A Pretty Little Dress for a Pretty Little Girl

When I first brought Maylynn home and began to take on the role of mother I often found myself feeling alone, trapped, and isolated. I spent a lot of time nursing and browsing facebook one handed, posting status updates constantly because it made me feel connected to the outside world. With all that time on the internet I began to discover blogs - so many blogs written by wonderful moms who I felt I could relate to. I started to feel less alone. :)

While I am mostly a lurker I do feel very connected to the ladies whose blogs I read religiously. That might be a little creepy, but I really appreciate anyone who can be a mom, create, and find time to blog about it beautifully. One of these women is Jess from Craftiness is Not Optional. I love her style and her ideas. Recently she did a sew-along for the Charlotte dress (named after her adorable baby girl). I participated and here are the results:

Maylynn loves to look out the window to the world outside.

Maylynn does not love modeling her new dress so I can show it off.

She is totally annoyed. This is right before she was really done and just started crying.

I am a newbie to sewing. I learned the basics in eighth grade home economics and dabbled in it from time to time since then. However, since having Maylynn (19 months ago) and seeing all the cute ideas out there I dusted off my Singer and started creating.

This dress was not too difficult for a beginner like myself. I learned how to make sleeves, gather, and sew an invisible zipper. It feels so good to complete a project like this from start to finish. If you're interested in making the dress as well, you can find the sew along here: Charlotte Dress Sew-Along

Don't be intimidated. If you want to try it, just go for it. What have you got to lose (beside a couple yards of fabric)?

I Made It!

I have some great, creative and supportive friends. Lately we have been getting together about once a week to work on our sewing, crocheting, knitting and crafting. This has been such a life saver for me. Not only do I get out of the house, I get to have girl time and actually accomplish some of the projects I want to. It's fantastic and I love it.

Last night I decided to try something different (I usually sew or scrapbook). I had run across this beautiful blog, Craft Snob. Sara has so many cute ways to make flowers and I had a ton of felt. Everything looked very doable so I packed up my felt, hot glue gun, my trusty scissors and headed over to my sweet friend's house and got to it.

Here's what I made:

The Pomela

The Olivia

The Lydia

There are more fun flower tutorials on her site that I can't wait to try. Here's a link to Sara's flower tutorials. Go check them out.

These were so easy - you should definitely give them a try.

First Time

Being a first time mom is great, I love my little Maylynn so much and I'm having such a good time watching her grow up and develop. Her getting bigger, though, sometimes makes me sad a little - it's happening so fast, but I love even that.

I've always wanted to be a mother, ever since I can remember. And though I know it's a blessing, sometimes it can be so hard! I'm sure that isn't shocking to anyone who's been near children. But since this is my first child, a lot of times I just don't know what to do to help her. I read all the websites and books for advice on how to get her to eat or sleep. I think, okay, I'll just do what they say and it should all work out, but it hardly ever does.

Tonight is an endless night of crying. Every time we put her down, she wakes up only a couple minutes later. Once she starts sleeping, I feel afraid to live - of making the floor squeak or breathing too loud. I'm torn between stuffing cotton in my ears to just let her cry, or running to scoop her up at every sound she makes.

Tonight, I think her teeth are hurting her, but I can't really tell for certain. Nothing is helping much except for me holding her endlessly. It makes me sad for her, sad for me, and tired. So very tired.

I'm trying to savor the moments. I'm trying, but it's hard to savor anything when I feel like my arms are going to fall off from rocking her so long. I'm trying to remember what it feels like to hold her and watch as she relaxes. To get a really good mental picture of her little round face, and the way she makes sneaky, satisfied, sleepy smiles when she first really falls asleep. I'm trying to remember that some day she'll be all big and in Jr. High and think I'm the lamest person in the world, or at least tell me so. But, right now, for just a little while, I'm her favorite. It's me who gets to see how excited she is when she learns to play peek-a-boo for the first time; how proud she looks when she pulls herself up to standing for the first time; and all those dreamy, sneaky smiles that her dad never sees. I'm so privileged to see this perfect little creation unfolding and opening up to the world around her.

I hope I can remember that at 3:00 tomorrow morning. These days feel long, but I know they won't last forever.

I am going to start blogging. Why? Because I have recently discovered that I really like reading other peoples' blogs, it makes me feel connected to the world. This is a very important thing for me, because I'm a new mom and very often feel disconnected from all other people save my one little person. I realize that blogging is kind of like talking to yourself, at least if you're me and you're just starting out. I just think it will be a nice thing to have a record of myself at this time and future times in my life so that I can look back if I want.

So, very quickly, because I have to go to bed and try to get some sleep before the little one wakes up and needs me, here are some things about my life. I am 29 and getting very close to 30. I live in the same town I was born in and all of my immediate family lives within 20 minutes of my home. This year has brought many changes and challenges to my life. I had my first baby, moved into my grandparents' home, had two grandparents die, and decided to become a stay-at-home mom. My husband and I have been married for 7+ years and together for almost 11, which is crazy! We (mostly him, but I help) lead a Jr. High youth group at our church, which we have done for about 7 years. If you ask most people, that's like voluntary torture, but we really enjoy it...mostly. I love to read, garden, walk, sew, cook, and bake. I like to think I can do it all, and usually I am disappointed with the results of that. Despite that fact, I am trying to enjoy this time of new beginnings in my life and am finding that it is hard, but so good.

Whoa - It's Already August 5th!

So I started this blog thinking it was going to be some great way to take some time and write down my thoughts and figure stuff out - but this is only my second entry or whatever you call it. Oh well.

I've been super busy this summer - which is not at all what I expected. I am currently working full time at my church as the Jr. High director. John and I started the Jr. High group at our church about four years ago and have been part timing it ever since then. However, the job keeps getting bigger as the church is growing like crazy. It's really exciting to be a part of what God is doing in our community and I'm learning a lot about full-time ministry.

I also just got back from Maneaderos, Mexico which is by Ensenada. I was there to help out at a little church down there. Basically I go there and paint walls and try to be helpful to the people who are there all the time. I was very touched by the dedication and hard work of the pastor and his family there. Although their life is not terrible, it's so much harder than my life here in the US. But even with that they remain full of joy and generosity. When I go down there (this is my second trip) I just feel humbled. I really like that my church is choosing to partner with a church down there. We don't think we have anything better to offer them, we just want to be encouraging and supportive of what they're trying to do in their community. I don't have any pictures from the trip - but when I get some I'll post them.

I'm going on vacation next week - but I have lots to do before that happens. The busyness continues I suppose.

July 7, 2008

I feel so out of it.  I have been without a job for almost of month now.  I didn't realize how much I allowed my job to define me.  It's actually really lame.  So now here I am.  I don't want to go back to what I was doing - I don't know what I want to do.  It's an odd place to be.  I always thought that by the time I was 28 I would know what I wanted to do with my life - I thought I would be set.  Not true.

I decided that I would start blogging as I go through this time in my life.  I don't know if it will be interesting, but I want to track myself and where I'm at.  If it's anything like most blogs it will almost certainly not be interesting.  So that's all for now.