Growing Up

First I had a little newborn.

Then I had a chubby little baby.

Then I had a plump tiny toddler.

Now I'm starting to get a skinny kid.

The first day of kindergarten is going to be rough on this momma. This all comes up because I decided to look through all of Charlotte's old clothing in the basement and sort out the gender neutral stuff. There was some, but let me tell you I sure did like to dress her in pink and ruffles! No question she was a girl by those totes. Anyway, as I looked through the tiny dresses and sunday shoes, the frilly little sun outfits and the little swimsuits I started to yearn for her to be that little again! How did it go so fast? It's been two years, but still she's so new and awesome to me every day!

One of my friends says she has a niece who had curly hair like Charlotte's until she turned four and then it grew in thick and straight. I asked her one day if the girl's mom (my friend's sister) missed the curls. I absolutely adore my daughter's curls. Now though I'm thinking that she might miss them, but honestly there's probably too many amazing things about her daughter now that she can't miss the curls too much. It's like that with Charlotte. I don't really have time on a day to day basis to miss my little cuddly bear because I'm so awed by the ingenuity, beauty, and humor I am faced with today. She is so awesome!

But looking at her baby stuff I can't help but remember that she was so awesome too.

Daydreams

Lately I've been having this recurring daydream so I thought I'd share it. In my daydream Dan has time off of everything, school, house, church, etc. We are able to have Charlotte stay with someone (this usually oscillates between either set of grandparents) and I'm not pregnant. Sometimes in my dream I've already had Greg and he's with Charlotte, but sometimes he's just inexplicably taken care of. Either way I'm not pregnant. Then Dan and I have enough money to go on a week long vacation together. The destination changes each time, but here's what doesn't. We take so much time just sleeping. We lay in bed until noon one day. We, of course, go out and see the sights of the different places we visit in my daydream, but mostly we just stay together and sleep, and read and enjoy each other's company. We take no thought of what to eat because we have a budget to just go buy food. There is also no wrangling children into and out of clothing, on and off the potty, brushing teeth ("stop biting the toothbrush!"), or putting them to bed. Yesterday I was thinking about this I had to laugh at myself to know that my dream vacation right now involves a whole lot of doing nothing. Don't get me wrong, I love my children. Charlotte is so wonderful and I enjoy fully being her mother. I feel like I'm starting to bond with baby Greg too so that's great. But also, right now, a little vacation wouldn't hurt anything either.

And in case you didn't know, my sister, brother-in-law, mom and dad are in Disneyworld this week and my mother-in-law, and father-in-law are in Hawaii.

Hopeless Romantic

My husband is in a men's basketball league that plays games every Saturday. Every Saturday that, except for this coming Saturday, that is. I noticed this a couple of weeks ago, but didn't think to mention it to him. Then, during half time of the game last Saturday the announcer said, "Well men, there wont be any games next Saturday, so take your wife out and do something nice for her." Assuming he meant for Valentine's Day I thought this was a nice thing for them to do.

Later that afternoon, my husband stood looking at his list of house projects to complete and our calendar of when we might do them and said, "Oh! It looks like we don't have a game next weekend. I wonder why that is?" To which I replied, "Really? You seriously don't know why that would be?" The blank look on his face made me realize that he wasn't joking as I had though. So I walked over to the calendar, pointed to the double underlined "Valentine's Day" on the calendar and said, "You seriously don't know why they aren't having games next Saturday? You didn't hear the announcer say, 'Well men, there wont be any games next Saturday, so take your wife out and do something nice for her.'?" To which he replies, "All I heard was, 'there wont be any games next Saturday.'"

I was laughing about this to myself as I emptied the dishwasher this morning. I'm married to a man that has me help tile a bathroom for our anniversary and has no clue about Valentine's Day. He hasn't once bought me flowers. But you know what he has done? He was the one that filled the dishwasher up and ran it last night, and the night before that, and the one before that too. In fact he's been quietly doing so much stuff around our house since I started this pregnancy I'm overwhelmed by his love for me. So no, I wont be getting any little gifts to celebrate this coming Saturday, but that's ok because he truly is my Valentine.

