Tragic

This afternoon I got the sad news that my sister-in-law's teenage cousin passed away early this morning in a car accident. She was sixteen. Her twin sister was not in the car. Every day when I drive on the highways around Chicago I see the signs listing the number of traffic deaths so far this year on Illinois highways. Suddenly, those 500+ deaths are a lot more personal. I did not know this young girl very well. We met a few times two years ago during the wedding festivities when my brother and her cousin got married. We were both bridesmaids (along with six other girls). But I know that my sister-in-law was very close to her cousins. I also know that this is not the first time a child died too soon in my sister-in-law's family. Her own brother died about fifteen years ago from a heart condition when he was twelve years old. Parents should not have to bury their children. Grandparents should not have to bury their grandchildren, let alone two of their grandchildren. All I can do right now is to send my prayers and hug my own daughters a little tighter. Tonight I let Maggie stay up a little past her bedtime just to spend a few more minutes with her. As parents, we do all we can to protect our children. We teach them how to recognize and avoid danger from an early age. And yet still, accidents happen. Kids drive to fast. Cars flip over. Families are shattered beyond recognition in the blink of an eye. So hug your babies while you have them. Call your griend that you haven't talked to for a while. Never miss an opportunity to tell someone you love them.

Overtime

I have mentioned in the past that I work 12 hour day shifts as a nurse. This means that I work 7am to 7:30 pm three (rotating) days a week. I absolutely love my schedule and I can't imagine working five days a week. I love that I can work full time (and make a full time salary) while having four days off every week. Another HUGE advantage of my schedule is that it makes it really easy for me to work overtime and to work a second job. My husband is in paramedic school for the next four months or so and my second job helps us make ends meet in the mean time. Because he spends so much time in class/clinical, it's hard for me to pick up overtime shifts. This past weekend, however, I had four days off in a row from the hospital and they were short on night shift nurses for Friday night. After discussing it with my husband, I decided to bite the bullet and pick up an overtime night shift. Of course, the money is really good but the sleeping adjustment has been difficult. I am terrible at taking naps, so I am better off to just stay up and drink extra diet Coke. It's hard on the girls when I am gone for long periods of time and a huge advantage to picking up night shifts is that they are asleep most of the time I am gone so they don't even miss me. Of course, then I am not sleeping and all that. It's a sacrifice I am willing to make every now and the for right now as a way to make some extra cash, but once my husband is finished with school, my overtime days will be over!

Picnic Dinner

I need to work on taking more pictures of the "everydayness" of our lives. I know that someday, this will be what I miss. Anyway, Thursday night, my husband left for class and the girls and I made a picnic dinner and headed off to one of my favorite parks. We used to live about three blocks from this park and went there all the time. Since we bought our house and moved last summer, we don't go quite as often we do have a pretty decent park a few blocks away). Maggie was so excited about being at the park that she barely ate dinner. I made her take a few bites of her sandwich and she probably ate about half an apple, so at least she ate something. She would run, climb, slide for a few minutes, then come over and take a quick bite before running off again. Lucy ate much better (but she is also much less mobile). They loved the see-saw and swinging next to each other in the "baby" swings. I need to enjoy this while I can because I know that next summer they will probably be entertaining each other and I'll just be another mommy on the sidelines. Sometimes I feel really overwhelmed and sad because I spend so much time working. I hope the girls remember some of these special times like picnic dinners too so that they can realize how much I love them!

T-shirt bags

OK, so I mentioned earlier that I wanted to try out some pinterest crafts and see how well they work in real life. My first project was to make reusable grocery bags out of old t-shirts. I thought this was a great place to start because I am trying to be "green" and use mostly reusable bags when I go to the grocery store (and to Target where I save 5 cents for every bag I bring from home, yay!)Plus, I have a lot of old t-shirts that I hold on to for sentimental reasons but I know I won't wear anymore. The first step was to find an old t-shirt to use. I used this Beatles shirt from high school. While I still love the Beatles (enough to name my daughter after their songs), I am very unlikely to wear this shirt out in public ever again.

