She Didn't Learn This From Me

As evidenced in this video, Mookie learned all her cool moves from her Uncle Robbie.

Then and Now

Now, it isn't a perfect comparison because I wasn't in the exactly exact same position, but here's a combo shot of me pregnant at 37 weeks with Mookie, and me this morning, 37 weeks pregnant with Sprout.  Even though I look more pokey-outey now, I'm actually the same circumference this time as I was then.


Everyone asks if I'm "ready." That's a loaded question!

What am I ready for? Am I ready to have a newborn in my hands? No, not yet. I'll love it when it happens, but my head isn't ready for that. Am I ready to dress and swaddle a newborn? Mostly/sorta/kinda, I've done some laundry. I've still got quite a lot of Mookie's newborn clothes to wash and put out for Sprout, but that will come.

What I AM ready for is to be DONE with this stupid fibroid! Man, it's making my life miserable! I think, were it not for this alien living on my uterus, I would have a pretty good last two trimesters of pregnancy. (The first trimester STUNK!)

Here's another picture I took a couple of weeks ago (sorry for the glare and bad picture, but you get the idea!). Now, just so you know, the fibroid is not always like this. A lot of the time, it lies quietly right under my belly button. But more often than I would like, it juts out. Sometimes over here, sometimes over there, sometimes down low...keeps us guessing. :o)  It gets especially busy and out there in the afternoons and at night when I'm trying to sleep. Which is lovely.

I have an ultrasound today, and then an appointment with my OB tomorrow...so we should know soon if we'll be inducing early like we did with Mookie.

I'll let you know! But until then, I hope you have a great week! It's naptime here, and I've got a date with my pillow...

Instead of Blogging

I've been being VERY crafty lately.

Which could be a valid excuse for not blogging. :o)

But then again, that's a pretty lame excuse considering the amount of time I spend on the computer each day...but let's just forget about that part, okay?

I'm part of a virtual quilting bee (see button to the right), and the first block we have to make is a Spiderweb block. With corners and points that have to match. And I. AM. SCARED.

I can sew straight lines kinda okay, but I don't know anything about joining points and corners! Especially for someone else, you know?

Like, I can sew a pretty good project for someone who is a friend and will love me whether I sew a straight line and match the points or not. But to make a block for someone I don't really know? And expect her to like it?  Again, I. AM. SCARED.



So I made this block as a sample using scraps from fabric I already had (or bought so I could put it in the samples I'm going to make from all the virtual bee blocks.)

Honestly, I can do "wonky", and I can do "improvisational", but I don't think I can do "unintentional".

To my little brain, unintentional = chaotic.  (And the top of my sewing room (dining room!) table is VERY chaotic right now! Scraps are EVERYWHERE. It hurts my eyes.)

But, my eyes are soothed when I look at this finished block! :o)  I learned a few things, and hope to put them in place when I use Abi's lovely fabrics to make the block I will actually send to her.



So, excuse me while I'm off doing new things and wallowing in chaos.

Oh, and actually working to try to finish The Baby Quilt. For which I did NOT beat the baby. (Jack was born on March 15th!)

I've still got some work to do, but the blocks are done, and I made a computerized mock-up to see what the tan sashing would really look like before I committed to it.



I need to finish the sashing, and make the backing, then quilt (or send it off)

I need to get off the computer and fire up the sewing machine...I hope you have a great, and crafty weekend!

The Life of a Toddler: Trials and Errors

We had a patch of sunshine on the lawn this afternoon around lunchtime, so I decided to try something new with Mookie.

A picnic.

I'm not sure, but I think our picnic disintegrated in about the same amount of time it takes a Mustang GT to get from 0 to 60.  SOMEbody didn't like the concept of sitting ON the blanket to eat her lunch.  And, frankly, somebody ELSE didn't like the concept of chasing the first somebody back to the blanket every other second.  So, we packed up and came back in.

Picnic: Failed.

Then later, we did something we do at least once a week. We walked to the grocery store up the street for a few items. Before we got to the checI asked Mookie if we needed anything else, and she said "ipe keem" with a big smile on her face. :o)  I said, "We've got ice cream at home, Doll." She said, "yeah."

And then she fell asleep. In her stroller. In the store. At 4:30 in the afternoon. Slept all the way home, and in the garage for almost an hour.

