Up and Running!

I did it! I have my blog for Oh Sew Cute Designs set up at http://www.ohsewcutedesigns.blogspot.com/. Please visit and let me know what you think and if you see anything you like! This is definitely something that I never thought I would do and I am very nervous about it. I would really appreciate any help getting started and any business or ideas about how to get my burp cloths out there.

I Have A Name!!

After staying up until 1am Andy and I both agreed on Oh Sew Cute Designs! This was not our first choice, but the first one we liked that wasn't already taken. So sorry about the $50. I'm sure I will need more advice in the future.

Burp Cloth Business

For the past year I have been trying to sew and make burp cloths look more appealing. The reasons to why I wanted to do this was that first of all it gave me time to myself and it is relaxing. The main reason is that my boys were spitters! They were known as "happy spitters", lucky us. I had many, many plain white cloth diapers and they work great at absorbing spit up. However, they are not most attractive burp cloths. I had a couple that were cute that worked well, but they got worn out after a while. So that is why I wanted to learn how to do this, because one day I may want to have another baby and I know without a shadow of a doubt that it will also be a spitter.

A few months ago I found the way to make my burp cloths look very cute. So far I have given some away as gifts, because it seems to be that everyone that I know are having babies. The only problem is that I can not come up with a catchy name for my business. I really need help! Andy says that if someone gives me a name that I end up using, that he will pay them $50.

I have serious OCD, so I promise perfection or at least as close to it as I can get. I will take request for specific designs, that is if I can find it. I have different designs to choose from boy, girl or neutral. I use birdseye cloth diapers. Some of the fabrics have a soft flannel feel and some have a regular cotton feel. I also have some that have ribbon and I can do that in a couple different ways.

Here is a collage of some of the burp cloths. Starting with top left it is a ribbon with pink, orange, white stripe, next is ladybugs, then pink, green, and white strips. Next row, a little hard to see light pink and green polka dots, purple swirly ribbon, and light green paisley. Bottom row, dump trucks, blue polka dots, and a cherry ribbon. If you would like to see a better view of any of these let me know and I will post a bigger picture.

Here are two new patterns. The one on the top is my favorite and says, "Happy Hippo."

This is how they come. Makes a perfect gift!

Bristol Baby!

Andy and I were very fortunate last week at the last minute to get tickets to the Nascar race in Bristol. This is one of the hardest tickets in all of sports to get! I would have had a great time if I hadn't been so sick! I probably shouldn't have gone, but I just could not miss this. It is the race I have always wanted to go to. Well other than being sick, I had a good time and would love to go back when I am not sick. Also it was like 100 degrees outside, so it would be nice I think to go to the April Bristol race. It was a good race and my driver, Bobby Labonte, did great! He finished in the top ten and was 2nd at one point. That always makes a race good! We had great seats at the start/finish line and were on row 55, the higher the better. Even though I was feeling really sick I really did enjoy the race. It was just as exciting as I have heard! I really hope that we get the oppourtunity to go again. Andy said we would definitely go back to the race at Martinsville, we went in Oct of 2004 a week after I found out I was pregnant. The only thing is that Martinsville was just the race, but at Bristol it was like a fair with no rides. There were all the games to play, like seeing how fast you are at removing and tightening lugnuts and Andy did it in around 14 sec! He might just have a new career. It was the Sharpie 500, so we left with lots of Sharpie markers. I love Sharpies!

Andy and I at the race!

Andy's Birthday

Yesterday was Andy's birthday and I still don't think that the boys really understand birthdays. Andy let them open his presents from them, which they had lots of fun doing and they knew to open them because they started before Andy even really saw them. I made Andy his favorite dessert, a chocolate eclair cake. The boys now think that is what a birthday cake is, although Cale only ate the chocolate icing and Carter only ate the pudding. Since Andy is not a huge fan of cake and the boys hate cake we seem to have very unique birthday cakes in our house, they had a Goodberrys cake for their birthday (it's kinda like ice cream). We went to a birthday party for a 1 yo last weekend and they seemed more entertained with playing with her toys than what was going on. This coming weekend is their cousins 4th birthday, so maybe after this one they will get the hang of what happens when it is someones birthday.

