Baby Turbans for Baby Showers

So this Sunday is the baby shower for my very special friend! She is so cool, and she let me do her wedding flowers last year and they ended up to be my best yet:

So because she is one of my friends, I can't actually post pictures of her handmade gift but I can assure you, a tutorial is in the works. This girl is such a beautiful bride and I know she's going to be a beautiful mommy too!

Speaking of mommies, one thing I can share is the hat I'm recreating. The pattern is written in a completely different language and I might have to call on my friends who speak german to figure it out. Although it might not be german. Luckily, I'm confident enough in my 'making up' skills to take a swing at it myself.

It's a BABY TURBAN!! AUGH!! This baby even looks like one of mine so I took it as a sign that I HAVE to make it. I think I'm going to add some flower embellishments to it as well to make it my own. Because knitting patters are hard to make correctly and honestly, I don't remember anything I did except that I'm on a 3rd row of a stripe, I will not be posting a pattern for this wonder. Hopefully it will be finished in time for baby B to wear to the shower for our good friend. And of course, I will also be making something similar for baby A.

My Muffin Top is All That

People always say that your pregnancy will be like your mother's pregnancy. It may be that I had twins and my mother never did, but my pregnancy was not at all like my mothers. Neither is my post. We have a video of our family at an air show and my mom is sitting on the side walk with three of us running around her and my 6 month old sister sitting in a stroller next to her. She's wearing short shorts and a belly shirt. No stretch marks, no stretched skin... nothing.

This what's strange to me... I act like my mother, I talk like my mother, I even see my reflection in windows and wonder, "What's my mom doing here?" Then I realize it's me. Four months now and having babies has made my weight fluctuate almost on a weekly basis. I have NEVER had this problem before and didn't expect it to hit until I turned 40, to be honest. In fact, before I was pregnant, I expected that once I did have babies, I wouldn't get stretch marks (my mother didn't), and I would be able to work out (I can't), and just snap back within a month.

Like I have said in previous posts... there is no way you can prepare yourself for having babies.

You know, really I guess I can't complain. I'm taller so extra weight is distributed pretty evenly and not really noticeable to the untrained eye. The trained eye, though, would see that my shape wear cami doesn't adequately squeeze down the folds of fatty saggy skin oozing out of the waist band of my jeans. They don't see how my butt sags too... How did that happen? There was never anything there to sag!

I guess I could just buy myself some hands weights and a video and work out at home. But who wants to do that when they could sit at home watching episodes of 30 Rock, eating chocolate chips, changing diapers, and drinking caramel flavored coffee?

Change

Apparently it's been a while. We've had our children, we've partially finished our house, and we moved in just in the nick of time. Literally. We moved in, a couple days later (boxes still COVERING our house and no running water) I went to my check up thinking I still had one week to go and the nurse says, "Are you ready to have your babies tomorrow?" Yeah. My c-section was rescheduled. I called my husband and told him to not freak out or anything but he needs to get water in the house NOW. I immediately went home and my family came over and unpacked ALL our boxes, my husband got the water working, I got everything ready to go have some babies. After a fitful sleep, at 4:30 I woke up because I had to be checked in by 6. And we didn't even get to bed until 11 that night. By 9:15 am my husband and I had our lives take a huge turn because our twinnies were born.

This is Summer and Isla.

5.11 & 5.9

Now they're four months old, screeching, cooing, rolling, smiling, and lots of fun.

In the same order:

Aren't they dolls? It's amazing to me how different they are at such a young age. Summer is the pistol and Isla is calm and not easily ruffled. Summer fights sleep with all that's within her until the very end and Isla welcomes sleep any time any where. Just give her a paci and a soft blanket.

I can't tell you how many people have told me, "I wish I had twins," with a whimsical, far off look in their eye. I was recently talking to another mother of twins and we both laughed as we said that those people have nooo idea. Twins is like a whole other level of hard that you can't even prepare for. And I pray to God that I never ever have triplets. I feel like I ride on the edge of going crazy almost on a daily basis. And they're only four months old. I've only just recently been able to wrap my brain around how to get them on a schedule. I've had to give myself goals to be able to accomplish with out help like, taking a shower (three weeks, check), doing laundry (two months, check), and I still have to bring people to help me take them to doctor appointments. I finally got my babies to go to sleep by 10 and now I'm stuck on their 2 am schedule. Part of me can't wait for when they're older and the other part does NOT look forward to teething and crawling. My mother in law said it in my favorite way, "Herding cats."

After all that, I love having kids. I always knew I would. It's been hard and not at all how I planned, but I love these girls and how they've changed us. I love having my own house that I can do whatever I want to. Now I just have to find the time and figure out how to hang things without ruining my brand new walls.

A Ticking Time Bomb

Fall is coming!! In Alaska it's not the season most people look forward to because of the deep, dark, and LONG winter that follows. But in August, my neck starts to feel lonely, my feet are tired of being dirty, and all my body wants to do is snuggle in a big cozy blanket.

