Thinking about the past year

As I have been sitting here not able to sleep and watching trashy TV, I have been thinking about our past year. This time last year I was still pregnant with Evelyn and things were going so well. Grace was in kinder and learning so much so fast. Evelyn's birthday is just about a week and with that I have been thinking about her journey as well as remembering Grace's journey. Even though both girls were born so early their time in the NICU was so different. Grace had to fight so hard for so long and had SO many complications. Evelyn had to prove herself as well, but her stay was less complicated and smooth.

Evelyn has grown so much this year. She is already eating table food, crawling and pulling up to standing. We have been so shocked as she does things. We are not use to a child doing things when they are suppose to. Evelyn surprises us each day with all her new skills. I have caught myself at times looking at her thinking, "Um should she be doing this," and like a first time mother going to the books and seeing if what she is doing is normal. 

I am so thankful that she is hitting these milestones at a good pace, but at times I feel upset and worry about how will her and Grace be together. Am I raising them to respect each other and not be jealous towards each other for how they are physically and their abilities? When or will the questions come from Grace about if we both were in the NICU how come she can see and I can't? How do you answer those questions? There isn't a book at Barnes and Noble that I can read, I have looked. I know these things are coming and we do our best to be ready.

Along the line of thinking a new development came about this year. Grace has really started to ask questions about her and Alex. Hard questions, ones we didn't think would come later in life. I guess the spark of all the above thinking has come from Grace wanting to know more. It is hard, not going to lie. I don't know how to answer some of them, I don't know how I should tell her what she wants without all the details that are not appropriate for her age. We are working on it and when the questioning gets tough we turn to a counselor for Grace. Brad and I can talk about it a lot, but it still hurts and we are also learning how to show our emotion about Alex, but keep it in check too.

So with all that mushy stuff we have had GREAT things!!  Grace is reading so well and she LOVES to run. She runs all the time and it is something that she is very good at. She is getting better at writing and her drawings are wonderful. She is great with Evelyn and can get her sister to giggle like no one can. Evelyn has grown SO much. She is weighing in at 18lbs! She is our little piggy and has dimples for miles just like her sister.  Here are some highlights of our year.

A very rare standing moment. Just days before Evelyn was born

Just one day old.

About 2 weeks old. Finally getting to see her hair.

Meeting her sister for the first time.

Yup dimples just like Grace.

Finally a meeting face to face and getting to touch. Such joy!

So pitiful.

After 95 days getting to go home.

Graces ballet recital.

Just Grace

Sleeping beauty

You looking at me?

Read to move.

My little princesses.

Are we done here?

She is mostly this happy, but don't let it fool you.

Cookies, one of her food groups.

Happy New Year's to you all. I hope that 2011 brings you joy, love and plenty of memories.

Day 6!! FINISHED!!

Drum roll please.... I am finished with my quilt!  Yes done! I am just about to get this post done and curl up with it on my comfy chair. I have many areas to work on. Binding seems to be my next goal. I tried to machine stitch it on.  What was I thinking?? I know now that hand stitching would be better and easier.  Note to self. That is the good part about doing new things and learning, you always find a way to do it better and easier the next time.

Sewing the binding on to the right side of the quilt.

Sewing the binding. Lesson learned hand stitch this next time.

Finished product. The quilt is about 6.5 ft by 5.5ft.

Here you can see the backing. 

I am now about to log off and start my search for more fabric for my next project.  I have made good notes of my areas I need to work on.

More sewing

Here are the latest two fat quarter bags.

Day 5

So excited to post this today!!  My quilt has been quilted!!  I went over the my mother-in-laws and we hooped it on her long arm quilting machine and away it went. It is just so pretty. Tomorrow I will be working on the binding and then have the finished product. I have also made two more fat quarter bags for friends of mine. I am just loving sewing again. I forgot how much I loved it. Now the hunt begins for fabric. I am making a quilt for Grace and of course it has to be pink.

This is the machine.

Marcia basting at the top of the quilt

Ready to go!

This is the design I chose for the quilting. I love it!

Found a pattern!