The Squirrel Whisperer

Remember when Charlotte was persistent enough to get a pigeon to let her touch it in our backyard? Today she struck again, only this time with a squirrel. Or at least she would have if I had let her. Knowing her great ability to get otherwise wild animals to let her go near them I grabbed her away just before she actually touched it.

In case you didn't guess today is an unbelievably beautiful day in St. Louis. It's about 60 degrees out, but it has a light wind that makes it feel chillier. I decided to skip our usual Friday activities and packed a lunch and headed for the park. We played there from about 11:30 to 1:30 and I had to pull Charlotte off the slide to get her to go home. Then she blissfully fell asleep on the way home. After I pulled into the parking pad behind our house I turned around to see her little face, smeared with dirt and blackberry jelly asleep and smiling. It was awesome.

But back to the squirrel. This was an usually brave squirrel that saw we were eating a picnic lunch. It saw our bright orange carrot sticks and came to just the other side of the playground fence which is about 6 feet away. Charlotte had long since decided to not eat her carrot stick so I decided I'd let the squirrel have it. I threw it away from us and then asked Charlotte to watch the squirrel. Sure enough not two minutes had passed before the squirrel decided that he wanted that carrot stick more than he was scared of us. He climbed through the fence grabbed the stick then ran away. Charlotte was thrilled. She decided she wanted another carrot stick and ate hers, "just like the squirrel." I was thrilled. Then the squirrel came back. (This is where I became not so thrilled.) I let Charlotte go out and give the squirrel a quarter of a carrot stick. She went out as close as it would let her go (saying, "come mere squirrel, come mere) then dropped it and walked away a few steps. It took the carrot then ran away, and came immediately back. That squirrel knows a sucker when he sees one. In the end I let Charlotte give the squirrel about one and a half carrot sticks until I realized that the squirrel would probably just take the next piece right out of her hand! Which to my mind screamed danger. So then I decided we were done with our picnic. I've got to watch out for this one and the wild animals!

Take 2

Warning: This post is entirely about my pregnancy and probably wont interest anyone but myself, but I needed a place to keep it so there you go.

Before I forget what this pregnancy has been like so far I thought I'd write down a few of the differences I've noticed between Charlotte and Greg. Although I realize that I've forgotten much about my pregnancy with Charlotte already, so maybe this comparison isn't fair. I'm doing it anyway.

First, I haven't taken any nausea medication in about a month. That's awesome. I feel like I have 10x the energy when I don't have to take it so I'm loving that.

Second, Greg doesn't move as much as Charlotte did. I kept thinking that I wasn't feeling it because I remember how Charlotte moved at the end of my pregnancy and I'm not there yet, but I think it's safe to say by now that he's just not as active. He does move. I'm not worried or anything, it's just that his movements aren't so frequent, and when they do happen they don't happen for all that long. I wonder if I think this because I'm busier than I was during the last pregnancy, but that's the observation I've had. Also, he moves very low, down in the pelvis region. That's not to say that he's not taking up more than his fair share of my insides at the moment. He seems plenty big, he just doesn't move up top all that much.

Third, my joints hurt. I will wake up 2-3 times each night because my hips, knees, shoulders and wrists just ache. I've asked other women about it and none so far have told me they experienced the same thing. I'm going to have to bring this up to my doctor when I go in Thursday (has it already been a month?). This pain did not happen with Charlotte.

On the other side, my leg hasn't gone numb like it did with Charlotte. I keep waiting for that to happen, but it just isn't.

Also, I think I'm gaining weight at a more steady pace. Last time with such bad nausea I didn't gain anything for so long then I practically exploded. This time I have been surely and steadily gaining weight. This makes me wonder if I would have gotten the stretch marks last time if I had been able to grow like this. Although the stretch marks that had faded a bit are now the bright angry purple of stretching so perhaps not.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll probably add more to this list later.

What you Really Want

Why is it that whenever I decide something that's worthwhile for me to do and save up for I suddenly find 3 or 4 others that I'd like?

