Late night Updates from the Hospital

I am typing this post slowly with my extremely puffy fingers from by hospital room to let you know  all is well and I am on my way to recovery (slowly, but surely). Eric and I are both really grateful for all the prayers and thoughts on my behalf and I thought you'd all appreciate an update.

I went into the hospital yesterday morning to be induced. Labor went fairly fast. They broke my water at 9 AM, I was ready to start pushing at 2pm and after about 3 pushes by 2:08 I finally got to see the sweet spirit I'd been carrying for the last 9 months. It was a perfect moment, especially before all the struggles that was ahead for me.

As with when I had Mia, the placenta was not wanting to come out on its own and so I was wheeling into surgery for a D&C to get it out. Even though I wasn't put under anesthesia for this I don't remember most of this from the drugs they gave me and from loosing so much blood. So far after going through a similar thing with Mia and with my miscarriage this has seemed to be the most severe losses of blood and set backs as I make my way to recovering.

So far I have had 5 units of blood, 2 units of plasma and 1 unit platelets to replace about half of my own blood supply that I lost during birth and surgery and to help with help blood clotting. This has made my body very week and has made me look about 50 lbs heavier from all the swelling. My body has also had some bad reactions to some of the medications they have given me too. Last night I was given some medication to help with pain and the shaking and all of the sudden I was short of breath and with the weight of everything I had been through physically and emotionally I had a nasty anxiety attack and couldn't get my breathing under control until they finally had to sedated me. This landed me in the ICU for the night for constant watch and care. I had only gotten to hold Livy for about 3 minutes that whole day and not until late that evening.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but at one time there was about 8 different bags hanging up that were going through my IVs to help me recover from all the blood loss. Below is a pictures of my swollen hands. If you can believe it or not this isn't even a picture of them at their worst!

By this morning I finally was able to try getting out of bed, which was a slow and painful process and not without a lot of help from the nurse and Eric who ended up pretty much carrying me to the bathroom. By lunch I had some kind of allergic reaction to some other medication where my tongue and throat started swelling and I couldn't breath again. They gave me some Benadryl that made helped me slowly regain my breath and knocked me right out.

Still with a lot of pain and slow moving I have made my way back upstairs to the Mother and Baby care unit closer to Livy and actually have even been able to start feeding her with help since I can't bend my arms enough to really hold her.

There has been no shortage of tears and struggling to keep a positive attitude after going through this yet a 3rd time in my life and with 2 sweet,  little girls I so desperately want to be able to take care of right now instead of having to rely on everyone else. However, words can't express enough gratitude for my mother as well as Eric's grandparents who have been here helping take care of Mia and stay with me as well as give Livy so much welcoming love on her first days on earth. But I especially couldn't have done any of this without my strength and rock...my amazing husband! He has been that listening ear while I sit there and complain and offers positive and loving encouragement (not to mention tell me how beautiful I am even with my puffy lips, face and crazy mess of hair), has wiped away many tears and has been constantly at my aid as well as both Livy's and Mia's. He deserved the award for best husband and father of the year!

Livy is doing great and is so cute to watch! Mia is also doing great and getting lots of love and attention from both grandparents. She has been in to see Livy a couple of times and has jumping up on my best to snuggle with me and give me hugs and kisses. Hopefully we will all be home soon adjusting to our new life as a family of 4. In the mean time thanks again for all of your thoughts and prayers! More pictures to come!

P.S. Due to the many drugs that I am on and my lack of sleep, please excuse the number of grammatical errors :) Good night!

Giveaway Winner + A Recent Discovery

First off I want to thank Rachel from Ambrey's Accessories for providing such a great giveaway for us! I hope you all fell in love with her cute hair accessories as I have. I also want to give a shout out to everyone who entered my first giveaway for this blog, especially those who shared it on their facebook.  Words can't express how much I appreciate all the comments and support! It's made me love blogging even more being able to connect with all of you and get your feedback.

Now what you've all been waiting for...the winner of this fabulous giveaway! I wish everyone could have won, unfortunately only one lucky reader gets to take home a free headband and 2 accessories of their choice from Ambrey's Accessories and that lucky gal is Kendra Wright!

