My First 'Tutorial'-Ribbon Bracelets

Sorry for the terrible picture-it's hard to take decent picturs of your own wrist...
The idea for this came from my inability to remember which side I'm supposed to start with when I nurse the baby. I could have just used a hair tie, but they always leave huge dents in my arm especially when I wear them while I sleep. I decided to make this super simple ribbon bracelet.
You will need:
-Elastic (I used one of those super long skinny balloons in a pinch, but it doesn't turn out as pretty)
-Ribbon of your choice-just make sure that it's wider than the elastic you picked
-Sewing machine AND needle & thread
-scrap of yarn (about 6+ inches)
-button to match/coordinate with your ribbon

Go for it:
1. Measure around your wrist with your tape measure and add 1/2 inch. Cut your elastic to that length.
2. Stretch your elastic and measure it fully stretched. It doens't have to be stretched as far as it can go, so don't strain yourself :) Some elastics (like my 1/2" black stuff) only stretched to 11 inches (with my 6 1/2 in piece of elastic) while my 'baby soft' 1/4 inch elastic stretched to 12 easily.
3. Cut your ribbon that lenght (of the stretched elastic).
4. Here I used a lighter to melt the ends of both my elastic and my ribbon as a fray check.
5. Knot your yarn into a circle.

6. Fold over the end of the ribbon and pin the elsatic in it, trapping the yarn under the loop of ribbon, shown above.

7. Place under your needle. Make sure your top thread is white (to match the elastic) and the bobbin thread matches your ribbon. Using a zig-zag stitch (or a straight stitch will work fine too, but your ribbon will fold up like a clam after a while), sew your ribbon to the elastic, (making sure to back stitch over that little flap of ribbon at the beginning to secure the elastic) stretching the elastic with your right hand and using your left hand to pull the yarn out the back, so that the whole thing actually feeds through. You should stretch the elastic so that it's the same length as the ribbon.

8. When you get to the end of the ribbon back stitch again.

9. Now make sure you've got your ribbon all faced the same direction so that it's not twisted, and overlap the ends, with the raw end on the underside and the pretty folded flap on top. You'll want to do this 'upside down' so that you are still sewing with the elastic up so you don't get white thread all over the top of your ribbon.

10. Take your needle and thread and sew your button right over top of your stitching so you can't see it. That's it!

August 2010-1st Half

Question: Anyone else feel dumb as they're trying to figure out how to start a new blog post? I always sit here for like 10 minutes running over different 'opening lines' in my head, trying to make them sound cool, but also trying to not make it obvious that I thought too hard about it. I wish I was more creative, then maybe it wouldn't be so darn hard....

Life's been good the past couple weeks adjusting to life with the new baby. Justin stayed home the first week after we came home from the hospital. He was suprisingly helpful around the kitchen (although he didn't cook much), claiming that 'his sink' was to never have a dirty dish in it. My mom came after that, and then his mom came.
Sadly, my days of being pampered are over. I was telling Justin that having someone come to help you can in some ways be anti-helpful. (Not that I don't appreciate it!). Hear me out: You go from taking care of one (or two, etc) kids, and also doing the laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. You're used to it all, got it all figured out. Then along comes another kid. Now instead of having to adjust to having 2 kids (or 3, etc) and cleaning and cooking, your mom comes into town and she takes care of the older one, and the cleaning and the cooking, etc., leaving you to just take care of the one innocent, not-troublemaker little baby and lounge around and read/sleep all day. Then she leaves, and it's BAM! right in your face two-kids-and-all-that-other-crap.

I guess it's good that newborns sleep. Like all day.

