I’m doing something different this year for Valentine’s day. I’m not going to make chocolate sweets since Jason’s doesn’t care much for them. I’m making these instead…

Felt conversation hearts and felt hamster cookies!!

Going to try making a felt cupcake….hope that works out!

I joined this class called “Journal your Christmas” a few weeks back. It’s essentially a scrapbooking/journaling project that documents the month of December and the first 6 days of January. I’ve been gathering materials and waiting and getting excited for this day to come for a while. So finally, December 1st has arrived!

For my first page, I made a declaration of my intent for this project. I really wanted to make this book and see it through because it is E’s first Christmas and I want to record it all. I’m hoping that it’s going to be a fun month despite her current mood.

Here’s what I have so far:

I was originally going to incorporate 2 other December daily projects (one is called “Holiday in Hand” by Jessica Sprague and the other is “December Daily” by Ali Edwards) but it might be more than I can handle.  I might actually combine it with one of them, which mostly involves me writing about my day.  I have yet to figure out if I want to just add a small page with a photo and journaling on it or if I want to put it on the back of this page….I guess I’ll have to see how tomorrow’s page turn out.

Recently I signed up for an online blogging class.  It’s not so much that I need to learn how to blog since I’ve been doing it for a long time now (6 years maybe?).  I did it to help stimulate my thoughts and to get me to blog more often since I have a tendency to go days and weeks without a single post.

I’m about 2 weeks behind on the prompts that were given and since it’s a self paced class, I figure I can just catch up on those on some other days….

Anyway, today’s prompt is about looking back in time to a year ago or more and comparing how much our lives have changed.  For me that’s a simple one.

A year ago around this time, I was about 5 months pregnant.

I was experiencing the best times of my pregnancy since I was showing more but still comfortable to move around, sleep and do normal, everyday things. Yes, I actually slept well back then…

It was also before I knew I was having a girl and the realities of being a parent hadn’t hit me as hard yet.  I was still having happy dreams about having the perfect child and being this perfect mom who did everything perfectly.  What can I say…I was blissfully ignorant about the realities of having a baby.

And now….

The baby that was growing in my belly is a healthy, cheerful (though fussy), 8-month-old little girl who loves to put everything in her mouth and has the smile and laughter that makes even the coldest heart melt.

Sure, nothing about parenthood is like what I had imagined a year ago and there are days where it’s really tough dealing with E but I don’t regret any part of it.

Our lives have completely changed.  I no longer sleep well and the freedom I once had to do as I please is harder to obtain.  Every decision that Jason and I make these days have to take E into account and we’ve had to give up on many of our favorite activities because they weren’t suitable for her.

There are still days I wish that she was much easier to work with but her stubbornness and her temperament is what makes her special.  If anything else, I think she is a great reflection of Jason and me but with a much cuter and brighter smile.  Looking back to this past year, I would have to say that I’ve done well and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything else.

Ever since I had E, I pretty much devote my days to just taking care of her.  It’s getting easier to care for her these days since she is more interactive, though that causes problems when trying to put her down for a nap or sleep but that’s another story.

Caring for E is fun but there are times when I really need to make something with all that pent up creativity.  Sure, I can just sing “Row, row, row, your boat” and “Heads, shoulders, knees and toes” all day long but that’s not enough to make me feel useful and productive (and sometimes sane).

So I’ve been making things during my “off” times.

There was a period of time where I crocheted a lot of things.  It got a little hard to do when my hands started hurting from the repetitive motion that is required from crocheting.  I also did a little knitting too but I’m not as good at it so that didn’t stick for very long.

Then I moved on to “swapping.”  Swapping is when you join in a group for a particular topic and then you get assigned a random partner and someone is assigned to you and then you send each other mail (real postage mail, not the electronic kind).  Swapping ranged from all sorts of things which depended on which swap you joined in on.

I mainly did 2 types:  Postcards and ATC (which stands for artist trading cards).  For a while, I was really invested in making ATC’s.  ATC’s are essentially mini artworks that you make on a 2.5 in by 3.5 in card.  Since I love to draw and make art, it was quite a challenge and I made quite a few really good ones that I traded.  I spent a lot of my free time making these but in return, I received some poorly made ones that looked like they were just slapped together at the last minute and were falling apart.  After a few more of this type, I became discouraged from joining any more of these types of swaps.

I then joined some smaller photography swaps but after being flaked on (when my partner decides not to send out what they promise to send out) I became quite discouraged from swapping and decided to take a break from it.  I made a few good friends through the swaps though so it wasn’t a total loss.

I still swap postcards.  In fact, I love sending and receiving postcards from all over the world.  It’s really an amazing project!

Recently, I decided I wanted to try scrapbooking.  I’ve always wanted to try scrapbooking because I wanted to make something to document E’s growth.  Sure, I put a lot of things on this blog but there is something nice to a layout design with a few chosen photos that a blog can’t emulate.

So here are 2 digital scrapbook pages I made of E.

It was actually quite fun making them.  It’s also a little time consuming since I have to sift through thousands of photos of E since her birth, edit them in photoshop and then coordinate a page that works together.  But it’s a great way to document these little moments of her life.

Right now, I’m getting ready to put together a daily December journal/scrapbook for her first Christmas holiday.  Hopefully that will turn out well.  I’m actually getting really excited about it since I plan to make this Christmas as close to a real typical Christmas holiday in our home.

Jason and I aren’t really big on celebrating anything but I want to create some sort of tradition for her so that she has something to look forward to every year.  Plus I want to give her a childhood filled with good holiday memories and not one where we never do anything special for any holiday.

I may not be winning mother-of-the-year award anytime soon but I want to at least make sure that I can give E happy memories of her childhood even though she is still too young to comprehend a lot of things.  For me, the first step would be to celebrate holidays and make them special for her and document every single moment :)

White onesie…. approx. $2.99

Blue plastic eco bag…. 157 yen

Yellow felt…. 105 yen

Black yarn… 400 yen

White shiny cloth… 105 yen

White Old Navy socks… approx. $1.35

An awesome Chun Li costume for Ellie’s 1st Halloween…. Priceless

(and yes, I hand stitched everything together.)

I feel like I have been absent from the internet world in a while even though I’ve been at my computer for a few hours everyday.  Strange….

Still, I feel like there’s much to catch up on.  I haven’t gone through and read new posts on Google Reader yet.  I clicked on it the earlier today and noticed I had 1000+ new posts to read…..I guess much has happened during the week I wasn’t doing my usual readings.

I also picked up two design projects to work on….gotta work on those…

So what have I been doing all this time then?  I’ve rediscovered my love for crocheting and knitting and have discovered the world of amigurumi!

I first wanted to make a sunhat for Ellie since we lost the one we bought her.  Then the obsession began…

I made this first…

Then, I realized that it’s not as intimidating as I thought so I went to Esty.com and found a few more cute patterns to make.  That’s when I came out with the “Grr Hamster series”…

There’s a pattern for a hamster, a butt, and an octopus back there…all modified to be like Grr Hamster.

Then I found this sumo pattern and just had to make one.

He’s still a work in progress.  I got distracted because it was my anniversay and I wanted to make this for Jason…

Of course, I had to go out and buy yarn to make all these things and boy did I buy a lot of yarn.  In fact, I bought this one type that was too thin to use to make the dolls so I ended up joining Ravelry.com to look for more patterns to use the yarn for.  This is what I found and made….

And it fits perfectly for the ruler of this household…

Cute, huh?

So yea, I’m still on my crocheting binge for now.  If you want anything you see here but in a different color, let me know and I will make one for you too.