Where A Kid Can Be A Kid!

A few weeks ago we celebrated Aaron's 3rd birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's - Where a Kid Can Be A Kid! (See how cleverly I tied in the title of this blog post!...Yes, I am kidding because I know it's a little "cheesy"....ok - I'll stop "mousing" around now, but seriously, we had lots of fun and "CHUCKles" on this very special day. Ok...I'm done...I swear!...time to get down to "Biz"ness...) (You'll only get that last reference if you remember what Chuck E. Cheese used to be called back in the late 80's/early 90's...)

So anyhow, we had a little party there including mommy, daddy, Aaron's cousins - Nick and Bailey, and Aaron's aunt and uncle - Melissa and Trent. All in all, it was fun, and the kids all had a good time.

Birthday Boy:


But I will say - it is a shame what has happened to Chuck E. Cheese's - the pizza just isn't what it used to be, and you may or may not remember the good ol' days of Rock-afire Explosion! (the animatronics were far better than that of the new Chuck E. Cheese band who can barely manage to move their heads side to side and blink...!):

I miss these guys:


However, I totally understand why they decided to upgrade Chuck from this:
(Nightmares anyone?....)




To this:

Ah, that's better!

I guess "out with the old and in with the new" isn't ALWAYS such a bad thing....kinda makes you wonder what people were thinking in the 80's though. Yikes...All I can say is thank goodness for art appreciation and standards!

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the birthday boy enjoying his mini-party:




"Tickets!"


On the monster truck with Nick and Bailey:


Having a great time!


After Chuck E. Cheese's, we all went home to sing Happy Birthday to Aaron, have some ice cream cake, and open presents.

"I'm supposed to do what?...."


Cousin Bailey likes chocolate ice cream cake too!:

(Don't worry - everyone got a piece!) =)

Opening up cousins Nick and Bailey's gift. We didn't get a picture, but it was an awesome Buzz Lightyear laser gun. He still tries to shoot daddy with it. (Although, he says mommy is too nice to shoot.) =)


Opening his gift from mom and dad! What could it be???? (Ignore the wheels poking out of the bottom of the wrapping....)


Yay!


And we didn't get a picture of it, but Aaron got some cool gifts from his grandma and grandpa Davis who are currently serving a mission in Latvia. One of the gifts was a chocolate egg (bought in Latvia) molded around a small toy. Apparently they are banned in the U.S. because of a choking hazard - but it's a shame because Aaron loved it (so did mom...I had a bite, or two). It had a (packaged) green plastic car complete with instructions (assembly required). I can imagine the other toys that are sold with them - They would be such a hit here during Easter! They also sent lots of other goodies! Thanks guys! We know that stuff isn't cheap to send overseas!


To top it all off, here was our 3 year-old birthday boy at the end of the night...yep - complete with his baba and blanky...So much for being a "big boy!" lol. Oh well!

Full price? or "fool" price?

Look, I understand we all want the best for our kids, and sometimes that means forking out a large chunk of money for things we can't make ourselves. But I also think, at least for me anyway - part of being a mother is learning to be resourceful, and sometimes, buying brand-name stuff at overly inflated prices is going against every grain of my motherly-instinct. I just don't like the thought of being taken advantage by some corporate brand-name retailer just because I have an inherent need to keep my kids safe and comfortable.

There is this thing out right now called the Boppy Newborn Lounger...OK, to be perfectly blunt - it looks like a dog bed for newborn babies:


Am I wrong? =)


Having said that, I'm not going to lie, it still looked pretty cozy, and I can see the benefit to having one if you are limited on space. And in our case - we are VERY limited on space. Anyway, when it came down to it - I wanted one (for the baby...not me), but at $40-$50 a pop - no thanks! So again, I naturally tried to take a stab at making one with some remnant fabric I had lying around. I had no pattern to go off of - I pretty much looked up the product dimensions on a retailer's website, sketched out the shape on some fabric, and cut away. And it definitely didn't come out too shabby:

One side:


Other side:

With the stuffing, I think this was about $7 to make, and mine is reversible - one side cotton, and one side flannel (but that was purely done out of necessity - I didn't have enough of one fabric for both sides.).

