WestCoastCrafty

Stuck

2014-02-20T21:50:00.001-08:00

Just finished watching the movie Stuck in Love. In the first scene that Kristen Bell shows up I can't stop thinking to myself “Princess Anna of Arindelle what are you doing?! Get off of Greg Kinnear!"

Disney Movie Lover Problems!

But really I actually really liked the movie and it has inspired me. It's a family of writers and it has me thinking maybe, maybe I can be a writer too!

I think I need to just write just for the sake of writing. That's how I'll start, just write to write, not to be read because I think that's what's stopping me. I have this fear or embarrassment that someone will actually read what I write and then they'll somehow know everything about me, every deep dark secret, every skeleton will be on display.

That is scary.

So writing for a tiny bit there was so scary to me that I hated it, it became my enemy, and I've decided that I need to get to know my enemy. “In that moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. - A.E. Wiggins" - Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game.

Maybe I'm not scared to write this because I don't think anyone will read it. Or maybe I'm freaked out of my mind. Either way, more to come! Dun dun duuunnn! (Say it out loud with your hands playing the air piano.)

P.S. Air piano is cooler than air guitar.

Negative Space Painting with Kids

2014-01-15T13:44:00.000-08:00

Auntie Cece was babysitting the munchkins this summer and creative genius that she is, she did an art project with them.

She brought over a plain canvas for each of them and placed an M in the center of each canvas with painters tape.

She then gave the kids paint and let them have at it.

After they were finished painting she let the paintings dry then removed the painters tape. Voila! Beautiful negative space paintings done by toddlers.

My angels are so sweet and decided that they had painted their paintings for eachother. They switched painting to have them displayed in eachothers room.

Quotes...

2014-01-10T01:02:00.001-08:00

A few quote pics that I ran across recently that just struck a cord in me.

-Be picky with who you invest your time in, wasted time is worse than wasted money.

-Next time when you think of Beautiful things, don't forget to count yourself in.

-Be gentle with yourself, you're doing the best you can.

-Never underestimate the pain of a person, because in all honesty, everyone is struggling. Some people are better at hiding it than others.

-Respect people who find time for you in their busy schedule... But love people who never look at their schedule when you need them.

-Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.

-Sometimes people try to expose what's wrong with you, because they can't handle what's right about you.

-Always pray to have eyes that see the best in people, a heart that forgives the bad, and a sould that never loses faith God.

-A smart person knows what to say, a wise person knows weather on not to say it.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, sometimes a a picture of words is worth a thousand thoughts. Introspection is never a bad thing. Think before you act, talk, or make assumptions. Ooo that just made me think of another great quote.

Gobble Gobble

2013-11-11T23:30:00.000-08:00

My older sister is a big wig at a swim school and she decided to make thanksgiving decorations for around the swimming pool with the help of my little sister. They're so crafty! Here's how they did it.

Materials needed:

Tacky glue or felt glue

A variety of colors of felt

Directions:

Big sister free hand cut all of it. Don't worry too much about perfect cutting. All turkeys are different. Start with cutting out the body, just a general turkey shape in a dark brown felt.

Next cut out the head and neck in a tan felt.

Position the neck on the body and fold back where it overlaps. Apply the glue to the neck where it overlaps. This helps you glue just the felt and not the table.

Cut out the beak and glue it on in a similar manner.

Then cut out the eyes in white felt and eye pupils out of black felt and glue on.

She then cut out a snorkel mask out of blue and the top out of green felt (it is a swim school after all). Glue the pieces on.

Cut a waddle out of red and glue it under the neck.

Cut out two crescents to form the shape of the wing.

Next cut out tail feathers in a variety of colors.

Make a line of glue along the edge of one feather and place another on top of the glue line.

Continue until you have completed the tail and glue on the back of the body.

Then cut out the legs and glue on.

And you're done!

They made 5 of these and voila! Swimming turkeys!

You can decorate these turkeys in any manner you like. You could put a pilgrim hat on them or any theme that works for you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for my wonderfully creative sisters and my whole family. What are you thankful for?

Monsters University Costumes

2013-10-29T14:48:00.000-07:00

My little sister is incredibly talented, so are my big sister and myself, but lil sis thought up and carried out the idea to create custom stencils for our Monsters University costumes. Check out these great costumes that were put together with simple shirts and Greek letters stenciled on and some fancy headgear made with dollar store supplies.

