My daddy was here...

It was so wonderful to have my dad here this past week.  We had a ton of fun with him and he really helped us out around the house.  So good to have such a wonderful dad who is always willing to help us out when he is on vacation.

First, he started working more with Elijah on his walking.  I have to say in the week he was here, Elijah has gotten quite a bit better. He still will not let go of us when standing still-he's not totally sure he is brave enough to stand on his own yet! But I'm not rushing it too much, he likes to get into everything like every good child does, so I'm fine with just crawling at this point!

Second, he snuggled Athaiah a lot.  Which is great, because she loves to be held.  She knows the instant you put her down and will usually start fussing so she can get back into your arms. She definitely loves to snuggle(which always makes me happy-there is not much better than baby snuggles)

Third, he did the dishes! This is huge for me since usually I'm the only one that does them here, so it was absolutely amazing to have them done after every meal and to not see a huge pile in the sink(like there is now).

Forth, we got a lot of good talks in and did a lot of catching up and reminiscing which is always a wonderful thing to get to do, since I don't get to see family very often being so far away.

Fifth, he totally updated my yard/garden for me.  I told him I wanted to dig out a whole area of plants and put in veggies, so guess what he did.  He dug it all up and now I have all kinds of veggie plants growing! 

Then I told him I really needed to clean out the other flower beds and rearrange some stuff, and put some more perennials in so that I didn't have to plant so many flowers every year.  So guess what? He got out the shovel and dug up a bunch of plants to thin it out and organize it. He also bought us a beautiful Rose bush, and some perenial seeds!

Put a new flower bed out in front of the house-which I have been wanting to do since we moved in. 

He even worked with Greg on putting landscape timbers in to give the beds some slight definition!  Let's just say I love it all so very much!  Don't you think it looks great? (disclaimer-don't mind some of the wilty looking plants, those are some that we transplanted but will come back looking better next year since they were already starting to bloom when we dug them up)

I will follow up my gardening in some other posts, because I will admit I don't have the greenest thumb, although it does run deep in my family so hopefully I will be able to tap into it for all these wonderful new plants!

He also bought us some fertilizer/dandilion killer, and some new grass seed.  Needless to say our yard looks a bit sad, but will look much better.  I will do a follow up on this one also since you can't see the fertilizer or grass seed!

It was an amazing week and we were all very sad to see him leave yesterday, but look forward to hopefully seeing him sometime soon! Now we are looking forward to this coming weekend when we travel via plane(for the first time with children) to KY for my brother in laws wedding! YEAH more family time, and a wonderful addition to the Turley family!

Growing up

My children are growing up!

We went to the Dr on Thursday and here are the reports:

Elijah is 26.4# and 32.5" tall-who said he could get so big, he is sadly starting to also look less and less like a baby and more like a toddler.  And I just wanted him to stay little forever.

Athaiah is 9# 1.5oz and is 20.75" tall.  Her newborn clothes fit her excellently now, except most are still a bit wide in the legs and rear region as she is a true Turley in these areas!  She is starting to be more and more alert every day.

These two children are pure joy! They are both so amazing in attitude, both very content and happy children.  We couldn't be more blessed and we look forward to continue watching them grow, although they are so snuggly when they are little sometimes I wish they would stay that way forever. But hey that's why you have more children right?!

Stuffed Animal Hammock-knit

I was looking for something to put all of Eli's stuffed animals in, since he has a ton of them and they seem to take over his crib.  I liked the idea of the animal hammocks, but didn't want to buy one.  I had some extra white yarn sitting around so I decided to get to work and make a pattern for one. So here it goes. This was his other b-day present-practical yes, but he needed it and I wanted an excuse to make it besides just because!

white yarn
Size 13 circle needles

CO2
Knit row
Increase in each st
Knit row
Increase in each st
Knit row
Increase in 1st and last st, knit all sts between
Knit row
Increase in 1st, 5th, and last st, knit all sts between
Knit row
Repeat the above two rows(instead of the 5th st always inc in the middle st of the row) until you have 80sts on needles.
Knit 20 rows
Now you are going to decrease in the same pattern, so it looks even so your decrease row should be:
k2 tog in 1st 2sts, middle 2sts, and last 2sts, knit all sts in between.
Knit row
Continue this until you have 10 sts left on your needles then do as follows:
K2 tog in 1st 2sts, knit and k2tog for last 2 sts
knit row
k2 tog for row
knit row
k2 tog for row
knit row
k2 tog
bind off stitches and leave a long tail so you can tie it all together and you will be able to hang it.

I finally decided to hang this in his closet, low enough so he could get to it, but so they were not just thrown in a pile in the closet!

Ruffle bottom skirt pattern

First cut out a piece of fabric that is 18"x8".

The first thing I did on this one was to put in the elastic waistband and it worked so much better than putting it in last.

To do this you are going to make a "pocket" for the elastic to go into.-this means I folded the top part of the fabric 1/4" down and ironed it flat(this was so there were no rough edges in the skirt). Next, Fold 1/2" of the fabric over and iron it so it lays flat. Now you are going to put the elastic in the 1/2" fold that you ironed.  The elastic should be 1-2" shorter than the width of your skirt so that it will stretch.  Sew this up, while pulling on the elastic while you are sewing. Now your waistband is done!

Next cut out a strip of fabric that is 1.5xs the width of the skirt and 2" wide.   First hem the bottom part I used a 1/4" seam for this.  You are going to do a gather on the top of this so that it ruffles.  If you want to check out how to do that follow the link here and it will show you.

