Paper Bag Skirt

So, there are a lot of these floating around blogland right now.  I gave in to peer pressure and made one for myself.  It is by no means perfect, but I still love it!  It's really really comfortable, and for some reason makes me feel a little bit like a ballerina.  Maybe cause it's a little poofy?  hmmmm... anyway, here it is!  (My trusty photographer AKA hubby is gone tonight.  Therefore, I was left to my own devices to take these pictures:  Self Timer.  Quality.)

Everything's Changing...

I'm not gonna lie, typing that phrase made Avril Lavigne's voice go off in my head, and I'll be lucky if I can stop singing that song all day now.  Yikes.

So seriously, I've been changing some things around here.  Do you like it?

I have some big news.  It's exciting, and it happens to have NOTHING to do with babies.   It's just fun fun fun!  BUT... I'm not going to give you details quite yet.  I have a fun idea, which I'm pretty sure you'll all like.  However, I'm headed off to California next week, and I don't want to initiate this awesomeness until I return.  You'll understand why.  But for now... let me just tell you this.  For some reason, when I was re-formatting my blog, all my followers disappeared.  I hope it's just a blogger glitch that will fix itself... I can still see how many followers I have, but they don't show up on the blog page... What the???? Anyway....believe you me, you're going to want to be a follower of this blog!   Soooo... if you haven't already,  click up there on the top where it says "Follow," and sign yourself up for greatness.  You won't regret it.

One-Seam Dress

Yes, you read that right. I just made a dress. And all I did was sew ONE seam! I took a dress that was a little too short, and a shirt that I LOVE but was a little snug on my plump belly (no I am NOT preggo... I've just increased in my mid-section... HA!), and combined the two!! The whole thing is jersey, so I could basically live in it! One seam later, I have this little beauty:

And yes, my head is INTENTIONALLY excluded from these photos. I didn't do my hair today. Or my makeup.

Laughter

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. ~e.e. cummings

These are the things that made me laugh today:

1- Playing "PIG" with my brothers. I am terrible.

2- Remembering the time that I cried because the boy I liked didn't save a seat for me in Institute. HA!

3- "It is 2011 and I'm still rockin a bag-less lawnmower!" -- Zac Kaiser

4- Glee.

5- The girl who I saw out running in a sweatshirt that was really short... like belly-shirt short. Granted, she had great abs. But still, I laughed out loud.

6- "Shoveling" on Matty's tummy and hearing him laugh as much as he did when I used to that like 10 years ago!

Just a reminder to keep your chin up and find reasons to smile and laugh!!!

Why I Desperately Need A Little Girl

So when I make things like this, I can actually keep them!!!

I wish my Bekah lived closer so she could have it! It just makes me think of her :)

Creation

There are three definitions of creation that pertain to this post:

Cre-a-tion:

1- the act of producing or causing to exist; the act of creating; engendering.

2- the Creation, the original bringing into existence of the universe by God.

3- an original product of the mind, especially an imaginative artistic work.

Definition #1: This pertains to my fertility issues. My HSG was scheduled for yesterday afternoon, and I'm sure everyone is DYING to know how it all went down... NOT! Haha but seriously, the hospital messed up the schedule, and I ended up not being able to go in for the test yesterday. I'm going at the beginning of my next cycle instead. Best case scenario? I get preggo this month and don't end up having to pay that $400 for a stupid test. Keep those fingers crossed!!!

Definition #2: Last weekend, DJ and I went down to St. George. We took one afternoon and went to Zion's National Park, which was absolutely gorgeous! We hiked the Emerald Pools Trail, and it was so nice to be out in nature with my favorite person!!!

It was just beautiful!!! We rounded out our trip with a visit to the Saint George Temple:
Beautiful!!!

Definition #3: DJ made me a birthday cake, and it was so cute and funny! Here it is:

It's a picture of him before he met me (sad), and then when he's with me, and happy! (Also note the hair before he knew me and the baldness now... hahahaha!!!) As you can see, I was thrilled with his creation!

We've been needing a new bookcase, so yesterday we took a trip to the good old DI. DJ found this bookcase and painted it. It was originally all white and kinda junky looking. I'm in love with it now!
It just looks so fresh and clean! AND... it only cost 10 bucks!

While we were at the DI, we found a few other pieces of furniture that just called out to me. This desk was one of them:

Once again, I forgot to take a good "before" picture. Just imagine it with the drawers in it and they were the same color of brown. Pretty unattractive. But it was such a cute shape!!! And here's the finished product:

I'm in love. The scalloped edges are dreamy! I was planning on selling it, and quite frankly, I think I could sell it for a lot. HOWEVER... I think I'm going to keep it. It's way cuter than the desk I have now, so we'll just get rid of the old one. You can't beat a desk that adorable for $15!!!

Fertility and Stuff...

