Snowman Kits

Have you seen snowman kits? I've been itching for an excuse to make some and when I got to do the welcome gifts for family retreat, it seemed like the perfect idea. I scoured Pinterest for ideas and basically followed this tutorial. David helped me with the math again, so that I purchased only the fabric needed.

Since I needed to make 12 and I was working in a budget, I looked for the least inexpensive way to make them.

I glued pom~poms onto small craft sticks for eyes, mouth and buttons and painted wooden pegs orange for the "carrot" nose.

I sewed felt top hats...too cute and a desired item for mat hat~loving boy.

I whipped up some tags, though I would maybe use them better next time to show what the kit included (in case there was question as to what each item was for).

 This was such a fun project, though next time I would work out a few minor changes.

Catching Up

I was looking through some pictures on my computer and realized that I hadn't shared a few things, so we'll call this a catch up post and then I'll share some of my latest news in another post.

• I showed you a project in progress awhile back, but never showed you the finished project. Malachi turned three in November and received a super hero doll with a matching cape, super hero cuffs and mask. He was super thrilled and the cape continues to be one of his favourites. I designed my own pattern for the doll with tips I'd found online. My Micah might get one for his birthday in June...we'll see.

•  I went to a Christmas party at the beginning of December and we had a gift exchange. I brought our home made vanilla coffee syrup. I bottled it in a Jones soda bottle and used some shrink wine toppers that David had left over from his wine making days. We were to bring two gifts, so I brought two and was happy to see that they were a desired gift and were "stolen" several times. I whipped up a label (re-worked last year's Christmas gift labels).

• I also whipped up a small jar of sugar scrub for each lady. The peppermint smell in my kitchen was lovely.

• I am so close to finishing a really big project...

I think I caught up the missed things, stay tuned for the latest ones.

Abigail's Princess Bed

Ever since Abigail earned her top bunk on David's amazingly built bunk bed, she's been "fixing it up" and making it special. David and I thought she might enjoy having it really done up and put a bug in the ears of her Grandmas. The word spread by the end of her birthday week, she had a lot of wonderful things to make her bed special. Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa McCoy, Auntie Kate and cousin Ethan, Grandma and Grandpa Blanchette and Auntie Tabitha and Uncle Isaiah for making our dolly feel like royalty!

Posing on her princess bed (We adjusted and turned the canopy into curtains and dressed them up with her birthday garland.

She was so excited!

"Look, Mommy. You can see me this way, too!"

cuddling up

Princess sheets, princess blanket

Bear looks good there!

A lamp is a must for a princess bed, especially one with a pull string!

Micah itching to get in on the photo shoot "cheese"

Yes, this is my little monkey climbing ~ we can't stop him, so we taught him how to come down.

Checking In

Phew! I've got a lot of catching up to do. So much has happened in the last two months, I'm not even sure of where to begin. Looking through pictures, we'll just go in order...

• December 1st was our first annual Gingras family Christmas pyjama (spell check says this how to spell it, but it looks wrong to me) dance party. With our fall family ball being such a hit (I just realized that I forgot to blog about that, I posted it on facebook) we decided to combine our pj tradition with a dance party. Everyone rocked out new pjs and we bought a fun light ball and a bunch of glow sticks and danced the evening away. Unfortunately, I was unable to actually dance as I suffered an awful case of pelvic mis-alignment for the bulk of December and wasn't even mobile enough to lift Micah. David stayed home from work the entire month to help me at home and chauffeur me to the many appointments I had trying to resolve the issue. I am happy to say that aside from minor nursing/posture pain, I am recovered.

• December 20th was our 9th yellow day. It's a funny little tradition that we continue to carry out.

• December 20th we went in for fetal assessment (baby was breach and we wanted to be sure she turned) and found out who our Gingras baby was. We shared the news with our littles and had a little celebration.

• December 25th, of course we celebrated Christmas. We had our handmade gifts that we were excited to give our littles. Dance ribbons, jewelry box, bean bag toss with 6 bean bags, plus all the gifts that friends and family sent. It was chaotic and memorable. David spent the afternoon cooking a wonderful ham dinner which I could barely eat as I was I labour.

I didn't wrap any gifts this year, we just used these Santa sacks I found at the dollar store.

• December 25th, 11:21 PM Hannah Noëlle was born at St. Boniface hospital. My midwife went on leave at the beginning of December and I was "assigned" a new midwife. Julia Allen, if you ever read this, YOU ARE AWESOME! I am so grateful for Julia and I hope she has just as great help when she delivers her new baby this spring.

• We spent New Year's eve at home and it all seemed so quiet.
• David began potty training Malachi. He must have been ready because he has had very few accidents in comparison with our Abby when we first tried to train her. The difference in potty training a boy vs. a girl? You have to do laundry not because you've run out of clean underwear, but because you've run out of clean super hero capes.

• January 11th we received a call that sent us reeling. I don't want to share much about it here, as it feels really personal, but David's dad, Richard passed away. This sent us into a whirlwind of planning for the unexpected trip to Alberta. 

• January 15th we attempt to leave for Alberta only to have to turn around due to terrible weather/road conditions. The rest of the day and well into that evening were spent tending to a sick family. Flu hit in full force - yuck! Thankfully it was a short lived sickness and we found we were ready when the roads opened up to leave the next day. FYI, our van is a dream to travel in!!!

