I Love Crafts

I have been trying to keep myself busy doing things I enjoy, I realize with baby #3 on the way that my time won't be as "free" as it is now once he/she is here. Plus with the birthdays and holidays here, it's really easy to get creative and come up with things to decorate my home with.
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First, Autumn had a birthday party to go to and I had loads of ideas from family on what to get her (I wasn't sure what 5 year old were into) so after getting a couple of things for her I wanted to make her something personal, plus I have a Cricut and love to use it. So I found a small candy jar that's been sitting in my closet since we moved here 10 months ago, made a cute new lid and filled it with her favorite candy.

I loved the way it turned out. I think her mom was happy to see something different and "special" in the gift bag.

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I have crib bedding that I was planning to sell at a future garage sale because I didn't want to use the bedding again but then I thought maybe if I added some cute decor to the wall next to the crib it would help spice it up. I love what we came up with.

My mom came into town with a bunch of Cricut cartridges for me to make things with for scrapbooks, but then she had the perfect Winnie the Pooh set that I knew I could use for wall decor:

I bought some small wooden plaques, painted them, put on some characters and mod podged it. They are adorable. We attached ribbon to the tops of  each these to make hanging easier.

This rectangle plaque is bigger, about 8x11 in size and once we have a name picked out I will put it above the sleeping Pooh bear.

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We have this fun little toy that the kids and everyother kid that comes over loves to play with. But my kids picked some of the pictures off of it and I had been wanting to fix it forever, but wasn't sure of a way to reapply something without having them pick it off again. So I bought the mod podge for the baby decorations and realized I had my solution now.

This was the before pic, after I had already started...

 One side I did numbers-

 The other side was alphabet letters-

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When I started putting out all my Fall/Halloween decor I realized I had way more Fall decorations than Halloween specific decorations. So I was happy when a friend called and invited me and the kids over to make wooden Halloween spiders. She has older kids who were able to make the whole thing, I just let my kids paint them. But they turned out adorable.

 I hung them on a wall near the front door that lacked any home decor and I liked them but thought that wall needed a little something else too.

So I made a Halloween Banner to go with them.

 And hung it up on the wall w/them. The wall is complete now!

Then, I was just browsing a food blog- Our Best Bites (thanks Jamie!) and they had posted loads of Halloween ideas for food, snacks, and treats and then an adorable craft- that after seeing it I knew I had to make. An hour later I was done and texting my sisters and mom about it incase they wanted to make some too.

Simple, it's just Mason Jars, tissue paper, mod podge, and black paper-

Then I added some ribon to the top, and put tea lights in them. They are so fun, and best of all- I didn't spend a penny on them, it's all stuff I had lying around the house.

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Drews sister is expecting her second child a couple of weeks after our baby is due so in preparing for her baby shower this weekend I made her a little something for her son (to go with the other stuff I have as well). I am very happy with the way it turned out. Luckily my sister had a Cricut cartridge with some boyish decals. Mine are all so girly.

If you can't tell, I love making crafts, and I love how little it costs me. Like the sign for my future nephew cost me a dollar and some change for the wooden plaque, and I already had the paper, ribbon, and paint, or the candy jar for Autumn's friend, it was all stuff I had at home. I can't wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas and see what all I can make!

Our "Stay-cation"

Drew was preparing for a hunting trip with his dad and was going to be gone for 4 days. So we decided to spend some quality family time together and do a small getaway the weekend before he left. We went to Flagstaff, which is 2 hours from us and just hung out, played, and enjoyed getting out of the house and the heat.

When we got to Flagstaff we checked into our hotel and let the kids run and stretch their legs. It was rainy and freezing when we got there. We unpacked and got our rooms situated and then ran to Wal-Mart, the new Tinkerbell movie had come out and we thought during our down time it would be a fun movie to watch. After Wal-Mart we went to dinner at Olive Garden (my favorite!). When we got back to the hotel we only had about half an hour before the kids needed to go to bed. Luckily Autumn had her own room and it worked out great. We had Weston in a pack in play in the main living area between the two rooms.

