Christmas Fun!

 A friend asked for a post of all the stuff I made for the Christmas this year. There were several projects, and I've included links to the tutorials I used if there are any. While all these gifts took quite a bit of time, they were all worth it!


 For Mark's parents, a birthday calendar with all the children, spouses, and grandchildren. There are so many to remember now, especially in October, that it seemed a good idea to put them all in one place on the wall for everyone to see. Now there's no excuse for a missed birthday! :) It also looks really nice in her room, which is painted her favorite color: cheery yellow.

Project plans here. This is where I found the basic plans, and what I really needed - the thing that connected all the circles together. I had no idea, but she used jump rings, which are found in the jewelry making department of any craft store, and small eyelets from a hardware store.

For William, who loves hanging out on the floor of his room and drawing, or working through coloring books and workbooks. This gives him a way to store his supplies, as well as help his back posture by not having to hunch over quite so far. You can place it on the floor, or it would be great for a teen lap desk to do homework.

Project plans here. I had most of the wood, and only had to get a 2x2x8 and a pair of hinges. I also grabbed Valspar sample can at the hardware store that was premixed and less than $3 because William liked the color.

 The boys love to drape blankets over their beds to make forts, and Oren is forever making tents outside. So why not build them one for the inside? It disassembles, although not too easily, and there are dowels attaching the top crossboard with one of the 1x2's it's leaning on so that it doesn't accidentally fold up on someone or fall all the way open. It seems pretty sturdy so far!

Project plans here.

Also, the floor cushion inside so they have a place to rest their seats. I had a giant bag of batting and a LOT of fabric to choose from, and the stripes won.

Project plan here. Minus the handle, since it was around 11 pm on Christmas Eve...

The only thing Daniel asked Santa for was a superhero cape. Luckily I had already found a tutorial earlier this year for just such a thing! He loved to put his coat hood on his head and run around with the coat trailing after him, so this way he can still have a cape and wear a coat. :)

Project plans here and here (for the eye mask).

Danny-boy also got a chair that I had picked up from DI over a year ago. It was covered originally in old, dirty Space Jam fabric. Complete with some sort of pet hair in the original padding! I stripped it down to the foam, which I soaked to clean it. Then I used fabric glue to attach batting to help soften the shape of the chair. Each side of the chair was placed individually on fabric, the outline drawn with seam allowance added, marked with which piece it was and which side. Then all the pieces were sewn together. It was really tough, there were some odd angles to work around. But it turned out really cute, and a perfect fit!

Since I ended up somehow 2 stockings short, and none of us had matching stockings anyway, I pulled out some more fleece and some felt and whipped up a half dozen. I didn't use a tutorial, but took pictures while putting together the last one and will post one on here later. I may add everyone's initial on their stocking, but since each person picked their felt colors, it helped us tell them apart. :)

Every year, we get pajamas for Christmas. This was a tradition growing up, and I can still remember the excitement of going up to get ready for bed and finding a wrapped package with my name on it. The best year I can remember was the one my mother made us all matching long red flannel nightgowns, with white at the collar, and red ruffles on the bottom and the sleeves. I loved those pajamas and wore them until the nightgown was finally too short.

This was the first year I managed to make both the tops and the bottoms, instead of using a package of plain white t-shirts and adding some decoration to match the pants. 

The last 2 things were projects for Mark. Since he isn't home and I really don't want to pull the card out of the computer, put it in the camera, set up the shots, transfer stuff back to the computer and then find it to post the picture, I'll just use the ones from the tutorial...

First one is a firewood carrier. His is a yellow striped canvas on both sides, since the flannel would attract and hold wood splinters. Instead of branches, I used a hardwood broom handle. Very hard. So hard I could barely cut it with the saw that came with our mitre box! But on the plus side, that means that it won't break easily...

Mark didn't want the handles sliding out of the slots, which I had sewn an additional seam right next to the wood with a zipper foot so they'd stay a little better. So he drilled some holes and put some screws right through the fabric and into the handles. Which is how we know just how hard the wood really was, he could barely get the drill bit through!

