3 Months Old!

Our baby is 3 months old already! Princess Pea (which she will be aptly named based on the meaning of her name - victory of the king) has been growing like a weed and is still a very happy and content baby. Bfeeding on the other hand is not going so well, but we are working on a few things and hopefully it will get better. I'm too stubborn to quit (just yet) so we will continue to persevere. She just started to suck her thumb and loves to coo, screech, and smile. Here are some pics!

My two girlies...

Princess Pea and her cousin J (3 weeks apart in age)...

Sucking her thumb...





Sleeping peacefully...

Getting ready to go out on a really snowy day...

Psalm 67 :1, 2 "May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations."

Tissue Paper Flower Tutorial!

A number of people have asked me how I made the tissue paper flowers that are hanging in tiny tots room. So, I decided I would take the leap and do my very first tutorial! I have a little secret though. The actual flowers hanging in tiny tot's room were from a kit, that I purchased from a store that starts with Wal and ends in Mart. So after reading this post, you still decide that it is to complicated (or your not the crafty kind) you could check your local store and see if they have them there. In my defense, I did make one entirely on my own for this post :) And it is still ridiculously easy - I promise. And WAY cheaper. Martha Stewart charges to much for hers, serious.

Materials List: A pack of tissue paper. I purchased mine from Dollarama. The downside to cheapness is that the paper is much thinner so more sheets are needed. I didn't realize this until I was finished mine. For a good fullness, I would recommend 15 - 20 sheets of thin dollar store paper, or 10 - 15 of thicker paper.
A scissors.
Wire - a length of approx. 10 inches for each flower.
Petal Template - this could be a creative ruler or you could just cut petals an inch apart if you are good at free handing things.


After you lay out the tissue paper you can leave it the width that it came (for a larger flower) or cut it to the diameter that you would like (for smaller flowers). Then lay your petal template down along the edge and trace it. For this one I made wavy petals, for another one I cut triangles free hand for spiky petals.

Then cut it out. Repeat on the other side.

Then starting at one end of the tissue paper (lengthwise? widthwise?? The shorter length...) begin accordion folding the paper the width of one petal...

Until it looks like this...

Fasten the length of wire around the centre leaving one end longer than the other. The longer end can then be shaped into a loop for hanging when complete.

After flattening out the folds somewhat, begin lifting (peeling) each layer of tissue paper up towards the centre. This must be done gently or the tissue paper could tear (especially thin bargain paper). As you lift up the layers the flower will begin to take shape...

Until it looks like this... -Special thanks to Hunky Husband for assisting in the modeling- (And this is where I realized that it could have used a few more layers of paper so that the flower would look more full...)

This picture can give you an idea of how big the flower will be if you use standard size tissue paper...

I am sorry this picture is sideways - just crank your head to the right... :), but I got creative that night and started thinking of all kinds of ways these could be used. I made this smaller one (with spiky petals) and only peeled the layers to the top. Wouldn't these look fabulous for a dinner party? Or center pieces?

I am sorry that the pictures are poor quality. The flash seems to be broken on our camera so I can only take pictures when it is very bright outside, and close to a window otherwise they turn out very dark. But I hope that you enjoyed the tutorial! Enjoy making the flowers!

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2 Corinthians 1: 3-5 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received in God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows."

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I have wanted to post this text for a while now. After reading it I really pondered the correlation between Christ's sufferings flowing into our lives and as a result comfort OVERflowing into our lives as well. Because we have been comforted we can also comfort others. This text makes it feel like it should be something natural, something flowing out of us through the thankfulness we have in Christ's death! Let us comfort those in need, and look for those that need to be comforted, and praise God for the comfort we also have received!

Tiny Tot's Turf Transformed!

I know, I know, this blog post should be pictures of the whole house, but we are just so excited about tiny tot's room that we had to show it to you first :) I will eventually get around to snapping pictures of the rest of it (if I ever get it tidy enough to be picture worthy).

Here is the before picture...

And after...

