Easy DIY boy gifts

Every year for Christmas and his birthday, I try to come up with some fun ideas for Micah that I can make myself. Last year I made him a play mat with roads he could drive his little cars around on. I expected it to be a big hit and it sort of wasn't. Thankfully it was a cheap dud, but still, kind of disappointing.

So this year, I have been showing Micah the things I come across that I thought he would like, to get kid approval. I know how hard it is to make things for boys, when it is so easy for girls (or maybe it's just that there are more DIY options out there for girls), so I thought I would pick out the things Micah showed the most interest and excitement for and share a list!





This is something I was looking at for ages. The pediatrician I take Micah to has a HUGE white board that is magnetic, covered with fun letter and shape magnets, at a lower height from the floor so the kids can play with it. He absolutely adores that wall. I think for this project, the most expensive part would be the magnets you add to the board. Maybe thrift shops or Craigslist could help there!



This one is best if you know you will reliably get snow at some point this winter. Since we live in the desert, I don't think this will be a gift, but just something I make one day if it snows.



This is a big favorite, and I am definitely making Micah some of these. Little stuffed fish with a magnet in the "nose" area (do fish have a nose?), and a corresponding magnet on a string attached to a stick. Tons of fun, plus a bonus way to get rid of scraps!



What kid doesn't like play dough? And this is an easy way to color them exactly how you want, without the mess of food coloring dying things you didn't intend on dying. Plus, it smells pretty good.



This would be fantastic for cold days when you make living room forts! Added bonus - if your kid goes to daycare, perfect for naptime. Micah hasn't napped in almost two years, but I know other lucky moms get the occasional nap!



For the truly adventurous - a marshmallow shooter! Maybe just add the caveat that it has to be used outdoors.



Micah really liked this idea. I was thinking I could start working on money with him. He gets a quarter every time someone says a bad word, and loses a quarter if he says a bad word. Thankfully there isn't much money passing back and forth, but it was a good way for him to see money. Maybe we can start talking about how four quarters equals a dollar this way.

What do you plan to make for gifts for Christmas this year?

Patterns released!

In the last month, I have tested two patterns for two fabulous bloggers/designers. Let me tell you, sitting on the pictures after I test a pattern is hard! I always want to show off something that turns out especially cute, but I was a good girl and I waited. Turns out that one pattern was a part of the newest Pattern Anthology colllection, the Alphabet Collection. And really, I could not have been more pleased to be a part of it.

The first was a pattern from Shwin&Shwin, The BBC Vest.




I asked him to make muscles for me. Eh, close enough.



Micah is a pretty true 4T, though he tends to be on the slim side. I cut a 4T and I guess Micah grew, because it was a little short/narrow. That's what pattern testing is for! It still turned out really cute, and he loved it, so I will be making him more of these in the future.

The second was a pattern from Melly Sews, the Tee x 3.







This was fantastic! My mom bought some cute jersey with an elephant pattern from Joann's about a week before I volunteered to pattern test, so it could not have been better timing. I drafted the pants myself from a pair of Micah's existing pajamas, and I chose the long sleeved version of the Tee pattern for the top. My dad thought I bought them at the store. That's always a flattering thing to hear, but the pattern could not have made it more easy. I'm still learning to work with jersey, but it's a very forgiving fabric. I knew not to pull it through the feed dogs, but it still gave me some wavey seams. Once on, you couldn't really tell, and I am pretty proud of these.

Go buy them! You won't regret it.

Micah's 3rd birthday

I still cannot believe that Micah is already three. It seems like just yesterday that he was born. He's so big, he knows so much and constantly amazes with the things that he says. It's new every day and he is the center of my universe more and more every day.

We haven't thrown him a huge party for any of his birthdays, since he is the only child in my family. So my parents, my brother and his wife, his great-grandparents (my husbands grandparents) and our best friend Brie and Emmet. This year it was pizza and salad, and the fruit kabobs I have made for a couple years now, and cupcakes.

I made his shirt the morning of his party, too. Slacker extraordinaire, I am!



We Skyped with my aunts and grandmother, and with Antonio's parents. Micah loves Skype, and I love that the family we have that lives far away can still see him...even though he was acting silly and was so wound up he had a hard time sitting.





