Happy New Years Everyone!

The neighborhood is going wild with fireworks tonight. Thankfully they aren't right next door. Shouldn't wake Nate up at all.
I decided to stay up till midnight posting on my favorite message board. At midnight I went in and kissed Jason and said Happy New Year and did the same to Nate. Jason woke up but Nate slept thru it and actually frowned in his sleep when I kissed him! :)

In my last post I said that Nate was getting a new toddler bed. He had a nap in it today and did great! He went to be tonight and again did great. Had to turn him around b/c he fell asleep with his feet on his pillow!! Silly Nate :)

Ok, small vent here: I know it's New Years Eve and I am up celebrating it like everyone else, but seriously, did you have to buy the loudest firecrackers you could and set them off just 4 houses down from us????? I am about to walk down there and give them a piece of my mind, but I won't b/c I don't like confrontation. Thankfully this only happens 2 times a year, 4th of July and New Years. Maybe the next 4th and next New Years, we can arrange to be at my inlaws farm. They are in the country so it's nice and quiet. Thankfully Nate has slept thru all this.

Had a great evening with Ben and Laura and Logan and Vesta. We get together with Ben and Laura every new years. We had hot wings, meatballs, salad, rotel dip, brownies and sweet corn casserole. Everything was yummy! Laura and I put the kids to bed. Logan was able to fall asleep in their pack n play w/o a problem. Then the adults, sans Vesta(she went home earlier) played Scrabble. All in all it was a good night.

I am going to leave you tonight with one photo. Last week I decided to tackle Nate's closet, clean it out and such. I went to get the camera to get a before and after pic and while I was gone, this happened:



Enjoy!

Just a quick post

Today Nate gets his new bed! I can't believe it's time for my little baby to move into a big boy bed. We found a toddler bed at a garage sale this summer. If we hadn't found the bed, we would have just set up Jason's old twin bed with new mattresses and skipped the toddler bed. Didn't deem is necessary to spend money on toddler bed. We found one for $7 at a garage sale so we got it.
I will have to add pic's later. Nate seems to like it so far. He got into bed and promptly asked me to cover him up! He has a new buddy to share the bed with him. I bought Nate a Waldorf Style boy doll for Christmas. Nate named him Henry today! Perfect name. When Nate opened the doll at Christmas he didn't want to have anything to do with it, but today he is warming up to the doll.

Spending this evening with friends. Started this tradition maybe 5 years ago. We alternate houses each year. They have a 1 1/2 year old boy. Us parents are waiting till they are both old enough to really start playing together. I am guessing next year when Logan is a bit older.

Time to continue cleaning. Jason and I are in a cleaning frenzy. I needed to vacuum really badly. The area rug in the front room was really bad. Looks much better. I am just biding my time till the Christmas Tree comes down and goes to the curb. I really enjoy Christmas but when New Years comes around, I am ready to be done with the decorations. Need to get back to my routine and regular house. Makes it easier to clean. I will probably go thru old decorations and get rid of what we don't use. Example: string of lights that have been sitting in the basement for 3 years, garland that didn't make it up this year, old 3 ft artificial tree, etc. My goal for this year is to declutter as much as possible.

So much for a quick post!

HAPPY NEW YEARS!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We spent Dec. 21-24 with Jason's folks on the farm. It snowed up there so Nate got to go out and play with daddy and Jackson. Here is a pic of Daddy and Nate with the sled!


I found a snow pants and coat from Lands End on craigslist for $15. It's a size 3 but the snow pants fit great and I will have the coat for next winter! What a great score for me! We found his boots at Walmart. They have Thomas the tank Engine on them. Nate is pretty pleased with the boots!
We had a great time as usual at the farm. Nate saw Santa Claus and still doesn't particularly care for him as you can see in the next photo!


That is my father-in-law Jim holding Nate. Nate will high 5 Santa but that's it! He received a treat bag after. There was a cookie and some hard candy and also he got to pick out an apple. Nate tore into that apple and he loved chomping on it!



Nate got some more Take Along Thomas trains, some cute clothes and a great Thomas Book with poems in it. The book is really cute and has some great poems in it. He also got some slippers with of course, Thomas! :)

I got 2 cook books, Bath and Body Works soap (smells yummy), slippers, 2 Mary Kay items(sister-in-law sells Mary Kay), and a picture frame with our nieces graduation pic in it. Gorgeous girl!!

After we left the farm on Monday, we headed to Springfield Ill for my families Christmas. We had some yummy food, spent time with the nephews and watched the cousins open gifts. Nate received some nice clothes, a monster toy truck, small toy bulldozer, and a book about Behaving. The author is Max Lucado. He writes books with Hermie as the main character. Very cute!
The adults decided not to exchange gifts. We decided to find something/someone to donate our money too.