• We stayed at the Days Inn in Regina... they have a great family suite that our littles especially loved. Side note, it's really difficult to book a single room for a family our size. If we couldn't get this family suite, we'd be forced to pay for two rooms due to capacity issues.

• We had to postpone Abby's birthday party, we did get to celebrate her with family, which was a special treat. Grandma June and Abby baked cakes, we took her to West Edmonton Mall Waterpark, on a visit to the Santa Maria replica and she got one ride at Galaxyland plus a special dinner with Mama, Papa and Hannah. It was a full day. Just wait until you see what she got for her birthday. (That will follow in another post.)

• Hannah is already a month old! Wow! It's been a crazy roller-coaster of a ride, but we are now settling in to find our new "normal" (whatever that looks like).

Yup, a lot has happened. I have at least a dozen projects in my head I want to get to, a family retreat to help plan and life to live. We'll see how we adjust to our new "normal", but I'm sure it's all going to be quite adventurous. Until next time,

 

Our Christmas Blessing

I didn't disappear, December held much adventure for the Gingras family. There was many trials and many blessings, but I thought I'd share our Christmas blessing with you... 

Introducing, Hannah Noëlle 

born December 25, 2013 at 11:21 PM

8lbs. 14 oz. 23 "

I will fill you in on the rest of the details as soon as possible.

Crafting Continues In the Rush of Life

I've made some choices in order to maintain sanity in our house. Mostly right now that means I lay down on the couch for 1-1.5 hours a day to rest during family quiet time and that means that my poor neglected blog has been left alone for some time. I am 7 weeks away from baby number 4 and I am tired. This doesn't mean that I have been idle in all areas of my life. David and I have begun and even finished some of our Christmas crafting, and I've been crocheting up a storm (well, for me anyway). My David has had a nice long weekend and been so generous with our family time, so today, I got a morning nap and get to spend quiet time here with you. Here's a little update on what we've been busy making. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you may have seen a few sneak peeks.

It started with some painting. Abby will be getting a thrifted jewelry box, painted and filled with handmade jewelry. I used this jewelry box for a while, but most of my necklaces are too long for it to work all that well. It will be a great size for Abby. I should mention that my David did most of the painting. I've had so much fun crafting with my husband!

Then we painted dowels for the all three littles' dance ribbon wands. They love dancing and our church has some nice ribbon wands, but we thought custom ones would be nice for our littles. We made two identical ones for each little, one for home and one for church. I will make drawstring bags for storage and transport. We used this tutorial here.

I also whipped up two scarves. My David and I love iconic Canadiana things, but the budget doesn't always allow that kind of indulgences. For example I love the Hudson's Bay Co. signature five point blanket stripes. The blankets themselves are super expensive, but to our dismay and surprise so were their scarves. We're talking $55 for a scarf!!!! Well, after a long visit at Michael's Arts & Crafts in their yarn department, we found the colours we were happy with and I got to work. David's scarf needed to be warm and functional, not just fashionable. He's not really an accessory kind of guy, so I settled on a tighter crochet stitch (HDC) with a small hook. This meant it took quite awhile and the middle section was quite long and boring. In the end, it turned out nice and cozy. Blocking made all the difference to the final project and just in case you were on the other side of the you-can't-block-acrylic-yarn fence, I am here to tell you that you can and it makes a huge difference. I looked it up on YouTube and I'm super happy with the results. I then made a quick (read loose stitch with large hook) infinity scarf for myself. I have plenty of warm scarves and was interested in another accessory more than a-keep-me-warm-on-the-coldest-days kind of scarf. It turns out to be quite warm anyway and it's cute.

I've also picked up my afghan that I started last fall and have made some progress. No promises as to when I'll finish, but I'm enjoying where it's going and I have hope that it will finish nicer than I expected due to my new found blocking knowledge.

I am now working on Malachi's birthday present which will be a super hero doll inspired by these, but re-worked with my own pattern. He will also get a matching cape, mask and wrist cuffs. His favourite thing to do these days is to dress up as Superman. He doesn't even really know who Superman is, but it's so cute! If you want to see him in action, here's a link to a cute video.

I have other handmade Christmas presents in mind. We'll visit those another day. In the meantime, it's been nice to stop in and say "hello". I've missed this space.

Crafty Check In - Baby Dolls

I haven't been completely lost, but I have been busy and look what cute-ness came out:

(Claire, Ava, Alysha and Tessa)

 More baby girls born to my girlfriends, mean more baby dolls being made. Once again, this pattern is from Emily Martin, The Black Apple. I printed this one at 200% and shortened the legs a bit. I love this little dolly and I had fun putting together some new ones. You can see my other dolls here.

Abby also had some craft time and made this scarecrow that came in her Clubhouse Jr. Magazine. I love seeing her creativity coming out!

With baby being due somewhere around Christmas, I've had Christmas presents on my mind a lot lately. David and I have a list of handmade things we want to do, so that will likely be my crafting focus for now. I don't want to get caught unfinished in case baby is early. I still want to re-cover my couch, but we'll see if that happens this year or not. My "new-baby-new-bag" wish may not happen this time, but I have plenty of bags to use and not so much time or money to spend on the fabric wish list to go with it. Again, it might happen in the new year. If only the house would take care of itself. *sigh*