Parker's book

So I mentioned that I was making a quiet book for Parker, but it wasn't finished when I last posted. Here are some pictures of the finished product! Next time I will be leaving myself more time to make one. Two weeks, while also taking care of a baby, is not enough time to make a quiet book! :)
It was almost finished by last Friday, but I still had to put the eyelets in all the pages. There was no way I was going to have it finished by Saturday morning and I was really disappointed. I finally decided to just put it aside and enjoy our Christmas Eve together.
But, as it happens, I have the most wonderful husband in the world! He got up early Christmas morning and cut all the holes and put in all the eyelets! I had no idea he was working on it and it was almost finished when I walked in a little while later! He knew how much it meant to me to have it done and it totally made my day that he did all that for me! So, thanks to Kyle, Parker got his book for Christmas! The only part that's not completely done is the cover...I want to put Parker's name on the front, but I wanted letter patches and haven't been able to find any yet that I like.
Here are the pages...













And a recent picture of Parker! :)

Homemade gifts

Can you believe Christmas is only a little over a week away?! I usually try to do a lot of holiday baking to give to friends and neighbors, but it's not going to happen this year. I've got something better on my mind--Parker! We're not going overboard with him as far as toys and gifts, mainly because he's too little for most things and he won't remember it anyway. But it's still his first Christmas and I wanted to make him something special, so I'm making him a quiet book!

I've been looking for a pattern for one since August, hoping to get an earlier start, but turns out that patterns are hard to find! Fortunately, my Mom had a pattern for an old style of quiet book so she brought it when they came to visit. It was exactly the one I had been looking for and, to make it even better, Kyle had that same book made for him when he was a kid! So now Parker will have a similar one. For anyone not familiar with a quiet book, it's a large book made entirely of fabric and it has simple 'activities' on each page that a young child can do...matching colors and shapes to their corresponding spots on the page, learning to use a zipper, putting their hand into a mitten, etc. Lots of bright colors and shapes!

I don't have all the pages finished yet, so I'll post pics of it when it's done next week. I can't wait to finish it and give it to him--of course he'll be too small to use it for awhile, but that's okay! Maybe this year it's more for my enjoyment, that I'm able to make him something cool. :)

So those pictures are coming soon, but here is something else I made for him. It's a little crinkly toy! The outside is soft but it has a plastic layer inside that gives a wonderful crinkle sound when it's squeezed and bunched up! And some ribbon loops for his little fingers to grab.



And of course, another picture of Parker. As you can tell, he's very excited about Christmas! :)

A huge blessing in a small package

The past couple months have been busy, but incredibly fun! Now that Parker's here, we've heard all kinds of comments from people. Some have been positive, telling us how wonderful and rewarding parenthood can be. Then there are the negative ones, telling us about all the bad experiences that can and will happen. But there's one comment that always stands out.... we always think it's a little weird when someone tells us, "Don't worry, it will get better." I understand that not everyone enjoys babies as much as older children, who are more independent and can interact. But Parker has been such a blessing in the short time he's been here! When we first brought him home we could spend hours just sitting and looking at him, amazed and thankful that the Lord would create and give us this wonderful and perfect little person. :) Sure, we've also had a few frustrating times, but I wouldn't trade the past two months for anything! The Bible says children are a reward and a blessing from the Lord so we see it as a privilege to take care of Parker and we're loving every day we are able to spend with him. What an incredible opportunity it is to raise a child and be able to help shape his character and personality!
And we've had so much fun already! Actually, I've been a little surprised at how entertaining a newborn can be. Whether it's watching him go through countless facial expressions while he's stretching and waking up, or spewing milk clear across the crib, he keeps us constantly amused.
Okay, enough rambling for now...here are a few pictures of him!


Parker is 7 weeks old today and is growing like crazy! At our one month doctor appointment, he was almost 10 lbs so we're looking forward to seeing how big he'll be by his two month check-up in a couple weeks.


Parker has been smiling a lot the past couple weeks. Seeing a big smile from him totally brightens my day! :)


My parents came out a few weeks ago to meet Parker. And in typical grandparent fashion, they completely spoiled him!

He's here!!

Parker Elijah Asire is finally here!! A very prompt baby, he was born on his due date of October 10, 2010 at 6:44 a.m. He was 6 lbs. 15 oz. and 20.5 inches long.



Parker's just over a week old now and we've been loving every minute with him--even the sleepless ones at night! Just seeing his little face makes us smile. We could sit here all day and just stare at him. :)



People have told us that the first couple weeks are a blur. Looking back, we'll probably agree with this, but for right now we're simply trying to enjoy and take in everything about Parker. The first nine days have been great--better than we expected, actually! He's such a cutie!! We're so thankful he's finally here!

September already?!

I can't believe it's September already! Where did the summer go?? Although we didn't have any big plans this summer, it still seems like the past few months have gone by pretty quickly. But in some ways that's a good thing--it means October is only a few weeks away! I'm looking forward to being able to paint my toenails again and to not feel 10 degrees warmer than everyone else in the room. :)
We added a few final touches to Baby's room... I was going to make curtains, but fabric was either way too expensive or we just didn't like it. So we checked Bed, Bath & Beyond and found a couple curtain panels that were perfect--light blue with narrow brown and cream stripes running down. I'm still thinking of adding a blackout liner, and I don't love the valance that we put on, but that can wait.

