Hapiness is... Stories Before Bed

Especially when everyone is "reading" their own book.

Car Seat Canopy Tutorial for Sewing Dummies

Being a sewing dummy myself, I thought I would try to help those out there who may be new to sewing and want to do a fairly simple, cute, and useful project for their bambino (or a nice shower gift). I do link up to four different tutorials I used to make mine, so jump around to those ones if you'd like!

Notes to begin:
• the car seat I'm working with is a Baby Trend Flex-Loc Infant Carseat. Here is a link to a tutorial that fits a Graco car seat, and here's another one.
• I've inserted personal sewing-related notes in italics throughout the tutorial. Feel free to ignore them.

Needed Supplies

Coordinating Thread

1 Yard Top Fabric

1 Yard Coordinating Bottom Fabric

2 - 6"x8" Coordinating Fabric Pieces

2 - 2.5" x 8" Coordinating Fabric Pieces

2 - 1.5" x 3.75" Velcro Strips

2 Coordinating Buttons

 (thread not pictured because I forgot...oops!)

The Blanket Portion

(This is the fairly easy part, so let's start here.)

Step 1: Wash your fabrics on cold and dry on highest setting

 As a sewing dummy I have forgotten this step and cut my fabric first and then had to re-cut after I washed them. It's annoying. 

Step 2: Cut both fabrics to 33"x42" 

 When cutting, I find that it's easiest to lay one piece of fabric (right side up) on carpet, smooth it out, then lay the bottom fabric (right side down) then smooth them out together. Then I pick up both pieces and move them to a wood surface to cut with scissors. If using a rotary cutter and cutting pad, you could stay on the carpet to do your cutting. 

Step 2 (Optional Rounded Corners): Fold both fabrics together in half and then in half again so all corners are touching. Then get a plate and either (a) use your rotary cutter to cut off corners of your fabric or (b) mark where the plate meets the fabric with a pencil or fabric marker and then cut off corners with scissors.

Step 3: Unfold fabric pieces and pin the fabric pieces together.

 (Pinning not pictured because I forgot, and even for dummies, pinning fabric is pretty straightforward)

Step 4: Using a straight stitch on your sewing machine and a 1/4" seam allowance (the edge of the pedal), sew the two fabric pieces together leaving an 8" opening to turn it right side out.

When I need to turn fabrics, I pin all around the fabric, then reverse two of the needles and pin them backwards. Then, using the picture below as a reference, I began at the yellow needle, stitched all around the fabric to the pink needle, back-stitched, stitched to the yellow needle, and back-stitched. Then I just pulled out the thread between the two needles.

 

Step 5: Clip notches out of the corners of your fabric or use pinking shears to do the same thing. Be careful not to clip the stitches!

As a sewing dummy, I strongly recommend you invest in some pinking shears! At my local craft store I got them for 40% off with a coupon and the total price was about $10. Such a good investment and it has saved me so much time and agony by not having to notch out every corner I turn and tuck! For this project I also just cut around the entire fabric to minimize bulkiness, but that probably isn't necessary.

Step 6: Iron the un-sewed portion of the fabric open. This will keep that portion tucked in nicely during the top-stitching in the next step.

Every time I turn a fabric I use this trick. A huge time-saver!

Step 7: Turn the blanket right-side out, top-stitch around the edge of the blanket with a 1/4" seam allowance, and admire your handy-work!

Have fun with the top stitch and use a fun color or a new stitch on your machine! On mine I used a grey thread on top and a blue on bottom and the stitch I used can be seen in the pictures of the straps.

The Straps Portion

 I used velcro to connect my straps because I wanted buttons, and I liked the multi-fabric-layered look, but there are tons of ways to do your straps. Here are some other strap tutorials I found: 

Tie Straps 

Simple Velcro 

Fancy Velcro

Step 1: Iron all four straps length-wise in half with the right-side facing out. Unfold them and fold the long-ends into the middle and iron again.

Clear as mud, right? Hopefully the pictures can explain better than I can.

