A New Cape for the Princess

At a garage sale last weekend, I picked up a burgundy velvet cape for Princess's dress-up box. It was adult size, but I figured I could fix that :)
(Please ignore the mess in the background, it was a sewing day, not a cleaning day, lol)


First thing I did was measure Princess from the shoulders to about the ankles where I wanted the cape to fall. After doing this, I measured the cape from the shoulders down and cut off the excess.

With the extra fabric I had from the bottom, I decided to make a hood. I used one of my hooded sweaters to make a paper pattern.


Next, I cut out the hood pieces and pinned them together, facing each other. Then I folded over the bottom edge of the actual cape and pinned this in place as well. I zigzagged the edges of the hood together and zigzagged the bottom of the cape. By the way, stretchy velvet material is kinda tricky to work with so my stitching didn't turn out perfect, but it was good enough for a dress-up cape.

When the hood pieces were sewn together, I folded over the front edges of the hood and zigzagged that just like I'd done to the bottom of the cape. It turned out with a lettuce edge which actually looked kinda cute.


Now all I had to do was attach the hood to the cape. The cape had a slightly padded stand-up collar on it. To make things easier, I folded the collar down and simply zigzagged the hood onto the same seam that the original maker of the cape had created when they'd attached the collar to the cape.

Done! It took me about 15 minutes to whip this up By this time, Princess had gone outside to play so I chased her down to try on her new dress-up cape. She's thrilled with the latest addition to her dress-up box and loves that it makes her feel like a real princess.

Giving Away Money

I'm going to ask you for help with some stuff...I might just beg and plead. We'll see.

I'm earning money on two different websites. One is Swagbucks (earn points by using their search engine, doing tasks, surveys, special offers, finding codes, watching short videos, etc). I signed up for this site at the beginning of March. So far, I've earned $60 in Amazon Gift Cards. I tell ya, being able to get something for FREE is such a good feeling.

The other site I use is an invitation-only website called Superpoints (earn points by watching a short video every day, completing special offers, and, my personal favorite, clicking on the "Superlucky" button to randomly win points). I signed up for Superpoints on Sunday and I already have 118 points that I can redeem for prizes or Amazon gift cards. Word to the wise, always go for the Amazon gift cards-you can literally buy anything on Amazon.

I know people who have never paid for diapers simply by using one or more of this type of website. Other people save up all year (amazon gift cards NEVER expire) and use the money they earn to buy Christmas gifts. Both sites I use are completely free as long as you stay away from the special offers where you have to sign up to buy something to earn points. I've never spent a cent on either of these websites.

Here's where I grovel a bit. To up my earnings, I need people to sign up for one or both of these sites with my referral links. Personally, I don't see why more people don't do stuff like this. I mean, IT'S FREE MONEY!!!! But I digress.

Here's my referral link to Swagbucks. Anyone and everyone can use this link.

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/annaliesboutique

Here're a few referral links to Superpoints. If you click on a link and it's expired or used already, please comment on this post or email me at annaliesbabyboutique@yahoo.com and I would be more than happy to dig up another link for you to sign up with. Also, in order for me to actually get any benefits from you signing up, you have to upgrade to the Basic membership. Which means just filling in basic profile info and verifying your email address. Supereasy.
UPDATED 8-16-11

http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/jcwpku

http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/a65aiv

http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/rks1f1

Thanks in advance to all who sign up!!!!

Unsolicited Advice: Want something for free? Use one or both of the links above to sign up for FREE money or stuff!

Allergies

Princess had an appointment with her allergy specialist yesterday and he told us that since she is doing so well, we can start feeding her again! Well, we've been feeding her, but when you have to cut wheat, dairy, peanuts, and eggs out of a diet, that doesn't leave many options. She can only have her "allergy" foods several times a week so I plan to stick to her food plan at home and let her have "treats" when we're out somewhere. I celebrated Princess's semi-release from her nearly year-long strict diet by buying her a M&M cookie. She took it from me and just stared at it with huge eyes for a minute before asking, "Mommy, can I eat this?" When I told her that she could, she could barely contain her excitement.

It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to cut wheat, eggs, peanuts, and dairy out of Princess's diet, but at times, it was heartbreaking. Like when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday meal and all she wanted was a sandwich. Or when I would sit down to eat something that was off-limits for Princess and she'd ask, "Mommy, can I just smell it, please?" Then she's smell my food and say, "Mmmmm, that's good!" I'm just glad we went through this while she's still young because it wasn't as much of an adjustment for her versus what it would be for an older child or adult.

