The Grades Are In!

My semester has been over for a week and I finally got all my grades back. 

*drum roll*

B+ in History.

B+ in Chemistry (lab).

C in Macroeconomics (online). 

Go me! I'm pretty proud of them. I probably could have done better, but it was a good first semester back. I raised my GPA from a crappy 1.55 to a mediocre 1.90, which is splendid because I need to ultimately get it up to at least 2.50 in at least 2 more semesters. That's doable. 

Next semester I have U.S. Government online, Speech, Developmental Psychology, and Literature for Children. It should be pretty easy, I only have classes Tuesday's and Thursday's, and my friend Carly is in my Psych class. It will be a good semester. I'm hoping to get at least one A. 

It will be a super-busy semester too because I'll also be working 2 jobs. I'm waiting on Tony Sacco's to open, which should be in the next week hopefully. This week I've had to go in to help clean up and get things together. It's coming together nicely and I can't wait for it to open! Laurel Manor is... Laurel Manor. Banquet hall stuff... Meh.

Look forward to several fun posts about our Christmas excursions... as soon as I find my camera that disappeared off the face of the Earth. >.<

Ferndale Holiday Ice Festival, Winter Fun, and a Christmas Tree!

Last Saturday, my mum and I took Jude to Downtown Ferndale for their Holiday Ice Festival. They had ice sculptures outside of the shops and there were Reindeer, ice carving demonstrations, a craft fair, and Santa was there!

I asked Jude, "Do you want to sit on Santa's lap?" He had such a serious face and replied with "no." 

The next day, we had a big snow storm, so naturally, I took Jude outside to play in the snow! We also bought our Christmas tree, but we didn't put it up and decorate it until Tuesday.

He loved riding around the yard in the sled! He kept yelling "more!"

He's such a good helper!

It's missing something...

Sometimes, Motherhood is Disgusting.

Wednesday night I went out to finish my online finals that night, came home, Jude woke up as soon as I started getting ready for bed, we cuddled, he nursed, and we both fell asleep.
Next thing I know, my bed is covered in puke (complete with half-chewed macaroni noodles) and he's throwing up. I panic and pick him up, take him to the bathroom, strip him naked and give him a bath (at 2 in the morning, mind you) to clean the puke out of his hair. The whole time, the poor guy was shivering, so it was a super quick bath. That's when our pile of "clothes that have been puked on" began. I put some new pajamas on him, stripped my bed, added the sheets to the pile, and then he puked. Again. All over my clean sweater and his clean pajamas. After we changed again I grabbed a pile of clean clothes for the both of us, grabbed his potty and a cup of Pedialyte, and we cuddled on the couch.
We watched Elf. He puked more, I tried my best to dangle him over his potty. He fell asleep at the end of Elf. I turned on Four Christmases and fell asleep for a little. We both woke up, he puked more, cuddles, puke, cuddles, puke.
He wanted to nurse, but when I did let him, he projectile vomited. After the projectile vomiting, he didn't puke anymore.
The weird thing is is that he didn't act sick, he acted normal and when he puked he was so... nonchalant about it. We spent the rest of the day cuddling and luckily we got a nap in and he ate some crackers. His appetite still wasn't back to normal today, and he never ran a fever, so who knows what was wrong, just a stomach bug I reckon.
That night, I was angry about being a single mom. I had no one to help me out or give me a hand, but I did the best I could and took care of him. It's one of those hurdles that was bound to be crossed eventually.
Our pile of laundry ended up filling the washing machine completely and I washed it twice.

Top 2 Tuesday!

We sometimes play a lot of games in my family, especially when we're all together around the holidays. Card games, board games, video games, word games, you name it. I'm not going to lie, I only know a few card games off hand but we have a plethora of board games in my basement. I should have a holiday party/game-night/awesome times. hmmm... But anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.

Top 2 Favorite Games!

1. Euchre. My family always plays euchre when we get together. After dinner you can always find 4 people sitting around the table enjoying dessert, coffee, and dealing out a hand of euchre. I didn't realize it until I went to school in Ohio, but apparently it's mostly a Michigan game. It's fairly simple, once you learn, but that learning process can be difficult and a lot of people I've tried teaching just give up. 

2. Rummikub. This is another one of those games that I love to play with my family, and we're almost always playing when we're together. My grandparents, sister, and I (and sometimes some other people like aunts and cousins) stay up late after the little kids go to bed and play when we're up north. 

Runners up: Scattegories, Boggle, Scrabble, Life, and Pay Day.

Look What I Made! (Holiday Edition, Part 1)

I love these winter holidays because it gives me an excuse to craft up a storm. Not that I should really need one, but holiday crafts are lots of fun, especially when you can make some awesome homemade gifts.

Tonight, I made a stocking for Jude out of a wool sweater from the thrift store.

I would have taken a picture of it hung by the chimney with care, but alas, I couldn't find any hooks.

So, maybe you're scratching your head wondering, "how did she do that?!" Or perhaps you've already figured it out. Either way I will tell you how. I wish I would have had some foresight and taken step by step pictures to make a real tutorial, but I got all caught up in the moment and just did it.

