Sewing Adventures

I've been on a serious sewing kick lately. In fact, I've been sewing so many evenings that the sewing machine has taken up permanent residency on our dining room table. Now, just so you understand, I love sewing. But sewing and I kind of have a love-hate relationship. I'm a perfectionist, so sewing definitely stretches me in ways I've never been stretched. I also have a tendency to always make at least one mistake on every project. The seam rippers are a beloved tool of mine. I should just quote my mother-in-law and tell everyone that I am being like the Navajo Indians who always intentionally stitched a mistake in every one of their weavings because, they said, nothing is perfect except for God.

Anyhoo, I recently attempted my first project with real sleeves. Everything I had done up to this point was either a skirt or a sleeveless dress. I was rather nervous, to say the least. Still, I took my time (many of my mistakes come from impatience or exhaustion) and here is the result:

Pretty, right? It's a fall/winter dress for Shiphrah. I used a pattern in her size, but it still turned out way too big. But I just adjusted the wrap front part of the dress to fit. And this way I can move the snaps and she can wear it as a top with leggings next winter. (Oh, and by the way, the color is more pink than the picture makes it appear.)

Next I worked on a dress for one of Shiphrah's 2nd cousins (her birthday party is actually tomorrow so I haven't given this to her yet). I didn't much like the pattern I chose after I got started, but it turned out pretty cute. To add a little extra to the dress, I made three yo-yos and added big black buttons as embellishments. This was also my first experience working with elastic. Here it is, followed by a close-up of the embellishments:

Unfortunately, the little girl is rather skinny, so the dress seemed way too big when I finished it. So I had to add a couple of darts to the back, but I didn't cut them so her mom can let them out if she needs too. Hopefully *fingers crossed* it fits her...I think the color will look super-cute on her because she has fiery red hair. :)

And now I'm off to start my next project...a baby girl dress for a friend of mine who's having a little girl at the end of October. I'll be using dress 'A' from this pattern, in case you are curious. I'll let you know how it turns out! :)

Weekly Savings #11

WALGREENS
Nothing exciting this week, but I had Register Rewards that were expiring so I had to make a trip (it's annoying that RRs are only good for two weeks).
- True North Almond Crisps: $2 (after $1/1 mf coupon) plus $3 RR
- 4 cans Progresso Soup: $3.90 (after 4/$5 sale and $1.10/3 coupon)
- 12-count box of CankerMelts: FREE (after mf coupon)
- pencil case (for Shiph's crayons): $1.99
Used $6 RRs on this transaction.

Total OOP = $1.89
Total Savings = $19.95
RRs received = $3

CVS
Didn't have to hit CVS this week, but it's literally a block down from Walgreens, so I figured why not. :)
- pretty notebook: $1.25 (on sale 50% off)
- 3 bottles of Suave body wash: $4 (after Buy2Get1 mf coupon) plus $2 ECBs
Used $5 ECBs on this transaction.

Total OOP = $0.27
Total Savings = $10.01

ECBs received = $2
[YTD CVS Savings = $300.99]

H.E.B.
Still good on meat and most staples, so the list was short.
- 2 avocados: $1.58 (these aren't cheap, but I love them in my salads)
- green onions: $0.69
- bananas: $0.95
- 3 Roma tomatoes: $0.48
- Romaine lettuce: $1.79
- 1 cucumber: $0.50 (on sale 2/$1)
- 4-pack submarine sandwich rolls: $1.69
- HCF wheat bread: $0.94
- Trop 50 orange juice: $1.99 (after $1/1 mf coupon)
- HEB unsalted butter quarters: $1.99
- HCF country spread: $1.79
- Wholly guacamole: $0.50 (after 2/$4 sale and $1.50/1 mf coupon)
- Johnsons buddies soap bar: FREE plus 1 cent overage (after $1/1 mf coupon)
- Prego spaghetti sauce: $1.19 (after $0.75/1 HEB mf coupon)
- 2 cans HCF canned mushrooms: $1.18
- 2 cans Campbell's cream of mushroom soupon: $1 (after $1/2 coupon)
- Wacky Mac pasta: $0.54 (after $0.75/1 mf coupon)
(I also bought $24 worth of groceries from the Schwans' guy this week...frozen fruit, hash browns, mini cinnamon rolls, and a pie for our church dinner next week.)

