Thoughts about adding baby #3 {Maternity Photos}

In two weeks I am having a baby – baby #3 and lately I have been a whirlwind of emotions.
I am going to blame it on the fact that I am in fact – pregnant… very pregnant.

{burst into tears…}

See, I can’t even think about what I want to write without tears springing to my eyes. For some reason this time around I have a lot of fears (and pain) that I never had with my other two.

I am so excited and blessed to be able to add another little baby to our family. I can’t wait to cuddle and snuggle this sweet little boy and watch my kids fall in love with him too. I guess my worry is that when he gets here I am going to fall apart – since I feel like I am barely hanging on now. I worry that while I am trying to adjust to no sleep, a messy house and two arms with three kids that I will fail somewhere – mostly with these two:

I always think it is sad in a way to have your baby become the older sibling and not be the baby anymore. My first two are 14 months apart. I knew I was pregnant with my daughter when my son was just 5 months old – so I feel like I never got adjusted to one baby before our darling second one came along. I have always just had 2 kids and she has been the baby for almost 2 years. She is my princess. I love when she sits on my lap and curls over my belly and snuggles with me.

Quinn loves the thought of a new baby. He and the baby are sharing rooms and he loves to show me everything that will be the new baby’s. I love when he snuggles up to me and rubs my tummy and asks to feel the baby. One night he told me “Oh! Her’s so cute!” I know he has no idea how much his life is about to change but I can tell he loves his little brother already.

I fear that the baby will be the squeaky wheel and get all the grease and I won’t be a good mother to Quinn and Tenley. This is partly why I am taking time off from blogging for a couple weeks before the baby gets here. I am 100% ready with everything the baby needs – but still have a few things on my “to-do” list to complete and they all have to do with my kids – like the zoo and the aquarium and a few more trips to the park. The Disney Channel has been a HUGE staple in our home these past few weeks and I feel like I need to make it up to them before we are confined to our house – in the cold weather – living off the Disney Channel and Mac n’ Cheese!

Along with the fear I have a lot of excitement too. How fun to add another baby to our family. I am totally and completely in love with my children – totally addicted – and cannot wait to triple the love in our home. I cannot wait to see Spencer with our baby for the first time. I cannot wait to go into recovery and see Quinn and Tenley waiting to love on their new brother and for that first family photo. I cannot wait to watch my kiddos “help” the new baby (although I am worried some smothering might occur) and give him kisses and want to hold him. I am excited to expand our family and grow in love.

and I am not going to lie… I am excited to be done being pregnant for this round! But I will really miss feeling him move all over and his every. single. night hiccups! Being pregnant really is a beautiful thing.

Texturized Witch Art

Happy Wednesday Night!

I just wanted to pop in real fast and share a fun little “Witch Art” with you for Halloween.
I love the way it turned it and love it with my Halloween Décor!

If you want to make one too – here is what you do:

Cut the size of MDF that you want. Mine is 15 x15 inches.
Use Texturizing Cream from PoppySeed Projects to create a layer.
When the texture layer is dry – spray or paint on your base color. Mine is White.
When that layer is dry spray or paint on your next layer. Mine is Orange.
Apply your “witchy” vinyl.
Spray or Paint on your last layer. Mine is black.
When everything is dry – use sandpaper and lightly sand the paint off until you have your desired look. Be careful when you sand – the paint will come off easier than you think. 
Tie on a ribbon and you are done! 

What to expect…. while {I} am expecting!

Next month is October –

which means in less than a month I will be snuggling a sweet new baby boy and trying to figure out how to manage a newborn, a 2 year old and a 3 year old – along with all the “mom duties.”

I am little bit nervous.

Luckily – I have invited over a few friends to share a bunch of projects with you! They are fun bloggers that you already know and love and I am so thankful for these ladies stepping up and helping me out! Last year in September, I did a fun Fall Fever series and am doing the same this year! You can find all those awesome tutorials and projects here! I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and do it on October this year and use the time off to have me a baby! I have a couple giveaways lined up to so I hope you love Riley Blake fabric and Pick your Plum!! I hope you will follow along and make my fun visitors feel welcome!

I know I have been showing you different things from my kids rooms and am getting ready for the big “reveal” but I am going to hold off until November. I know. I know. A whole month away but I have so much to still show you and don’t want to cram it all in this week. However – today I am guest posting over at The Wood Connection and there may be a sneak peek of my sons room! So you may want to check that out!

Over the next couple days I want to share some last minute Halloween projects with you and some fun photos from my maternity photo shoot. It is crazy to think there is only 1 week left in September -

Oh! And I will still be posting and pinning projects from the Pin It Party so please stop by and link up!!