We got back home Christmas Eve around 9pm. Very long weekend for all. Nate was happy to be back in his own bed! The first time I put him in the pack n play at Grandpa and Grandmas, I noticed he was getting too big for it. Next Monday I am bringing in the toddler bed from the garage. We are going to transition him over to that bed. Wish us luck! I am going to have to remove all the train toys from the room. Too much temptation! Just don't know what I am going to do when we go to the farm. Right now, there is an area in the room we 3 sleep in that is fine for the pack n play, but the toddler bed they have wont fit there. I will have to see what Grandma can come up with the next time we are there.

Christmas day here was good. Jason posted on his blog with pics to what he received! I can make a list, but I am not sharing pics!
The big surprise is tickets to see Reba and Kelly Clarkson in concert in Feb. I am stinking happy about that one!!! Reba is a major favorite of mine.
The other big gift I got was all 9 seasons of Everybody loves Raymond. I have 1 and 2 but Jason thought it would save money just to get all 9 at once. It is going to take me forever to watch all those!
I got some earrings and necklace, candy in the stocking, gift certificate from St Louis Bread co, new sewing kit/container that is pink with vintage Ladies doing ironing and laundry, very cool! and a large cutting mat with rotary cutter.

Today I wanted to get out of the house and do something fun but not spend money. So, Nate and I went swimming at the YMCA. Up till this point, he really did not like swimming. He didn't mind getting his feet wet, but other than that, no. So I took my chances and went. He was a bit apprehensive but I held his hand and we took it slowly. Well, and hour and half later, he didn't want to get out!!! My boy likes swimming! I think I am going to add that to our fun list and go maybe 1-2 times a week till the Aqua Port opens and then maybe get a seasons pass there. They share memberships with the Bridgeton water park so we have 2 places to go swimming. We have friends who can go with us too.

Supper tonight is Beef vegetable soup with venison steak pieces instead of beef. My inlaws are hunters and supply us with venison once in a while. Very lean meat. That helps on our budget since the meat was free! The soup smells yummy! Can't wait. Jasons sister Amy and her friend Dave are coming over for supper and to see Nate.

Speaking of Nate, sounds like he is ready to get up from nap. Time to go get him and get some vacuuming done and fill the bird feeder, add an ear of corn to the squirrel feeder for the critters outside.

Cleaning day

After last nights project, I decided that I needed some things if I was going to keep making diapers. I have on my Christmas list a new sewing kit. I need a new container since the one I have is my grandmas and I have no idea how old it is. There are a few things that I would like to have in my sewing kit too. Well, some of those things I bought tonight. I can't do without. So, when I got home from Hobby Lobby, I decided to clean out my sewing kit. I didn't get very far. I wanted to get rid of any straight pins that were in the pin cushion. I bought a new container of straight pins, 750 to be exact. Anywho, I was cleaning out the pin cushion and kept finding more hidden inside, but sticking out a little. So, I decided to open up the cushion and see what else was left and make sure I didn't leave any out. I ended up with, get this, 59 needles!!! They aren't machine needles, but thread needles, to sew by hand with. I will not be needing any of those types of needles for a long, long time! :)

I stopped by Goodwill tonight to see if I could find any fleece, flannel or cotton blankets to use for diapers. I found 4 tonight. Each were $1, and there were 2 on one hanger so they were counted as 1 blanket!

Other cleaning that got done today was our bedroom, Nate's room and the front room and vacuuming again. With the dog, vacuuming daily is a must around here. Especially in the colder months when Jackson isn't outside as much.

I am really enjoying staying home with Nate. I really like our days together. There was a time where it was hard to be home. I wanted to be out daily, going some where daily. Now, if we don't leave the house at all for a couple of days, I am happy. I am finding that if we are out of the house time goes by faster and that is time I can't get back again and time that isn't quality time with Nate. I know, going to the grocery store is good for Nate. Being out and about is a learning time for Nate, but it's not one on one time for the 2 of us. I know also, that will change when we have another baby.

The Christmas tree is up, the outside is lit with pretty lights and there is a blow up snowman in our front yard. Now, I need to set up my Christmas village. I have the area where it's going all cleaned off ready to go. I think I will tackle that tomorrow.

Nate is getting to be pretty comical with his words. I don't remember what we were doing, but out of the blue, Nate says "Silly mama"!!! I know that I have said "Silly Nate" plenty of times. Just didn't know he would say it to me! Another thing he does is when he sees me whether being away from me for a while, or just coming into the room from another room is "Hi mom"! His vocabulary is exploding right now. It's so much fun to hear the new words daily. He is now saying "Thank you" instead of signing it! I just can't get enough of this boy! I think I am in love!

Have a good night all!

I made a diaper!