Total OOP = $18.79
Total Savings = $6.28

Total Grocery Spending = $46.68
($3.32 under budget)

FALL/WINTER CLOTHES
Shiphrah and Kirk have both been blessed with family and friends who graciously have given them hand-me-downs. Unfortunately at the rate Shiph is growing, it'll be years before some of the clothes fit her and she's starting to get off-sync with sizes vs. seasons (most of the fall/winter clothes we have from her cousin Livi are 24 mos and Shiph is still barely fitting 18 mos clothing). Kirk has a few long-sleeved onesies and jackets for the fall but no pants. So I talked my wonderful hubby into making a trek to the San Marcos outlet mall to visit Children's Place and Old Navy. I wanted to end up with about a week's worth of outfits for each child. Shiphrah mainly needed shirts (she has plenty of jackets and jeans from last year that still fit) and a few Sunday dresses. Here's what I ended up with (and they should be set until April/May...Texas only has two seasons...Summer [April - September] and Fall/Winter/Spring [October - March]):

Shiphrah
4 long-sleeved shirts

1 sweater

2 dresses

1 pair of khaki pants

1 white shrug for Spring

Kirk
1 pair of shoes
2 pairs of pants
2 long-sleeved onesies
1 long sleeve shirt

Total Spent = $94.48

Schedules and Struggles

I've never been clever with titles, but at least I can say this one is accurate. All about our schedules and our struggles resulting from those schedules. *Sigh* It's been a rough few months.

First of all, none of this would be that big of a deal if I wasn't so tired. Kirk turned 6 months old yesterday (!!!) and still won't sleep more than a 6-hour stretch at night. Which wouldn't be so bad if I was actually asleep during that time...but I'm not, because Avery doesn't get home from work until 11 pm at the absolute earliest. But that will all make more sense when I explain our daily "routine."

Kirk is usually the first to wake up, anytime between 7:00 and 8:30 in the mornings. His nursing "schedule" is all over the place, so sometimes I feed him then, other times he's eaten just an hour or so earlier. When he first wakes up he's usually content to lay there and watch his mobile for a few minutes...sometimes turning on the overhead light will keep him content a few minutes longer. Once he's thoroughly bored and tired of lying in bed, I take him out to the living room, turn on the light, and put him in his jumparoo while I go back to bed and hopefully get a few more minutes of sleep (he's usually content for about 10-15 minutes in there). When he starts fussing again, one of two things happens: every other day or so I nudge Avery awake and he sweetly agrees to get up with Kirk while I get an extra 30 minutes of sleep. Or (usually if Shiphrah is awake and yelling by now) we both get up to get the kids breakfast and such. Either way we're all usually out of bed by around 9:30.

Shiphrah has been a royal grouch most mornings for the past month. I'm not sure if it's her last couple of teeth coming in, the fact that she's sleeping with Kirk for the first part of the night (and he wakes her up around 1 in the morning), or the fact that she never falls asleep at night until 10ish (even though I put her to bed at 8). This does not help our morning moods.

Between 10 and 11, Kirk is ready for his first nap. He goes down in the nursery (which Shiph does not care for since it means only half of the 10 million toys are accessible to her) and usually sleeps for about two hours (he wakes up around noon). During this time Shiphrah whines, and whines, and whines some more. (She's remarkably happier in the afternoons...I don't know if this is because she's clingier when Avery is home or if she's better after her nap.)

After Kirk wakes up, we all eat lunch and Avery gets ready for work (an hour-long process). Sometimes that order is reversed...he gets ready and then we eat. He leaves for work around 2 (shift starts at 2:30) and the munchkins go down for a nap together. (If this is the case, sometimes I get to nap for about an hour or so. A lifesaver!) If Kirk's morning nap was unusually long (like today), he stays up while Shiphrah goes down. If they're both napping, they usually sleep until 4-5ish. If Kirk is awake, he goes down for his second nap around 3:30 or 4. (So I still get about an hour with both of them in bed, except today.)