Here are a couple pictures from Andy's "birthday party"!

Saving

I usually only write about the boys because Andy makes me feel dumb about this whole blog thing, but this time I am going to write about what's going on with me. Also, I feel like this is something someone may need right now just like how it came into my life.

A year ago I had no idea what our finances were like or how much money I spent, but then Andy became very concerned about our money spending. But God works wonders! Our church has MOPS group (Mother's of Preschoolers) and last Sept/Oct they had a lady speak about couponing. Well, I have never couponed because I thought who cares about saving .50, but this lady had tons of coupon tricks and rules that I had never heard of. After hearing how she gets like $200 worth of groceries for $20, I thought I have got to do this! That month after hearing her I couponed some, but did not have a lot of coupons yet. I tracked our grocery, warehouse, and eating out spending that month and it totaled over $900! Yes, that does include diapers and anything else like paper towels, toilet paper, etc. After couponing for about 4 months I had cut the grocery bill down by over $300 and it still keeps going down! I was even interviewed by our local paper about milk prices one day while I was grocery shopping, because the lady saw me stocking up on yogurt and saw my ginormous coupon notebook. By the way milk is SO much cheaper at BJ's, Sam's, Costco, Walgreen's than it is at the grocery store! My best savings was during a Harris Teeter triple coupon shop where I got $65 worth of groceries for only $2! Now how can anyone hear that and not want to know how they too can coupon!

Now that I have gotten good at the grocery savings thing (I still need to work on the Target, clothes, kids savings thing, which is in progress) I can't understand why more people don't coupon! I really see this as something God brought into our lives to relieve stress on our marriage and provide for us. We have so many free things or things the grocery store paid us to take that we give food away every month to our church's food bank ministry. It does take some time to cut and organize the coupons, but I look at it as my job. I am a stay at home mom and my job should be to spend as little possible on what we need so that we can pay our bills and save money for emergencies or college tuition for the kids. Even if you work full time you can still find time to do this like when you are watching TV or on Sunday afternoons while the kids are napping. Those are the times I usually cut and organize coupons. The coupon lady's website is http://www.smartspendingrescoures.com/ if anyone is interested in saving lots of money every month!

Here is a picture of my coupon notebook/organizer. I take this with me when I grocery shop that way when there is an unadvertised sale and I have acoupon I can just pull it out. It is also very easy to find your coupons. They are in sections according to what they are like, beverages, baked goods, etc.

New Swings and More!

Finally, we got rid of the baby swings and put up big boy swings! We were waiting to get mulch to put down for cushioning, but then remembered that we had all these foam squares we were no longer using and used them instead. They are actually pretty soft! I am so glad to be done with the baby swings, because it has gotten to the point where all they want to do is swap everything back and forth. Well now they can swap all by themselves. They really love swinging on their bellies!

They also drank from a cup all by themselves! Carter did excellent at it and Cale just needed a little help at first. I know their preschool teacher will be very happy, because in the 2's class they need to be able to drink from a cup and my boys were the only ones in May when she gave them cups that spilled it immediately all over the place. It is something I just never cared to attempt with them. I knew that I would have to give them a regular cup at some point, but I guess part of me was hoping when they were ready they would just start doing it and I would never have to clean up any messes. Wishful thinking, but it did pretty much did go that way!

We also gave them a Capri Sun to drink by themselves for the first time and they also did great with that! Around our house it seems to be that when it comes to growing up we have a weekend filled with new accomplishments. Every time they have started one thing new it has snowballed into being several new things by the end of the weekend. I am glad that they are being more and more independent, but I really miss them being babies! I think it was just so incredibly hard when they were babies that I didn't get to enjoy it and live in the moment and now that I am not wishing one day away they are growing up so fast!

