One year ago...

So this past weekend we celebrated Kaitlyn's first birthday! It was a lot of fun and we had a great turnout. Pretty much all of both sides of our family was in attendance and it was great getting catch up with everyone. Kaitlyn was a little on the grumpy side though, b/c she had been VERY sick the whole week prior. It started out just diarrhea, but then escalated into diarrhea literally like every 15 minutes! It was horrible, she wouldn't eat anything and threw up her bottles when she did eat. She also developed a REALLY bad diaper rash from all of the diarrhea and it got really swollen and painful. I tried to just keep her outside on the back patio naked so she could air out a bit. She even lost a whole pound that week...which for her was a lot!But luckily she was recovered by the party...just still a little on the grumpy side :) Here are some of the pictures from her party:

We also had join birthday party with her friend Brigham who is one week older with some of our other friends from our old singles ward.

Some other happenings in our life right now is that we are in the process of switching over to cow's milk. That process is going ok I guess...we give her two bottles a day with half breastmilk and half cow's milk and I am slowly decreasing the breastmilk ounce by ounce. We are hoping to transition to only the cow's milk soon b/c I have already quit pumping but still have a small frozen supply we are using. I made it to my one year goal and that is long enough :) I am a little annoyed though b/c she will drink water out of her sippy cups like a champ, but the second we put milk in there she throws a fit! And here is the other stubborn thing she does...the milk is not even about the taste for her...She LOVES for us to spoon feed her milk...even right from her sippy cup...but the second we put the lid on to give it to her she wants nothing to do with it. So I guess it is either continue with the bottles for a while or spoon feed her milk everyday to get her milk intake! I guess I at least need to be grateful that she is drinking it!

Other than that things are going pretty well with us. We just got approved to refinance our house which we are excited about. We were so nervous before the appraiser came, b/c if our house did not appraise high enough we were out $400 for nothing. But luckily it appraised for $3000 more than what we needed so we cut it close! But we were thrilled for this market. This refinance will put us one step closer to me finally being able to quit work. We are hopefully going to be saving around $200 a month with our refinance which will help out a lot once we lose my salary!

My attempt at Photoshop

Have I mentioned that Kaitlyn is about to turn ONE! Ah! I can't believe it! Well everyone knows that we are on a SUPER strict budget, but we still wanted to make up first birthday invitations to have as a keepsake for a little family party that we are having for her birthday. So we researched photo invitation prices and they were WAY to expensive! So I thought I would attempt to create my own. I have a downloaded version of photoshop so I dressed Kaitlyn up and took some home photos of her, then I messed around for a few hours on an invitation. I have never really used photoshop before and it was a lot more confusing than I was expecting. So I googled what I wanted to do and then took youtube tutorials! haha! I just tried to keep it simple with a pink and white polka dot background and I thought it turned out pretty well! Then all I had to do was send them off to Wal-mart to have printed for only like $.18 a piece! MUCH cheaper than the alternative!

I will post pictures soon of her actual birthday party! We are having the family party here at our house on the 25th and on Monday we are having a joint bday party with her best friend Brigham who is exactly one week older than her!

Sewing Projects

So I am finally getting around to publishing my sewing projects post. These have all been completed for quite a while, but I have just been slack about updating my blog. So here they all are. Most are clothes for me. A lot of them are from fabric that I have had lying around for a long time, but just never actually sat down to try and make anything. This first one here is a teething rail cover for Kaitlyn's crib. When she first learned to pull herself up she was destroying it. So I had originally looked around for something b/c I knew I didn't want the plastic covers. I found these cloth covers that I like the look of better at Target you can see Here and Here. But I really didn't want to pay $21.99 each plus tax and shipping for both the front and the sides since it is an online only product. So I thought this has to be easy enough to make. And I could pick out whatever fabric I want! So I went on a trip to Mary Jo's and got all my supplies for only around $10! And I thought the colors ended up matching Kaitlyn's current room attire pretty well!

So Here is the final product up on her crib. I made little fabric ties that just tie to each other and so far she hasn't messed with them and is content biting on the fabric instead of her crib! Plus this can just be washed whenever it gets dirty!

Close up of front and side covers: Letters I painted for Kaitlyn's room. I can't remember if I ever posted these on my blog or not. It's hard to see all the detail in this picture, but I think they turned out pretty cute. I finished them while I was still pregnant, otherwise I knew I would never get it done!