A few weeks ago our bishop encouraged every member of the congregation to join an organization that is NOT church related. The point was that to be a good member of the community you have to actually participate in the community and this was a good way to do it. Plus, he figured that most people already have something they'd like to join, but don't because their too busy or something else always comes up. So no excuses. Get involved. I have no idea why, but my mind immediately jumped to taking mandolin lessons at the Folk School of St. Louis. I found this school last year and was really excited about it, but one thing lead to another and it wasn't really a necessity and I didn't have a whole lot of time. I signed up for their emails though and have been receiving them every now and then for a while. I looked them up and tuition for a class for a semester is only $135. That's really cheap. So I figured I should save my money up for next semester. Then I realized that next semester probably runs into my due date. And the semester after that Dan will be in 3rd year and there goes any chance I have of being able to depend on him in the evenings.

Yesterday though, I found out that my husband might be going to Honduras for a week in February and that Southwest is having a heck of a deal on tickets for the next couple of days. I could fly round trip to Denver for $160. Very cheap and it would be a great way to have a vacation when my husband will be gone anyway.

Then today we had an unusually warm day. It was about 50 degrees and sunny. I was not going to miss this opportunity to take Charlotte to the park as it's supposed to be in the 20s by Saturday. So we packed up and walked out. This made me realize that if I ever want to get any running/jogging/walking in that actually raises my heart rate I'm really going to have to invest in a double jogging stroller. Those things aren't cheap.

So now I've got three things that I really would like to spend money on. Three very valid things. I've now got to make the decision what I want to put my money towards. And the whole time I'm trying to decide my mind keeps saying to me none of these things are necessities. You should just be grateful that you even have the opportunity for any of them! This is a ridiculous thing to even spend time worrying over. You have so very much in this life! Don't spend that money at all. You should save it in case of an emergency! And I'm right too. I should just save this money because none of these things are necessities.

Then again....

This one's for you Mom

My mom wanted to see a photo of my growing proportions so here it is:

Me at 25 weeks pregnant.

And here are the two baby jackets I've just completed. They were just too cute not to share with the world. (I can't take all the credit on that one. Mindy chose the fabric for each of them.)

It's Been A While

Because it's been a while and because I know you all are longing to see them, I thought I'd post some photos! Yeah!

I've entitled this first one: cream cheese is best enjoyed when on the bagel, chin, and nose.

This next one is just cute so I thought I'd include it.

When Charlotte was born I realized I had a weird tendency to take photos of my husband and daughter asleep. When you see this photo though you'll know why I do it. This is after 2 days of pink eye and sleep exhaustion.

And finally, Internet, meet Suzie. She not only prefers to drink her water straight from the faucet....

but also nap in the sink.

Just Can't Stop

Ever since Christmas I have found a new deep well of energy inside of me. It has been great. I've accomplished loads of tiny tasks I've been meaning to do for a while. That baby girl jacket? Sewn. Those bathroom curtains? Hemmed. Charlotte's big girl bed? Purchased, cleaned, and put together. (Except for that part where we have to buy bolts that the previous owner didn't include. They don't effect the functionality of the bed.) Litter box problem? Solved. Loads and loads of I have a sick child laundry? Cleaned, folded, and put away.

Today I thought I'd finally finish the baby boy jacket that's been on my list for a while. The only problem, I couldn't find all my supplies. I waded through the mess of my sewing room for about half an hour just to find the red thread I wanted to use as an accent. So then I decided that today was not my day to sew. Today was my day to move all the stinking books out of the sewing room closet to the empty bookshelf downstairs in the living room. So I did that. But could I stop there? No. I was addicted to getting things done. It's a sickness I blame on my mother who has been known to almost cripple herself doing "just a bit more" weeding in the garden. Anyway, compelled like only a crazy pregnant lady can be I went through all the miscellaneous stuff we've been keeping in that room since we moved in. If you'll remember at that point it was named the everything room. I put all the stuff we really didn't need to keep in two big garbage bags and moved everything else to our bedroom. The idea was, that way when I moved the stuff back into the room I would organize it. Then I would finally have a room dedicated to sewing. Unfortunately by the time I got all the things out of the sewing room and the carpet vacuumed it was time to make dinner. Then it was time to eat dinner.

