More Adventures of Albus the Elf

Albus the Elf is generally a hit so far. Every morning she still wants me to hold her hand as we walk downstairs, but she has loved finding him and laughs when she sees what he's up to.
Day 2-
Albus decided to play with Kayla's blocks.


Day 3- Taking it easy this morning, Albus relaxed with a couple of good books:



Day 4- His first night of minor mischief. I wonder what Kayla will think of this!




And in other holiday-related news, I decided to do a little 'countdown-to-Christmas' treat for Kayla. I found a bunch of small stockings at the dollar store (2 in a pack) and picked up a few, but I'm pretty sure I could have found different ones for much cheaper. I just was lazy and didn't feel like looking. So I also made a handful of cheapo ones using two table runners from the dollar store, and a santa hat. I cut up the table runners into little stocking shapes, sewed them together, and then just hot-glued the white fluffy part onto them.

Adventures with our Elf on a Shelf

Meet Albus, our Elf on a Shelf. (I swear I did not prompt Kayla in any way to choose a Harry Potter related name, but admittedly did give her a huge hug when she came up with that all on her own.)

Today was our first day meeting him. This morning when Kayla woke up she was excited to start looking for him. She bounded down the stairs quickly, turned the corner, and since I had placed the elf conspicuously on the DVD shelf close to the stairs she saw it right away. I figured that for the first day it would be best to just ease her into it and let her get used to seeing him.

Well, upon seeing him she froze in her tracks and started yelling for me to help her. She was pretty terrified. I picked her up and we waited a few seconds, and I let her hold the elf (which you're technically not supposed to do, according to the story). But it helped her and she quickly smiled and liked him. I put him back on the shelf where she couldn't reach him and told her it was time to choose his name. Albus. Can you believe it? She's so awesome. In hindsight, I actually wonder if she was trying to say "Elvis", which would have been a lot less exciting for the Harry Potter nerd in me, but I'd be equally impressed with her wit (Elvis the Elf is, after all, still pretty funny) and wonder where she heard the name. Either way, when I asked her again, she confirmed it was ALBUS, so we went with that.

I'm very excited to have some fun with this little dude. I can't wait to see what he gets into this month.

In Progress: Cloth Diaper storage and Upcycled bookshelf

So here's the progress on my cloth diaper storage unit. I got the idea from pinterest, so I can't claim originality.

Here's my inspiration:
http://wallfry.blogspot.com/2011/06/upholstered-drawers.html

Here's the result:





The original tutorial mentioned that you needed to use dressers that don't have handles, but I still was able to do this without a problem. I just unscrewed the knobs, and then used an exacto to cut a very small hole through the fabric and batting. The knobs screwed on perfectly and it looks nice.
Ever since I redid the kitchen chair fabric, I'm finding a new love for upholstering. I wonder what else I can add some fabric and batting to around here?

Now if we could just get the crib put together, a mattress, and an actual dresser for in the room and maybe the nursery will start to actually come together. Brian thinks I'm rushing things, but I'm almost 27 weeks pregnant now, and even if I didn't have the bleeding problems early on, Kayla was almost 2 weeks early. I can safely assume that this baby will also be that early since subsequent pregnancies tend to have earlier labors than previous ones. So that means we're down to 13 weeks for a 40 week, full term pregnancy, 11 weeks for a probable 38 week pregnancy, and less if my bleeding complications and friable cervix lead to any other issues later. It is NOT that far away.
Holy crap, it's really not that far away.

Nursery Stuff

So somehow, despite getting only 3 hours of sleep a night for the past month and a half, and after chasing around a crazy 3 year old all day, I've still managed to find a little energy left to do some crafty things for the third bedroom. Not too much so far, but still think it's looking pretty cute.

Stuffed owls for a mobile:


Of course I still have the monumental task of assembling the mobile, itself, but so far I am happy with the owls!

Painting:


Those are actually the only two I have pictures of so far. Ha! It feels like I have so much to do left, but really it's only a matter of organizing a few things and making some final touches. I'm having a lot of fun with this decorating thing!