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This months giveaway is our wonderful With Love charm. I hope this helps you start your story!

Pattern Test

I was so excited to be picked to do a pattern test for a blog that I adore. Made by Rae. She needed testers for a new pattern that she is designing. It was my first real attempt at a real shirt with sleeves so I was very careful and worked really slow on it. I was able to do the 12 month pattern and it just looks so cute on Lily. I had a little problems with the sleeves but worked through it. To make the outfit complete, I paired it with a skirt from Lil Blue Boo. I hope you like it.

I'll link the pattern once she has it up and give more details.

National Popcorn Day

So today is National Popcorn Day. What better way then a Popcorn Tutorial? Sprouts Farmers Market has yellow popping corn on sale for $0.99 a pound. The only other thing that you'll need is a brown paper lunch bag.

Each oz cost about $0.06

Take 1/4 cup of corn and put it in your bag. I folded the bag over twice then taped it close. Lay it in the microwave and set your timer for about 3 min. If your corn is done popping before 3 min (mine was) take it out when it slows down the popping or you'll end up with burned popcorn. Season and enjoy.

The great thing about this is that you determine what kind of seasoning or butter you want on it. Oh and it is waaayyy cheaper!

Diary of a Tired Mom Conclusion

I meant to do this last week and I apologize.  I am extra tired now just because my body is catching up on all that missed sleep. Chloe (2.0)  is a champ she has been sleeping through since Thursday.  It is amazing, I still have trouble believing that she is not getting up multiple times at night.  An the two times she did, I just took her right back said "Goodnight" and left the room, she then slept till morning.  Oh and the other plus... she has been waking between 6:45 and 7:45. Now this might seem early to you, but keep in mind it use to be 5:30 and 6:00!

Lily (3.0) is having a little tougher time. She is teething right now. Trying to get the first teeth to break through. Poor baby. But once they come in I am going to go back to the routine. A strange side effect of this is that she now cries at bath time.  I mean a full out cry! I have no idea how to calm her. I am just hoping that my former water baby is just adjusting and this will change soon. Oh and it is now a little harder to get her to nap now. But I will just keep trying. She has only been waking once a night for a small feed, the right back asleep till around 6:30 to 7:00.

I will update in a week to keep you in the loop.  Thank you

UpCycle of Old Dress

We got this very cute dress from a friend and Chloe just loves it, the only problem? It is about 2 inches to short and shows off her cute little undies. So instead of getting rid of it I decided to make it a new dress and as a added bonus a skirt too. 

Here is the dress. Oops I already cut it when I remembered to take the pic.

 

 So I cut it in half right under the seam of the bodices very carefully. I put aside the skirt for later use and started on the skirt for the dress. I found this really beautiful fabric called Larkspur Meadow.
I just fell in love with it. It works so well with the pink of the dress which has small flowers embroidered at the top.  

I took the length of the skirt that came with the dress and added 3 inches to it for good coverage. Then I just cut out a rectangle of that 17" by 36". Then I sewed a quick basting stitch along the top of the rectangle and gathered it so that it was the same circumference as the bodice. Then put the bodice over the dress right sides together and sewed with a zigzag all the way around.  To make it a very easy project I used the selvage for the bottom for a nice and easy construction. 

 

 That is it for the dress.

The skirt was equally easy. All I did was cut a piece of elastic. I got mine from Ruffle Fabric.com. My piece of elastic was 19" long, about 1" greater then her waist size. Overlap the elastic about 1/2" and use a zigzag to sew them together. Then I just sewed the elastic right on the skirt.  And voila! 

She loves it!

Yummy Desert

I also made this really yummy desert. Kind of strawberry shortcake. It involves ladyfingers, strawberries, and honey whipped cream. Do I have your attention. Maybe this pic will.

What I did was this...

