Christmas Time!

So my plan for Christmas was to make most presents. What I didn't make I wanted at least handmade, preferably local, but handmade in general. And what I didn't get handmade I at least wanted made in the USA, definitely not Made in China.  This worked mostly. In the above picture you can see what I made for my mother in law, Lynda. G's family is so hard to buy for. Segen wants everything, Bill doesn't really want anything, and Lynda buys everything she wants. So what do you make/get the lady who can buy it all herself? Bags to help with her purchases. I thought it clever. I have also made sock monkeys, finger puppets, and etched glasses and I'm planning on making today or tomorrow some bracelets.

The last part of my resolution, the whole all USA nothing China part, was really freaking hard! I honestly believe that the ammount of items we buy that are imported is a large factor in why our economy sucks so much. Why do we send our money overseas? Why don't we help our own people and buy local more? G was talking to his mom about it and she made the point that our country is programmed this way and me trying to shop local (US local) isn't going to make a difference.  I'm not going to the change the world. Here is my disclaimer: I am not planning on changing the world. I am not trying to change the world. I'm trying to change myself and teach myself and hopefully my children in the future smarter shopping habits. It's the same reason I recycle and save things I can't recycle to use in crafts. It's the same reason I'm trying to become less materialistic. Why do we have so many things? And why are a large majority of these things Made in China?

As it stands Amber's present was made in Germany and I got some Lego's for Russ (couldn't help it) and a game made in Mexico. And, 3 days before Christmas, we have 6 presents left to go AND we need to get something for my sister for her graduation, which was last week, yes I suck I know. But we are getting there.

Cord Blood

So I've been meaning to do a post about CORD BLOOD for a while now, but I haven't wanted to put the effort into it so this will just be really short.

You know what cord blood is? It is your babies raw genetic material, plain and simple. Stem Cells are a big issue of debate, but they shouldnt be. There are so many stem cells thrown out every time someone has a baby. Most people don't know you can save/donate your cord blood stem cells because it is illegal for doctors/staff to broach the topic to you, which again is stupid! There is nothing unethical about cord blood stem cells! If anything, it is good because it saves that much from going to wherever genetic waste goes! If you don't save it or donate it then it goes into the waste bin. Personally, I think that is ridiculous. I have saved it from both of my children. Here is a good site to get more info on what can be done with Cord Blood and what they are trying to do with it: blog.cordblood.com

I got a call from CBR-Cord Blood Registry, where we saved our kids' cord blood-about our collection for Alice. Turns out you need at least 100 million stem cells to creat a viable collection. Average collections run about 250 million, which means Russell's collection was just about average at 290 million. Alice has a count of 1,502,000,000 cells. That's over a billion! That's 15 times the minimum! Isn't that great? I am so happy.

Wish List Meme

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme
TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year? 

  1. Spinning wheel (or at least a pretty drop spindle from http://www.etsy.com/shop/zebisisdesigns)
  2. Some pretty rovings to go with said drop spindle (from my favorite etsy yarn shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/knit)
  3. A full night's sleep
  4. A yard
  5. A place to store all of my crafty stuff.
2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received? 
  I can't really think of any at all.
3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle? 
  Resin.
4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?
   My alarm clock. I asked for it in 3rd grade and I still have it and use it 16 years later. Shyeah, I'm a nerd.
5. What items are on your kids' wish lists this year? 
  Russ wants the Handy Manny Play Set they have on display at Target. I think Mimi and Grandpy are getting it for him. Alice wants her real food supply to stop running out every few days. That Silimac stuff doesn't make her happy, and it doesn't make her poop happy either!
6. What is your favorite holiday food? 
  Ham. I love ham.
7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays? 
  I learned how to etch glass and one of my sisters is getting a set of glasses. And I'm crocheting a bunch too. Some of our neices are getting some crocheted finger puppets. They are so great RUss wants a set for his stocking.
8. What is your favorite holiday movie? 
  Nightmare Before Christmas - I always thought of it more for Christmas than Halloween
  The Muppet Christmas Carol - Hello! Muppets! Christmas! Can it get any better?
9. Favorite holiday song? 
  TSO has some great music, but the latest Mighty Mighty Bosstones CD has a great song on it about being together. Love it! Totally recommend that album for everyone. It is very happy compared to their old stuff.
10. Favorite holiday pastime?
  I like to to do the tree. Fun stuff! Last year I made a bunch of ornaments that weren't really fragile and wouldn't hurt Russ if he ate them, which he did, and that was a lot of fun. I think I need to do that again but he can help this year!

