A little bit of Christmas..

I love Christmas....like really LOVE it.  I love the family time, and the songs in church, and pulling out the nativity and the lights around the house - I love thinking of presents that will really make someone feel special(hopefully) and taking the time to slow down and appreciate our lives and family around us.  And this year I am SO excited to share that with Carlee who probably won't even notice at 10 months...but I can't wait to see her little face with all the wrapping paper she will get:)

So, in the Christmas mood last night, I whipped up some cards to sell or give out myself...we shall see:)

A week from Friday we will drive out East to be home for the holidays - and I cannot wait!  I hope you all are getting excited, take time to enjoy the season amidst the crazy, and each have a wonderful Christmas celebration.

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Ring to the Sling

So recently I've met a new group of women - the majority of them who are big on 'wearing' their babies:) We had just a simple buckle carrier and I never really thought much of it, we didn't use it too much and I never really felt like it looked very comfy for her even if she did sleep well in it being so close to us.

Well, after meeting these women I was intrigued by all the options, and not too surprised to hear that a lot of the common carriers are in fact bad for the hips of babes - some even recalled.  And since 'wearing' the baby at a young age can encourage a good milk supply, I would be inclined to use it with baby #2 someday when we try to overcome this dumb PCOS thing;)

What I was stunned by was that the cost of some of the name brands were $50 or more depending on the type of carrier.  Well, I found someone who made their own 'moby' online and sold it for 10 bucks...my sister is testing it out with her newbie right now and I think my girl is probably a bit big for that now anyways...but I do like the looks of ring slings for their ease of use on the go.

So then...next trip to the 2nd hand store, I found a nice strong piece of material for 6 bucks, picked up a couple of harness rings at the hardware store for 4 dollars(can also be bought online at slingrings.com) and got to work.  Since my sewing machine is on the fritz I pulled out the iron and some hemming tap, folded the material down the middle and cut it to about 2.5 meters. I'm about 5'6 and that gives me lots of extra material to work with.   And here we go:

We tested it out today at the Farmer's market and loved it!! :)
To all you Canadians, enjoy preparing for Thanksgiving next weekend! I look forward to some great family times!

Please check out where I'm linking up today!

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Who Doesn't Love Free???

So for those Canadians on here, you may have heard that over the air signals are changing from analogue to digital like the states did back a couple of years....  Well, we don't have cable right now and I HATE the idea of paying such inflated prices for tv....so I've been researching the last few months on what we will do when the change happens.

This week, they started switching over and I started having fun! I debated getting a new outdoor antenna to ensure we could get some usa channels since we'd be switching anyways, then I thought, wellllll, maybe I can diy it!! And then I did...

I dragged my husband off the couch and forced him to help me make this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw

And of course took no pictures but it worked fine, not much better than our rabbit ears really....then I thought, let's move it up to the attic and it started coming in much clearer on the analogue.

Then I finally figured out how to get the digital signal on our tv and found, nope, not much coming in from buffalo, a couple christian channels but that was it:( Then I went to thesource and picked up a video amplifier for 30 bucks hoping it would do the trick to get those extra channels in....and sure enough.  A couple minutes .later we went from 8ish channels to 21 channels!

Total cost? Under 40 dollars and a very happy girl here...way better than 40 bucks a month, minimum!! Going from about 4 channels to 21? I don't even know what to do with myself:)

Anyone else get creative with the transition?

Ps. my girl is almost crawling!!

Taken at iSMILE studios

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Minus the Gluten...

In an effort to give my body a break and feed it healthy foods I have been looking into eating more gluten free foods when I can...I'm not strict with it but am introducing some foods into my diet. So, my first gluten free loaf of bread was created yesterday!

I used some pre-mixed gluten free flour from Kinnikinnick and followed their directions for a sweet bread loaf and then added some quinoa and cinnamon to the mix as well.  Turned the breadmaker on and a couple of hours later...delicious!!

Even the hubby ate it with no complaints:) Maybe I'll try it with some raisins or dark chocolate chips next time! Mmmm!

Carlee was pretty jealous of the bread but found a remote to gnaw on instead:

Five and a half months and getting more fun by the day:)  and with two hours naps having become a regular occurrence, Mom is having a great time too;)

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PCOS + Baby Weight = Square One....

It was about this time two years ago that I decided to prepare to go off BC by getting my butt in gear and educating myself in how to treat my PCOS naturally.   Check out this site if you have never heard of pcos: http://pcosdiva.com.  Knowing that if I wasn't successful there was a chance we would deal with infertility was a pretty good motivator for me so I changed my diet, starting taking Apple Cider Vinegar daily to stabilize my blood sugar levels, and took up an aerobic class once a week.... And it worked! I dropped around 15 lbs or so and when I went off my BC my cycles were about 40 days rather than the previous 90! Much improved:)

Nothing feels better than having that goal and succeeding, even getting pregnant very soon after going off BC and having a wonderful pregnancy and delivery...only to find out that pcos was still plaguing me! Little did I know that my syndrome affected my milk supply, and since I was unaware this was a symptom, I did nothing beforehand to combat it and was unable to fully breastfeed- we do half/half with formula but I can say I'm proud of fighting for all that I have(pumping for a month and going on herbs/drugs) BUT had I known during pregnancy it was an issue I would have been able to do a lot more and possibly had more success. I was fairly sad and embarrassed by my inability to completely provide for Carlee for the first couple of months and really paid no attention to what my diet and postpartum life was doing to my body and now - five months postpartum - my pcos is back full force!

