Are you better yet?!

So DH has been home about a month now and has hardly worked which has been nice! His shop gave him a week off after his "deployment" and then he was on call the week after that (and he only got called in once that week) then he worked a week and then he took a week off to spend time with my parents who came to visit for Halloween.

Having my parents visit was nice, we went to the pumpkin patch and DD went trick-or-treating for a little bit. Poor thing was turning into a popsicle on Halloween it was chilly and what toddler likes to keep gloves on?

As you know from my previous post DH surprised me when he came home, well I had already bought my plane ticket home for Thanksgiving to visit family. DH said I could still go that he didn't want to be out the money and a cancellation fee wasn't really in the budget either so DD and I flew home. Well DD flew home with my parents a few days before me. Well apparently DD got sick somewhere along the way. For the last week she has had the grossest diapers and has even thrown up a few times. She was staying at my MILs house the first few times she threw up but my MIL said she would do it first thing in the morning and then be totally normal all day, with the exception of diapers. Well when I flew in 4 days after DD and they gave me the rundown of what had been going on. She has thrown up once since I got here but these diapers are killing me! I'm 5 1/2 months pregnant the smells my daughter is creating are not my friend....thank goodness my dad works in the house if I'm desperate. DD has needed a bath almost every morning between the blowouts and the barfing. I'm starting to wonder how long this will last (and how long I should let I go). I called the doctors office last Friday (so what 3 days ago) and they said as long as she's taking in fluids and putting out fluids there isn't much they can do for an 18 month old, she'll have to work it out on her own. Well there's lots of dirty diapers that's for sure! She'll eat crackers and cereal and pretty much anything we'll get her to eat (trying to keep it bland even though the dr said we didn't have to stick to a strict bland diet). She's pretty good with bland food all day but by dinner she wants something with a little flavor. But seeing how the bland diet isn't really working I think I'll just avoid fruit. She is CHUGGING her pedialyte so that's a good thing, she'll drink a whole bottle and then some  every day, so that makes me feel a little better. I'm just a nervous mommy. I just hate that she is sick and we are 3000 miles away from DH, our home and her doctor. But at least we are with some family right?

Ribbon Wreath

In my Rag Wreath post I had mentioned that I found 2 wreaths that I really wanted to make. This is the other wreath I wanted to make. I found it really time consuming, but with DH gone it was a great project to do after DD went to bed and I had time to kill (while avoiding chores). I got the idea for the wreath from The Picky Apple. I did a few things differently then she did but the concept I got from her.

Supply list:

Foam Ring

2" Black Sating Ribbon (I needed a little over 2 rolls and each of my rolls was 4yds)

straight pins

lots of ribbon, I wish I could tell you what lots is, in The Picky Apple's blog she mentioned that she needed to go out and get more, well I bought too much, I bought over 300 yds of ribbon, if I were to make one again I'd start with 150 or 175 yards, I seemed to use about half of what I cut.

2 wooded blocks

sign/letters you want on the wreath (mine is a pre-made boo)

scissors

hot glue gun

LOTS of hot glue

and it begins....

Take a straight pin and pin the end of the ribbon on the inside of the ring and wrap the ribbon around. Hot glue it as you feel needed. This is what 4yds of black ribbon covered for me.

I know it's a little dark but this it the ring totally covered,  I also have the blocks with black ribbon (that I had from another project) and glued them on to the wreath, I have the yellow box around the block. I decided to put the blocks on first so I didnt have to worry about trying to fit them in later, I wanted to make sure they would stick really well. (Notice Heinzy on the floor, that's my boy)

Now begins the task of cutting the ribbon

here is everything I started with

I told you I bought over 300 yards

I cut a piece of cardboard width doesn't matter because the width will be the width of the ribbon, its the length that matters. My piece of cardboard was 6" long, this helped me keep the ribbon strips pretty dang close to each other

I wrapped the ribbon around the cardboard, just keep wrapping, but not to thick, I did about 1/2 the roll at a time.

Then slid the scissors in one of the loops

cut both loops and you'll cut a lot of stripes at once!

here is all my cut ribbon! over all I had 11 or 12 different patterns of ribbon

now the task of looping all the ribbon, you have 2 choices, sew them or glue them. I tried sewing a few and found it to be a pain and glued 99% of the loops.