Halloween was almost cancelled

but I'm glad I got feeling better because otherwise I wouldn't have gotten this shot!

Alice

Here she is! Sorry this has taken so long, my computer is over heating.

Alice Lynn Hansen

 Born October 9, 2009 2:06 am

8 lbs 6 1/2 ozs; 20 1/2 inches long

Lots of brown hair (?) and looks just like her daddy's baby pictures. 

Birthed without real drugs, btw. That's right: I'm a real woman 

Cricut Meme and room

This is contest entry for those crazy folks at TodaysMama and Cricut. Be sure to check out Cricut's cool new cartridges and the chance at $30,000 in travel for you and your friends at the Great Gypsy Escape site! http://bit.ly/FWcud

Great Escape Meme
1. If you could escape to anywhere in the world where would it be? 
Somewhere new, Oregon maybe. Always wanted to go to Oregon. I think it's the hippy in me trying to escape.
2. What song do you play when you are by yourself in the car? 
Cindy Lauper and Madonna (What can I say? I'm a girl. shh... don't tell)
3. If you had a night to yourself, and money was no object, what would you do? 
Currently I would say SLEEP but I know that's not what the question is asking so...
I am assuming they also mean I would NOT BE PREGNANT so again...
Go to a concert (Toadies, Chili Peppers, I wouldn't be too picky), hang out in the mosh pit the whole time, and if I had the energy afterwards, lots and lots of sex. They want honesty, right?
4. What is your guilty pleasure? 
Creating for no reason. Oh, I already have a bag full of bags that I don't use? Heck, let's make another one!
5. What is the farthest place you have traveled away from your home? 
In recollection, Philadelphia last September. I thought being in the middle of downtown would really not be cool, but it was. We walked EVERYwhere.
6. Last book that you couldn't put down? 
Terry Gross' "All I Did Was Ask" 
7. When you want to escape into another time, what movie do you watch? 
Well this is a gay question. At our louse, we like to escape into the future: the post-apocalyptic future! We are now making sure Russ in bed before we watch them, but we like stuff like the "Resident Evil" movies and vampire movies. Woo!
8. What is your favorite local escape? 
The internet. Roswell doesn't have anywhere to escape to.
My favorite NEAR local escape, however, would be Ruidoso which is about an hour away. Casinos, put put golf, a nice strip to walk up and down window shopping... All things Roswell doesn't offer.
9. How do you escape on a budget? 
Dessert. Dessert is always a nice escape. Throw out what we know and go for the Mile High Ice Cream Pie, heck yeah. If there is ice cream involved, I have escaped, especially if there is peanut butter involved.
Best food you've ever had while on vacation.
Chinese food at a mall in Cancun. Amazing! Five course meal, peppermint tea, shark fin soup... Like I said, it was amazing




And since I should have had this on my last post and don't want to overpost myself, here is the finished room for our Alice. Man, we sure are hoping this is going to be a little girl. G would be so upset if we did all that work with the fairy wall paper and it turned out to be a boy...

News and fun things

Russ has been saying some awefully funny things here lately...

-He refers to himself as "Shull," as in he's speaking in the 3rd person. While this would bother me with anyone else, this is my kid and he's not even 3 yet so...

-One thing he does say that bother the heck out of me: He calls me Jessie now, or "Sheshie" in his terms. AH! I almost want to scream at him, almost. He gets corrected every time he does it, though sometimes I make the mistake of answering to it before I correct him. 

-He has added the word "so" to his vocabulary as "So tired, mama" or "So sorry Daddy! So sorry!" 

-Last night while we were playing Rock Band (for the first time in months) he took the mic from me and shoved in the cats face and said "Sing, Eddie! Sing!" She was unamused, but I had to laugh. 

Oh, and he already holds his pens/pencils like his dad does.  

