Jessica Acs. Crazy Happy Chaos

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Right around the corner

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Once again, Valentine’s Day is almost upon us. I overheard Steve talking to Ava about it yesterday and when he said ” I get to have two Valentine’s – you and Mummy!” – I almost melted into a huge puddle of mush right there.

I have to admit that Valentine’s Day has never been a happy occasion to me until Steve came along. It holds sad but dear memories in my heart as my grandpa died on Valentine’s Day 15 years ago. 15 years. Hard to believe it’s been so long. I can still hear his voice, still see his smiling face, and still feel him holding my hand as he told me he loved me – mere days before he passed away. My grandma lived for many years after but she passed away before I moved away from Canada. I miss them both so much and I’m sad they never got to meet Steve or Ava. I know that they would be sad that I moved so far away from home but they would be happy that I was following my dream. Sometimes I so clearly see my grandma in Ava and it takes my breath away.

So back to this Valentine’s Day 🙂

I have recently posted some fun Valentine’s DIY projects over at Homeketeers:

This Heart Banner is my favorite as Ava helped me create it with her first ever finger painting!

 

I also got out my alcohol inks again and had fun creating these hearts:

These Love Bugs were a fun and quick little project too:

One last one, this is a super quick and easy garland to make using scrap pieces of fabric:

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Halloween Crafty Goodness & Free Printables

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Looking for some quick and easy Halloween crafts?

First up are the Halloween Bats: Click here for the tutorial. I actually really enjoyed making these and I love how it turned out!

bats

 

Next, I have the Ribbon Wreath: I love this wreath but it took SO long to make it. A lot longer than I expected. I may or may not be making a Christmas one 🙂

(Click on the image below to get to the tutorial)

 

And finally, the quick and easy paper finger puppets:

 

You can download the free printable bat silhouettes here:

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bats

A Hard Lesson to Learn…

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But a very valuable one! The last few days around here have been a little crazy. Definitely not how I imagined the last week and a half of my pregnancy would go.

About 4 days ago just when it hit triple digits temperature wise, our air conditioning decided to quit on us. Lovely. Trying to find someone to come fix it has been a huge chore as everyone is so busy and backed up right now. So here we are 4 days later still with no AC. But wait, it gets better. Yesterday morning we woke up to find we had no water in the house. Not a drop would come out of the taps. Not only does that mean no water to drink, or for the animals, but no washing dishes, no laundry, no showers, and no…flushing the toilets. O.M.G.

We had to go buy gallon jugs of water just so we had drinking water for all of us and each time we needed to flush the toilet, it took 3 gallons that we had to pour into the back tank. Insane!! You don’t realize how bad you take stuff for granted until something like this happens. I have a whole new respect for water, and we have been really good about conserving water too. We have a well and I did learn some good tips on living with a well from my parents who also have one. Don’t waste water is a huge thing!!!! We try to recycle water as much as we can right now anyway and we will be doing this even more now because this happened. (we finally got our water back late this afternoon but it was 2 days without which was horrible!). So learn from our situation and try to conserve water as much as possible – you never realize how valuable it is until there is none.

Today the outside temperature did drop into the 80’s. Still quite warm but a lot better than over 100 which is what it has been. It was so hot in the upstairs in our house we couldn’t sleep up there or really spend any time up there at all. We retreated to the basement where we set up an air mattress and our one fan and that’s where we’ve been sleeping. Of course the dogs, the pig and the coati all came down there to camp out with us as well. The other animals are all fine – they have AC out in their room. They are on their own system separate from the house. We did contemplate going out and sleeping amongst them as well, but the basement has been ok. Well yeah just ok. Sleeping on the floor on a thin air mattress is not my idea of a good time, especially being over 9 months pregnant. With having to get up so many times during the night, it’s very difficult. I literally have to roll off the mattress onto my knees on the floor, then pull myself up using the nearby loveseat. It must look pretty hilarious.

So the craziness aside, the good news is that in only 10 days our little Ava will be making her grand entrance!! We are so excited, and I’m also so excited to not be pregnant anymore. It will be great to be able to bend over properly again, and to not have swollen feet. Of course the best thing of all will be seeing our baby and holding her. I can’t wait.

There are still a lot of things on my to-do list for this week, but her nursery is just about completed. I have a few things to do still but here are some pictures of it so far.

Crib, dresser, bookshelf,  tall shelving unit and carpet are all from Ikea. Change table cover, crib sheet and window valences are from Pottery Barn Kids.

I love this cute carpet!

Her nursery is mostly animal themed with a hint of Star Wars 🙂

So many cute little shoes!

Hand made wipes and burp cloths. Yes we are cloth diapering her as well.

I made the mat in this frame using Disney parks maps and one of the napkins we got when we went to Club 33.

This stuffed macaw is something I got when I was 12 years old from Disney World. Funny how it looks like a Military Macaw and I ended up training a real life one while I was at Eatm.

I made these letters using plain paper mache letters from Hobby Lobby. I covered one side with maps from Disney Parks that I kept. The first A is covered with a map from California Adventure Park in Anaheim – where Steve and I had our first date, and then later we celebrated our engagement there and we also went there the day after we got married. The V is covered with a map from Blizzard Beach in Florida, where we went on our honeymoon and that’s where we chose names for our future children, Ava being one of them. The second A is covered with a map from Animal Kingdom, also in Florida and also where we went on our honeymoon.

