Now For Something Completely Different

Well, ladies, I'm taking a break today from my crafty posts to talk about something that has been hard for me all my life. Weight! I have always been considered the "big girl" next to my friends. My whole family is big, not only in the amount of people we have, but for the sizes that we are! Diabetes, heart disease, depression, high cholesterol, and many other bad thing run rampant in my family. I was over weight before I got pregnant with my first and it was so hard for me to get on the scale 9 months after having her and see that I weighed the same that I did one week before being induced into labor. WHAT?! How had that happened?! So I started to lose weight. I lost 27lbs in 3 months and I felt fantastic. Then I started to feel not so great. On Easter Sunday last year I started bleeding. I was having a miscarriage. It was confirmed a few days later and that doctor told me to take it easy and not exercise for about a month. So not only was I dealing with this emotional blow of going through a miscarriage, I also was not able to take my emotions to the treadmill and work it off. Then about 2 weeks after we found out we were miscarrying and had my daughter's 1st birthday, I conceived our son. When it was confirmed that I was pregnant, I was told that I needed to take it very easy as I had a 90% chance of miscarrying again. What a stressful time for me and my little family. But even though he tried to come out at 31 weeks, and I was put on bed rest for 2 months, we delivered a healthy and wonderful little man!

Now I only gained 18lbs with him, but I weighed myself the other day and I am only 8lbs under what I was at my last appointment before I delivered. WHAT AGAIN?!!! I have been working out hard all summer, but pretty much most of August and up until tonight I have had to put my exercises on hold because my kids have been sick and I just couldn't pull myself together to do it. I had lost my motivation completely. Until tonight!!!

Have you ever watched "The Biggest Loser"?!!! Let me tell you, I watched it when I lost my weight last year and it gave me such great motivation. I watched it this evening and it did the same! While I sat there, crying through the whole thing, I thought, "If they can do it, so can I!!"

I will never be skinny, plain and simple. I will never be small, I'm 5' 10 1/2" tall. I'm big no matter what I do. But like me, so many women out there struggle with their weight after having kids. All those sleepless nights, going 90 miles a minute and forgetting to eat, and when we do eat it is usually chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs or a scoop of peanut butter. Mom have an up hill battle. So much is needed of us, required of us, and we put ourselves last on our list of things to take care of. Now, I'm not suggesting that we need to put us first all day everyday, but what I do want is for all of us to look at ourselves in the mirror, not at the rolls, not at the stretch marks our children so lovingly gave us (unless you are my cousin who had both her kids with no stretch marks, I think she's an alien of some kind), not at the bags under our eyes from lack of sleep or the wild hair if you haven't gotten a shower in that day. But look at what an incredible piece of your family you are. Look at how your body created the children that make us laugh and cry all in the same second. Look at what your husband sees, a woman who has given him the best gift in the world, a child, a woman who overcomes things daily, who may be terrified everyday that she is not enough, but is the most incredible woman he has ever known.

Look at your arms that hold and carry and comfort your children everyday. Look at your face the way your baby does as a source of comfort, laughter, and excitement. No, our bodies will never be the same after kids, but dang it, I'm ok with it. I am ok with my stretch marks and dark circles under my eyes. They are like battle wounds that I wear with honor... well under my clothes at least, don't want too many people seeing those. I want us to celebrate what we are and if you want to lose weight, do it, but know that the body you have now has been wonderful for your kids. It is soft and warm and can snuggle like no one else can for your kids.

So the moral of this post is:

Take pride in your body. It has been good to you and your family.

P.S. I am working on my first giveaway! I will hopefully have it ready for this weekend so stay tuned! Are you as excited as I am?!

Whatever Works!!!

As I have said before, my children have been sick for almost 2 weeks now. My daughter all of a sudden spiked a pretty high fever on Wednesday and had to go to the doctor on Thursday. She was a miserable little thing, but her grandma made her a special present.

A Pom Pom Tutu

I literally cannot keep this off of her and if I let her she would bathe, eat, and sleep with it on!

The mother-in-law got the idea and tutorial from this post over at Happy Together If you haven't gone over to Jessica's blog yet, you need to RIGHT AWAY!!! She is the most incredible mother, crafter, sewer, crocheter, pretty hair accessory maker, photographer, and all around Wonder Woman! I am pretty crafty, but this woman puts me to shame! Go on over and check her out... well, her blog, that would be weird to check her out big silly head! Wow, I need to get out of the house more often!

A few weeks ago we hosted my sister-in-laws birthday at our house. I made her the fun purse (see it here) and she received a few other purses for her birthday as well, totally a great birthday in my opinion! I followed up with that theme and made this cake. I got the email from Parenting.com, and here is the link for all the 31 easy cakes that they had.