Step 2: Place the wider straps with the ends face-up and the thinner straps over-top of them with the ends face-down. The edges of both of the fabrics should match up, but don't stress if it's not perfect.

(The pieces on the left just show you how each of the pieces should look after ironing, and the one on the right shows how they go together.)

Step 3: Sew the two pieces together by top-stitching the lengths of the thinner strips (be sure your stitch is wide enough so it catches both fabrics). When they both strips are secured together, fold the shorter ends of the strips down under and do a simple stitch straight across to finish them off.

This is where I really went rogue with my version because I had a hard time following the other tutorials. Admittedly it's not the most beautiful thing ever, but it's cute, does the job, and the ugliest parts are on the underside of the straps, rarely seen anyway.

Step 4: Sew the velcro onto the ends of the straps. Be sure the opposite ends of the velcro are on opposite ends of the straps. If you can wear it like a bracelet you have the velcro on right! 

Step 5 (Optional Decorative Button):  Sew the button onto the top of the strap through the velcro.

 

The Putting Everything Together Portion

(This is the hardest part of the project, but it's going to work out, I promise!)

Step 1: Lay your blanket out flat with the side you want on top facing up and position your straps about 12" in from each side (about 8" apart) and about 17" from the top. Pin them in place.

This part takes some guess and check work and can really takes as long as you want to get them as perfect as you want. I got one of my straps where I thought it needed to be, sewed it on, and then folded the canopy in half so I could match the other strap be

 (As you can see, the strap on the right isn't perfectly straight, but I didn't even know that until I took this picture. You really can't tell when it's strapped on.)

Step 2:  After you've pinned the straps on for placement, attach your canopy to your car seat to make sure you have them in the right place. Make adjustments if necessary.

I really wish I knew how to help you more with this portion, but it's really a guess and check type of thing. My only advice is to not stress over perfection, because the biggest lesson I've learned sewing so far is that small imperfections are not noticeable to anyone or are covered up by cuteness anyway.

Step 3: Sew the straps onto the blanket by going around the edges and then making an "x" in the middle for reinforcement. (The picture from this tutorial shows that best.)

Step 4: Attach to car seat, insert baby, and enjoy your handiwork!

Please post any questions you may have and I hope everything goes so well for you and all your sewing projects!

Happiness Is... Going to Church

We love Sunday's. Here was today's schedule:

• 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM: Nick attends Elders Quorum presidency meeting.
• 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM: Our family attends church. Rachel conducts Young Women's. Alexa rocks nursery.
• 4:15 PM - 5:15 PM: Rachel attends ward choir practice.
• 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM: Rachel attends a fireside commemorating the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Boulder Stake.

And this actually was a fairly calm Sunday compared to some in the past month. We even had time to take a family picture in our Sunday best.

We really love Sundays!

Turns Out Nike Was Right

"Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it."

-Aristotle, William J. Bennett (1993). The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories. New York: Simon & Schuster.

That prose seems simple enough when said aloud, but translating those simple words into action is the challenge of a lifetime.

But Aristotle did not say this just so we could apply these words to obtain a certain skill or master a certain craft. No, ultimately he was discussing moral virtue as something that needs just as much practice and repetition as any other skill or hobby is achieved through simply doing it.

From the same speech Aristotle continues, "...men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players, by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we become brave..." (I added the italics to draw out some points...it's my blog post, I can do what I want)

So does that mean by watching the many episodes of Parks and Recreation on Netflix yesterday that I did while house cleaning I am an excessive TV watcher?

I think it does.

So then, moving forward, what characteristics do I want to define me throughout my life and long after I'm gone? I assure you TV-addict is not one of them.

I want to be known as reliable, hard-working, knowledge-seeking, and self-disciplined. I want to be one who is said to have read-much, baked-well, and served often. I want to be someone who loves music, relishes life, and inspires others. Mostly though, I want to be thought of and remembered as a supportive, loving, and fun wife and mother.

