Nesting // Hazel's corner

Well, it's finally done.

Hazel's little corner (of our room).

We are all ready for her!

I tried to get all the little things together that we'll need and put them in her little corner - things we'll need for naptime or night time needs when I don't want to go into her brother and sister's room to rummage around for things.

Sawyer & Aspen picked out a couple of little gifts to give to their new baby sister on her birth day - and this little bear is one of their favorites. It's soooo soft, too. Very sweet!

I found this pretty little frame at TJ Maxx and painted it to help it stand out a bit on our white walls. I'm hoping to get a good picture of our three kiddos together (wish me luck!) to put in this frame :)

I already told you about how I made her crib bedding...

and her butterfly mobile...

so I won't say anything more about them.

I'm not really a fan of those hanging diaper things people sometimes put on cribs...so I created one I DO like. I got this little canvas basket at Target and then used some ribbon to attach it to the crib...inside I put all of the little things we may need for diaper or clothing changes during her siblings naps or when they're already in bed and I don't want to disturb them by rummaging around in their room to find things. I am sure it will come in handy!

A basket full of cozy little blankets...I'll probably throw some burb cloths in there once she arrives - and if she's anything like her sister (who we nicknamed the "queen of spit up") we will need lots! Then again, if she's like her brother (who never spit up) we may not need many at all :)

I also hung up the dress I picked out for her special baby blessing at church. It was the first thing I bought for her once we found out we were having a girl. I just thought it looked fit for a sweet little angel :)  

Aspen is always asking me to blow on the butterflies to "make them fly, Mama!" Sometimes, she tries too but rarely does her little puff of air reach them. 

She's excited to be a BIG sister!

So, there you have it. Hazel's corner. 

I know there are a lot of people in the world who don't have room to design an entire nursery for their babies, and I feel lucky we at least had a few spare feet in our tiny room to make something feel special to welcome and cuddle our new baby. I know a lot of women look at all these beautiful nurseries and would love to have one, but I hope that by sharing Hazel's little corner with you, you may see that it's possible to make something special, even if a tiny corner of your own room is all you have to offer.

Three cheers for small spaces! And beautiful new babies!

outings // skagit valley tulip festival

This past weekend, we jaunted up to the Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon. It was a perfect Saturday morning filled with sunshine, finally warm weather - so we packed a picnic and thought we'd make a morning of it. It turns out that hundreds if not thousands of other people had the same splendid idea that we did, so we ended up making a full day of it, since it took us 45 minutes to drive north and 2.5 hours to get off the freeway exit and to the fields. I can say I truly enjoyed every minute of it - even being stuck in traffic, we had the windows rolled down and good times going with the kids (they amazingly did awesome considering we moved 2 feet an hour for a few hours...no dvds required! We are old fashioned and sing songs and play "look out the window and what do you see" type of games (cars, colors, letters, animals, etc.) The landscape was of course gorgeous, and because we got back so late we even went out to dinner. The only bummer was that Jacob had a TON of work to do - both for his day job and some freelance, and the traffic sure backed him up in that regard. But what can you do? We just enjoyed the moments - it's a rare treat to spend an entire Saturday just kickin' it together in fields of flowers. 

even though we've seen the tulip fields multiple times, the first step out into the millions of tulips always makes me pause - they are sooooo striking!

Aspen was quite interested in the flowers - we had to be careful she didn't pick any to take home with us :)

Sawyer, on the other hand, wasn't as intrigued with the flowers...but he did bring a car along to maneuver through the dirt and fields, which made his day.

We brought some bubbles along and found a big field to blow them in. Lately, the kids insist on blowing the bubbles themselves, which generally results in wet, sticky kids and spilled bubbles, but they really enjoy doing it all themselves (even if there are a lack of bubbles floating in the air).

There are so many different colors, too! I think my favorite are almost always the classic red tulips, though.

Photography 101 - courtesy of Daddy (who brought his own camera along for fun.) I think we may have some budding photographer's in this family!