How to Make Stewed Tomatoes (For Your Freezer)

Do you guys can your bounty from your harvest?
I don’t. I don’t even know how to can or own a pressure canner- thing- a-majiger -
But I love to increase my food storage using fresh items from my garden.
Which is one reason I love my Freezer!!

Last week I shared on Instagram/Facebook that I was making stewed tomatoes for my freezer and had a few inquiries about it so I decided to share how I do it – so you can utilize your freezer too!

First you want to wash and boil your tomatoes so you can peel the skins off. Fill a pan with water and tomatoes and bring it to a boil. The tomatoes only need to boil for a couple minutes until the skins crack – watch carefully! You can pull them off and plunge them into an ice bath to stop them from cooking – or I just dumped mine into my strainer and let cold water pour over them.

The skins pull right off – seriously – so easy! and if the skin hasn’t split yet, simply take a sharp knife and make a little slit in the skin and the peel will peel right off. After you peel them cut them into bite size chunks. Do this on a deep, bowl like plate because you NEED to keep the tomato juices.

Once all your tomatoes are cut, dump them in a pan to simmer.

Next you want to cut up your “spices” – the flavors you want for your tomatoes. I like to use green peppers, chili peppers, onions and a touch of garlic and salt. You can do this one of two ways, you can dice them up into chunks or you can blend them up. 

For this round, I choose to blend up the spices really small and let them simmer for a few minutes and then cooled and bagged them. If you choose to dice them up, bring them to a boil and let them soften before you cool and bag them. You want the flavors to blend a bit.

After your tomatoes have cooled for a bit – simply spoon as much as you want into freezer bags. I filled some bags to the top and other bags I filled half way. Press as much air out of them as you can.

I like to lay mine flat to freeze because they take up a lot less space and look awesome in the freezer! Plus, they thaw out a lot faster when I need them.

So stop making excuses about canning – and get to freezing!! You can use them all winter long in your stews, soups and chilies!!!

Card Making {Simplified!}

Last week this fun little box arrived on my doorstep with lots of fun items from the new David Tutera Paper Crafts line. I have been so excited to share these with you because the line is seriously awesome! All the products are designed to work together to make card making super simple! Anyone can do this!! I made all three of these cards in record time!

There are just 3 simple steps needed to make some seriously cute cards!
First: You pick a plain card – they come in a variety of colors so your card can be any color you want!

Second: You pick a decorative layer - There are a lot of fun designs to choose from.

Last: You add embellishments! and you guessed it! There are TONS of embellishments to choose from too!

Another awesome thing about the product is that everything is labeled so you know exactly what you need and what size works with what.

Now that you have seen how it all coordinates together – let’s see how it really works.
Step 1: Pick a card.
Step 2: Pick a decorative layer.
Step 3: Add embellishments.

For this card I used a few different embellishments: word stickers, flowers and tags – and combined them altogether -

But if you want to simplify if even more than that – you can buy the embellishments that are complete already. They even have pop dots on the back for you so you can have added dimension and not have to do a thing but peel it off and stick it on! It is fun because they are already layered and have the jewels and ribbon.

I picked a black card, a gray layer and added the cute little '”Thank you” and was done! Less than 1 minute – I am telling you David Tutera Paper Crafts line is so easy to use.

So hurry over to your closest Jo-Ann store and pick up your cards, layers and embellishments today!

For more information you can follow along with the David Tutera Paper Crafts line on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube!

Also - make sure you check out this amazing giveaway!! 

Three lucky winners will receive a $300 grand prize pack of supplies from David Tutera’s Celebrate cardmaking line AND a personally signed book from David! 20 additional winners will receive a $50 Celebrate prize pack. Sign up here for a chance to win:  http://pages.exacttarget.com/tutera-optin-blog/.

I wrote this post as part of a paid campaign with Core’dinations David Tutera and Blueprint Social. The opinions in this post are my own.

Halloween Treat {match} Boxes

Last week I needed some fun little Halloween Treat Boxes so I whipped up these cute little matchboxes and decorated then for Halloween! They turned out so cute and I really love them because you can put a variety of candy on the inside but they are still small and cute!

I used the rectangular matchbox die from Lifestyles to make the fun little box. It also comes with the fun little label dies (seen here in orange and gray!) Then I added a touch of Halloween with the new Spider Web Punches die. I love the detail of the spider web and the little spider – I think they are darling!

These would be perfect for an upcoming Halloween party – and if you didn’t do the dies you could use the little matchboxes for anything! They are so fun!

If you aren’t sure how to use the Epic Machine and these fun little dies – I have a tutorial here for you! And remember – if you are in the market for anything from Lifestyles – use code “creativeendeavor” to get 20% anytime!!!

Other Projects using Lifestyle Crafts Dies:

Mini Gift Bags * Thinking of you Card * Christmas Advent Calendar