The next morning we enjoyed a filling breakfast compliments of the hotel. The kids really enjoyed it too!

After breakfast we decided to just drive around and see parts of Flagstaff we hadn't seen before. We found a fabulous park and let the kids play there for almost 2 hours. The weather was great and since school was in only a few kids were there.

After the park we took the kids back to the hotel where we ate lunch. The little table worked perfect for the kids, they ate left overs from the night before.

Everyone napped and then we played in the hotel room. I let the kids pick something to bring with us, Weston picked some trucks and Autumn picked a coloring book. Which was great for that down time, when we wanted to just hang out.

Late in the afternoon we went to the mall there, which is nothing spectacular, but we knew they had a play area for the kids and a few stores we would enjoy browsing through.

 On the way back to the hotel we stopped and grabbed something quick from a local restaurant and took it back to the hotel with us. After dinner we stayed at the hotel and let the kids watch their movie, run in the courtyard and play in the rooms.  

 That evening the kids slept so well. It really was a refreshing trip. On Fri. morning we got up and planned to eat breakfast and hang out in Flagstaff even after check out, but it kind of gets to the point where you're just ready to be home. The town doesn't have a TON to offer so after breakfast we packed up while the kids played and watched cartoons. We left right at check out time and headed back home.

 We were only in Flagstaff for 48 hours but 2 nights away from home and eating out alot gets to a person (well it does to me- probably because I am pregnant). We got home in time to put the kids down for naps and so the house was nice and quiet for us while we unpacked and relaxed. We are so glad we got to go up there, even though it was only for a couple of days. It was nice doing something different, and together as a family before Drew left for 4 days to go hunting.

Autumn's School Pictures

The morning before school we practiced for Autumn's first school picture day-

(These pictures are back when her tooth was chipped. Also- I chopped Autumns hair to shoulder length and I LOVE it!)

I couldn't wait to see them because I was curious if she smiled for them or would be making some funny face. Even though she didn't smile, she still looks pleasant and adorable to me! The quality of pic is terrible because they printed the photo on the order form. :)

I can't wait to get my real copy.

When is enough ENOUGH and too much TOO MUCH?

We unfortunately still don't know the gender of our baby. So in getting ready for the baby to come I decided to go through ALL of Autumn and Weston's old baby clothes & shoes to better organize them, and decide what items were worth keeping and what I could (and needed to) part with. Westons stuff was easy to go through, took me all of two days. That kid had no clothes compared to Autumn, and being that he army crawled for months his shirts and bottoms were pretty much ruined and tossed out when I boxed up his clothes as he outgrew them. But Autumn on the other hand. She had so many clothes that many still have tags, and there were some outfits I only remember her wearing once. She was obviously spoiled and had way TOO much.

For the first year of Autumns life both Drew and I were working, so money and budgeting weren't an issue and I remember if I saw something I liked or wanted I bought it with out a thought. At the time she was my parents only grandchild living near by so naturally, as grandparents do- whenever they saw something cute Autumn got it. When I was pregnant and found out we were having a girl, with Autumn, my parents went shopping that night and came by our place with a big bag of clothes. We should have seen it as things to come. I remember at her baby shower everyone was very generous, and when my brothers wife would come into town she would buy Autumn things because she lived so far away and wanted to treat her when she could.

So when I was going through Autumns clothes & shoes (which took a whole week to sort through and organize) I was just completely shocked.

I went through everything so carefully deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. This is what's left of the KEEP. These piles are separated by Newborn, 0-3 mos., 3-6 mos., 6-9 mos., and 9-12 mos. This is not including anything 12 mos. and over or what I am getting rid of.

 I was going through the 6-9 mos. pile and Autumn had 9 pairs of pajamas. What baby that size needs 9 pajamas? So that was my biggest task, finding what she had too many of and narrowing it down.