I guess this is what I look like to my clients (not to mention my own kids who get chased by me and my huge camera probably more than they'd like) :)

Overall, a FABULOUS and BEAUTIFUL day in the fields! If you haven't been yet - there's still a few days left. I think the festival ends the end of this month. If you can go on a weekday, though, I'd advise it :) Oh, and also a good idea to bring some rainboots - we wore sandels because of the sunshine but ended up with pretty muddy feet (not to mention Sawyer's graceful slide through the muddy water which resulted in a very muddy rear end :)

30 weeks

We stopped by the park by our home on the way home from church yesterday - I wanted to take pics of the kids in their Easter attire (next post), but we went ahead and got a couple of me as well - everything around here is blooming so we might as well show my blooming belly! Here is the baby Hazel belly - growing every day :) The doctor says she is likely going to be petite, which is no surprise considering our track record. We are just soooo excited to meet her - can hardly wait! And, I have to admit, I'm excited to NOT be pregnant. I love the outcome but it sure is a long ride for me (especially with the girls that make me so sick! No offense to our lovely girls, but I am totally crossing my fingers for another boy next time around!)

Easter 2012

Our Easter Weekend was a busy one. Busy, yet relaxing at the same time. I was purely exhausted by Sunday night and fell asleep before the kids did (this happens often when I'm pregnant). Saturday, I had two photo shoots, which was a lot since I've been taking things a lot slower. Both turned out to be lovely - a beautiful newborn baby boy and a fun couple from Portland (what a nice pat on the back!) came up, who are expecting their first baby just a couple of weeks after Hazel's due date. AND the weather was AMAZING! Spring is finally here and the sun and warmth came with it. It truly made my heart sing! Jacob did fun things with the kids while I was at work (so glad we live within walking distance to the library and awesome park and playground!) and he even did some yard work. He also made us dinner - all weekend (which he also likes to do, and I like it, too :)  So, Saturday was so busy we didn't make it to any Easter Egg Hunts or the like, but we did have a good day getting some important things done as well as relaxing a bit and just playing with the kids. (Friday night we also had a fun family date night, it really kick-started a great weekend!)

On Sunday, we of course all got up and got ready for church. Aspen was a trooper and let me put the sponge curlers in her hair after her bath on Saturday night, and I was curious if she'd make it through the night with them in. A few times she said "my hair is too tight" so I "fixed" it a bit and was hoping once she fell asleep it would be okay. She did really well - though I don't think I'll torture her again that way for some time :)  I told Jacob how I always thought it was uncomfortable when I was little, and he was like "then why are you having her do it?" Good point. Anyway, she did take out a few during the night, but oh well. It was pretty funky and crazy curly! Once dolled up in her dress and little clip, she got a lot of "Shirley Temple" comments at church. She is our little doll :)  Of course there were Easter goodies - although we didn't do much candy. We did fresh fruit and a bit of chocolate, and then the kids got some fun new books and toys (a real porcelain tea set! We had a tea party today for lunch!) 

Our church service was lovely and I was especially touched by one of the talks in which the speaker directed her message to the children (how often does that happen?) I loved it. And of course, we are all children at heart, so it really touched me as well. I could barely hold it together when the primary children sang "Gethsemane". Sawyer was supposed to go up and sing, too...but he got stage fright and wouldn't budge from my lap. I'm not really supposed to carry him around (and having him cling to my legs while standing in front of a bunch of people where my dress might accidentally come up, too, I didn't want to risk it) and Jacob had taken Aspen to the bathroom, so we just sat. He loves his Sunbeams teachers (I do too, they are awesome!) and it really really touched me when he said "Do you see Randy up there?" and I did. And I also saw that Randy looked right at Sawyer and smiled. Sawyer of course felt special for a tiny moment when he felt a little small, not wanting to join the crowd. I'm not sure if it's the pregnancy hormones because I'm just emotional a lot, easily touched - but especially when someone goes out of their way just a bit to smile at your child and make them feel special, it sure goes a long long way.

We picked up the kids from Primary and Nursery and they both got cupcakes (Sawyer's teachers were nice enough to save one for Aspen). The kids got all messy but I told Jacob I really wanted to take some pictures of them after church. Maybe I should have listened to Jacob when he reminded me that it was lunch time and nap time and it probably wouldn't be the ideal time...but stubborn me said, "let's just stop by the park anyway". So, we did. And the sun was out and it was gorgeous. The kids didn't want to cooperate to get their pictures taken, so I just got some candid ones of them while we were spending some time next to the duck pond, playing in the little flowers that were covering the grass. We played in the grass, helped spread dandylion seeds around the park, and threw plenty of rocks into the duck pond (the ducks think we're throwing food so they always come over to see the kids). We spent a good hour just being there together enjoying a glorious Easter Sunday. 