1. Acquire a delightfully patterned 100% lambswool sweater from the thrift store, they usually run between $1-5.
2. Be a rebel, throw that sucker in your normal laundry load, you know, the one with hot water and toss it in the dryer too. For you wool-lovers screaming at me out there, you want to do this, it felts the material and makes it much easier to work with, plus since you got it from the thrift store chances are it has already been ruined.
3. Take a stocking, or print off a stocking shape and cut it out, lay it on top of the freshly washed and dried sweater. You can use either the neck or the bottom cuff as the top cuff (I used the neck for this one).
4. Cut around the stocking (or stocking shaped paper).
5. Turn fabric so the right sides are facing each other.
6. Pin and sew. I used a straight stitch.
7. Make sure to make notches around the curved parts at the heel and toe of the stocking so they properly curve when you turn it inside out. 
8. To make the loopy, take a piece of leftover sweater (I used about 6 inches of bottom cuff fabric), form a loop with it, and sew the loop to the top of the inside seam on the opposite side of the toe. I used a zig-zag stitch and went back and forth about 5 times for extra strength.

There you go, now you can make your very own wool stocking! And your cat will love it.

What is with cats and wool, anyway? When I was working on this, my cat would lay on my pieces, or my pile of sweaters, then when I was done she made it her bed on the table. Weirdo.

I also made a pair of longies from the sleeves, but I couldn't figure out how to do the waist band and think I made them far too large so I gave up on them until I can get help from my mommy. 

Post-Thanksgiving weekend

We had a busy weekend after Thanksgiving!
Friday
No crazy Black Friday fun-times. Just a trip out to Ferndale for lunch at the WAB and some Black Friday deals at No Pins Required. We picked up some bum cream, soap, holiday edition Rockin' Green detergent, and 3 diapers; a purple Fuzzibuns, a black Happy Heiny's and a robot Rump-a-rooz.

This print is so cute, it's the only reason I got the RaR, not going to lie.

The rest of the day was quite lazy and spent with catching up with laundry and fluffing it up since our dryer had been broken all week. Thanks to Ikea and our drying rack/hanging octopus thing! I also worked on my semi-top-secret Christmas crafts.

Octopus!

Saturday
My parents took Jude on errands for most of the day. I went to an open-interview for a new restaurant opening in a month. It went really well. They said they'd call within a week, so imagine my surprise when they called later that day and said they'd love to hire me! Luckily, I'll have time to finish up this semester without that added stress/time-eater. After that interview I napped and then Jude and I chilled, my dad & I went super-grocery shopping at Costco.

Sunday
My mum and I took Jude to get his Christmas portraits taken at JC Penney. He wasn't being very cooperative, until the very end and afterwards so they didn't all turn out as adorable as they normally do.

This was one of the few good ones, so naturally, we ordered a bunch of it!

We then continued on to Ikea for some Christmas presents for Jude and had some tasty meatballs for lunch.

This is his big present this year

Some things you may have learned from this post:
Jude is a punk. I have a real job starting next month. We love Ikea around here. I love cloth diapers.

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving yesterday was spent at my Aunt Kathy's house with my dad's side of the family (all my aunt's, uncle's, cousins, and grandparents). Dinner was tasty. Jude was shy at first. My grandma brought back gifts from Disney (a shirt and Toy Story cars for Jude, an antenna topper for me, and a Mickey pepper grinder for everyone). We chatted. We played euchre and Wii games. All the cousins drew names out of a hat bag for Secret Santa gifts, which I organized. It was good, quality family time that really never gets old. I didn't take pictures for some reason, I just got caught in the moment and didn't think about my camera. Hopefully I won't do that when Christmas time rolls around.
When I was younger I never really understood the "being thankful" for something aspect of Thanksgiving. I'm not sure why, maybe because I just wasn't mature enough to grasp the concept or something, who knows. This year I was am very thankful for lots of things:

1. My super adorable son who gives me a reason to live, work, laugh, love, breathe... I think you get the point. 
2. My family for being so supportive of me by letting me live at home, paying my bills when I am strapped for cash, watching Jude so I can work and go to school, understanding that sometimes I just need to get away, and being awesome. That's right, my family is awesome. Deal with it.
3. Zak, my best friend. He's willing to talk with my about literally everything, and we do talk about everything. Some things we talk about, I'm fairly certain no one else can understand. He adores Jude almost as much as I do and he likes to talk about the silly, minute details of his life. I adore that when he talks to people about Jude he refers to him as his Godson even though Jude's not(and never will be) baptised. I do wish he lived closer, but despite our distance we still have mad-crazy telepathy with each other and our cycles sync up. I don't know if I'd be able to stay sane without him. 
4. The internet, for it has allowed me to do a good portion of my Christmas shopping in my underwear and without having a panic attack. This year I've vowed to not step foot in a mall for any of my Christmas shopping. So far, so good, and I'm almost done thanks to Ikea, Amazon, and Etsy. I'm also trying to make a bunch of stuff for people. 

What are you thankful for?