spring?

Well here we are... its spring... but once again everyone in my household is sick... I know I know... what? How could you all be sick AGAIN?! But alas.... we are... At least I took in little Ceej and he was able to start on some antibiotics. I'm not all about medicating kids... but when you're sick this much... and for this long.. I want him to get on something that will get him better faster!

Seriously.. I wish I would have written down all the times we've been sick so far this year... We were all sick over Christmas too... But we were sick around my sister's baby shower (January)... then I have record of taking Bubba to the Dr. on Feb 22.... When I went to Ikea I was still sick (March 5) and now once again... St Patrick's Day and still now we are sick... Keep in mind these sicknesses lasted well over a week each time...I wish the weather would warm up and stop raining so I could do some heavy duty Spring Cleaning! Its much needed around here! I just need the energy to do it too...

So enough of my complaining... along with that I thought I would drop some updates on the boys!!! Since there's really nothing new with me.

Bubba:
He now has an obsession with puzzles! We've had a few wooden puzzles for a while... but while I was at the dollar store I came across this spiderman/hulk/wolverine puzzle. He really likes spiderman and hulk so I thought it would be great for him. It's just one of those cardboard cut-out piece puzzle, it was only 25 pieces. He kinda bended the pieces at first.. so I had to teach him we don't do that if we want to keep doing the puzzle! But after a few times with help, he's able to do it all by himself now! I tell you what for a few days that was the best $1 I ever spent! He would sit quietly at the table focusing in on his puzzle until it was complete! And then he'd smile and wait for me to look at him after he was finished.. then with a big grin he would say "I did it!" He'd do it over and over like 5 times. Now since then we have aquired more puzzles... most of which he is able to do on his own. I figured I'd challenge him a little more and got him a 48 piece (Cars, which he can do on his own as well...) and a 60 piece state puzzle. All but one were $1!!! Great investments if I say so myself. After a meal its like his little ritual go to pick one out and do it at the table. Its nice b/c it gives me a chance to clean up and what not :) One of the funniest parts is he sings the Oompa loompa song while doing his puzzle... the whole "oompa loompa doompa dee doo, I've got another puzzle for you..." (Thanks to Grandma for taking him to Willy Wonka!)

Ceej:
Oh my little man Ceej... he is sooo cute. I remember thinking Bubba was the cutest thing when he was little... but I dunno Ceej just might be even cuter! He loves to shake his booty! It all started with Ellen of course. We pretty much watch her every morning and I make a point to turn up the music and dance along with her. I encourage the boys to dance along too! Ceej did  it on his own! He just likes to groove. We put a radio in the pantry and he'll go over to it, start banging on the door and then shake his little butt. Basically saying "Come on Mommy! Its time for a dance party?!" He has finally got some teeth!!! Just 3.. but still. He is working on walking too. He can't stand on his own for long periods of time, and he's taken a couple of steps but he just basically goes from standing to squatting to crawling. I can't believe he's going to be 1 next month!

Ok I was thinking nothing was new with me... but then I remembered something. I'm working on writing some kids books... mainly I was doing it b/c JDub said he was thinking about it and I was thinking about it too. So I thought hmmm if we're both thinking about the same thing... maybe I should! I've almost finished one... and I've kind of started another.

Anywho, that's about it... I have a new sewing project I really want to try but need to go garage saleing or goodwill shopping before I can!

St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

In honor of the day I have taken another shirt I found at Goodwill and decided to alter it! Here is the before... I can never get JDub around to take my pic.... or I start on these projects when he's not around anyway... I should teach Bubba how to take my pic... Anywho.. Here she is!

It was an extra large so I figured I would have enough material to play around with! First I took the sleeves off. Usually I would just cut them off... but I wanted them to remain fairly large for the change. So I took out my handy seam-ripper and got going.

Once the sleeves were off... I trimmed the neck off. I planned on hemming it like I did the last one... but I got lazy, and well the raw edge didn't look too bad to me either! I also took alot of material off the sides to bring it in for a close fit.

Then I took the sleeves and started gathering toward the top and pinning in place. I took each sleeve to the sewing maching and  stitched over the folds to keep them in place. Once that was complete, I pinned them to the shirt, and then took it to the machine to re-attach the sleeves. I wanted kind of a poof on the sleeves, to make it more girly.

I wanted it to be like a t-shirt dress.... something I could wear with my leggings I love so much! I really need to start measuring though... this was a bit tight across the chest.... I took a little too much off I guess! (my other gray 100% irish shirt I didn't take enough in!) Maybe eye-balling it just isn't my thing....

And here she is!

close-up of the sleeves...

So all in all not bad... but a lil tight too...Dont even ask what I'm doing in this pose JDub took forever to take the photo...

I wanted to head downtown for the parade today but little Ceej woke up with a 101.7 fever..... his nose is runny again, and well being outside is probably not the best thing for him... What am I doing wrong to have sick kids all the time?!

Well I hope you enjoy your green day. I made sure to sleep in green so I wouldn't get pinched this morning!