Bedding was the last thing we needed, but we didn't want to buy a packaged set, especially since we wouldn't use all the pieces. So we decided to just do something simple to match the curtains. I found a king-sized sheet set that was the same color of blue, and the top had a wide brown strip with a thin cream one in between--a perfect match! And since it was already hemmed, it was easy to measure and cut it into pieces to make a bedskirt for the crib. It's a little messed up in the picture, but it fits great and it hides the hinges, which is all we wanted it for. :)

Other than that, I think we're ready for him. We've been telling him he's allowed to come a little early, but we don't know yet how obedient he is!

Baby's room

Whew! We finally got the spare room cleaned out and ready for Baby. Well, I should say Kyle got the room ready! Fortunately, I'm married to the sweetest guy in the world! He finished going through all the boxes that were in there, washed the walls, vacuumed, set up the baby furniture and hung a curtain rod and shelves. My small part in all of that was putting all the cute little clothes in the dresser and giving my opinion on where the shelves should go. :) I guess pregnancy does have it's good points...you get out of a lot of work!
We're thankful that the furniture came in and we have everything set up! I still have to make curtains, but haven't decided on what kind or color I want yet so those will come later. But Here are a few pictures of the room so far. They're a little dark...I'll ask Kyle to take some better ones later, once we have more accessories/bedding.

Summer Harvest

One thing I miss most about growing up on a farm was our huge garden! My parents would plant everything--peas, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, beets, onions, pumpkins, lettuce, zucchini, rhubarb and strawberries. It was wonderful to walk out and pick whatever fresh veggies (or fruit) we wanted to eat that day! And later we would can, freeze or pickle what was left, making it last into the winter.
This spring I mentioned that, if there was a place for it, I would love to have a little garden in our backyard. So in keeping with his tradition of spoiling me, :) Kyle went to work making it happen! We had one small strip of dirt along the side of our house so we decided to try planting it there. Unfortunately, the ground was so hard that Kyle had to use his axe to break it up. Afterwards we watered it and let it soak overnight. By morning it was a nice thick mud--perfect for planting! So in my little 4 x 12' garden I planted pumpkins, cucumbers, carrots, corn, beans, peppers and tomatoes. And a few strawberry plants. Then we waited. And waited. I started to think they weren't going to grow when we finally saw some tiny green leaves poking through! Some of the plants don't get much sun over there, so I'm still not sure if everything will produce, but it's been fun! So far we've had a handful of strawberries, although they came in one at a time. :) And a few days ago I picked a cherry tomato and three green beans. It was quite the harvest! :) Maybe at some point we'll have enough for dinner.

Still No Crib!

Well, we thought the furniture was in last week but, as it turns out, only the crib mattress arrived. Though baby's not due for a while yet, we've been teasing that if his furniture isn't here by the time he comes, he may have to sleep in one of our empty moving boxes or plastic tubs! :) But at least he has a mattress now! We were going to paint the room last weekend, thinking once it was done we could set up the crib a few days later and start getting his room put together. But once we found out that the furniture wasn't here, our motivation dropped--plummeted, actually. So as of today, we still haven't picked out the final paint color and a mound of boxes are still sitting in the corner of the room. I guess we can procrastinate for a little while longer.

I made a couple more things for baby, one of which made Kyle start thinking....is it fair to your kids to make them fans of a sports team that's not very good? :) Because Toronto is one of the original (and most popular) NHL teams, they became the team Kyle and I cheer for. But to say they haven't been doing well is an understatement! So Kyle was wondering if we should encourage him to like a different/better team or if baby should, like most little boys, like the team his Dad likes...at least while he's young and doesn't know any better! :) Any thoughts?
I voted for him being a little Toronto fan. After all, he already has some team gear!


I also made some burp cloths and a little pouch to carry wipes/diapers.

Boppy Covers

We were told last night that the baby furniture we ordered is in! Yay! We weren't expecting it to come for at least a few more weeks, so we were surprised to get the call. Not sure yet what day we're picking it up, but pictures will come later! :)
First we have to finish cleaning out the room and decide whether we're painting, etc.

When we moved here in January, what started out as our spare room quickly became 'the room where we put all our random junk that doesn't belong anywhere else.' Unfortunately, that ended up being a lot of stuff! So once we found out we'd need it for baby, it forced us to start going through boxes we hadn't opened in a long time. I took a full carload over to Goodwill--they're probably STILL going through all the boxes. I bet we kept their mismatched mug aisle stocked for a week! The rest Kyle was somehow able to store in the garage. At least he SAID it went in the garage... although I noticed our trash bin looked a little more full than usual that week. :)

It feels great to get rid of junk, but the spare room won't be empty for long. With the crib, dresser, bookshelves and my sewing table, it'll be full again in no time! Only now, it'll be more organized--hopefully! I'm just thankful I can still have a place to work on my sewing and other hobbies.