We had lunch and naps and then we had an Easter Feast prepared by Jacob. We discovered that Aspen LOVES Artichokes just about as much as her Mama. We discovered that the kids LOVE the little music box (egg shaped globe) that has an Easter scene and plays "here comes Peter Cottontail". "Again!" I wound it up soooo many times. And for some reason the tune reminded Aspen of "I am a Child of God" because she would often start singing those words to go with the music box. After our lovely dinner and Strawberry Shortcake, we went back to the park and had a little Easter Egg Hunt, just us. The kids were ecstatic and so excited. We all fell into bed after that, it had been a busy and fun weekend. I am so grateful for my little family, and that we love to be together. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Weekend as well - and amongst all the other fun things, somehow your heart was touched by pondering our Savior's atoning sacrifice, death, and resurrection. He lives!

just for fun

A week or so ago, we went to the Birthday Party of Aspen's best girlfriend. Her mom had put some curls in her hair and I about died she looked sooooo adorable! Last night, I was at Target getting a few little things for Easter and I decided to get some of those old-school sponge rollers and see if maybe for Easter we could get some boing boing curls going at our house, too (I was thinking of Aspen and also myself, for old times' sake!)

This morning I decided to give them a test run. She looked so cute I just had to get the camera out. I haven't had it out enough these days to document the little moments I don't want to forget. The other night, I looked at all the photos I've taken of our family this year and they are very sparse compared to years past (blame the pregnancy sickness! I'm sure once Hazel is here we will have picture OVERLOAD :)

She did great with letting me put them in her hair. And once she got playing she pretty much forgot about them...for a few minutes, anyway. I tried to speed up the process by blowing her hair dry a bit, but she's not a big fan of the blowdryer so that didn't last long. 

She looked kind of like an old grandma with the rollers in her hair - I kept cracking up!

I was too impatient to wait for her hair to completely dry - so I took them out after about 15 minutes. Her hair was still damp so they didn't work as well as if we had waited until it dried. It looked pretty much how it does when she gets out of the bathtub. Her hair is still curly/wavy, but as it gets longer it weighs it down...Anyway, there were a few curls and I didn't want to put a damper on our experiment, so I got excited and put a big bow (I never even thought I'd own a big bow) in her hair and took a picture.  I don't think she'll last through the night with these things in her hair (I HATED them as a child, myself) but perhaps we'll give it a go and see what happens Easter morning. 

Either way, she's cute :)


Oh, and after all that pampering guess where I took her?


Lowes (I do love myself a home improvement store!) I'm sure the man at the paint counter thought she looked pretty cute :)

Handmade // Layette of Leftovers

Remember a few weeks ago when I said I was going to basically use all of my old scraps from my stash of fabric to make some fun new things for the new baby? Well, I did! I've used up just about everything little thing I've had - and I'm so tired of sewing now that I think I'll just stop already! I've made lots of cute things for our new baby, as well as a few for her siblings, and many many as gifts for friends and family expecting babies. 

You would think that already having a girl and then having another girl, we would be set. But no, because these girlies will be the opposite seasons (Aspen as born in January, Hazel will be June) so I did need to make (and buy, of course!) a few things for our summer girl. I figure they'll catch up after the first year and Hazel will get to experience the joy of mostly hand-me-downs, but for the first few months I had to do something. The great thing about summer babies is that a onesie is pretty much an outfit, so that makes it better on the pocketbook and easy to give old onesies new life.

I used a few patterns - made up some on my own - and then used a LOT of inspiration from etsy for a few of these items. I will be sure to give credit where credit is certainly due! That way, if you want the pattern, or to buy, or to study and re-create your own version of one of these, you will have a resource.

Let's start with seersucker...

The above dress is a free pattern download from Rae Hoakstra, the "bitty baby dress". It's made to fit newborns. I made one for Aspen so I had to make one for Hazel as well :)  I also made one for each of my two new nieces that are due - Emerson (Emmy) in May and Karly in August.

