Wendys First Halloween!

Wendy’s first Halloween!

[Post soon to come]

Baby Bow Crochet Headband

Here’s a little (and fast!) Crochet tutorial for you! You can make them, sell them, give them as gifts, whatever you’d like! Just please don’t pretend this tutorial is yours :). If you have any questions, please just comment and I’ll try to get back to you a.s.a.p.! 😉

Headband:  (For the BC, I would suggest making enough chains to fix around your little one’s head. Just keep making chains and checking if it fully goes around! I used 61 put you can replace the 61 below for any number you’d like.)

Base Chain: 61 ch, connect with ss to first ch

Row 1: 2 ch, sc in next chain and across to end. finish up and sew in tail.

Bow:

Base Chain: 25 ch, connect with ss to first ch

Row 1: 2 ch (counts as first sc), sc in next chaid and across, ss to first sc

Row 2-5: repeat row 1

finish up, sew in tail.

Band:

Base Chain: 10 ch, sc in 3rd ch from hook, sc across to end, finish off.

Now you should have these three pieces (I hadn’t sewn in the tails yet in these pictures >_< ). Take the Bow and Headband and hold them together as you use the small band to wrap around the two. You can use the tails from the small band to tie them together.

And you are done! Enjoy! ❤

…sooo tired!

So my little Wendy is almost three weeks old now and I’ve never been more exhausted in my life. I thought I was tired when I was pregnant! Boy, was I stupid for thinking that!

First, I gotta say, I am lucky to have an amazing fiancé who stayed up with the baby for the last two nights so I could catch up on my sleep. Otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this 🙂 .

A few years ago we would stay up till three in the morning, drinking beers and playing video games. Enjoying each others company, no responsibilities to worry about the next day. When I got pregnant, that all changed. I was tired all the time! It’s hard work making a baby! My fiancé probably wasn’t too pleased that by the time he got off work I’d only be able to hang out him for an hour before getting too tired and going to bed. I’d sleep for ten straight hours. I’d kill for that now !

Nowadays, I take care of the baby all day. Don’t get me wrong, I love it! She’s such a cutie! I just can’t really follow the “sleep when that baby sleeps” advice because a) she’s up every hour during the day to drink breast milk. So i’m ether feeding her or pumping most of the day. b) The house has never been messier. Which makes me feel guilty. So when she’s sleeping I usually try to run around and get something done around the house. c) I didn’t drink any caffeine (except for the occasional soda) during my pregnancy. So now when I drink my much needed frappuccino in the morning, I can’t take a nap for a few hours and need to get a few quick things done (like this post for example 😉 ).

With no real sleep, it’s been easy to get overwhelmed with the housework. Even working on a little here and there throughout the day doesn’t seem to show any progress with new things piling up all the time. Even when the fiancé stays up most of the night to watch the baby, it’s hard not to snap at him for leaving the kitchen a mess after making a late night snack, or leaving his socks and clothes on the floor. I’ve been trying to bite my tongue though because he works so hard for us, it’s just not worth it.

I don’t know how you working mommies do it! Mad kudos to you all!

ps: Sorry for the rant-y post! Trying to stay positive :D. Expect a new tutorial soon!

Crocheted Heart Pot Holder

Here’s my first crochet tutorial! It’s for a pot holder with a heart 🙂 . I hope you guys like it! You can also use this pattern to make a heart square for an afghan or whatever you’d like. If you have any questions or comments, just leave them in the comments and I’ll try to reply as soon as possible!