I have to show off my newest creation! I made a fitted diaper tonight. I found a pattern on line a few weeks ago. I used 2 blankets that I had laying around that we weren't using. It took me 2 hours, 2 broken needles, 1 bent needle and ripping out velcro once to make this diaper. I had no expectations going into this project and am glad I can laugh at the end results!

Here are 3 pictures of the diapers:







The first picture makes me laugh the most! I can't believe how the tabs came out different sizes. My seams on most of the diaper aren't straight and I need to make sure that I make the leg elastic longer.

All in all, it's a cute diaper and it hasn't turned me off of making another diaper. I think I will hit the local goodwill and find some more blankets to use. I would like to perfect my sewing before dipping into my stash of nice fabrics that I have set aside to make diapers. After the new year, a friend and I are taking sewing classes. I am excited to learn how to sew better.

Enjoy the pictures!!

Pictures!!!

Jason showed me how to copy pictures from Flickr to add to my site. I think I remember him showing me how soon after he uploaded all the pictures there, but I am such a computer dork I forgot!
This is a picture of Nate sleeping in the backroom. He has never slept anywhere except his bed before. It surprised me that he fell asleep here.


This picture is of course of our pretty Christmas tree. To the left you can see a little bit of the green garland and red bells that surround the door to the kitchen.


This next picture is of Nate and Jackson standing infront of the tree. Jackson had a good old time running thru the trees sniffing everything. He was in doggy heaven!!


I forgot to add that Nate painted last week. Haven't brought out the paints since summer. Nate forgot where the paint goes and immediately put the paint brush with paint in his mouth! He didn't think it tasted too good! You can see that he also got paint on his shirt. He has no idea what he is doing sometimes. Thats a toddler for you!


You can see how happy he is getting to paint.


Well, I don't have anymore photos to share. Enjoy!

Busy week

Lots of new things going on here. First, Nate is going to Parents Day out one day a week. His first day was this past Thursday. He is there from 9-3. He really likes it. Will be good for me to get a break or to get some things done around the house and make drs appts and not have to worry about finding a sitter for him or taking him with.

I am seeing a new dr. She is going to help me get healthy through enzyme therapy or enzyme nutrition. I saw her for the first time on Thursday. She did some acupuncture and asked a bunch of questions. She is trying to find out where I am health wise and to help get me started on enzymes. I am excited to get started! I have to do a urinalysis also so she can see where to start. She did make a comment that my thyroid is not working as well as it should so thats why I am gaining weight and have a hard time losing it. I really didn't have the heart to tell her that it's my stinking diet is why I am gaining weight!!! I do have a hard time losing weight too. Nice to have a reason why.

My parents wanted to have a work day at their house this past Saturday. They needed some help getting some things done in the house and figured many hands make light work. So, Jason, me and my bro and his wife were going to be there. Jason had Friday off so we went to my parents then and then my bro and his wife would come up on Sat. My parents watched Nate so Jason and I could have a date night!! We went to 2 Antique Shops and then out to eat. On the way to my parents, we stopped at a Christmas tree farm. Found a beautiful tree! I hope I can get a pic for you all to see. Ok, pics aren't available right now. Jason had the pictures moved to flickr and I cant figure out how to add them to my blog.

We had a great date night. Went back to my parents house and watched a movie. About half way into the movie, Nate gets sick. I mean, throwing up sick. Yuck. We just figured my dad had a little too much fun with Nate and his stomach got yucky. Not the case. I was up with Nate all night long since he would get sick every 15mins. From midnight to around 4am it was every 15mins then we got a break and we both slept till morning. He got sick 2 more times that day. Nate was in bed by 7pm and we didn't hear a peep out of him till morning. One time getting sick today. When I got home from teaching Sunday School, he was sleeping on the floor in the back room draped half on half off a big pillow. Still sleeping as of right now! Thankfully, Jason was able to get some water, dry toast and some banana in him.

We put up the Christmas tree last night. It's so pretty and smells sooo good! It's about 6ft tall. Just the type of tree I wanted. It is either a Canaan Fir or Fraser Fir. I like how the needles are. I almost had too many decorations to put on! I also put up around the door to the kitchen a garland and added a string of bells that play music. My wonderful mother-in-law, Kathy got those for us. My living room isn't completly done. I need to put up my Christmas village.

It was such a warm day that I finished putting lights up outside. I bought some new ones. They have the big light bulbs that are colored with icicle lights hanging down. The porch roof has those and the rest of the front of the house has just regular icicle lights. Looks nice! Right after we put up the rest of the lights, a front came through and it rained.

It's been a quiet day after all that. Just catching up on my message board and checking emails. I need to work on my menu for the week. I am craving spaghetti so I think thats what we will have tomorrow night.

I am looking forward to getting back into the work week. Not much going on, but still nice to get back to an ordinary day. Back to the familiar.

As soon as I can get Jason's help, I will have to add some pics.