"KendraApril 17, 2013 at 9:54 AM

So many cute things! But I'm pretty in love with the red lace fabric bow. Elsie def needs more red accessories."

Congrats!

Now for those of you who didn't win and everyone else I have another great deal for you! With Mother's Day right around the corner, if you're like me you are starting to think of that perfect gift to give your Mom. Awhile back I discovered Blurb.com when I was looking for a way to convert my blog posts into a book (more on this to come). From this I also discovered they do photo books that great quality and start at just $12.99! For Mother's Day they are having a deal where you can save 20% off a photo book with the promo code LOVEYOUMOM valid through 5/10/13!

Since have grandkids, my mom has loved getting prints of all the kids, but her walls are filling up fast. Instead of giving her prints, I thought making a photo book would be the perfect solution to still show off all her cute grandbabies, but not have to take up wall space. This would definitely be a present she would leave on the coffee table for everyone to see each and every day!

What I love about Blurb beside's their prices is that they make it easy to create and customize books that focus just on the pictures themselves without all the fuss of embellishments and backgrounds, which using make the book making process take twice as long! From my experience with them I would highly recommend giving them a try! I have a book on it's way now that I am so excited to get! Stay tuned for the results of that.

On a side note, happy Graduation to all those graduation from BYU this week! Both my sister and brother will be walking tomorrow! We're excited to spend the weekend with family! And depending of how these next few days go, my next post could be done with a little newborn in my arms! 

Staying in Touch with my Crafty Side

I don't normally have this many "crafty" posts this close together since its not something I do every night but since I have been trying to get a lot of crafts done before Livy comes I practically have been! And although my Pinterest Challenge is over I still get most all my ideas and inspiration for projects off there, which is where these next two projects came from.

First up are Quiet time boxes for Mia. Since she stopped taking naps a couple of months ago I resorted to quiet times in her room in the afternoons for about 2 hours on average for her bust mostly my own sanity. I also think quiet time is a great way to teach kids how to play quietly and entertain themselves for awhile. Anyway, I noticed lately Mia getting bored with the toys in her room and she would be done playing in less then an hour before she would be banging on the door ready to come out. So when I saw THIS idea on pinterest it was a must try! What she did was have a box for each day of the week and filled them with different toys for her kids to play with during quiet time, giving them something new to play with each day and keep them entertained.

So here are the things I started off with to make my "Quiet Time" boxes.

- 5 plastic containers (I found mine at Walmart for about $3 each)

- Labels with each day of the week (Monday through Friday)

- Age-appropriate things to fill containers with. (I started out with trying to get at least two different things per box and plan on adding to them as time goes.) You also can use thing that you already have so you don't have to buy everything.

For each box I tried to add something on the educational/developmental side like a book about colors or these cheap, cute puzzles I found at Walmart with ABC's and numbers. Then I tried to add something that would spark creative play like some more magnetic paper dolls or a princess dress up set.

I also tried to spruce up things I already had. For example, I grabbed a picture online of a kid's road map and printed that out and laminated it for Mia to drive this little fisher price car on.

Another thing I did was make some blankets and pillows out of some fabric scraps I had for these cute dolls that Mia was given for her birthday. She loves tucking things in "nigh-nigh".

These boxes have been a huge success and have made quiet time for Mia a lot more fun and entertaining. It gives her something to look forward to each day and makes it less painful for me so I  can enjoy some "me" time in the afternoon as well.

My second project were these adorable cardigan onesies I made following THIS tutorial. I made these for a friend who is due just a couple days after me and is having a boy. I never get to make things for baby boys so I couldn't resist! They turned out SO cute and were SO easy to make!

Here's what I used:

-Cute onesies to make the cardigan. I got these two onesies from Old Navy

- Double wide bias tape.

-Buttons to sew on the cardigan

- plain white onesie to go underneath

-coordinating scrap fabric to make the bow tie and tie. If you do the tie you'll also need double-sided iron on adhesive.

Now my list is pretty much complete on the crafts I wanted to get done. Now I just need my nesting phase to kick in and clean my house before this baby comes! On a side note I scheduled to be induced on my due date which is Monday, but I'm hoping Livy will decide to come before then!