The reverse side of the letters are covered with map paper. The first A is covered with a map from California. It shows where we went to school (and met) in Moorpark, where we lived, Disneyland, where we got married (Camarillo) and where we got engaged (Woodland Hills). The V is covered with with a map of BC, Canada – where I’m from. It shows Victoria (where I was born and raised), and Vancouver (where I lived before moving to California). The second A is covered with a map of northern Illinois. It shows the city where Steve was born and raised, and also the town where we live now and where Ava will come home to.

I did a tutorial on how I made the letters here: Homeketeers

Sliding on into 3rd….

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Trimester that is!!! 3rd trimester already, O.M.G.

So I truly suck at blogging. My first excuse was going to be that I’ve been busy, but come on, the baby isn’t even here yet! If I’m busy now, then what’s it going to be like once she’s born?
Honestly though, yes things have been busy. I was sick with an ongoing cold of some sort for almost 2 months. Nasty. But I’m now feeling a lot better, just super tired as I don’t sleep well anymore. I wake up at all hours in the night and either just lie there or turn the tv on and watch re-runs of Big Bang Theory that we have on the DVR. Fun times. Then when it’s time to get up in the morning, I end up dozing off and begging for just another few minutes to sleep. *sigh*

Baby world news: still feeling pretty good pregnancy wise. The sleep issue aside, other things are going well. No weird cravings, no nausea. Still sleeping on my back some of the time and my stomach at other times, so I guess my tummy isn’t that enormous yet! haha. I feel her moving all around in there all the time now, it’s so amazing. She weighs about 2 pounds now and is over 14 inches long. CRAZY to think there is something that big moving all around inside me, cause her movements so far are still pretty slight. We are excited though, and we are pretty much ready. We have the nursery almost done (just have to get some pictures on the wall), and all the baby gear is here. Her clothes are all put in the dresser and hung in the closet, books in the bookshelf, etc. Now we just need the baby 🙂

I’ll get some proper photos of her nursery up as soon as it’s totally complete but for now here are a few little peeks.

I think she officially has more shoes than I do already! And this is just part of her shoe collection for the 0-3 month age! I have a whole drawer full for following months!

Angus asleep on the carpet. The dogs all love the baby’s room!

My favorite spot in the whole house. We have this huge rocker/recliner in the corner of her room and already I spend most of my free time sitting/ reclining in it. It’s one of the only places I can sit that doesn’t hurt my back right now. However, it seems not only to be my favorite spot but the dogs spot of choice as well. I rarely get to have the whole chair to myself, it only takes the dogs a few minutes to find me and then all 3 of them are sitting in it with me.

Animal news: We have some new members of our family including a pair of ducklings!

This is Bruce (dark duck) and Sami (blonde). They came from the same farm that we got Norman (pig) from.

We have 56 animals now so just their everyday care takes a lot of time. This is another reason we are so busy all the time. Animal shows are going well and also keeping us very busy. Animal Quest

 

Some of our crew:

Trixie, one of our Flemish Giant Rabbits, she weighs about 22 pounds.

Norman playing with Angus

Moosie

Zoey checking out Howard the tortoise

Angus watching Howard take off across the yard

On a hot day, Trixie preferred to be in the house where she could lie on the cold kitchen floor.

Kiwi enjoying some sun

Nugget the Gold Tegu

Fred the Bearded Dragon

Buffy the ferret

Jabba the Cane Toad

Shelldon the Sulcatta Tortoise

Our largest snake: Jig the Albino Burmese Python

Trixie with the other 2 bunnies: Munroe (the white & gray), a baby Flemish giant, and Hank (brown): a full grown Rex

Mikka the ferret

 

Here is a sad story from a couple weeks ago:

This is our newest little Hairless Dumbo Rat, Remi. We just got him back in February and he was the sweetest little guy with the best personality. All of a sudden he went from fine one day to having severe breathing problems the next. I found him almost heaving his breathing was so hard and I knew right away it was pneumonia and I could hear it in his lungs. I had a guinea pig die like this several years ago and it hits these little guys fast and hard. We have a great exotic vet who looks after our whole menagerie and I called him and left him a message and by the time he called me back not even 45 minutes later, Remi had already died 🙁  I knew he was dying though so I just held him and he seemed to just want to be with me and snuggled into me, minutes later he died in my hand. R.I.P Remi, we miss you.

 

Other news:

My parents came to visit a couple weeks ago! This was their first time seeing our house. My Dad and Steve assembled all the baby furniture and set it up in the nursery, then my mum and I went in and rearranged it all. Lol.

We had a great time with them, and the next time we’ll see them, Ava will be here!

the guys setting the crib up.

With Sami the duckling 🙂

Oh and these will probably be the only 2 photos I will post of myself pregnant! haha

 

Norman is getting so big!! He’s close to 25 pounds now.

A funny pic of Norman when he just woke up. He buries himself in numerous blankets in his crate at night.

 

Crafts:

Be sure to check out Homeketeers on a regular basis for their fabulous contests, giveaways, articles and tutorials on everything from crafts, scrapbooking, home decor, baking and family!

I just did a tutorial today on how to make cloth baby wipes. We’ll be cloth diapering little Ava and I really wanted to make some cloth wipes to use along side the diapers. It was so easy and I love how they turned out!

Check out the tutorial here

 

Well that’s all my news for now. Hope everyone is having a wonderful Spring so far! 🙂

 

 

 

On the 11th Day of Christmas….paper stars!

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Well, its already December 11th therefore we are on the 11th day of 12 Days of Christmas. Today I’m showcasing some awesome paper star tutorials that I found around the web. These are so cool and fun to make too!

First up are these pretty hanging stars:

Find the tutorial here

 

I just love these cute 3D stars!

Find the tutorial here

 

And finally we have this gorgeous star that I am dying to try!

Find the tutorial on how to create this lovely here