Blog Every Day in May: Day 19

Day 19, Sunday: Five of your favorite blogs and what you love about them

Well, I sorta did this on day 5 with the love on a blogger you are friends with prompt as I didn't really feel close enough to any blogger to fully embrace the spirit of that prompt - so you can look back to that post to read a little more about 3 bloggers I adore!

A few more favorites:

1. Growing up Geeky - I love how Melissa embraces the geeky and keeps it real.  She was recently struggling with postpartum anxiety and it has been great seeing her turn the corner and become more of herself again - I really appreciate how she shared that struggle! And now she is navigating a return to work and the difficulties of being away from her girls.
2. I Love You More than Carrots - AP is another boy mom and I love watching her cutie-tootie boys grow! AP is super funny and she always makes me laugh, especially with her hashtags on instagram! This year her goal is "college hot and no babies" - at least until her birthday - and she is so cute! I love her style and the way she dresses her boys! They all always look super nice!
3. My Little Mustache - Jess is just super, super sweet and she is a great encourager. She is always looking for new ways to "encourage it forward." She really is an inspiration as she always has a heart for others - plus her son, Judah, is super cute - and she is an awesome "crocheter" 
4. Grace for Moms - This blog has many different contributors and offers lots of different posts for moms - always encouraging with a great Christian perspective.
5. Oh Dear Drea  - Drea and I have almost nothing in common, but her photos are gorgeous and she makes vegan food look super yummy - I need to gather up some courage and try one of her recipes - it would probably benefit us to eat a little more like her!

Blog Every Day in May - Day 14

Challenge Day 14: Ten things that make you really happy

I'm not going to take up a spot on my list for it, but I am crazy proud that I have kept this up so far! 14 days in and I've blogged and posted every day - with the right prompt on the right day and everything! I can't even believe I've gotten this far with everything else going on! Go Me!

1. My faith - my faith gives my joy in all circumstances - I may not be happy in every moment, but I can always have joy in my spirit!
2. My family - immediate and extended - just look at these guys! How could these faces not make your heart smile! 
3. My friends - near and far/old and new - I'm really seeing the blessing of friendship in my life this year and it makes me happy to cultivate these relationships (although I could be doing more to foster these relationships and I need to make them more of a priority going forward!)
4. My health (and my families) - sure - I'm dealing with blood pressure issues and it's annoying and inconvenient, but Noah is doing great and overall my family and I are so blessed and amazingly healthy! Praise the Lord! 
5. Lemonade Dreamsicles - there is a local ice cream shop that makes these delicious milkshakes with lemonade sherbet and vanilla ice cream and I'm not sure what else, but they ae fantastic and always make me grin!
6. Chocolate - no explanation needed!
7. Bubble baths with books/blogs to read - again, no explanation needed!
8. Sunshine - this desert girl was going crazy this winter, back home you can be outside most of the year  and I missed that desperately during this never-ending winter!
9. Dr. Pepper 10 - J recommended it and I was like eww Diet Dr. Pepper is gross, but this stuff is pretty darn yummy and feels likes treat without actually being that bad!
10. Project Life and blogging - I haven't gotten that far with either one, but I love that I now have two systems to document our lives and preserve our memories! Between hormones and lack of sleep and all of that, my memory is seriously lacking these days and it will be so great to be able to look back in multiple places and see what we were going and how it felt, etc! And that makes me super happy!

Oh, and how cute is this?!

Quiet Book

So, I've never done a crafty post before, and I'm not sure how to go about it, but I've mentioned before that I was working on/made Owen a quiet book! I've questioned whether or not I should even write this post, since I had a lot of online inspiration, even used a template for several pages, and didn't really use a ton of personal creativity -- but I did make this book for my son with my own two hands and I worked really, really hard on it, so I want to celebrate and remember that! I'm really proud that I started and finished such a big project and I really think it turned out well!

