Wednesday, March 25, 2009

This is no ordinary balnket!

This may look like a really cute, very simple blanket to you, but it's so much more! I know there are gardening aprons, cooking aprons, baking aprons, finger painting aprons, welding aprons, cosmetologist aprons, so when I saw a nursing apron over the weekend I thought, HOW GENIUS! I don't have any kids nor am I pregnant, but I have quite a few friends that are in the nursing stage of child rearing and I thought that these nursing aprons should make great gifts for those choosing to nurse. (I don't know if they're called nursing aprons, but that is what I am choosing to call them.)

When I'm around friends at feeding time, they struggle with keeping the blanket covering their kid and them in a "modest" way. This weekend, at my friend's baby shower, I noticed the hosts daughter trying to yank the apron off her mom, but because there was a simple neck strap attached to the blanket, the hosts' "lovelies" were not exposed to all of us strangers.

The apron I have made for my friend is just a yard of fabric. The neck strap clasp is 1 inch D-rings. This was already oh so cute fabric, but to give it a little more flair, I added some rickrack as a border. The nice thing about making these is no one else has the same one! And you can find material to match almost any nursery or outfit mommy happens to be wearing!

This cute little nursing apron is already spoken for. However, if you are in need of one, or know someone in need of one, contact me and we can work out details on getting you your own.

Monday, March 2, 2009

One year and counting!!!

When we told people we were getting married February 29, 2008, not too many of you were surprised. Those of you who know Jess thought, "That is such a Jess thing to do." Those that knew Jason thought the same thing. Those of you who know us both thought, "Those two are so crazy! That's why I love them." Needless to say, getting married on Leap Day is only the surface to our craziness.

Since we technically don't have an anniversary this year, we thought that the date we get sealed would constitute our "anniversary" for the off years. Getting sealed is one of the greatest things that will happen to us (pre-kids). March 7th is our big day! Though we took the road less traveled to get ourselves temple ready, we've learned many great lessons and we believe it has prepared us for finding each other, and helping to make our relationship stronger. We have been working very hard the last year in getting prepared to enter the temple. We have strengthened our tithing testimony, priesthood testimony, not to mention countless others.

Over the last year, Jason and I haven't had hardly any time to ourselves. We had roommates living with us the first 6 months we were married, and the day before they moved out, my mom, her dog and her cat moved in. We have not had more than a week to ourselves in our house since we got married (we did have one week alone together, but we had to leave the country in order to be alone). I joke with Jason telling him that we will never be alone ever again! That even when our kids are grown and moving out, we'll probably have someone else needing shelter and we will take them in cause that's who we are (though we would love to be able to tell people "no").

We kind of had a week long celebration for our anniversary. We were still trying to figure out how this was all going to pan out. Our original thought was dinner and a movie the 3 years in between, and then a trip somewhere on our actual anniversary. Since the 28th was a Saturday and we were getting our endowments that day, I was hoping we could do something in celebration of our anniversary on Sunday the first. My mom offered to make dinner for us and I thought (careful you younglings reading, this may get too PG-13 for you), This is great! She'll make dinner, prepare it all nice on the table and then go to Mike and Jenny's or somewhere so Jason and I can eat, get it on and celebrate! Ya, no dice. We had our anniversary dinner on the couch with her on the next couch over. I don't even remember what we ate except that there was key lime dessert bars. I don't remember what we watched on the tube - movie or regular tv. And, because I was so put out, there was no getting it on. We didn't even play WOW! That could've made up for not having dinner by ourselves, but we felt obligated to sit and hang out with my mom after she prepared our anniversary dinner. All I have to say is that I'm glad I had a Freaking AWESOME Valentine's Day this year, cause otherwise I would be a lot more irritated than I am right now.

I would say that this year in review has been 50/50. Work life majorly sucks. I'm at my wits end with that. Church is totally great and it centers me for another week of B.S. Roommate situation has majorly sucked. I would like to be able to do it with my husband wherever whenever in our house, but roomies kind of prohibit that (not to mention there is a dog that barks at any sign of affection (hugging too long, kissing, tickling, etc.) which really throws a damper on the physical closeness relationships need. If I didn't have Jason, I would be extremely lost in my life. He is my rock. He is my joy. He is my everything! When I'm having a bad day, I call him and he tells me that I am a great person and work is just trying to bring me down to make themselves feel better. When I struggle with having my mom living here, he helps me through it. When I feel so completely worthless because I can't get pregnant with his kid, he tells me he loves me and that it's just not our time. That we will have one when the Lord feels we are ready - not when I am ready. And he's right. He's always right! I love that he is not afraid to tell me the truth. That he will hug me til I feel better.

This may be the newly wed in me that feels we will last forever but, I honestly know and feel that we will. I want to share some of the things that help get us through our everyday B.S. We both feel that if you remain true to yourself you will be happy, but you also have to be giving enough of yourself.

  • Be yourself
  • Kiss a lot
  • Hug a lot
  • Tell each other you love each other whenever you're thinking about it
  • Leave love notes EVERYWHERE
  • Almost anything can be solved with Paper Rock Scissors
  • Make sure you have similar interests
  • Make sure you have different interests
  • Don't rely on others to make you happy, make yourself happy
  • Let him open the food jars and car doors
  • Help her feel like a woman
  • Pray together (and pray often)
  • Stand by them at their worst
  • Don't stop flirting
  • Don't make decisions without consulting the other person first
  • The butterflies in your stomach are sometimes gas
  • When she calls you 10 times a day, it's not to bug or stalk you, it's cause she needs someone to talk to that is somewhat sane
  • Snuggle
  • Don't take other people's advice (it may not work for you guys, so just pray about it)
  • Help each other accomplish goals/dreams
  • Be cheesy
  • "Embellishing" is ok when it makes Jason look like the hero (example: Seriously, the spider Jason killed was as big as a grapefruit!"
  • When Jess says she's hurt, she probably really is

Though we have only been dating a few years, and we have only been married a year, we have learned so much. We also know that there is plenty more where those came from. We haven't had kids and that is a whole new learning adventure.

(I would've loved to put some pic's up, but as you've probably already guessed, there was nothing worth picture taking of. Sorry.)