Now this cake was so fun to look at, but here is my story on what happened before it looked like this:

I started frosting the cake during nap time and I have to admit that it was hot out and therefore my house was hot too. I got the handle and flowers on and it looked awesome! In the time it took me to throw away all the empty containers of frosting, to my immense horror, it FELL OVER!!!! Now it was a good thing and a bad thing that the kids were asleep. Good in the fact that they didn't hear the words that I was saying, but bad because I couldn't scream! So I thought to myself, "Self, just prop it up and fix it, it won't be that bad." I took a deep breath and propped it up. It was bad, but I could still work with it. I went to grab some more frosting (because I have a stash of it just in case I need a spoonful when things are crazy in the house) and when I came back it had fallen over THE OTHER WAY!!!! Again, I cursed at it, not that it could hear me, but because it made me feel better, then I walked away from it. I had to or I was going to throw it. I called my other sister-in-law who is the best cake decorator ever and of course she didn't answer her phone. So I left her a voicemail to come over early and help me salvage it. She called me back a little while later and said to prop it up with some cups and put it in the freezer. After it was a little harder, it was better and I made it look like it was above.

Moral of this story is to cut the cake, do one layer of frosting and promptly put it in the freezer. Then frost it again after about an hour and then it once its done and ready, put it in the freezer again and it will be fine. Pull it out a few minutes before you are ready to serve!

Holy Sheet!

Sorry, couldn't help myself. I made yet another shirt for $2.50. That was the cost of the pattern at Walmart! The pattern number is Simplicity #2646 from their "Its So Easy Its Simplicity" line. It really was easy to make, I just don't know if I'm in love with it yet.

The fabric I used was, yep you guessed it, a sheet! I had a piece of a King Sized sheet that was just lying around. That is also a great tip for finding cheap fabric. Lots of fabric for very little cost. This one still had the price tag on it for a king sheet for $10.00. The collar is from an apron I made for my mom for Mother's Day. I love it because it has red, brown, teal, orange, green and cream in it, so I can use any of those colors as the belt (which is just a piece of ribbon).

Don't forget to leave a comment on my Sound Off post for your chance to win something FABULOUS!!! What is it you might ask? Not sure yet, I'm trying out a new fun craft, an accessory and I might just make you one! Stay tuned!

Sound Off

Alright ladies! I put this handy dandy little blog counter at the bottom of my blog because I was just sure that no one was looking at my blog, but I have been shocked in the last week or so. I have had over 300 hits on my blog in the last week and a half! I just would like to know who is reading this uber fabulous blog... ok well not so uber fabulous as of right now as I have only been blogging for a few months now, but I would love to hear from everyone! Put a comment on here to let me know you're out there! I seriously love comments and I just can't get enough of them. Maybe I'm being a little vane here, but its ok right?! I have a few ideas for a giveaway, so if I know you are out there, maybe I'll turn it into a giveaway! Yes, I'm bribing you now!

Looking forward to seeing who is on here!

Repurposed T-Shirt into a Library Bag Tutorial

After feeling like I have been swimming in a sea of "Sickies" I decided last night that I wanted to make my daughter a fun "Library Bag". It literally took me a half hour to make and I think it turned out so cute!

Here's what you need:

*Old T-Shirt (I used one with a design on it, but you totally don't have to)

*Fabric scraps (For the top of the bag and the handles)

I first cut out the size and shape of my bag by laying out my t-shirt on my cutting board. I took my razor cutter (my favorite thing, just watch your fingers) and my straight edge and cut it out. I wanted hers to be a little deeper, but not too wide. This way we can fit lots of books in all different shapes in there.

I then cut my top border the same width as my t-shirt. Mine was 12 1/2". And then I cut the straps. Not sure how long I did these, but just make them long enough that you can carry it for your child, but not too long that the bag drags on the ground when your little one carries it.

Once I had all my pieces cut I ironed my top border in half and then folded each side at a quarter of an inch in.

Then I pinned the border top to the t-shirt body (this way I only had to sew once, saved me some time).

With the straps I just folded the fabric, right sides together, and did a seam down the side. I then turned it inside out with a safety pin and ironed it flat.

After you put the border top onto your t-shirt, pin them all together, right sides together. Then just sew along the outer edges, like a pillow case.

I then stitched the straps onto the bag, getting as close to the side seams as possible and made a square around the strap.

And that's it! I did add a flower onto her bag just for a little extra frills, because can't have too much frilly things!

This was fun to do and was such a big hit with my little girl! Now once these kids are better, we will be off to the library to fill it with KNOWLEDGE!!!!!

Week From Heck!!!

I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still alive. I haven't posted anything for a week now because I have been experiencing a very bad week. My daughter was up all night one night throwing up, then I was sick, then my daughter got sick again, then my son got sick... really sick. We have just been slugs as of late and I will be back in action hopefully this weekend. I have a few repurposing projects that I am working on and want to share with you all. Sorry again for my disappearance!

If you are wanting some great inspiration, head on over to A Soft Place To Land as she's having her weekly DIY Day that I can't participate in this week. But next week I am there as I am pulling out all my fall stuff and getting ready to DECORATE!!!! I know you're as excited as I am!