I started my first two pages (the farm and hill) at the beginning of February (right before my sister's wedding) and I completed the rest of the book by March - so it took about a month overall - and unfortunately while lots of people say they completed their quiet books for about $30 - mine cost darn near $100, but I still have a ton of leftover supplies and will probably be able to make 2-3 more books with only a few small purchases. (I had to buy packs of things like buttons, embroidery thread, and ribbon, etc. to use only a small amount - and after the first two pages I absolutely HAD to buy a nice pair of left-handed scissors!!! - those things were a life project saver!)

I have a TON of other ideas and pins of pages to make, but the book is almost 2 inches thick already, so I'm thinking those ideas will need to go into additional books! The pages are currently bound with 2 rings in buttonholes, but I need to get some bigger rings so the pages will turn more easily and I still need to come up with a cover for the whole thing, but by the time I finished these pages, I was ready for a little break from sewing! It's been a month now, so I pulled this back out to start to put it together and get it ready for Owen and I thought it was about time to document it all at the very least for posterities sake!

The first set of pages are obviously all of our names for Owen to touch/trace/name the letters. I eventually plan on making letters for him to match with those, but since he's a few years from that anyway, I didn't bother with that yet. The page underneath is a whiteboard of sorts. It is transparency sheet sewed into a frame with a printed page behind it that I can switch out. This page was difficult to sew and I actually broke a needle trying to get through the transparency sheet - so it didn't turn out a nicely as I'd like, but I'll probably redo it in the future. I got my inspiration to do a name page from Homemade By Jill - but I ended up deciding to do the whole family instead of just Owen - especially since that means that Owen and Noah can both use it as time goes on.

These next pages are pretty basic (and LAZY - I used foam stickers for the numbers and letters!!). I found the idea for the numbers page on Sew Can Do - I loved the idea of using the ribbon and combining number recognition with quantity in a simple toddler-friendly way! I plan on making Owen/Noah a better ABC page as he gets older, but the stickers work for now - he can easily explore them and I can replace any that get messed up, so we'll stick with it until he's showing readiness for more letter work!

Next, I have the elephant/balloons page to work on color words and the shape matching page (the shapes come off with velcro). I saw lots of shape pages all over, so I don't really think that one needs any recognition, but the elephant with balloons was inspired by Jill's elephant page from Montoya's Meaningful Memories and Musings. She made a super cute elephant holding balloons that is a color matching page, but that combined with the inspiration of the written words on Toni's mermaid fish/shape page - I decided to adapt it so that my balloons would match with the color word and be a little harder - so that page will work when the boys are older too! I also decided to keep my balloons attached on their strings so they wouldn't get lost - we'll see if that becomes a tangled mess, I might have to eventually cut those off and add some velcro.

These 8 pages are all closely taken from Jocelyn's template from Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows! Her quiet book was soo cute and her Quiet Book Blog linked me to a ton of other cute quiet books that served for inspiration for lots of future pages!!! There are several other pages in her quiet book that I plan to make in the future as well - her whole book is just ADORABLE! I love all the pages and I foresee hours of fun with Mr/Mrs. Potato-Head, the decorate-a-dinosaur and button flowers, the farm with puppets, and the apple tree and ladybug that help O work with snaps and zippers! He's had a little practice with the Potato Head page already and gets super excited whenever I pull it out!

These two pages are actually the last and first (respectively) pages of my quiet book. The first page (on the right) is just a simple weaving page - part of Jocelyn's template and many, many, many other quiet books - and the last page is a tool box for my little "engineer" who attempts to use just about anything to "ficks" all the chairs/gates/things in our house - if he can see a screw...then he is using keys/any toy with a point/and stealing actual tools to attempt to turn it and fix all the things! I looked the pictures from Keely's tool box page to help with the perspective and sizing of my tools, but I cut and made them myself - so the tool page is sort of a combo between a copied and creative.