I pretty much had her room completely designed and everything purchased before we moved in. It helped to know exactly what her room looked like! So under my guidance (and a little of my help) hunky husband got to work and transformed the room into something a princess would love.

Here he has the room primed and ready to go...

The first wall of pink!

We had never hung wallpaper before, so since they claimed they were experts, the 'rents' came over one evening and hung it for us...

It turned out beautifully!

Hunky husband putting together her "big girl bed"...

I love this tiny little bed. We purchased it at Ikea....

and this as well...

Here are some close-ups of a few other things in the room. These tissue paper flowers were ridiculously easy to make, hung with fishing line, and I love how they turned out...

I purchased wooden letters from Micheals and hunky husband spray painted them for me. I then cut out the letters in fancy textured paper, glue-gunned them to the wood and hung them on the wall...

Her dresser is "recycled" from the old owners and makes a great changing station as well...

And one last little touch...

A few pictures of the room in action! Trying out her new bed...

Playing with her tea set...

Having a nap! The transition from crib to big-girl bed went so well. By naptime on the day we had her bed set up, she wanted to go "night-night" so I put her in and that was that. She has slept in it ever since. I don't think she knows that she can get out of it (b/c she never does) and we are not telling her either :p

Hope you enjoy the pics! We are working hard now on getting our room finished. The wallpaper is down, paint up, and decorating is happening now!

Psalm 48:14 "For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end."

Wordless Wednesday: Like Father, Like Daughter?

Tiny? Tot

Tiny tot has become quite the little stinker lately. Her favorite word is "no", and her favorite sentence is "no mommy" or "no no no". She loves to run away, especially when I tell her to come, and she loves to find something bad to do when I am nursing because she knows I won't get up.

How's this little stinker face?

Or this one?

When we were still at my mom and dad's I tried to take a nice picture of my tiny tot to capture what she looked like when her little sister arrived. This was the result...

Would we trade her in? Not a chance. We love her to bits and really, it's all the fun in parenting a little one. We are enjoying every minute of it. And her cute, wonderful moments make up for everything bad. Here is a picture of a super cute moment. Aunty Eee came over to babysit and being the great aunt that she is, played tea party with my little princess....

This is also a tiny sneak peek of part of our living room in the new house. More pics to follow... I promise. :)

I want to share a text with you today that we read at the dinner table yesterday. I made Hunky Husband read it a couple of times, because it really struck me in a certain way. With all the challenges that our family has been going through lately it really made me think in a different way about our situation.

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The text is Hebrews 4:16; "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help is in our time of need."

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It is talking in the context of Jesus being our great High Priest and that we may go to him in prayer when we are being tempted. I thought it was still fitting and thought that we could apply our situation to "time of need." What hit me was the word 'confidence'. What a comfort to know that if we are confident that God will help us in our time of need, he will certainly give us the mercy and grace to do so. I think it also humbled me in a way, because I don't think that my prayers, especially as of late have been overly confident. Certainly something to strive for!

Introducing Kinsley Susanne Lodder!

After a fairly easy 8 hour labor, our second daughter made an appearance on Nov 27th, 2010 at 2:02 pm at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg. She weighed 7 lbs 10 oz and measured 19.75 inches. We fell in love with her immediately and named her Kinsley Susanne after Grandma V.

Proud daddy of two girls!

She has been a great baby so far. She hardly ever cries and is sleeping really well for her mommy.

Our midwife was away up north for a week so because I was curious to see how much she weighed, hunky husband brought his refrigeration scale home to weigh her. She weighed 9 lbs 7.5 oz at four weeks. She is gaining well :)

Big Sister! She LOVES (her) baby and always wants to kiss her and have her face really close, I guess to feel her breathing.

My five week old baby!

We have been feeling really blessed to have two lovely daughters and so much love in our family! And now that moving and Christmas and New Years are over (so much partying!) I will be trying very hard to keep the blog posts coming :)... with lots of pics! (and tell you all about our move and our new house!)

John 1:16 "From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another."