And lastly, I made him a foot warmer! Fleece on the inside and a flannel outside, in his favorite color: blue. He is forever asking the boys for a blanket to wrap around his feet when he's doing his homework on the couch. So he get's cold feet? Not anymore!

Minky is around $20 a yard, and while I do happen to have a yard here at the house, it was originally bought for a baby quilt for my nephew and I wasn't willing to cut into it for a foot warmer, not have enough for the blanket, and end up buying more yardage later at an outrageous price. So fleece it was!

I plan on making one for myself, but making the top into it's own rice bag sewn onto the bottom larger rice bag. Because I stole Mark's the other day and it was warm, but big enough to fold over my feet and with the warm rice on top and bottom it was even better! 

So that's the list of the different projects I had going on this year. Will we do homemade next year? Definitely! Will it be such an extensive list? Very likely. Will I wait until December to start? I hope not, because this was insane!

I also had 2 blankets that were done Thanksgiving weekend: one for Mark's sister and her husband, green flannel on top and gray fleece on the bottom, with random quilted squares, big enough for my 6'4" brother-in-law to snuggle under comfortably. Which is good because then he got sick after Christmas. The other was green camo fleece on top and tan marble-y on bottom to match desert camo. Those were stiched 4 inches from the edge all the way around, and then the outsides were cut into inch-wide fringe. He loved it!

A Jumble, and Blessings

Today is just a little bit of everything. Mostly because it's somehow been over a month since I posted anything. And partly because I have so many things on my mind.

For one, I missed Daniel's birthday. Not "missed it entirely as a family", just "missed posting anything about it..."

Somehow his photos are still on my phone. But at least I took them. We had Grandparents come have goodies with us, and sweet aunts and uncles who gave him some fun gifts. Ones with lots of noise, of course. Because what's life without a little noise?

Then our closet fell apart. Quite literally. The shelf not only fell off the wall, but was broken in half on one end. Brackets were broken as well. Clothes were hanging on any surface they could fit on for over 3 weeks while I repaired the wall, puttied, textured, and painted. New shelves were installed, and our dresser is partway through a makeover also, so that it looks like a built-in.

The disaster we walked in on. It's been a hodgepodge mess since we moved in and threw stuff in there to deal with later.

Done with the taping, and texturing. Halfway through painting, just to show the awfulness of the "white" that was no longer white compared to the gorgeous clean white that's now in there. 

My beautiful new shelves! And if those brackets break, I'm going to cry...

It's not done yet, I'll take another picture when the dresser is done and everything else is in. We raised the shelf so the clothes weren't puddling on the dresser top anymore. Yay!


Halloween came and went, with loads of candy and face paint. And class parties with date mix ups, so my children went to school and had to go wash their faces.  Oops!



In November, Mark lost his job. Which we expected, but we honestly thought the company would have a few more weeks of work left before the jobs cut back for the winter. No such luck. He put in so many applications that I lost track. When he had an group interview for UPS we were excited, seasonal helper would be perfect since permanent, long term employment really isn't optional right now. He starts school in a month and may not be able to work if he has to take more than minimum full-time credits. And so he called every day, for 2 weeks, to see if they needed him that day. Meanwhile, even more applications are being sent in to various companies, phone calls being made, emails sent. Bills looming, stress mounting. Saving dwindling. Yes, he could claim unemployment insurance. But working part-time during school managed to nip us since it's based on the work hours/pay per quarter. So it was barely enough to pay for the house, with no wiggle room.

Wednesday when he called, he was finally told that drivers needed him! All the boxes from Black Friday were starting to come in! It's still a huge pay cut, and still isn't going to cover much other than the bare necessities unless he gets a lot of overtime. And it's still going to be very tight until funding comes in from school/GI Bill. But it's still a relief to have something coming in. It's still hope.


One of the big things that at least I, personally, have been dealing with is the stress of uncertainty. I can't speak for Mark. It's one of the things I try hard not to bring up because I don't want to put any of it on him, none of my stress is his fault, and it's not his burden to bear. Instead, this time, I tried just quietly putting it aside. Especially with the holidays rapidly approaching, and wanting to provide my children with both the things they need and the things that they desire.