My girls and I are sorority sisters from the sorority PNK, Python Nu Kappa.

I couldn't find plain pink shirts on short notice so I dyed some white shirts pink. My lil sis made the stencils and we painted the letters on together. It was a simple process. I wish I had done step by step pictures. I think I'll have to revisit that craft again. I sewed the skirts and leg warmers and paired it with pink leggings.

My dad was in the fraternity OK, Oozma Kappa.

I really wanted him to grow out his mustache and be Don Carlton, but apparently mustaches don't grow in overnight!

Here are my sisters! Big sis, on the left, isn't in a sorority, but she is clearly a college student at MU! Lil sis, in the center, is in HSS, Etta Hiss Hiss. She has pink and purple streaks in her hair and pink and purple dots all over her.

My husband is definitely not the fraternity type of guy, but he does attend MU and is wearing the shirt to prove it. He is modeling another of lil sis's creations. I wish I had a better picture of him wearing it. It says MU. I think I'll just make him wear it one day and snap his picture. ;)

The below picture could totally be in one of those "When you see it..." feeds. LOL

AJ is part of ROR fraternity, Roar Omega Roar.

And last but not least is my mom!

She was in the sorority EEK, Slumga Slugma Kappa.

Thank you so much Chantelle for all your help. Everything was amazing!

I love my family!

Monsters University Party

2013-10-27T23:18:00.000-07:00

I am so proud of all the decoration and prep I did for my baby girl's second birthday I just had to share it with you all. It was a combination of homemade and store bought.

My sisters and my mom helped out a lot and made my vision of a Monsters University Party come true.

The tissue paper pom poms were made by my mom from left over tissue paper from birthday presents and the piñata I made. See the post about how I made the Sully inspired pinata here.

My sister and I made the Pumpkin Mike Wazowski. See the post about it here. I also painted another pumpkin pink to make the display a little girlier.

The Monsters Inc M doubled as Monsters themed and an M for My daughters name! This was so simple and my sister made it out of plain poster board. It was the perfect decor for the front door.

We had a costume party and I decided that my girls and I would be Sorority Sisters from the sorority PNK.

I sewed the skirts and boots. I couldn't find plain pink shirts on short notice so I dyed white shirts pink and my sister made stencils for the Greek letters that we painted on with fabric paint. I added pink leggings to the outfit and painted our faces with the help of my older sister and voila! Python Nu Kappa sorority sisters!

My little sister made stencils for most of the family so we could all be part of a sorority or fraternity at Monsters University. Stay tuned for a post featuring all her amazing creations!

I even started the custom Monsters University theme from the start with the invitation. I created it all by myself. If you can't tell I'm a tiny bit proud of myself.

Pumpkin Mike Wazowski

2013-10-27T00:28:00.002-07:00

Here is another DIY piece of Monsters University decor that tied the theme together with Halloween. My little sister and I made Mike Wazowski out of a pumpkin.

For those of you that don't know Mike Wazowski is the little one eyed green guy that starred in Monsters Inc and Monsters University along with Sully the inspiration for my DIY piñata. You can find the post with detailed instructions here.

I started with yet another fake pumpkin that we purchased last year after the holiday season.

I then spray painted it with some left over spray paint that a friend had leftover from a previous project. I love free craft supplies! There was just the perfect amount to finish covering the whole pumpkin.

My sister then painted the face on the pumpkin.

A simple and easy addition to our Monsters University Party decor. It is also a great addition to our Halloween decorations that we can use again and again every year.

My adventure in party planning

2013-10-25T22:29:00.000-07:00

This month I took on the rather daunting job of planning and hosting my daughter's second birthday! I can't believe my baby is two! I tried to keep things simple, but I got a little bit away from myself. During a bout of pinning I came across a pin of how to make your own piñata and thought "that doesn't look that hard." So I decided then and there I would make the piñata for my daughter's party. Truth be told it was very easy just very time consuming. Here are step by step instructions for how I did it.

Here is the finished product!

The theme was Monsters University and costumes were encouraged. I love that my daughter's birthday is in October and a costume party seemed perfectly logical! I also created both of my daughters and my costume with some help from my sisters, but that is for a later post. This piñata was inspired Sully of Monsters Inc and Monsters University. He is the big blue and purple monster.

