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Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The Perfect Bow

I have to give credit to my partner in crime from Creating Violet Skies, Miss Amy. She was the one that showed this to me, and seriously it changed my crafting!
This is the way to make the perfect bow! 

First start out with five strips of ribbon that are about the same size. You are going to be folding three of them in half, so make them double the size that you want your bow to be. You will also need an extra little piece to go around the middle of the bow. 

With three of them, make a circle and glue the ends together. The pinch the direct center and glue it down. 


So you will have three loops and two longer pieces and your small little piece. With my three loops, I did two of them with the glossy side out, and one loop with the matte side out just to add more texture with the bow. 


Take two loops and make a slight cross and glue them together in the middle. I glued together the two glossy ones and had the matte one be in the middle. 


Then take the third one (my matte one), and glue down the centers so that it goes exactly across. 


Take the small piece and fold it around to make the center of the bow. 


On the back of the bow, glue the two remaining pieces, in a slight cross so that they don't hang right over each other. 



You can cut the bottom of the hanging ribbon so that they have an angled end. 
I used these bows on my March garland. Using this method, bows always turn out just perfect!




The thicker the ribbon, the better the bow turns out. I love the wired ribbon because you can really shape it to be however you want. With this wired red ribbon, I pinched the center of the bow and glued it before I put the small center piece on it so that I could get the bow to bend a little more. 


My friend Amy from Creating Violet Skies and I, used this method for our Valentines wreath that we made. Doesn't it turn out just perfectly?


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What I've Learned in 5 Months


Yesterday was Weston's 5 month birthday. Five months?! How did that even happen?

I have to warn you now that this is major baby overload... If you aren't a fan of babies... I would stop reading here... :) 

 Seriously it felt like a blink of an eye. One minute I was big huge pregnant and sleeping an average of an hour a night... and BAM! The nurse is handing me a baby boy. So much has happened in five months. I have learned more than I ever thought possible to learn in just a few short months.

First of all, I learned the importance of SLEEP. Sleeping pretty much stopped the second that I got pregnant. After many, many months of no sleep, I can tell you that sleeping well can change your life! In fact, I got more sleep with a newborn than I did when I was pregnant. At least I was prepared for the little guy to come, right? I learned that it's nearly impossible to "sleep when your baby sleeps" as everyone tells you to do. When the baby sleeps is when I get laundry done, dinner prepared, vacuuming finished. On the weekends Steven is there to help, but during the week it's me. Sleeping when the baby sleeps sounds great, but let me tell you... It really just wasn't possible. I also learned all the things that you can still do on no sleep. Feeding a baby 10 times a night? Sounds impossible until you have a newborn. I don't know how, but suddenly your body just snaps into motion.


That leads to my next lesson... It's incredible all the times where nature takes over and somehow your body just knows what to do. There were so many times, especially when Weston was a newborn, that Steven would say, "How did you know to do that?" And honestly I didn't. But if you listen to your body and listen to the baby, freaky things happen. You were made this way for a reason. 


One of my favorite lessons I have learned is that life in the slow lane can be so enjoyable. I have always been a busy body. Even ask my mom. She will tell you stories of me being teeny tiny and not just sitting and watching a movie. I always had to be doing two things at once. I have often had more than one job and often school as well. I think that I felt like if I wasn't making the most of every minute of every day, I was going to miss out on something. I didn't want to waste one second. Work hard, play hard, right? 

I have been lucky enough to be at home with my baby. Several people have said that I was going to get so bored, and I could see why they would think that. But let me tell you, there is not one bit of boredom in my house. It's so nice to be able to sleep in until 8 and be able to casually eat breakfast with my little side kick. It was always rush, rush, rush before and now I get to lay on the blanket with him and just hang out. I am still not the type to just sit and watch tv, but with a baby that's not really an option anyway. Just because I am not rushing around doesn't mean I am missing out. I have loved my long, easy days. In fact, sometimes I wish they were even slower. There's nothing more exciting or worth my time than watching a baby grow and smile. 



I have learned that it's crazy to see your traits in someone else. When Weston was born, he was a spitting image of Steven. Over time he has grown and changed, and now he looks like me. And not only does he physically resemble myself, but he also is a lot like me emotionally. He gets nervous in crowds, just like me. He is so much a homebody, just like me. And boy is he shy, just like me. He has "his people". With his people he is the smiliest, happiest boy. And when he is with people that he doesn't see a lot, he gets visible nervous and upset. I have also learned that people take this personally, as if the baby is choosing not to like you. He's 5 months people.. he can't decide whether he likes you. All he knows is that you aren't a face that he sees often. He loves his grandparents and aunts and a handful of others, otherwise.. STRANGER DANGER ALERT. Hopefully he grows out of it faster than I did! :)



I have learned that buying baby clothes is WAY more fun than buying me clothes! How can you deny a bear sweater? Seriously people!