     As far as the pregnancy goes, I saw my midwife yesterday and she said this little girl is going to be probably 1 to 1 1/2 pounds lighter than Russ. Everyone has been telling me how little my tummy is and it's really bugging me. I hate it when everyone repeats the same thing. I am not too little! Bugger off, people. (Hee hee, I recently found out what the term "bugger" really means.. hee hee!)

Also, my friend Leah and her sister came over the other day and dolled me up and we took prenatal pictures, similar to the ones I did when I was large with Russ, but with a short black wig and pink fake eyelashes. Sweet! Preview for you, but that's all you get unless you are a sister of mine:

 Doesn't really look like me but whatever. 

Leah is also helping with my baby shower and we were making jokes about having some of these photos up at the little shin-dig! HA! I can just see her mom's face. Hell, Sariah's face would be enough for me.

     On the crafty front, I finished G's rug. Did I mention that before? He got new shirts for work relatively recently and while I was planning on ripping the old ones up for rags, I decided to rip them into strips and crochet a rug instead. Oh yeah, I think was complaining about the hooks breaking. Well, I went and bough some large metal hooks and this one turned out MUCH better than the one I have in "Alice's" room. Very uniform, very comfy. Eleven shirts made a rug about 30" x 42". I am please with myself. My right hand was swolen Monday because of it, but it was totally worth it.

     Also, I am signed up for my first swap on Craftster.com. Already got my partner! AH! I am so nervous! I made sure to sign up for one that the birth of my child will not interrupt my participation in too much: the send out date isn't until November 20th so whenever this kid comes I should still have time to work on my goodies for her. It is a Christmas stocking swap, and I was thinking of doing one of my "burlesque" stockings but her favotire colors are orange and lime-green so we'll see what I come up with. Ah! So intimidated!

     And G is going to have to go back to working every other Saturday which means the work we do around the house will be almost coming to a halt again. *sigh* Two weeks until that starts again, but each of these weekends there is an aution in the AM so we probably won't get much done. Poop and stuff!

     And I have a house I have been putting off cleaning so that's all I've to say for now.

No More Plastic!

Crochet hooks, that is. But they don't make metal hooks in the larger sizes! AHH! G got new shirts for work, but since they all have the company logo on them Unifirst won't take back the old ones. So we get them. I was thinking of just cutting them up and using them for rags, and then I decided it would be a better idea to cut them into strips and make a rug for the garage out of them for when G gets the work bench in there. And I have started it and it is looking fabulous but... I have broken 2 hooks on it so far. The first one wasn't that far into it, so I just started again with a bigger hook, but a shirt and half later SNAP! No good. Superglue and duct tape didn't work to fix it, so I've been using just a half sized hook for now... Which will not work for long because it is hard and hurts my hands more and takes longer. *sigh*

But we've moved most of the stuff out of the spare room and we are going to paint it this weekend. *SQUEE!* (that was a happy noise). We got the border Tuesday and went for the paint that night. I am so excited! Sure, the pink/blue cow exploded on the walls was interesting but now I have a purpose for painting the room and it's going to be so happy! We've decided to convert Russell's toddler bed back into the crib and give him the twin sized bed from the other room. HE loves it so much! Tuesday night we still had his "new" bed (which he happened to have been made on, a little TMI for you) in the spare room and I lay down on it and he brought me a blanket and thought we were going to sleep on it that night, so the next night when we moved it into his room he was so excited! Now he spends have the day sitting on his bed "reading" books! I still need to move some things around in there, but we are going to get all of his toys and books moved in there with some shelves etc and then I doubt if he will want to come out of there ever for at least a couple days. I think if we moved a TV in there with his DVDs that might solidify his dependence in there, but we won't do that. One movie a day still...

I just got the first shower I have had since... Saturday? Sunday maybe? I feel clean. I can comb my fingers through my hair again...

