares

Finished top

Hand stitched little message for Steven's first baby quilt. Hopefully, we will have many, many nights snuggled underneath, reading together

I also finished a handful of burpcloths, mostly I just use these when feeding Steven to wipe his face and hands. The fabric was a flannel flat sheet from the thrift store for $2 and it made 9 burpcloths. 

Holiday Season Starts!

     This past month I have not been a great blogger, but I have definitely been working on being a great momma. Steven and I spend every day together, lots of one on one time just hanging out with each other. I am trying to figure out how to put a baby on a schedule when I have no real schedule and no real solid reasons to stick to a schedule. But it is a work in progress. Here's hoping that I can figure it out in a reasonable amount of time *fingers crossed*
     So as of this past Sunday, December is finally here and the Christmas season really starts. We had 11 people for Thanksgiving dinner and are now planning a dinner for potentially 27 people on Christmas day. It is a very good thing that I enjoy hosting and prepping and decorating and setting a cute table! Tomorrow I will start the hand made holiday presents countdown and I am debating doing a Doctor Who month in January, with crafts, episode reviews, lots of pictures and maybe a cosplay or two.

I hope every one had a blessed and thankful Thanksgiving with loved ones and is looking forward to a love filled holiday season! 

The Thankful Project: Day 20

     So I kind of fell off the grid for the past two weeks, I apologize. Between the baby and prepping for a Thanksgiving dinner for 11 and a Christmas dinner for 18, the sewing, crafting, cooking and cleaning have been taking a front seat over blogging. I haven't even had time to obsess over Pinterest in forever, "First World Problem" if I ever heard one. I have put together a quilt for baby this past week, all I have to do is tie it and bind it, which may even get finished today....how exciting! Since I had a loosely based Harry Potter "nursery" area, this quilt is also a little Harry Potter themed, it has little owls all over at least. But I am going to pair it with the first Harry Potter book for Steven's Christmas present from just his Momma. I am also half done with handmade curtains for my nephew, they were supposed to be for last year but the pregnancy made me so tired that I made very little last year. Potentially foolishly, I also singed up for an ornament swap that I have the idea and all the supplies, I just have to sit down and make them to send them out by the end of this week! So, I figured that the only way that I would get back on the figurative horse was to buckle down and dive back headfirst.
     I love this Thankful project so thank you so much Chasing Happy for linking everyone up to share the ideas, people and things that we are thankful every single day of the year but giving us a platform to shares those thanks. I don't know if anyone else has seen on their Facebook pages that people are actually complaining that others are listing the things that they are thankful for this month, but I have had a handful of complaints (none directed to me) but I am a little shocked on how critical people are about other sharing their thoughts. It is a little confusing how we seem to have a culture that needs to constantly put others down for something, real or imagined. But anyways....on to today's Thankful Project prompt: Something about your significant other or best friend.
     I absolutely love James' sense of humour, all the way down to his gorgeous crow's feet by his eyes from smiling so much. When he smiles and those crinkles are thrown up, its perfect. I am not a funny person, I can't tell jokes, I can't tell stories and I do not have the quick wit that can make up for it, when we met, I was still stuck in the "older sister" humour of just poking fun. It is a work in progress. But James still finds me funny and he more than makes up for my lack of humour. When we go out, I try and play off of him as much as possible, but he is quick on his feet. He takes jokes like a champ and has no problem making himself the butt of jokes to get a reaction from the people around him. I am sure part of that is his amazing self confidence that I am completely lacking but he runs with it like no one that I have ever met. This pure self confidence in his own humour is something that I admire so much. He will laugh so hard that he cries, until his stomach hurts and I love that. It is dorky and the internet has not helped his humour of silly videos at all. He is perfectly happy watching hours of America's Funniest Videos and youtube videos of cats falling off of tables, and while I sometimes find it confusing how it can continue to entertain him for hours, I appreciate that he just enjoys life enough to still find these things funny. He helps me keep it real, however much that sounds like a cliche. I can get so wrapped up in everything that I think needs to get done that I forget to enjoy life a bit. He helps keep me grounded and to just smile.