Add 1 tbsp of sugar to washed and cut strawberries, set in the fridge for a few hours till nice and juicy. (3-4 hours)

 Get your whip cream ready to go, heavy whipping cream in a stand mixer (or what ever you have). Once it is formed add your honey (I use buckwheat honey), then re-mix till stiff peaks.

Add all together, and you get the first pic. Delish!

Buttermilk Chicken Strips

I had some good friends over today who have a little boy so I wanted to make something that everyone would eat. I had chicken breast in the fridge so I thought chicken strips. I love, love, love chicken strips and this is my favorite recipe.  I don't know where I found it, I do my own thing and don't follow a set recipe but it is good!

What you'll need three pie pans, a heavy bottomed pan, and some tongs.
Chicken breast (I use boneless, skinless), Panko (and if you run out breadcrumbs will work), eggs, and flour (add salt and pepper for seasoning)

1) Cut up the the chicken in strips 4 per breast, put them in a bag, and pour in the buttermilk with salt and pepper. Put in the fridge for at least 1 hour up to 8 hours.

2) When ready to cook heat up oil in heavy bottomed pan very hot.

 3) Get your buttermilk chicken drained, coat it in flour and dust off extra, dredge in eggs, then cover with panko crumbs. Out in oil and cook till golden brown and beautiful. 

Love this Dress

 

There is a dress over at Smashed Peas and Carrots that I just love.  It is super cute and will do well in the summer when babies need lots of flow with their clothing. I also used the tutorial from Make it Love it to make a cute diaper cover for her.  I have been trying to find a way to use this fabric and just could not think of something. I know that they don't really go together, but I love the way the dots peek out of the back. It makes me happy. The hardest part of this for me was the diaper cover. This took me just as long as the dress to make. For some reason I could just not make the holes for the legs to look right. Thankfully Lily's legs are kinda chunky so you can't really tell that the legs are wonky.  The pattern says that it is for 6-12 months but it is still really big on her. So maybe with the next dress I'll scale it back 1/2 an inch. I think that it will fit a little better.

Day 3 of Diary of a Tired Mom

After tonight I am feeling kinda dumb for not starting this sooner. The girls did fantastic tonight. It was amazing. 3.0 went down at 6:50 (she missed her 3rd nap at 4) and cried for 7 min then was fast asleep. I thought that for sure 2.0 would wake her when we came in after book and potty. But no, zip, zero, nadda. No crying at all. We have a video monitor in her room so I watched for 15 min to see if she was going to get up at all. She just layed there eyes open for ten min then fell asleep.  I could not believe this!

Then at night, I slept through my 12am alarm to dream feed 3.0 and she work up at 1, so I went and fed her 3 min, put her down she was asleep. She made noises about 3 min later, but she was just turning over to her tummy.  And that was all out of her for the night. 2.0 woke up about 5-7 min later saying she was hungry, but I went over what she had eaten that day and knew that she had enough to eat. So once she got up and opened the door, I took her back to bed and said "Now is not the time to eat, it is sleepy time". And left the room. She started to cry and tantrum. Im thinking "oh here it comes". But it only lasted for less then 30 sec! What the heck!

I dream fed 3.0 at 4 and she woke up at 6:50 for the day.  Im am wondering if I had remembered to feed her at 12 if she would have woke at all?

Between 4 and 6:30 2.0 somehow managed to sneak out of her room and into my bed. I woke at 6:30 to her touching my face. So I think that it was closer to 6:30. (I hope). 

I can not believe the transformation from 3 nights ago to today. I mean, is it really possible to have such a dramatic change in 3 nights? Have I really just endured 4 years of bad sleeping to have it change in less then a week? I was sooo against cry-it-out (that is pretty much what this is) but it works and my kids still love me when they wake up. 

I am going to keep up my diary till Friday but hopefully by then all I will be writing about is 2.0 and 3.0 slept all night long!

Day 2 of Diary of a Tired Mom

Last night was much easier. I can't believe it but I think that this might just work. I took really good notes to, not that anyone but myself can decipher them but hey it was 1 in the morning. 