To make the loops you want to put a dot of glue on the ribbon and then fold the ribbon in half but make sure to leave a 'tail' so you can glue it to the wreath later

You want them to look like this, where you place the glue will determine how big the loop is and how much of a 'tail' you will have to glue, you can always trim to make the 'tail' smaller later so keep that in mind

Here are all my loops! I just tossed them all in a box and mixed them all together as I went, isn't it pretty?

Here is what my wreath looked like about half way, I started at the top and worked my way around, as you can see I randomly placed a few around the wreath, you don't have to do this. I just pulled apart the 'tail' put hot glue in it and placed is on the wreath. You'll overlap the 'tails' the closer you bunch them the more loops you'll need for the wreath. Now if you have long 'tails' you may need to trim some which is fine, I trimmed some of mine. Its like a jigsaw puzzle just make it fit. Remember you can always add more later.

This is the side of the wreath, I layered them, so they wouldn't stick out. I started at the top and worked my way down so that the bottom ribbon would wrap under the wreath. Repeat this on the inside too.

this is what the back of the wreath, you can see how the ribbons from the outside and the inside and how the ribbons wrap to the back

ALMOST FINISHED!!

Here is the wreath totally covered in ribbon

Then I glued the pre-made boo sign to the blocks. (the pre-made sign was only $5 and buying letters, paint and glitter like The Picky Apple did added up to more then that)

The I had to add ribbon to the back so that I could hang it up, I just used the left over 2'' black ribbon I used to cover the foam.

I glued the black ribbon into a loop then glued it to the wreath

but to make is extra sturdy I used 2 floral pins I had left from another project

here you can see the floral pins that I pushed trough the ribbons and into the foam, these are totally optional

I really enjoyed making this wreath, it was time consuming but fun, like I said it was a great project while DD was sleeping, I have a LOT of ribbon left so I might make another one since all I'd have to do this time is glue the loops on the wreath, guess we'll see.

Life keeps going

Well DH has been gone about 2 weeks give or take a few days....it feels like FOREVERRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I was really hoping this deployment would go fast, I'm hoping once the holidays start up time will fly. I'm excited for Halloween, I'm thinking about ordering DD a bucket with her name on it, that way she has it for when she's really into Halloween. My parents will be here and I'm sure they will want to take her out (since they will be here) but she'll just be 18 months at Halloween so she doesn't really need all that candy, and she really does walk yet, I mean she walks but when you hold her hand to walk you are pretty much dragging her around, so I'm not sure I want to deal with getting her in and out of the stroller every house or carrying her all over the place, I don't know we'll see, it also depends on how cold it is, I mean she's 1 ya know?

DD and J sitting on the kitchen floor

My friend J came over last night, it was a much needed night!! She hasn't lived in the city for a few months. I've missed her. Last time I saw her was back at the end of May. Anyways, she finally had time to hang out, between her 3 jobs. So I met her at the gate we drove on base and she said "I'm hungry" I said well I have munchies above the stove, she grabbed the bag of cheese puffs, well DD saw J grab the bag. Now DD had grab a pot while I was trying to organize my shoe box of a kitchen, I honestly don't even know where the pot came from. She was walking around with it then J sat on the floor, well DD took that as an invitation so sit on her lap. DD was sticking her little hands into the cheese puffs bag, so J put some in the pot, DD just though that was so cool. Well then I slid a box over to J and said anything in here you want. I signed up for a military wife girt exchange and got a bunch of bubble bath, and lotions and a ton of what I call "stinky, smelly stuff".  While I'm very thankful for the gift, being pregnant my nose isn't normal and my skin is all kinds of crazy so I figured I'd off it to J, well J saw the chocolates. So she wanted to eat those, ok fine we'll split the box, I dont need all of it anyways. Plus I don't like nuts in my chocolate anyways. So of course she opens the box with DD on her lap. What does DD want? The chocolate!! So J is trying to give her chocolate while she's eating cheese puffs, my mommy side kicks in and I decided she needed a real dinner. So I made her some raviolis, but she still ate cheese puffs out of her pot. It made her happy so I went with it. 

Well I can hear DD on the twin bed time to get her, and maybe an afternoon snack is in order, maybe some cheese puffs in a pot?