Step one:

Find a cardboard box as big as you want the piñata to be.

Step two:

Trace the shape of the piñata on one side. I chose to do the number 2 because it was my daughter's 2nd birthday.

Step three:

Cut through both sides of the box to create two cut outs of the shape of the piñata.

Step four:

Cut several strips of cardboard that are the same width and begin taping them to one side of the piñata to create a three dimensional shape.

Step five:

Continue taping the inside, but don't do the entire shape or you won't be able to tape the inside for the back side of the piñata.

Step six:

Begin taping the back of the piñata to the strips that are attached to the front of the piñata.

Step seven:

Continue taping strips of cardboard all around the remainder of the shape until completed. Don't forget to leave an opening to fill the piñata with candy.

Step eight:

Paint the entire piñata the base color. I used spray paint to make it a quick job.

Step nine:

Begin cutting strips of tissue paper and cutting fringe into the strips and glueing to the piñata.

Since I was modeling this piñata after Sully of Monsters Inc. and Monsters University it was blue with lavender spots. I cut lavender paper ovals and glued lavender tissue paper fringe to them and glued it to the piñata.

Keep on covering the entire piñata with tissue paper fringe until completely covered.

Step ten:

Fill with candy. Don't get too emotionally attached since the point of the piñata is to beat it to a pulp to get to the candy. Enjoy!

No Carve Pumpkin

2013-10-16T12:40:00.000-07:00

Hello there! Guest blogger here! My name is Chantelle. I am Antoinette's little sister. We are in the process of creating a sister blog but in the mean time I had something that I wanted to share right away since it is the season for carving pumpkins!

This post is a work in process, but we wanted to give you all a sneak peek so you can get your pumpkin decorating on! This is a pumpkin decorated with gold thumb tacks.

Here's what you need:

Thumbtacks. Purchased from the 99 cent only store.

A pumpkin. This is a fake one we got on sale last year after the holiday season.

Printed out random font monogram

Tip: if you don't have carbon transfer paper or don't want to pay for it just shade with a pencil on the back side on the lines u are going to trace.

Tape it onto ur pumpkin and trace the letter. It doesn't have to be perfect just there as a kind of guide

Here you can see a light pencil outline.

Begin sticking in the thumbtacks.

Wasn't sure what my intention was I just got started pressing the thumbtacks into the foam and found that it looked pretty cool when they were overlapping just a bit like scales

Just kind of work ur way around filling in the letter and if u don't like the way the thumb tacks are laying on top of each other it's easy enough to move them around

Try to cover up ur old holes as much as possible, but they are really so tiny you can't even notice them. However, it may be because I'm using a black pumpkin, but still u can't even tell. If you're using a painted pumpkin then u can just touch it up with the same color paint

Finished. A really fast and easy project. The whole process took about only 30 minutes.

Some variations could be made using different colored pumpkins. You could also try spray painting the heads of the tacks different colors.

If you decide to do this easy project I would love to see your pumpkins. Email them to antoinetterbrown@gmail.com and I might feature them in this post!

Happy crafting!

Shutterfly my favorite photo site and app

2013-10-04T08:23:00.001-07:00

I got this wonderful personalized card free from Shutterfly by being subscribed to their emails. They always have great free deals. My favorite is the free 101 4x7 photo prints. You pay for shipping, but I have the Shutterfly app on my phone and iPad so it makes printing all my pictures so convenient and easy! I like to keep my free cards generic so that I can use them for anyone. Love the deals that they have on photobooks and custom photo projects!

5x7 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Reading is what I do!

2013-09-26T07:40:00.001-07:00

So I just finished this book and decided to write a review of it. Since the goal of my blog is to get me writing more I figured I'd share it with you all.

Check out this book on Goodreads: The Great Bedroom War (Return to Redemption, #2) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15758012-the-great-bedroom-war

"I think this book is a great example of chick lit. It has just the right amounts of romance, conflict and sex. It's not explicit like some romance novels are, but it has just enough sex to keep it interesting.