These children are wonderful. They have so little that they ask for, no long lists of "I want's". That changes a little right before Christmas, when they are bombarded with ads for various awesome things, but year-round, their desires are simple. This is a blessing that their father and I appreciate, especially right now when our resources are limited.

Part of me putting the stress aside was to simply say "I will do what I can. I will look to the things that I have, and rely on my creativity to give them memories this year. I won't worry about what I can't change or can't do." And my heart was calmed.

Then the most amazing thing happened.

Angels, literal angels on this earth, took my little ones into their hearts.

Blessings have been poured out on my family from many who love us. Even Mark and I were remembered by someone unexpected. We feel so touched and grateful, and loved.


We weren't able to visit my family as planned, but we did have the opportunity to sleep in our own beds while still spending 4 days enjoying the company of Mark's family. That's the best part of living here. We can see everyone, and then go tuck our children into their own beds, and unwind with some quiet time, recharge our batteries, before going back into the fray. :)

Santa provided stocking stuffer funds, and Grandma watched the boys while we had "date time" on Black Friday. Mark is probably one of the few men I know who would not only willingly go into the mall with his wife, but be the one to suggest doing it. We looked through all but 2 stores that sell women's clothing looking for a fitted/tailored black or blue dress for me to try on. Just because he wanted to see me in one. Window shopping at it's finest!

The power went out that Sunday, multi-town wide. We were all in a panic about how to cook lunch for nearly 30 people with no electricity, and were on the verge of lighting the grill when the power came back on early. It wasn't until the next morning and I was fixing breakfast that it occurred to us that our house has a gas oven, and a wood-burning stove for heat. Where was my brain for that one?


Somehow over the past month I got down to 65 lbs lost. Not sure how, I wasn't eating very well thanks to stress. And working out hasn't been very frequent thanks to the temperatures. But the couple of times I was able to go running, it felt great! Mark has forfeited his windbreaker pants... Hahaha. I'm thinking that experiments with cupcake flavors are slightly to blame for the slow-down, but I can't offer holiday flavors that I haven't personally tasted.

And finally... Nathan's speech therapist had brought up some concerns about his physical abilities and wondered if I would be okay referring him to an occupational therapist for an evaluation. And sure enough, the OT agreed. It's not all "awkward movements due to his size for his age", but she's confident that he won't be a long-term patient. He starts that therapy in a couple weeks.

How blessed we are that my children's medical needs are taken care of right now!

So much goes on in our family on a daily basis that it's really impossible to include everything. But I wanted to at least touch on some of the highlights on what's going on in our lives.

Smile!

To my "Silly Willy"

Last week, you had a birthday. We got together with your Grandparents and celebrated the day you came into our family. You were so sweet, and so happy! You got to choose the breakfast and went for "those pancakes you make in the oven that get huge!" So German Pancakes it was.

You got to pick your cake, so mommy made you a special one. Banana. And you got to choose your ice cream at the store. Strawberry, with real strawberries! There's a lot of times that you don't get to pick the things that we have, because you're kind of in the middle. There's a lot of times I realize you have gotten forgotten in the chaos and I'm sorry. So I hope that we made your birthday special enough for you.

William, you are such a joy in our lives! We went through a lot to have you here with us, and it's a miracle that you are. Mommy's body stopped feeding you, but her doctor was paying close attention. And told us that we had to have you early. You didn't like that, but when you finally got here, we were so happy to have you placed in our arms! And for 20 glorious minutes we held you and knew who you were. And then the nurse came to check on us and told us they had to take you away to check on you because you were looking a little blue and making funny noises.

And it turned out that you were our sickest little baby yet. They had to make you sleep so that a machine could breathe for you. The doctors had to give you things to help your lungs develop. When you could breathe better, you had to wear little sunglasses and chill out under special lamps. But you didn't like the glasses and kept pulling them off. Even as a TINY baby, you had such a fun personality!

When we finally got to take you home, you were too small to fit any of the clothes we had gotten for you, thinking you would be big like your older brother Nathan. So Grandma D had to make some special tiny pajamas for you. I kept them special, so that when you have babies, you can show them how small you were. And how loved.