Now, I feel I am back right where I was two years ago physically...you know, except now I have a baby to cheer me up:) But nevertheless, I am about 15-20 lbs from where my cycles returned to normal last time and has get to have a period since delivery...and so the journey starts again! I find its harder not to snack when I'm home throughout the day but am ready to start getting down to business again! Now, any friends reading this...your job is to yell 'NO' anytime I reach for my beloved chips;)

Thanks for listening guys, any thoughts, encouragement or advice is very welcome!

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Summer Break and a Kitchen Update!

Hey there followers,
Is there anyone left?? I am having SO much fun being home with my little girl and keeping up to date here has fallen aside unfortunately! The LO is now five months old! She rolls, she sits, she 'talks', she is too cute!

 Boef (dutch for 'little rascal') just hanging out in her camp chair.

Sitting up all by herself!

and a touched up photo of Boef.....so cute!












And to her mom's excitement, last week she learned that sleeping for longer than 40 minutes at a time during the day is A-OK! She now sleeps for about 2 hours at naptime and I get to do some cleaning and such around the house for the first time! SO EXCITED!

And speaking of getting things done around the house, five months after doing the kitchen reno seen here, the knobs arrived and were installed! And at a HUGE deal as well.  We hit up a place in Maine while I was home in NB for a bit that sells their knobs for a dollar a piece!  Compared to the 4-5 dollar price tag here, I was pretty proud of my good find!  The selection wasn't amazing but good enough for me:)

And just to remind you, here's the before:

Perhaps a little more in this century now:) We are so pleased with the transformation!

Well, here we are having a massive heat advisory for tomorrow!! Gotta go find a pool to lounge in!

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Royal Inspiration

No, I wasn't one of those who got up at 3am to watch the Royal wedding, even though the time coincided with when Carlee got me up to eat...I definitely thought sleep to be more important!  But in the morning I did sit and watch the recaps and the live kiss on the balcony - who can resist dreaming as watching a real live princess??

Well, when I received the invitation to an English tea for next week I was inspired by all these royal attendees to make my own fascinator to wear to the event! In about ten minutes and for one dollar I created this:

My supplies included a glue gun, flowers from the dollar store and some tulle(I used a corner of my wedding veil for this).  Simple cut off the stems of the flowers and glue them in whatever arrangement you like on any headband you may have lying around. I trimmed back some of the flowers as well so they weren't so big on top.

And that's it! I think it looks better in person but not bad for a first try I thought!  Should be fun to wear to the tea next week:)

Have yourselves a great weekend!

And of course I'll part with another picture of my cutie!

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Homemade Baby Mobile

So it doesn't twirl on its own or make fun noises like a fancy storebought one, but I couldn't love the whimsical feel of my baby girl's mobile - and now perhaps someday she'll actually notice it as well:)

Remember what it looks like from my last post?

A very simple design - I searched the dollar store to find the top piece...can you guess??? Its a fruit holder turned upside down! Perfect:)  Then I used my fancy new cricket machine and cut out all different sizes and colors of circles of cardstock.  To attach them I stole some fishing line from the hubby and glued the paper around the fishing line. Attach it at the top and voila!

You have yourself a cute mobile for baby to stare at:) Easy as that!


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A little Nursery Reveal

So, yes, I'm still here and alive:)  My dear baby ran into trouble gaining weight since I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome which can effect your milk supply - therefore the girl has to take breastmilk and formula to get enough each feeding...Thankfully I have the best baby and she could care less what is going in her mouth, long as its food!  But they had me doing all kinds of crazy pumping and herbs and drugs to try to fix the problem...but that's a story for another day!

TODAYYY, I am finally going to show you the final pictures of her little nursery.  You have seen tidbits of the theme but here's it all put together.  Sorry I don't have a magical camera or much skill but you get the gist:)

Take a look:

And there you have it....my sweet little girl's room...and now she is awake and crying so off I go but I'll leave you with a picture of how she is looking these days:)

All gussied up for her baptism day:

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Announcing....

the arrival of our sweet little girl, Carlee Alexa.

Yes, as you may have guessed based on my long absence, our little girl has arrived and we are now a busy household of three, four if you include my mom staying with us since her arrival:)

On February 23rd, at 12:49 our little girl came in a bit of a rush....arriving at the hospital about 30 minutes before she arrived!  My contractions were all over the place during the night, very irregular and I was unsure this was even the real thing but by 10:30am they were getting pretty intense, even though they were still only about 20-25 seconds long, and we finally asked to have an assessment with the midwife to see how things were progressing.  When we arrived for the assessment I was already 7-8 cm dilated and it was a good thing their office is beside the hospital...we quickly went over and walked right into the delivery room as they told me to try not to push, ha, right!  It took them a bit to get things set up but once I could push she was out within a few contractions and we have our little girl!

Here are some pics of our little sweetie now!

Forgive me as I take some time settling in with our little girl...I look forward to catching up in the blog world soon!

Krista...and Carlee:)

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Ridiculous Railing Redo

Remember back for a moment to those houses in the 70's....what's the worst?  The wood paneling? The ridiculous amount of mustard colored things? The crazy designs on the flooring?

Well, I would suggest that this railing rivals them all:

Ewwwww.

alright, I'll give you the carpet is not that great either but at leasts its not green or plaid like the basement....so we'll deal with that later.

But seriously...what is with that railing? Random splotches of white and gold? How does that even happen?  Well, we agreed that there really was no way to make this railing compliment the room....BUT it could at least try to stop detracting from it, right?

Some white paint and my mom's patience for a few hours and here's what we are left with:)

We settled on.."well, its better, right?"

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