‘Tis the season! I feel like I have been away from this blogging thing forever, but ahh it feels good to be back. Ok…semi-back! Things are still crazy at our house, we haven’t found a routine yet, but things are starting to feel slightly back to normal so that’s a good thing, right?! Ha ha!

So the Christmas season is upon us and the busy-ness of it added to our already hectic schedule has made the month of December fly right by. Aaron will be exactly one month old tomorrow and I can’t believe Christmas is a short 9 days away (eek! single digits- insert wide eyes and open mouth here)! I can safely say we are 98% done with our shopping, our tree is decorated, and the presents are wrapped.

Today we took the boys to the mall to get our annual family Christmas ornament and hopefully a quick picture with Santa. Fortunately we were able to accomplish both of these tasks and nobody had a tantrum or a meltdown (my husband and I included LOL)! You’ll notice in the Santa picture there are only 2 children pictured…UNfortunately this year our 2 year old has decided he is scared to death of Santa so he wouldn’t go anywhere near the big red guy! I figure 2 out of 3 kids isn’t bad ha ha! I also snagged a really sweet deal on 2 Land’s End jackets, one for winter and one for spring/fall, as well as a fleece vest! Confession: They are all TOTAL Mommy clothes and I absolutely LOVE them 🙂

Next week we are looking forward to our oldest son’s Christmas play/party at his school as well as family coming in for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations! Until then I will leave you with these pictures to show our Christmas spirit thus far!

~E

“Baby” Angel at Bounce U last week with Santa!

Family Christmas Ornament 2010

2 out of 3 kids with Santa!

This Thanksgiving was a little bit different from years past. We decided we were still going to host Thanksgiving dinner at our house as we have for the past 4 years; however we weren’t quite sure when baby Aaron was going to be making his appearance and whether or not I’d be majorly pregnant or just haven given birth. It turned out to be the latter since Aaron decided to make his debut on November 16th! We decided to ask everyone to bring a dish to complete our Thanksgiving meal this year and I have to say it worked out perfectly! I don’t think there is any better feeling than family togetherness, and this year it was what our Thanksgiving was all about!

Unfortunately during all the mayhem I completely forgot to take even 1 picture this Thanksgiving-so instead I’ll attach an adorable picture of Aaron Matthew with his big brothers!

I won my first online giveaway contest last night and it couldn’t have come at a better time! Recently I found kayteedid’s website and FELL IN LOVE! If you have a little one at home, or know someone that will soon have a little one you need to visit her site and order a blanket-like now! Anyway I entered her contest on her Facebook page at the last minute last night thinking to myself “oh I never win anything, what are the chances?!” Well apparently luck was on my side because I did win, and I know our new little man Aaron is going to enjoy his blanket and get a lot of use out of it 🙂 I won a free “Lovey Blanket” and can’t wait to receive it in the mail!!

I have been MIA for a few days because this past Tuesday we welcomed baby boy #3 to our family. Aaron Matthew Acosta was born at 8:23pm weighing in at 6lbs 9oz and is 19.5 inches long! I’m sure my posts will be very sporadic through the next few weeks, so please bear with me! I’m hoping to get on in the next few days as well to post my birth story so I can have a little memento from the birth of our newest son 🙂

It’s a Saturday morning and I’m sitting here enjoying my coffee (decaf of course!) while the boys eat their breakfast and watch yet another episode of iCarly on demand. I went to the doctor yesterday and in addition to being nearly 38 weeks pregnant I’m also 2cm dilated so it’s just a matter of time at this point! We’re super excited and cannot wait to meet our new little guy that will be joining our family.

Thursday I found myself at Joann’s again buying more fabric, and supplies to get started on my newest project-baby bibs!! Yesterday I was able to take some time in the morning while my husband watched the boys (he’s really been so good with that lately) to get started. I’m posting pictures of bibs that I started working on yesterday thanks to this tutorial. They’re not perfect, but I did find they were easier with each one I made. I also like this project because it helped me learn how to control my sewing machine’s speed and the way the material needed to be moved through the machine with precision. It was really fun! Enjoy and happy Saturday!