It can be confusing who's who at times, but I just have to stop for a fraction of a second and think wait who's Haley again and then it clicks. I have been thinking of creating a little family tree of sorts to remind myself who's who in the town of Redemption. Kind of like a residence listing with a short description of who they are. So-n-so is so-n-so's sister who passed, parents are... and is tutoring/dating so-n-so. So-n-so is the HS guidance counselor. Wish me luck in finding time to do that!

I have really fallen in love with this town of Redemption. Laurie Kellogg's intricate and involved storylines make it realistic. It's never just one bad thing that happens at a time in real life and Kellogg doesn't shield us from the drama of the "real life" of Redemption. I like how she alludes to a past history and just gives us a taste so I'm eager to keep reading and find out just what did happen! The flashbacks don't take away from the story they are like puzzle pieces being fit into the big picture.

All in all, a good quick read! I'm glad I got this as a free download and I'm happy I took the time to borrow the first book in The Road to Redemption series A Little Bit of Deja Vu, also a good quick read. Now it's on to The Parent Pact."

Water

2013-09-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

I am trying desperately to increase my water intake and I have found the solution! Flavor infused water. Don't get me wrong I like plain water. I could drink it out of the tap, I'm not picky. I just have a hard time actually grabbing a cup filling it and drinking it. So I decided to make infused water to motivate me to drink. I got the idea to make naturally infused water on a recent trip to Trader Joe's. By their sample station they had a big hug filled with orange and strawberry slices. I, of course, sampled it. It had a light orange flavor with a hint of strawberry aftertaste. So I ran back over to the fruit and grabbed an orange, I had just gotten strawberries from the farmer's market. The secret to making it look pretty when making fruit infused water is ice! Loads and loads of ice. In hindsight, I would have filled the whole container with ice.

Step one: Cut up orange and strawberries. At this point I realized I didn't have enough orange so I cut up a lemon as well.

Step two: Put a layer of ice in your container depending on the height of your container. I put about two inches because I used a big container.

Step three: Add a layer of sliced strawberries around the outside of the container creating a circle with the slices flat against the glass, to make it pretty. :)

Step four: Add more ice behind the layer of strawberries, just about an inch of ice.

Step five: Add a layer of oranges or lemons in the same manner as step three, to make it pretty. I alternated lemons and oranges to give a little extra visual appeal.

Step six: Add more ice to the top of the orange or lemon slices.

Step seven: Repeat steps 3-6 if you want to. I stopped here.

Step eight: Fill the rest of the container with ice and then fill in with water.

Step nine: Drink and enjoy!

I think the number one motivating factor to drink it all, for me, is to drink it all before the fruit goes bad. It's working! I drank half of the container which I believe is almost 2 gallons!

10%

2012-11-02T22:53:00.001-07:00

It feels really good to say that 10% of my body weight is gone! And it's never coming back! I mean never! You might say, but wait what if you get pregnant again? Well I know that it is possible to get pregnant and gain only what the baby weighs. I've heard its been done before and as determined as I am to lose this weight I am determined to keep it off! I won't be having another baby for at least another year or more so I know I will lose a lot more weight and maybe even be at my goal weight before I go for another.
I was at the mall last week and decided to get my wedding and engagement rings resized since they are getting loose. I fully intend on losing a lot more and that will be one more motivation to not gain the weight back.

The key chain is a 10 to celebrate my 10% and the clapping hands with a 16 is my stay and succeed award for sticking with WW for 16 weeks

10%! It sounds so crazy it's like I just cut one tenth of myself off. This is 10% since I started back at weight watchers. If we go back to when I first started WW in 2009 I've lost a little over 20%! Then if you count all the way back to my heaviest I've lost 22.5% :-) If you are good at math and go back and read some of my older posts you can figure out what my past and current weights are.
I can't give all the credit to Weight Watchers, last time around, before babies I was using the original power 90. This time I've been working out with Shawn T and doing Insanity and Hip Hop Abs. I'm feeling good about my health and where I'm heading! Another super accomplishment is that I am now at my lightest since college! Woop Woop! Just wanted to give myself a little pat on the back there.

DIY Pumpkin Decorating

2012-10-23T22:40:00.001-07:00

I had some fun with my little sister today decorating pumpkins.

Glam Pumpkin

This pumpkin was fun and easy. These are stickers that have the stones already on them. It was so easy to just line them up and stick them on. I had to adjust them a few times to make sure it was just the way I wanted it, but it took less than 10 minutes.

