What I've Been Up To and TONS of Pictures

Well, since school closed and BYUs semester ended, I've been trying to keep busy doing crafty things. Michael bought me my birthday present(s) early because we found super good deals/sales. So, I got a cricut and a sewing machine.
Since then, I've been busy. AND there is soo much more that I want to try! Thank goodness for coupons and sales and Joann's!

Project 1. A Wet Bag for cloth diapering. For those of you who don't know what it is... it's simple. Cloth diapers, you don't throw them away. So what do you do when you're out? Throw gross diapers into your diaper bag? YUCK! You put them into a water proof zippered bag to keep the wetness and smell from seeping into everything else. But here's the catch, they're kinda pricey (well, not SUPER expensive, but for what they are it is. So, I made one. Bought some PUL material (it's what they are made of) when it was on sale (of course!) and made one myself. Here's a picture.



Project 2. Emmalynn's Easter Dress. Pictures were posted on facebook, but it was partly crocheted, and made from tulle and ribbon mostly.

Project 3. Tulle Headbands. I made a tulle headband a while ago. It was a super easy, no sew or glue project. I'll have to take a picture and post it later. It took about 15 minutes

Project 4. My green clutch that holds crochet hooks/littler crafting supplies. It used about 1/4 yrd fabric and a zipper and 2 snaps. (I got an industrial snap tool too!). Here's a picture of it (or a few)! (and Yes, I know the fabric that pulls it into a bow isn't completely centered... I didn't measure. It was just another 30 minute quick project. gotta keep most of my projects small because I never know how long Emmalynn will be sleeping!)



Project 5. I made Michael a new wallet. He needed a wallet, so I figured I'd try it out. I don't actually have pictures of it currently. But it has a total of 8 pockets and a big one for bills. It was actually pretty quick, but pretty frustrating too. The material was a silky one, which also means it frays a LOT. and FAST. It was very annoying to work with, but I got it done. And Michael uses it! So, at least it functions... and he seems to like it. Pictures to come. :)

Project 6 is in progress still. I'm making a welcome mat. It's hopefully going to function as one too! Haha We'll see. It's been much more time consuming and wearing than I thought. I've had to take lots of breaks because it's just so tiring! But, I'll be sure to post pictures of it when it's done!

Project 7 is in progress still too, but I hope to finish it tonight and tomorrow. I'm trying to make homemade canvas photos to put on the wall. I saw a tutorial a few months ago, and wanted to try it, but even plain canvas is expensive! But, it was on sale the other day AND I got to use a coupon on top of the sale, so I was able to score some pretty cheap. And Michael said I should get it. So, I did. and Now, I'm working on it. I'm anxious to see how it turns out. :)

Project 8. I made Emmalynn and I matching dresses for church! Yay. Haha. I just posted pictures on facebook, but I'll add some on here as well. They were actually pretty simple since the material I got already had the stretchy part done for me... I kinda went the easy way out. But, again, the material was on sale and I got to use a coupon on top of the sale (that really doesn't happen often btw). So, it was exciting and an easy project. All I did for my dress was cut the material to the right size, hem the bottom, and sew it together! Done! Yay! However, since Emma is shorter than me, In order for her to have all of the colors in her dress, I had to be a little bit more creative. So, I cut the material to the right width (or so I thought...=/), and then trimmed off the excess length. But then her dress was only green and light blue! So, I decided to add the darker blue and purple ruffle to the bottom of the dress. that was a LOT more effort than I thought it was going to be. And proved to be quite... frustrating and time consuming. However, I learned a lot from it, and next time it'll go SO MUCH better and FASTER! So then, I hemmed it up, and sewed up the side and we tried it on. It didn't fit! It was too skinny for her. Oops! I must of screwed up the measurements. So, I had two options, start over (I have enough left over to make her another one), or make another strip to insert all the way down the dress. I ended up making another 3 inch strip to go into the back. So, I had to make MORE ruffles and make sure they lined up with the other ones... and it was just not fun. BUT, it's done! And it's ADORABLE! So, it was worth it. And, the best part is, you can't even see where I had to add material! Not really anyway, it just looks like that's how it was supposed to be. So yeah. That was annoying. Here are some pictures!



