DIY Blanket Ladder and Entertainment System Curtains

A friend of mine has a blanket ladder and I immediately fell in love with the idea. I love fuzzy blankets, but I do not love them lying all over my house. I kept putting off the project because I didn't have a power drill. Hubs and I finally made the trip to Lowes and got our supplies:

• Power drill
• Bits
• Stain (espresso)
• Polyurethane
• Stain cloth
• Polyurethane brush
• Brown tipped wood screws
• Sanding block (120 on one side, 220 on the other)
• Two 2x2x8
• Floor protector pads

I had a Lowes employee cut the 2x2x8's down to five feet. Then I had him cut those two 3-foot long pieces in half. This left me with two five-foot long pieces and four 18-inch pieces. 

I went home and I sanded the wood with the 120 side first then the 220 side. Then I wiped them down with a cloth to remove the dust. I went out into my yard and stained three sides of the wood. I left that to dry in the sun (until it was no longer tacky to the touch). This only took 45 minutes or so during the heat of the day. Then I flipped it and stained the other side and waited for it to dry. This took a lot longer as I had to move the pieces into the garage. 

My excellent makeshift paperweights. 

Waiting for the fourth side to dry. 

I waited until the following day to put the ladder together. My husband and I determined where we wanted the ladder rungs to go (one run for every foot of ladder height) and drilled pilot holes. We lined up our ladder rung and slightly drilled into them through the leg of the ladder, then backed the screw out. We also drilled pilot holes in the rungs. Then we put the rung back and screwed it all together.

The final rung was a bit of a bear. I tried to find the straightest 2x2x8s I could, but one of them had a slight bow at the bottom. I braced the side my husband was NOT drilling into and pulled the opposite leg tight so the rung sat flush aginst it. Then my husband screwed it all together with the drill. We had to back the screw out a couple of times before we managed to get it so there was no gap.

Almost done! I still needed to polyurethane it at this point.

I applied a layer of polyurethane to ensure no stain would come off on my blankets. I waited 24 hours before bringing the ladder into the house for use. I also put floor savers on the bottom of the ladder as well as on the back of the top part of the ladder legs to protect the wall. Here is the final product complete with blankets!

Those two baskets behind and next to it hide our internet cable. I ended up removing the blue box and sliding over the beige one so the blankets don't pile up on top of it. The blue box now hides our remotes and game controllers so my daughter will stop trying to get at their batteries. I assume this will last for all of a month before she figures out she can take the lid off of it.

Somebody wanted to help. 

Notice that grey bench sitting in front of the entertainment system? This has been a massive pet peeve of mine for awhile. We moved it there back in January when my daughter first started walking. She kept pushing the XBOX power button and ejecting the discs. The grey bench was meant to be a short-term solution until she lost interest in the XBOX. She never lost interest.

She is now tall enough to reach across the grey bench to mess with the XBOX. I also got hubs a PS4 for his birthday back in March, so now we have even more electronics that entice her. I decided maybe out of sight, out of mind would work better in this scenario. Plus, I could put my bench back where it belongs rather than in the middle of the entertainment system.

I bought am expandable tension rod and an 18'X44' piece of fabric. I cut the fabric it in half so I now had two 9'X44' pieces. Then I hemmed the short sides. Next, I folded over the top about 1.5-2' and sewed it. This part would hang from the tension rod. Next, I measured the gap on the entertainment system to see how long I wanted the curtains. I wanted them to hand down slightly past the opening. This ended up being 6.5'. After carefully measuring and pinning the bottom of my curtains so they were the same length all the way across, I sewed the edges.

I pulled the curtains onto the rod and expanded it so that it fit tightly into the entertainment system. I arranged the curtains how I wanted them. Voila. My daughter no longer messes with the XBOX and the bench is back where it belongs. Again, this solution will most likely not last long, but I don't care. For now, it is a win.

4 Months Old: When Life Gives You Lemons

Baby E is a big, four month old baby today! As of yesterday, she weighed 15 pounds and 10 ounces. What a biggin'. She has figured out I must be doing something when I pull out my phone to take a picture of her because she just blankly stares at it now. She absolutely refuses to smile if she sees my phone pointed at her. What a stinker. Also, her big toes nails are painted red hehehe.

Here hair is getting a lot lighter.

Here are our other attempts at a 4 month picture.

Thinking hard about this smiling thing.

Trying to eat the hand.

Not even gonna try to be helpful.

For the last few weeks, baby E has been a teething fool. She drools constantly, bites everything, and gets a serious case of the grumps in the evenings. Gripe water seems to help though.