Once they're both up, my evening is very restricted. Kirk is usually pretty whiny and wants to be able to see my face all the time. Shiphrah runs back and forth between the living room and her room which drives Kirk insane. So more often than not, I put in a video (on better days, just a 30-minute Veggie Tales) to keep them both happy and in one place (and to keep me sane).

Around 7-o-clock I feed both of them dinner. I've just recently started Kirk on a once-a-day mixture of rice cereal and pureed fruit, which helps him sleep a tad longer at night. Every other night is bath time for Shiph and Kirk gets bathed about once a week. Then we clean up the living room (clutter in the living room gets under Avery's skin so I try to have it clean when he gets home) and put pajamas on. Kirk gets nursed one last time, Shiphrah brushes her teeth, and they both go to bed in the nursery between 8 and 8:30.

Then I make myself dinner and relax for about half an hour. Hopefully dinner revitalizes me and I get a bit of a energy boost. I do the dishes, laundry, and whatever other chores need done (occasionally I vacuum right after I put the kids to bed...otherwise I'd wake them up). After chores are done, I work on a project (lately I've been sewing) or chill on the internet. Around 10:30 or 11 I pump breast milk to add to the whole milk I give Shiphrah in the mornings. On a good night (rare these days...have you seen the crime in SA lately??) Avery gets home soon after that and we stay up for an hour so catching up on his day. We're usually in bed by 1 am. Kirk wakes up around then or within the hour, so I get him out of the nursery, nurse him, and put him to sleep in our bassinet. A negative side effect of the 5 to 6-hour sleeping stretch is that he doesn't want to go back to sleep after eating, so he usually tosses and turns and fusses for another hour or so. Which means I don't sleep either. Last night was especially bad and he didn't fall back asleep until 3 or so.

After that, Kirk will sleep anywhere from 2 to 4.5 hours, and then another 2 or so. And then he wakes up and the days repeat themselves.

Get the idea? Can you see why I'm so exhausted?? On a good night I'm getting six hours of very broken sleep. On a bad night (like last night) it was four hours of broken sleep. For a former morning person, my grumpiness and grogginess in the mornings is RIDICULOUS. This morning was especially bad and I found myself wishing my husband had a job where he could call in sick and stay home.

I'm really not complaining (much), because I love my kids and my husband and I love my life. I'm really just petitioning y'all for prayer for my attitude and endurance. I'm running out of steam (last night I was so pooped that I ate my dinner in front of a movie and then mustered up just enough energy to wash the dishes) and this morning my behavior was abominable. So please, if you think about it, offer up an extra prayer for me, I'd really appreciate it.

Oh, and I just wanted to reiterate that I have the best husband in the whole world. He doesn't get much sleep at night either (although he sleeps through Kirk's waking) but he's usually so wonderful about getting out of bed with the kids and giving me a few more minutes to sleep in the mornings. And he's SUPER-understanding about my tiredness and the fact that the laundry stays unfolded for days on end or the floors don't get swept. I LOVE HIM!!!

Weekly Savings #10

Just HEB this week and no picture (I had to feed a hungry baby so the groceries had to get put away quickly). It was a frustrating trip for several reasons: I went right when all the parents with their freshly-picked-up school kids were there too (crazy kids running through the aisles), the store was very crowded, plus the shelves were very understocked or missing items. So I had to buy the higher-priced sugar, I couldn't find the store brand parmesan cheese, and they didn't have the pasta I was looking for. I did get some pretty good deals though:
- 3 boxes of Pasta Roni: 69 cents each (after $1/3 mf coupon)
- 1.02 lbs of white seedless grapes: $1.01 (on sale for 99 cents/lb)
- 2 16-oz bottles of Coffeemate creamer: $2.04 each (after $1.50/2 mf coupon)
- packet of Betty Crocker bacon/chedder potatoes: 85 cents (after $0.40/1 mf coupon)
- 2 containers of Starbucks ice cream: 99 cents each (after two $2/1 mf coupons)
- 3-pack of Ivory bar soap: 83 cents (after $0.25/1 mf coupon)
- bag Kraft shredded cheddar: FREE (after G1 FREE with purchase of hot dogs HEB coupon)
- 5 jars of Beechnut Homestyle Fruit: FREE (after five G1Free mf coupons)
- A1 Classic Steaksauce Marinade: 34 cents (after $2/1 mf coupon)
- Barilla Whole Grain penne pasta noodles: 75 cents (after $0.50/1 mf coupon)
- Borden whole milk: $2.76 (after $1/1 mf coupon)
- Mitchum deodorant: $2.79 (after $0.75/1 mf coupon)
- Oxiclean laundry stain remover: $2.04 (after $0.75/1 mf coupon)

