Kristen's Page

Mommy Thoughts

2011-09-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

As I was rocking Madeline (9 months) tonight before bed, I thought to myself, "If I could just go back for a moment and rock Jenna like this again, I would do it in a second!" It's like even though I have a baby to rock and hold and soak in her preciousness, I still miss it with Jenna. And I cried!! I was rocking Madeline and crying because Jenna is growing up! So crazy!!

Jenna turned 3 a couple of weeks ago and I know I've felt a little depressed about it. I don't remember feeling like this on her first and second birthdays as much. I know on her first birthday I was really sentimental about her birth (and it made me want to have another baby!) and I think her second birthday felt like an accomplishment or something. And 2 still sounds little...barely talking, still in diapers, still in a crib, still my baby. But 3, wow, so big. I know it's nothing to be sad about. She's an adorable little girl and we get to do so much more with her now that she's getting a little older. (For example, she starts soccer on Saturday!) But still, somehow her getting older feels like some sort of loss and I wish I could just freeze time for a little bit or really soak it in or something.

I'm writing about this because I've been surprised by these feelings! I mean she's only 3!!! How am I going to feel when she turns 4, 5, 6??? Not to mention 10, 13, 16...aaaah!! (hopefully by then I'll be used to it!) I've thought to myself...did my mom feel like this on our birthdays? Did she give us a wonderful, happy birthday and then shed a tear later alone in her bedroom like I did this year? How strange to now view things from a mother's perspective!

I know this is all part of the crazy journey of motherhood! I know that I am growing as a person, as a mom,with each year that my children are growing up. And seriously, there is no other journey that I would want to be on! I love being a mom and I love, love, love my girls! And all of this brings me to thank the Lord with much gratitude for his many, many blessings (which is an understatement!!!) and processing this a little bit right now makes me feel a bit more at peace with all this growing up stuff. God is so, so, good and He is with me and my family every step of the way and I know there are many beautiful, precious years ahead (many more, actually, than the beautiful, precious years behind us!)

Here's my girl :)

Cash Budget Wallet

2011-08-31T10:11:00.000-07:00

A few people said they wanted to see this when I was done, so here's my new cash budget wallet! I've tried my hand at this before, but I've spent the last month developing a new cash-envelope budget wallet. I looked online at other people's designs and I used some ideas to come up with my own. Here it is!
It's a wrap-style wallet that closes with an elastic strap and button:
When you open it, there's two pockets that hold five separate envelopes. In the middle, I sewed the zipper pouch (from my last post) to use for change. I also added four credit card pockets!

The separate envelopes can all come out individually and they close with a magnet, which is kind of cool! So, I'll eventually label each of the envelopes with the different budget categories, but I'm still deciding on those.

I wanted something with separate envelopes so I could just grab the "grocery" envelope if I know I'm running into Kroger really quick. Or I can hand Dom the "eating out" envelope if he's running out to get us dinner or something.

And the ideas that I got from other etsy sellers was to use duck cloth to make the envelopes and to use a magnet closure for the envelopes.

After scrapping it completely once and starting over, I'm pretty happy with the final result!

Zipper Pouch

2011-08-18T19:23:00.001-07:00

Even though I love to sew and have done quite a bit of sewing, I've always considered myself a very amateur sewer. I've never taken classes or been formally taught how to do things the right way. I also tend to make up my own patterns for things (like my nursing covers), instead of using a pattern. Probably if I used patterns more often, I would learn how to sew things correctly, but I usually sew things because I have an idea in my head that I want to create and I use what little knowledge I have to create it (usually roughly). Also, I sometimes feel like the paper patterns that you buy in the store have a lot of sewing lingo that is kind of hard to understand (for an amateur like me!).

Well, recently I've discovered that you can find a tutorial to make just about anything online (duh!) and I was on a quest to make a zipper pouch. Now, I've made these before, but they were very rough and I always had trouble sewing the zipper. This time, I was determined to learn how to correctly sew a zipper. One thing that helped, was I glanced at my sewing machine manual and found out that there's a special presser foot for sewing a zipper (super, major DUH!!) which makes it much easier to sew next to the zipper. I also found this tutorial at skiptomylou.com (you can see it here.)

It only took me about half an hour and I ended up with this..

SO easy and SO much nicer than what I have made before!! The outside fabric is an olive green duck cloth canvas, so it has some stiffness to it, and the inside fabric is just regular cotton fabric. I'm very excited about it and I'm already thinking about all the different zipper pouches I can make! :) I'm just so glad I've discovered online tutorials. You can learn almost anything on the internet for FREE! I love it!! (Yes, I know I'm a little behind on this...this tutorial was from 2009!)

On a little side note...this zipper pouch is part of a new and improved cash budget wallet I'm creating. Hopefully I'll have a chance to share more about that later!