Flannel:

Cotton:


And thankfully, this only took me about 45 minutes to make from start to finish. I am sure if someone was an advanced seamstress, they could make this in about 20 minutes or so, if not less time. Thinking about how easy/cheap this was to make makes me wonder why they are being sold for $40-ish dollars each (retail)....oh yeah - brand-name price inflation! Oh - you sneaky, sneaky corporate giants....I'm on to you......

The Adventures of Suzie Homemaker

Well, I am about 34 weeks pregnant and counting, and so far so good. I have had about a billion ultrasounds (Well, realistically, it has been about 20. They have been closely monitoring me since about 20 weeks since I was at risk for preterm labor during my last pregnancy - yep, had to have surgery for the last one and the whole nine-yards, but it all turned out alright) and I have had numerous tests done - I can't tell you how many times they have drawn blood from me during the last nine months. And then I've had the added pleasure of doing a 24-hour "collection" (mothers out there who have been through the same testing will know what I mean by that.) Despite all of that, there is no room for me to complain - the baby is healthy and growing well, and I am not in any serious discomfort.

Anxiousness has been my main battle thus far - so naturally I have been looking for things to keep my mind completely occupied for the past month or so. When I am not doing the usual mom-thing, wife-thing, art-thing, or church-thing, I am always looking for something to clean, organize, sew, or write (as in - this blog, which explains the vast increase in our blog posts over the past month!). Some would call that "nesting" but I just call it "keeping my sanity."



Well, one thing is for sure, I have never done so much sewing in my life. I don't really "enjoy" doing crafts per se, but my drive to not pay full price for something that I know I can make myself is the real reason behind all of these projects. First was the baby blessing dress, then I started a combination car seat cover/nursing cover. I really had no idea what I was doing, but I just let the artist within me take over - I just get a vision then work with it until it comes to fruition.

Here is the car seat cover I made. It also doubles as a nursing cover though, so it has multiple uses. The fabric cost me about $5 total (on clearance for $2 a yard) and the buttons, ribbon, velcro, suspender clips, zipper, and charm were about an extra $10 total. So this cover was about $15-ish dollars to make. Not bad for 2 items in 1.



I installed a zipper (my very first attempt at one) to allow easy access and air-flow to the baby while she's in there:




And here is a pocket I made to hold a pacifier and the strap to convert it to a nursing cover when needed:




I found this charm on clearance and couldn't resist putting it on the zipper - it says "Lil Sister":


Here it is as a nursing cover. It is basically a piece of matching ribbon that I sewed onto a pair of suspender clips. It is removable so that way it doesn't pose any hazards.


There is more stuff to post, but I've gotta go and do the mom-thing and tuck my son into bed...then I've gotta do the wife-thing and clean up this huge mess I made in our room...oddly enough, I made this mess while trying to clean....

Baby Blessing Dress

After many, many, MANY hours of looking for a baby blessing dress for our soon-to-be-daughter, I realized that purchasing a dress would be 2 things - 1)expensive, and 2)frustrating. I can't tell you how many stores I went to, and how many websites I visited only to find dresses that were either too large, too "fru-fru" (not my style), or WAY too expensive ($75-$100+ for just the DRESS, knowing I would still need shoes, tights, a headband, and a blanket - all to be worn for just a few hours...I love my family and all, but I must still be practical as well - and that was too expensive of a pill for me to swallow.)(p.s. - And I completely understand that there are some moms out there who will gladly spend that amount on a dress for this special occasion - If you have the money, then by all means, go for it! But please understand that I don't. lol) All I wanted was something white, simple, cute, comfortable, and affordable.