Normal naptime: Failed.

She Can Even Wave "Hola!"

Mookie surprised me today (this is a re-enactment of actual events) (sorta).

She came up to me with a DVD case, saying "ahbuday" "ahbuday" over and over. I couldn't figure out what she meant, and I said "What are you saying?" 



So she handed it to me and said, "Mommy, open." 

...she was saying "open" in SPANISH!!!

Can we all say "Thank you, Dora!"  ;o)  This kid cracks me up!

Sightings of The Alien

I now have photographic evidence of the existence of The Alien (as I lovingly refer to my fibroid). Not that you doubted me, of course, but it was making its presence known this morning, so I photographed it for you. Honestly, I feel like I've been trying to take pictures of the Loch Ness Monster, this thing has been so elusive for the camera! :o)

And here it is --

Can you see that blob there, just north of my belly button? Well, in real life, it's most often just behind my belly button (which, as you might imagine, HURTS!!). And by "most often" I mean that this alien seems to move around a bit, which, needless to say, baffles the doctors. And makes us a bit more cautious going into these final weeks of pregnancy (I'm 34 weeks along, now) and closing in on Labor Day. It's mostly fine, really. The baby seems to be growing well in spite of an alien attached to the outside of her temporary abode, literally sucking her life blood away from her. :o) I'm kinda hoping, though, that it has stopped growing , so that the baby can continue to grow! (The fibroid currently measures 3.75 cm of fibrous tissue, and feels much larger on the outside).  I have non-stress tests twice a week, and then I've got another ultrasound scheduled for 38 weeks, so the 3 of us are well monitored. :o)

And I plan to blog more SOON about baby blankets and growing babies and getting-cuter-by-the-minute toddlers and Easter baskets and bunnies, but this is what I wanted to show you today.

My alien.

Happy Easter!

Love,
Mookie



(sorry for the poor quality - when I converted it, quality got compromised)

Let Me Be Your Etsy!

A few weeks ago, I agreed to go along with the crowd, and make a removable camera strap cover for my new fancy-pants camera.  Tinkerellen thought we'd all want to be like her and make some, too, (she was right), so she set up a kind of a craft-along and said that if we wanted to be super cool (and avoid her crafty wrath), we needed to complete our camera straps by March 31st, and blog about them by April 1st.

I was "do I have to commit to a deadline???" and my neighbor-friend, Kelly, was "in????" so we asked another friend, Emily, to join us for a sew-along at my house one day. Kelly brought (and used) her camera, and took some fun pictures (and one awful one of an unfortunate pregnant lady sitting near my daughter in front of a sewing machine, ahem). There were 3 toddlers, 1 baby, 3 mamas, and approximately 1,349,832 toys in the front room of our house. One sewing machine had never BEEN turned on (and, thus, the user didn't even know how to THREAD her machine!), one machine had some significant bobbin issues, and one sewing machine didn't have electricity run through it at all that day.

Oddly, the newby sewist (Emily) completed her goal (she scrapped the idea of making a camera strap and went with the much simpler bean-bag option) (which was not part of Tink's craft-along, but heck, she'd never even threaded her machine, so we can't fault her, right?).

And after our other neighbor-friend, Angie, fixed Kelly's bobbin malfunction, she was able to go home and complete her camera strap that afternoon (yay for naptime!).

Me? Well, I at least laid out my fabric that day! :o) And then I finished mine a few days later. Even though I followed the instructions (OH - here: removable camera strap tutorial), and I tried really really hard to keep my seam allowance at 1/4", somehow, my camera strap was REALLY snug.

It fits, hallelujah, but it doesn't feel very (tug, tug, shove, shove) "removable"!! :o)

I love love love the color combination of red and aqua, but I don't really love how the colors were combined here. I wish I'd added more reds to the patchwork side. Ah, well, lessons learned, right? Good thing it's removable, because, for all I know, next week I'll want one with blues and yellows! :o)

Honestly, it was a REALLY simple, and VERY completable craft. If I could sew quickly, I probably would have completed it (the sewing part, at least!) in an hour. :o) I know camera strap covers are the latest trend, and if you're looking to buy one on Etsy, but have your own sewing machine, you can TOTALLY make your own! And save about $23!! 

Or you can give ME the $25 and I'll make you one!  Let me be your Etsy, Baby! :o)