Anyways, I promise my list of stuff is shorter than it was for the last post:
*Amaia's obsessed with the "5 Little Monkeys" song. Just ask her what the doctor said and you'll get an excited "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" with accompanying hand motions.
*So we finally gave Amaia her busy book, but since we gave it to her as a present, she calls it the present book. And the swimming suit she got for her birthday is a 'present swimming suit', etc.
*So in June (I think) I posted a picture of this wire photo display thing we have in Amaia's room. Well on the side closest to her bed I hung a Pass Along card with a picture of Jesus coming out of the tomb (I think) on it. Anyways...every time we say prayers, we'll both say 'amen'. Instead of Amaia repeating it (like she used to), she'll point to the picture and say "Jesus up there...Amen!"
*She constantly asks to "watch dhoom" (Dhoom 2-a bollywood film that's totally awesome and you should go watch it sometime. Netflixers might be able to find it through the instant view thinger still)
*Everytime I change Solia's poopy diaper, she asks to look inside to see her poo. I mean really? Come on, now Amaia, that's gross :)
*Solia winks all the time (I'm sure not on purpose) and it's always with her left eye.
*Amaia finally pronounces Solia's name better. Instead of So-lee-uh (which is how's it's supposed to be) she says So-wee-uh. It's super cute.
*Did I mention how much Amaia adores her little sister??? I was scared she would be rough with her (she went through a very short hitting phase a few weeks before the baby was born) but only one time have I had to tell her to not hit/squish her, and ever since then she hasn't. She's constantly looking for her and has to 'see Solia', and she gives her kisses all the time. Like all the time.
*Solia is otherwise uneventful, of course. She sleeps all the time, which is going to come bite me in the butt here in a few weeks when she won't sleep at night. She actually spits up, which is quite a change from Amaia, who never spit up or even burped after nursing, but it's not like spit-up-every-where-I-need-a-new-shirt-now like some babies do.

Those of you who are my friends on Facebook have probably seen these pictures before. If not I'll explain: Justin and I started a 365 Photo project with the girls. (Hmm....did I explain this in the last post...? Oh well). Every day for the next year (starting the day Solia was born) we're going to (try) to take a picture of the two girls together. These sort of projects are supposed to help you become more creative photographers, because after a couple months you've run out of ideas and have to come up with more creative things to do picture wise. Because who wants to see 300 pictures of them just sitting next to each other?? So this first collage is all 'official' 365 pictures from the first two weeks of August:

Some shots of Solia alone (and fear not-I actually took more pictures of her alone than of Amaia alone. I refuse to let her be that second child who never had any cute pictures of jsut her when she was a kid!):

Here are more pictures of the girls together. Some of them were taken at the same time as the 'official' 365 pictures, but didn't make the cut as the cutest one of the bunch. Others are just random pictures of the two of them:


Just Amaia:

Stay tuned: hopefully I'll get the next post up in a decent amount of time!

**I edited the 'Solia' post to include a short list of things about Solia from the first couple days of life. Head back to that post and check it out-the new stuff is in RED**

Solia J Colby

Yay I'm going to get both posts done today!
So. Like I said, I still ended up going in Friday morning bright and early to the hospital, as planned. Amaia stayed the night at our friends, the Kearns, house. That way we didn't have to worry about waking her up and getting her dressed just to ditch her over there. Even having that to not worry about, I still was getting up at 5:45 to do my hair and face (yes I wore my make up, even though they said not. Anyone who's surprised doesn't know me very well). I didn't sleep very well the night before. I don't think I was scared, but every time I woke up I had to check my clock, because I thought for sure I had slept in past my alarm and we were going to be late. But we were actually a few minutes early.