The red seersucker onesie-dress I made by (pretty much) following along with this tutorial I found on-line. It looked pretty straight forward, but it was actually kind of tricky - getting the skirt part on straight all the way around the onesie, that is. Especially for a rebel sewer like me who doesn't ever pin anything together. But it definitely looks like a dress that will be comfy and perfect to take her sailing in!

Okay, just a little more seersucker...for bibs! And here is where you will notice a trend...peaches, creams, and ruffles! Oh, toss in a few rosettes for good measure and we're good to go :) While I was going at it with the bibs and a burp cloth with ruffles, I slapped a ruffle onto some of those newborn t-shirts. I had a ton of leftover white onesies from Sawyer & Aspen, but I wanted to freshen them up somehow. 

You may even start recognizing some of my leftover fabric from past projects (the polka dots, for example were from Aspen's Happy Stacker I made for her 1st birthday - Aunt Tia has some tea towels with the same dots I made her for Christmas as well). So, more bibs, and burp cloth/changing pads (I got rid of the one that went on top of the dresser because we just won't have that luxery this time...and honestly, by the time they're a couple of months old I always end up changing them on the floor anyway, so a little spruced up cloth diaper will do just fine ;) And I copied the binky holder from Aspen's old one - I thought Hazel should have a fresh one instead of one that had been slobbered all over.

Ahem, here are some of my favorite little summery pieces! I totally copied the idea from an etsy shop that I love. If you know me, you know I have a thing for sailboats and all things nautical and beachy, so the anchor onesies I just had to try. I did freezer paper stenciling on the dyed onesies and it was lots of fun. Lots of fun for this preggo lady who still feels sick a lot of the time...hence my only activities the past few weeks have been sewing and crafting because it's something I can actually do while feeling not-so-great...but doing it makes me happy...so it kind of balances things out a bit. I actually had a bunch of leftover newborn sized white onesies but they were from the Gap, and had that little bear on the front corner - which didn't look so girly to me, so I thought the rosettes were a great way to cover up the bear. And I had so much fun trying out dying for the first time! Who needs to dye Easter Eggs? Just give me some old onesies and I'll have a ball! :)

More credit is due! My awesome & super talented friend, Allegra, used to sell burp clothes like these rosette ones in her etsy shop as well - not to mention such cute cute headbands - of which she made me TONS for Aspen. (If you look hard in her etsy shop, you will even find Aspen modeling a headband or two with her bestie!) I actually think she was the first one to create this particular style of rosette headbands and burp clothes...just sayin' :)

I made so many shoes for Aspen, I just had to make something for Hazel's tiny feet. I will probably still make her a couple of shoes all her own, but I also bought this inexpensive downloadable pattern for these super cute baby boots! I had to give them a try! 

Okay, we're almost finished, I promise! So...the project above and the one below...used to be my skirt - you can catch glimpse of it here (me wearing it) and here (thrown under Aspen for texture in her newborn & 6 month photos). I always loved the color, but didn't always love the skirt, it seemed slightly poofy or something, but since it seemed connected to Aspen, I couldn't just give it to the Good Will. It was too pretty. So...I made this teeeeeny tiny dress out of the liner for Hazel (I keep measuring small so the doc says she will probably be very petite like our other babies - which will be good because this dress is more like preemie size!) And then with the ruffly outer part of the skirt I made this little dress for Aspen. I hope to one day take her picture in it - since I have never really got around to 2-year pics, I figure maybe 2 and a half year pics will do later this summer :)

I think all I've got to do now is finish Hazel's little corner of our room...and make her a blanket or two. I've already even been stocking up on newborn diapers (maybe I should get a few preemie sizes? I'm all worried now that she's going to be reallllly small...which is fine, I love teeny babies...just as long as she's healthy.) We're pretty much just READY for this new baby to join our family! But we still have about 10 weeks to wait. I have a couple of non-baby-related projects to work on in the meantime, as well as needing to review my hypnobirthing stuff and just plain relax (although I'm kind of tired of relaxing! Especially when laying down to "relax" often brings on the heartburn!) Now is the time when all I want to eat is smoothies...anyone have a recipe they want to share? 

Here's to being done with the sewing/crafting party of nesting! It was fun while it lasted!