Uncle Emmet always buys him the toys HE would like to have (at Christmas he got a full-size light saber, for goodness sake). So his choice of remote control car this year totally won Micah over. He had it mastered in about ten minutes, too.



Then the party inevitably moved outside, like it does every year, because we thankfully have had nice weather. It was downright hot! 70 degrees in April is a painful reminder of how hot summer will be. But it meant we got to have a lot of fun. He was christened with the leftover confetti eggs from Easter, then he played in the water, his favorite.





Then since his birthday landed on a weekday, Antonio and I took the day off from work to spend with Micah doing something fun just for him. The weather is the absolute opposite of what we had over the weekend- freezing, windy and rainy - so we opted for the Museum of Natural History to go look at volcanos and dinosaurs. And he loved it! The volcano room freaked him out a bit because it's dark, and the floor is thick glass with red lights and fog under it to look like lava. I had to carry him through it until we convinced him to try touching it, and then he ran through it at top speed, haha.











Happy birthday to my sweet little monkey, I love you!

He's going to be THREE?!

I honestly can't believe Micah is going to be three already. It feels like just yesterday I was holding him in one arm, and now it takes both arms and a lot of back and leg strength because he's huge. He does put away the food nowadays...I see a very empty fridge in his teenage years.



Last year I had a bunch of cutesy ideas for his birthday party, but I think this year I am going to focus on cake. Since I am a slacker and never get half of the things I want done, done. Hah. So I have been browsing some some cake ideas that would be a possibility for his little party, that would also be easy for me to make. (I'm not much of a baker!)

Micah is all about volcanoes. So when I spotted these, I knew I just had to try and find a pan that I could make these with. If anyone finds this kind of pan, let me know - I am coming up dry.

Source: celebrationsathomeblog.com via Aimee on Pinterest

This is super cute, and doesn't look hard at all, though it is bigger than I'd like considering it will just be family coming for the party. Maybe I can just try it smaller.

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This is all about the decoration, and looks simple enough, but I would have to special-order the M&M's. Boo.

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This is another similar option, but I think it might work better for a girl.

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Micah is also into trains (though not as much as volcanoes and bowling), and this looks really easy. Plus I can make enough for each guest to have their own.

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I also need to get to work on his birthday shirt. My attempt last year ended up being sort of sad, because the iron-on sheets I bought were the wrong kind and they ended up peeling off. So I want to try applique this time.

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Bento!

If any of you have gone through the two year old phase of "I hate all food!" then you'll commiserate with this post. Micah is fully immersed in this phase right now. I have tried everything, including giving in to his random, horribly unhealthy whims. Cookies at 7am? They're calories, sure. (Please don't judge me.) Pizza for breakfast? Ok.

I've even tried bribing with food, which was suggested to me when he wouldn't eat. "If you are a good boy for this entire grocery store trip, then you can pick something you want out." It usually ended up being Oreos or blueberries. One is bad, one is good, but if he eats the entire container of blueberries in one sitting (when he's in the mood to even eat them by the time we get home), then his poor tummy freaks out and it isn't worth it.

It's sad, and it's probably all my fault because I used to be happy and tell people he would eat literally anything we gave him when he started with solids at around 6 months. That's what you get, bragger.

Anyway, I recently discovered Bento boxes, and I thought it might be a good way to get him to eat and actually like it. Fun shapes, little creatures, those animal-shaped picks. Anybody tried them out? I figured we could start small and just do veggies and fruit - stuff that will keep so I can make the whole weeks worth at one time - and then if he likes them we can go crazy and get more creative.

So of course, now I have a Pinterest board of Bento awesomeness.

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The little things matter the most.

This morning, I read a heartfelt post on A Day in Motherhood. As I was reading, I realized...I was doing the exact same thing, without even noticing it.

After I initially heard about the tragedy in Newtown, I had to remove myself from it. I shut off the news, changed channels when it was mentioned, and avoided scrolling through my Facebook feed because the faces of those innocent babies were everywhere. I understand why the world is talking about it - it's a senseless tragedy that every parent can relate to, because we are able to put ourselves in the shoes of those mothers and fathers that are forced to bury their child far too early. It breaks our hearts and we cry along with them, feeling the pain as though it were our own.