So, like I said, I had a lot of inspiration - that I've hopefully given all the credit to those that it is due! Those ladies are super creative and I totally latched onto that - although I did come up with a few tweaks of my own and I'm really proud of myself for my hard work because even with the ideas - this was a TON of work! Since I finished it, I've been going back and forth on whether I want to give Owen the book as his gift when Noah is born or wait until his second birthday in August (we'll just have to see where he is developmentally come June). He's watched me make it and has looked at all the pages (so it's not a surprise - but at this age he doesn't seem to get that concept anyway), but - when I've given him the chance to explore it a little - he's still really ROUGH with it, and after ALL the man-hours I put in....I just can't handle that, so it's staying put away for a few more months while we keep working on those fine motor skills!

This has been the biggest project I've taken on since Owen was born and it was so much fun getting back into doing something crafty and creative! I really hope to keep it up by making more Quiet Books and pages  - and making lots of other crafty projects for my kiddos and my home!

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

Owen has a new favorite song and he has let it be know as he constantly requests "le ih shi" and sings along each time you repeat the line. This kid is always amazing me in new and exciting ways.

Today, he is 19 months old and saying about 120 words on his own (not repeating - probably about 200 that he'll repeat) and he's often starting to use 2 words sentences - even with the pronoun "I" like "I tuck (stuck)" or "I bonk" - which he says regularly while whacking himself in the head - silly boy. He's also starting to use a few adjectives and pointing out some body parts (consistently eyes, but sometimes ears, nose, head, and mouth) but he doesn't like to play the body parts game much - he's much rather be climbing or running or being silly. But he also loves to be cozy too, cuddle up with blankets to watch "trucks" (Mater's Tall Tales) or Backyardigans which he still loves or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and occasionally Sesame Street since he loves Elmo, but he does not like Abby's Flying Fairy School and always makes me fast-forward it.

Owen is still a big guy and was 80th percentile for height and 90th for weight at his 18 month checkup - not chubby at all, but just an all around big kid - although he does have a super cute little toddler belly!

He's starting to understand more about daddy being on call, where before he would just start to get fussy on call evenings without really being consolable or understanding, but now you can tell him that "daddy has to sleep in the hospital today" and he seems to get it and calm down. It doesn't stop him from asking for "da-Dee" ten times a day, but it does stop the fits when daddy doesn't come. He is also starting to do really well with being dropped off in the nursery at church - sometimes we still have a little trouble, but most days he walks right in and plays happily! So thrilled and proud of my big boy! Last Sunday, we were actually planning to keep him with us since he was acting tired, but he pointed at the nursery and kept repeating "kihs, kihs (kids)" - so cute, and he went right in and played like crazy the whole time! It's amazing watching him develop this new-found independence!

I've been working really hard on making him (and future kiddos) a quiet book or busy book and I have a few more pages to go before I put things all together to make his first book (hoping to end up with 4 that get harder). I'm also working on getting everything together to start 2 year old homeschool preschool this August - hopefully if everything is ready it will be easier to stick to with a 2yo and 2mo. It's been amazing watching him learn the last 6 months and I can't wait to see where he goes with some more structure and guidance (working on moving towards some school-like play now so he'll be ready when the time comes). His attention span is already MUCH longer and he's really getting into reading books - he even repeated 3 letters the other day!

Each new step, I'm amazed that this is my kid and that he is growing and developing so well, but as proud as I am I still mourn just a little the baby he was. Every day he is bigger and needs me less (he uses forks and spoons by himself 80% of the time - he hardly lets me feed him - and that over there to the left is a 5 block tower) and he is becoming more of his own little person - and soon I'll have two clamoring for my attention - so right now I'm soaking up every snuggle and hug (he gives the BEST hugs or huggies as he calls them) and cuddle and kiss that I can get!

I love you, little man! And I am so proud to be your mommy and so glad that God has blessed us, so that I can stay home with you and watch you grow!