So, since I haven't posted anything about my [in]fertility in a while... it's time for an update. A word of warning: I'm not holding back, and if this kind of thing grosses you out, you ought to stop reading now.

The last time I went to the doctor was in December, and she told me we needed to do a semen analysis. Honestly, all I could think was, "gross..." Yeah, yeah, I've been married a while now, and I realize sperm is not actually a bad word and discussing semen does not make me blush. However, I was not thrilled at the prospect of collecting it and delivering it to the lab at the hospital. GROSS! Okay, so it turns out it really wasn't that bad. Like, at all. We finally did the analysis last week, and I'm happy to report that DJ passed with flying colors (I figure he won't mind me telling the world he's wonderfully fertile...HAHA). SO.... on to the next test. This one's all about me.

And once again, I keep thinking "GROSS!"

On Monday, I'm going in for a hysterosalpingogram. Yeah, I had to Google the spelling of that. Okay, and the pronunciation. Most people just call it an HSG. What? You've never heard of it? Consider yourself lucky. Basically I get to pay $400 (which, by the way, is AFTER a 40% discount) for a radiologist to inject some dye into me and get x-rays to find out the shape of my uterus/fallopian tubes/etc. Are you jealous yet? My doctor described this as "an elongated pap-smear." Now I KNOW you're jealous.

I'm sure it won't really be that bad. Right? Really, convince me that it won't be! I'm not really too nervous. What's funny is, I'm WAY more disgruntled by the thought of paying $400 than the thought of a tube being inserted into my body in an unfavorable way. That doesn't really bug me too much. If you know me well, you know I'm not an incredibly private person, and I choose not to let things be awkward. Especially medical things. Cause really? Those doctors went to SCHOOL for this. They get paid big bucks for it. I have no reason to be embarrassed about letting them into my [very] personal space. Right?

When I was discussing this Ranee', she assured me that everything would be fine, the doctor would put me on fertility medication, and I'd end up with 12-tuplets. Heaven forbid! I told her my max was triplets. She decided that was plenty of babies to go around, so that's now what I'm aiming for. HA!!!

My Babies

It's Mother's Day. I'm not a mom. Not technically. And everyone knows that's not for lack of desire or trying. I'm not going to lie, I've spent parts of my day today wallowing in self-pity.

Then I started thinking of my babies.

Not the ones that are going to be mine someday, the ones that I consider to be mine now. Blaine, Bekah, Cougar, Sarah, Ty and McKay. They've been my babies since the moment they were born. It makes no difference that I didn't give birth to them, and that I'm not their mom. They're still my babies, and always will be! Today, I wanted to post some pictures of my babies, so you can all see how adorable they and how lucky I am! I love them with all my heart!!!

McKay and Ty

Bean, Matty, me, Ty and Becky

McKay

Bean, Becky, Cougar

Cougar

Ty

Bekah

Bean

(This picture almost made me cry... I miss tiny Bean and how he washed the dishes with me. All. The. Time.)

Me and Mac

Ty Guy

Sweet Baby Sarah

Me and baby Coug

Sassy Becky and me

Ty

Blaine-o Bean

And there you go! Those are my babies. Go ahead, be jealous :)

Swimsuit Cover-Ups Round 2!!!

So, after I made my swimsuit cover up a few days ago, some of my darling sisters requested that I make some for them! Tonight I did, and made one for my MIL as well. Here's how they turned out, I hope you like them, girls!

This is Ranee's. It's an exact replica of mine except with a hot pink band on the bottom, and different colored straps.

Here's Vanna's. I LOVE the bold color! Also, I did the straps a little differently. They criss-cross in the back instead of being a racer back! So cute! Also there's a close up of the band at the bottom cause it's stinkin cute!

Here's Mama Savage's. I love love the light blue! This one is just like me and Ranee's.

Keesha's is quite possibly my very favorite!!! The color is adorable (and will look great on her dark skin), and I went a little different route with this one. It's sleeveless, but I put a casing in the top and ran the braided strap through it. It cinches at the top, and it's so so so cute! I'm kind of obsessed. (Keesh, if you hate it, I can definitely add straps). It looks adorable on, way cuter than it does on the hanger.

And here's the pretty maids, all in a row!!!
We're going to look SOOOO good on the beach in 3 weeks!!!

Ruffles!!!

I love ruffles right now. Tonight, I decided to spice up a couple Plain-Jane hoodies with some! I cut long strips of fun fabric, ruffled them on my sewing machine, and sewed them on! Super easy, and it gave the hoodies the face-lift they needed. Here's the first:

(Note the biting of my lip... clearly I'm concentrating on getting a good picture!) Here's the second makeover:
Full Body shot:
And I extended the ruffles up around the hood because really, why wouldn't I? So fun!!!

And there you go! The easiest little re-do ever!!!