It's been a rather trying month. Baby girl tested positive for MRSA. She doesn't have an infection or anything, she's just been colonized. I had to swipe some goo inside her nose for 5 days to get rid of it, and it was pretty awful. She absolutely hated it and screamed the entire time. Thank god that nonsense is over. She also has eczema, so I have to slather her up in industrial strength moisturizer. It seems to be getting better.

My knees have been killing me and I finally got an MRI done. My doctor though it was a meniscal injury, but it turns out I have fluid build up. They suggested physical therapy, but when exactly am I supposed to do that? Work, schweet babe, and flying solo do not add up to free time to go to physical therapy.

I also had a freckle on my face biopsied . It showed up under my eye last summer and started to darken and grow this summer. The results came back as a moderately abnormal, precancerous mole. It's also much larger and deeper than they originally thought as well.

Apparently it's a bigger deal than I thought because the dermatologist wants it taken care of as soon as possible. I asked if it could wait until after summer since we have a lot coming up in the next month, but she said absolutely not. She says it's an issue because of how quickly it started to change after showing up on my face. Then she dropped the word "Melanoma" casually in conversation.

I now have to go see a plastic surgeon who specializes in surgery near the eye. As the dermatologist put it, "The scar shouldn't be bigger than a centimeter." Last time I checked, a centimeter long scar is frigging huge when it's on your face. I'm really not thrilled about it, but it's better than leaving it and having it turn into melanoma. Blah.

And lastly, I had my post partum pap come back "unsatisfactory," so I have to get it done again. Because that is every woman's favorite thing to do.

Oh, and I can't take baby girl to any of these appointments. No babies allowed, they say. We live to make your life more difficult, they say.

Basically, life decided to upend a box of lemons on me. I found this picture on the interwebz, and it sums up how I feel about it:

However, it's not all griping and moaning. Baby E does some super adorable stuff now. The best things she does by far are blow rasberries and giggle when tickled. She wasn't ticklish up until a week or so ago. Baby giggles = endless entertainment.

In an abrupt shift in focus, I found some quality old photos. Well, actually, my parents unearthed them from the depths of our sunroom, but whatevs. They're awesome.

See? My baby looks like me too, dagnabbit.
Also, dad is big cheesin'

This is my first cat, Kitty Boos. Look how big his head is. I'm 5 in this picture. 

For some reason I wanted all of those barrettes in my hair.
Also, look at dem curls.

Guitar cat.

There are a ton of other pictures, but my mom said she would scan them so they're better quality. These are just pictures I took of the originals with my phone, so they're kind of funny looking.

Fitness, fitness, fitness time. I was chatting with an old friend in the last week or so, and I realized I haven't posted any workouts in awhile.

I got an interval timer for Christmas this year, and I am getting a lot of use out of it. Here is a 30 minute leg and core workout I did the other day (use weights for a bigger challenge).

Legs: 50 seconds work, 10 seconds rest

squats
forward lunge - left
goblet squats
forward lunge - right
squat pulses
side lunge - left
curtsy squat - left
side lunge -right
curtsy squat - right
reverse lunge + kick - left
sumo squat
reverse lunge + kick - right
curtsy squat pulse - left
forward lunge pulse - left
curtsy squat pulse - right
forward lunge pulse - right
plie squats
lunge jumps
squat jumps
alternating side lunges

Core: 50 seconds work, 10 seconds rest (repeat 2x)
scissor kicks
Russian twists

jack knives

plank hand taps

reverse crunches

I also went to a friend's baby shower recently (due in a couple of weeks!!). I got her some diapering and baby bath supplies, made her a diaper cake, and knitted her a baby blanket. Love me some baby blankies.

Having a sewing machine makes putting borders on blankets sooooo much easier. No more sewing them on by hand, woo!

Pregnancy Week 34: Baby Shower!

This week baby girl is anywhere from 19-22 inches long and weighs approximately 4.9 pounds. However, I had an ultrasound on Saturday and they recorded her estimated weight. Baby girl is approximately 4.7 pounds with a margin of +/- 0.68 pounds. So at least we know the app is fairly accurate in this regard. The app says this week baby girl is about the size of a pineapple.

8 weeks	34 weeks

I had my baby shower on Saturday and little miss got a lot of super cute clothes :) She also got things she needs of course, but baby girl clothes are the cutest thing ever. Here are some pictures from the party.

Belly shot

Laughing belly shot.

Farther away belly shot. Everyone always wants to see the belly haha.
Note the pink boot socks. It took forever to find pink ones.