These are all of Autumns shoes, that I decided to keep. From size newborn to 4, so these are some of the shoes that I am holding onto that she wore for the first 18 months of her life.

A little ridiculous? I think so. Drew was surprised too, he knew she had a lot but once it's all layed out and you see it it's something else. We truely do feel blessed since going through her stuff, she has some beautiful clothes, adorable accessories, and fun shoes. I really hope we are having a girl. I won't have to buy anything but diapers if it's a girl. If it's a boy, I will need some clothes, but not much. But I will feel all set- if this baby can use their big sisters stuff. :)

Parent Teacher Conference

Today I had my first Parent Teacher Conference for Autumn. It was really enlightening. Autumns teacher talked really highly of Autumn and commented on how smart she was. She was impressed that she can count to 14 on her own and recognize all the numbers, and that she knew all her alphabet letters both capital and lower case. She said Autumn is very social and has made a lot of friends. There is one girl in particular whos name is Sierra and her Autumn are joined at the hip. It really makes me happy that kids are so forgiving of faults, and even though Autumn can't hold a conversation and answer their questions that the kids don't see or care about that.

The conference wasn't all praising, she asked me to work with Autumn on getting her to sit and be patient. She said Autumn will sit to do a task but as soon as she is done she is up running around, where other kids sit and wait to be told what's going on next. There is a circle time mat and the teacher used to have Autumn placed in the very front of the mat assuming Autumn would act better if right in front of the teacher. She has since moved her to the middle of the mat, and placed her between 2 students who have better speech and what the teacher refers to as "typicals." (Typicals are students who model age appropriate behavior during a specific activity.) She said moving Autumn to the middle of the mat has made all the difference. She can't get up and move and escape. She is surrounded by kids and handles the circle time much better.

Her writing and tracing of letters is at the level 3 year old are at. The teacher is impressed with the homework and how well Autumn does with it. The teachers 2 biggest concerns was getting Autumn to sit for an extended period of time w/out being distracted (and she is having me work with her at home) and her speech. The whole reason I was even interested in this preschool program was because of the speech therapy. But Autumn didn't qualify when I had her tested in May. The teacher has since reread the speech evaluation and doesn't agree with it. She talked to the Speech Pathologist and is having her reevaluated next week. What a relief! That was what I mainly wanted to talk to the teacher about during our conference. She said even she (who works with loads of kids all day long w/all kinds of delays and disabilities) has a hard time understanding her. So hopefully whatever the Speech Pathologist missed can be brought to her attention again through Autumns teacher.

So it was a successful conference. I teared up hearing Autumns teacher give her such praise and talk about how smart and good she is, and how the other kids in the class love her. One weeks curriculum was on friendship and they discussed the role of a friend and they gave each student a friendship bracelet to share with a friend in the class (Autumn is one of the younger students, many of these kids were in the same class together last year) and one girl went to Autumn w/out hesitation to share her friendship bracelet, which resulted in another little girl (Sierra who I mentioned earlier) being severely disappointed that she didn't get Sophia's bracelet and that she couldn't give Autumn her friendship bracelet. I am so proud of Autumn, this preschool and their program is really going to do wonders for her.

Here she is doing her homework. 2 weeks ago they talked about the letter P.

I am so proud!

Autumns 1st Trip to the Dentist

I was waiting till Autumn was 3 1/2 to take her to the dentist for the first time, but well- something came up and we had to take her in earlier than planned. Which worked out for the best anyways, she will be 3 1/2 right before the baby gets here, and I am sure the last thing I will want to do is take her to the dentist when I am in the last few weeks of my pregnancy. The dentist office was so much fun. We got a referral from Autumn's pediatrician and had I not called them I would've taken her to a regular dentist, one that could be seen by the whole family so that one office had all our dental records and info but they recommended a pediatric dentist because of what happened. I am so glad we went with their advice. The office is called Treasured Smiles which is so fitting.