Thank you, James, for keeping it fun, no matter what!

   

Mayhem Fest

piano bar in Orlando where we got the singer to play the Time Warp and did the dance...embarassingly awesome

A movie theater standie that James had to fit into....with me assisting and eye rolling

The Thankful Project: Day 3

Thank you again to Chasing Happy for hosting the Thankful Project. 

Today's topic is to discuss a place that you are thankful for. I was kind of unsure exactly what that even meant to me, so I took a bit longer to even come up with a list of places that I could be thankful for. 

As quiet and blah as it looks now, in the beginnings of winter, this I will miss.

When it comes down to it, as tumultuous as my childhood may have been, I think that the place that I am most thankful for is the backyard of my parents' house. This was, hands down, the place that spend the most time growing up. My father's somewhat extreme style of parenting during the summer, after my parents were divorced, was to send us outside at 830am, we were able to come inside to use the bathroom, to eat at noon, and then not until 6pm. We were left to, mostly, our own devices to amusement and to not injure ourselves. I can't imagine sending our kids outside now, unsupervised, for hours on end but my brother and I had no complaints at the time about it. 

Marley playing on a fallen tree during Hurricane Sandy, thankfully none fell
on the house, but we lost three trees.

Up until I was in middle school, my brother and I would pretend that we were Native Americans. We built teepees out of old sheets and giant branches that we pulled out of the surrounding woods, branches that were six to eight feet tall, all tied together with old clothesline and childish determination. We would collect acorns and chestnuts and poisonous red berries, pretending to eat them all. We would make bows and arrows out of yarn and shoe laces. We glued empty water bottles to the bottom of a piece of wood to make a raft to navigate the stream in our woods, treacherous as that stream was, we could have managed the two foot wide by six inches deep stream without the raft. Also, side note, Elmer's school glue is not water resistant, do not use it for rafts in the future. 

Then in sixth grade, I met one of my best friends, Ryn and we had history class together where we learned about Ancient Egypt and I read The Egypt Game.( I highly recommend that book, like insanely so, that and The Phantom Tollbooth) Then our native village turned into an ancient Egyptian palace. My little brother was a pharaoh, we made robes out of sheets, headdresses out of cardboard, memorized hieroglyphics, mummified a doll and buried her in my backyard under a dogwood tree, complete with turkey dinner and silver plated dishes. 
We fullfilled our Harry Potter fantasies by building a Hogwarts out of plastic milk crates and handmade wands and spellbooks. Under the pines trees we would relive all our favorite moments from the books and wonder why we never got a letter delivered by owl messenger. 
This was the yard that we had a pool in for a long time, that we were allowed to spend entire days in, until we were wrinkly and uncomfortable. A yard surrounded by woods that fed our imaginations, we created cities and towns, jurisdictions were separated for my brother and I, territorial boundaries that we were not allowed to cross, marked by swept up leaves and pricker bushes. 

As a mostly adult, I have our kids now play in the yard. We continue to have bonfires, whether they are legal fires or not, I am not sure still. James, the kids and I built a giant Wicker Man one year and lit him on fire. I picked flowers to weave in and out of the branches and we stared at the giant wooden man until he was ashes. My brother and I would try to keep a single fire going to weeks at a time, cooking hot dogs and waffles over the flame for our amusement. We had random gardens that never amounted for much food outside of the dozen or so tomatoes we would eat as soon as they ripened. We have always ate summer dinners outside, have hung hammocks between the trees to laze about. This is the first place that I ever "laid out" in the sun to actually try and tan. It was this yard that my brother was stung over two dozen times because bees hate him and he was a clumsy six year old. This was the yard that we had my two ever birthday parties in, one in first grade and one in sixth grade, were a girl stepped on a nail and it went through her foot in the woods. This is where we had my graduation party, where my grandmother parked her RV when my youngest brother, Colin, was born so she could spend time while my parents were in the hospital. This is where I kept my first ever pet rooster named Dani California and where he would chase Colin down because they were the same height. 

