Love for Friends

Total # of days of pregnancy: 280

Days overdue: 3

Total # of days I've been slightly negative: 1

Total % of time: .35%

I would like to take a moment to thank my friends who have been there to support me on my one day (actually just the morning) of full fledged pregnancy-negativity. I have been fully aware through the entire duration of baby Cameron growing in my belly that there would be bumps in the road and I have felt that with those bumps I kept my chin up, my eyes on God, and have had wonderful friends to support me when I start to waiver like I did today.

I'd like to take a moment to thank those friends. I am so grateful to have such loving people who know me and my normal 'look at the bright side' self and see that I've hit a moment of weakness and reached out to help keep my spirits and my head high whether it be humor, sympathy, or agreeing with my vent. I also know that my true friends, even when I have my momentary snap, know that I love them and I had a 'moment' which we are all entitled to.

Jake and I are so blessed to have such wonderful people to help us raise Cameron and not only be great friends and extended family to us but to her as well. To those people I say with my whole heart - thank you and that we love you.

I am officially over it thanks to the friends mentioned above and my support system here at home - not because someone told me to. Tomorrow is a new day. Transformers 3 is being shown on base for FREE a day earlier than anywhere else so I'm going to look forward to that and spending another day with my loving husband (who THANK GOD is finally home!) and my mom who has been an amazing help!

bright Brighter BRIGHTEST

So, we have all heard that babies can't see color until after they are months old so that is why you often see baby toys with patterns on them but here is something I learned just a few weeks ago from the peds doctor at the Navy Hospital. Babies can't see sharp images until they are close to 3! Their sense of smell is developed very quickly and they also recognize voices and sounds so that is often why they turn their heads and smile at mom and dad - they can't see their faces but know it's them in other ways.

With that in thought I was more bound and determined to make Cameron's nursery as bright as I can because I want it to stimulate her growing little brain. Too bad I learned this AFTER Ibought these light pink totes to go into the bookcase to substitute as drawers. For $5 a pop at Ikea I really couldn't go wrong though but it did bring the POP down to a fizzle :(

So after sitting and wracking my brain I came up with a brilliant idea (which was inspired by my friend Julie's little business "Tutu's by Julie") where she makes the amazingly cute little outfits for babies and kids by ironing on fabric so why couldn't I iron on blocks of fabric to the front of the canvas totes to add some pop? Answer: I totally could!!

After consulting Julie about what I needed and her thoughts on if it could work I headed to Walmart and got my iron on adhesive and brighter pink fabric. I then cut 14" x 14" squares, ironed each side in by 1" to make them look finished...

And then I cut the iron-on adhesive in 12" x 12" squares following the easy directions and then ironed them on to the front of the totes. Now I don't know if you can tell from the first picture but there are folded down areas at the top of the totes that are used as handles which I didn't want to cover up so I slipped the fabric under them before ironing them on. The finished product:

The POP is back :) Now...I just need to find a brighter changing pad cover - OR I might just make my own! Stay tuned.

Mobile Makin

So, I have been home in California for a little less than 2 weeks and boy have I been busy! I can't seem to sit still lately (especially long enough to put together a full post!) but believe me when I say I have stock piled quite the collection of topics and projects so that when this crazy 'nesting' stage ends I have something to keep my brain occupied :)

One of the very first projects I started on when I came back was a hand made mobile. I saw one very similar to this in a store:

However, the price that went along with it ($$) was not what I was interesting in paying so with a fabulous mother who works for the school system and has access to this wonderful machine called an Edison Die Cutter I was able to cut out hundreds of butterflies in minutes compared to what it would have taken by hand and make my own colorful version.

First I started off by finding scrapbook sheets that had all the colors that I was looking for. I wanted something bright and fun. After doing some research I realized that babies can't actually see solid shapes for quite sometime but, quicker then that they can see colors so solid white was out of the question for me if the purpose was to stimulate Cameron's tiny and growing brain. Bright Pink, Vibrant Yellow, Outrageous Orange, and Tiffany Blue. I managed to find all those colors solid and then one in an awesome pattern :)

Then...the next step was figuring out how to make the top portion of the mobile and all of a sudden the shopping gods (NOT to be confused with our actual God) opened this shining glimmer in the clearance section at Hobby Lobby. Do you know how wonderful this is! It is a curse to all female shoppers that as soon as they begin looking for something specific (shoes, sweater, belt, jewelry, accessories you name it) it is no where to be found no matter how high or low you look. It was shopping miracle when I just happened across this "Baby Shower Mobile" with brown and pink dots for...brace yourself...$9!

Yes, how cool right?! I, however, want to stimulate her brain not make her have a headache (thats a lot of dots isn't it?). So after stripping of all those little dots so that just the fishing line was left behind I started the tedious task of gluing on the butterflies on. I took 2 butterflies, no 2 alike touching, and glued a straight line down the center of their little bodies and put the fishing line between. After they dried I folded their little wings back to add a little more dimension and to keep the lines straight I added matching white butterflies to the end of every strand that are made out of matte board to weigh down every strand. Here is what I got :)

Ta-Da!!!! It's enough to want to keep looking at it but not enough to make her tiny little head go bonkers once she can start making out the colors and shapes :) I love it!