Husband and I are expecting a rather big addition of twins girls to our family every single day now and I don't know if it's the season or if it's my brain telling me to cram in all of the things I love to do while I still can... but I've been knitting like crazy. Currently I have one project going and two still milling around in my brain... actually more than two. And the only reason why I haven't started on all of them at once is that I have been put on a strict "No Spending," policy. And that has happened because Husband is also building our house which is to be finished before babies arrive. So I have to make a decision between door knobs and the cozy blanket I want to make to throw over our couch once said house gets built. To be honest, this is a hard decision to make right now.

So I'm just going to stick with what I'm making (forest green felted slippers!!) and the ones that I'm still looking for perfect patterns for (socks and mittens).

On top of all these knitting projects my little brain and fingers are itching to decorate my house that's to be finished hopefully before babies get here. I'll admit, I'm getting nervous. I'm at 32 weeks and even though pregnancy wise the babies are staying inside well, and the inside is almost livable, I feel like our clock is ticking and time is running out! I have picture frames to hang up! A living room to put candles all over! A bathroom to find a right shower curtain for! (stupid no spend policy) A kitchen to put together! And how lame would it be to go into labor half way in the middle of putting away my dishes? To come home from the hospital with two brand new babies and 20 boxes to unpack?! LAME!! Oh well... I have a hard working husband and it will get done.... whether they're here or not!

I'll try to take some pictures of my slippers.

Dreamin

You know what would be cool? To be one of those people that other people send their brand new clothes to for you to wear for advertising purposes. Yeah.

The Time Has Come

For me to read the whole Twilight series again. I keep thinking about it. And I feel like I deserve to drive around pretending to be white hot (or cold in this case) vampire again. The other day I looked in my closet and realized that, "Hey, all my clothes are ones that Alice Cullen might wear if I paired them together right!" (The majority of my closet is greys, blues, and whites. Alice, you want to raid my closet and you know it!) After I looked in my closet, I looked at my skin and realized that despite the summer (lack of) sun I am still beautifully pale. (Recently I decided that 3rd degree sun burn every year is something that I don't look forward too. Hello SPF 30!) If only my hair was short and brown. (Not really, I'm starting to like it long)

Speaking of books, I've been reading quite a lot lately. I usually read a lot but schedules and craft projects have not allowed very much time for reading. ALTHOUGH!! I just discovered my dilema of never being able to read while I'm knitting. Suprisingly, the gift was from my husband and I'm pretty sure that he didn't know that his gift was allowing me to do many many things at once. What is this phenomenom? It's a Barnes and Noble NOOK!! A little portable electronic reader and it's wonderful!

Anyways, here's a list of the last few books I've read and how I would rate them.

My first is:

The Eye of the World. A fantasy book by Robert Jordan. My husband recommended it to me and at first it was slow going but at about Chapter 4 or 5 it gets really interesting. Action packed, slight romance, great read, and about 700 pages of thick, the first book of a series of 12. I find myself wanting the second book.

Young Rand is just a shepherd from a small village. Until visitors come to his village turning Rand, and his closest friend's lives upside-down.
Rand, his friends, and the mysterious Aie Sadai and her Warder then start off on an adventure that will change them all.

Five stars!

My next is:

"And Then There Were None." I love me a good Agatha Christie mystery. Miss Marple, Hercule Poroit, I've read them. This was one that my brother's girlfriend recommended to me and I have to say, it's the most chilling one that I've read from her. Like most of her books it's a quick read. But you kind of want it to be because you want to know what happens next...FAST!

A group of people get myseriously invited to the same place, an island owned by no one knows! The mystery thickens when hearing a recording of someone exposing their hidden secrets and one of the guests drops dead.

OoooooO!! Scary but not enough to give me nightmares or have me paranoid. My kind of mystery.

Last but not least:

"Have a Little Faith," by Mitch Albom. This is my book club book and it was a goody.

A true story about the author two influental men in his life who taught him about God, faith, happiness, contentment, and peace in your life. These two men are his old jewish rabbi and the African American christian pastor who came from a life of violence and drugs.

It's a very quick read that gets you thinking. It leaves you with a happy feeling but then again a, "Man, I need to look at the world differently." Or at least that's how I thought about it. It's such a good book.
I would let you borrow it but it's on my nook. :) I read this book while knitting some throw pillow covers. Which I haven't finished and my husband took my camera so there are no pictures of them.... yet.

Peace out!

All Things Handmade

I know it's been forever. Please don't hate me.

This spring/summer has been incredibly busy. Work, projects, our yearly move, and much much more.
Alex and I moved again into a much better, nicer, cleaner, WARMER AND LEAK FREE HOUSE!! Did I also mention that there are no more wood chips? And that I spent a month picking wood chips out of everything AFTER we moved? Yep, things are finally coming together.
Alex and I had our 2 year anniversary and I just recently had my 21st birthday. Now all I have to look forward to is being old enough to rent a car and retirement.

Anways, I have a few projects up my sleeve. One of them being a vintage inspire, fashion show/auction of all things hand made. I'm putting it together for my work and it's going to be wonderful.

And that's all I have to write about for now.