That list could go on and on, but as Aristotle and Nike said, I need to Just Do It. If I want those things, I need to act reliably, work hard, seek knowledge, discipline myself, and so on. It's difficult to do any of those things while on Facebook, Netflix, Hulu, Pinterest, or whatever else detracts us from acting and doing whatever it is that we want to define us.

Today I plan on doing things to let others know through my actions that I love and am grateful for the life I've been given! La Vita é Bella!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Sunday was my 26th birthday, and the party started on Saturday! Nick and I went out with some friends who treated us to pizza and then we hit up the bowling lanes, a lost art for sure -- but not a sport. Here's a little video to backup my philosophy:

Anyway, so on Saturday we went bowling, our friends Brooke and Ben treated us to pizza and some kind of delicious tort, and we had a great conversation revolving around appropriate and ridiculous Olympic events (ie. motherhood should be one, curling should not...just sayin'). 

Oh, Nick and Alexa also gave me a really beautiful authentic leather jacket. I was floored! It's so beautiful!

Don't you kinda wish your husband was as awesome as mine? I would if I were you.

Sunday was pretty typical but I did get a ton of phone calls and texts from friends and family, which was so wonderful!

But the party doesn't stop there. On Monday, a few friends of mine took Alexa and I out to a wonderful Italian Grill for lunch. We had such a great time! 

The three little mess-making monsters we had the courage to take out in public. They don't look vicious, but they're maniacal, mark my words!

It was such an incredible birthday weekend, full of friends, family, and fun! My 27th year is going to be the most awesome year ever!!

Like to Love in 8 Steps

Thanks to Mike's Camera, Walmart, Goodwill, and Hobby Lobby, I was able to transform a once liked area in our house to a now much loved area in our house, and here's how:

Step 1: Have a place in your home that you want to re-do.

 Step 2: Go to Goodwill and buy some perfectly good lamps for $3.99 each.

Step 3: Cover any area you don't want painted with painter's tape (tip: I only covered a portion of the cord, but I should have covered the whole thing or put it in a plastic bag and sealed it off with the tape as a small section of visible cord is now tinted yellow).

 Step 4: Go to Walmart and buy a glossy version of whatever paint color you want. I chose Bauhaus Gold, which turned out to be a really pretty mustard yellow.

 Step 5: Spray paint your lamps. The taller one only needed 2 coats, but the shorter one got an additional coat after I took this picture.

Steps 6, 7, and 8: Print new pictures and buy new frames (50% off making them only $5 each from Hobby Lobby), buy new shades for lamps ($4.97 each from Walmart), and replace new loved pieces with the old liked ones! YAY!

This was such a fun and easy (did it in a day-ish) way to freshen up a look that was a bit tired, which I will definitely be doing again! This refreshing project isn't exactly done, however. I think I am going to make some cute bookends for my little book collection, I may spray paint the frames a charcoal or something a little less harsh than black, and I may add a couple more pictures on either side of the wall to take up a little more of the space. We'll see where my creativity preferences take me!

I've found my tastes have changed a bit, so now the question is, what do I do with the perfectly good things I can't seem to find a use for right now in my little house right now? Oh well, that's a project for another day!

***In other news, we're one of the 795 couples being profiled by LDS Family Services (our adoption agency) on their website as of yesterday! Woot woot! Check out our extremely awesome profile by clicking here.***

#11: Run a 5k

Back in May (I know I'm a little behind...so sue me) I ran in the Families Supporting Adoption 5k where a portion of the proceeds went to the organization for which I am now serving as Chairperson.

This is Alexa and I before the start of the race:

A friend who came to support me in the race got a picture of me towards the end of the race.

Not to brag or anything, but I totally got 5th place out of all the ladies who ran. Yay for me!

To see the complete list of 101 Things I want to do in 1001 Days, please click here.

#96: Donate Hair to Charity

Love Grows!

When Alexa woke up from her nap yesterday just a couple hours into the whole ordeal, she was just crying and crying and I decided to go in and see if I couldn't soothe her back to sleep.

