My PB + J

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Melissa and Doug GIVEAWAY and 25% Off Coupon! 

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Fall ‘harvest’ bunting {DIY}

After my last Fall DIY project I quickly started looking for other projects I could whip up while I was counting down the days until my baby arrived. I knew I wanted something for my fireplace so I turned to Pinterest for Fall inspired bunting. I found this tutorial here, it looked easy peasy so I went to Joann’s and found the items and then they sat and sat. That was until yesterday afternoon when both kiddos were napping, I was cleaning off one of my counters and decided to quickly cut out the burlap which led to tracing the letters and then modge podging it up before we left to watch the Alabama game. Basically what I am saying here is that this is a quick and easy project you can fit into your busy lives. Make one for Fall or for Christmas! 
What you’ll need:
  • Burlap, I purchased a 1/4 yard. – depending on the sale you get this can cost pennies. 
  • Pom-Pom Fringe – I chose brown. – $3.79/yard I purchased two yards. 
  • Fall Leaves – These might be a little more difficult to find now that Christmas has taken over the craft stores. I purchased mine in early October at Michael’s for $1 for a pack eighteen. 
  • Brown Sharpie or other permanent brown pen
  • Modge Podge
  • Hot Glue

I printed out ‘Harvest’ in a font I knew would be easy to trace and fill. 
after filling in the traced letters I laid out wax paper and put a pretty good coat of modge podge on to ensure no fraying, it also took out the small amount of wrinkles. I let them sit for a few hours and they peeled off without a problem.  

I used hot glue to adhere the trim and fall leaves and voila! 

Payton playing with her “pumpkims”

I am really happy the way the bunting came out, mine is a little different from the tutorial because I never looked back at it until today after I hung it up. I did not trim the extra trim away from the letters and my leaves are all the same orientation. I thought of trimming the pom-pom’s but for how much the two yards cost I decided I wanted to see as many of those little balls as possible! 

my family of four {newborn session}

This past Friday my dear friend, Tessa, of Grin & Share It Photography took our sweet little Brayden’s newborn photos. I have to admit that we almost didn’t take photos due to me being a negative nancy and  our financial situation. But, as usual the stars always align and we soon found ourselves sitting in her backyard studio being captured as a family of four. I know I always say it, but if you’re in the San Diego area or plan on coming here for vacation you need to book a session with her. I have worked with plenty of photographers over the years and she is the most professional, fun and engages herself so well with children to capture the best photos. I am so smitten with the photos she posted yesterday that looking at them brings tears to my eyes. I cannot thank Tessa enough for capturing our growing family yet once again. 

I had the vision of this hat the entire pregnancy. My Mom whipped it up for me the night we came home from the hospital and it couldn’t be any cuter! We will be adding these gnome hats to our etsy store in 2012! 

I purchased this gnome hat, another vision I had looked for and finally found from birdy bird boutique. She has really beautiful pieces and does auctions on her FB page if you’re looking for a great holiday gift, photo prop or shower gift. Venture on over to check out her amazing work, it’s not only quality handmade pieces but she shipped out my hat quicker than I had imagined which was great seeing as though Brayden arrived three weeks early! 
This photograph melts my heart and swells my eyes with happy tears. This is why we have children folks. 

My family is complete. 

proud big sister! 

candy, please…

My child, as previously stated has a candy problem. We started prepping her on proper trick-or-treating etiquette weeks in advance and she preformed on cue, except for the major meltdown she had prior to stepping out on Halloween evening. Blame it on the candy she got from Grandma as we carried out Halloween activities throughout the day, a new brother or the fact that she just wanted to have a temper tantrum. How dare an almost two-year-old have a tantrum on her mommy’s favorite holiday, geesh! After we got through the kicking and screaming we headed out with half of a costume on and went door to door where she said, “candy, please. more candy please” and offered a hefty thank you as our neighbors dished out full size candy bars for her first Halloween as a solo trick-or-treater. She loved the spooky decorations, again something I prepped her on, scaring her throughout the month to prep her not only for our decorations but our neighbors. The kid is a ham, I tell you. We only went to about ten houses and her bucket from Aunt Jinger was full, she was happy to return home and continue passing out candy with Uncle Geoff, Grandma and Daddy. We let her eat what she wanted, okay maybe like three or four things but we didn’t set any limits. All in all, it was a great day and cannot wait for next year! 
helping scoop out the guts, which she referred to as poop and said “eeeww”. 