Dye Job

Ok so I've been following http://www.newdressaday.com/ for a while. She just has such talent! I've seen where she just dyes things all the time too... I guess I never thought of dying anything really... but since curtains are expensive... And I got my new duvet and pillow shams... I felt I needed a change! Oh yes and of course because I got my new curtain rods at IKEA as well :)

The curtains before are on the left... just a khaki color... and the finished product is on the right.

I used Rit Dye in Pearl Gray. Two of the dry packets. I had a hard time finding it initially........ for some reason I was thinking Hy-Vee carried dye... but could not find it for the life of me. Then Wal-Mart didn't even have gray! (They had every other color imaginable though...) Thank goodness for Hancock Fabrics!!

I ended up dyeing all 4 panels of curtains in my washing machine... that thing is ancient anyway so I really wasn't concerned about it breaking or dyeing the inside of the machine. We are actually just waiting for it to break down b/c it sounds like its going to take off if the load is too full..... It didn't damage the machine whatsoever.

I'm a little indifferent about the final result... I mean I do like the new curtain rods! The silver is much better than the gold and it looks alot cleaner in there. I ended up turning the curtains upside down b/c these rods had little hooks instead of lifting off to add the curtains to. I just feel like they should have been darker... Perhaps I should have used 3 dry packets instead of just 2? There was alot of fabric there... It dyed evenly though!

What do you think?

P.S. Mango just loves the new duvet :)

IKEA

A girls weekend without the kiddos was just what I needed! It was soo much fun. There was a lot of driving involved... but it was ok b/c we had Ke$ha and Lady Gaga to get us through! I dont know if I've mentioned but we are all sick in this household AGAIN. It is really getting ridiculous how sick we have been this winter... that is why I am more than ready for Spring. Even though I have no voice I was still rocking out/singing to them all the way!

I had a few ideas of what I wanted before we left for IKEA... which is really what I suggest you do... otherwise you will be running around like a chicken with your head cut off... it is VERY overwhelming being in there! I like the fact they have little measuring tapes for you to take and pencils and a list sheet. I ended up using all of them! I measured a few things at home before going (I knew I wanted some curtain rods for our bedroom and a stool for the bathroom). But then when I was there I found a few things I had to call JDub to measure b/c I didn't think about them before hand!

I got these cute little storage bins for Bubba's room. They have wheels and they fit perfectly under his bunkbed!

I knew I wanted some new bathroom mats... and ended up going with these. I really like how they look... but I am a little worried about them being white! Hopefully they won't get too dirty... And there's my new stool underneath in the little nook, so I can sit and do my make up too!

They have an insane variety of picture frames too. I wasn't planning on getting any.. but they were such a good price I couldn't help myself! I also got a duvet and 2 pillow shames for our bedroom! I've been wanting one... its been on my wish list for a while... but sometimes a girl's just got to give herself some stuff too right? I'm waiting to take a final pic once my new curtain rods are up in the bedroom too :) Let's see if I can get JDub to do that sometime this week.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend getaway! If anyone ever wants to roadtrip it to IKEA just let me know! I love that place. Next time I might have to go to the one in Chicago though... that way we can hit up a Container Store too!

Oh Happy Day!

How does that saying go?.... Absense makes the heart grow fonder? Oh yea baby. That's right....

This mama is getting the heck out of dogde today :) I dont know what got into JDub... but he offered to watch BOTH boys for the weekend while I have some much needed girl time with my old college roomies. So I said YES before he could even take it back. I am beyond excited! I know.... its sad that I am so excited, but I really haven't had a night away since before Carter... so I think I deserve it. We are headed to IKEA to spend money too!

Oh this is going to be so much fun!! Be praying for JDub though.... he'll probably need it

Too much light!

So we first did the nursery almost three years ago before Bubba was born. We wanted (or I wanted... I think JDub could have cared less...) a jungle theme! We found these bamboo window shades at Menards or something. They were cheap and I thought they'd look ok in the room. I mean they do look fine... but they let waaay too much light in for my taste. Especially in the morning! We use to have the changing table on a different wall, but now whenever I'm chaging a diaper in the morning I'm being blinded by the sun! I finally had enough of it... so I decided to try something....

Here you can see all the light coming in through the shades. Its a little hard to see b/c I had to turn the light off... but yea take my word for it... its ALOT.

Here's what they looked like before from the back and top...

I ended up hot-glueing some extra fabric I had leftover from my pet bags I did for christmas a couple years back. Here's a couple of the bags I did...

 

And here's what the shades looked like after I glued the leftover fabric on....

And finally here is the finished product! It basically looks like they did before...

I didnt have enough fabric to go all the way down the shade... You can still see a little bit of light streaming in along with bottom there.... I don't have the same fabric for each shade either. But you really can't see the material from inside so I don't care. At first I didn't realize I needed to have the string on the outside... but once I got that figured it turned out pretty well! I'd say not too bad on my part. :)

I've only had a chance to do one shade... seeing how it took be about half an hour just to find my glue gun last night!? So hopefully I'll have a chance to do the other one tonight and Ceej's little eyes won't have the sun shining in too early!!