I just held her and rocked with her.

I did this for 1 hour and 20 minutes. That wasn't expected, but very welcomed.

While I was holding and reading Peter Pan to her I got to thinking: "it's not fair that I will not get to do this with our other kids." The more kids we add to our family the more my time has to be divided between each of them. I desperately want my babies with me, but it's just not fair that they won't get as much of me as I want to give or feel like I they deserve to have.

And so I held Alexa a bit tighter.

I may have shed a little tear, mourning for the pending craziness of my future life where I won't be able to take up my child for 80 minutes and just hold him/her. By ourselves. Without interruption.  Just one more gesture that I could make to help them know how much I love them.

I was saddened by that thought and then this idea scurried across my mind for just a moment: "I'm pretty sure I can be happy as a mom of just one beautiful baby girl, and then she can have all my attention, and all my love."

But just at that moment, this musing entered my mind: "Love Grows."

Time may not be able to be justly divided between everything and everyone I love, but that thought gave me hope. The pounding in my chest as I feel my heart pump out love for my daughter and husband will only get more powerful with every new addition to our family. The joy I feel each day as my daughter embraces me with a tight neck-hug or a slobbery open-mouth cheek-kiss will only widen and deepen with every child that comes into our home.

My mourning turned into songs of rejoicing once I realized that even though nearly everything in this world we experience is finite in expanse and scope, love is the one exception. It grows and grows and grows until your heart feels like it may not be able to contain all the love that is growing up inside it and is then poured out from overflowing cups of love and joy as little drops of tears from one's eye.

There is no need to fear the impossible list of future responsibilities and tasks that will surely unjustly steal away those precious moments I wish I could have with each of my children when I know that God has given us such an incredible gift. He gave us the capability to experience and share love with one another. And then, as if that wasn't enough, we get to grow right along with love and are able to watch love grow and develop into a starry night of infinite beauty and possibilities filled with relationships of our families and dear friends. 

I so gratefully praise the Lord that love grows!

Dreaming and Doing, Pt. 2

Did you know you can re-finish countertops? Our ugly laminate countertops are going to look slightly less ugly because we are going to re-finish them! Probably not until summer, but still super exciting for Nick and I!

Guess who made this little discovery as part of her doing instead of dreaming escapade a few weeks ago? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't this cute little cheesy bundle of craziness:

Nope, it was me! You see, after I had my fill of longing for what I did not have I decided to do everything I could to change my circumstance. That meant I got to work on cleaning, tape measuring, pamphlet reading, and discussing with friends about changes to make in our home.

As a result of those efforts we went on a date to Home Depot and purchased blinds for the sliding glass door (which turned out to be way less expensive than I originally thought), looked into re-finishing our cabinets (which is my next big project right after cleaning out the garage), and then stumbled upon a countertop re-finishing kit (a project we've decided to take on this summer).

Crazy-mixed-up world we're living in these days when working actually yields results. Color me surprised.

The Best Days

As part of my 101 in 1001, I've decided to begin a blog dedicated to completing a 365-day photo challenge in which I take at least one picture a day for 365 days and then post them on that blog.

The idea is that I'll be documenting The Best Days of my life over the next year. There's a best thing in everyday, and I can tell you're excited to see what ours are!

The link is along the sidebar, but it's also right here, so feel free to click if you wish, or click the button below!

Here's a small sneak peak at what you'll see today:

Good Riddance 2LBS, Hello Roses!

My cousin Kara received 24 roses from her brother the other day because of a great loss in her life.

She lost 24 lbs. and her brother (and sister-in-law, my guess is she had something to do with it), sent her a rose for each pound lost. How awesome is that?!

When I reach my goal weight (which I'm 2 pounds closer to since this morning!), I hope someone sends me 16 roses.

Nick, I know you read my posts, so just keep this in mind for later!

