Paper Lovelies

A lady in our church has a wonderful talent for creating nifty whimsical decorations out of paper. She's been selling her items on Etsy for 2 years and in celebration of that anniversary she's giving away any item in her store to a lucky winner. Head on over to her blog to enter. The winner will be chosen later today.

Snacks for the Little People

Sometimes it's hard to find a snack for your little one that is tasty and healthy. Well look no further than Little Duck Organic Snacks. They have 3 awesome varieties of organic freeze dried fruit (Strawberry/Mango, Blueberry/Apple, & Apple/Banana).

Right now Amy @ The Budget Mommy is giving away 3 sample packs to try. I know your little one would thank you for entering this giveaway!

And the goodness just keeps on coming

Yes folks, there's another cloth diaper giveaway. My friend Amy was recently blessed with a cloth diaper giveaway and she's sharing the goodness with one lucky person. Head on over to The Budget Mommy to see how you can win:

• One Econobum Diaper
• One bumGenius 3.0 Diaper in Clementine
• One TinyTush One Size
• 5 Samples of Charlie's Soap

Catching Up

As you can tell this blog has taken a back seat to other things going on in our lives. Around a month after my post in September we found out we were expecting Baby #2. Graham and I prefer to keep our pregnancies as quiet as possible until the second trimester since miscarriages and such do happen more often in the first trimester. It also seems to make a pregnancy go by quicker you don't tell until later...or that's the way it seems to us. This pregnancy has been quite different from my last one. The first trimester was filled with ickyness that barely had me keeping up with the laundry much less worrying about what to put on the blog. I spent most of my days just trying to keep Greta entertained and out of trouble and my housework surely suffered. Thankfully upon getting to the 14 week mark I really started to feel better and have gotten a bit of my old self and energy back.

Another occurrence that kept me from blogging was a big sewing project I took on in October. I decided to use my sewing skills to try to produce personalized and economical Christmas presents. I started off with sleeping pants for the men in our family. I used McCalls 4244 but merged it with Simplicity 9958. My test models (Graham & Jack) complained about the McCalls pattern not having a fly so I added that feature to the McCalls pattern. I also made major changes to the waistband. The McCalls pattern called for 3 seam casings to be made into which very narrow elastic was inserted into the top and bottom casing. The middle casing held the drawstring and that was inserted via a small slit in the center front seam. Again my test subjects complained and said that the narrow elastic was not comfortable. I decided to use one large casing and 1 1/4" pajama elastic. The drawstring rides on top of the elastic instead of in its own casing. I also made button holes for the drawstring to be inserted into instead of the slit in the seam. Both of these changes were made based on Graham's favorite pair of Old Navy pajama pants. I ended up making 9 pairs of pants mostly in various cotton plaid. Here's Jack modeling his pair made out of a chili pepper print!

My next project was for the ladies. I had found a

nifty pattern for reusable grocery bags and

thought it would make for excellent gifts. I used Butterick B5338. I made view C (top left) & view D (top right). If I had to do it all over again I would have only done view C. View D does make bigger bags but it's also a much more involved project and the bag does not fold up and store as

compactly as view C. I bought fabric at our local discount home dec store (with Greta in tow!) I also embroidered each giftee's initials on the View D bag and their name on the view C bag. Once I recover from my sewing exhaustion I'll be making a few of the view C bags for myself! I made extensive changes to view D to make it more easily

sewn but I won't detail those unless someone is interested. These are definitely not the best pictures but they do give an idea of the finished product. These bags are for my mom. I made 18 total bags (2 for each person).

Lastly I made hooded towels for the 3 new babies in our family. I used this tutorial but added my own twist by putting ribbon not only on the hood but also on either end of the large towel. I also embroidered each child's name on the hood and put a cute little animal (or flip flops for Mia) on the larger towel. Again, not a great picture but this is Greta modeling Ethan's towel.

Next up on my blog to do list is a post on Greta. Stay Tuned!

Magazines for Children

Greta loves it when the mail comes and generally requests something to look at. Usually I hand her whatever junk mail we get and she's pretty content with that. Lately thought I've been thinking about getting her a subscription to a magazine geared towards her age probably as a Valentine's Day present. I know she'd love getting mail just for her - especially something with neat pictures, coloring pages, etc. Please send me any and all suggestions for magazines she might like. Bonus points if it's something that's tried and true at your house!

Fluff Fridays!

Over on The Cloth Diaper Whisperer they are having an awesome giveaway for Gro Baby diapers including Biosoakers. I was privileged enough to be able to test the biosoakers for Gro Baby and was very impressed. I love using cloth and the Gro Baby diapers are my favorite. Biosoakers make cloth diapering away from home so easy. The pads have adhesive on the back and allow you to just stick the pad into the shell. Once the soaker is full just pull out and put a new one in. A nice combo of cloth and disposable diapers. But the best part is that these biosoakers are good for the environment. Almost all the materials in the biosoaker is made with biodegradable and compostable materials. Try doing that with most other disposable diapers.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to The Cloth Diaper Whisperer and enter for your chance to win. There are 10 chances and here's a list of what you will win:

1 - Gro Baby Intro Pak (1-Gro Baby Shell & 1-Gro Baby Biosoaker 50 pk)

1 - Gro Baby Organic Cotton Soaker Pad

1 - Gro Baby Organic Cotton Booster

Free Stuff, Yes!

A friend of mine is having a giveaway on her awesome deal blog. She's giving away LilyPadz which are generally used as reusable nursing pads. What I didn't realize is that they can also be used in a thinner bra to cover "CWIs" as we called them in college or under a strapless dress.

Head on over to The Budget Mommy and enter her giveaway! It ends Oct 5th.