Now attach the ruffle piece of fabric to the bottom of the skirt.  Pin it so that it stays and you can then make sure you don't need to adjust the ruffle lengths anywhere. (Make sure the right sides of the fabric are together so you won't see any rough edges).  I used a 1/2" seam make sure that the top part where you gathered will be hidden once you turn it the right way.

Now that your bottom is attached to the skirt, sew up your side seam so that it makes a circle and you are done!

Easy and cute right??

Dresser refinish

We recently decided to move my dresser up the Eli's room, so that when the next baby arrives there is room for both of their clothes.  Currently there is just closet space but Eli takes up the closet so figured we needed to add another piece of furniture to the room to accommodate this.  My dresser was a very small one from walmart that we got on sale.  Light Birch/Oak color, so didn't go in the room too well. 

Soooo.... we decided to be different.  The room is currently brown on the bottom, blue on the top.  We decided to be different and paint it in the chalkboard paint.  I couldn't help but think how fun and different this would be.  We could write what items were in the drawers or draw pictures.  The possibilities seem endless.  So very excited.  Greg seemed to really like the idea too, so off we went to walmart to find some paint.  They sell it in a spray can for $4, not too bad.  I am going to use our sidewalk chalk to write on it with so we don't have to buy more chalk.

Before Picture:

After Picture:

Dresser Finished:

Yeah, so excited to fill this with little boy and girl clothes!

Ruffle Skirt

I decided to make our little one a cute skirt!  Possibly one to wear to Uncle Matt's wedding in May, she will be 1 mo old at the wedding and I want her to look cute but didn't really want to go buy a big fancy dress since Elijah grew way to fast to keep him in any clothes!!

So here is the pattern.  I kind of made it up as I went as I had an idea of what I wanted and then just ran with it.  Also note, this is my first attempt at an elastic waistband on anything so we will see how it goes!  I think I am going to take the blue material that is left, and make Elijah a matching tie or bow tie onesie so they match.  Then maybe a skirt for me.... Just thinking out loud sorry.  Ok, onto the pattern.

Fabric strips for ruffles: 2.5" wide, 27" long

Fabric for base of the skirt: 18" wide, 9"long
Elastic 1-4" less than waist of the skirt
Thread and Sewing Machine

First cut out the Fabric for the width of the skirt and length.  I do not have a baby to measure this on so I had to kind of guess.  I used a newborn pant waist and a 3 mo dress and put it somewhere in the middle(hopefully it will fit).  You can adjust the sizes of this to fit any little girl in your life.  Just measure their waist and add some space for seam allowance and go from there.  Now hem up what will be the bottom of this rectangle.  That way you have a nice smooth bottom edge of your fabric with no loose ends to worry about.

Last sew the two ends together so that you get a circle which will be the base for your skirt.  You will then pin everything onto this one piece.  So it should be 17.5" around and about 8.5" in length just so you have an idea.

For the ruffles you will need them to be 1.5x the width of the skirt so you have room to gather as needed.  Hem the bottom of the ruffle.  Then you are going to do a gather stitch for the ruffle.

To do this you are going to set your sewing maching to the greatest stitch length (mine is 4) on just a straight stitch, also make the tension less.  Sew in a straight line.  Pull on the bottom thread(bobbin one) so that the fabric will gather, don't pull too hard as you don't want to break the thread.   You will need to pull on some of the fabric as well to help it along, just remember nothing too hard.  I cheat with the gather stitch and I only do one instead of two-it is quicker that way!

Pin into place and sew onto the fabric, I like to start at the bottom so I can see where I need to go. Easier for my brain I guess.

Add the next ruffle 1.25 inches up from that one, continue for the next 3 ruffles.

We are going to use the rest for the waistband and hemming!-This gives us a lot of room but I wanted a lot in case I messed up so you could probably cut like 2 inches off the top if you wanted, especially if you have done elastic waistbands before!

Now it is time to tackle the waistband. I'm new at this so I hope I explain this well.

First I sewed the top 1/2" down so it looked hemmed, just to give it a clean look no matter what happened! That is the easy part.  Next, we are going to fold the fabric over top of the raw edges so that we hide it.  I did this in an accordian style.  So the right sides of the fabric were together, but it still came out with the right side up. (I hope that makes sense, there is a picture below)

Inside view!

Outside view!








Sew the edge by the ruffles to cover up the top of the gathering.

Once it is all sewn, you are now going to insert the elastic waistband. Make sure when you cut the elastic that it is 2" shorter than the fabric.  It will make it bunch up more.

 Make sure when you put the elastic in that you pull it really tight and sew it up close to the elastic so it stays stretched. I would pull it tight, pin it in place, sew up to the pin.  Pull it again and pin it.  I repeated this until the elastic was all sewn in.

Sew the top part down so that it is all clean.  I did a zig zag stitch on the top just for extra flair.  It looked really nice in the end. The inside should look like below. You are now done! Not too hard right??

Storage Boxes

I was needing something to put all of Eli's toys in since they seem to have taken over the living room.

So I pulled out an old diaper box (I was trying to think of something creative to do with them), and got to work.  I cut off the top pieces so that it would stay open.

I then spray painted 3 of the sides blue.

Then because of my new found love with chalkboard paint, I painted the front of the box with that!  Yeah, now I can write toys on it. 

I'm so very excited to have somewhere to put all his toys instead of just scattered all across the floor! Greg is too, as the clutter I think gets on his nerves more than mine. Below is what the room looked like before!

It sits so nicely on the bookshelf and now it is a bookshelf of everything Eli instead of just some random stuff!

Much better don't you think??
Now I just need to find my chalk so I can write on the box.  You have to wait for 24 hrs before you can write on the surface, so maybe tomorrow I will try and find the chalk!