*lyssa beth*

Inspiration..

Someone please tell me how you go from this:

To this?:

Found this at Sutton Grace, where she has a step-by-step tutorial. A part of me wants to tackle this and make one too for my girls. But at the same time, it's definitely not a "one night" project...more like a few weeks project. But totally worth it!

oops...

I was changing stuff around in my blog and lost all the friend blog's addresses....

So if you want me to blog stalk you, leave a message so I can either find your blog from your profile or just leave it in the comment.

PS-Thanks to the Feedjet thingy on here, I can see who comes and visits...but there are a few blogs that have a link to my blog but I can't go to them because they are private...if that's the case, I would love to have access!

Nursing Cover Tutorial...redone.

There are a million Nursing Cover tutorials out there. They are all great. Frankly, nursing covers are not hard. You could figure it out.

I really like this one from Little Birdie Secrets

They do a great job on step by step's and lots of pictures. I recommend doing that one.

Now don't get me wrong. I love boning and what it does for the nursing cover, but it still bothered me how thin it was and that it would still flop over.

So I got to thinking...

About a year ago, when I started my nursing cover venture, a friend of mine let me borrow one of her nursing covers to use as a guide. See, the one she let me borrow didn't use boning, but used interfacing on the fabric, really wide interfacing. I was a little intimidated by boning so I wanted to try interfacing. The only problem was wearing out and being folded in half for storage, it was getting a permanent crease in it.

So I made a few with interfacing but was expecting for it to not hold it's shape. But things got crazy busy for me so I haven't done anything since. But I did buy some boning.

So flash forward to now, being 7 months pregnant with a different gendered baby. I want a new "boy" nursing cover so I have put the 2 ways of making the nursing covers into one.

Cool huh?

So if you look at my nursing covers closely, you will see that there's about 3 1/2 inches of stiff fabric, with boning at the bottom, so that it doesn't flop over but stays stiff so that I can see my beautiful baby boy and only I will see him ;)

So how did I do that? It's kind of complicated but I hope I can explain it.

-Cut out a 7 x 14 inch rectangle of interfacing.

-Take 1 yard of fabric

-whichever way measures longer, cut off 4 inches from that and that will be your neck tie pieces.

-I placed Terry cloth in the bottom corners of the nursing covers, which you can follow instructions in the above tutorial link.

-From there, hem three sides, 2 side edges and bottom edge, of the fabric. I usually fold a small piece and then larger and hem.

-Leave top unhemmed.

-Take top and measure 3 1/2 inches from top and fold over and iron.

-unfold and place the interfacing rectangle, hamburger style, right at that crease and center it on the fabric.

-Iron it on, following interfacing directions.

-Once cool, fold the fabric over again on the interfacing.

-Now you are going to sew a straight line, about an inch wide from the fold all the way across. ---Next you will sew the bottom edge of the piece so that the boning can slide in .

-sew from one end to the opposite end of the interfacing rectangle instead of the whole piece of fabric so it'll be easier to slide the boning in.

-Take your boning and cut it 14 inches long.

-Slide it in the space and position it over the interfacing. (Make sure the bend of the boning is opposite as how you usually need it for a nursing cover because you'll flip it over)

-Finish sewing the rest of the fabric across then sew fabric shut so boning doesn't slide.

-Then Fold over the fabric about 3 1/2 inches, or half of the interfacing so now the whole interfacing is covered by fabric.

-Sew it closed, about 1/4 to 1/8 inch space from edge because you'll be sewing down boning and you want to make sure you don't hit the actual plastic.

-Then sew shut edges of the interfacing and then around the boning.

-Then Follow directions for the neckties from link above and you should be done!

I keep forgetting to take pics on all these steps so they are all words. Let me know if you have questions but I think this is much better than just boning!

Rain Gutter Shelves

When I saw this, I thought it was the coolest thing and it looks so so nice :)

You have to check it out. It's super easy too.

Go HERE for the tutorial over at Raising Olives.

I am really tempted to do this...

My girls

I have been truly blessed. Although most of the time I have no idea what I'm doing as a mom, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy it when I can.

Emma & Kate make me want to be a better mom. They are beautiful, special and MINE. Something about that makes me feel very humble and blessed to be their mom. They both are unique and make my day with their sweetness.

