Homemade nursing pads...

HA! I never ever thought I would ever have a blog with that as a header. I feel old. sigh...ah well...I love nursing my babies and it seems to be the healthiest thing for them, and even though I ususally debate giving up for like the first six months, I know its part of God's plan for mothering so I've come to really really love it. However, nursing pads are ridiculously spendy. I made a set of 10 today and love the results!! Yes the flannel is skulls, I had to have some sort of ode to my youth, I seriously felt weird making my own nursing pads, like really, what 23 yr. old does that for fun?! I can imagine the convo, "Hey Sophie this is so and so, we're going out to the mall like normal 23 yr. olds, wanna come?" "I'd love to guys but i'm working on a project!" "oh yeah? awesome! whatcha making"....."reusable nursing pads...." "um, sweet, so yeah, talk to you later"

yeah....ha. but like I said, the skulls helped preserve some of my youth (in my mind anyways)

What you'll need:
1 yard of microfleece
1 yard of flannel (can use an old receiving blanket!)
CD or bowl with 5" diameter

Instructions:
You'll be using 1 layer of fleece and 3 layers of flannel. The flannel is soft and non irritating and the fleece will keep the moisture away from your clothes.
I Cut out the fleece and one layer of flannel in the 5" size, then cut out the two middle flannel pieces in slightly smaller diameters (to decrease bulkiness)
I found that 1 yard of flannel produced 10 pads.
Fold the fleece and flannel in half (to minimize cutting time)
Trace your circles
Cut them out
Stack the layers starting with the fleece then two smaller flannel pieces then the large flannel piece.
Sew a straight stitch down the middle (to hold all the pieces together)
I did all the sewing without ever lifting the needle...just sew straight down then with the needle depressed lift the foot and rotate your fabric so that you'll now be sewing a straight stitch around the entire diameter of the pad, giving about a 1/8" allowance. Once you've completely stitched around, go over the straight stitch with a zigzag stitch (once again I never clipped the thread, just lifted the needle and changed the setting to zigzag and continued on)
Sew the excess fabric (this will prevent fraying)
ENJOY!!
(I tried cutting a slit down the middle and overlapping the layers to make a cone shape, but found that addded to much bulk for me, but it does have nicer countour)
TUTORIAL THANKS TO PASSIONATEHOMEMAKING.COM!!!

Days like this...

So...for all of you mama's who have been pregnant, you know those last few weeks just draaaaaag on by. Im 37 weeks and man, what I would do to have this child evacuate the premises which are my insides. Chasing a 3 and 2yr old, upstairs, downstairs, church, outreach, long drives...oh my. And my poor husband in all this just sits back and watches hurricane sophie manifest her way through the days haha..I fell asleep on the couch this morning after I got the girls dressed, house cleaned, beds made, and when I woke up, this was laying on my pillow beside me.
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A rural housewife, Fay Inchfawn, who lived a generation ago, wrote these lines on her need and expectancy of God's presence which speak to us of the more sophisticated frustrations of our modern day:

Sometimes, when everything goes wrong;
When days are short and nights are long,
When wash day brings so dull a sky,
That not a single thing will dry.
And when the kitchen chimney smokes,
And when there's none so "old" as folks;
When friends deplore my faded youth,
And when the baby cuts a tooth
While John, the baby last but one,
Clings round my skirts till day is done;
And fat, good-natured Jane is glum
And butcher's man forgets to come.
Sometimes I say, on days like these
I get a sudden gleam of bliss.
Not on some sunny day of ease
He'll come...but on a day like this.

The gentle art of domesticity...

"If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much." -- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Ever since I became a wife and mother I've become obsessed with domesticity..in this era, the feminist rule, and the housewife is a silly little girl who is wasting her brain and silently suffering in her status in societys totem pole. Not so...This job is the most cherished occupation I have ever been involved in. I have never worked so hard, been so tried or so rewarded. I can't wait to get this book, its the one pictured above, its called "The gentle art of domesticity"...saving up for a good sale, it looks darling! This woman has simply devoted herself to this gentle wonderful art of homemaking...and it is a skill to be sure. And this blog is the sweetest thing, a mother and wife who loves her job... I've had to literally fight back against the ridiculous stigma that I am simply, "a homemaker"...does anyone realize what that means? I literally make my little place in this world, a home...a refuge, a shelter, for my babies and my husband, and its no small task. This great occupation is not for the weak or the easily broken. Its a forged and fought for, success. So many women forget that before they are mothers, they are wives...my husband was my first obligtion...these little wild things demand more of my time and physically aren't capable of existing without me...but my darling hero who works so hard, puts up with so much, was the original owner of this heart and I owe it to him to never forget that. It means so much to him to have a house that is warm and loved... one that his wife has poured her heart into. It calms him so much when I take time to prepare a meal for him, when I care about being frugal,and when I quite simply, make myself his completely. I am his and he is mine. So anyway...I've looked through little exerpts of this book and it touched that part of me that exists in every woman, that gentle, domestic, i need a man to take care of me, part...and truly, I believe its the part of womanhood that truly should flourish iside of me...and if I don't succeed at another thing in this lifetime...if I am the mother and wife that God made me to be, I will have lived a grand, happy life indeed.

"I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best I could bring to it." -- Rose Kennedy

5 orange potatoes

I stumbled across this blog and her post about doing outside activities with children, SO ADORABLE! The link to the activies is HERE, and her blog is HERE