8 Month Updates

So, now that I got a few craft posts in, I am taking the time to finally write about what Dallas has been busy doing.

Dallas turned eight months old on January 14th.

Not long after that, he started crawling on all fours.  He had been crawling "army style" for a while, but finally on January 18th, he got up on his hands and knees and gave it a go.  He hasn't stopped or slowed down since and he actually has been getting faster and faster when he sees something in his path that he REALLY wants:)  He is truly a little boy, each and every day he keeps us on our toes.  We love it!

This is not the best video we have of his army crawl, but it's still cute:

Same pajamas, different day.  Now he knows how to crawl!:

On January 20th, Dallas realized that he can pull up on things.  I was at my mom's house for a visit and he was playing with a toy in her living room, I walked into the kitchen just a few steps away and when I looked back at him over my shoulder, he was standing there holding onto the couch.  I didn't get a picture of it that day, but here are some other places he likes to pull up and get into trouble:)

January 26th

February 1st

February 3rd

February 6th - Super Bowl Party at our house...GO PACKERS!!!

February 8th - waiting at the doctor for his 9 month checkup.  His stats: weight 20lb 8oz, height 28 inches

Then he must have decided that all this crawling and pulling up was SO tiring that he wanted to sleep through the night...that's right, mama's been getting a full night's sleep since January 22nd and boy does it feel great.  Only 9 months, 8 days, 5 hours, and 3 minutes after his birth, Dallas is sleeping through the night, but who's counting? Sure we have had a few tough nights of him either teething, having a bit of a cold, or myself waking up to make sure he is still breathing in between, but overall he sleeps a straight 11+ hours each night.

I should give him some credit, he has always been a great sleeper, only getting up 2 times a night maximum since he was born!

I may have not taken him this long to figure out how to sleep through the night for a few reasons.

1.  I am a very light sleeper, so each peep I hear I used to get up and go in his room to make sure he was okay.  I'm sure that woke him up.  Now I have two fans and a sound machine going at night to keep me from waking up.

2.  Being a stay-at-home-mom and knowing in the back of my head that I CAN take a nap during the day when Dallas naps makes it a little easier to give in and give him a bottle in the middle of the night or rock him if he does wake up.

3.  Since he has become mobile, I started to cherish those middle of the night meetings we would have and to be honest, I miss them more and more each day.  The only way he likes to cuddle these days is if I have a bottle for him or if he is asleep.  Is it bad that I think about going in there at 11pm just to pick him up and cuddle with him??  No, I haven't actually done it...YET!

January was the first time Dallas sat in snow, ever, in his life, here, in Wisconsin, land of the snow (we are currently getting poured on as I write this..can you tell I'm REALLY excited about that?? Yeah, I sure am...blah.

Watching the cars go by

Kind of happy about the snow idea...

Maybe not so happy anymore...giving the snow the "evil eye"

Going for it

Okay, that's pretty cold!

February 6th was the day Dallas completed his own art/craft project, with some help from mama and dad!
Here is what we did:

And the final drafts are now proudly displayed in his room:

The next big milestone:  Dallas's first tooth!!  That's right, 8.5 months old and our little monkey got his very first tooth, the bottom left one.  This happened the day Michael got home from training in Pennsylvania, February 4th.  Which was followed by tooth number 2 on February 8th.

So, that's what our little monkey was up to!

Making "all things girly" for my FAVORITE Bean!!

My favorite little niece, Ella, or as we like to call her, Ella Bean (read why here) had her Very 1st Birthday on February 10th.  We celebrated with a Princess themed party at her house and let me tell you...Pink was definitely the name of the game!  She is a girl all the way...no doubt about it, that Bean is her mother's daughter and her Auntie's niece!  The party was on February 12th and I have been waiting (im)patiently to post about these adorable headbands and flowers I made her.  Along with her very own bow holder, which I got the idea from my friend April over at her blog.  April is REALLY talented, very creative, and one of the nicest people I know!  She is amazing with a sewing machine and comes up with great ideas for tons of different types of projects.  Check out her blog if you haven't already..you'll be hooked.  She has been very busy with her two children, so not many posts lately, but from what I understand she's going to be back in the blog world soon, starting a new blog with a friend.

Enjoy all the deets about these projects, feel free to copy exactly 

and make your own or tweak it the way you would like, but either way share with me if you wouldn't mind, if you end up making any of the projects!

Project #1: removable daisy flowers for a stretchy headband

I bought this bouquet of flowers, it happened to have pink, yellow, and red!  SCORE!!  And it was half off...I believe I paid $5.99 for the bunch...that's a lot of flowers for the little princess

I decided to make a pink and yellow flower, so I disassembled the two flowers and tossed the front piece and back piece in the trash..no need to keep the ugly parts

I then alternated the pink and yellow flower "petals" using hot glue in between each layer

This is what it looked like at that point

Since it needed some bling for the bean and a more finished look for my taste, I decided to add a little jewel in the center

Then you need to take an alligator clip (these can be found by the beads at Hobby Lobby) and cover it in ribbon.  Covering the clip give the flower something to adhere to.  You simply take some thin ribbon (which I had on hand) run a line of hot glue down the middle, lay the clip on it and ta-da!

As you can see here, the ribbon covers just a portion of the clip on the other side, just to give it a finished look.  (Yes, this is a different flower.  I made her a red one too, since Valentine's Day was coming up...I thought for sure she'd have something to match it in her wardrobe!)

And she did!  See??  That's right, pink is not the only color this girl can pull off.

She's pretty cute, huh?  Yeah, we know!