Delicious cupcakes. Nom nom nom.

It is blurry, but I am holding a tiny baby. Some of the cupcakes had mini babies.
If you find one you will have good luck for a year. I found 3.
Either I will be very lucky or I ate a metric ton of cupcakes >_>

My brother in law got the hubs and I some wine for after the baby arrives.
Solid gift; everyone should take note. 

Dad got me some flowers :)

We played a lot of games. The funniest ones were the pregnancy waddle and guess the belly size. The preggo waddle goes like so: each player has to blow up a ballon, stick it under their shirt, put a quarter between their knees, waddle it down to a jar/cup/whatever, and drop it in. Pretty freaking hysterical.

The guess the belly size game calls for each player to cut a length of yarn that they think represents how wide around I am (the only time in life in which this activity will not result in immediate death of the guesser haha). One person was dead on and another was incredibly close (only off by about 1/4 of an inch). Everyone else was hilariously off. Nobody underguessed, and most were off by about a handspan or so. However, a few were off  by a foot and a half. Kind of hilarious. 

We also played preggo bingo (bingo with baby gifts for the squares rather than numbers), guess the baby food flavor, guess how many pacifier candies are in the giant baby bottle (my 5yo cousin won that game; figured a child would win the candy haha), and then the clothespin game. At the start of the party, each guest is given a clothespin and told they can no longer say the word "baby." If they do and someone hears it, they have to forfeit their pins. Whoever has the most pins at the end of the party wins.

We played the bingo game while I was opening my gifts. If the gift I opened was on the player's bingo card, they marked it with a sticker. My grandmother won that game. Here are some of the gifts baby girl got :) I didn't get pictures of them all yet, but here are a few I took once we got them all home.

This is a laundry tote jam packed with a ton of awesome baby gifts :)

This is a gloriously soft blankie.

This is the diaper baby that came with the blankie.
There are also two outfits (bun bun footie pj's!), a pacifier and some other neat gifts for baby girl.
Plus the storage basket they came in (I love me some storage).

My MOH made this blanket. It has cute little sheep all over it.
It is flame retardant. In case of flaming baby, apply sheep blanket ;)
But seriously, look at all that intricate stitching!

The rocking chair on the left is from when I was a little girl.
It was always white, but dad was so convinced I was having a girl
that at about 12 weeks he painted every other spoke pink.
The mini-rocker on the right was made by hand and has a matching paint job
courtesy of my dad :)

Little booties and some receiving blankets :)

A mix of some of the outfits baby girl received. So cute :)

Here are all the gifts lined up in a row! Some others were mailed to me as well.

Baby girl got a ton of gifts and some super cute outfits. I love baby girl clothes ^_^

Of course, baby girl wasn't content to just receive gifts. She felt the need to get a little feisty and we ended up spending the night in labor and delivery. I received some tocolytic medicine and, after a night of observation, I was released. Baby girl's heart rate looked great through it all :) Now I'm on modified bed rest, but otherwise everything is good. Six weeks to go!

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We are registered at Babies "R" Us (#54941451) and Burlington Baby Depot (#34080180). They can be found by searching for either my or Josh's name.

Knitting Baby Blankets and Evil Mitered Corners

So I enjoy knitting and originally intended to post more often about my knitting escapades (the stitches does play into the name of this blog after all, who knew?)

Anyway, I have a friend who had a baby right around my anniversary in May and I had been meaning to make her a baby blanket. She also has a toddler (just turned 3) and I didn't think it would be very nice to make the baby a blanket and not give the toddler one too.

So I made the newborn a small-ish (30x30) blanket for the car seat or when his mom goes for runs with her jogging stroller. I used much finer baby yarn for his so that one took a really long time. I don't do any of the fancy stitches for blankets (I save that for scarves, hats, and mittens).

I also put blanket minky around the edges because knitted blankets have a tendency of not being easy to grab at the edges (they get all stretched out over time). The minky gives it some stability.

Here's the baby blanket:

I made the toddler's blanket much larger since I figured he was probably in a toddler bed (or would be soon if he wasn't already. I made his out of a heavier weighted yarn. it's super soft and warm. This one I actually remember the quanitites. It took 6 rolls of the yarn, size 11 needles. I cast on 110 stitches. It ended up being about 49x38:

Let me tell you, those mitered corners are ridiculous. I sew the minky on by hand since I don't have a sewing machine. That takes a million years, but it can be relaxing after a stressful day. I just turn my brain off and sew away.

Here they are folded up together:

Tada! Christmas is coming up, I'm sure I'll be posting more of my creations after the holidays.