GRANNY SQUARE HAT FOR EVERY OUTFIT!

Personalize your child's outfits this fall/winter with crocheted granny square hats. They are so fast and easy to whip up if you are an experienced "hooker" (he he) and very easy to learn how to make if you are a beginner. I have always wanted to make one but could never understand any of the written patterns. So, luckily, recently a YouTube channel I am subscribed to posted a video on how to make these. I added the ribbon and bow which I found for $.99 at Michael's. And it matched her cheetah print pants and flower on her shirt.

 

Here is the link for the granny square hat tutorial:

http://youtu.be/sQG_MBnXtY4

 

Have a great week!

 

What I'm Reading...

I have been on the waiting list for this book for weeks now and I finally get to read it. It is wonderfully written by Pastor Francis Chan and its a book that makes you want to live for God because you want to, not because you have to. So far he talks about being a "Lukewarm Christian" which admittedly I AM. I don't want to be. This is the first book I have read of the genre. Christian Non Fiction. I have to say that it is definitely a wake up call. In chapter 4 the author tells you to put the book down, pick up your Bible and read the Gospels for yourself. So, that's what I'm doing. I have read through Matthew and I realize that even Jesus' disciples were subject to worldly distractions and doubt. They didn't doubt that he was the Son of God, but they tended to lose faith when an obstacle occurred instead of looking to Jesus and be unafraid. He reprimands them, of course, and seems to be pretty harsh at times. Imagine if Jesus yelled at you "You with such little faith!" Man, I'd be scared.

Link up this week.

Very Hungry Caterpillar Party DIY Decor

My friend recently had a party for her son's first birthday. The theme was "Very Hungry Caterpillar". It is such a cute idea and yet you cannot find decorations at party stores or dollar stores for this theme. So I offered to help make some decorations to spice up the atmosphere.

 

 

 

This Happy Birthday sign is really easy to make. I used a cricut to cut the circles and letters but you can easily cut them out by hand. I used regular scrapbooking cardstock that I bought at Michaels. I needed 6 sheets of green and 1 sheet of red. Each sheet made 4 circles.

I bought a pack of brads at Michaels for $1.99 to hold each of the circles together.

Next you can stencil and cut by hand the letters, or if you have a Cricut you can use that to cut out letters. I liked having the white behind the black on the letters because it stands out more. The caterpillar face you use:

brown paper for long ovals for the ears and a small circle for the nose

yellow paper for ovals for the eyes

green paper for the pupil of the eye.

I loved using brads for this because you can easily put the banner up where you want and give it that little wave like a caterpillar moving.

 

This cake was made by someone else. It was one tier of chocolate and the other banana. All of the cutouts, minus the candle, are made out of fondant.

 

Instead of making one cake for the birthday boy Mom made a series of cupcakes. Great for this theme!

 

Birthday boy eating his cake. The banner around the highchair was made with glitter paper from the scrapbook section. I used the Cricut to cut them out but of course you can hand cut these. I didn't want there to be too much red  and I was tired of circles so the stars were just a little different. I used left over brads from the banner to put the brads on ribbon which is easily taped onto the highchair. Mini spools of ribbon that only cost .99 at Michaels are perfect for this. 

 

 

 

I made this crochet hat for James (which of course he didn't want to keep on, most 1 year olds don't). But I did get some good pictures of him. If you would like this pattern I will gladly write it down and post it for free. 

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Trendy Little Link Up: Fancify white

 

I can't resist a cute outfit. I found this white onesie with tutu attached at Once Upon a Child secondhand store. It seemed a little plain to me so I finally found a cute iron on to put on it. I found this princess iron-on at Michael's. I never knew the giant selection and personalized stuff you can put on clothing. They are very reasonably priced too! I will definitely be using them for birthday outfits. This iron-on was perfect for this outfit.

 

 

 

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If you are looking for cute, inexpensive boy clothes that coordinate look at Kohl's. I only go shopping there when I get my 30% off coupon in the mail (you get them with a Kohl's charge acct.). These coordinating separates on Liam were $5 each and I love that the shorts fit great.

 

 



Lovely blog hop.

Link up with "Her and Nicole" Lovely blog hop every Thursday!

Rewarding Good Behavior

I used to reward my son's good behavior or lack of bad behavior with screen time. I would let him play my Ipad, Iphone, Nintendo etc. Unfortunately, I found it very easy to give him one of these things and have him sit quietly and let me get stuff done around the house. However, he does not know how to have this screen time in moderation and it took a meltdown at Tball practice to realize that I had to cut him off and come up with something new.

Instead of rewarding him after EVERY good thing he does I decided to let him earn something after multiple times of being good. I made a sticker chart for  him that has 5 rows and the numbers 1-10 on each row. Now he gets a sticker for things like eating all his dinner (which is a struggle most of the time), not crying at TBall practice, cleaning his room etc. I don't punish him for bad behavior by taking OFF stickers, he gets time-outs for that. This chart is strictly for positive reinforcement. It is working out great!!