Two skirts: Green with white flower embroidery and a blue seersucker

Dress with sleeves that tie at the end

Green Damask dress

Pink semi-formal dress. I made this to wear on the cruise that Justin and I are going on.

So that's all. The skirts and dresses were all made by patterns, but the crib rail cover I made on my own. I wish I had more time to make more stuff, but that is enough for now. I still have a pile of fabric in my guest room waiting on me though!

Where oh where has my Summer went!?!?

I realized that it has been way too long since I last posted. I still plan on doing my sewing project post as well, but I have just been so busy! But I figured I at least need to update at least for me to look back on. Life has been crazy busy lately. We literally had an obligation almost every single weekend in July and it has just now started to calm down. I feel like summer has slipped through my fingertips. Justin and I had bought season passes to Carowinds in high hopes of spending our free time there, but we just made it to the water park for the first time last night! And we only did that b/c this is the last week it is open during weekdays. It was a fun night away though while my mom babysat. I did actually head down to the beach with my family for a few days. Justin stayed home, so I rode down with my mom and Kaitlyn.

Here is a picture of the three of us:

My mom with Kaitlyn at the ocean. She HATED the ocean. She would scream and lift her legs up so that the water never touched her! haha!

One of our good friends from our days at the Singles Ward got married the last weekend in July. It was nice to get to go to the temple twice in one month since Justin's sister had gotten married at the beginning of the month! Here is a picture of our group from the Singles. We have all remained really good friends and try to get together often.
I have also been getting the pleasure of spending a lot more time with my High School friends as well! All but one has moved back to Charlotte and so a few of us that are either between jobs or on maternity leave have been getting together for lunches. This is me and my friend Emily and her baby Caleb.So now for my neglected update on Life. Kaitlyn is about to be 11 months old! Eeek! Where did the time go! Just Kidding...the first 6 months were ROUGH and I am happy to have them behind me! But I would be crazy to complain about her now. She has literally transformed into a completely different baby. Ever since she became mobile she has done a complete 180 and transformed into this happy, sweet baby! We like to think that she was just bored out of her mind being stuck in a body that couldn't do what she wanted it to do. Now that she is mobile she is wonderful! I must finally be experiencing the bliss that new moms have! haha. I know this will sound bad, but other first time parents would always be talking about how awesome it was and how much they were in love with their little one...and then Justin and I would be like "we got the short end of the stick I guess...haha...I mean of course we LOVED her, but I just never had those sweet bliss moments. Now when I see her smile and laugh and play her little games it is just pure happiness. So here is to hoping she continues to get better and better!

Kaitlyn vs The Stairs

Kaitlyn is all over the place now! Whenever we are downstairs she is constantly crawling over to the stairs and up she goes! Tonight was her first night crawling the entire way up the stairs! Don't worry, I was behind her waiting to catch her if she fell while Justin videotaped! Don't feel like you have to watch the whole thing...I understand it is probably not as exciting for you! haha.

Fourth of July Festivities!

This year was calmer than most 4th's now that we have a baby. We went to church and then later that evening went over to our friend's Mark and Ashley's house for a cook-out. Ashley made this awesome Flag cake! I had to take a picture of it!

Kaitlyn in her 4th of July attire

Mr. and Mrs. Jorgensen

This past week was SUPER busy for us. We left Tuesday afternoon for Washington D.C. It was also our first time leaving Kaitlyn overnight! My mom came and picked her up before we left. It was so sad! We made good time up to D.C. and then spent Wednesday at the temple for Ainsley's endowments and then they got married on Thursday. After the wedding, Jake's parents provided a luncheon at the Cheesecake Factory. Then came the horrible part. It took us (NO EXAGGERATION) 3 HOURS to go no more than 30 miles!!!! We were sooo mad. I HATE D.C. traffic. To the point that I really have no desire to go back there for a long long time. We still were going to have to drive to Charlotte to pick up Kaitlyn and then drive on to Shallotte that same night. My mom was nice enough to meet us in Raleigh so that we shaved off a good 4-5 hours off the trip since we were able to go straight on to Shallotte from Raleigh instead of going way around.
Kaitlyn actually did suprisingly well while we were away until the very last day, My mom was ready to give her back! haha. She was pretty good for us while in Shallotte Friday for the reception. Here are some pictures of the past week:

The Happy Couple (Ainsley is Justin's little sister, youngest of 4 older brothers)
Me and My Sister and Laws!

Justin and I in front of the D.C. Temple. We were married there 3 years and 2 months ago!
First Dance at Beach Reception at Ocean Isle Beach
Family Beach Photo