Our second pumpkin was a different story. We got the idea from tumblr/pinterest. The original pin was deleted.

Here are the pictures of our masterpiece!

Colorful Crayon Pumpkin

We started by putting a bit of glue on the crayons and lining them up in the order we wanted. We placed it on a cardboard box to help with the mess and hit it with a hairdryer. It helped to have the diffuser on the the dryer so it wouldn't blow the crayons straight off of the pumpkin. We did have some blow off still anyways. We also found that we needed more crayons and kept adding more. If I were to do this again I would buy more crayons and have more of the same colors.

All in all I think it was a smashing success and yay these pumpkins can be used year after year. Love it!

A little self pampering

2012-10-21T00:53:00.001-07:00

Tonight I gave myself a little treat! I used my Mary Kay Satin Hands Pampering kit on myself. I love love love the Satin Hands hand softener. It is extra emollient and feels so good. My hands feel so soft and smooth now. Then I used Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish strips. So easy and such a cool effect! They are supposed to last up to 10 days and biggest perk is no dry time. Love it!

Craft insomnia

2012-10-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

I just got some new ribbon and clips! Isn't the pink zebra print super cute! I've made dozens of the bows with the single prong clips and finally got a bunch of the snap clips. I love making bows because I get to craft even when I don't have a lot of time. I'm just gonna make one more and then I'll go to sleep!

Apple cinnamon deliciousness

2012-10-14T21:52:00.002-07:00

Found the recipes on Pinterest. All I can say is yum!

Cinnamon sugar tortilla chips, pie crust cookies, and apple pie dip. All made by me! It was like mini apple pies.

Conspiracy Theories

2012-09-25T01:01:00.000-07:00

I have craft insomnia! I have the urge to learn how to crochet. Originally I woke up for the same reason that most parents of very young children do. One of them woke up and I had to coax them back to sleep. Now I'm awake and not falling back asleep. I blame pinterest, facebook, and youtube. I shouldn't have looked at the computer. They make me want to be crafty and look at all the amazing crafts I should be doing or want to be doing. They are insomnia enablers. I bet they get paid by the companies that make sleep aids or coffee. I bet the coffee companies are behind pinterest. They make you stay up late pinning and repinning and hoping one day you'll have the time or energy to do or make something fabulous that you saw on pinterest causing you to need a pick me up in the morning. I don't personally drink coffee because it has a weird effect on me. It makes me jittery and my heart feels like it's going to explode and I very quickly get sleepy. If it weren't for the heart exploding thing I'd drink some right now to help me get back to sleep. I just can't do caffeine. I'm a green tea kinda girl.

I just painted my nails. I tried to do the ombre nail design and failed horribly. I guess that's what happens when pinterest strikes in the middle of the night and you don't have all the necessary tools. I'm not discouraged, I will try again and succeed. Pictures to come!

All is quiet for now, let's hope it stays this way! Thank you for listening to my crazy insomnia induced rant. Wish me luck!

I'm baaack!

2012-09-23T01:12:00.000-07:00

Well I have decided that I want to get back at this old writing thing. I'm going to start with blogging more again and hopefully when I feel brave enough I'll write a short story then one wondrous day I'll write a novel. So there's been a lot of changes since I last wrote. I had another baby. So now I have two beautiful daughters!

They are a delightful handful! 14 months apart and I wouldn't change it for the world. It has some challenges as you might imagine, for example, I don't get a lot of uninterrupted time to myself, so if some of the things I write ever seem a little disjointed you'll understand why.

Another great development is that I am back on weight watchers. I started up when one of my friends had her baby and roped me into joining again. I am so thankful and glad she did. I started on July 3rd and have lost a total of 16 pounds so far! Whoot Whoot! I'm also on a new exercise routine. As you may have noticed from some of my past posts my husband (then fiance) and I were doing Power 90 and we had wonderful results. I lost a ton of weight right before I got pregnant. I am so close to being back to that weight, just 2 pounds to go! Anyways I'm now doing Insanity! and it is just that, Insanity! I am pouring sweat by the end of every workout, but boy does it feel great.

