Make Your Own Nursing Cami

About 2 weeks after my son was born, my family and I went to an amusement park....I know what you're thinking...this lady is crazy. Yes, I probably was.  However, I'm not the type of person to let things hold me back if I can help it and I certainly didn't want to miss out on all the fun, especially since it was practically an all expenses paid trip.  Well, I nurse my babies and it is very difficult to do so in a crowded amusement park.  I didn't want to up an leave everybody to find a bathroom every hour, so I nursed right there on the benches a few times. 

As you can see in the picture below, the benches had holes in them. I'm kind of a private person while nursing, so I had to wrap a blanket all the way around me and on top of my baby, even though it was sweltering hot outside.  :P 

All I can say is I wish I'd had one of these from undercover mama.

After I found this brilliant shirt (several months after the amusement park excursion) I still couldn't bring myself to buy one. They are $25 each and I have a very hard time buying clothes for myself. So I didn't. 

Well, I'm glad I waited because I just found this brilliant idea on how to make one yourself on pinterest! So easy!

Basically you get a camisole, seam rip the back where the strap attaches to the back of the shirt to detach the strap. Then you cut the strap 2 inches from where the strap attaches to the front of the shirt and sew it in a loop as seen below.

 Do it to both sides and you're done. It clips right on to your nursing bra exactly the same as the under cover mama shirt would.  If you need more detail, see this website.

After finding this website I immediately went and made myself one with a cami I never wear anymore and only used as an undershirt in the first place. It took all of 5-10 minutes and cost me nothing.

I am so excited! I feel so liberated. I feel like I can actually go somewhere with my baby and not have to worry about where I will be able to nurse him.  Love it. Bring on the amusement parks now!

All Because

Motherhood

How to Fix Your Doll's Hair

 My girls love their dolls. They are still pretty young, so many of their dolls' hair ends up looking like this:

I found this wonderful idea here.

To fix your dolls hair you need

1.) A wig brush
2.) A small travel size spray bottle filled with a solution made up of 2 Tbsp. of fabric softener and the rest water. That's it! 

Now I didn't have any fabric softener, so I found this other site that tells you how you can make your own. Since I don't use fabric softener I cut the ingredients down. Here's how to make a small portion of fabric softener:

1 Cup Water
1/2 Cup White Vinegar
1/3 Cup Conditioner

Mix them together (don't shake). That's it!

And here is Rapunzel after her hair has been combed out. Good as new!

Don't We Just Love Our Husbands?

Laugh Mom

This makes me laugh.  This is so my life...except imagine them all going on at the same time.

DIY Super Hero Capes

I should start this off by saying that I am not very good at sewing.  However, I made my 6 month old boy a super hero cape. It was too much fun and surprisingly very easy.  Only took me a couple of hours and only took that long because I kept getting interrupted and was doing other things at the same time.

It's a reversible cape, so it has batman on one side and superman on the other. I will definitely have to make a bigger version of these for my boy when he gets older.

I got the appliques from this site: http://www.georgialeigh.com/?p=57.  They have several others including Super Why and The Incredibles. I printed the appliques at 65% (as opposed to 100%). I found this to be just about the right size for a baby. I kind of looked at how she did the pattern and made a small version up myself.  The masks came from this site: http://www.vanillajoy.com/super-hero-mask-pattern-tutorial.html, also printed at 65%. Very simple, very easy, very fun.

 

Organize Yourself

I'm the type of person who has to finish what they've started, who goes full steam ahead with whatever I'm working on, who hates to be interrupted before something is done...it's kind of a problem sometimes. I also have a horrible memory and am SO easily distracted.  I've been searching for something to help me balance out my life.  Then I found pinterest.  I LOVE it.  It has helped me so much. It has given me ideas. It has helped me organize those ideas. It has helped remind me of things I want to do.  It has opened my mind to possibilities.

After immersing myself in pinterest I found several ideas that I thought would help me and put them all together into one.  Here's what I made:

Here are some of the things I like about this chart and how they've helped me.

1. This chart has my menus for the week clipped to clothes pins. This way if I don't feel like making a certain meal one day, I can change my mind last minute and switch days.  This was one of the biggest problems I've had with menus written on paper. I like to change my mind.

2. On the back of the menu strips are the food I need to make the meal.  This was also a problem with paper menus. I would think I had everything when I went shopping and when it came time to make the meal I'd find I was missing an important ingredient. All I have to do with this system is flip the paper over and write down on my shopping list what I need to get that week.  No more searching through recipe books weekly to make sure I have everything.

3. I have meal ideas in the "Menu" pocket.  No more searching through recipe books trying to figure out what to make.  If I find a new recipe I want to try, I just write it on a strip of paper, with the recipe page number if I need to and what I need for it on the back.

4. Cleaning- I have little green pockets next to each day of the week that have the jobs I need to do that day. Here's a site I found that has ideas for how to keep your house clean by doing one chore per day. I modified the chores a little to fit my individual needs and circumstances.

5. I have a "Monthly" and a "Seasonal" pocket at the bottom to help remind me the things I need to clean monthly and seasonally.  Here's another website with one thing you should deep clean per month to keep your house clean. You could also use their daily job ideas as well.

6. Lastly, I have one thing that I want/need to do as an individual Velcro-ed onto the front of the green pockets for each day.  This helps me feel like I've accomplished something.  So here are some of my individual day things:

* Make Something - make one thing which could include a craft, sewing project, gift, website, something for kids, something for spouse, something to help organize etc.
* Fix/Organize - mend one pair of pants, fix a broken toy, organize a messy closet etc.
* Photography - go out and take a photos of something new.
* Bake/Cook - bake bread, rolls, breadsticks, cook a new recipe, cook freezer meals etc.
* Blog - write on your blog.
* Get Outside - get out of the house and take your kids to the park, weed a flower bed, plant something, go shopping etc.