Also here is my last plug for entering this awesome giveaway Ambrey's Accessories has been so gracious to offer and you won't want to miss it! Make sure to enter. It's the last day! Click on over HERE to enter!

Pinterest Challenge Wrap-Up

So my Pinterest Challenge when a little M.I.A for awhile there, but I am pleased to report that I did finish it, with one exception. First off, these last couple of weeks leading up to my due date I have had a list full of projects and things I wanted to get done before baby #2 came so for my own sanity I had to cut something out. Unfortunately it was the wood clock from my Pinterest Challenge. That will have to be a project for this summer when things settle down a little bit. However, I did complete the final project on my Pinterest line up which was a calendar using paint chips. It was such an easy projects and I LOVE how it turned out, especially for the fact that I finally have a calendar that I've  been wanting for some time now to keep track of all our things.

So here is my pinned, inspiration picture (original source HERE):

And here is my final product:

This calendar is hanging in my kitchen, so I went with a yellow color scheme to match my kitchen's (if you don't remember what my kitchen looks like check out this post HERE) and I'm kind of in love with ombre things right now and I knew this would be the perfect project to incorporate it.

So here is what I did...I got my paint chips from Walmart and just cut them down to the size I wanted them. Then I got a big sheet of poster paper and just adhered all the squares onto that along with the days of the week and taped that to the back of the window, making it super easy if I ever want to change it. Then I just used a dry erase marker to fill in everything else! Easy peasy!

Now if you noticed on the calendar, this last weekend we had a weekend getaway planned in Heber. I've been starting to feel antsy being in the house as I get ready to have this baby so we thought it would be fun to have a last "hurrah" as a family and go have a fun weekend away.

Eric has some points saved up from all his traveling for work to get a free night stay at the Holiday Inn in Heber so we booked that for Friday night and were on our way to a fun weekend together. Let me tell you this weekend has its fair share of mishaps...to the point of it almost being laughable. We started off by making plans to go to Deer Creek reservoir to do a little fishing and to cook hobo dinners. Upon arriving we quickly came to find out that it was hardly ideal weather. It was super windy and pretty cold but we decided to stick it out anyway. For Eric this weather was nothing and he and Mia enjoyed themselves, but for me I was FREEZING! After waiting around in the cold for over an hour we came to find out that we burnt our dinners to a crisp. We then finally decided to move onto plan B, that being grabbing some good old fashioned pizza and then heading to the hotel.

Once at the hotel Eric and Mia got in their swimming suits and we all headed down to the pool. Mia had so much fun swimming and jumping off the side of the pool to Eric.

For bedtime we put Mia down in one of the beds and then waited out in the hall for a bit until she fell asleep. I told Eric I felt like I was back in high school on a school trip when we would all sit outside our rooms and talk to the boys because we couldn't go in each others rooms. Haha. Once Mia was asleep she was out like a light and we were able to watch some shows together and relax in the room before going to sleep ourselves. As most nights lately I ended up getting up in the middle of the night with heartburn and not being able to sleep so I turned on a movie on my kindle in the corner not to disturb anyone. Pretty soon I saw two little legs climbing down from bed and soon Mia was snuggled up next to me on the floor. We ended up jumping into bed with Eric and all  watched Super Why at 3 in the morning. Finally we all got back to sleep and Mia didn't wake up the next morning until almost 9 AM giving us enough time to go get some breakfast. Before going home we did a little shopping at the outlets in Park City and grabbed some lunch. 

I'm sure to those of you reading this it doesn't sound like much of a fun weekend getaway, but to be completely honest it was so worth it for me to see how excited Mia was through all of it. She was having the time of her life throwing rocks into the lake, pushing the elevator buttons, having a sleep over with Mom and Dad and just getting to experience something new before she has to start adjusting to having a baby sister. Seeing this made me so glad we did this little getaway and made it easier to just brush off all the things that went wrong (something that I'm not usually very good at).

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Free Printable: I Love To See The Temple

If you missed out on Livy's Birdhouse Themed Nursery reveal (HERE) I had this temple wall art print in her room that I created myself and thought I'd share it with all of you!