I just started incorporating walking into my exercise routine as well. My goal is to eventually run a 5k. I got an app, Couch to 5k, that is supposed to help get me there in 8 weeks! I'm hoping by next year at this time I'll be able to run a half marathon. I really don't like running all that much though. I kinda feel like I have to do it because it is the only form of exercise my kids will let me do while they're awake and that's only because they are strapped down and can't move in their stroller. Silly me, one day I tried to do an insanity workout with both of my children awake and in the room. That lasted about 5 minutes, if that! As I was bending over to do a push up or something my oldest jumps on my back after I calmly remove her from my body she does that thing that kids love to do when you are busy. She proceeds to call me a hundred times in a row and I answer her, but that's not good enough I'm not paying enough attention to her and a full blown tantrum ensues. I could be sitting perfectly still on the floor staring at the wall and she'll just be playing by her merry little self, but If I try to do something anything that requires any kid of concentration she needs my attention instantly. My younger daughter is starting to learn this tactic as well so now I'm getting double teamed by toddlers.

Clearly I don't have enough to do because I am also the current President of the Antioch Chapter of the MOMS Club (Mothers Offering Mothers Support) and I recently began selling Mary Kay Skin Care Products and Cosmetics. Everyone deserves to look and feel their best. Here's a link to my personal website www.MaryKay.com/antoinetterbrown Feel free to make a purchase!

I think you all are caught up now... I'm going to bed! Wish me luck!

Terrariums- How to

2011-01-24T11:22:00.000-08:00

Making terrariums is a fun little project that helps you bring a little bit of green into places you normally wouldn't see any. They allow you to bring nature indoors into your home or office. Terrariums are neat little ecosystems, that can be portable. I have made a handfull of terrariums in the past. See my previous posts Terrariums, Another one, and my tumblr for pictures. They're relatively simple to make. The hardest part is probably gathering up all the materials.

Here's what you need:

A glass container with or without a lid (I have used vases, anchor hocking heritage hill jars, and candy containers, but I have seen them in those clear glass flour or pasta containers with the metal snap and fish tanks).

The lid will help keep moisture in and literally create a mini ecosystem, you also will not have to water your terrarium as much.

Gravel (another option is marbles or glass rocks)
Activated Charcoal
Potting Soil
Plants

Some optional items are:

Moss
Decorations

When picking out your plants keep in mind 4 things:

The size of the container that you got
The size the plants will grow to
The amount of water the plants need
- Try to get plants with similar water needs, I like succulents because they don't need a lot of water and if you forget about your terrarium for a long time most of your plants should still be okay
The decor you will be adding to your terrarium
-You don't want to have too big of plants and your tiny decorations get lost in the plants and vice versa, you don't want your decor to overshadow your plants, unless of course you like it like that.

Ok on to the actual creation of the terrarium.

Place the gravel in at least a 1 inch layer in the base of the container (this will give the water a place to drain to).
Layer on top of the gravel a quarter of an inch of activated charcoal ( to help with the water drainage and to keep the soil from seeping into the gravel layer).
At this point I like to take my plants out of the containers they came in and place them where I want them to go in order to make sure that they will fit and I like the way that they look.
Fill the soil in between your plants on top of the charcoal (the amount will vary based on the type of plants you pick and the size of the container, try not to disturb the charcoal and gravel layers).
Water your plants with just a little bit of water to see where the soil sinks down and fill in with more soil.

You are basically done with your terrarium

Add moss around the base of your plants to give it a more wild look or instead of moss you can use some glass stones
Add any decorations you like (I have made some tiny mushrooms to hide in the moss before, it gives it a nice little forest look).

Enjoy!

Domesticity

2011-01-23T14:02:00.000-08:00

Becoming a mom has changed several things about me and how I perceive myself. I never used to think of my self as domestic... it was almost a bad word in my mind I thought of my self as a wild and crazy independent person! But now I see domesticity in a totally different light. Domesticity means literally home or family life. I have a home! and a family! I guess that makes me domestic. Believe me I am no Susie Homemaker, but I have started doing some out of character things. Like cleaning and not just cause we're expecting guests, but just because, although I'm sure I'm still not up to my husband's standards... I started a garden. Well sort of, I bought some herbs, cleared some dirt and put down compost, but haven't planted anything yet and I'm planning to plant vegetables and start composting. I, of course love caring for my daughter and husband. Also I've been cooking. Ok I used to cook, but before they needed to be easy and fast meals. Recently I have made Quiche and Lasagna and Black Bean Soup (with several ingredients, not as easy as it sounds. I swear there was a lot of soaking and cooking and chopping involved). Check out my tumblr for more photos of my yummy adventures! West Coast Crafty Tumblr