Unsolicited Advice: Many people think that when a person has food allergies, that they will have an instant reaction to that food such as itching, hives, asphyxiation, etc. However, many times, food allergies cause other symptoms like wetting the bed, behavior issues, asthma, etc.

Annoyances

Things that annoy me:

Bugs. They come in my house, they scare the living daylights out of me if they look weird enough or have 8 legs or more. I just don't like 'em

People who assume that just because we live in a small town, we don't know what's going on in that great big ole' world out there. Seriously, we have a television. And multiple radios.

People who don't keep their houses clean. Okay, actually my house is a disaster 95% of the time. I'm mostly just annoyed with myself because I'm sick of it being a mess.

My outside cat. Dumb thing won't quit climbing window screens.

Spilt milk. I know, I know, don't cry over spilt milk. I don't cry over it, I just get vaguely annoyed that I have to clean up spilt milk AGAIN.

Laundry GREATLY annoys me. It's neverending. Right now I have 4 loads partially folded on my living room floor, 1 NOT folded load on the bright orange crushed-velvet chair (I dig retro furnishings, okay?), and 6 or 7 loads that need to be washed, dried, folded, and put away. Help.

Whining. GET. OVER. IT. My beautiful 3 year old is aware that whining gets her absolutely nowhere with me and doesn't use it much ("I can't understand you because all I hear is a whiny voice."), my 12 month old is the king of whine. Which he is learning gets him nowhere as well.

Emptying the garbage can. Don't know why, I just hate this household chore and am looking forward to the day I can pass this job onto my dear children.

The lack of space in my house. A small 2 bedroom basement apartment is just not big enough for 2 adults, 2 kids, all their toys, and 2 home based businesses.

Name Changes

I've decided to change my kids' names. Not in real life, just here on the blog. The names I picked for them here has caused some confusion among my real-life friends. So to eliminate the confusion as to why they have the names Louise and Nathan, they shall hereby be known as "Princess" and "Little Man" from this point forward. Someday if I get ambitious, I'll go back and change their names in the previous posts to avoid confusing new followers to the blog, but frankly, I don't have time right now.

I think it's pretty obvious why I selected the names "Princess" and "Little Man." Loui...I mean Princess is under the impression that she is in fact a Princess and in all actuality she is, indeed, God's little princess.
Little Man is thusly named because he is my "little man." He got his first haircut last week (*sob) and looks like a little boy. He has never seemed like a baby to me, just a miniature adult who used to cry a lot, uses a diaper, and doesn't know how to feed himself.

Unsolicited Advice: Can't think of any today and the kids are whiny because it's suppertime so...behave yourself!

Changes

I've made some changes at Annalie's Baby Boutique! Here they are:
1. I will do a weekly deal which will be different every week. Each deal will run from Monday until Sunday.
2. I will be doing flash giveaways and special deals at least once a month if not more. This is where I randomly post a giveaway or special deal as my status or on my blog and you have a certain amount of time to enter the giveaway or special deal using the link I will provide before I pick a winner through random.org
3. Starting May 1st, every purchase made will earn you Loyalty Bucks. You get 1 Loyalty Buck for each $10 spent (does not include shipping costs) and when you get 5 Loyalty Bucks, you can exchange them for a $5 credit or keep saving up. If you have small orders (under $10), I will keep track of them as well and apply them towards your next Loyalty Buck. I will be keeping track of all these in a spreadsheet so you, as the customer, will not have the responsibility of remembering and tracking your Loyalty Bucks.

There's also been a big change at my house...Little Man is a year old!!! Okay, he's not officially a year old for a few more days, but we celebrated with a party last Saturday. Hard to believe he's that old already since this past year went by so fast. He's chattering a lot, but not saying any real words, can do sign language for "all done", "more", and "milk" when he wants to, doesn't walk yet, but stands without hanging onto anything for up to two minutes, got his first haircut last week, and is transitioning to the sippy cup quite well.
Here's a few pictures of his party:

The sock monkey lovey is from Baby Bug Boutique
The sock monkey hat is from Nanna's Threads. I made the overalls along with a matching jumper dress for Princess to wear.

