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....

Happy Halloween!

Although you may be inclined to look over your shoulder and double-check the date on your calendar, please rest assured that it is, in fact, January 2012, and yes - you are seeing Halloween content in the midst of all of these Christmas posts. We were going through our many, many pictures and realized that we never posted pictures of Aaron's Halloween 2011 costume. So here are a few pictures Matt took of our little Sock Monkey during our trip to Boo at the Zoo in Boise. If I remember correctly, Aaron's costume cost about $10 to make. All the fabric was either clearance fabric or remnants. And somehow it all worked out even though I didn't have a pattern to sew by. I simply took one of Aaron's old jumpsuits, turned it inside-out and traced the outline onto my fabric. The hat took me a couple of tries without a pattern, but the end result came out great I think. His Halloween pail was originally an orange jack-o-lantern, but with a little bit of extra fabric and a lot of hot glue, it morphed its way into a Sock Monkey.