Some tutorials that might be helpful with this pattern:

Crocheting Over Yarn Ends

Changing Colors Neatly in Crochet

Heart Pot Holder:

I used Red Heart Super Saver yarn , three colors (A, B and C) one skein each (you’ll use less than a skein but its always good to have extra!) and a size F/5 hook

Base Chain: using A, 35+3 ch (counts as first dc)

Row 1: dc in 4th ch, dc across, turn (36 dc)

Row 2: 3 ch (counts as first dc), dc in next, dc across, turn (36 dc)

Row 3: repeat row 2

Row 4: 3 ch, dc in next 15 dc, change to B, dc in next 4 dc, change to A, dc in last 16 dc, turn

Row 5: 3 ch, dc in next 12 dc, change to B, dc in next 10 dc, change to A, dc in last 13 dc, turn

Row 6: 3 ch, dc in next 9 dc, change to B, dc in next 16, change to A, dc in last 10 dc, turn

Row 7: 3 ch, dc in next 6 dc, change to B, dc in next 22 dc, change to A, dc in last 7 dc, turn

Row 8: repeat row 7

Row 9: 3 ch, dc in next 3 dc, change to B, dc in next 28 dc, change to A, dc in last 4 dc, turn

Row’s 10-12: repeat row 9

Row 13: 3 ch, dc in next 3 dc, change to B, dc in next 13 dc, change to A, dc in next 2 dc, change to B, dc in next 13 dc, change to A, dc in last  4 dc, turn

Row 14: 3 ch, dc in next 6 dc, change to B, dc in next 7 dc, change to A, dc in next 8 dc, change to B, dc in next 7 dc, change to A, dc in last 7 dc, turn

Row’s 15-17: repeat row 2

Finish off.

Make another square, switching yarns A and B if you’d like 🙂

Border: using C, start in the upper left hand corner (see picture below) and do a HDC all the way around, sewing both squares together. Once you reach the end, 10 ch, ss in first hdc to create a loop to hang your potholder, finish off.

Welcoming Miss Wendy Fae Into The World

Wow! It’s been a crazy couple of days!! On Friday I started feeling mild contractions all day so I busted out my contraction timer app (because there seems to be an app for everything) and started timing while I worked on a crochet pattern. They weren’t very intense or regular so I didn’t take them very seriously. At around 5pm I found out my mom, who lives in Northern California, couldn’t wait any longer, was getting on a plane and expecting to arrive around 1am.

It was a good thing too because at 10:45pm my contractions started to come on hardcore suddenly. I had to lie down and an hour later I couldn’t stand it anymore so we headed to the hospital. In triage we discovered I was already 4 centimeters dilated so I got admitted right away!

The contractions got worst and worst every time. It felt like the worst period cramps ever. You can’t help but cry out. The anesthesiologist took forever to get there. It wasn’t until 3am that he showed up. I got dosed and it was slightly a relief but 20 mins later it still hurt so bad. My nurse noticed and called him back in for a second dose and I finally went numb. I mean super numb. My legs turned into two jelly filled things I couldn’t feel or move and it was soo creepy.

They laid me down on my side and I fell asleep (the epidural worked wonders, clearly). When I woke up I was fully dilated and ready to start pushing! My doctor had them turn off my epidural so I can feel when to push. By then my mom had gotten there so she held one leg while my fiancé held the other. I probably pushed for an hour and a half or so and at the end of the pushing she just came out. My doctor was like “Stop pushing!” to which I said, “I’m not pushing!” and I looked down and there she was! I got to pull her out and I was so overwhelmed with how perfect and beautiful she was I didn’t even feel that I had ripped my vagina. I guess I ripped it up top where it takes longer to heal and hurts more, but I didn’t care. I was holding my little angel!

So I got stitches while everyone filled in the room to see Wendy who was born at 9:19 am on May 16th and was 8.5 pounds, 21 inches long while I was getting stitches. It as pretty embarrassing and made some people pretty uncomfortable I can only imagine.

After a bit we were moved into our postnatal room which was very nice. My fiancé and I started to relax and enjoy some time with our baby, who was refusing to breastfeed (I thought it would be so much easier!). Then I stood up to go to the bathroom and there was blood everywhere. It was a freaking horror show. The nurses were more worried than I was and put me on an IV of pitocin to help contract my uterus and slow down the bleeding. The IV made me start to shiver really bad and I started to run a fever so the nurses woke me up about every twenty minutes to check on me, so it was a very long night.

