Shopping Trip April 7th

Nope, no baby yet.. To say I'm impatient is a severe understatement. 

So we went grocery shopping today.  I'm 39 weeks pregnant, grocery shopping with an (almost) 6 year old, 4 year and 2 year old.  You can imagine how much I had (insert sarcastic tone).  

I can tell you one thing. I am SO GRATEFUL for Hyvee's online Aisles shopping and pick up service I can't even express.   You go on their site, create an account, then pick out what groceries you want. You pick the store, and a pick up time for pick up times available at that store.. They do the shopping for you, anything under $100 has a fee, over $100 is free (at least for our store, I don't know if that varies or not).  They also have delivery, but we are too far away for that.  So that's what we did this time.  

I skipped the bakery outlet and Dollar Tree. I just didn't have the energy to deal with them and the kids.  I was zapped after Sam's. I paid extra for the few things we did need from those two stores or found a way to do without. (like a magnetic notepad-I'm using scratch paper and a magnet, and new laundry baskets-I get hte cheap ones for the kids, I just added more tape to them lol).  What bread we did need, I just paid extra for at Hyvee.  

Yes, we paid more for groceries this month, but it was so worth it! 

Hyvee total was $205

Sam's total was $205

Sam's I got so many 'make easy' meals my freezers are stuffed. Yes, we have premade food, but there are also some that are just easy meals to put together... Honestly, I think the most difficult on my meal list is the salsbury steak (totally from scratch) and the chicken fried steak (Sam's has awesome precooked 'steaks' for this, all I have to do is cook those and make the sides).  I have been completely tired and not wanting to cook at all the past few weeks, so having easy, throw together meals will help that feeling.. and if I decide to skip the salsbury steak, I can do anything with hamburger.  

So that was our adventure today... Time to rest now and wait for help to get the rest of the groceries put away. 

Have a great week-and hopefully I'll have a picture of a baby to share next week! 

~Tabitha

Getting Ready for Baby

I realized I forgot to do a blog post last week.  Sorry.  My brain has vacated the building.  Baby is due anytime and we are getting very impatient waiting for it to make it's appearance.  

Normally, I'd have a hospital bag packed and waiting in the car.. But we decided on a home birth this time.  So here is what I'm doing around the house. 

I've washed the bassinet and a few sets of clothes for boy and girl, but mostly just the gender neutral clothes.  In the bassinet, I'm collecting everything we'll need for the birth and baby right away.  It's all in one place and easy to access.  I'll probably rearrange it at least ten more times before baby comes. 

I can't remember where the camera is, or I'd take pictures lol... so Sorry, no pictures. 

(warning men, you may not want to read the next few paragraphs lol) I have the baby quilt, nursing tanks, and baby wipes done.   I have not finished the baby in a bag outfits... but only because I'm struggling to get normal house work done, let alone anything else.  Also in the bassinet I have chux pads, feminine pads, sterile scissors (since we plan to let the placenta drain all the way before cutting we won't need a clamp), two dollar tree quality plastic table covers (for the bed..because you just never know), an old sheet and a package of newborn disposable diapers... Because that way I won't have to worry about laundry for a day or two, Grace will also be in disposables.  

In an end table for our bed, I have the baby's cloth diapers-mostly homemade prefolds thanks to a friend, but I do have some flats and All in Ones that are newborn size. The covers for the diapers and snappis-which may or may not be needed considering the covers, but I want them handy just in case (snappis are the 21st century version of the diaper pins I LOVE them).  I also have two nursing nightgowns thanks to a friend-can't wait to use those, all my nursing pads-which I'm already using-but also disposable so I don't through AS MANY shirts while my milk evens out.  The boppy is stuffed in the bottom of the bassinet, covered with a crib sheet so it doesn't get all furry from the cat. Lanolin, although I'll use coconut oil first, I wanted lanolin available just in case.  And Lavender essential oil is patiently waiting in the bathroom cupboard for calming effects.    

Downstairs we have the new rocking chair that is OH SO COMFORTABLE!! And we'll put the play pen up with the bassinet so baby has a place to lay downstairs.  

As far as the family goes, we have plans for somebody to come be with the kids, along with a back up plan.  Easy meals (and numbers to the few places in town hubby can go pick up food if wanted or needed), paper plates, plastic ware, precooked bacon-gotta have the bacon lol.  We are blessed that my husband's work is understanding, while he did schedule vacation time, his boss understands that when it actually starts depends on when baby decides to come, that way he can be home for two weeks after baby comes instead of sitting here  all day being impatient with me, he's being impatient at work while I'm impatient at home. 

I did realize I forgot two very important things. Frozen berries for smoothies (GASP, really gotta get some berries) and ice-which we can run and pick up when I go into labor... because I love ice water when I'm in labor...and that's about the only time.  