So now I have one bookshelf completed and a sewing room cleaned, but a bedroom full of unorganized mess. I have also run out of energy. Maybe Dan and I will just have to sleep around all that stuff for one night.

An STD can ruin a whole weekend

About three hours after going to playgroup yesterday Charlotte's eye started to water. It leaked and leaked and leaked, but didn't seem to bother her so I thought nothing of it. Then this morning the leaking had a few eye boogers in it. Dan said, "It's just a clogged tear duct. Don't worry about it. It'll go away." I totally (well, sort of) believed that right up until the watering started to look clouded instead of clear tears. Also, the skin around her eye was a bit pink. I called the doctor's office and they said to come in today. I did that. I figured worst case scenario she has pink eye. That'll suck, but you give them some drops and then they're fine. As we were sitting in the waiting room to see her doctor her other eye started to get gummy tears in it too. Turns out that she has an atypical presentation of pink eye. Not only that, but they had to swab the gunk to culture to make sure that what she has isn't Chlamydia. When the doctor told me that I thought to myself, "How the hell did my two year old get Chlamydia?!" Anyway, because her case isn't a classic case we don't actually get eye drops. We get eye ointment. That I have to put on her every four hours while she's awake. For a whole week. And on top of all that she can't go around other kids for 4 days.

So now we're stuck at home for four days putting basically vaseline in her eyes every four hours. Tomorrow is supposed to be Music Makers, which is Charlotte's favorite activity of the entire week. She wakes up every morning asking to go to "Makers?" and now I'm going to have to tell her that no, we can't go. We have to stay at home. This is going to be awesome.

Now Blow

This morning I was folding and putting away laundry in our bedroom. Charlotte was playing with her new baby doll and the cat was sleeping on the bed. I was pretty much not paying attention to either of them. That is until the cat came up to me wanting to be petted. Then Charlotte appeared out of nowhere with some toilet paper in her hand. She held it up to Suzie's nose and said, "Now blow," and then ran to the toilet and flushed it. It's the hilarious things like that, that make me want to keep her just as she is today!

A Break

I think today is a good day to take a break from talking about the little troubles I'm having. Today I'd like to post about my thoughts on the violence on the Gaza strip. Honestly I know very very little about the political issues, the motivations, or the US involvement in the whole situation. That will make this a very short post, but it's what I've been thinking about. What struck and still strikes me when I read, hear, or see anything about it is how scary it would be to be living there. What if instead of our house being in St. Louis Missouri, it was picked up and planted in that area? We would be living without electricity, and running low on gas and in fear of being attacked at any minute. So what if there's a mouse in my oven! Would I even have enough food to put in that oven and cook? So what if my child wants to get up and play in the middle of the night! Would my daughter be too scared to even go to bed?

I am honestly so very blessed and I rarely take the time to even acknoweldge it. I hope and pray that people who are living in that sort of turmiol and confusion can some way to bring hope and peace into their lives.

They just keep coming

I'm so glad I'm married to a manly man. One who does not even think twice when I tell him that it's his job to clean up all the mouse pee and poo in our stove. One who isn't intimidated by the oven schematic telling him which wires go where and how to take the thing apart. One who casually sucks up half a dead mouse with the vacuum and then disposes of the body without me even having to touch or inspect it. I'm so glad that he's not grossed out by truly gross things.

Turns out that there was mouse pee and poop all over under the stove top (between the stove top and oven) and that a mouse had been in there and died at some point. And our stove top is bolted onto the range. You can't just lift it from the front so Dan had to do serious disassembly on the appliance. On the good side we did not find any evidence of insulation nesting. On the bad side I'm waiting until there's a day/time when we're not home to run the self cleaning option to burn off all the residue. That's going to stink up to high heaven. This so grosses me out.