Again, I like that they have Velcro on the back because I can switch them around if I want to if I don't feel like doing something one day, or if it doesn't fit in my schedule.

Maybe you could do a couple of these things each day, but for me, I have four children that demand my attention, so I have to start with baby steps and just try to do one thing for myself a day. 

Anyways, this chart has helped me so much. It has helped me finally feel balance in my life.

Now there is one more thing I do to help remind me to do things with the kids.  Some days the older kids play all day with each other and I never see them.  While this is kind of nice, it doesn't help me feel like a very good mom.  So, I got a cup and put a bunch of popsicle sticks in it.  On each popsicle stick I wrote one thing to do with the kids. Some examples are things like, "Read 3 books," "Play 2 games," "Do a puppet show," "Put together a puzzle," "Draw a picture together, " etc.  I have the kids draw at least one of the sticks per day and that way make sure I am spending time with each of them. The kids love it and it makes it so I don't have do come up with ideas to do off the top of my head (I'm not very good at that).

Look For Moments

Love

Always Be a Gentleman

I love this. What happened to gentlemen these days?  We need more of them back. I need to get one for my little man.

Life is Like an Old Time Rail

“Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he’s been robbed. The fact is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to just be people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, most jobs are more often dull than otherwise.

Life is like an old time rail journey…delays…sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling burst of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.” ― Gordon B. Hinckley

Teaching Children Table Manners

My children used to have horrible table manners.  They would talk with their mouths full, put their elbows on the table, forget to say please and thank you and eat with their fingers. I felt like a horrible mother nagging them time and time again which seemed to have no effect whatsoever.

One day I found this great idea on Pinterest. The idea was to get a small pig toy and during dinner whenever someone broke one of the manner rules, they would get the piggy. Whoever was left with the piggy at the end of dinner would have to clear off the table.

I immediately tried out this idea with our family at dinner time. It worked like a charm!  The first day the piggy was passed back and forth between our children dozens of times.  Someone forgot to say thank you. Someone chewed with their mouth full. Someone had their elbows on the table, etc.  Finally towards the end of dinner, my oldest said, "Mom, I don't want to do any of those things you said because I DON'T want the piggy!"  I was so glad that she was finally getting it!  And what was even better was I didn't have to nag! When I saw someone with bad manners I simply and quietly passed the piggy to them and said, "You forget to say please."  The kids also had fun trying to see if they could catch mom or dad with bad manners so they could give us the piggy!

After having used this method with our family for the past few weeks I have noticed a huge difference in our families eating habits. The piggy gave our children a visual reminder of what not to do at the dinner table and helped teach them good table manners.

Laugh

“The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.” ― Marjorie Pay Hinckley

 

Our Sixth Sense: Humor

An article I found by Chuck Gallozzi says:

"Our five senses are not enough for ideal living. We need to use our sixth sense: our sense of humor. 

Humor isn't about merely telling jokes; it's the way we view the world. We can be sincere about life without taking it so seriously. We can laugh about our mistakes and pain. 

Louis Kronenberger explains: "Humor simultaneously wounds and heals, indicts and pardons, diminishes and enlarges; it constitutes inner growth at the expense of outer gain, and those who posses and honestly practice it make themselves more through a willingness to make themselves less."

Child Like

We are told in the scriptures to be more "child like."  What is one thing children do a LOT (at least mine do)?  Laugh. When is the last time you had a good hard belly laugh?

The many benefits of laughter

Laughing is good for your body, mind and soul. I don't remember where I found the following benefits of laughing but I had to share them.

1. When you make fun of yourself, you dis-empower those who would make fun of you and disarm possible confrontations.

2. Laughter dissolves tension, stress, anxiety, irritation, anger, grief, and depression. Like crying, laughter lowers inhibitions, allowing the release of pent-up emotions. After a hearty bout of laughter, you will experience a sense of well-being. Simply put, he who laughs, lasts. After all, if you can laugh at it, you can live with it. Remember, a person without a sense of humor is like a car without shock absorbers.

3. Medical researches have found that laughter boosts the immune system. The study of how behavior and the brain affect the immune system is called psychoneuroimmunology. Though still in its infancy, this science is rapidly gaining much attention as mankind strives to understand the mind-body relationship.

4. Laughter reduces pain by releasing endorphins that are more potent than equivalent amounts of morphine.

5. Humor helps integrate both hemispheres of our brain, for the left hemisphere is used to decipher the verbal content of a joke while the right hemisphere interprets whether it is funny or not.

6. Laughter adds spice to life; it is to life what salt is to a hard-boiled egg.

7. Develop your sense of humor and you will find you are more productive, a better communicator, and a superior team player.

8. Everyone loves someone who can make them laugh. The more you share your sense of humor, the more friends you will have.

9. Humor brings the balance we need to get through the turbulence of life comfortably.

10. Laughter is even equivalent to a small amount of exercise. It massages all the organs of the body, according to Dr. James Walsh.

11. A sense of humor can help you accept the inevitable, rise to any challenge, handle the unexpected with ease, and come out of any difficulty smiling."

More Quotes

A Laugh is a Smile that Bursts ~Unknown

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. ~E.E. Cummings 

Laughter is an instant vacation. ~Milton Berle

Even if there is nothing to laugh about, laugh on credit. ~Author Unknown

Let's all learn from the example of little children and remember to laugh every day and not take life too seriously. Laughter IS the best medicine.