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Oh Kate, I enjoy you being in my life SO much. You are a true sweetheart that loves to show affection anyway you can. You will tackle Emma down just to get a hug! But you are a mischievous little tease and love to make Emma scream. You love that type of attention. It's quite comical to watch them "play". But watch out for her temper. She's got a fierce one. If Emma pushes her, she'll scream, "NO PUSHING, VERY NAUGHTY" lol like she's got all then pent up anger inside, dying to come out at anytime. She makes me laugh.

She is very observant and catches on to things that you wouldn't thing 2 year olds would get. She is shy in public but at home, she is a chatter box and is very clear on what she wants.

People think she is latino because of her dark features and skin...maybe she can get into the latino market for modeling...just kidding!

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My little Emma. I can't believe she's almost 4 years old!

This is a very sentimental post and I'm getting some tears.

I thought I would be fine having my kids grow older. You know, more experiences, watching them learn new things. But there comes a point where Emma isn't my sweet little baby that I began with when we started this family. She's this sensitive little sweetheart that seems misunderstood and has all these battles in her head as she tries to figure out her emotions and become socially fit to successfully interact with other kids and human beings.

Emma is our little social butterfly. She will approach anyone and just start talking to them. It's a bit uncomfortable for Joe and I since we aren't like that so we have to make sure she's not being too annoying. But she has no fear when it comes to talking to people or asking them to play with their toys. But she's cautious with the unfamiliar.

She is just ready to grow up and I am realizing I am not yet ready. I enrolled her into a preschool the other day, which is just 2 days a week for a couple of hours. Emma was SO excited to be inside the school and wanted to go to school right then. It surprised me since this is the girl who has a hard time going to nursery alone. But she's ready to be more stimulated, educationally and socially. I just love this little girl so much. She is beautiful inside and out.

These two are best friends and I love watching and listening to them play laugh together. It makes it all worth it!

And these two little girls are going to have a little brother and I know they are going to be great sisters. They are so excited to have a baby brother and always talk about it.

I am truly grateful to be their mom.

Internal Warfare

My mind is having a hard time making decisions. Obviously it's the pregnancy.

I am done with this pregnancy and want the baby to be here now.

I have too many things I want to do before the baby comes so I want him to take his time.

I don't care what I look like or how much weight i've gained, it'll eventually come off...right? cough...

I hate how I look and want to go to a "pregnant-friendly" gym and work out and stay in shape

I want to buy all these cute things for the baby since he only has 2 onesies, 3 sleepers and 1 blanket to him name.

We have no money and can't really splurge at the moment so I need to be disiplined!

See what I mean? So many opposites. It's killing my calmness!

Anyways, I had a good day yesterday. Sundays are nice.

I actually like going to church because I don't have to take care of my kids for 2 hours. The ward will be changing boundaries in the next month or so so we won't be getting callings anytime soon:)

Plus, we have finally come together and did a full-on budget. That's right. Years of aimlessly spending money have come to a halt.

THis is Dave. This is his book.

Thanks to my dad, he gave me Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover and I have just gulped it up. I've only had it a week and i'm already done. I'm so excited to begin our makeover for the family.

And I think this is one of Joe's dreams come true.

Last night, we sat down and went through receipts and excel sheets and did some pinky swears and it's on. Anyone in serious money troubles, you need to read this book. Life is not over!

Anyways, it's relieving start on this road to recover.

So like I said, one of my battles is money. Part of me is selfless and wants what is best for this family. The other part wants to buy "me" things because i'm vain and prideful. I need to kick those baddies out of my head!

Anyways, just counting down the months for #3 to come. I am starting to just get anxious of what he'll be like and what he'll look like. It's the ultimate Gift! And you can't ruin it by opening it early or taking a peek. Nope, no chance with this one :)

This totally tries your patience.

Vegas Visitors

The family had a special treat this past weekend. My sister was able to come visit for the weekend. It was so so so fun for all of us, but especially Emma and Kate.

Emma has a healthy obsession for my sister, Jenny.

Kate has an unhealthy obsession for Aaron, Jenny's boyfriend, who came down as well. We'll just leave it at that...

We hit the pool for 2 of the days and hit the strip too. It was a great weekend for both. There was a bit of an overcast so it was bearable to be outside.

Kate has no fear when it comes to crazy things like this. She craves it!

That's Aaron with Kate and Jenny is with Emma. Talk about a nice break from the kids. The girls just wanted constant attention from these two, which left Joe and I to do nothing, awesome.

me and jenny

We hit the strip but not for too long. Everyone was exhausted, including myself. It was really humid this past weekend too, which gave me bad memories of TX summers...uck...