 

Materials:

Small poster board

Computer print outs of rewards

Stickers for rewards

Stickers for title (I used a Cricut to cut them out)

Sharpie

 

Directions:

1) Make title at the top. You can name it whatever you want. "Good Job ____" worked for me.

2) Use sharpie to make lines for 5 rows

3) Use Google Images to search for pictures for your rewards. Save them to your computer, then insert them all on a Word document to print them out. You can adjust the size on Word.

4) Cut out the pictures and place them at the end of each row.

5) Hand write or use scrapbooking stickers if you want to be fancy to put in the number of stickers you want your child to get before getting their reward. I did 10.

6) Give your kid a sticker to start off and watch how fast they want to help you out or clean their room to get more stickers! 

 

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Everyday Onesie and Leg Warmer

First "Trendy Little" link up!

 

Most of our house is tile which can be hard on little knees and feet. So I go to my trusty onesie and hand made leg warmers for an "at home" outfit. I know I posted before on these leg warmers but I love these hot pink ones and had to share.

 

You can find the link to the tutorial on this post:

http://theeverett5.blogspot.com/2013/04/fave-baby-leg-warmers.html

Reading The Great Gatsby

I always love reading classics (although I hated it in high school and college). I appreciate them more now, I guess. I saw the previews for Gatsby and now I have to read the book again. I honestly don't remember a thing about it since I read it over 10 years ago. My new favorite type of reading is books that are turned or have been turned into movies. I love to see the similarities and differences in them. Sometimes I like the books better, sometimes I like the movies better. For example, I like the whole Twilight Saga MOVIES way better than the books. Especially Breaking Dawn. But I recently saw "The Lucky One" and loved the book, not so much the movie, however, Zac Efron made it more than bearable. I would like to start a Book to Movie book club, I just have to convince some of my friends to do it too and then we could go see the movies together. It would be a great friend's night out.

Fave Baby Leg Warmers

Since it is getting very hot here in Arizona I want the babies to be able to wear light weight clothes without callousing up their knees. Kady already has a little callous on one because she has been crawling longer than Liam. I looked at a lot of different tutorials on how to make leg warmers and I found my favorite one. It looked a little complicated to me at first but it ended up being pretty simple and it makes the cuffs at the bottom smaller so they don't slip off her feet :) Also, if you have a .99 Cent Store around I found a gigantic selection of knee high socks so I went a little crazy and bought about 10 pairs so I give some of them away.

Just Go here http://bloomingbums.blogspot.com/2011/04/diy-baby-leg-warmers-tutorial.html

Crochet upgrade!

Went from homemade pain in the butt Pom Pom makers to amazingly easy should have bought them sooner real Pom Pom makers. I just made a Pom Pom in about 2 minutes. I bought these off of amazon.com.

I'm a Bridesmaid!

Tonight my family and I went over to one of my husbands best friend's house for dinner, and I was surprised with an invitation to be a bridesmaid in their wedding. Of course, I said yes! I am very honored. This is my third time around with the bridesmaid duty and now I have Pinterest, so I am very excited. I'm a sucker for wedding ceremonies though, I always cry. I am looking forward to spending time with her and the other girls these next couple of months.

Mommy Moments Blog Hop

I am joining this weeks Mommy Moments Blog Hop

Baby Bibs

 

I don't like putting bibs on my babies. First, I don't want to spend the $5-$? on cute bibs when I go through so many in a day. Second, I like the outfits that the babies wear and I don't like covering them up with an ugly bib. Unfortunately, the drool can get pretty out of control, so I decided that I would make my own cute bibs. Maybe I will make a tutorial one of these but they just seem so simple. I was up way too late making these, but they have been sitting on the kitchen table, half done, for about 3 days now. I had to finish them and I'm so happy I did. Now Liam can have some cute bibs to wear, plus I made Kady one more too. I also added in a burp cloth.

Princess Fiona

I had some girl time with one of my best friend's Liz. She has a son that is the same age as my oldest. They get along great, but today it was just the girls. Meaning, I also got to have some one on one time with Kadence. Babies are so unexpected, and I love that about them. I don't always love cleaning up their messes, but I will always remember them.  For example, today I dressed Kadence up in a really cute outfit with a tutu and leopard print cardi with a princess onesie and what does she do? She has a poop explosion at lunch and I have to change her into a sleeper that I brought as her "back-up" clothes. The sleeper is cute too, but sometimes I wonder why I spend money on cute clothes when most of the time, they are either pooped on or spit up on before we even make it to our destination. I guess the truth is, is that I just can't resist cute baby clothes. Sometimes I have to make large detours in stores just to avoid the baby clothes so that I don't buy any. It is doubly hard because I get to look at boy and girl clothes. Sometimes I wish I was boring and liked onesies and sleepers and that's it. But I'm a sucker for outfits. I need to get a part time job so I can buy the stuff guilt free. However, I'm proud of myself, because even though Kadence ruined her outfit today, I did not buy her a new one. I left her in her sleeper, because at least she can't kick off her sock, which is a whole different post. Here a pic of my wonderful daughter having a "Princess Fiona" moment :)

 

 

Twins are 7 Months!