In the meantime, I'm sitting here looking at my lonely sewing machine and feeling lazy with the huge pile of projects on a shelf nearby, but I'm sitting here, typing this and trying not to fall asleep-because I can't sleep at night, but during the day when my kids needs me, yep, I'm all over that sleep thing.  

Have a great week! 

~Tabitha 

What We Pack For A Road Trip

Our road trips are pretty low key around here... We don't pack a lot of entertainment for the kids-actually, they do much of their own entertainment packing. 

When we went on vacation last year, I did pack some extra entertainment that they never ended up needing.  

Usually on our road trips (6 1/2 hour drives to see grandparents, big sister and usually some cousins), the kids get a basket of toys that they fill up, blankets for hide and seek, sun shade and just in case they're cold, and their car pillows.  A bottle of water and some snacks handy.. The rest is up to them. 

My mom made these awesome toy baskets from plastic grocery bags-washable, durable and cheap.. Don't ask me how she did them, I don't know other than crochet lol.  They fill them up and take them to the car the day before (or the day) we leave.  I use an old cooler that doesn't keep things cold anymore to keep all the snacks and drinks together and within easy reach for me.  We also have a couple of little coolers Dennis got from work that I have started using for the kids' snacks.  Keeps them in spot and if I need to, I can strap them to car seat. 

We are headed to a Bible Conference in Fargo soon, so I have been planning on how to keep my little goons entertained for a 3 day Bible Conference.  Now I know I won't be able to keep them in the conference hall the entire time, I'm also hoping it won't be snowing so we can run off some energy in the hotel yard.  Here's hoping.  I decided to stay low key with this, too.  I grabbed 4 new color books, we'll grab the crayons in soap containers and they can sit for a sermon at a time.   I'll keep drinks and snacks in the car, so the sermons they get restless during, we can have a quick snack if wanted-but that way it isn't sitting there tempting them.  



I'm still working on my sewing list for baby.. Getting out baby stuff this week and cleaning the car seat.  Eva lost her favorite stuffed animal, so that hunt has been added to my list.  

Have a good week!!
~Tabitha

Shopping Trip 3/10

To start off this post, I spent more this month.. I fully expect baby to be here within the month... and even it's not, I'm utterly exhausted and just wanted more convenience foods.  I also picked up some extras for what we will need when baby comes (paper plates for instance).  Any foods we need, my husband said he will just go to the local store and get. 

I was going to use HyVee's grocery pickup service (I've used it before when I'm this far along, it's a back and sanity saver for a $10 fee-completely worth it I think)... But they didn't have any open slots available, so that didn't work.  The kids went a little crazy with mommy's slow walking, but they survived.  

I am proud to say I kept better track of my list this month.. so I didn't forget anything I could find lol.  The few things I couldn't find, I blame on HyVee rearranging one whole corner of the store. 

So we started off our trip at Sam's like normal... 
I bought french fries instead of making my own this month-which I've been doing for a few months now, I just bought them in Sioux Falls this time.  I can't order from Azure before I run out of laundry soap, so back to ALL laundry soap we went.  A huge pack of foam plates-we'll use them all eventually. Precooked bacon, so bacon will be easy for me or Dennis when baby comes.  I only got half our bacon precooked and a package of regular bacon.  I also got a case of juice boxes, partly for a trip to Fargo next week, partly to make it easier on me so if we run out of juice, I don't have to go to the store as fast (we get juice on WIC, which typically means a weekly trip locally).  Oh and chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese....because.. I'm exhausted. Sam's total 277.56

At HyVee, we picked up four rolls of cinnamon rolls for Sunday mornings-a lot easier on this momma than making waffles two mornings in a row.. Refried beans for the burritos-in case I don't feel like making homemade.  The rest was normal spending. HyVee Total 106.07

At Dollar Tree, we grabbed some new coloring books for the kids for the conference next week, tortillas, worcestershire sauce, italian dressing and air freshener.  Dollar Tree Total 13.78

The Bakery outlet was awesome. :D  We got our normal 8 loaves of bread, some donuts (because I was lazy and didn't make coffee cake last weekend-so hubby needed something with his breakfast, raisin bread (I blame that one on the baby lol).  They were giving away free samples of their artesan bread (REALLY YUMMY, especially as cheesy garlic bread) and since I spent $10, I got a free loaf of the same thing.... So Basically, I spent $13 and got about $25 worth of bread.  Oroweat Bakery Outlet total 12.72

So total grocery spending was $410.13... Over budget, but that's what happens when I buy convenience foods... and the $20 in extras (plates and laundry soap) didn't help much.   


