Car seat Tent 2.0

I must say I DO love a good idea. I’m always looking for recommendations to make anything easier or to hear about something someone just cant live without and give it a try myself. With that said, I LOVE my car seat tent. (It’s also served as a burp rag, nursing cover and changing pad. It’s very versatile :D) I’ve noticed since having it for the whole 3 months of Eli’s life that there are some things I wish mine had. You saw in this post that I made a cover for a friend of mine and added a window because with Eli, I was always lifting the whole thing up to see if he was sleeping or not after a car ride (which 99.9% of the time he is) and the flash of brightness is enough to wake him up if he was sleeping, grrrr. So I added one to mine.

Also, now that he’s learning just how cool his hands are and grabbing at things, I’ve wanted to hang a toy from the handle and couldn’t, obviously with the way the tent attaches to the handles. I figured that was an easy fix and a must now that he’s older. Now he has his hangy toy just within reach:

Ta da! You can’t even tell that there are 2 new holes. (They sell these tents all over etsy so check’em out. Adding the holes is easy to do if you want me to show you)

Also I’m totally grossed out by the little pads that sit up by Eli’s chin in his car seat because he has spit up many times on them or more recently, munches’ on them, and how do you clean them?? You have to DISMANTLE the car seat straps from the back to get them off! I don’t think so! Call me lazy but No.Thank.You. Can you see how stained they are below? Guh-ross.

I decided a velcro set was in order so that I can pop them in the wash whenever he spits up on them. Here’s Eli modeling them while we were at dinner.

These are made of that soft cuddle fabric and bound with the same fabric as his tent—super comfy!

Also, did you see the folded burp rag under where his head and butt go in the previous pictures? Go on, scroll back up, I’ll wait :) Talk about a “Eureka!” moment. That fabric on the car seat does not breathe at all and during the hot summer days, the poor thing would be so sweaty and leave these huge sweat stains behind, not to mention the numerous times his poop has gone up his back and onto the car seat…see where I’m going with this? The burp cloth is just folded into a strip and it absorbs sweat and prevents poop from getting all over his seat. All I have to do is pull that puppy out and wash it. It fits PERFECTLY like it was designed for this purpose. I swear I heard angels sings when I discovered this.  A little shout out to my friend Nicole Rissman who made that one for me! I love them, thanks girlie :)

Go on, get out those burp cloths and line those car seats :)

That’s all for now

-Linds

Craft day with Auntie Stephie…

Today Eli and I went over to Auntie Stephie’s house for a craft day. A friend of ours just had a baby boy and so we wanted to make her a gift. We decided on doing a carseat tent/canopy/cover—whatever you wanna call it because I absolutely LOVE mine. I love how it keeps the sun off of him and out of his eyes, keeps him dry in the rain and keeps strangers at bay. Come wintertime, it’ll keep the cold drafts out. What more could you ask for? :) It definitely beats throwing a blanket over the carseat and having it fall off every 2 seconds. The other day I went into my doc appointment when it was sunny and came out to a downpour and was so thankful that even though I was drenched, Eli stayed dry due to his carseat cover. Anyway, enough about its greatness, here are some pictures of the finished product.

The outside view

The inside view with Eli thrilled to be participating

 

My favorite part! We added a vinyl window for quick peeks without having to expose baby to the elements by lifting the whole thing.

**Now, here I was sure I was brilliant because I was thinking how perfect mine would be if it had a little window instead of me picking up the whole cover to take a peek. So one day I’m brainstorming ways on HOW to sew the vinyl in there and it came to me, so we tried it and it worked perfectly! I have never seen anything like this before (the window I mean, not the cover. I’ve seen a ton of different versions of these). So out of curiosity I searched etsy.com for different versions of these tonight, CONVINCED I would not see a window placed on any of them (because I’m the brilliant one, remember?) and low and behold I found the exact same idea on one sellers cover. My bubble burst :/ I couldn’t believe it. Well great minds think alike right? Craziness.

Can you see my hysterical child in there? Poor kid. I assure you, no children were harmed in the making of this cover.

Anyways, I hope she likes it.

Thanks Auntie Stephie for entertaining us all day, (even though the little stinker refused to nap and therefore made craft time a little more difficult.) We had fun :)

-Linds

Baby shower for Sara…

Today I took Eli with me to my friend Sara’s baby shower since kids and babies where welcome (Which worked out great because the hubby had a huge paper to write for school and my mom/sitter wasn’t feeling well). We had a good time and Eli behaved for the first 2hrs, (he’s a people person and loves attention), but then hit his wall at his usual nap time and was too over stimulated by all the excitement to fall asleep and ended up  freaking out :/ My poor kiddo. Thank God there was a baby whisperer there (Sara’s mother-in-law’s sister) that finally got him to fall asleep. This time change thing certainly isn’t helping matters either because he thought it was time to start getting ready for bed at 5:30 tonight. We definitely need to get back on schedule tomorrow.
Steph and I had a blast making all of Sara’s baby gifts. We made her a car seat tent, a wet bag, some pee pee tee pees, a hooded towel, hooter hider, paci holder and paci clip, a diaper motorcycle (also with homemade recieving blankets for the handle bars), sugar scrub for momma, and a travel bib! Phew. We were very busy :)
Here are a few pics of the ones I remembered to take pictures of:

Diaper motorcycle (2 receiving blankets, about 40 diapers, 3 pairs baby socks, bottle, washcloth, and 2 bibs) Tutorial found here.