*Notice the stretchy headband?  If you are not able to make them (which I'm not because I have yet to figure out how to crochet...even with an instruction book) you can purchase them near the headband/flower/bling department at Hobby Lobby.  They actually have the flowers all made, but they cost about $4 a piece, instead of making them yourself, for much less and for more satisfaction.

Project #2: making a flower embellishment for a headband (not removable)

First, cut two of these shapes out of felt, I guess you can call them leaf shapes?  Mine were about 5 inches long, 3 inches wide at the widest point

  

Then take 2 of these types of flowers, sorry, don't know what kind they are, so I can't tell you!

(This is a great tutorial, huh?)

Then, much like the last project, take the petal layers apart and discard the back piece.

Separate into small, medium, and large piles.

Next, you just fold the layers in half and start hot gluing them down.  I started with the smallest layers and used 2 of them, then moved to the medium size layers and used 4 or 5 of them, and finally did 2 large in the middle of the felt shape.  Once you glue the large pieces down, you go back to the medium and then the small again.  For the final petal layer, you fold a small size in half, then half again and glue that down on the point.  (Sorry I don't have a picture of this, but it's pretty easy.)

Once my last layer was glued on, I added another bit of "bling" to the piece.  Again, no picture, but it was just placed over the spot where you could see the hot glue spot on the last layer.

Finally, you "sandwich" (that's a technical term) the headband between the two pieces of felt and glue them together, with a lot of glue.  And you are done!

Here's the birthday girl showing off her headband:)  No, she wasn't playing on her new toys all day (notice she's now in her PJ's) she did take a break to nap, eat, and have her diaper changed...do you think she's going to be a race car driver when she grows up?  Or maybe she'll love to ride on the lawnmower just as much as her daddy!!

Project #3: the bow holder (thanks again to April for posting about her bow holder and giving me this idea!)

Start with an oval shape piece of wood from Hobby Lobby (or whatever shape you love)

Paint it whichever color you prefer...I picked yellow, pink, and white for my theme

Add some fun polka dots using a circular shaped sponge:)

Paint your curly q letters the color of your choice (I chose pink and these are also from Hobby Lobby)

Adhere the letter to the oval base using wood glue or super glue

Add a "handle" at the top for hanging on a wall

I found this ribbon at Michael's...on sale and used my 40% off coupon!

After I added the handle, my husband thought it was missing something near the top so he came up with the idea to put her name at the top using some chipboard letters I had in my scrapbooking supplies:) 

Very creative is he! 

Add a few strips of ribbon to the back of the oval (or other shape) near the bottom

Add some bling to the bottom of the ribbon...to weigh them down a bit and to please my bling-lovin'-self:)

And there you have it...clip the flowers on and you are all ready to wrap this baby and give it to your very own deserving princess!!

A Different Kind of Post

As I mentioned, or maybe I didn't,or maybe I did and you didn't read it, I want to start blogging about more interesting topics:)

Not that my son, my dogs, and my husband aren't entertaining enough...I just feel like I want to write about more.  Sure, I love to write about said son, dogs, and hubby, but they really only give me so much to work with and I'd like to appeal to more readers.  So, here goes nothing!

I saw a project similar to the one I'm about to show you here.  It's a blog I follow and I love reading about what Sarah has come up with for ideas around the house.

So, I got the letters, paint, brushes, mod podge, scrapbook paper, and ribbon from Hobby Lobby.

(No, I didn't have any craft brushes, paint, or mod podge at home.  I'm just starting to be crafty, so I need to build up my supply drawer!)  This was actually the very first time I used Mod Podge and I really liked how it worked!  I'll be sure to use it again on something, sometime, somewhere:)

So here is the super easy, project...trust me, it IS really easy, my sister (who doesn't craft much at all did it, so I know you can too...sorry Sis!!)

Step 1: paint the sides and edges of the letters and hearts

Step 2: Let the paint dry completely..not hard to do, it dries fast

Step 3: Pick out the style of paper you would like and put it in the order you want it to be on the letters and hearts (one heart goes in the front of the word "love" and one at the end) 

Step 4: (no picture) trace the letters onto the paper and cut them out

Step 5: Using Mod Podge as a base, apply the paper to the letters

Here's a picture of my new best friend :)  Why I didn't find him sooner, we will never know.

I call the MP a him since he's so strong, he can hold so many things together for me:)

Step 6: Put "him" over the letters and hearts a few times to coat very well and give it a nice glossy finish.  I think I did three coats total and I like the finish.  Just cover until your hearts content.

Step 7: Glue the letters together using hot glue, and then embellish...I just added a simple little bow with my Valentine ribbon, you can do as little or as much as you'd like!

Cost for this project:

Letters: $.99 a piece (4 total)

Hearts: $.50 a piece (2 total)

Paper: $.29 a piece (3 total)

More paper: $.59 a piece (3 total)

Ribbon: $.50 (it was half off for the holiday)

Paint: $.67

Brushes: $.99

Mod Podge: $4.47

__________________________________

Grand total: $14.23

However, I will be using the Mod Podge, Paint, and Brushes again, so if I would have had them or if I don't "count" them for this project...I would have only spent $8.10!!!  So, let's just say I spent $8.10 on these great Love Letters:)

Thanks again Sarah over at Scissors and a Whisk for the great idea!

I wanted to post this even though it's after Valentine's Day because I'm thinking I might make them for more holidays...USA for 4th of July, TREATS for Halloween, THANKS for Thanksgiving, SANTA for Christmas.  The possibilites are endless.