Once we got in, I got stuck with tubes and wrapped up in wrist bands, and stripped down and had to wear one of those awful hospital gowns. I was freezing and tired so the quiz I got from the nurse (do I have any prosthetic limbs, glass eyes, dentures, etc).....let's just say I must have passed because they let me go in and get sliced up. Between my shivering and yawning and half asleep-ness, I'm nut exactly sure what I told her. We were supposed to have the surgery at 8:30, but we got pushed back to make room for a lady who'd been in labor all night with no luck.
Once she was done, they wheeled me in, gave me a spinal and then laid me down. I thought it would take a while for the drugs to take effect, but like less than a minute later my legs were numb and I didn't even know it when they put a catheter in until she told me. Justin got to watch the whole thing (over the top of the blue shield thing, but he still got to see it all). We even got some of it on video, but to spare you the naked (albeit so covered in blood you can't really tell) bottom half of my body and the nice sliced open midsection I was sporting, I didn't add any of that to the video at the bottom of the post, so don't worry about censoring or anything. It's just harmless (even boring, dare I say it) video of the baby.
Anyways, they didn't let Justin cut off the cord this time, which he mentioned to me after the fact but I couldn't tell if he cared or not. He already likes this one less than Amaia based purely on the fact that Amaia is his California baby but this was was born in Texas ;)
I surprisingly didn't pass out this time, like I did last time. I was sure I would but I felt fine. When the doc pulled the baby out, she told me I'd feel a lot of pulling. Boy was she not kidding! It felt like some one had grabbed my huge pregnant belly and lifted my entire body off the table.
After the nurse and Justin took off with the baby, I got to sit and listen to the doctors chat it up while they sewed me up with over 20 dissolvable-can't-see-them-on-the-outside staples.
We got to go back to the recovery room, where the nurse did her thing with the baby. She bathed her in the sink where I could see, and then I got to nurse her. She actually latched on right away and had no problem with it at all. I was feeling super sick though. Apparently it's a side effect of the morphine they put in the spinal block, but I was vomiting for a couple hours afterwards. At first it was just clear foamy spit like stuff, and then it turned acidy. I couldn't even take a vicotin or anything because I just threw it right back up, so the only thing to help with the pain of heaving with a sliced open middle were those weak sauce IV painkillers. It got better after a couple hours, thank goodness, and I was able to take some real stuff and get some rest.
We spent the entire weekend at the hospital. We only stayed 2 nights post op with Amaia, and they literally kicked us out after the second night even though we really really (or at least I did) wanted to stay becaues Amaia had been admitted to the NICU for jaundice treatment and was going to have to stay the night. This time, we were goign to go home Sunday morning. My doctor was ok with it, I was ok with it since I hadn't had any problem getting up and around to use the bathroom and stuff (I had a lot less pain this time around), but Solia was dropping weight like crazy even though we were nursing all the time and she was latched on and sucking just fine, so they made me use a pump to get every last drop and then feed it to her after she nursed. We had to stay Sunday night so they could check and make sure she didn't lose any more weight.
The first day the Kearns brougth Amaia to visit us and then Saturday and Sunday Justin drove home to shower (since he would rather do it at home than in the hospital) and both times he brought Amaia back with him to visit. It was during that time that we did the 365 photos for the first 3 days (the two of them from July are in that second photo block down there). We finally got shipped home Monday morning.