My Bad!

I should know by now that talking on the phone while dealing with the kids is never a good thing. Well, yesterday I was on the phone with my mom while in the playroom and had just changed one of many poopy diapers and they were screaming that they wanted to color. So, I just grabbed the basket with the crayons and coloring books from off the pool table, that is not used anymore to play pool, and put it on the floor. I went back upstairs to dispose of the diaper and wash my hands and get supper started, but then realized it was way to quite down there. So I go back downstairs and realized that I also handed them the basket with the MARKERS in it! Needless to say, they were covered in markers. At least they were washable and the boys were so entertained by them that they only colored on themselves. Not that I would notice if it got on the floor because luckily we have the big blue rug in there. I wish I had taken a picture, but I was in such state of shock that I didn't think about it.

Beach Trip 07

We had our first vacation in almost a year last week and went 100 times better than our vacations last summer. Our vacations last summer were Griswold family vacations, if it could go wrong more than likely it did. This year was so different because the boys loved the water and the sand! Which made this beach trip a very pleasant one. I actually felt somewhat relaxed on the beach while they played in the sand and water. They also loved the pool! It was the kind with the spray yard, which means it had lots of water shooting everywhere and buckets of water dropping on them. Cale also really liked the lazy river. We mostly did the beach and pool, but one afternoon we went to the aquarium and another afternoon we went shopping at the outlet mall.

The first part of the week we spent playing with our cousins, Jacob and Maria. The boys had so much fun with them.

We went to the Ripley's Aquarium one afternoon, since it was over 100 degrees outside! The boys loved looking at the sharks and Carter wanted to get in the water with the stingrays so bad!

They were so sad to leave Mawmaw and Papaw. We left before they did and stopped for gas and while we were pulling out of the gas station Carter said, "Bye Bye Mawmaw Papaw." Andy and I just thought he remembered we were leaving and was saying bye again, but when we looked up Mawmaw and Papaw had just drove by and were in front of us. He must have gotten his wonderful observation skills from me!

Wild Playdate!

Last Monday we had the mother of all playdates! We had seven sets of twins over to our house to play, so that is fourteen toddlers all between 19 months and 2yrs!! It actually went pretty good. We played in our playroom, because at 9:30 in the morning it was already 90 degrees outside! Cale and Carter eventually each had a meltdown. I guess they were a little overwhelmed with all the kids, some of which they had never met. Theses are all moms that I have either met at church or through the multiples club and we usually go out to dinner for a mom's night out, but rarely are we all able to get together with the kids. Actually this might have been the first time everyone was there with their kids! I really had a good time and I think the boys did too, but would have probably liked it better if we had all been outside. Maybe we will try that next time!

Big Breakthrough!

The boys have been in big boy beds for two months and we battle with them to go to sleep and stay in their beds about 95% of the time. Well last week I was having dinner with a mom with 3 1/2 yo triplets and she discovered that unlike most kids the punishment at bedtime is not closing the door, but opening it. When you leave the door open the party stops!

I didn't think it would work with my two. First of all, I thought they are way to young to get this and will run to the gate and yell for us. Boy was I wrong!! The other day at nap they were not staying in bed and not being quiet so I thought, well I have tried everything else I might as well try this. The last time I went in to make them lay down I walked out and left the door open. I stood just outside the door and when the first one got up I leaned around and told them to get back in bed and close their eyes and that it was time to go to sleep. It only took me standing there for about 30 minutes before they were alseep. I didn't stand there the whole time just enough for them to think I was. This is a HUGE improvement over the hour and a half it normally takes. After about 30 minutes Cale was upset about me ruining their party and was crying, so I closed the door and waited. I didn't hear another peep out of them. I won't say it has been a complete success, but out of the 5 times we have used this new technique it as worked 4 times!