“you want me to put my hand in there?” She totally has her daddy’s fear of dirty hands syndrome. 

helping me poke the pumpkin for our design. 

our little gnomeo. I made his costume that morning, super difficult I tell you. 😉 

tantrum prior to stepping out. 
then happy as can be walking around. she would stop other kids and try to give them candy out of her bucket. 
wow! If I don’t look tired then who knows what that means. Such a great day, and to think I would have had an amnio on Halloween had our little gnomeo not graced us two weeks early. 

brayden james {birth story}

{monday, october 17}
I had a really rough night sleeping. Jim had slept in Payton’s bed after being kicked out of our bed by Payton. The dog and Payton were literally sleeping on top of me the entire night. I woke-up wondering what we were going to do with our day and Payton woke up whiny, which never happens. I remembered a friend saying she was going to Kid Ventures so I started looking up where it was, how much admission was and I was texting my friend. I started to feel some cramping and felt very “off”, I sent another text to a friend that I should probably start timing the contractions. After about ten minutes of timing they were coming every two minutes so I made the call to Jim to let him know that today just might be the day. When I spoke to him I told him I would keep timing for an hour and then make the call. The contractions kept coming every two minutes and through a few I had to stop. I would just look at Payton and start crying. We were not ready for this in so many ways! I text Jim that today was the day and that he needed to come home. I worked on a bow order, packed my bag and took a quick shower. We arrived at the hospital three hours after I started timing and they immediately admitted me to triage. We did the routine check-in process and then Dr. Lai came in to check me, I was in between a five and six and said we would be having a baby today! Jim had to take Payton down to our friend Jinger who would watch her while I was in labor. While he was away I was presented with two options from Dr. Lai: go ahead with a c-section at 4:30 PM or try for a vbac. She gave me the risks, how the recovery would be easier, and we agreed that I would not push for more than an hour based on how my delivery went with Payton. Jim came back to my room and we were quickly admitted to L&D room #7. The nurses were amazing, we talked about how my delivery and stay with Payton was discouraging and how we would not walk down that path again. Since I was 36 weeks 4 days they had to pump me with antibiotics, my first dose was 5 million ml’s and I would receive the second dose of 3 million at 6:15 PM. We spent the few hours joking with our nurse, Roberta, who was hilarious. Around 4:30 PM Dr. Lai came back in to check my progress and I was around 6 1/2 cm. We discussed when I should get my epidural, we decided that I would get it prior to breaking my water so we waited an hour and I got the epidural right around 7 cm. It hurt a lot more this time around, or maybe since I was more aware of what to expect it was just more uncomfortable. The epi took into full effect, I got my second dose of antibiotics and waited for the doctor to break my water. Once they broke my water, my epi had started to wear off slightly and I felt the urge to start pushing within twenty minutes. The pushing game is no joke and honestly I was playing my own mind game. I immediately went back to when I pushed with Payton and I did not want to feel like a failure, I pushed to my hearts content. My sister held the left leg, Jim the right and my Mom propped my head up during each contraction. I gazed on at Dancing with the Stars and took in that the Bangles were singing “Manic Monday”, I remember giggling to myself and mouthing “it’s pretty ironic, huh?”  I was so hot, I had a migraine from hell and honestly just wanted to see my baby. My epi wore off again, they called in the anesthesiologist who said it had come out about one centimeter. He gave me a shot and said if that didn’t work they would have to come back in to redo it. Luckily for me it did work, I got to rest for about thirty minutes and then began pushing again. His head was making it’s way down but then would slide back, Kathy, our new nurse kept encouraging me and said she could see his hair. When I asked her what color it was she said blonde and I let out a loud woo-hoo! I felt energized to keep pushing, the doctor came back in to check out my pushing skills and said it wasn’t that I wasn’t pushing correctly, the baby was just being stubborn. She gave me two choices: go for the vacuum and push like hell as she pulled or go for the repeat c-section. It was at this moment that I felt let down once again. I didn’t want to go for the vacuum option and then fail after all that hard work to end up in the OR. I wanted this baby to come out more than anything, I wanted to accomplish a natural birth now that I had come this far so I chose the vacuum option. I remember looking at my Mom and she gave me the “are you crazy” look. I know I probably asked for someones opinion but honestly, I was in my own world. Within a minute there were about ten additional hospital staff in the room to greet our baby with the biggest birthday party yet. 
As the doctor inserted the vacuum I prepped myself mentally. I knew this would be the hardest work yet and I didn’t care what the risk was to me. The word laceration kept running through my mind but I wanted to see my baby. Everything started moving so fast, I would push and through the contraction I would look at the vacuum measure to see how things were progressing. My epidural had worn off again and I didn’t care that I could feel everything. With a few contractions I could feel his head make it’s way through, then the shoulders and then I was holding my angel. Karen and rest of the room looked over at the clock and she let out a high pitched “12:00 AM on the dot, I guess he wanted his own day”.  It was the best feeling in the world, something I feel I was robbed of with Payton. I was screaming of pain, but crying because he was here. Jim quickly cut the umbilical cord and then they took him over to the table where Pediatrics was to measure and see how the cleft took into play. I watched but couldn’t see anything, Jim turned around with tears in his eyes and said that his palate wasn’t affected and our prayers had been answered. I was instantly hysterical. His cleft lip made me smile, he was gorgeous and perfect in every way. All our worrying for months had been swept away, our biggest fear of lifetime of palate surgeries and touch-ups were gone. Our family was all together, looking at our angel. I have never felt so complete then at that very moment. My family left and then it was just Jim, Brayden and I. We kept talking to Karen and staring on at our baby, they moved us over to my new room and that’s when we started our journey as parents of two under two. 
Brayden James has completed my heart, he is absolutely perfect and an angel sent to me by God. 
Brayden James 
October 18, 2011
12:00 AM
7 pounds 5 ounces 
19 inches