15 Weeks

This week: Your baby's legs are finally longer than his/her arms. And all four limbs have joints that are fully functioning now. Your baby is squirming and wiggling like crazy in there, although you probably still cannot feel his/her movements. By this time, your baby may have developed the habit of sucking his/her thumb and their scalp hair pattern is developing as we speak. Their skin is very thin and you can clearly see their blood vessels underneath. As of now, your baby's heart is pumping 25 quarts of blood each day (which will increase to 300 at term).

I cannot believe how much changes every week with our little munchkin. It's so exciting to read what's going on and how the baby is developing. I can't wait until next Monday, which is our next appointment. We won't have an ultrasound, but I'm still looking forward to hearing what the Dr. thinks about the baby's development.

Wordless Wednesday

Clayton Has Arrived!

As you might have been able to tell from my Wordless Wednesday a couple of weeks ago, my nephew is here! Clayton Robert Cockrell was born on Wednesday, December 1st at 5:00pm. He weighed 6 pounds, 15.8 ounces and was 19½" long.

Here he is, getting weighed.

Hanging out in the nursery.

Being born is exhausting!

Sleeping in Mom's room.

The day he got to go home!

Clayton at about a week old! He turned two weeks old just a couple of days ago. I can't believe how fast time flies. We'll be celebrating his birthday before we know it!

Custom Nursery Letters - Part 2 (The Reveal)

I was really bad about taking "during" pictures of this craft project, but I have quite a few afters to share...

All of the letters (except one) are covered with scrapbook paper. I bought coordinating paint and painted all of the backs, sides and edges so that there wouldn't be any raw edges. I bought this little wooden star at Michael's for 99 cents and bought some antique gold paint and painted it. I originally wrote "Sheriff" on it, and then changed it to "Sheriff Clay" and decided that I didn't like either so I spent some time re-painting it (like 4 more times to cover it up) and decided that I liked it best plain. I just hot glued it onto the C.

The accents in Clayton's nursery are going to be red and blue bandana print so I thought it would go well.

I was really excited when I originally saw this bandana print "cowboy" sticker and I just knew that it would be really cute on a red letter. I am not thrilled with how this letter turned out. Its much easier to read in person, which helps some but I don't think the red on red turned out as well as I had hoped. The red paper is textured, and I added the "Wild Wild West" sticker just to break up the red a little. Both of the embellishments are hot glued on.

This was the simplest and quickest one to do. I just covered with with an old fence patterned paper and added the black ink. I decided to leave this one plain and not add any embellishments. This one is D's favorite.

When I first decided to do the letters, this is the first idea that I had. I wanted to wrap one of the letters in jute so that it would appear to be "rope".

This, by far, was the most time consuming letter to do. It took me a little over 2 hours to get that letter wrapped. I started at the bottom of the Y with the natural jute, and hot glued it on, then I brought it to the back and hot glued, brought it to the front and hot glued and over and over again until I got up to the split. Then I had to cut the jute and start over again and wrap one side and then start back down at the "v" and then go up the other side.

Although time consuming, I'm extremely pleased with the way that this one turned out.

The T was another quick one to come together. It's covered in dark blue jean paper to match his bedding (Bridgett and her mom Jackie are making the bedding - the comforter and bumper will be dark denim material). I tied rafia around the letter and made a knot and then found a scrapbook embellishment in light and dark blue and hot glued it to the top of the knot so that it stands out some.

I was really unsure, for a long time, about what to do with the O. I wanted something that didn't match all of his bedding, but that still coordinated with it. Maybe something a little more neutral that tied in with the A and the Y, but brought a western feel to the room. I stumbled upon this paper and knew that I had to use it somehow. Even after I covered the O, I wasn't really in love with it. I went back and forth about adding something to it, but decided that it needed a little something extra. I had bought two horseshoes to use on something else but pulled them off of it and used them here. I just painted them a burnt sienna and used a paint pen to add some markings to make it a little more realistic. I hot glued them to each other and then onto the O.