And the pile of homemade baby items continues to grow. Good thing we will soon have a dresser to put it all in! My sister-in-law had a boppy pillow that I'm going to use, so I thought I'd make it a little newer by sewing covers for it. I found a pattern online at www.vanillajoy.com/how-to-boppy-cover.html. It seemed easy enough, so I bought some flannel and a zipper. And then I remembered the last time I tried to put a zipper in something. HA HAHA! But I wanted to try it again anyway.

I'll go ahead and save another paragraph worth of words here to say that I finally returned the zipper and tweaked the pattern a little so I could use buttons or snaps to close it. :) And it worked fine! Here's the finished product.

I only made one minor change....rather than having the two back pieces meet, I made them overlap a little so I could put snaps on to close it.

Happy Canada Day!!

It's Canada Day! And, in typical fashion, we did absolutely nothing to celebrate. :) I was telling Kyle recently that when we were kids, our aunt and uncle, who lived a couple hours away, would come out to our farm every summer on July 1st. Our uncle would always bring a box of fireworks that he would set off in our yard--we'd get our own private fireworks show! We loved it! And of course it was never complete until we got out the sparklers at the end. :) Fun times!
Unfortunately for Kyle, I think marrying a Canadian kind of ruined his fun as far as celebrating Independence Day. Now we have two holidays, on separate days, so we don't really do much for either one. Maybe that'll change once we have kids--being dual citizens, they'll get to claim/celebrate both!

Speaking of baby, I tried out another new pattern today! I've been seeing nursing covers around that, although cute, can be expensive. So I used a pattern a friend had posted, similar to a 'bebe au lait' style, to try making one. The directions were super easy! The only thing I didn't like about it was that the corners didn't line up exactly...thank goodness they don't show up in the pictures! There's probably a better way to sew them, but I wasn't feeling creative enough to pick it apart and re-do it. :)



I think the total cost was just over $5, which is a lot cheaper than buying one. And since it's homemade, mine will be one of a kind! :)



The pattern is from: http://sometimescrafter.blogspot.com/2008/02/sometimes-crafter-tutorials.html

The weekend's over

Don't you just love getting a good deal on something? :) Lately I've been seeing how much you can save with coupons--or coupon codes, if you're shopping online. You just have to be willing to spend a few minutes looking for the best price.

I went to a movie this weekend with some friends. We saw Toy Story 3, which turned out to be pretty cute. Although I have to say that I thought the 'Big Baby' doll was slightly creepy. But what made the day even better was that the movie AND a big pretzel cost a total of .25 cents! All thanks to a coupon website I use.

Okay, so maybe I have a little too much time on my hands, but a little while ago I looked up some coupon sites. My new goal is to not overspend on groceries and household items, which can be hard if you're limited in where you can shop. Anyway, I found a lot of websites but I came across one in particular that's been awesome for showing coupons, sales, free samples, and more. And it's for everything--food, clothes, toiletries, books, etc. For anyone who may be interested, the site is www.hiptosave.com. She updates it every day, telling if certain stores are having sales as well as providing links to coupons, some of which are pretty high value. I've been able to save some money on groceries and have also gotten some cool free samples, including a full-size french manicure set and a box of Kraft food--crackers, macaroni & cheese, coffee and other coupons for free items. Who doesn't like getting fun packages in the mail?! :)

And because the way I see it, the more money I save on food/household stuff, the more I'll have to spend on other 'necessities' like sewing and scrapbooking supplies. Right, Kyle? :)

Happy Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day to Kyle and both of our Dads! :)

We visited some friends this weekend who had their first child on Friday--just in time for Father's Day! And she is adorable!! Seeing her, we can't wait to meet our own little guy this Fall although we're pretty sure our baby will be a little more, uh, chunky than Kaylee's dainty little 5 lbs!

Since we still have a few months to go, I've been trying to make a few things for 'Kyle Junior.' Nothing too elaborate, just little accessories, mostly. I found a couple patterns online for shoes/slippers that I wanted to try. The first ones were easy but I don't know how well they'll stay on his feet...they seem a little wide and loose. So I tried a different pattern which is supposedly more like Robeez shoes? Looks like they'll stay on his feet a little better. I made them navy with fleece lining. Here's how they turned out...



It was fun making these ones, so I made another pair for a friend who's having a girl. Here are the ones for her.



Next I made a couple bibs. Gotta keep up with all the drooling, right? :) So far he has a red/white/blue one and a frog one. I used terry cloth on the backs so it'll absorb more.



I made a blanket out of the same frog flannel. We're doing the baby room in a farm theme, but I guess frogs kind of go with that! And extra blankets are always good. This was just two layers of flannel, same print on both sides.



The last thing I made were pee pee teepees! If you've never heard of them, they're little flannel cone-shaped covers that you put over a baby boy when changing his diaper. They will keep you from being 'sprinkled' on. :) I've been seeing them around and thought I'd try making some rather than buy them. I figured out how to make them with invisible seams, and they turned out pretty well!