Going to bed was hard for 3.0, there are many things that she is not use to. First off having the kids in the room while she is trying to feed is hard. Last night she did not want to eat at all and I think that one reason it took sooo long for her to go to sleep.  But in reality it was only 21 min of crying, compaired to 60 min the night before.  2.0 did not cry at all, but she was covering her ears trying to block out sister. When I did my check at 10 min, 2.0 was sleeping and 3.0 was quieting down.
I went in at 11:22 last night to dream feed because I was so worried about her not eating at bed time. And it seamed like a good idea at the time I think that it backfired at 1 am because that was when the first wakeups began.

1:28am 2.0 opens up the door, calling to me. I get up and walk to the door, she runs back to bed and lays down. I shut the door with out saying anything. And as you can see by my play-by-play in my notes this all lasted till about 2am. I dream fed 3.0 at 4am for 4 min and she slept till 7:40!  Once 2.0 is asleep she did well till about 5:37. All I did was take her potty then bring her back to bed. She slept till 7:15am!

Naps today were hard. We went out and had tons of fun. The girls got the length that they needed so I'm not to upset. But lets see how it plays out tonight.

Sleep Diary of a Tired Mom

Here in the Random house we have some sleepy bunnies! I thought I knew what I was getting into 5 years ago when Mr 3.0 and I were thinking about having a baby. I just didn't fully understand the depth of sleep deprivation that I would be under on a day to day basis 4 years later.  Let me fill you in on some background. Baby 1.0 born 2007, at the time we were renting with my BIL and his girlfriend. I was terrified that a baby crying at night would keep them up, so with every peep I was in there nursing, rocking, basicly trying to pacify him so that he would not keep them up.

Fast forward two years. Him still waking on average twice a night, occasionally sleeping through the night. 

Then what comes along? Why its Baby 2.0! Now I couldn't let her wake him when he just started sleeping through the night now could I? Nope, I was in there at least twice a night for the last two years. This one is stubborn though. She would sleep through maybe once a week. But when she didn't want to sleep and you said to yourself. "Self she is old enough, let her cry it out. How long could she possibly cry till she falls asleep? Ill go in every ten min to see how she is doing." How long? She can cry for hours nonstop. That is how long. Ha Ha Mommy jokes on you.

Fast forward to 8 months ago. Yep you guessed it Baby 3.0! By now this mommy is accustomed to waking a few times a night. But all this is catching up and three babies are much harder to raise when you're tired.

I am trying everything now. I got a book called The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5  by Jennifer Walburger.

Mr 3.0 is on a business trip to Vegas for CES. So I decided that by the time he gets back my girls are going to be sleep trained. You are probably wondering why I am waiting till he is out of the house to try this. Well to say this nicely... I have an easier time letting 2.0 cry it out then he does.  I started last night and let me just say I hope that tonight is better.

The simplified idea of the book is

1) Compile a list of the things that your child/children need to go to sleep. For 2.0 she really needs someone in the room to go to sleep, that or needs to be held. 3.0 needs to nurse and fall asleep nursing.

2) Get everything ready that you will need for the night. They recommend having a sleep journal and write down everything. All wake-ups, intervals of going in, anything that you need to keep track of. Like if she/he asks to go potty/get some water/have a song... then the next day you can have all that done before lights out. At lights out there is no more contact with the child.

3) Once you are ready and you have made sure child has had what ever s/he needed. Time to shut out the lights and head out of the door.

What I did was this: Dinner, bath, brush teeth, PJs, tell them a story while nursing 3.0, sing a song, send 1.0 to his room, kiss 2.0 and say good night, kiss 3.0 say good night. Let them both know that Mommy is going to shut the door now and it was time to go to sleep and I'll see them in the morning.