Busy, we have been

Since Russ is not going to make much of an appearance in this post, I would like to start it by saying that he told me I'm handsome the other day. I don't think he quite understands the concepts of masculine and feminine adjectives, so I was rather flattered, especially since it was at about 7am.
But yes, his parents have been busy this week. I think I only sat down to Minesweeper once this week. I played 3 games rather than 50. Yay! G has been happy with tools lately. He says he is learning to enjoy making things. I am so happy. His grandfather was a carpenter and I say it's about time he took a real interest in such handiwork. I decided a while ago that the best solution to the bookcase problem we were having--not being able to find the anchors to keep the bookcases from crushing my child(ren) and the fact that we couldn't store anything on the bottom halves of any of the 4 3'x6' bookcases we had in our house--was to build shelves all the way around the living room. G did not agree, and indeed our friend Mr B agreed with him which gave him more reason not to disagree with me. Well, the need was finally strong enough that we compromised and went to Homes Depot and spend a lot money and built some red oak shelves around our space. We are all impressed.


Excuse the mess and limited view, but this is what I have now. Maybe I will update it later, once we get everything arranged better. He has enjoyed it so much he wanted to build the toy drawers/shelves I had in mind for Russ' books and toys. I said something about needing space out here for my sewing stuff as well and he was like "I CAN MAKE IT!" I like this side of my husband, though all the new tools he is "needing" might make it a little tight in our checkbook this month. But I am okay with it. Tools are nice to have around.

As far as my busyness, oh joy! I have been having fun with yarns and using fabric scraps as yarn and big crochet hooks and paint and pictures... Oh my! First of all, I've been trying to hard to get that room cleaned out but you know how I am: so many treasures I can't go for long before needing to stop to make/finish/tediously destroy something. I started with the closet and am getting rid of a bunch of old clothes but there were some sweaters in there that I thought would make some nice yarn so I Googled how to harvest yarn and did. Thus far I have done 2 sweaters and it was quite different than what I expected. They were both chenille yarn so when I was finished with them I put their fibred together and made a mesh market bag. Thus far. There was so much in just the pink one... I think I am going to double strand it and make a net to hang in the corner of Alice's room for stuffed animals. We had one of those in our room when we were little, but it wasn't pink and shiny and chenille and homemade. Ooh, I am so excited!


I also found my pile of projects I have started that are not quite finished yet. I have been meaning to get around to them for a while now but there are reasons why I haven't finished them yet. Like the one I DID finish last night: it was a rug I was making from sewing fabric scraps into long strips, braiding, and sewing in rounds. The hand sewing in rounds part sucked! So while G and B were playing killing each other one the XBox, I ripped it all apart, made the strips into one long string (instead of 3) and began a crochet rug instead. I learned many things from this experience. 1: I don't like to crochet with denim strips. But altogether, it went much faster than sewing it did, it's not quite as lumpy, and it's finished! I can finally take it off the list! WOOHOO! I had to make more strips from--this time from a few pair of jama pants--but it is still not very big. I edged it in purple and I think I am going to use it in Alice's room. What do you think? Do I rock or what?

My next yarn experiment is to be "plarn." Aren't you excited to hear about that?

Oh, and I have finally just about finished my Mother-In-Law's birthday present, who's birthday was in June I might add. It is a pink table with pictures of her family all over it. Like, pictures of her mom and grandma and her when she was 7 and stuff. This was a fun project. I even printed/cut out yellow roses and put them all over it, since she loves roses and Bill loves yellow and it is for both of them, kind of. It is pretty nifty. I might have to photograph it for my personal "look what I made" catalog. All we have left to do is pour the epoxy on it and call it haul it over there. G is excited too because it is getting this table out of the garage and it has been taking up LOTS of space. But it's almost done! Hurrah!

Don't be mad, please?

I couldn't help myself; I had to do it. Yes, his curls were the cutest ever, and we got compliments wherever we went, but they were just too unruly for me.

Silly, coming from a girl like me. Growing up I never let anyone touch my hair. I still don't typically brush it: why brush it's just going to be in a ponytail all day? But none of that matters. His was unruly and I am his mom so I cut it off! It will grow back before too long. Can you believe this is only his 3rd haircut? He will be three in less than 4 months! I'm pretty sure his first was last September, followed by one in November...

And I don't like how this blogger thing uploads my pictures...It's a pain in my butt.

