Book Pockets

 My girls LOVE to take things to bed with them and needed an option for keeping things close but not under them while they were trying to sleep. I found this tutorial for book pockets and thought they would be perfect. I however altered the pattern just a bit. Instead of having them go all the way across the bed under the pillow I decided to use less fabric and have them go under the mattress. With them on top of the mattress I could just see them getting carried around the house and me constantly having to pick them up and put them back where they go. This way seemed much simpler.

I used flannel because it was what I had on hand and wanted to use up.  I cut  a strip (31in by 11 in) of my base light purple fabric, a 8x8in square of my light pink accent fabric, and a 5x5in monogram for each girl.  Here you can see it all cut and laid out. As you can see I incorrectly cut my "H" out. I had to recut it so that my flowers were going up and down not sideways!

 Then I started sewing.I first added my hems to my long light purple fabric. Then I used a zig zag stitch around the letters sewing them to the pink 8x8 square. Once that was done I centered the pink 8x8 square with letter on to the purple fabric (about 1 in down from the hem and centered between the sides. Using a zig  zag stitch around three sides (leaving the top open for a second pocket) I attached the pink pocket to the light purple. Once that was done I flipped the fabric over, right sides together, and stitched up the sides of the main pocket. You should in the end have a 10in deep decorative pocket and a 10in length of fabric acting like a "tail" behind the pocket. The "tail" will be slipped between the mattress and the box springs to suspend the pocket from the bed. If the pocket wants to slip out from between the mattress and the box springs because of the weight of the items in the pocket you can pin it into place under the mattress.

Book pockets done! Now on to my next project!

Homemade Christmas. The list!

This is our second "Homemade Christmas" and I am very excited to be starting on making the gifts for our children and family members. Last year there was a real learning curve for me. Having never done anything like it before and being massively pregnant with baby #6 I was in a bit over my head. This year however I am ready to go! I have also been very blessed this year to be able to find several things for my children for free. My son for example will be getting a little people farm with all the animals (free!) and a massive train set with tracks (free!) just to name a few.

Our list for our children:

9yr old daughter:

• Book pocket
• Flannel night gown
• Book marks
• Felt and ribbon hair clips

7yr old daughter:

• Book Pocket
• Flannel nightgown
• Book marks 
• Felt and ribbon hair clips

3 yr old twin daughters:

• Book pockets
• Flannel nightgowns
• Tutu's
• Felt and ribbon hair clips
• Baby doll pillow and blanket 
• Matching nightgown for baby dolls
• Crocheted owl families

2yr old son:

• PVC pipe water maze bath toy
• Flannel pj's 
• Felt car carrier
• Felt "race track"

10mth old daughter:

• Crocheted owl family
• Flannel nightgown
• Crocheted baby hat and mittens
• Apron bibs

We also have a list of things we will be making for family members, those however I am going to hold off on mentioning at the moment since I don't want to ruin the surprise if they read my blog.  I will update you with those items after they are received however :)

Our busy fall.

Wow I really seems like quite the slacker these days don't I? I took some time off of blogging this fall to help get my family situated into our new "normal". Things around here have been a whirlwind of activity it seems. I am just now 3 months later starting to feel like I am getting my footing again.

Lets see...

In August we went on a month long roadtrip to visit family. It was an amazing time but I am sure you understand that it was very taxing. Our kids did amazing considering the amount of time we spent driving and loved getting to see family members that they hadn't seen in months or in some cases years!  We spent lots of time on the water boating, fishing and swimming. As you can tell my little ones loved it!

After arriving back home in September we started the process of getting help for our 2 yr old son. He is still in the middle of the diagnosis process (don't get me started on how hard that is to get done!) but it looks like he is autistic. As I have mentioned before we have an autistic daughter as well. Our son however presents in a totally different manner. He can be quite the handful when he wants to be. In September we started his therapy routine which includes 2 hours of behavioral therapy and 1 hour of occupational therapy a week.  We just had a review done and will actually be upping him to 3 hours of behavioral therapy very soon. The therapy takes up our entire mornings these days and keeps us very busy. Little man needs tons of sensory input we are finding so we are adjusting our entire lives around his needs. It has taken me several months to figure out how to make this work and still keep the family going. More about this to come later.

In October things started to lighten up here and get a bit easier. Our son started to become more verbal and the therapy was starting to show in his daily behavior. We took advantage of the breathing room to do some fun stuff together as a family. Starting with some Halloween decorating, our new favorite thing to do is decorate our door for each different month.

It is now November. Where does the time go?! We are looking forward to Thanksgiving and have decorated our door for this month.

I am working on our second "Homemade Christmas" this year (more about that to come later as well) and keeping quite busy with the little ones. Our youngest has started to get more mobile now that she is 10 mths old (seriously where does the time go?!).

I hope you all have had an amazing fall and I look forward to getting to post more often now that things are slowing down here for us!

No new stuff challenge: Third week of July

How is it already the third week of July? This year has gone by so quickly!

This week has been another whirlwind over here at our house.

Lets see....This week we cleaned out the rest of our junk that didn't sell at the yard sale and dropped it off for charity. I have been working on cleaning out and organizing my "projects to do" box (how did it get SO full?!). I worked on catching our budgeting software up to date (I strongly dislike that chore), and getting myself back on my weight loss program. Also this week I was finally able to get my laptop fixed!  My two year old autistic son threw it last March and it refused to turn on after that trauma. I had put off getting it fixed since I was sure it would be terribly expensive. Turns out it just needed a $70 repair.