Things are going a little crazy around here... We got new furniture, a new love seat, it's a rocker/recliner on both sides with a console in the middle.. Original price was around $1100, we got it for $799. Not bad, eh?  A bunk bed for the kids, I don't THINK it was on sale, but we got it for around $179. And a twin mattress for that which they gave it to us for $99... We think we did pretty good spending $1130 on that (sturdy frame construction) including delivery and assembly.   Another $120 for a new rocker/glider with footstool for me from KMart.. That one's original list price was $160, but with the sale and getting it from the Kmart closing in Mitchell, gave me a good discount.  That stuff came Wednesday, so this weekend we have some rearranging to do to get end tables how we want them and get my sewing stuff and the kid's school stuff figured out.. Along with hopefully getting the keyboard back out.  

Have a good week!! 

~Tabitha 

Quilted Booster Chair Seat Cover

The kids moved up in car seats... Andrew's seat needed a new seat cushion, so I figured we might as well make it fun for our little super hero lover.  Remember that Marvel Comic fabric I bought a few weeks ago? Well this is what it was for.  

The cushion turned out pretty good, and Andrew loves it! It is a little too wide, but that's ok. 

So here's what you need to make your own (especially if you don't have the original cushion to take apart and trace).  I used four pieces of copy paper from our printer, taped them together, laid it on the booster seat then traced the imprint of where the original lay (just... don't forget to add seam allowance...like I did lol).  I also used an old hand towel for some absorbency, he's a kid, spills are gonna happen.  The batting is what's left over from the baby's quilt for a bit of cushion-but not too much to keep it safe.  Along with 1/4 inch elastic.

So here's his booster seat.  After I had traced the ridges (see the ridges?), I turned it over and marked where the hooks were for the elastic that hold those cushions on. 

 My pattern... minus seam allowance, because I forgot... (don't forget) See the circles? That's where my elastic will go, Once I marked the circles, I measured from where the cushion ends to the hook, took off about 1/2 inch and put that measurement on my pattern to know how long to cut the elastic.

Then I sewed the towel (...yeah no seam allowance, but I did cut the main fabric with a seam allowance) onto the wrong side of the fabric, this is the bottom.  

The OTHER half of the cushion got the quilting.  I cut it just to the approximate size so I had plenty of room for some scrunching when I machine quilted it (REALLY, REALLY don't like machine quilting).  For the quilting, I took my ruler and measured 2 inches between each line-lengthwise and widthwise.  

After both pieces were done, I sewed on the elastic...the wrong way.. Yeah yeah, I blame it pregnancy brain.. Just make sure your elastic goes towards the inside of the fabric, not like I did DON'T point it out.. it's a pain to undo and fix. 

After getting the elastic on, I pinned to two pieces, wrong sides together and sewed except for the straight edge to it would be easy to turn around.. See you you can see the elastic? You shouldn't see the elastic. 

After that I turned right side out and top stitched.  Then we put the cushion on top of the booster seat, stretched the elastic to make sure I made the loops big enough to go over the hooks on the bottom, sewed those loops and we were done.   

Pretty simple, really. (If you look close you can see the square from the machine quilting.)

Lots of projects still going on around here.   Getting a few done at a time as my energy allows.  Although some days it seems my energy allows more than my back does.  We have about a month before baby comes, so let the countdown begin!  

Have a good week!!

~Tabitha   

Planning, Planning and more Planning

I have a confession.  I'm a great planner, I can plan until I'm blue in face...but when it comes to the follow through, I have issues. And yet, I can't stop planning. It's a vicious cycle. 

The past week my sewing machine has been at a stand still forcing me to choose what projects are essential to get done before baby gets here.  

I have to finish my mama cloth and the baby blanket.  Andrew's car seat is getting cushion, Eva has a skirt that needs fixed, and my husbands's footstool is in desperate need of recovering-which will really be more stapling onto the wooden frame than actual sewing.  I would absolutely LOVE to get the baby clothes, wipes and nursing camisoles done, but I'm not counting on it anymore. I can only sit for so long and considering the amount of.....help (yeah, let's call it help from my well meaning kids who are learning) I get when I sew, my patience and nerves only last for so long. Grace LOVES to put her fingers where they don't need to be.  So we'll see how far I get.  

I also have to clean out our room where the bassinet and rocking chair go (including shampooing the carpet) and have baby clothes easy to get to... Girl and boy since we don't know what we are having.  

I have a few meals to get in the freezer (lasagna and stuffed shells..possibly waffles, we'll see).  

Anybody else overwhelmed yet? 

On top of all the baby stuff, we have home school (my crazy kids about had a heart attack when I mentioned the word 'break', so I'm getting extra worksheets ready for when I can't help along with the daily work) needs attention, we have the normal daily household chores... And we added a trip to Fargo in March.  They are having their annual Red River Bible and Prophecy Conference.  While I didn't get to hear much last year, and doubt I will this year,  I can always turn the live stream on and listen that way while the kids get their energy out.  Meeting the pastors (visiting with ours and his family from Missouri was fun!) and being able to be there was great.. So we decided we'd go again this year.  We are both completely looking forward to it, but it's a little extra planning for me-quiet activities for the kids, snacks that are Eva safe (learned the hard way last year).  