And that's all for now. I've got so many more ideas and things I want to try though. So I'm sure there will be more coming! :)

And here are some other random pictures from the last little bit. As well as a bonus one of me at 19 wks 3 days. :)

First trimester round two

Well, when I was pregnant with Emmalynn I got VERY sick and lost about 15 pounds the first trimester. This time, I wasn't sick hardly at all! It was excellent and such a blessing. I was able to take care of my little girl and myself.

My biggest fears when we felt like we were supposed to have another child were 1. How would I take care of a baby while so sick and tired! And 2. What about school?
Well, it became apparent pretty quickly that neither mattered much.
Then 3. what will people think? This is crazy! Even I know that. I've got a 6 month old at home! (It was a bit before Christmas that we got that scary thought/feeling...) And although my third fear is still very much alive, I've decided it doesn't much matter. I know what I know. And although I'm terrified of what life will be like in just over 4.5 months, I'm also very excited and know it will be great no matter how hard it'll be.

Michael and I want a large family and feel very blessed to be entrusted with another one of God's precious children. How did we get so lucky? I guess we must be doing something right, even though life is crazy and will continue to be crazy and we're both still students!

Anyway, so first trimester flew by. I didn't even remember I was pregnant most days. I was busy with Emmalynn and feeling great and not showing at all! I'm still hardly showing. Which has been nice. So anyway, we found out I was pregnant, the apartment flooded, and we moved. Unpacking... Has been and still is a chore. I've been slacking a bit in that aspect... Woops.
The only time I really remembered I was pregnant was when we all had the flu... Twice. And I got it MUCH worse than the other two. I'm pretty much positive it's because it was aggrevated by the crazy pregnancy hormones in the first trimester.

Anyway. Life's great. We're excited.

Long and Wordy Update

Well, it's been quite a long time since I've blogged. Sorry about that!

Things that have happened since... oh, IDK December.
Emmalynn got big... and long. and CRAZY! but crazy fun! She's a doll. She's seriously the BEST baby. She's so sweet and gentle... most of the time. She's a very happy girl.
She sat up by herself the first time on Christmas (exactly 6 months).

She has been crawling since about 3 weeks after that and is pretty content with crawling. Which is think is interesting, because before she could crawl, she was VERY interested in standing and walking, but now she won't even let you hold her in a standing position without complaining.

She knows how to open things... like a container of Puffs. Which definitely makes things interesting. The other day, I found her under the sink... good thing we have our chemicals up high! She's been sick quite a bit this winter, which hasn't been fun for anyone.

She loves eating. Anything we eat, she NEEDS to eat. Or she screams. She also is very good at telling us when she wants to sleep. She's a really good sleeper. On a "bad" night she only sleeps 9 hrs straight. Most nights though, it's closer to 11, sometimes even 12! However, I almost always nurse her in her room when she first wakes up because she is still tired and will go back to sleep for another 1-2 hours. Yes! Then she'll usually take two more 2 hour naps during the day. This girl loves her sleep! But when she's up, she's up! That's for sure. She's everywhere, which is super fun, but tiring. She climbs a bit, and will walk while holding on to furniture/legs.

She has 2 teeth. She got her first one about 2 months ago, and just barely cut the second one a few days ago. She's super long and skinny. She's in the 97th percentile for height (as of her 9 mo. appointment, but just grew another 1-2 inches). And she's in the 9th percentile for weight, but the doctors aren't worried because her head circumference is growing and nothing seems to be developmentally wrong. If anything, she's a bit ahead of her peers.
Emmalynn Clapped for the first time yesterday! It was so fun! She just did it out of no where. We had been working with her on it for about 2 months, but she hasn't seemed to care at all. Then we look over and she's sitting just clapping! So fun!
She's known how to high five since about 7 months though. She likes that one a lot.
She is also the noisy kid in church. She just squeals and talks the whole time! especially when someone is saying a prayer/its quiet. Awesome.
She's super wiggly too! Which doesn't help with the noisiness.
So, yeah. That's our sweet little girl.