This week makes 20 weeks on this challenge. I am going to be honest. I am tired of it. I am tried of thinking about it and finding ways around buying new things. As of next week we will be on a month long road trip with all 6 kids. As you can imagine that is not a conducive environment for our "no new stuff challenge". This will be our first vacation in a very very long time...so long our youngest 4 children have never been on one! This weekend I plan to go to the Dollar Store and the BX and get all set up with our organization gear and new toys/games for our many many hours on the road.   As soon as we get back into town we will be preparing for a move to a new "adaptive house" so our oldest daughter (who is special needs) can have the resources she needs.

 At this moment I have decided to suspend the "no new stuff" challenge. Hopefully once our lives are settled down in October we can get back to the challenge.

Thank you all for your support over the last 20 weeks! We will be sure to keep in touch over the next very busy two months!  

No New Stuff Challenge: Second week of July

We are continuing with our "we need to get rid of all our junk so we can move" theme this week.

We finally got all of our junk out of the attic and organized, our bedroom closets are all cleaned out and decluttered (58 items of clothing out of my closet alone :blush: ), and things around here are looking much better.

Hubby supervised the yard sale this morning and we were able to make a whole $54 off of all our junk. Guess it is better than a kick to the head! I know a local Airmen's attic that is going to be getting a BIG donation on Monday morning. I  will get a lot of joy out of thinking about all the lives we will bless with our donations.....and all the joy I will get out of being able to walk a straight line through my bedroom!

This week we are also planning and preparing for our month long vacation next month. The logistics of moving 8 people through so many states is staggering. I will be sure to post about our preparing and packing for sure. In the mean time I did some shopping this week for the kids to make sure they had what the needed.

My oldest two daughters both got new sandals while my twins got new sippy cups *what is it with sippy cups? I always end up with either a top or a bottom missing from each cup*.

I started the process by looking on Amazon at new shoes and sippy cups. I will admit I felt weak, I was tired and just wanted to get the stuff ordered and be done with it. However the total shocked some sense into me. I am sorry but I am not paying $80 for two pairs of sandals and some sippy cups. It just isn't happening I don't care how tired I am.

So off I went to ebay. I found everything I needed for $42.75 with shipping charges. My oldest daughter now wears a women's sized shoe and those suckers are not cheap even used. I did save about 50% so that makes me happy.

Total I would have spent this week: $80
Total actually spent: $42.75

No New Stuff Challenge: First week of July

I am so far behind in blogging. Please bare with me!

Things around our house have gotten very busy very suddenly. First up we are in the process of preparing for a future move. Apparently when you have 6 kids moving to a new house becomes a major project....who woulda thunk it?

First on our list of things to do for the move is to get all the paperwork with base housing taken care of. Since our oldest daughter has special needs we can not just move to just any old house. We have to have a letter from her neurologist specifying they type of house we can live in. Specifically we need an "adaptive house". You would think this part would be easy to take care of. No. I have been leaving messages all week and no response. I also happen to need a copy of my daughters blood work showing that her medication is making her deficient in Vitamin D so that I can start her on a supplement, no go on that one either. Mommy is about to start getting crabby with these people.

Second on our list of things to do is to clean out all the junk that is still packed from our last move....2 years ago! I am sorry but if it is still packed it needs to go. So we have spent the whole last week up in the attic pulling everything out and getting it all organized for a yard sale next week. Luckily my daughter didn't mind if we mounded the junk up in her room. I was so shocked by the amount of STUFF we have that we don't need or even want. I found boxes up there where everything in them was trash. Why in the world did we move a box of empty cd cases halfway around the world? See this is what happens when you pay movers to pack your junk instead of doing it yourself. Those things never would have made it into a box if I had been packing the boxes.

Not surprising since I have spent the whole week getting rid of things that I have not done any shopping this week. Outside of food we have been in a spending freeze.

Total we would have spent this week: $0
Total spent this week: $0

No new stuff challenge: Fourth week of June

This has been a busy busy week here!

Lets see....

The week started with my husband having minor surgery. Which turned out to be not so minor. He is having lots of complications and is still down for the count. With him out of commission the care of the house and the children has fallen all on me. Being the only adult capable of working around the house is exhausting. I am however thankful to have a house and children to care for!

Also this week my father came into town for a visit. Grandpa is one fun guy to be sure! We spent each day at either the playground or the pool. My children are totally spoiled now and think we need to go to the playground every single day now. It wouldn't be hard to do except that it has stormed every single day since my dad left.

I finally made an appointment and took my son in for his 2 year well baby appointment this week. I knew going in that the doctor was going to mention the dreaded "A" word, autism. Sure enough we left with referrals for a developmental pediatrician, early intervention, and hearing tests. We have walked this path before with our oldest daughter,  but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. He is such a bright little man, he just has little to no verbal skills and reacts VERY strongly to new situations and new people. The pediatrician and I are both sure he falls somewhere on the autism spectrum. Only time will tell where.  More about this to come later.

With all this going on I am sure it doesn't surprise you that I have not done any shopping this week. I was tempted while at the local farmers market with my dad. I mean there were socks made out of alpaca wool! I held strong though and resisted.

I can honestly say that this is one week that I am VERY glad is over!

Total I would have spent this week: $30
Total actually spent: $0