Well I have found my next quilt pattern. I am excited to get started, just need to purchase the fabric first. I am thinking of making it for Grace. So I will most definitely go with pinks, just need a good border color to go with it since each block is sort of outlined in the same color.

Things to work on for this next quilt.

1. My cutting. I need to get my cuts straighter
2. Measuring. Need to do this more often
3. Not getting upset with myself.  HA!

On a side note I have been pumping for the past 11 months now. I have decided, not lightly, to take my life back a tad. I am going to be shutting down the dairy farm this weekend. I am praying that it will not be too painful and go quickly like it did after Grace.  We will see. This will be my 3rd time to try, last two times were too painful for me.  Benefit this time is that Grace is sick, not the benefit, but that I will be staying home with her and being at home when you let the dairy farm dry up it easier.

Busy Weekend

Evelyn is finally up on all fours! So far raising Evelyn has been so different than Grace. She is pretty much hitting the milestones right on target. It is very different from Grace and all our struggles to get her mobile.

What a long weekend we have had. Busy probably doesn't describe it well enough. Brad and I had a real date this Friday night!! We danced the night away! The next morning I had to be across town for a workshop, followed by a birthday party and then a ladies night out with my Sunday School girls. Today was a very busy day. Church followed by vespers later that night.  I am very ready for a hot bath and my bed. I think if you listen carefully you can hear my bed calling me.  ;o)

Lots of after school events makes for a long week

So our first week back after the Thanksgiving holiday is so busy I can't believe that today is Wednesday and the school day is over!  Really?? Good in the fact the week has gone by fast, but man it has been long. Every night this week we are some where and there late. I have crashed each night. I don't think I have even moved a bit as I have slept. Our church is getting ready for Vespers this Sunday and the whole family, minus Evelyn, is involved in it some how. Grace is singing, Brad is playing in the orchestra and I am ringing my bell choir.  Goodness I think we need a full time nanny/house manager or something to help us out. (Been watching too much Real Housewives of Beverly Hills)

So I am still looking for my next sewing project. I think I might make the girls a matching dress and then get started on another quilt. I have been looking but nothing has jumped out at me yet.


That is all for today. I am headed to do some tutoring and then finally headed home.

Fat Quarter Bag 1 (Day 2)

Well it done! All in all that was a pretty easy project. I am pleased with the outcome. I did make some notes of things I will do differently next time and some things I will pay more attention too as well.

one view. Not the best picture, but you get the idea. I was tired and a sweet baby needed me.

opposite side. I really like the fabric and I will be darned if I still didn't get the can-can dancers.

on a different note, my little helper was a little fussy tonight and then passed out once I rocked her. Look at how cute those toes are. Don't you just want to nibble on them?

So now I need to decide what colors or patterns to do another bag in. I have several people in mind to make one of these for their Christmas gift or part of. While the bag can't hold a lot of heavy items it can hold bulky items. One of the things I like about it is when you lay it on the table to look through it, the bag opens so large that finding items is easy.

I am out of sewing projects for the week. I will be hunting out some good deals on fat quarters and I am now thinking about my next quilt.

Blogging from my iPhone. Too cool

Lost tooth!

Well Grace has finally lost a tooth!  Funny story too. This morning when I picked her up from Sunday School she said, "Mom, guess what? I have a loose tooth!" I made her show me a sure enough it was loose. As our day went on she wiggled it and talked about it all day! We went to visit Grammy and Poppy that afternoon and we brought lunch. I was watching her VERY closely cause this tooth was ready to come out at any moment. Grammy walked in and Grace wanted to show her again and it was GONE! I mean gone! She swallowed it! At first I thought it might be in her mouth so I told her to spit out her food. She said, "I already swallowed it all." I looked in her food and nothing. Then the big, giant alligator tears started. She was worried the tooth fairy wasn't going to visit her because she couldn't find her tooth. I told her it was ok, so we wrote the tooth fairy a note and Grace went to be fast.  Too cute! First tooth is out and as she later told us, "It's in my belly!"

Pointing it out and VERY excited to have lost the tooth.

