I not a silly goose! I juss Adrin!

Adrian and I went downstate with 'Manna,' 'Kenno,' and 'Benty' last weekend (as in a week and a half ago) and stayed for Thanksgiving. Jeff came down on Tuesday night after work. It was one of my more relaxing trips visiting the family and now I'm ready to tackle a mile-long list before we head down again for Christmas! I'm sewing today, and cooking a chicken, and doing some organizing while listening to Christmas music. Jeff is working late again tonight (yay for overtime!) and I'm planning to pull out my meager supply of Christmas decorations this evening. Hopefully the tree will follow within the next week! I was just looking at some of my pictures from downstate and these made me smile, he was telling me to take more pictures, messy face and all:

As for right now, I'm off to figure out our Christmas cards so I can get back to my sewing machine!

the holidays are fast approaching

Completely blurry but, I just love this face!

I've been sewing! Woohoo! And playing with fabric paint! I have a few projects that I've had in mind and I'm finally working on them. But very slowly. My back has really been bothering me lately so I can only spend a small amount of time at my sewing machine before it's just too uncomfortable. Hopefully I'll be able to show them in a few weeks (or less). On the other hand, I'm suddenly realizing that Thanksgiving is next week which means I'll be leaving downstate in less than a week. Yikes! How did it get here so fast?? I had hoped to have the majority of my Christmas shopping done by the end of the month but guess how much I have done so far? That's right, nothin. I know what I'd like to get for Adrian and that's as far as I've come.

Happy Monday!

Raspberry Tea

I've been drinking a lot of tea since I quit coffee last spring. (And haven't looked back!) I love green tea and thought it was completely fine to drink during pregnancy but, as it turns out, green tea blocks the absorption of folic acid. It should be avoided before and especially during the first trimester. How ironic that I learned this at the start of my second trimester. Anyways, this is a recent finding and who knows, they may find out in a year or so that it is 'safe' to drink during the 1st trimester. (Ironically, the nurse that told me this gave me the 'okay' to drink coffee in moderation...) Here's a little factoid: did you know that, although green tea contains caffeine, it also contains a protein called thianine which doesn't allow your body to absorb the caffeine?
Anyways, I recently switched to raspberry tea which is very good to drink during pregnancy and while nursing. (It's good for anyone but particularly beneficial for those two groups.) I buy it in loose leaf form from our natural foods store. I have yet to buy a tea ball so in the meantime, I've been making my own tea bags. I first saw this idea on A Beautiful Mess. Hers are much prettier than mine but hey, they work. I was able to get 2 tea bags out of 1 coffee filter since I wasn't concerned about the ridges. The only problem is, coffee filters are much thicker than tea bags so you may need to allow extra steeping time. This isn't a big deal with raspberry tea because I keep the bag in the entire time.
Now go drink some tea and gaze out the window at the falling snow. (Wait, what? It's not snowing in your area? Hm...we have a few inches on the ground already. Happy November!)

I love boys...

Especially these two. And the one we get to meet in March.
I finally looked through Adrian's baby clothes today (up to 9 months anyways) and realized that I need A LOT. I had borrowed a ton of stuff from my sister Emily and my friend Shannon so I didn't buy as much as I should have when Little A was a baby. Oh well, I have the whole winter to thrift shop and then garage sales in the spring when we *hopefully* have another vehicle. As for now, I have enough one-piece pajama outfits for 0-3 months so he won't be naked under his blanket but it would be nice to find some cutesie stuff, ya know?
ETA: Oh wait, I just realized that Amanda has a bunch of my baby clothes, I guess I have more than I thought!

Coffee with the ladies tonight, woohoo! Hm...maybe I'll run to Goodwill before.

What's Yours is Mine

I finally got pictures of the shirt I restyled!
Here's a before, as Jeff's shirt (don't worry, he was getting rid of it, I didn't actually steal it)

Terrible picture in every way, I know, I'm sorry. And it was laundry day, we do actually use sheets on our bed. I snapped this real quick because I was about to start working on it and couldn't be bother to get a better picture. ;)

And now, it looks a little something like this:

Ha! Self-portraits are so awkward. I tried to get a better shot, you know, maybe one with a side view but the camera just wasn't loving me.

Here's what I did, sorry no step-by-step photos (maybe someday):

1. Using another maternity shirt--inside out--as a pattern, I traced the outline with a fabric pencil
2. I sewed over the line, actually slightly outside the lines because I was afraid it would end up being too small, I'm glad I did.
3. I tried on the shirt at this point and when it seemed to fit right, I cut along the seam, leaving around a 1/4 inch seam allowance.
4. I used the same maternity shirt again to trace the sleeves, this ended up being a little trial and error to match the sleeves up just right with the armholes, I'm learning. Once I determined that they were the right size, I cut the sleeves and sewed them on.
5. I should have done this before I sewed the side seams but waited until this point to ruche the sides. I wanted to make sure the shirt was long enough. I wish there were more gathers but I would have had to use elastic for that and well, I didn't.
6. Somewhere along the way I cut off the collar. I think I'll add a tiny little ruffle over the raw edge someday. And maybe I'll cover the lion logo since it's practically in my armpit now.

 

Woohoo! Yet another of Jeff's shirts that is now mine!

My Little Pumpkin

Adrian was a little timid trick-or-treating. It's funny how he was all pumped up at home and then when he actually had to say the words to a stranger they came out just above a whisper. I was wondering how the night would go when, at the first house, there was a cackling shrunken head on the door handle. He got a little scared but he did just fine after that with any laughing and cackling decorations.

He rode around in the stroller but quite honestly, he probably could have ran around the entire time if I had put tennis shoes on him. I wonder if that would have prevented 7 people from calling him a her. Or maybe it was just the polka dot blanket...ha!

As soon as he started getting the tiniest bit cranky, we headed home. He still got way too much candy but I suppose he couldn't eat half of it anyways since we had to take away anything with wheat (btw, licorice is made with wheat, did you know?) and all the jawbreaker-type candy. Jeff was disappointed that Reese's are wheat-free. I did tell him that Adrian wouldn't have a clue if he swiped them all.