*Sigh...* So I wrote a couple notes of the few things I noticed about Solia in the two days of July, but I forgot to add them. Here they are now:
*A list of the things Justin says she looks like, in the order he said them: Richard Nixon, Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, Gollum from Lord of the Rings, Yoda, and finally just an old man (although I had to agree with him on that last one-don't tell!)
*As far as we can tell, she's got her dad's light hair and eyes, but mom's super long fingers and toes.
*She squeaks when she sleeps.
*Amaia calls her eedle (little) baby sister or suh-wuh-wee (which is also how she pronounces 'celery'...)
*Solia has the tiniest little dimple on her left cheek that you can only really see when she's crying or grimacing (which makes it hard to get a pic of it because you know she's not holding still during those times)
*She's got a little red birthmark on her bum which I find very cute :)
Here are some pictures:

and the video:

July 2010-2nd Half w Video

*whew* ok. I finally have a minute to get this done. Mom's got Amaia at Chuck E Cheese and the baby is asleep. During the last two weeks of July we had Amaia's birthday party (which I already posted about)....and that's about it. I spent the last half of the month finishing that busy book (which I also already posted about), and getting a few random odds and ends tied up around the house and cleaning the house so it was spick and span before the baby came.I was a wreck because I thought for sure this baby was going to come early-and so did the doctor. Even spending all day Thursday cleaning and vacuuming the house didn't put me into labor. We still ended up going in at 7:30 Friday morning to the hospital.Anyways, here's some of the stuff Amaia's been doing-and this list is a doozy so brace yourself:
*She got a Mr. Potato head for her birthday. Her favorite thing is to take all the pieces, stuff them in the back, and then dump and repeat. If the back door is closed, she'll come ask me to 'open pay-tato bum'. :)
*I think we might have already mentioned this, but just in case-when she helps with the laundry she'll use the dryer sheet to wipe the lint off the lint trap. Only now, she will pull it off piece by piece and shake the lint into the trash can before going back for another piece.
*She started saying 'yes' instead of 'yeah'. Only it's super cute, because she sounds like a mad scientist when she says it, because she draws it all out like 'yeeeeeus'. Add an evil laugh at the end and you get the whole package deal
*She's learned all about traffic lights-she'll tell me 'red dop' when she sees a red one, and 'deen do!' when we pass a green one. And she thinks yellow lights are orange :)
*When it's time for prayers at night (and at nap time too) she'll make us all kneel down. No standing or sitting cross legged (like I tried to do becuase it was getting to where it hurt to kneel). She even makes her teddy kneel down, which doesn't always work out very well.
*We all have heard about how independent she's been, but now every thing is "Amaia do it sulf'.
*Her hair is getting so long that it's constantly in her face when it's left down. So she'll come ask me for 'hairties out of face'. And then once I pull it back, she'll get so excited because "Amaia see now!"
*If I make any sort of pained expression or sound or anything, it's either a) because 'mom back hurt', or b) I need to be more 'pareful' (careful)
*Sometimes she'll come up to me and tell me that she's sick. And then she'll go get 'wrap up bankey' and that makes it aaalll better.
*When she pulls a book off the shelf to read to herself, you can always tell which books I've read to her and which I haven't. Her favorite is the "Hand Hand Fingers Thumb" book, and she'll look at it and go 'dum dum dum' and other stuff like in the book. Then she'll pick up a book I've hardly ever (if at all) read, and she'll just make up the randomest noises, not even trying to look at the pictures and tell the story from that.
*Started walking on her tip toes every so often-even running like that sometimes
*When we go shopping, if she's got her blanket, she'll always ask me to fold it up to make it into a pillow. Then she'll lay it on the handle and lay on it.
*She's such a little pain-in-the-neck sometimes-she'll be just about ready to do something she's not supposed to (like dump her cup out onto the carpet). She'll look at me, ask 'dump it?', and sit there waiting for an answer. And then as soon as I say no, it gets dumped. Grrr.
*This is one of my favorite things that we leraned this month. You know how some kids get a kick out of mom flying the spoonful of mashed potatoes like an airplane and making flying noises, and then the plane lands in the kids mouth, right? Well with Amaia, we do animals. I'll scoop up a bite, she'll pick an animal (say a chicken), and then as I'm flying the spoon to her mouth I get to say 'bak bak, buh-gock!' as it lands in her mouth. She thinks it's hilarious and we can usually get her to eat all her food that way.
*Her favorite song is the "Waving Flag" song from the World Cup. Or as she calls it-the Soccer Ball Song. Every time she's in the car with Justin she'll ask for him to turn it on for her, and then she'll dance all crazy.
*It's not more. It's 'mow-er'.
*She recognizes and can name numbers 1-5, 7, 8, & zero. And the Letter U.
*So this one time, it was like 9:30 in the morning, and Amaia was asking to watch the lion movie. I thought it was too early, so I showed her the minute hand on the clock and told her when it got to the top, that we could watch the movie. Somehow that's morphed into '5 on top', so when she asks for it and I say no, she'll say we have to wait for '5 uh top watch lion movie'. Don't ask where the 5 part came from-I have no idea.
*thank you is now 'kank you'
*So back when we were learning colors, when we would do the 'brights' batch of laundry, I would hand her the wet one from the washer and say what color that item of clothing was, and then she would take it and put it in. Then after we learned the colors, I would just say "Amaia's shirt" or "daddy's sock", etc as I handed her each item. Apparently she got sick of it, because about halfway through the batch one day (and this has happened every time since) she told me 'mommy no talk'. :(
*When she colors with her markers, she'll put the cap on the back end of the marker. She figured that out all on her own, cuz I certainly didn't teach her that.
*Every time she pulls up her underwear and pants, she'll say "amaia pup it". That's her way of saying she wants to pull them up herself.
*a napkin is a 'man kin' and a vacuum is a 'dap oom' and squeaky is 'goinky'
*So one day, early in the moring, I brought Amaia into our bed. She looked out our soaking wet windows and thought it was raining outside, so of course Justin taught her all about condensation. She repeated the word perfectly. Then a few days later, Justin had a bottle of ice water that was all wet on the outside. She points to it and says 'condensation'! Holy crap she sure picked that up fast.
*Every night when we put her in the shower or into her PJ's, she freaks out because she doens't want to put her underwear and pants into the dirty clothes basket. We still haven't figured out what she would rather have us do with them...

Here are the pictures. Some of just Amaia:

Random Pics:

Here is the YouTube link for this month's video:

http://youtu.be/TIlhD9lgU4M

Check back in a little bit for the pics (and maybe video) of Solia's grand entrance!