 This is the red maple that my brother and I would climb right before a thunderstorm to ride the storm winds in the branches before it started raining. And under these same branches, all lit up with holiday lights, is where I said yes to my wonderful and amazing Hubby when he asked me to marry him. 
So this yard, above all other places so far in my life, I am the most thankful for. 

The Thankful Project: Day 2

Again thanks to Chasing Happy for hosting this thankful linkup. 

Today's prompt, "A role that you've played," was a little more difficult for me then yesterday's prompt. I am thankful for being able to be a partner to my wonderful fiance, thankful for being the "favorite" granddaughter to my Pappy and Nana, thankful for being the only sister to six brothers and mother to my wonderful baby, Steven. But I think the role that I am most thankful for is that of stepmother.

I met James' two children when they were two and four year of age, so I wasn't there when they were babies but I have seen them grow over the past five years. It is the hardest thing that I have done, almost harder then being a birth mother, is carefully treading the water of being a stepmother, especially when their own mother is very loving and very involved. I had a really hard time coming to terms with being the stepmother for the first two years that James and I were together, I loved being the fun person but I am a strong believer that children need schedules and routines, which turns me into the strict, mean one (according to Hubby). I have my own Type A, obsessive personality that does not coincide well with children to begin with, but I have grown so much as a person, become so much more patient (I had none to begin with), understanding and I listen so much better then I did when we first met. 

James' daughter, (my stepdaughter or my soul-daughter, as James calls her) was the easier fit when we first met. I was fun, with crazy coloured hair, cool clothes, danced in public and I wore a cat collar as a necklace so for a two year old girl who wore tutus and pink cowboy boots regularly, it wasn't hard to get along. As she has gotten older and started acting like much more of a teenage, we have conflicted a little more. James says that I am harder on her, more strict and hold her to high standards, which may be true. I worry about the culture of lowered expectations for girls, that it is okay to just be cute or pretty, but I want her to know that it is just as important to be kind and to be smart. I am thankful that she has taught me how important it is for girls to have positive role models, she has taught me to see the world through the eyes of a little girl (I hated pink, glitter, and dresses as a girl) and I hope that she has the patience in the future to help me learn more patience and to breathe before acting. 

Hubby's son, on the other hand, was a much harder sell. I was scared to push too hard, he was quiet, a little angry and very set on being with his father, understandably so. I have six brothers, so I always figured that I would sync so well with a son, but it was so much harder than I had expected. It wasn't until recently that he and I have started to have our own inside jokes, our own conversations, our own little system and agreement on how our relationship should be. It started with him learning how to spell and we would play the spelling game. Hubby or I would give him a word and he would try spelling it. He wanted harder and harder words, to the point where I was just reading words out of the dictionary to challenge him more. Since then, we have settled that we are both good spellers, so we have that in common. He and I both get ready quickly when we have somewhere to do, while James and Eve take their time. Griffin and I call them the Delinquents now, because of their shared lackadaisical attitude sometimes. Grif and I both tend to be a little more serious and introverted naturally so I know where he is coming from. As I have gotten older, I am trying to become more of an extrovert, but naturally I just need quiet me-time. I am thankful that Grif has taught me that boys come with their own basket of problems, but none are insolvable. He has taught me how much fun video games can be, that sometimes it is okay to just wear sweatpants and no socks every single day (it is no reason to increase blood pressure over) and that being a stepmother can just be as simple as being companion souls sharing life's journey together and not overbearing, anal retentive craziness, at least most of the time. 

So thank you, Eve and Griffin, for helping me to learn how hard and how easy it can be to be a stepmother, that we aren't all evil, and that there is always enough room in my heart to love our happily blended family. 