I finally got the idea to do a "composite dress." That is basically where you take different articles of clothing, cut off the parts that you like, and compile them into one ideal garment. To start with, I found this dress on clearance at the Children's Place for only $11.99:



I removed the white bottom from the black top with a seam-ripper, then planned on attaching the white skirt to a white long-sleeved onesie. The dress on the right was a layout (un-sewn) of my original "plan" :


Anyway, after a lot of tinkering, here is the finished product:



Here is the back view:


Here it is with all the little accessories. The white ribbon was $1.99 for the whole spool. The onesie came in a pack of 3 for $5.99, so figure the one costs about $1.99. The tights have little ruffles on the back, and I bought them on sale for $2.99 at Sears. The shoes were the only thing I paid full price for, and those were $9.99, also at Sears...but, I'll admit, someone gave me a gift card to Sears, so I technically got the shoes and the tights for free, plus I used a $5 off Sears coupon. The beautiful blanket was a gift from my mom(grandma). And before I go on, Karen Davis, I am officially asking if I can borrow the following white headband that you made! I was looking through your stash of homemade hair bows for an example of a rosette to sew, which I found, but I also ended up finding this adorable white headband! lol. I tried to get Matt to call you to ask, but he said you wouldn't mind. Since I know you read our blog, I am asking you anyway. And from your design, I learned to hand-sew some rosettes for the dress! Thanks! =):



Here it is pictured with a little white sweater I got at a consignment shop for .25 cents, yes, a quarter! Not sure if I'll use it, but I guess if I need one, I'll have it ready. You'll also notice there are also a 2 little rosette that I sewed out of the ribbon - One I sewed on the dress, but am not quite sure what to do with the other. I'm sure I'll figure it out...Anyway, my total out of pocket cost for the dress and accessories was $16.22, and it came out to be everything I wanted. Can't wait to see it all on her! =)

Aaron's Adventures

This is what happens when you leave your child alone with markers for 5 minutes:


Oddly enough, I took off his clothes so he wouldn't get markers all over them...I guess the joke's on me...



On another note, I was taking pictures of a few of my crafts and as soon as I started snapping pictures, Aaron started yelling "Cheese!" and smiling for me, so here is one of him playing with one of his Christmas gifts:


The next 2 pictures are of Aaron's first trip to the Discovery Center. He had a lot of fun with the "Floating Ball" exhibit:



This was some kind of spinny-tornado-thingy...well, whatever it was called, Aaron loved it.


And here is Aaron playing in the first real snow of the winter back in mid January...But again, the joke was on me - As I was getting Aaron ready in his "warm" clothes to go out into the snow, I realized that he didn't have any snow boots! So we sent him out in his regular shoes that actually worked pretty well, but I didn't want to take any chances, so we decided to take a trip to Walmart to grab him a pair...wait...it get's better....




As mother nature would have it, as we were driving to Walmart, it started to rain. Not thinking twice, we bought him a pair of snow boots and headed home.


When we got home, Aaron and Matt got out of the car and immediately started throwing snowballs at each other. Matt made a huge snowball to give to Aaron to throw:




Well, after experiencing our first real snow of the winter, we all went back inside to warm up. The next morning we all woke up to look outside - THERE WAS NO MORE SNOW LEFT! It all melted away with the rain. So as it turns out, the first snow of the winter may have been our last snow of the winter. It has rained off and on here since then, but mostly we have had sunny skies. And being that it is already February, I don't see too much more snow in our near future. Sadly, Aaron's lonely, unused, snow boots are still sitting in his room with the tags on...good thing Walmart has a great return policy! ;-)


And finally, Aaron has officially transitioned to a booster seat (still a 5-point harness, of course - mom wouldn't have it any other way)! It's an Evenflo SecureKid 300. We LOVE it. Aaron loves it too. He calls it his "Big Boy Seat." We especially love the cup holders - just throw a Capri Sun in one cup holder and a few french fries in the other, and he's good to go! =)