Then sit outside the door crying quietly listening to my two babies screaming and crying. Go in 5 min half way in the room quietly say "Mommies here, its just time for sleep, Ill see you in the morning" leave, cry some more, go in again 5 min, repeat, 10 min, 15 min. This goes on till both girls are asleep. 1 hour.

At 1am 2.0 wakes up and comes into my room, I get up and walk her back into her room (she's crying). Get 3.0 up and dream feed her for 7 min (we are weaning) put her down (easy as pie) leave. At 2am 2.0 wakes again, put her back to bed, she is crying 5 min, 10, 10, 15,15,15 finally she stops crying. Now just making little noises for about 20 more min. I've stopped going in because at this point she is not crying (Thank God that 3.0 didn't wake up at all!)

She gets up again at 5am, I go in and dream feed 3.0 and bring her in my room cause 2.0 is screaming at me to hold her. I say very sweetly "Chlo, Its still night time, when the sun comes up then it is time to get up, but right now its sleepy time. Goodnight love I'll see you soon." With that I leave. And guess what only 7 min of crying then silence. 3.0 went right to sleep too. I got 2 hours of sleep before the sun came up and 2.0 walks in and touches my head and sweet as pie says "Mommy the sun is up wake up now". Day 1 is over!

Here is pic of Nap Time today

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Going green...

One of my New Years Resolutions this year was to replace as many items in my household as I could. I am starting with things I use the most down to random things. There are a few sites that I visit almost daily for inspiration one of them is Babbles: 15 DIY Reusable Disposables . From there I have been mozing along all the great blogs!
We eat out a lot as a family.. picnic style. That means lots of plastic baggies come along. Now I'm not frugal enough to wash them out after ease use and reuse them. No, those puppies go right into the trash when are done. This I decided was change number 1. I followed the posts from Oopsey Daisy and got some influence from Smashed Peas and Carrots and set up to do my own. I am going to do a few more but I'm out of time for now. Can I say late night tonight? Yes I can! Thank goodness I'll be able to nap tomorrow.

The fabric I used I found here and the paisley I think I found at here (but they right now are going under a redo for their shop so it most likely will not be there sorry)

So now for the pics. If you want tutorials please visit the other sights. I forgot to make one. Thanks

Persimmon Fruit Salad

My kids just love fruit, I mean LOVE fruit. I have, in the past just chopped up some apples and mixed it with berries and grapes and they are fine with that. But for me it is kind of boring. I like fruit too but there is only so much I can have plain before I am done.

I was excited to see a new kind of fruit in our CSA box for the last few weeks. Persimmons! I had never had one before and was baffled on how to eat/prepare it. I asked at the Farmers Market the next week and they said "Just eat it like an apple". I thought that was nice and easy and rushed home to try my new fruit. Oh my I did not care for it at all. The sin felt weird (I was told that the skin was eatable), the taste kind a funky, and the feel of it was just odd like a really fine mushy sandpaper. No way was I going to feed this to my kids. I was dismayed that the next few weeks our boxes always contained more persimmons.

I didn't want to keep throwing them out so I set out on a mission. Find a way to eat this and like it because it seemed like for the winter we were stuck with 4-5 of them. I tried a persimmon flan...way to sweet and kinda strange. And then I happened on a Persimmon fruit salad. BINGO! It was good. Just the right amount of sweet and tart. Oh and the kids devoured it! Winner!! Here is the recipe plus a little of my own because I love berries.

Persimmon Fruit Salad

1 persimmon (I peel it)
1 apple (any kind will work)
1 tsp honey ( I use buckwheat but any will do)
1-2 tsp fresh lemon juice ( I love the tart and use up to half a lemon)

Cut the apples and persimmon up small. Mix in the honey and lemon juice and there you go.

If you want to add some strawberries and blueberries. Add a little extra honey and lemon juice and that's it! Enjoy

I am so not computer literate!