 

Hooded bath towel.

Travel bib. You stick in a spoon and fork on the side pockets and some wet wipes in the center, fold it and snap shut. Tutorial found here.

Carseat tent, no explanation needed I’m sure.

I’m bummed I forgot to take a pic of the wet bag. Oh well. It was just a bag to stick wet/soiled baby stuff in that had a waterproof lining and zipped shut.

Here we are with the momma to be. Poor Eli looks put out. I think he needs more time hanging with the men:

People often think the 3 of us are sisters when we are out and about.

We played a game involving guessing the different chocolate candies melted in diapers. They smelled scrumdiddlioumpscious but looked DI-Scust-ing. I snapped a pic of Steph smelling one as she tried to guess what it was, ha ha:

I think she feared that at any given time she’d open up a “real” diaper, hence the nervous face. ha ha ha.

All in all it was a good time. Sara was spoiled as she should be :) Congrats girlie! Soooooo excited for you to start this awesome journey as well.
-Linds

RIP Blue Schumann 3/18/98-11/18/11

** We love you, we miss you, we will never forget you.**

Today was a very sad day for us as we mourn the passing of Eli’s doggie cousin, Blue. He was 13 1/2 years old but always resembled a mischievous young pup and gosh, was he ever handsome! Look at that face! Believe me, mommy and daddy had a hard time saying “no” to that face.

I’ve cried plenty today and my plan is not to sadden you all as well but to ask your help in remembering this awesome doggie if you were blessed to know him. I’ll start with my fond memories first :)

So the doggie you see before you, although not the cuddle type, was very thoughtful and generous with his time in the following ways:

-He always willingly and selflessly sampled Eli’s hangy toys and teether rings to make sure they were safe for babies. (Phew!)…

-He acted as supervisor during numerous diaper changes, so that Eli never had the chance to roll off the couch while mommy/auntie changed him. (Thanks!)…

-He would greet us at the door and poke his head under Eli’s carseat tent to check that his auntie didn’t forget his little cousin at home and then proceed to smother him with as many kisses as he could…

-He would escort Eli in his stroller on nice long walks around the block, pointing out the best pee spots…

-And, he made sure  his mommy used only the softest, cuddliest, flannel for baby blankets she made for presents by walking on them, testing them out, and finally giving his approval by laying on them as she sewed.

*sigh*

One of my favorite Stories Steph told me about Blue was when they lived in their condo and Aldo and Steph were playing around and pretend wrestling on their bed one night (staaaay with me now, don’t go wandering the gutters people this is a “G” rated blog) and Aldo pinned her and apparently had some menacing body language and tone because Blue hopped up on the bed and nudged Aldo away and gently did the Blue “talk”/low growl (he never barked) as if to say “back off man, this is MY momma and you better not be hurting her!” He had never done anything like that before. He was protective of her even if it meant telling one of his favorite people, daddy, to back off. I know Aldo didn’t think he could possibly love his dog any more than he already did, until that moment. He was so proud of him :)

So what’s your greatest memory of Blue??

Hugs and snuggles,

Auntie Lindsay and family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue with his Daddy and mommy.

I’ve become very practical in my old age…

So I told you yesterday we went to visit daddy at his work. Well lo’ and behold my little one needs a diaper change and that place is not outfitted with a diaper changing table so we um, used daddy’s desk :/ I didn’t feel like bringing in the diaper bag and definitely didn’t feel like running out to the car to get the changing pad so I improvised and took Eli’s car seat tent off his carseat and laid that on Aaron’s desk. I have been meaning to make a really light weight changing pad to stick in my new over-sized purse since I always keep a spare diaper and wipes in there and was reeeeeally annoyed when I didn’t have it today when I needed it. So grandmom Shay came over to visit with Eli last night and I used that opportunity to have some craft time for me and finally made exactly what I envisioned in my head (LOVE it when that happens!)
Here’s my new little beauty:
 So it has enough room for a diaper (i happened to have 2 strapped in now since they’re little), wipes case and changing pad. I’m excited because it’s all really compact and light!
Let me show you how it works:

So the top is a wipe-able PUL material and the pretty outside is just regular quilting fabric. This, obviously is it open and ready to be used. It has no padding, but then again my plan was to use it on a soft surface such as a couch, and not risk getting any stains on other people’s belongings (that’s how you keep friends—being considerate like that :p)


So then I would just fold it up in a certain order, like you’ll see so it stays compact. First fold over each side until you have 3 equal parts…





continue to fold right side over one more time…





And then fold over left side onto center. If you can see in the picture, there is a strap that I sewed on (one, so that I don’t lose it, and two, so that it’s easy to work with)


 
A better view of the straps sewn in place…





Then fold the bottom up towards the top. Now it’s ready to have the wipes case and diapers placed on top and velcroed together. Voila!



I mentioned above that I got a new over-sized purse. I was so sick and tired of baby stuff falling out of my smaller purse. I wanted a bag that was veeeeery roomy but light-weight to start (that’s the problem, once you get into over-sized bags, they start to weigh a ton even before you put your junk into it!) and ideally divided for a “me” section and an “Eli” section and I totally found EXACTLY what I was looking for at Kohls..on clearance! Ow ow!
Here she is:


 Above you can see that it’s divided into 2 sections, with the divider being a zippered pouch where she is nestled in her new home :) So, one side has my junk in it, and the other side has Eli’s. Totally happy momma right now :D
That is all.
-Linds