But what I cannot understand, is the repetition. Yes, the story is major news and everyone deserves to treat it the way they see fit. But as a mother of a sweet little boy, I just cannot stomach the constant exposure to such painful news. Being ignorant of the reality is not what I want, but I just can't bring myself to continue to play the scenarios and feel the agony those parents must feel, over and over.

Instead, just as Lori posted, I find myself cherishing every moment of my days with Micah, because I don't want to take anything for granted. I had photos professionally taken of Micah by a friend of mine named Minie, mostly for Christmas cards (that I slacked off on and never got printed - oops). But after the 14th, I found they started migrating to my desk at work by the dozen, and I find myself staring at them off and on all day. I listen to video clips I have of him on my phone just to hear him talk and laugh. Who cares if last week I wished he could just STOP and relax for a moment without talking, because he was exhausting me?







We got him a trampoline that was supposed to be for Christmas, but we broke it out early and he plays in it every day before bedtime. He likes to lay down in it, so we fill it with blankets and pillows and cover the top so it's like a tent. Who cares if it makes a mess I have to fix after he goes to sleep?





Yesterday, a coworker of my mom's sent a bottle of bubble bath and some candy canes to Micah for Christmas. Without even letting him ask, I opened one of the candy canes. When he found out what the bubble bath was for, he wanted to go home and take a bath. So we went home and I ran the space heater in the tiny bathroom, and filled up the tub more than I normally would have, with a an excessive amount of bubbles,and he played in it for an hour while I took pictures of his bubble beards and sweated in the heat. Who cares if the candy canes made him sticky and hyper, and who cares if his little toes and fingers were pruned from being in the water so long?





He stays up a little later, he has more milk and more cartoons, I give him more hugs and kisses and take more pictures. I spend more time remembering the little things and enjoying his constant jabber about volcanos and bowling, he gets a little chocolate and maybe a cookie for breakfast. I tickle him more and tell him I love him a thousand times a day. I worry less about his clothes getting dirty and his socks being clean.







Nowadays, it's all about the memories and the journey, and less about the sweating the little stuff. Nowadays, it's about cherishing the time you have. Even if it comes along with dirt and less sleep.

The Case of the Missing Thread

Don't you hate getting started on a project, getting about halfway through it and then finding out you're missing some vital element you need to complete it? ARG.

I found this tutorial on Pinterest awhile back and hadn't had an opportunity to try it out until today.

Several months ago Walmart had some sort of crazy clear-out of a bunch of their clothes, pricing them down as far as $3. I wandered the racks, determined to find something that I could reconstruct. As someone that had not really done much with clothes at the time I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but everything in my size range didn't seem to have much potential. So I glanced through the Small to Medium size range for something I could use in scrap projects, and I found these two beauties.



Please ignore the wrinkles. I refuse to iron something that I will just wrinkle right back up again!

When I saw the striped shirt I thought of Micah right away. I love stripes on babies and in a size Medium I knew it wouldn't require much to make it fit. The moon and cow shirt was also obvious for him because he loves the moon and points it out every chance he gets, plus it wasn't too girly. So I brought them home and promptly forgot about them for about two months. Good job, slacker!

Today I had a bit of free time so I dug them out and brought along a new shirt I just bought for the baby to use as reference. I lay them out on my dining room table and started pinning them. For the green shirt, the neck was way too wide for an 18 month old, so rather than just pin up the sides to take out the excess, I pinned up the center to bring in the neckline.





Then I pinned up the sleeves, leaving some room for a small cuff.



I also pinned down the top of the shoulders to bring in the neckline even more and to help narrow the arms. It was about this time that I realized I should have turned it inside out, hah. So I turned it inside out and repinned, then I cut off the bottom at the length I wanted and cut off the sleeves to where I pinned.



And since I am an overachiever, I also pinned up the cow shirt. I put a row of pins down the sides and inside of the shirt sleeves to take it in. Of course, I also realized I didn't turn it inside out again. I think I'm having an off day.







And that's as far as I got because I realized I had no white thread. What a day I'm having. Stay tuned for the finished project!