Total OOP = $37.97
Total savings = $20.43

Total Weekly Grocery Spending = $37.97

($12.03 under $50 weekly budget)

Rain and Babies

We're finally getting rain in San Antonio this week and it's lovely! I think the newspaper said we got more rain yesterday than we had gotten all year (or something like that). For the past few days I've even been able to open the windows in the morning and feel the cool fall-ish breeze. Of course, that only lasts for a couple of hours, but it's still nice!

Unfortunately all the rain means muddy paws on the dog and cat...which in turn means constantly muddy floors. I think I've swept more times in the past two days (i.e. twice a day) than I usually do in a month.

Shiphrah thinks the rain ("WATER! WATER!!!") is fascinating. It's funny to think that she really hasn't ever seen rain (i.e. been aware of it). We've been in such a drought that I think the last time we got a good rain was when she was only a few months old. She loves watching it but doesn't care for being out in it. Even a few raindrops on her head is rather upsetting for her.

Kirk is turning six months old in a few days. I can't believe how fast the past few months have gone by! He's "thisclose" to crawling already...he's pushing himself up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth. Which is really fun to watch because Shiphrah never did that; she just went straight from scooting to crawling. He's already pretty adept at getting around by rolling and scooting though so he doesn't seem to eager to figure out how to actually crawl. He's moved his knees a few times (would you call that taking one crawl-step?) but more by accident than anything. Still, I'm sure he'll be completely mobile within the next few weeks.

Shiphrah is regularly using two and three-word phrases to communicate. Like "Daddy outside" and "Kirk sleep" and "hungry chip please." She's also become quite the little snot when it comes to crayons. She loves to color, but even more than she loves to color on paper, she LOVES to color on anything she's not supposed to. Currently our coffee table is covered in black crayon from the literally 10 seconds I turned my back while she was coloring. Thankfully I've discovered magic erasers, which work amazingly on crayon (and lime deposits in the shower, by the way). HEB has their store brand erasers for 75 cents a 2-pack and they are my new favorite cleaning tool. But anyway, because of her obsession with coloring all things not paper she doesn't get to color very often, since it requires my complete attention to watch her. (Seriously, she is SO sneaky!) She gets spanked fairly often now, but because of her stubbornness it doesn't seem to phase her.

Kirk still isn't sleeping through the night, although his "long" stretch has gotten a bit longer. Most nights he'll sleep about a 5 1/2-hour stretch and then two 3-hour stretches. Since he's turning 6-months-old though I'm working on getting him started on solids (pureed fruit mixed with rice cereal) at night so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll start sleeping longer soon. Mama needs her sleep! Seriously, with Avery's schedule what it is (getting home around 11:30 most nights) I have been so tired lately. In fact, I've become pretty dependent on a daily nap, a habit I'm trying to break myself of because it severely limits my productivity (an hour or two napping and another hour spent getting over the post-nap grogginess).

Oh, did I mention that the munchkins are napping together? In the same room too! Kirk's schedule has finally adjusted to where he goes down for a morning nap around 10, sleep until noon, and then goes down with Shiphrah around 2 and sleeps until 4:30ish. 'Course oftentimes Shiph is ready for her nap way before then, but we can usually get her to hold out until Daddy leaves for work. Anyway, their coinciding nap schedules gives me a chance to get a few things done or take a nap, depending on how tired I am.

And with that, I need to find something to keep me awake because I'm literally dozing off staring at the computer screen. No nap today, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it!