I turned the shirt inside out and sewed the bottom closed. I used very small stitches to give the bag strength and stability. (I have seen where people pin the shirt closed, but I was lazy and just held it. It turned out just fine.)

I wanted to give my bags a boxy bottom so that they would hold more things. To do this, I folded my bottom into a little triangle and sewed across it about 1 1/2 inches down. Again, I could have been really precise and measured and pinned this, but I didn't. I am not entirely sure where my straight pins are right now and I didn't feel like looking for them. My bags turned out fine and pretty even without the measuring/pinning.

That was the end of the sewing (woo hoo!!). The next step was to cut some handles. To do this, I simply lined up the sleeves from the shirt and cut them off.

I cut the sleeves off before the seams so that the sewn seams stayed in place. This provides some extra stability to your handles.

The next to last step was to widen the neck hole. This is going to be the mouth of the bag, so you want it to be big enough so that you can put things in it. Again, I just lined the shirt up and cut what I felt was a nice sized opening (being careful not to cut too much off the design of my shirt). The nice thing about using a jersey material like t-shirts are made from is that they do not really fray so you don't have to make a seam. Just cut and go.

And that's it. The last step is to enjoy your cute, new bag. I have made a few of these and I am impressed by how much they hold. It's a great use for a shirt you might not be using any more and they're so easy to make. (I think each bag took about ten minutes - max!)

Happy Birthday Lucy!

Saturday was Lucy's birthday. We had a backyard barbecue with our closest friends. Luckily the weather cooperated, not too hot! We started the party later in the afternoon when the yard would be mostly in the shade and it was perfect! This was also the first party we've had in a long time where all the grandparents were able to attend (not an easy feat when they all live out of town!)

We tried not to go overboard with the presents, but we wanted to get something fun that she would play with for a while, so we went with the Princess Cruiser (complete with flower bow from Grandma). She loved it!

Otherwise, she got mostly fall clothes. I know it's boring, but honestly, she won't remember this birthday and we have a lot of one year old type toys. Plus, Maggie was in 12-18 month clothes during the summer, so there aren't many hand-me-downs that we can use. She got some really cute stuff and I can't wait for the weather to cool off so we can try them on. (Since she still lets me pick out all her clothes, unlike her sister...)

We got a cupcake cake for her party. It was easy and cute. Lucy got her own cupcake of course and she devoured it! All in all it was a great day and a fun party. Now on to toddlerhood.

Eleven Months

Lucy will turn one in exactly three weeks. I am simultaneously excited and terrified by this idea. I can't believe it has been almost a full year since I was last pregnant. A year since that crazy day where I denied being in labor and wouldn't let my husband take me to the hospital until about three hours before she was born. A year since I first looked at this beautiful little girl with her huge eyes and her mile wide smile. In the past few weeks, Lucy has learned how to give open mouth kisses (ALL THE TIME), take small steps while pushing her baby stroller, and how to say "dadadadada" and whisper "tatata". Now, to plan a first birthday party worthy of such a wonderful little girl.

Put a Pin on it

So, like most women of a certain age lately, I am obsessed with pinterest. I can easily lose hours drooling over recipes, fashion, and home decor. I get inspired with fitness exercises, and activites and crafts to do with the girls. I laugh at the quotes and the funny pictures. (I spend a lot of time on pinterest!) I have decided to try to actually do something with some of this inspiration, to add some excitement to my blog and to actually spend some time blogging again. (It's been almost three months since I last wrote here, but I've been a little busy.) I'd like to start blogging about some of the crafts/decor/fashion/activities that I see on pinterest. I feel that often things are shown as easy and then are much more difficult. I am fairly crafty when I want to be, but I think I can give an accurate description of just how easy/hard it is. So, here we go.