Lasts

Have you ever looked back and thought, "I wish I'd know that would be the last time I (fill in the blank)." I've found that there are a lot of moments like that when you have kids. We carefully mark firsts in the baby book, but lasts are rarely recorded because most of the time we're not aware that it's the last time until much later.

Here are some of my kids' lasts that I wish I known about. Some were welcomed, some were sad:

You can read an update version of this post on my new blog, Sunshine and Spoons!

New Stuff and a Resolution

I've resolved that I WILL post once a week from now on. I get so busy, I forget about the joys of blogging and the next thing you know, it's been over a month since I last graced this blog with my presence.

What's going on right now....

I got the CUTEST leg warmers in the mail the other day. Added them all to my store and I'm stalking my wholesaler because there's rumors she will be adding soccer leg warmers and lace leggings to her website soon.

I made both of my kids Easter outfits plus outfits for Little Man's sock monkey themed 1st birthday party which is coming up a lot faster than I expected. For Easter, Princess got a triple ruffle dress, matching ruffle socks, and a flower clip that says "Happy Easter" in the center.  Little Man got a bowtie and vest that coordinate with Princess's dress. I'm crazy about the matchy-matchy look for my kiddos. For Little Man's party, I designed patterns for a new dress style complete with pockets and an elasticized back for ease of fit and a pair of overalls, also with pockets and a "1" on the front. They both turned out really cute. I'd love to show you pics of all these new outfits I've made. However, we recently attended a niece's birthday party and left the camera there. I'd run over and pick it up from my sister-in-law, but she and her family live 6 hours away from us so it'll have to wait until we see them next. I see your tears of disappointment, but don't worry. They're planning to visit within the next 2 weeks so I promise pictures at that time.

Like I said, Little Man's 1st birthday party is sock monkey themed. I ordered a sock monkey cake topper from TwoSugarBabies on Etsy for his cake, a sock monkey hat from Nanna's Threads (I also bought him this adorable bear hat about 6 months ago), and a sock monkey lovey from Baby Bug Boutique.
Other than that, I haven't had any thoughts as to decorations. I'm thinking red and brown plates, cups, napkins, etc. and placing Princess's sock monkey strategically for a decoration. Any other ideas? If I have time (and enough supplies) I might make a felt pendant banner and applique a letter of Little Man's name on each pendant using my sock monkey fabric I have leftover from his overalls.

Unsolicited Advice: When planning a themed event (or any event, or just because), check out Etsy.com for handmade creations to fit whatever theme you are going for. Also, there are a TON of people who have "shops" on Facebook and are willing to create a custom item for you. To get started on finding these shops, check out Made in the USA-A Boutique Collection.

Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall

This has not been a good day. I got ready for work, woke the kids up and we headed out the door to my babysitting job. A little after 9, I was starting to clean up some toys in the living room when I heard a series of thuds and realized that Little Man was no longer in the living room with us. I heard him start to scream, and I ran to the door that opened to the basement stairs, praying that he hadn't fallen all the way down. I found Little Man on the landing, and was relieved to see that he had only fallen down three stairs. I scooped him up just as he squirmed his way to the edge of the landing and was about to fall down the rest of the stairs. Picking him up, I gave him a once over to check for injuries and, lo and behold, there was blood on his forehead dripping down his cheek. Still calm, I took him over to the sink and started to dab away the blood from what I assumed was a pretty decent scrape or scratch.

I'd only dabbed away a little blood when I saw, to my horror, a deep 1 inch long gaping gash on his little forehead. At that point, I pretty much lost it. Scrapes, cuts, bruises....I can handle those. Gaping head wounds...not so much. Crying and completely freaking out, I called 911 first. I was shaking so much, it took me three tries to unlock my phone keypad before I could dial (which strangely enough, is a recurring nightmare of mine....I have to dial 911, but have problems working the phone) Once I had a 911 operator on the phone, I had another problem. I was holding Little Man who was screaming and I didn't know the address of the house I was at. I finally found the address on some mail on the counter, but neither the operator nor I could hear each other over Little Man's screams. I finally managed to yell the address loud enough for him to hear and hung up. I laid Little Man on the floor and went to get a phone book so I could call the lady I babysit for to tell her what had happened. After she got me to calm down enough to actually speak English, she called her father-in-law so he could come over and take over babysitting for me. My phone was going dead, but I threatened it severely and managed to make two more calls. One to my parent's house, thoroughly scaring my younger sister and dad since I was too hysterical to make much sense, and one more call to Hubby at work. He arrived just as we were walking out to the ambulance. He dropped Princess off with his mom before following us up to the ER. Because Little Man had a head wound, I had to keep him still and awake during the 30 minute ride to the ER. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a baby who is past due for their morning nap awake while being held by mommy during an ambulance ride while not moving him around? He cried some on the way up there, but only because he was irritated that we wouldn't let him fall asleep.