The entire place was pirate themed. The murals on the wall, the decor, the books, the toys. I don't know what has gotten Autumn into pirates, but lately she closes one eye and says, "Arg." (Actually- I think it's Captain Hook and his crew from Peter Pan, that's the only place I can think she has seen pirates.) Their waiting area kept Autumn completely occupied while I did paperwork and set up future appointments.

Here are some pics of the office:

This is an XBOX 360 and Playstation station, but we went early in the morning and they don't turn them on till the afternoon when the older kids come in. But Autumn pretended she played and kept asking to go up the stairs...

Checking out their fish tank-

She called this guy Captain hook, and kept walking around him checking him out.

Even the bathroom was done up. So fun.

I didn't take any pics once we went back into the rooms, but they took us on a tour of their facility. I saw the operation rooms, xray rooms, the sterilizing room, where the dentist hangs out between patients and the main area where they do cleanings. I didn't take any pics back there because there was so much for me to pay attention to and Autumn was super clingy. But they had treasure chests everywhere and every square inch of this place is made to look like you're on a deserted island, or hanging out with mermaids and/or pirates. But it wasn't annoying or distracting.

On Wed. night Autumn was playing on the couch and we have a rule (that we try and enforce- but kids will be kids and it's hard to teach them not do something when they see other kids doing it) of no standing or jumping or walking on the couch (or beds or chairs or others people furnitrue) and I wasn't in the room and Drew was walking out of the living room- well Autumn somehow rolled or fell of the couch and smacked her face on the tile. I came running in and picked her up and tried calming her down, but there was obviously something wrong. She was crying harder than she does when she has a normal fall or hits something, and grabbing her lower jaw. So we focused all our attention on her bottom teeth and made sure none of them were loose. Once she calmed down and was fine I ran to the store. When I got back I was showing Autumn some clothes I got her and Weston and when she smiled and said, "Oh cute!" I saw it. She has chipped one of her front teeth, giving the appearance of a gap between her teeth. My heart sank. I hadn't noticed it before because when she grabbed her mouth she grabbed her bottom teeth, but really- it would be quite awkward to try and hold your top teeth so she grabbed what felt natural in her mouth so we looked in the wrong place.

She wasn't having any issues talking or drinking or eating but we decided to take her to the dentist anyways (ok- I decided- I am a worrier). I worried about future cavities, sensitivity, nerve damage, the tooth turning yellow/brown. So into the dentist we went. He was glad we came in, many people let chipped baby teeth go, figuring it's just a baby tooth and will fall out but it really can impact the health of the permanent tooth that will replace it. He could tell that the tooth had been pushed back when she hit the floor but because she is a thumb sucker when she sleeps she had pushed it back into place. The dentist was worried about stress that was put on the root/nerve at the time of the trauma so decided that by filling and putting a cap on the tooth this would help calm the nerve. He was very thorough in explaining everything and making sure I understood what all could be entailed from chipping a tooth and the best options for such a young kid. I thought he would take xrays to check the root but he is going to wait till we do the cap, when she is sedated. Which makes sense. If he sees any damage there will be further surgery, but we're hoping that nothing extensive needs to be done outside of the procedure of filling and capping the tooth. Because even that is a pretty penny, but I am grateful for insurance. The only thing the insurance is not covering is the anesthia, and Autumn will require 2 types of sedation because she is so young. At a time like this, we are grateful that the moment the kids are born they are covered under our medical, vision, and dental.
This was right after I noticed it-

Now she is used to lifting her lip up so others can see it.

I realize the gap is small, but when she is talking or smiling it's all I see, because it wasn't always there. It's actually quite noticeable and even her preschool teacher commented on it after school yesterday. In a week Autumns beautiful smile will look just like it used to.

As a side note, the dentist did say when she is 6 or 7 he will refer her to a orthodontist because she has lots of crowding and an overbite (from sucking her thumb.) And can already tell she will need braces. Which is no surprise- Drew and I could've benefited from braces when we were younger. Other than that and the chip her teeth look great!