The Thankful Project: Day 1

 While planning out the next month for  my blog, I stumbled across Chasing Happy and her wonderful Thankful Project and the prompts with link-up of everyone else sharing what they are thankful for this month (and hopefully the rest of the year as well). My new year starts on November 1st after Samhain, so a month devoted to things that I am thankful for sounded perfect and then it will work right into the holiday season and the time that I get to spend with family. So here we go:

Thankful Project: Day One: A person

Hands down, the person I am most thankful for is my fiance. My family helped shape me into the person that I am, but Hubby has made me into a person that I am happy with and can make others happy. Like more young girls than most would care to admit, no matter how smart or pretty or accomplished I ever was, I battled with self-image and self confidence. While I am not saying that Hubby has cured me and that I am now a ferocious, confident, devil-may-come kind of woman that I would like to be, I am so much more confident in being comfortable as a person than I was before I met him. As scandalous as it sounds, we met while he was my boss at a past job. I took the job seriously enough to move from part-time to full-time but he motivated me to become a manager, and not the benevolent despot manager that I had known previously but a fun, understanding but down to business kind of boss that encouraged workers and still impressed upper management. I took jobs with people that I didn't know, in towns that I had never been in before, managing an entire store of people that I had never met and aiming to be knowledgeable in every area of that store. It made me see that retail isn't all bad and that I had the ability to be a leader that I had never really felt before. I would love to say that everytime he tells me that I am beautiful that I agree, but I don't but I walk every day with the confidence that he thinks that I am beautiful and smart and worth all the grief that I cause him. He makes me thankful for our family, for my family, for friends and for my ability to love someone so much that I miss him every morning from not seeing him while I was asleep. 

He will kill me for this picture, but this man helps me make bread...he is wonderful!!! 

I'm Back!!! (hopefully, barring Life)

     Hopefully, I can get back to somewhat regular posting, it's fun and relaxing and gives me something to feel responsible for on a daily basis that doesn't need a diaper change. I have been lax in posting because we have had a very busy past month or so, we:

     1. Wrapped up an in-law visit and the subsequent       recuperation that I needed. We visited the Statue of Liberty, FAO Schwartz, Central Park, Empire State Building, Times Square

2. We celebrated Griffin's 10th birthday with a day in NYC and a day at home playing video games!

3. Went to a cousin's wedding with baby and no Hubby but I did get a great LBD that was nursing friendly and hid my baby belly enough for me to feel comfortable. 

4. Steven learned how to laugh, sit up, have a relatively set bed time. He also enjoys baths, reveling in the idea that his feet come into the bath with him and that he can splash. He also had his first bottle!!!

5. We went apple picking with a great friend and her two girls, the youngest is only two weeks older then Steven so we were already planning the wedding!

6. Fall television started. While this is no excuse to avoid other responsibilities, it gives me something to watch while I am rocking the baby to sleep. I am watching, with the loyalty that I can spare: Walking Dead, Witches of East End, Bones, Castle, Sleepy Hollow, Dancing with the Stars, SHEILD, Supernatural, American Horror Story and Dracula. Most of these are watched during nursing or putting to sleep the baby...and it is way more tv then I have ever watched in my entire life. 
7. My best friend and I are planning a joint family Christmas dinner that we have been planning and preparing for and getting six separate households to agree to a time and place. 
8. To tie into Steven's accomplishments, I started pumping! It took me a solid day before I got the band of how the manual pump even worked and then I realized that I have never bottle-fed a child before and that I would, after three months with a baby, now have to learn a basic skill. We did it though, he ate and I almost felt insulted that he took the bottle so easily. 
9. Hubby and I have started looking at houses in a little bit more of a serious manner, although still deciding between Florida and Georgia, my money would still be to go to Texas!

10. Hubby and I finally are officially engaged!!!!!! After five years of the ups and downs of a relationship, he put a ring on it and I said most definitely yes! No date yet, but house first!