The N is by far, my favorite letter. I am really pleased with the way that it turned out and how it ties the colors of his nursery to the western/cowboy theme. I started with Real Leather Craft Lace and tied a couple of knots into it to make some lassos. I put a magazine between the letter and the lace and sprayed glue all over it and then pressed it down onto the N until the glue dried. I felt like it would be easier than trying to hot glue it and not have any glue showing. The lace is pretty pliable so you can bend it and shape it pretty well I just continued to do that until I had taken it from one side to another. When I had all of the lace down, I hot glued a cowboy hat scrapbook sticker on top to finish it off.

I bought a picture hanging kit at Hobby Lobby and am going to hot glue hangers to the back so that they can hang the letters like pictures.

And the letters all together - and ready to be hung up!

In case you want to make your own - I'm figuring with supplies (paper, glue, hot glue, letters, embellishments) I made these letters for about $45.

I bought some little brown (butcher paper-like) gift bags and some red bandana print tissue paper to wrap them up in and I'm going to give them to her at her baby shower!

Product Review - Method

Last year, a dear friend of mine introduced me to Method products. And I use the term “introduce” loosely. She could single handedly, run their marketing campaign and I really think they should be paying her something for all of her word-of-mouth reviews. Partly just to tell her that I tried them, I gave in thinking I will wince when I go to check out and the products are more expensive and I will go back to my works-just-as-well-and-it’s-a-lot-cheaper products. I was wrong! I’m in love. Don’t get me wrong, I would still love for the products to be cheaper, but these are really great products that are made with naturally derived surfactants, so they are safe for your family. There are no chemicals and dangerous toxins so that means – they are 100% safe for your children and your pets. (Moms, this means that your kids can help you clean and you don’t have to worry about them inhaling or ingesting anything that will hurt them)! Method’s cleaning formulas contain biodegradable ingredients derived from natural materials like soy, coconut and palm oils and their product packaging is made from the most readily recyclable materials. The CO2 emissions from their employee’s commute and travel to work, are offset with carbon credits and the energy used in their manufacturing sites and offices are from renewable energy credits. They never test products on animals, which is big in my book! They have the neatest packaging designs – they design art, not just cleaners and best of all – they have some really great scents. They mimic scents of flowers, fruits and herbs so your house smells fresh and natural, and not like chemicals. I thought that Darren would flip out that I was paying more for something that I was already getting, cheaper but he listened to all the great things about them, and decided that we would give a few things a try. I loaded him up in the car and we ran over to our local Target (they only place I have found Method products, besides the internet). We walked into the cleaning aisle and he said “we should try this one” and “ooh, we should try that one” and before you know it – I had half a basket full of Method products! Some things I have noticed while using them? They smell great! Seriously! They don’t bother Darren’s allergies, like other products I was using. I am not a psycho about locking the dog outside to make sure everything dries before she gets inside. My laundry is really clean and fresh! I have big issues with laundry detergent (and soap) irritating my skin. I get all red and itchy when I use fragranced soaps and detergents so I was REALLY leery about trying a new detergent, but guess what? It’s fabulous! Honestly! I pay $14.99 for a container of detergent that will wash 64 loads (not much of a price difference from Tide) and I won’t buy any other kind of detergent – I am hooked! Here are some of the products that I am using: hand soap (I like the Go Naked and Darren likes the Cucumber); hand sanitizer (I'm using Sweet Water); dishwasher tabs; daily shower spray; toilet bowl cleaner; wood cleaner; air freshener; scented plug ins; dryer sheets; and my absolute favorite... their laundry detergent. They even have baby laundry detergent if you want the "green" version of Dreft. The same dear friend that introduced me to these products, recently had a new baby. As a small gift, I headed over to Babys R Us and bought their Method Baby Gift Set. She reviewed the gift set on her blog, last month. Give them a try! You'll love them, as much as I do, I'm sure!!