While waiting for the doctor to examine Little Man and stitch him up, Little Man was his normal self. He was smiling, playing, and walking (with Mommy's help) all over the exam room...only difference was that he had a gaping bloody gash on his head. Kind of killed the cute baby look. When, after 20 minutes of a numbing solution, the doctor came in to stitch up Little Man's gash, I excused myself to the waiting room. Hubby got the honor of holding our screaming son down on the table while the doctor and nurses fixed him up. I will deal with illnesses, scrapes, bruises, and breathing issues (e.g. Princess), but when it comes to that, I'm out. I would've been crying harder than Little Man and no help at all. As it was, I was a mess sitting out in the waiting room. When they were done giving him 8 stitches to close the gash, a nurse came to get me and I ran back to see my sweating, sniffling baby boy. Apparently, 10 month olds can hold a grudge because he wanted nothing to do with his daddy and wouldn't even look at him for a while.

My cute little Frankenstein

Anyways, that's my day. The whole ordeal was much harder on me than it was on Little Man, who was a little trooper the entire time. Don't forget, this is the kid who doesn't even flinch when he gets shots and is constantly whacking his skull on something. He's just a tough little boy.


Thanks so much for visiting Supermommy!...Or Not.  Please take a moment to "like" me on facebook" and follow me on Twitter! 

I've Been Busy, How About You?

Yes, I know I've been slacking on the "blog front" lately. Here's a look at what I've been doing with my time....

I've been getting quite a few orders for my boutique so I've been working on making and shipping those out. I also have decided to change my boutique up a little bit. I eliminated several products such as burp cloths, washcloths, and carseat strap covers. I created a clearance album on my Facebook page that can be found here with all the products I will no longer be carrying. Check it out as things are going fast! I want to take my boutique in a slightly different direction by specializing in boutique style clothing for babies and children. I feel as if there are SO many boutiques out there that sell tutus and hair accessories and, although I plan to continue carrying those items because they are my top sellers, I want my boutique to my unique and different from every other boutique out there.

That leads me to another thing I've been working on. I'm making my kids Easter outfits this year.  Princess will wear a ruffled dress and Little Man will wear a coordinating bowtie and vest. As Princess is gone this weekend visiting cousins with her grandma, I plan to devote my time to sewing. I drafted a pattern for her dress yesterday and am really excited to start cutting out the fabric (which is super cute, by the way!).  Little Man stayed home, but he's the easiest baby ever and naps twice a day so I think I can handle this. :) Now if I could just get Hubby to go away for the weekend too.....

I was interviewed by our local newspaper a while back and the article ran a few weeks ago. Click here to read the article.

Oh yes, one more thing. Because apparently working part-time babysitting and almost full-time with my boutique isn't quite enough for me, I signed up to be an independent sales rep for Discovery Toys. I grew up playing with Discovery Toys and they were always my favorite toys to play with. They're great quality, educational, and creative. So I figured, why not start selling them? You can either order online at my website, www.discoverytoyslink.com/hannahwingert or you can book a party to earn free products for yourself. For people who are not from this area or would rather not have a home party, I will be offering catalog parties as well (I send you a bunch of catalogs and hostess info. You pass the catalogs out to your friends and send me their orders).

Little Man is officially a creepy crawlie! He learned how to crawl on his 9 month birthday and hasn't stopped moving since.  Princess was thrilled with the latest development for about 8 minutes before she realized that it meant she could no longer keep him away from her toys. About 2 weeks after learning how to crawl, Princess learned how to pull himself up on furniture which meant another level of babyproofing. I still have the exersaucer out for those times when I really need to work on the floor and he won't stop tackling me, but he complains the whole time he's in it because he's figured out why I put him in there.

Unsolicited Advice: When babyproofing for a crawling or walking baby, get down to their level to see everything they see.