Grace's new smile. Just in time for Christmas pictures.  ;o)

Fat Quarter Bag 1(day 1)

So with all the sewing I have been doing, rather putting off for years of trying to have another baby, I am making up for some lost time. I was showed a neat pattern where you take 6 fat quarters and some lining and make this really neat huge bag. Brad helped me pick some neat fabric out and I got started tonight when I got home from finishing my quilt top.

My 6 fat quarters all laid out. You can't tell from this picture but what looks like large flowers, isn't! They are can-can dancers! I will take a picture closer up at some point, but it is the neatest fabric I have seen for dancing.

My little helper tonight. She was really the supervisor. She made sure I was on my toes with sewing and giving her attention.

Yes that is a paper bag, she played with this thing forever!

All sewn together and ready for the lining. I chose a pale blue much like the one on the far right. It has a different patternFa and different shades. If you look closely you can kind of see the can-can dancers.

Day 4, FINAL Day1

I have finishing my quilt top!! Very exciting. I have had a lot of help, but it was all a good learning experience! I know that it isn't as hard as I thought and main things are to take your time in measuring and always check and double check. 

Here is part of the finished top! My camera battery decided to die just as we finished the whole top itself. So once I get it quilted then I will show pictures of it all done. The back will be oh so pretty. I just have my binding to make and I have some neat scraps left over in all the colors. So I think I will make my binding interesting.

Day 3

Well I am little sore today. All that sitting at the sewing machine. I will say though, that his process has been easier than I thought it would be. Above is some of my finished product. I have my blocks done and parts of the sashing is sewn in place.Lessons I have learning so far:

• MEASURE
• MEASURE again
• And for the peace of mind write your measurements down!!!

Here are my blocks getting ready to be pressed. Super important to make sure your seams are all nice and flat. Sewing 1.4" can be difficult, but if you make good practicing out of MEASURING, pressing and RE-MEASURING you will be fine.  ;o)

Day 2

Today I finally started to piece my quilt together. I started by deciding how each block was going to look, with some help of course. Once that was all laid out I began sewing them together. Once each side was done I called it at night. Tomorrow I will begin ironing and sewing the other sides on.  Pictures will come once I can upload them.

 Look at all that material getting sewn together.
 


My blocks are now half done!

Day 1 of new Sewing Adventure

Day 1 of Quilting.

Well today went good I think. I am making a quilt from another blog on here. Crazy Mom Quilts. It is her Flea Market Fancy quilt. I have sewed many things in the past, but this will be my first quilt. Back in the spring I finally chose all my fat quarters and then my mother-in-law found a pattern that is great. Since Thanksgiving break is fast approaching I thought this would be a good time.

So today I sat down and cut all my fabric pieces. Things were going well. I was cutting nice 3.5" pieces and then going back and making my smaller cuts. I had done about 4 sets when I came to a fat quarter that wasn't 22" long! UGH frustrating. My color scheme is mostly purple, yes I know, with a few greens. Guess what color was short almost each time? Yup the greens. But no fear I will make it work.

With that said all the pieces are cut. Right now I have enough to make 26 blocks. The pattern is for 20 blocks so I can play around with my colors and layouts. The rest of the week will be devoted to piecing and making my quilt top. ;o)

Here are some pictures of what I have done today.

Wish me luck!


Before I started my cutting today.




This is my first block that is finally cut.




All done! Well for today that is. Wednesday I will begin putting it together, with some help of course.

Long time

So I am not so good at this blogging thing. As you can see it has almost been a year since my last one. Maybe longer. G is now 5 and doing great as a Kindergarten student. She loves it. Brad is still working hard and me well there are big changes there. I am pregnant and on full bed rest. 25 weeks now and doing good. So you won't see post about me teaching, no stories for the rest of this year. That does make me sad though, missing my class.

My Mom has come and moved in with us to help, she is cleaning right now. ;o)



My belly at 25 weeks. You can also see my desk in the back. Since I spend most of my day in my room in bed, that holds most of what I need during the day.


G's Dec dance recital. She is really growing up on us.

My princess and I at the NICU reunion in Oct of this. She was Cinderella this year.

I know there is plenty more pictures to share, but goodness time flies. Let's see how well I do at keeping it up now that I am on bed rest.