Paper Embroidery

So while I had my niece Amber here, she was supposed to go tot he library for the "Tweens" activity and learn Paper Embroidery but she ended up leaving that day instead of Sunday and was really disappointed that she was going to miss it. So I decided (since I'm such a great aunt and all) to research it online and teach her myself! Not only did I come across as super cool (which I can fake sometimes) but I also learned a new skill! Wee! Happy! I meant to post about this before but I didn't because I thought I would have already told my family about this blog, oops, and I didn't want to spoil the surprise since I sent my creation to Kim for her b-day two weeks late. What do you think? Wanna do it yourself? stitchingcards.com has few free patterns. Yeah, they want you to try it and then buy some of their other patterns but the prices are all in Euros so I don't think I'm making said purchases, though they do have some really cool ones. I used their free designs for Kim's card. The butterfly with the beads was even not that bad, though I think I let Amber down by not helping her finish hers.

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And in other crafting news: I am using my first sock yarns, purchased from knit.etsy.com, where they dye yarns and rovings and I'm pretty sure they hand spin some yarn, though I don't think the two I bought are handspun. I am attempting to crochet my first pair of socks. So far I have made the leg of one sock and I realized it will be too small for me. I have never had reason to check my gauge before but I guess if I want to start making wearable garments then I should, eh? It is a new experience, and I am so down for it. Something else I want to learn to do is spin yarn, and I will someday. I hope I can get some the roving from Knit It Up. SO pretty!

MONEY

The WT party at Emily's house was mostly a success. Other than the screaming children and the more-people-than-I-comfortable-addressing-at-once-ness of it all, we had a lot of sales. I think there were 10 tickets I entered into the system, Emily got her free 1/2 gallon of GSO for having a party over $500, and I made a little cash. I'm happy. We did not, however, get the ALS fundraiser thing going, because Emily wanted to do it after the WT thing, even though I told her it wasn't a good idea... But I will be hosting a tasting here in a couple weeks so I will do it then. No worries, all is not lost, we will raise money for the ALSA and WT at the same time...

As far as other money matters go, we paid off our first loan last week. It was one of my student loans, and it was the one with (come to find out) the LOWER interest rate. If I had known that last year when I started budgeting... But whatever. I used to put extra principle on all of our loans (car, house, school...) and then I got this spreadsheet that helps with budgetting and I realized it I put all the extra principle I was paying towards 1 loan at a time, I would not only get to knock some of them off the list, but I would get them all paid sooner. So that's what I did. I AM SO HAPPY! I hate debt.

Right after I sent the final check off for that loan, however, I read my pen-pals blog and discovered that not everyone is having great times financially. I knew this already anyway, but it really put it into perspective for me. Yeah, my family growing up was never really high class, and indeed some of my siblings are not where they should be with their finances, but this girls husband lost his job due to the company having to layoff people and while they did have some savings, it doesn't look likethey will have enough to pull through this recession we're going through. I wonder what will happen. You hear about this kind of stuff all the time, but when it happens to someone you know, however distantly, it really hits home. They have had to start cutting hours a little at G's office, as in since they are so slow right now noone has to work on Saturdays, but fortunately G is on salary so it doesn't affect us other than I get my husband home all day for about 2 more days every month. That is GOOD for me! Who knew a recession coul dhave it's benefits?

Insert Title Here

Yesterday was good. I spent most of the afternoon with a friend of mine and discovered some interesting things, and Russ spent time with her son discovering new things. (No discoveries were "in that way," I might feel the need to add.)
As for Russell's discoveries, he and Porter dressed up as cowboys and were going to explore a haunted house. Oh, dear! All with the creative influence of porter's 10 year old sister, I might add. They were so cute! Do you see? Russ was being the lookout!
As for my discoveries, we will start with the fact that the kick off for the ALSA walk was last Friday, which also happens to have been Kim's birthday (she even got a special birthday wish from the local news team!). So while I was with Em, we were talking some about WildTree and some about ALS and she not only decided to host a tasting, but she wants to have it part tasting/part ALSA fundraiser. As in we would be selling "Kimbo's cookies recipes" along with the WildTree stuffs. Which is great because that is what I was planning on doing at my next WT party! Woah! Come to find out, she decided a few months ago that she needed to start praying for service opportunities. Odd, I decided that a few months ago as well. Woah! Granted, Ihaven't been as diligent about it (been forgetting to pray, EEK!), but still...
So, not only do I have a WT party set up for Saturday, I also have a sort of ALSA fundraiser set up. I am excited. Like I said, yesterday was a good day.