Tumblr

2011-01-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

Check out my Tumblr! It is pretty neat and makes for easy posting of super neat stuff!

http://westcoastcrafty.tumblr.com/

Enjoy this great picture of two of my creations, a knit sweater and my daughter, the latter of which is the greatest!

Combo Blog

2010-11-01T19:24:00.000-07:00

I have decided to combine all of my blogs. I've imported them all to this blog so you may notice there are suddenly a lot more posts. I'm hoping this will inspire me to write more and get rid of any excuses I may have for not writing. Stay tuned!

That's Why They Call Them Jugs!

2010-09-20T05:49:00.000-07:00

This baby girl has me feeling like a soda fountain. She is constantly eating and since I'm breastfeeding exclusively I am constantly pulling my breast out in all types of settings. Yesterday I plopped my boob out in the waiting room at Stanford's Opthamology Clinic. My husband was impressed, in his words, "Gangster!" I really don't have a problem with someone seeing my boob but someone else might... Today we were at Costco and I had to change her in the bathroom. She was still wailing. I tried giving her a pacifier, but she is just not into those. So in the middle of the handicap stall, while standing, I pulled out my breast and started feeding her. I fed her for quite some time and it seemed to work for a little bit, but she was still hungry so I had to go out to the truck and leave my husband to finish the shopping.

Sometimes after she's done eating she almost looks drunk. The cute little silly smile creeps across her face and she give me that satisfied look, right before she belches and pukes on me! It's great when she burps, I was prepared for that and even some spit up, but the every once in a while full on upheaval of almost her whole meal, they don't really warn you about that in the books. Every time she does that (which is not very often so I am rarely prepared enough) I am amazed, I didn't even know she was drinking that much. Then she can got one of two ways, fussy or tired. Sometime she'll pass out right there on the tit.

Another thing they don't warn you about is the amount of laundry you'll have to be doing. Don't get me wrong the experts and websites and countless amounts of advice I have received all warned me that my little one would produce mounds of laundry, but they didn't tell me that a lot of it would be my clothes too that she spit up on or barfed on or projectile pooped on (that's a whole other story). We have done more laundry in the 6 weeks she's been born than the whole time I was pregnant.

I digress; I was talking about breasts and milk. They say that your boobs are gonna grow. Man they were not kidding I don't fit into any of my bras. I bought nursing bras pre-birth. Bad idea! They may have fit before, but once those suckers (haha pun intended) fill up with milk, it's like we magically were transported to an adult film set and we're doing a cover shot for the Jugs magazine. I never got it before. Why was Jugs a term of endearment for my breast? They aren't shaped like the jugs I've seen although I have learned that there are some jugs out there that are quite similar to the roundness of breasts. They reason is because they fill up with milk and they are heavy just like a milk jug when it's full.

Leave comments below on breastfeeding, boobs, parenthood, anything. Let me know what you want to read about. There is sooo much going on in brand spanking new parenthood, tell me about your experiences!

Smile You're Amazing

2010-09-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my new blog! I am a brand new mom. I had a beautiful baby girl almost 6 weeks ago. Everyday I am amazed by how much she is changing and growing. I'm gonna be writing about all of the little amazing things I learn and notice about my wonderful baby girl. She has been smiling for a few weeks now, the parenting magazines and emails say that before 5 weeks it was just gas, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't just gas. She would smile when I talked to her and kiss her cheeks. Which sounds like social smiling, something that the experts say doesn't occur until 5-6 weeks. Above is a picture I took after kissing her cheeks when she was 3 weeks old. My baby girl is gifted and talented! I'm not sure when babies are supposed to be able to roll, but Mikayla has been rolling from her back to her side for about 3 weeks. I caught a video of her rolling last week. Maybe she is so advanced in her development because she was one week and 2 days past her due date. I don't pretend to be an expert so please don't take anything I write as fact. I'm just sharing my observations.