Second set of baby pics

We had another ultrasound on Jan. 17 so I thought I'd share those pictures. Our baby was slightly less difficult than the first ultrasound--the tech was able to get all of the images of the brain and heart she needed, and she was able to find out that our child does indeed have fingers! However, it's still a stubborn kid because we never got a really great picture of the face. The tech gave us four pictures when we left, and most of them show the face hiding behind an arm, leg or the cord. Here's what we got:

I'm not even going to try and identify what's the cord and what's a limb, but that is a nose and mouth in between the alien-looking parts :)

I think that is the cord in front of the nose...but there's an eyelid on the left, 

part of a nose and part of a mouth

Again, most of the face, but not fully!

We call this one "The Thinker." Baby Floyd can be seen in profile with a little fist under the chin. 

I thought the first three pics went really well with the last face shots we got in December, but the fourth one almost looks like a different child to me! The nose looks different--really everything. And no, pretty confident there aren't two babies in there! 

Cousin Steven's visit

If you had told me 15 years ago that one day I would willingly allow my cousin Steven to visit me and stay at my house for several days, I would've laughed in your face. True story. We fought constantly as kids, but thankfully we've both grown into somewhat mature adults and get along great now.

Steven lives in Tuscaloosa, Ala. and is related to me through my mother's side. Since our moms were really close growing up, my brother and I often saw he and his sisters (and other cousins since his mom had a twin my mom was also very close with). We took beach trips together in the summer, etc etc. Anyway, Steven decided sometime ago that he wanted to visit all 50 states by the time he turned 30. When I got married and moved to New England, it gave him the perfect opportunity to knock several states off his list in one trip.

After months of promising to come visit, he finally made it here on Jan. 11. The first day he was here our plan was to get to Vermont and New Hampshire. We succeeded, but there was this whole flat tire ordeal we first had to endure that resulted in my husband having to walk several miles to pick up the car after we borrowed his Jeep and no one from his office could drive him to the tire place. Woops! He enjoyed the workout, I think :)

So getting a much later start than intended, Steven and I drove about 30 miles north to Brattleboro, VT. Before stopping there, we headed east to Hinsdale, NH to pick up a rock. Steven wants a rock from every state so when he builds a house one day, he can incorporate them into a fireplace. I took some pics and video of him in NH, but the pics are on his camera. The videos are funny, but probably not to the general public--he basically tried to write his girlfriend's name in the snow and misspelled it...twice. And it's four letters. He really wasn't used to the cold up here!

This is from back in Brattleboro. We parked and walked part of the way across the Connecticut River into NH to get some pictures of the river and surrounding area.

Looking into New Hampshire from Vermont

Before leaving VT, we had to get a rock. We didn't find one quickly, and since we were trying to get back to pick Andrew up on the side of the road to make his trek shorter, we didn't have much time. (We also didn't make it to Andrew in time...) Let's just say I found a brick that may or may not have still been part of a standing building. He still wants a rock from VT, which I will find this summer, but the brick will do for now and makes for a lovely story :)

Steven's 25th birthday was Friday, and at his sister's request, we got him a cake with the old fashioned, sugary icing. We celebrated Thursday night so we'd have more time to enjoy the dessert.

Steven works in concrete, which often involves construction sites, so we thought this was perfect. 

He's super excited about me taking his picture!

Friday was a much better day--weather and car-wise. Where it had been snowy, gray and cold on Thursday, it was sunny and WINDY on Friday. At least it was sunny in Rhode Island where we headed. We had to drive through lots of fog and grossness before finding the sun, but once we got to Newport, we found it! We also found Purgatory Rd. and being the goofballs we are, couldn't resist pulling over for a picture. And one of the many rocks we gathered from RI.

After driving in circles for way too long looking for free parking, we ate a wicked cheap lunch at a place called Handy's, let Steven stick his hand in the ocean and then headed to the Cliff Walk. It's a three-mile walk on paved and rugged terrain along the cliffs in RI, and most of it is behind mansions in Newport. RI was under a wind advisory, but we managed to bundle up and walk 2/3 of a mile in and back out. One day I'll go back in the summer and finish it, but I figured the headline "Pregnant woman blown off cliff" shouldn't be part of my life story. 

This last one is pretty cool--2/3 of a mile in is a place called the Forty Steps. A website I found said this was the place where the servants who worked in the mansions came to have parties. Forty steps drop down to a little balcony at the bottom of the cliff. I won't say what we found down there, but let's just say some people need to keep their private affairs indoors, or at least clean up after themselves. 

We left RI and drove back to Mass via Connecticut so Steven could get a rock from that state. He flew in there, and we had dinner in CT, but we forgot to look for rocks. 

On Saturday, Andrew and I took him to Boston for the day, and it was pretty cold and windy. We still had a good time, walked more than six miles and saw the Freedom Trail, both Cheers' locations and had a great dinner at our fave Boston restaurant La Famiglia Giorgio. Baby Floyd also managed to make it up the 294 steps of the Bunker Hill monument. My knees were not so happy on Sunday, but it was a nice workout!

 Next to the USS Constitution, our favorite part of the Trail

At the children's museum that is next to the Constitution

Steven, hoisting a goat onto the ship inside the children's museum

Andrew and I left Steven at Boston Common so he could get a rental car and head to his last state of the trip--Maine. The temps dropped significantly that night, so he got to experience some negative degree weather in Portland before flying out of Manchester, N.H. on Sunday. Hopefully he had a good time, but I think his next visit might be in the summer!