There are 8 different colors you can choose from, but if you needed another color to match a room or something I would be happy to send you a custom colored one! Just shoot me an email at hanna.caldwell54@gmail.com.

Enjoy!

Download this free printable HERE

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend! And if you haven't entered the Giveaway to win an interchangeable snap headband with 2 accessories from Ambrey's Accessories make sure to hop on over to THIS post and do so fast! Giveaway ends on Wednesday.

Linked up to:

http://seevanessacraft.com/2013/04/do-something-crafty-85/

http://www.dearcreatives.com/

http://www.craftyscrappyhappy.net/

http://www.justusfourblog.com/2013/04/pinworthy-projects-party-59/

http://www.thepinjunkie.com/2013/04/friday-link-party-13.html

http://www.dianarambles.com/2013/04/pin-me-linky-party-29.html

Colorful Birdhouse Themed Girl's Nursery

In my last post I talked about how I loved having baby girls to dress up all cute. (Make sure to check  out and enter the giveaway to win an adorable headband and accessories HERE!) Another one of my favorite things about having a baby is getting to decorate their nursery. I love being able to make a room just for that sweet little baby to call home!

Mia luckily doesn't have to share a room with Livy, but I am making Livy's room still double as my craft room. I wasn't quite ready to give up having my crafting space yet...so I made Eric give up his little "office" space. Don't I have the best husband! So the inspiration for my color scheme started with my crafting desk which I painted Seaglass blue from the Martha Stewart paint collection. (You can see pictures of it HERE.) Then I came across these adorable birdhouses in this nursery and I just had to do it as well! So evolved my color scheme and theme for the nursery!

From there everything else fell into place perfectly! I just love the soft colors and sweetness this room has. It's making me really antsy to have a baby to actually put in this room! Take a look!

It's hard to tell in the picture, but hanging on the bird picture wire is a temple wall art print. I've been wanting one to put in both of the girl's rooms, but haven't been willing to pay for one so I decided to make one myself. 

I liked it so much that I've decided to post a free download for it in multiple colors on the blog! Download this temple print HERE.

This picture was such a great find and one of my favorite details in the room! This was a cover of a magazine that Eric's Grandma sent me. The colors in the pictures work perfect with the nursery and I love how at the bottom its dated "Spring 2013", which is when Livy will be born.

Shortly after choosing my theme and color scheme I found this way cute "bird" themed material online with the exact colors I wanted for Livy's quilt. As a side note, I made a similar quilt for Mia when she was born. I thought it would be fun to start a tradition to make a quilt for each of my babies for them to have as something made from their mother and maybe get to use on their own kids someday.

I made these window cornices out of foam board, tape, batting, fabric and a staple gun if you can believe it from THIS tutorial!...making these super cheap to make and easily changeable.

So here's a little summary and cost list for the whole nursery

- Quilt made from Riley Blake's Sweetest Thing and minky for the backing $80

- Bumper Pads found at Land of Nod $30

- Wood Birdhouses found at Hobby Lobby and Walmart $25

- Livy's wall letters found at Hobby Lobby $10

- Window Cornices $35 to make both

- Birdcage Lamp found on KSL (thrifted) $14

- "Loved" felt pillow FREE (I already had the pillow and felt to make it)

-Bird picture wire found at Target $15

- "I Love To See The Temple" wall art FREE

- "I am a Child of God" wall art found here FREE

Total cost for this Girl's Birdhouse themed Nursery - $209

One week left before my due date so soon this room will be complete with little baby Livy!

Linked To:

http://sparklesandastove.com/all-things-pretty-thursday-linky-party-4/

http://igottacreate.blogspot.com/2013/04/wildly-original-link-party-48.html

http://www.ajennuinelife.com/2013/04/thrifty-to-nifty-thursdays-16.html

http://thediydreamer.com/from-dream-to-reality/from-dream-to-reality-linky-party-63/

http://staceyembracingchange.com/2013/04/17/creative-inspirations-linky-party-3/

http://somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/search/label/WGW

http://www.myrepurposedlife.com/2013/04/catch-as-catch-can-118.html

http://www.thegirlcreative.com/2013/04/18/the-weekly-creative-linky-party.html

http://www.serenitynowblog.com/2013/04/weekend-bloggy-reading-link-up_19.html

http://www.trulylovelyblog.net/category/fancy-this-fridays/
http://www.create-with-joy.com/2013/04/inspire-me-monday-week-68.html
http://ceoofmeinc.com/motivating-monday-link-up-for-the-week-of-42213/

All "Dolled" Up + a GIVEAWAY!