While I won't start planning the next school year until we get the materials around May or June, I'm looking into different ways of organizing everything.  It's so much easier on me to have everything planned out and ready to go than to fly by the seat of my pants.. So I'm on Pinterest almost daily looking for ideas.  


...SOOO... like I said.. anybody else overwhelmed yet?  ;) 

Have a good week! 

~Tabitha

Fabric Shopping Trip 2/16

A good friend gifted me a JoAnn's Fabric gift card. :D  So the kids and I went shopping yesterday.  While we did have a few different stores on our list, we only made it to JoAnn's.  

My belt broke on my old Singer sewing machine...so we were planning on going to the Singer dealer to get a new one. The problem? Nobody showed up.. so I went in search on the internet and found it. :D All sewing is halted until that belt comes in, so I'll be cleaning and twiddling my thumbs until Monday.  

The money for the belt came out of my thrift store money (seriously need some sweatpants here), but since I couldn't go to Singer I couldn't go to the thrift store...you see how this is going?  Yeah, so we made it JoAnn's for fabric and such, Walmart for vitamins and diapers and Firehouse Subs for lunch-you gotta eat there SO GOOD and their soda machine is awesome. 

Anyway-here's our takeaway from JoAnn's.  The only thing that wasn't on sale were the snaps-but I had a 50% coupon for them. :D We need fabric for the baby's quilt, fabric for a footstool, fabric for a car seat cover, fabric for cloth wipes, white thread, a pattern and heavy duty snaps.

So here's a rundown of what we got for fabric. Minky, denim, Marvel comics, and scrap flannel.

2 yards of denim. We bought a footstool from Big Lots...ohhh... probably 3 or 4 years ago now.  The original faux leather came off a long time ago.. I recovered in scrap pieces of denim-which worked great for a bit, but it is coming apart at the seams, so this piece will be one big (I'm hoping doubled) piece, no seams to be torn apart where our feet will be. On Sale for 8.99 a yard. Without the sale price, it was 29.98, with a total of 17.98.

2 yards of Minky.  My sister introduced me to this fabric. So soft, warm but not too warm.. In my opinion, PERFECT for the backing of a baby quilt. :D Originally priced for a total of 29.98, on sale for 8.99 a yard.  Total of 17.98. $20 for a homemade baby quilt. I think we can deal with that. 

Scrap Flannel.  I found a pattern on Pinterest I fully intend on making and it will be a blog post.  You take terry cloth and flannel and make a cute, absorbent and soft on one side wipe. After 3 in cloth diapers, I think I deserve some nice wipes (and we have a bathroom towel with holes). I really wanted something more baby fabric-type (those cute little feet and hands pattern or something), but I also knew getting a remnant would make it a little cheaper. It was a remnant, so cheaper to begin with, but still on sale after that.  Originally 6.99, sale price was 2.40 at just under a yard.

1 yard Marvel Comic.  We have a car seat without a cover (don't ask, it just doesn't have one).  Now I wouldn't want to sit on a hard plastic seat, so I'm not going to make Andrew.  So he helped pick out his favorite.  I'll make it a little cushiony with the leftover quilting batting from the baby blanket.  Original price was 10.99, on sale for 6.59.



Miscellaneous... Heavy Duty Snaps, thread and a pattern.

Andrew's chair I did a few weeks ago needs more snaps, so we needed to get more heavy duty snaps. This was the one thing I got that wasn't on sale.   But I had a 50% off coupon. Originally 6.99 for 7 snaps, I got for 3.50.

White thread.  I'm getting a little low and since I'm sewing some things that matter what color of thread I use, I wanted that specific color-white.  Although in retrospect I'm wondering if I should have picked up some brown since I got brown Minky fabric.  Oh well, maybe I can find some at the local thrift store.  Two spools of white thread. Originally 3.99 each, on sale for 2.39 each. 

The pattern. I searched hard for a free pattern for a baby in a bag.  Found a few free ones that were printable.. So printed them off and took them to my mom's... We attempted..but the neck just didn't look like it should and comparing it to one I have already, it just doesn't look RIGHT. So I decided to spring for a pattern.  Since I was paying for a pattern, I got one that had the footy pajamas in it-I swear toddlers go through those so fast, you blink and the feet are full of holes.  I might have to scale down a bit for a newborn, but I bought the bigger size for the footy pajamas.  The baby in a bags will be a blog post too.  The pattern was originally 13.95, on sale for 8.37.  It is cheaper on the Butterick website, but I didn't have a gift certificate to the website. :p


In all, I spent $64.02 at JoAnn's.  I would say that isn't too bad for all that.  I saved 45.50 by shopping during the sale. Which is AWESOME. 


Until next week! 

~Tabitha