Crafty Christmas post #1

So the plan was to post about the different presents I made for friends and family in the days following Christmas. And like most of my plans, it clearly fell through :) For some reason, whenever I go back to Alabama--even with my computer--I fail to find the time or reliable wifi to take care of my technological projects. Then on our drive back to Mass I got a phone call for a temp job for the month of January. That started Jan. 3, and I spent the first two weeks letting my pregnant self get reacquainted with working full-time. My cousin Steven also came for a visit at the end of last week, so look for a post with several pics on that coming soon.

I think in this post I'll include the three gifts I made for the toddlers in my life. I have a niece (5) and two step-nephews (4, 1...almost 2). Let's start with the boys. I began subscribing to a newsletter called The Happy Housewife (with accompanying blog) back in October. Everyday I got an email with a homemade Christmas gift idea. The two ideas I latched onto for the boys were a memory game and beanbags. I tagged them on my Pinterest account and came back to them in late November/early December.

Homemade memory game
Here's the link to the tutorial I followed.

I decided to make Kris, the four-year-old, a memory game with a dinosaur theme. I found scrapbook paper at Michael's, printed dinosaur pics from a free clipart site and had one of my teacher friends laminate the cards for me at school.

These are the supplies I needed besides paper and pictures: glue, pen/pencil, ruler and scissors. I used the bottle cap to trace around the four edges of each card, then cut a rounded corner to make them look more finished. There are scrapbook tools that do this with a punch, but they cost about $10. My way took longer but was free!

I glued my dinosaur pictures to the paper on the left. I should note here that I used two-sided paper. I put the picture on the busier side of the paper and used the other side for the backs of the cards. This way each card looks more uniform when the game begins.

The finished product! I picked 12 different dinosaurs, two cards each, making this a 24-card memory game. Like the tutorial says, you can punch a hole in the corner and keep the cards on a binder ring for easy travel. I didn't have a ring, so I just laminated the 24 cards plus one more with directions and put them in a box. My step-sister-in-law can carry them in her purse to appointments or other places where Kris might need to entertain himself. The entire project cost me about $3.

Beanbags 
I decided to make Landon eight bean bags, using four different fabrics. I have some great fabrics that an international student brought me from Nigeria so I chose those. My friend Kristin that I mention frequently also made some of these, and she used an old plaid shirt for some of hers.

Here's the link to the tutorial I used. I think I cut out 5x5 squares for this, and I bought dry lentil beans at Wal-Mart for the filling. I think Kristin used beans and rice for hers.

My fabrics 

Place two of your squares together--WRONG sides facing. Sew around three sides of the bag.

This is sort of blurry, but it helps to cut the excess fabric at the corners whenever you make a bag of any kind, or basically anything you plan to turn inside out.

The tricky part came next for me. I filled the bag with beans--I can't give you an exact amount, but I put fewer beans in my second bag after I had a small accident with the first one! You could do one of two (or probably more if you're a better seamstress than me) things now. One is to just sew straight across and not mind that there's an unfinished edge. Your toddler surely won't. Or you can turn the two sides in and sew across. You'll still see the seam, but you won't have the unfinished edge. I tried the second idea, but I couldn't hold it all together and lost some beans. I also fought with my machine over the Nigerian fabric. So I then went to the first idea. 

Tada! Beanbags for small children to throw at each other or put in their mouths! The project cost me maybe $5 for bags of beans. I could've gotten them cheaper if I'd bought in bulk at Whole Foods or the local co-op, but I wasn't sure what I'd need, and I was at Wal-Mart when I remembered I needed them.

Homemade Tutu
Andrew's sister has a five-year-old daughter, and we usually give her books for Christmas and her birthday. I wanted to give her one book in a series that Julie Andrews helped write called A Very Fairy Princess, but I also found a book called Talulah's Tutu about a girl who takes ballet and desperately wants a tutu. My idea was born. We would give her the tutu book for Christmas with a tutu to wear! We gave her the other book for her birthday.

The initial tutorial I found for this can be found here, but I looked at several blogs and videos to see what each one did.

For this project you need tulle, elastic and ribbon (optional). You also need scissors. I initially bought a yard of pink sparkly tulle and another yard of purple. I didn't have enough, so I went back for more purple and a regular pink. The tutorial said two yards of each color, but I thought since Ava was small she wouldn't need that much. I was wrong. You need more to make it fuller. 

If you can see in the top of the picture above, I laid out the tulle, then folded it up into a long strip. I made my cuts, then unrolled them. I saw this in a video, and it made it so much easier to cut. You don't have to be exact, but what you want to do is cut similar-width strips to tie onto the elastic. I had my mother-in-law measure my niece's waist, then went about an inch smaller so it would sit snugly on her. The only sewing I did was to sew the elastic together into a circle.

Once you have your fabric strips, you just tie them on the elastic. Fold the strip in half, loop it around the elastic, put one end in the other and pull tight. (This is the same way you put a luggage tag on a suitcase.) I found it somewhat easy to put the elastic around my knees and work my way around. However, here is my advice to not do what I did and not buy sparkly fabric...I was covered!!!

Once I got all of my strips tied on, I took some ribbon and wound it in and out between the tulle knots. I also added some long strips of ribbon to hang down. Once we got to Alabama and our niece had opened her gift, I took scissors and cut the ends to the length she wanted. She already had a shorter tutu, so we made this one knee-length for dress-up games.

I bought all of the tulle on sale and used a coupon at Joann's for the elastic. The project was less than $10.

I think I'll put the rest of my crafty gifts in a second post, so stay tuned!