One of the BEST things about having little girls is getting to dress them up! As soon as I had Mia I couldn't wait to put her in all the cute little outfits I had just waiting for her, complete with a matching  headband and flower. Since then I haven't been able to get enough of all the cute head accessories they have for little girls out there now, especially if you have a daughter who doesn't get any hair until well after her 1st birthday!

My favorite hair accessories come from this adorable etsy shop, Ambrey's Accessories that feature interchangeable snap headbands and accessories  Rachel, the creator of these irresistible accessories for little girls, was nice enough to give me a whole bag of these when Mia was born as we knew each other from being in the same ward and I instantly fell in love. Needless to say, Mia wore these headbands pretty much everyday for the first year of her life and I may have just ordered some more for Livy too :) I've even bought these as gifts for a few of my friends who have had girls!

So here are a few reasons why I love these and think everyone should too...

1 - Since babies sleep a lot when they are so little, I never liked the idea of those fat, alligator clips that most flowers have to attach to headbands pushing against their sweet, little heads. Not to mention trying to get them angled just right so they didn't show up in pictures. These snap headbands and clips are the perfect solution!

2 - This also solves the problem of loosing a lot of the accessories since they snap onto the headband and babies can't pull the flower off.

3 - These hair accessories can be used for girls of all ages! In fact, Mia still fits in all her headbands that she wore as a baby and she in almost 2! There are also clips with the same interchangeable snaps for older girls with more hair.

4 - Did I mention all the cute headbands and accessories Rachel has in her shop to choose from and at a great price! What's not to love about that! And it definitely helps that she has the cutest little girl to help model everything.

So have I convinced you yet to jump on board with loving these?! If so you are going to love what's coming next...

Today I am extremely excited to host a giveaway for a choice of a headband or clip and two interchangeable snap accessories from Ambrey's Accessories! I'm really excited for this particular giveaway! First because it is my first on the blog and second because it is for a product that I just LOVE and I know all you will too! 

All you need to do to enter this giveaway is:

-Become a Follower of my blog (if you haven't joined the party already) and

-Hop on over to Ambrey's Accessories and leave a comment at the end of this post telling me your favorite accessory from the shop!

For an extra entry:

-spread the love and share the link to this giveaway on facebook. Then leave another comment at the end of this post telling me you did so!

This giveaway will run for a full week and end on Wednesday, April 24th at 11:59 pm. 

Picnic Themed Birthday Party

Last weekend my sister and I had a combined birthday party for our sweet little girls! They were born almost exactly a year apart and since I could possibly be having a baby on Mia's real birthday we decided to do something together and celebrate a little earlier with close friends and family.

Our theme for the girl's birthday party was a "Spring" picnic at a local park, but sadly the weather was far from spring like. Luckily, that didn't scare anyone away and we were able to have a really great time!

Check out the festivities!

The Invitation

The Menu:

Chicken Salad Sandwiches on Crescent Rolls

Fruit Cups

String Cheese

Chips

Cookies

Juice Boxes

Our original plan was to have everyone take their packed lunches and some blankets and sit out on the grass when the kids played, but because of the wind and overcast weather we decided to stay under the pavilion.

The girls sat together to open their presents. It was fun to watch Mia get a little more excited about opening presents then she has in the past. She got some really cute things.

Check out these adorable super hero, dress up costumes my sister-in-law made for Mia. Aren't they just the cutest?!

Aah! I can't believe I have a two year old! She has been so fun to watch grow and I can't wait to see all the new things she will learn in this next year of her life. Eric and I have been so blessed to have been given the unique and happy girl that Mia is.