Since two weeks ago I have gotten up by 6:15 most mornings, headed over to the gym, and worked out for at least 50 minutes. Somewhere around 40 minutes of cardio, then jumping rope or jumping jacks, and then a short ab work-out to finish things off. Also, I have really decreased my snack intake in between meals. I no longer graze all day, which I think gets me into trouble. I eat breakfast, a couple hours later I have a small snack (if I'm hungry), a couple hours after I have lunch (usually soup), a small snack a little later, then dinner. My snacks are no longer just hoards of whatever I can find. A few crackers and some fruit. It's good. And if I want ice cream, a couple bites work, I don't need 3 ginormous scoops. I'm not making huge changes, but lots of small ones.

Working out, eating less, and eating better when I do eat...who knew one could lose weight like that?

I'm also learning what foods I am willing to sacrifice, substitute, and not willing to do either. For example, I will not eat low fat ice cream, but low fat yogurt instead of the original is just fine. Reduced Fat Ranch dressing is pretty gross, but Reduced Fat Sour Cream is pretty indistinguishable from the original. Maybe over time my taste buds will evolve, but for now these small changes will do.

Counting calories doesn't work for me; my food choices need to focus more on portion control and substituting bad for good. We'll get from good to better and better to best eventually, but I'm staying positive and motivated, which is hard to do when you're making a lot of changes in diet and exercise.

What I'm trying to say is yay for me, and good riddance 2 lbs!

Making My Workout Spiritual

The more I study the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the more I realize that it is so profound in its simplicity. It's all about transformation.

Transforming sinners into saints, men and women into Gods and Goddesses, individuals into families, carnal into eternal, and, in this case 151.4 lbs. into 135 lbs.

151.4 lbs is what I weighed in yesterday morning, I think the most I have ever weighed in my life. I honestly don't know if other people can tell I weigh that much (I am quite muscular), but I can sure tell, and I don't like it.

And you know, I've said it before, I can do hard things, and so if I don't like something about my life, I can change it!

I have tried eating healthier and running daily in the past, and the thing with eating well and exercising is that when you do it consistently, it actually works! Two summers ago I weighed 135ish pounds and felt great and got compliments from people on how I looked. I had eating healthy goals and ran 2 miles 5 days a week (I know around here that's child's play, but back then that was a lot for me).

Back then I had been told by my Reproductive Endocrinologist that exercising daily would help the cysts on my ovaries chill out a bit and help the crazy medication he was giving me work better. So that was my motivation when I wanted to be lazy instead of run or when I got tired while running. I would push myself and say "This is for you little baby. I'm going to be better for you. I'm going to run faster for you. I'm going to run harder for you." And so on and so forth. It was all about becoming a mother, which worked as motivation for me back then.

Once we decided that adoption was our Plan A, my running eventually tapered off and became extremely sporadic, and became a decision I had to make everyday instead of one I had already made. For me losing weight cannot be just about the weekly weigh-in, because I won't lose weight everyday/week and sometimes I'm willing to sacrifice a pound or two for a delicious slice of cheesecake or a mountain of French Toast.

This is where making my workout and "diet" (I put it in quotes because 2,000 calories is what I should be eating, I'm just going to be more diligent about it) spiritual is so important. Weight loss goals come and go, but living physically well is a lifestyle, just like living spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually well are. It's about transforming the self that is "acted upon" by cravings and slothfulness into the self that acts upon those things with self-control and determination. (source, verse 14) It's about transforming the self that is eating too often to tidy the house into the self that is able to serve others because the new self has her life in order.

Source: happilymaintaining.tumblr.com via Rachel on Pinterest

I'll share more about the specifics of my workout and diet plan soon, I just thought I would pontificate upon some of my thoughts as of recently in regards to my body and how I am trying to accept it for what it is as well as make it the best I can! And as a parting thought, here was something I found extremely funny on Pinterest the other day. Enjoy!

Source: facebook.com via Rachel on Pinterest

PS As a little bonus, if I continue to get up at 6am daily and workout 6 days a week, I get to cross off a couple goals from my 101 in 1001 list. YAY!