On another troubling note, Charlotte has started having nightmares. Wake up in the middle of the night crying for mommy and daddy nightmares. Wont go back to sleep because of "scawy" nightmares. She always wants to be with us after a nightmare, but she's never slept in the bed with us before. You'd think that wouldn't be a big deal, but as it turns out she now can't sleep with us. If we let her come to bed she just tosses and turns and is totally enthralled by being in bed with mommy and daddy and probably wide awake because of the nightmare. We can't go to bed with her either because she's still just in the daybed of her crib. It only holds up to 70 lbs or so. She will not stay in her room alone though. So what has to happen is that daddy has to go and sleep on the floor next to her bed so that she's safe to fall back to sleep. A few hours later he then gets himself up and to bed with me. This can't last though. He needs to get a good night sleep. And we have another baby coming in four months. If this is happening neither of us will ever sleep again. I'd like to think this phase will end shortly, but honestly, I remember going into my parents room when I got scared. If I can remember it then it had to be when I was older than 21 months. We've got to come up with a plan for dealing with this and soon. The problem is, I have zero ideas on how to combat this problem.

This Stinks

A new and exciting world has opened up before me since returning from Christmas vacation. We were not gone for long, a little over a week. Everything seemed fine. Everything looked fine. Everything did NOT smell fine.

Specifically our oven. Oh, it smells fine when it's just sitting there shiny and new. I give it loving looks every now and then just so it knows that I am well aware of the luxury of having a brand new gas oven. I think the love affair I've been having is not one sided either. Our oven has worked amazingly roasting chickens, broiling fish, and browning the bread to just the right color. That is until a few nights ago. As I was cooking our meatloaf dinner a strange smell emanated from the oven. The unmistakable smell of urine. Daniel pulled the oven out and found loads of mouse poop and urine all over the floor. (This would be what precipitated getting the cat.) He cleaned it up really well and we figured that was that.

Skip to today. I made muffins for lunch and that awful stench came back. I decided to look this phenomenon up on the Internet and this problem is fairly common. It seemed as though there was a whole world of people that were dealing with this problem. I read story after story about mice getting into the oven and nesting. Person after person taking apart the appliance to deep clean it and then the oven usually had to be totally replaced. Oh, you can take it apart and try to clean everything out (which I'm sure Dan will try), but if they've gotten into your insulation there's nothing to be done. That smell will never go away.

What I feel really upset about is that we were only gone one week! One stinking week and mice may have ruined a very expensive, very new large appliance! We already had our furnace go out, and now this!

I just hope that Daniel can clean out the oven because there's no way a woman that's 23 weeks pregnant should be doing that chore.

Interpretations

Since Christmas, Charlotte has added a few new names to her repitoire of favorite-people-in-the-whole-world. She says these people's names periodically throughout the day just to remember them and hopefully mom will say she can see them soon. For example this morning as she was taking a bath she suddenly stopped what she was doing, looked up at me and said, "Bonnie! Emma! Grandma! Grandpa!" then proceeded to play with the bath toys. Some of the new names she's added are Roscoe, Katie, Suzie, Garrett, and Travis. That list isn't complete but you get the idea.

This shouting out of names, compounded with the fact that not all of them are pronounced properly can sometimes make for interesting interpretations on my part.

Take this morning at the grocery store for example. As we were walking around the store she would periodically say, "Garreck" which I interpreted as Garrett, her uncle. I saw that saying that name usually conincided with spotting a male customer at the store so I would tell her each time, "Uncle Garrett lives in Colorado. He's not here at the grocery store." To which she would reply, "Garreck!" As we were checking out she was looking at the magazines and interspersed with 10 million requests for "canny" and "chocick" she would say "Garreck." I told her no to the candy and chocolate and that no, Uncle Garrett wasn't on the cover of the magazines. It wasn't until I got home and she was helping me unpack the groceries that I figured it out. She exclaimed, "garreck" as she stuck her hand into a grocery sack and pulled out our pound bag of carrots. At which point I asked her if she wanted some carrots and she said yes. Turns out she'd been asking for carrots throughout the whole store and I just didn't understand her.

The Wrap-Up (minus photos)

So Christmas was awesome and I thought I'd write down a few highlights to remember it by. We flew out Christmas Eve day, which actually would have been great because of the lack of people at the airport. Unfortunately, our plane was delayed by all the weather that's happening pretty much all over the country and we had to stay in the St. Louis airport for a good 7 hours. Fortunately there was a family on our flight with a four year old boy and one year old girl that Charlotte fell in love with and played non-stop for those seven hours. Unfortunately the new environment, new friends, and new foods made her forget to tell us about needing to poop. Three times.