Christmas: We spent Christmas with Alison and Ryan. I took some pictures, but haven't had much access since moving (yes, we moved... again), since the charger is in a box hiding from me. This makes me sad, because that means I don't have many pictures of Emmalynn from months 6-10. However, I did manage to take a video for Easter. Christmas was nice, Emmalynn likes her presents which we got mostly from DI or KSL. Woo!




the ones of her laying on the yellow blanket are her 6 Month pictures that I took. :)




January: Nothing super interesting that I remember, but Michael's birthday was good. He just got his present in the mail today (we didn't order it until last week). It's a new computer. which he has been super excited for. Oh, Michael also got a new job in January. Yay! No more campus jobs for Michael! He got his work authorization. (However, no green card yet). He now works for a company called BlueHost. It's a web hosting company. he really seems to like his job. It's probably the happiest I've seen him come home from work since we've been married. And it also pays more :)
And he gets paid time off... which is nice. Also, there is lots of room to move up within the company. We hope he's working a salary job in about a year and a half. Woot! Then he'll graduate soon after that and we'll finally be done with this! Yay! Oh, and our car got hit. awesome. But, that's okay. We got a new one that is more family friendly. It's got four doors! and fits a bigger carseat!







February: I guess this is actually when we got the new car. But yeah. It's a Pontiac Vibe. 2007. So, it's pretty nice. No vans yet! I refuse to drive a van when I'm 20. Although, we did talk about getting a van a little bit. But if we did that, we'd want a new one so it would last longer. Anyway, our old apartment flooded. Fun! Emmalynn's crib was in about 3-4 inches of water in the morning. Awesome. (I already posted about that so no pictures this time). So yeah, we moved. Nothing irreplaceable/expensive was damaged, but we did get to sleep in the living room on the couch for 2 weeks! and EVERYTHING from the master bedroom was put into the other bedroom, which already had a ton in it. So, it was a disaster. and packing was a mess, which is why we still aren't entirely unpacked. I keep finding boxes with random things in it... fun. Oh, and on February 10th we got some super exciting news!

March: Michael's green card finally came! Only took forever! Yay! Now we can leave the country! And now Michael is officially legal... not this in between half legal crap. Super exciting news! Oh, and we passed the interview obviously. So they believe we're married! I think having a kid was helpful...
I'm grateful we had Emmalynn.. because if not, we wouldn't have been "married enough". We have a shared bank account, but all of the utilities are basically only in one name or the other... So we didn't have enough proof aside from our kid. Yay for happy accidents!

April: Michael finished up the semester at BYU. and we went to Canada for the first time! Yay! My first time to Michael's hometown was also Emmalynn's first time. It's absolutely BEAUTIFUL up there! Just a bit chilly. We're considering living there... depending on how terrible the winters actually are. We'll probably travel up there again sometime this summer. I might go stay up there for a while with his family, since I don't have much to do down here. My friends are all leaving (even the married ones! They've got internships/graduated). So, we'll see how bored I get. Oh, and my cosmetology school closed abruptly. So, I'm just doing online at BYU (which I'm totally okay with for now). So, long story short, the owner of the school told everyone our school was accredited. and it was, for the first 50 hours of my school there. But then, the rest of the time I was there it had lost accreditation (and of course we weren't notified and she kept telling new students that it was), so the rest of my hours wouldn't transfer to other schools. So, it's not worth going back and trying to get all of the hours. I'd still be about 1950 hrs away from graduating. It's just not worth it with a sweet little one at home that I can play with!


....And it's definitely not worth it with another sweet little one on the way! That's right! On February 10th we found out we were expecting our second child! We are super excited and can't wait to welcome the sweet little one into our family around October 17th, 2013!