 

 

 

I wanted to take pictures of them together, but my husband had to go to work and it is almost impossible to get them together without some help. So maybe tomorrow.

 

On the 11th the twins turned 7 months. It's amazing how different they are. They are meeting milestones at different paces than each other, and a lot different than Noah. I remember being really proactive about Noah getting to his different milestones and with the twins, I'm just letting it happen on its own. I help them out, of course, but I'm not trying to get them to sit, or crawl or stand every second of the day like I did with Noah, partially because I don't really want them to grow up too fast, and partially because I simply don't have the time. Sometimes it still feels weird to me that they are both mine. Honestly, having two babies (or more) at the same time is unique. They are really starting to interact and today Kadence started stealing toys. Liam picked up a toy and Kadence wanted it. Once she got ahold of it, Liam picked up another. She, of course, dropped the once she previously took and went for the new toy Liam had. The sibling rivalry begins. Right now, it is cute, and I will enjoy them being civil about their toys without screaming at each other.

 

Kadence is about 14.5lbs. She hasn't had any teeth come in yet. She can sit on her own but can't get to the seated position herself. She is not crawling yet, but she scoots pretty well and I have seen her get on all fours a few times. She loves baby food and will actually eat the greens. Maybe she won't be a picky eater (fingers crossed). She has a voice of her own and a powerful cry. She also loves to put her hands over her eyes while she is having a bottle. My little diva.

 

Liam is about 16.5lbs. He doesn't have teeth yet. He can sit for a few seconds on his own. He is getting better at it every day. He still does NOT like being on his belly, so all fours has not happened and scooting only happens out of anger and frustration. I have a feeling that once he can sit on his own, he might start trying to grab at toys and find himself on all fours without having to start on his belly. He started eating food before Kadence, but does not like greens. My boys are picky. He is a lover and always wants to be held. He knows that he has competition and he definitely wins on the attention scale. He is happy as long as he is in someone's arms or his Jumperoo! He LOVES his Jumperoo, he even falls asleep in it sometimes. It definitely tires him out.

 

Noah is a great big brother, he loves to make the twins laugh. I'm pretty sure he does a better job of it than anyone else. He can make them laugh at the silliest things and I try to make them laugh and I get smiles but I have to work extra hard to get a laugh. I hope that his love for his brother and sister lasts forever.

DIY Yarn Ball Container

I cannot find a "yarn ball holder" anywhere. Not even on Amazon. If anyone knows the specific name of one and where I can get it (for not too pricey) let me know. I want a multi-ball yarn holder that you can pull the string out of different compartments. I swear I have seen them but can't remember where. So for Christmas I wanted a yarn ball winder and I didn't get one. I am so glad! I am new to the yarn world and have tried to make a yarn ball but always fail. So, of course, I went to my trusty youtube and found a simple tutorial on a center pull string yarn ball which I will post the link to below. Now that I can make a yarn ball I needed something to hold it in so it doesn't roll away on me. I have twins and go through A LOT of formula and whenever I throw away an empty can I think, "I know I can do something crafty with this, I just don't know what". Well I found something! Yarn ball holder! And this is my very simple tutorial....

 

Start with an empty can of formula

 



 

 

 

Peel off the label

 

 

I used scrapbook paper to "decorate" my can, it can either be glued or taped on. There are many ways to get fancy with this, but my time was limited.

 

 

 

 

Wind your yarn into a center pull ball or whatever kind of yarn ball you usually make. This is the link to the tutorial I used to make my yarn ball. Which is super easy.

http://youtu.be/MLEsinYJt0E

 

 

 

 

When you are finished with your yarn ball drop it in your can. I didn't measure the amount of yarn that fit into this can, I just kept winding until it fit in the can without forcing it. Again, this is extremely amateur.  

 

 

 

 

Take the lid and cut a small hole in the middle (mine is 1cm). If you have a drill or dremel handy this will be perfect for that, or if you don't (like me), I used a small exacto knife that I use for scrapbooking. Then, using sandpaper, (or if you don't have any, maybe a nail file, like I did) smooth the edges of the hole you just cut so it doesn't snag the yarn.

 

 

 

 Now take the string that is coming out of the center of yarn and put it through the bottom of the lid. Replace the lid with the string hanging out and Voila! Your very easy (upcycled) yarn ball holder, for smaller projects of course.

 

 

 

Thank you for your interest in this tutorial! Have a Happy New Year and many blessings to you and your family in 2013!