Christmas Eve was great. We ate dinner and then settled in for the talent show portion of the evening. Our little family sang jingle bells which Charlotte did pretty well on. And then I revealed my talent which was that I actually finished our Christmas stockings, including the one for our little boy to come. This was a very cute way to reveal that we're naming our next little guy Daniel Gregory, to be called Greg for short. That's my dad's name and I'm pretty sure he blinked out a few tears when he put two and two together.

Christmas Day was awesome. I had been worried that we didn't get Charlotte very many toys, but it seems that everyone got her a little something and she was overwhelmed with gifts this year. I'm going to have to cull out some of the old toys to find room for the new ones. She actually at one point decided that she didn't need to open any more presents because she was too busy playing with the already opened ones. That didn't last for very long though. I can't wait until the three extra boxes of presents we had to mail home arrive on Wednesday. I think it'll be like Christmas all over again. And this time I'm going to let her play with all her toys. I only let her pick a few out to play with over vacation.

We spent a day driving up to Logan to see Daniel's brother and family. Other than the terrifying drive up we had a great time. Charlotte picked up a few new things from her cousins that are pretty cute. None of which will make sense unless you already know what they do so I'm not going to write them down. Our drive back was considerably less scary and I found out that Daniel and I can still talk to each other for three hours and not get bored or run out of things to say. That was a nice little perk of being in the car.

The flight back home was also delayed because of snow. We didn't get home until about 2 AM Saturday morning and fell right into bed. When we got up we did an inspection of the house and found everything in proper order thanks to our diligent friends. What we also found that did not make me happy was "evidence" of mice all over the house.

So that tipped the scale and on Saturday afternoon we went to the Humane Society. We arrived half an hour before it closed and picked out a kitty that we wanted to have. Unfortunately the couple right in front of us picked that kitty to take home. So Daniel said, "I've always thought calico cats are pretty. Can we look at that one?" She was two years old (and named Scratchy) so I had completely passed over her as a possibility, but the lady brought her to us and Daniel instantly fell in love. She does "everything a cat should do" (his words, not mine). She curled up on his lap and started to purr as soon as he started to pet her. Then she licked Charlotte a few times and we were all sold. So now our family is larger by one tiny two year old cat, which we named Suzie. We think she'll be a good mouser, but we're not letting her downstairs at night in case there are still some mice scurrying around with poison in their tummies. We had already cleaned up all the poison that had been out for the mice before we brought her home.

So now I just have to get unpacked, cleaned up, and back on track. It would go a lot faster if I hadn't had to take Charlotte to the doctor this morning. We found out that she has a bit of a yeast infection so I'm glad I took her, but there was very little unpacking done in the mean time.

The Best "Mistake" Ever

My mom is always one for a good deal. It doesn't matter on what. It matters that its cheaper than what she would normally have to pay. This explains why she booked our plane tickets out to my grandma's house for Christmas last August. Last. August. At that point Daniel's school had not yet put out their new academic calendar so she had to work off the previous year's calendar. This explains why we will be flying out to Utah on Christmas Eve Day.

Then we found out that Daniel actually had his final last Friday. That means we could have flown out Friday night, or Saturday, or any day between now and Wednesday. At first I was bummed about that. Where's the anticipation you get when you see all the gifts from our family, grandma/pa, and my uncle's family under the tree? Where's all the great feelings you get when you are surrounded with family? Where's my days of vacation from cleaning our house?

Today though I would have to say that this was perhaps the best "mistake" that could ever have been made. Although Daniel is running around trying to complete all the projects he couldn't while in school, we still have him around. And Charlotte is LOVING it! Truth be told, so am I. Last night we went driving around looking at Christmas lights together and just being our little family. I love my husband. I love my daughter. I love my baby boy. And even though I'm spending the next two days cleaning the house and packing for our trip, I love Christmas vacation.