I have learned how amazing it is to see someone you love hold your baby. It's like two of your favorite worlds colliding into one. It's so exciting to see your parents become grandparents and see your sisters become aunts. There is nothing more attractive in the world than your husband holding your baby. Heart melting every single time. 


I have learned the meaning of fear. Weston has tubes put in his ears in January. Ear tubes are really no big deal. It's seriously a 5 minute deal. But when you are in Primary Children's and your baby has to go under anesthesia, suddenly it feels like a big deal. In the waiting room with us was a family who had a one year old going into surgery at the same time. The surgeon came in and handed them a phone and said that he would be calling them once an hour to tell them how it was going. Primary Children's helps you realize how scary it can be to love someone so much and it puts everything into perspective. 



I have learned that you have to bring 10,000 things wherever you go, just in case. Car seat, stroller, diapers, wipes, change of clothes for baby, change of clothes for mom, bottles, formula, binkies, blankies, burp cloths, another change of clothes... it never ends! But I also learned that EVERYTHING is more fun with a baby. We went to see the ice castles for my birthday. And yes, we had to load so many things and we couldn't stay as long, but it was so exciting being there with him. He was only 3 1/2 months old, but his eyes were wide open staring up at all the ice and watching him deal with being in the giant coat outfit was hysterical. And don't even get me started on how magical Christmas was!


I also learned a lot about friends. Everyone always says that you learn who your real friends are in life changing circumstances; marriage, babies, sicknesses, moving, etc. Boy, is this true. We had some friends who really showed us who they really are. They were there at the hospital, they brought dinner to us the next couple weeks, they helped me clean and give the baby baths. And more than that, they knew when we were too exhausted to hang out and they called the night over before we even had to ask them. One night, I told my friend that I was just too tired and all I wanted to do was lay in bed. So you know what we did? We laid in bed and watched Netflix with the baby while the boys were out fishing. I never had to entertain them and they knew what we needed before we did. We have some great friends. 



I have learned that all babies are so different, and everyone has an opinion on how you should be raising your baby. It's great that everyone is willing to give advice because you can try all different things to see what works for you. I did learn that when I stopped listening to everyone's advice and just focused on what works for us, life got SO much easier. I tried so hard to do the schedule thing, but it just doesn't work for us. Life got so much easier when I just let him sleep when he is tired and I feed him when he is hungry. Suddenly when I stopped reading all those books and trying all the "secrets" he started sleeping through the nights. It's great that they have books out there, but they just don't fit who we are. 



I have learned that babies really do take all of your money. And there's nothing that is more worth it. 



 I learned that it is not fun to try new foods, but it is absolutely hysterical watching someone else try new foods!



I learned that baby smiles and giggles can heal almost any type of hurt going on. 




                                   One Month                                                                         Two Months


Three Months


                                  Four Months                                                                       Five Months



And last but not least, I learned that just when you think that there's no way you have room in your heart to love anymore than you already do, something happens and boom! Somehow your heart suddenly grows 10 fold. 
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Saturday, March 8, 2014

Happiness Project

This is really really exciting guys... It could be so much fun! It started with my friend Cortnee. (First, I would like to mention something that you are all thinking... No I don't exclusively hang out with people who have the same name as me, but it is definitely a cool name! :) ) I met Cortnee at the U while we were working in the preschool together. I don't know how many of you have majored in education, but it can be quite challenging. Cortnee was also about a month or two away from having her baby girl so I know that she was extra tired. BUT... You have never met someone more happy or more positive in your whole life! She came every day with a big smile on her face ready for the challenges of school. She has a blog which is pretty much the cutest thing.

She posted something a week or so ago called The Happiness Project. You need to read her post about it! It's incredible. The whole goal is to get tons of videos of people dancing and putting it to the song "Happy" by the BYU Vocal Point just to make people smile and to show them that the world isn't so bad after all. I loved this. So Steven and I made a dancing video we are going to send to her but I decided to make one as well! What if we got all sorts of blogs to do it? Can you imagine how many people we could get to smile?

There is one major thing I have learned about happiness in my 24 years. It's that EVERYONE has problems, some people just talk about them and some people don't. So what makes the difference if we all have our problems? Some people choose to live in their problems and some people choose happiness. Happiness is a choice! So choose it!!

What if our goal every day was to make at least one person smile? Can you imagine how much happier the world would be? I hope this dancing video makes you smile!


This is a work in progress video that I will be updating each time I get more videos! And I am already promised more, so this should be fun! Keep checking back to see the new version! I want so many people in it that it just flashes faces!







Thanks Cortnee for such a happy idea! :)

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