So I am brand new to all the technology of blogger, making business pages on Facebook, and Etsy. I am just getting really frustrated trying to get a like button on my blog and I know that it is not that hard. I just can not wrap my mind around it. I really want to get my pages to work together but I just cant. I think that I am going to break down and have my husband help me. Oh well.

On a different note, I am so excited to announce the start of my Etsy page! I have two things posted so far and a bunch of new things coming! This is my take on a birds nest! Vibrant colors and lots of wrapping and twisting.

The other picture is a box that I've made to hold the items to ship to people. I just need to figure out how to get it done well. I don't want to send something that will fall apart in transit! I will be adding things as I am able to. But life is a little crazy at this point in time.

A New Adventure

I have been really into the "natural living" lately. First I tried homemade shampoo, juicing, lots of organic and "raw" foods. Anything I can get my hands on and I like the idea I seem to try. Now this is all good and fun, but it actually takes a lot of dedication and strangely more money.

The shampoo thing came and went very fast. It kept getting into my eyes and stinging them. My hair felt strange and I just didn't want to deal with it. I did hear that it takes a while to adjust, and if you are really interested in doing it I found my source here. I love how passionate she is about it, but its just not for me.

With the juicing, I just love this and will continue doing it as long as my juicer holds out. My kids and I call it "George Juice" after the Curious George episode on juicing. He uses all red items, cabbage, red bell pepper, apple, radish, strawberries, and watermelon. We tried this and just loved it. Right now we are really into our rainbow smoothie! We use one or more fruit/veggie of each color of the rainbow and juice/blend it up. The most recent one was 1 red apple, 1 red bell, 1 pk strawberries, 1 pk raspberries 2 carrots,2 bananas, 1 celery stalk, and 1 cucumber, and Ice. Now I know that blue and purple are not in this one but we usually have grapes and blueberries, we just ran out. This one was sooooo yummy. I juiced everything but the bananas (never put one in a juicer) and added ice and banana to blender then all the juices that we just made. Blend it up and voila super healthy and yummy snack that my kids just love.

Before this year, I had never had organic food. I thought that it was for "hippys" and silly "health nuts". I have to say Ive had a total change of heart. Not only do I buy many more things organic, I tend to go out of my way to procure them. I have a feeling that this is here to stay! I love the choice. Before this year we were eating soo many processed foods. I credit Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and The Biggest Loser. Both of these shows have shown me how unhealthy I have been living my adult life, and how I need to change for my kids and for myself.

There is a wonderful feeling living in CA, especially Southern CA. There is a whole movement here to craft everything. From beer to bread. This makes it really easy to change. The downside is everything "organic" is so much more expensive. Regular apples might be $.99 a lbs but the same organic apple is $1.49 a lbs. I find it funny to be paying so much more for products that have been not treated, then products that have been. I understand that there is less supply, but what if they lowered the cost, would you by more? I would! I'd buy everything organic. But as it stands my pocket book is only so full each month, so sometimes I have to buy the $.99 apples.

My goal for the next year is to not buy anything at a large chain grocery store. To do that I am going to go hunting for the best farmers markets, butcher shops and bakery's to supply my family with the best quality food stuff I can. I have no doubt that this is going to be very hard to live by and I will of course get my cleaning stuff there. But I am going to try hard to do this. It will make for a very interesting first of the year.

Welcome and Hello

Hello and welcome to my blog. My name is Nicole and I am a mom of three young ones. Nathan who will turn 4 this year, Chloe who will be 2, and Lily who is three months. As a very busy mom I am constantly looking for fun things to do with the kids. I've recently found the blog life and am in love with all the ideas it presents. Many of the posts that I will put up will reference other blogs that I just had to try out. But they will still be my accomplishments and fun for my kids. I am hoping that with enough reading and writing, I will start posting original ideas and games for you to try. 

This will also have my day to day struggles and fum. I hope to keep you entertained and inspired. I welcome feedback and will learn from all my mistakes!

Thank you for reading and have a great day.