With the change of weather hitting the East coast we have been hesitant to take the boys outdoors because we don’t want them catching anything with me being this close to have our newest addition! Plus lets face it-it’s NO fun taking care of sick kids!! Well spending all that time cooped up in the house was starting to wear on the kids as well as my husband and I, so we decided to take a trip to our local aquarium. Even though it was small in size compared to others in our area it was practically empty which is always a mom’s dream (no worries about losing your kids, germs, or other kids misbehaving!), very inexpensive, and had a great touch tank that both the boys were able to explore and learn about the animals living inside. Angel and Ayden really enjoyed themselves and I was able to get some GREAT shots with our camera! Here’s our adventure to the aquarium.

Ever since the birth of our second son, Ayden, we have become a very pro-breast feeding family so I was out shopping the other day at Target and while walking up and down the baby aisles looking at all the cute stuff I came across the disposable nursing pads I used and noticed that the price went up on them AGAIN! At first I thought to myself no biggie, you need them so there’s nothing you can do just suck it up and put them in the cart. Then I remembered seeing adorable, handmade reusable nursing pads on Etsy and I thought to myself WHY NOT?!! I came home and started researching them online and was able to use a combination of this tutorial as well as this one for when I decide to try to make them contoured. So ladies and gentlemen here they are my first batch of reusable nursing pads (pink w/ elephants)! I was able to make 12 more this afternoon in just 30 minutes, how awesome!!

YESSS, they are finally finished! They were my first sewing “project” on my sewing machine and completely SELF TAUGHT!! Hubby was awesome enough to let me finish these this afternoon while he entertained Angel and Ayden for a bit. VERY VERY easy is the best way to explain them and once you get the hang of it you are able to bang them out very quickly. I used this tutorial which was just perfect. I’m hoping to get a few more sets of these finished before the new baby makes his arrival. The size of these also makes them great to double as changing pads too! Let me know what you think 🙂

More fabric is on it’s wayyyy! I just placed another order on Etsy from this awesome seller Sew Materialistic. Last night was my first bad night with my sewing machine..we got into a fight and the machine won 😦 I broke the needle, I had to rethread the bobbin half way through my project, and the top thread wasn’t going all the way through the material amongst other things (including my 4 year old waking up and lounging on the couch for a bit while Mommy did some sewing). With all of that it took me nearly 2 hours to finish 1 burp cloth-VERY frustrating. Through it all I’m determined to get back on the horse and figure out what went wrong. So I’ve ordered more material for burp cloths and found a really cute pattern for bibs! I can’t wait to get started tonight! I promise as soon as I have these burp cloths finished I am going to post a picture for everyone to see!

This has been a very long week for us in our house. In addition to me having a throat infection (and we know mommy’s don’t get sick days) we have been struggling to get into a new routine as well. I haven’t mentioned anything for fear of “jinxing” it but I can’t hold it in any longer. This week I made a promise to myself that I would start having Angel and Ayden sleep in their own bedroom. With Angel, our oldest, we were a co-sleeping family and he slept in our bed till he was nearly 2 1/2 and we brought his brother home from the hospital. When Ayden was born we swore we were going to do things differently, but of course ended up not! Eventually we were able to move both boys our of our bed and into their own separate beds, but still in our bedroom. The thought of bringing home baby #3 and having all 5 of us in our bedroom gave me nightmares so I am trying to do something to avoid it. As a result we have all had a VERY long week trying to adjust to the boys sleeping in their own room. Ayden has done better with the transition than Angel but you can tell during the day they are both exhausted from waking multiple times at night 😦 As for my husband and myself I am considering this a dry-run for when we bring home the new baby due to how little sleep we have been getting at night because of the boys waking up. Some nights have been better than others and next week I plan on putting the boys in their rooms to fall asleep by themselves…this week i have been staying in there with them until they fall asleep and then tippy-toeing out! Fingers crossed 🙂