Daniel vs. The Computer

My husband does not have a good relationship with our home computer. I think this is because he usually uses the computers at his school where if something goes wrong there's a whole staff of people to fix it. The home computer however, is a little slow, and if something goes wrong it's my job to fix it. It really shouldn't be my job. It really shouldn't be Daniel's job either. Mostly what shouldn't be Daniel's job is trying to play any sort of movie, TV show, or YouTube video on our home computer. Last night he went to battle over trying to watch a TV show in which the computer won and he went to bed frustrated.

I however have never had any trouble getting anything to play on the computer. I can't contribute this to any superior knowledge of the device because I've watched him, he does the same things that I do. Only when he does them he's always muttering, "This stupid piece of crap. Why wont it go faster?" So I figure last night had to be the last straw for the computer because when I tried to watch some short videos today they wouldn't run for a while. He's permanently pissed the computer off and now it's taking it out on me.

Good Recommendation

Each Christmas I get ambitious to make more holiday decorations for our home. Each year I fail to complete all my projects. I have a list of sewing projects a mile long it seems that I want and need to get finished. Every person that I know that sews has a list like this. My mother refers to it as sewing guilt, but she can't feel too guilty about it since she's always out getting more projects. I put most of my projects aside this time of year in lieu of finishing our Christmas tree skirt, Christmas stockings, and Christmas wall hanging. (Sorry to my friends who will have babies to big to wear their jackets before I complete them!) Last weekend I realized that the blue table cloth under the tree was doing a fine job for now and that nobody but myself misses the 12 days of Christmas wall hanging I have to do, but if I don't get our stockings done where is Santa going to put all our stocking stuffers? So with that indisputable logic I set aside the tree skirt, which is four sets of eyes, quilting and binding away from being finished, and the wall hanging, which is still in the original bag, and started to work on the stockings.

Which is where the good recommendation comes into play. While visiting at home either at the end of September or during Thanksgiving, I can't remember which, my mom introduced me to fusable batting. I then asked my mother-in-law what she thought about using it for my smaller Christmas projects. Both of them thought it would be a good idea, even with the higher price tag. So I went out and bought it. Having never worked with it before I was a little leery, but let me tell you that stuff is amazing! If you are doing a smaller project I highly recommend using it because it's so much easier than pinning or basting the layers together. I don't know how or if it would work well on bigger quilts, but I have just been so happy with the result so far on my small projects that I thought everyone should know about this product.

I don't have any photos of the stockings right now because they're not finished. Maybe after Christmas, yeah, maybe then.

Merry Christmas

Because this holiday season has felt like one never-ending to-do list that I am always burried under, I've had a hard time focusing on all the really great things that have happened to our little family. I thought that since Daniel is "helping" Charlotte nap before church I'd take a second to write a few of them down so that I don't forget them.

It has been awesome to watch Charlotte grasp the new and exciting things of Christmas this year. Namely she knows who Santa is, even though she doesn't know anything about why people get excited about him. She loves snow, although she hasn't had much exposure. She absolutely loved to help put up the ornaments on the tree. Good news, our tree has just the right number of ornaments for an almost two year old attention span.

Mostly it's fun to hear her little voice singing, "jing-o jing-o hey!" to herself. This is how she sings jingle bells. Dan and I are aching to get this on video, but she wont do it if she knows she's being recorded so we have to be tricky.

It's been fun to listen to my husband put together a few homemade presents in the basement. He jumped on the idea of them when I suggested them to him as a great present. Originally we were going to do them together, but that just wasn't in the cards. Plus, it's great to hear him singing Santa Claus songs from the basement.

It's been fun to do Christmas activities with Charlotte. I've tried to do one thing each day and I think I've kept it going so far. We've painted the boxes for presents-one day with paint brushes, the next stamping with potato stamps. We've made Christmas cards, and decorated ornaments. We put up the decorations together including her favorite, the window stickers. We've made cookies several times.

We went shopping for Charlotte's present to Daddy together and she picked it out herself and walked around the store carrying it saying, "daddy, daddy, daddy." Her first present choice for him was little pink dolls, but eventually she got the idea that Daddy probably doesn't want that for Christmas.

Last but not least, just about the time of Thanksgiving I started to feel our little boy moving. It's so great to be able to feel that little life inside of me. He seems so strong and alive right now and I'm falling in love with him and imagining our next Christmas with him in our family. I can't wait.