William, I don't have many pictures from your first year. And I'm sorry for that. They were lost. But you loved scooting around the floor, and playing with the kitten who climbed into the playpen all the time! She loved you and would let you pull her around the house by her tail. Or fall asleep on her. Or carry her around like a doll. You loved eating spaghetti, because it made a huge mess!

Oh, you loved a good mess! Paint, kitty litter... Trash even!

You love doing the things your Daddy does.

 

You know one of the things I love? How, every morning, you get dressed by yourself. Before you even come out of your room. Without being asked. I love how you make yourself toast when you need a snack. I love how you help your brother find his special bear. 

I love how you stand by mommy and "exercise" with her. You're so fun to watch! I love how excited you get about going to school every day, even if it's hard sometimes for me to watch you walk into the school all by yourself. You still need me to hold your hand, and you still love to be tucked in at night. 

Sometimes you and I have a hard time with each other, because we are very much alike. Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing the best job of giving you everything you need, because you have brothers that take a lot of attention. But I'm trying, my sweet William. And I love you so much... Happy Birthday!

Picture Time!

It's that time again! Time to show myself how far I've come since I started trying to be more healthy. Time to show you that I did it, and let everyone know how much I value your love and support.

This has been, without a doubt, one of the hardest things I've ever done. And that includes carrying and giving birth to my beautiful children! And it's not over yet. While I have goals that have been met and exceeded, I have even more goals that are far from being realized. Things I want my body to be able to do, things that are on their way to being accomplished even if I'm not sure how fast I'll get there.

Last summer, this picture was taken of me at a scout function. It's scary. You've seen it before.

Today, taken hurriedly since I'm running late getting William to school...

Crazy, huh?

I still feel very self-conscious some days, I know I look and feel better than I have in a long time, but I think there are always going to be some hold-backs from at my biggest and unhappiest. But Mark is wonderful about dishing out compliments and lending me support when I need it. So are all of you!

How far have I come?

At the beginning of July when I started exercising, I could barely walk a brisk half mile. Sure, I could slowly wander through a store for a couple hours, but was exhausted by the time I got home. My goal was to run a mile and eventually a 5K. (3 miles...) I'm halfway there! My body can take the abuse of a good 20 minute jog now. With no stops. 6 full laps. And I'm still working towards that 5K, but with the cold weather, I don't know how fast I'll get there. The kids can only tolerate so long playing on the bleachers at the high school in the cold, and I don't know how happy the elementary school is with me having them play at the playground while I use their track.

I could barely bend over to pick something up without looking suspiciously like one of those sumo wrestlers. Grunting included. Now my biggest worry is who is going to get a look at my hind end while I'm bent in half at the waist to grab the shopping list off the floor!

I can sit up. I can get up off the floor without rolling around first. My feet don't hurt like they used to. My back doesn't either. I haven't had heartburn in 3 months. 2 minutes of yoga killed me, and now I can do the whole 1st 20 minute segment. (not bad for wrists with carpal tunnel and lots of planks/downward facing dog stuff...)

Yes, these are all things that have been mentioned before. I know. And I'm sorry. It's just that these things continue to amaze me. Every day. And I'm proud of them, because it's taken a lot of hard work to get here. A lot of self-control. And even a few tears.

Here's to losing 50 lbs!

Total weight lost : 53 lbs. Down 4 pant sizes and nearly 4 shirt sizes.

Any time is Family Time!

Since our meetings were canceled on Sunday, by about 5:00 in the afternoon we were going stir crazy. Family time is totally Sunday appropriate, especially going for a nice walk to appreciate nature. So we picked a trail that went along the Snake River and off we went!

When we got to the end of the leg that went as far as some railroad tracks, we found some fun rocks where the river had dragged stones across it's bed and left neat formations. The boys enjoyed running and climbing around for a while.

Mark found a trail, not a nice paved one, but one worn by many feet walking it. It looked like it headed up river a ways to where a map showed a smaller set of falls than the ones by the temple in Idaho Falls. So off we went! We stopped by a tree to take a picture.