My fever broke in the middle of the night but because of it they wanted to keep me another night. We spent the day attempting to breastfeed and ended up breaking two of our rules that we had set up for ourselves. We fed her formula and gave her a pacifier. Sometimes rules don’t really matter when your baby is fussy and hungry. We decided that I’m going to pump to feed her and give her formula at night to help her sleep. It has worked great so far and she’s still getting breast milk so that’s all that matters.

We were pretty excited to go home, and when the time came we couldn’t get outta there fast enough. We dressed Wendy up and drove the few blocks home. It was very exciting! Damen ran around showing Wendy off to all the neighbors and our next door neighbor gave us a gigantic box of wipes!

These last few days have gone pretty well, just getting into the swing of things of being new parents. The other night Wendy started crying for hours and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong. It turned out the nipple to her bottle was too small and she wasn’t getting enough food, swallowing mostly air, and getting really bad gas. After that dilemma was solved we looked up how to relieve gas and have found burping her while sitting up and leaning over works best for her. Now we are getting into a pretty comfortable routine and I’m not nearly as exhausted as I was. My stitches are still killing me though and I can’t wait until they are healed, but its a small price to pay for our little bundle of joy!!!

Last prenatal check up..

Today was our last prenatal check up before we have the baby! We were due on the 12th, so we’re now 2 days late. My doctor checked my cervix (1 cm dilated) and stripped my mucus (which was pretty gross) to hopefully start contractions (it hasn’t so far). She then sent us over to the hospital to do a stress and fluid test. We had already been to OB Triage a few weeks ago when I thought my water broke, but I just pee’d myself. So, we knew how to get there.

They hooked me up to some monitors, and determined that the baby is doing ‘fantastic and is very happy’ :D. Then they sent us down to ultrasound with a nurse-in-training to observe, who was really nice. Wendy’s head is down, she’s not breached, and the fluid was 9.3, which I guess is normal.

Next step was scheduling an induction! I won’t be pregnant forever!! If I don’t go into labor, I will be getting induced on Sunday at 4:00pm!

I’m pretty excited about the induction, but also pretty nervous. My doctor said that I won’t feel anything for a while then its going to all come on at once, feeling like a truck hitting my vagina. 😯 That sounds… fun… not. lol. On the other hand, I really want to get this baby out of me. I’m so uncomfortable and anxious, the sooner, the better.

The Waiting Game…

Well, my first blog post! This is exciting/nerve-wracking. I guess I should start of as to why I felt the need to start a blog. For those of you who already know about MissBrite.Com, you’ll know this used to be a Sim’s download site. However, I haven’t updated that website since January. The main reason being: I’m pregnant.

I had just moved to Phoenix, AZ from California and within 2 weeks of the move, found out the big news. Finding out you’re pregnant changes your whole lifestyle and interests. I no longer had any desire to play Sims. Why would I? I have my own house to maintain/decorate and boyfriend to take care of. I tried a few times but between my persistent back pain and lack of attention span, I was over it.

So, I’ve spent the last eight months and three ½ weeks getting ready for our daughter, Wendy Fae’s, arrival. With the house clean, the nursery decorated, and my copy of What to Expect the First Year highlighted to oblivion, I’ve been just waiting to go into labor. And waiting… and waiting… and waiting.

My god, was everyone right! This has been the longest week of my life! Every little ache and pain has turned into a fleeting feeling of ,”Yay! This might be it!”, only to have nothing happen. People say you should be enjoying this time alone, as you wont have it again for a long time, to sleep/catch up on reading, etc… but I am so bored and anxious I just want to get it over with. I’m excited to meet my little girl. See her face, hold her hand.

I’m ready to be a mother.

I’m trying to keep busy by starting this blog. I know I probably won’t have all the time in the world to be a huge blogger, but I want to chronicle my new life. I want to document these next couple years, with my daughter growing up. I want to share what I learn and share things that have helped me.

I hope you enjoy this new site. Let’s let the waiting game begin!