So a very busy month, but November is the start of my new year so posting will be on my new year's resolution list! 
Happy New Year and bring on the next adventures!

Week in Review: Mother in Law Visit: Statue of Liberty

With the government shutdown, Liberty Island is now closed so I was so happy that my first visit to the Statue wasn't put on hold. We were able to visit the island the Friday before the shutdown and kept saying how lucky we were that we didn't plan the visit for the following week. MIL, kids and I had never been to the Statue before, Hubby had gone when he used to live in NYC in his younger years (Before Kendra). My family had gone when I was in the first grade but I refused to miss school to go see the statue, because I was that much of a nerd, even at six. We bought tickets in advance (they were more expensive then I really thought they would be) for 11am time slot but arrived there early and there was no problem getting on the ferry early. We decided to park on the New Jersey side instead of going into NYC, figuring it would make it easier getting home with minimal traffic. That plan would have worked except that we were so hungry when we left that we stopped at the first restaurant we could all agree on and then hit some traffic on the way home, but still ended up getting home early enough to have a normal bedtime. 

We took the ferry over to the island (which I am pretty sure is the only way to get there), they had a bunch of different ferries with names like: Miss Liberty, Miss New Jersey, Miss New York, Miss Ellis Island. We pointed out to the kids where all boats have their names and how each boat has a unique name. Ellis Island is still closed since they are repairing damage from Hurricane Sandy, but as the boat went by, we gave little history recaps on the island and Ellis Island. 

ferry at the dock before we left for the island

The weather was absolutely awesome, I wish I had packed a great lunch because the grounds were perfect for a family lunch. I had only packed some snacks so we wouldn't be starving while we there, but we could have spent another hour there just enjoying the view. I definitely would recommend bringing at least a sweater because the water makes it a little bit more chilly then the mainland, I took my sweater off on the island but I was also carrying around the baby and he is a little hot furnace. We even could have ate at the park from where the ferry left from and where we left the car. There was the old railway station there, built in 1913 that is super creepy but awesomely cool to take some pictures. The trip was awesome, easy to get to and other then the crowds (which you can't avoid at a huge touristy hotspot) and Steven sleeping through the climb to the pedestal, it was a perfect day trip. I was so happy to finally get to see this hugely important monument to our country. 

Week in Review: Mother-in-Law Visit: Walkway over the Hudson

The past two weeks were stressfully spent preparing for a visit from Mother-in-Law so blog posts have been falling to the wayside, although I have plenty of pictures so recap the week. After spending Monday in a hurried mess to try and get everything neat and organized, we drove almost two hours to Kennedy airport to pick up MIL. MIL and I have met before but it was very early in the relationship with Hubbs. Since there is a decent time difference between Ireland and New York, we spent the afternoon just relaxing. Tuesday we also had a late start, just trying to get MIL used to the time difference and then took an afternoon trip to the Walkway over the Hudson in Highland, NY. The bridge used to be the railroad bridge and is now part of the local rail trail in addition to being a park. It is very high off the water, but in no way feels unsafe ( I have a fear of heights so these things are important to me!). We parked the car on the Highland side of the bridge (west side) and only walked to the halfway point since it was getting late and the bridge closes at dusk. There was a spacious parking lot, a snack/drink cart and very clean bathroom facilities. We saw tons of kids on the bridge, walking and biking and the bridge is very pet friendly (they even had a water dish at the halfway point just for pups!) so if you bring the kids, be prepare to spend a fair chunk of time just petting dogs. If you wanted to make a day trip of it with the kids, you could go to the Children's Museum for the day, picnic at either end of the park and walk the bridge during sunset. Overall the outings rating would be a 6/10. It is very weather dependent, but we had a great time and it was an easy walk to just enjoy the view. 

looking south towards the Mid-Hudson Bridge

looking west towards Highland

Later we had bathtime!!! Once he realizes that it's a bath and not liquid death, Steven enjoys it a ton