You can see the trail off to the left. The "stripes and solids" pattern here was not planned at all. :-)

We hiked for a good 30 minutes from the car to the falls. In sand. And thistles. Even over this rickety bridge! Mark tested it out first, the water was shallow. It held him, so the boys carefully crossed over. I was last, holding Daniel's hand, and was very glad that my weight is less and my balance is so much better- because otherwise he and I would have walked back to the car!

After watching some rapids and talking about waterfalls for a while, we decided to head back before the sun started seriously setting, since it was another 30 minute walk back to the car. And the bees. There were a lot of bees by the water thanks to a farmer's stash of beehives at the close-by corner of his field.

On the way back, we stopped at the log again so Mommy could be in a picture. I'm always behind the camera, and I worry that when the kids are older and they look back, they'll think I simply didn't exist or something!

Daddy found some cockleburrs on the way back, and showed the boys how they stuck to shirts. I politely declined to be decorated. Actually, I believe it was something like "Don't you dare stick those things on me! I don't want to itch the rest of the night!"

It's so funny when Mommy gives advice, and nobody listens. By the time we got back to the car, the older 2 were complaining of itching and then burning, as well as the biggest kid of them all... Daddy. Who swore he played with them as a kid and they were perfectly harmless. Based on the redness, we went for an emergency run to Walmart for some Calydryl. Everyone had to strip when we got home and shower off and then get all "pinked up". Poor kiddos. 

Musings of my moments...

This has been a rough week in terms of staying motivated. Motivated to work out, motivated to eat right, motivated to clean... motivated in general. There are times when I feel very normal, and there are times when my bipolar rears up and tries to bite me in the tush. Just to see if I'm still here? Or because it's bored?

I don't know.

But this week was one of the "not so good" weeks. I knew it was coming, I could feel it. And there wasn't a thing I could do about it.

I've lost a little.

I've sat a lot.

I even made cookies, and was somehow strong enough to only eat one.

But this means that next week will be a good week. Because that's how things go for me. Next week I'll remember to plan menus in advance, because it's so much easier. Next week I'll push myself a little harder to get to the track, because soon enough it will be far too cold to make the kids play on the bleachers.

But it hasn't been all bad this week.

I played with Daniel on the playground today after dropping William off at school. And I don't mean that I sat and watched him run around on the rocks or go down the slide.

No.

I played with Daniel. I sat on the swing, with him on my lap holding the chain, and I swung. "Higher, Mommy!" while he laughed with glee.

I watched him climb the spinning thing and hold on, while I ran around to make him spin.

And together, we explored the huge rocks. With rock stairs to climb, and tunnels to go through, and slides to go down. And as we were sitting on the side-by-side slide, and he reached over and took my hand to go down, I realized how this journey has brought me so much more than smaller clothes and compliments. It's brought me a childhood. It's brought me the chance to be the mom I had wanted to be.

So I'll take the bad weeks, because they'll come no matter what. But I won't lose sight of why I started this whole thing in the first place. For me. For my family. For the chance to see my kids grow and then get to play at the playground with their kids.

Weight loss since June 8: 44.4 lbs. Nearly halfway to my goal.

Hike! 2...3...4...5...6....Up the Hill!

We've been wanting to do something as a family all summer. Yellowstone? Maybe. If we could remember to pack food the night before and leave early to make the drive up there. The local "lake"? Nah. It's always crowded in the summer. But about 20 minutes away is a gorgeous little hiking spot called "Cress Creek". So off we took last Saturday, lunch in hand, and drove up in the hills a bit.

Look at that view! Cress Creek got the name because the water is naturally warmed and as it flows down the side of the mountain/hill, it congregates in little pools allowing watercress to grow. I suppose you could harvest it, but we didn't let the kids. Nature isn't as clean as it used to be, which is a shame because it would have been fantastic on my sandwhich!

We got there and had our lunch before starting our climb. I strapped Daniel on my back, partly because his little legs are pretty short to hike up, and partly because I was curious to see how much harder my body had to work over 30 lbs ago. No wonder I was always tired! These pictures were taken at the top of our climb, which was not quite the top of the trail. But we had some tired little boys, with tired little legs by this point, and so chose to head back. The whole hike took us a little over an hour, with a nervous mommy on some of the downhill parts!

But it was fun and I'm glad we were able to go and enjoy some time as a family.