Hold My Heart

I just heard this song for the first time today, from one of my favorite bands- Tenth Avenue North- and thought I'd share it here.

It reminded me of exactly how I felt so often when we were going through the infertility and adoption processes, before we found out we were pregnant with Regan.

I'm so thankful that God is merciful and that He will always give us the strength we need to make it through any struggle we face in this life.

It really touched my heart, and made me think of a very special friend who's going through some of that same journey right now.

Love you, Chrissy.

Headed Out!

Well, I'm headed out to convention today, so no WIP post.

I'll post plenty of pictures when I get back- of the room, of the baby blanket I was suddenly inspired to begin knitting, and (maybe? possibly?) some more cloth wipes or kids' napkins.

*I really do need to get to work on the wipes- we were informed not to be too surprised if little Miss shows up a bit early!*

In the mean time- happy, happy days to you!

AND, an especially happy day to Sarah on Friday!



Happy 27th!!!!
(I've been waiting all year to post this picture, hehehehe!)

:D

Just Look At All the Love!

Okay, first off, here are some (ahem!...extremely blurry) pictures of Baby.

This first one was taken just around two or so weeks ago.

A tiny, blurry blob, but with a strong heartbeat!

Next, we have Baby, just about two weeks later-
even though there's still a lot of blurriness going on, LOOK how much he/she's changed!

This is a side view (unfortunately, my new-to-me printer/copier/scanner and I do not get along, so taking pictures of a picture was the best I could do here.)- you can see Baby's leg and foot, and his/her little fist up in the air (kind of near the nose area).

Baby was really kicking and wiggling, which was a thrill to see.

And now, the love begins! (Well, the love from others that is.)

Right off the bat a great friend gave me her maternity clothes!
How great is that, really? :)

She also found the cutest little coat for Baby- it will be October when this little one arrives, you know- we will definitely be needing a coat.

I love the teddy bear ears.

One of the future grandmas got in on the action too- a sweet frame for Baby's "first portrait" (the ultrasound pictures now have a proud place to be displayed),

And the tiniest little booties I think I've ever seen!
I'm telling you, I hope these fit, cause it looked to me like this kid is going to have big feet!

But, the party's not over yet!

Today the sweetest care package showed up at my door-
my very bestest sister in law sent the following:

Operating Instructions for me ;),

A very important book for Pete!,

Some tea for relaxation,

Bubble bath bound to turn an overtired and cranky baby (or wait, is that mommy...) into a sweet and smiling one (complete with bubble wand- I love it),

Some great organic soft yarn to make... something... for baby-kins,

And, my personal favorite, an Anti-Nausea Music Prescription cd!
I can't wait to hear it. :)

A little bird has also told me that the other grandma-to-be has a care package
consisting of some very needed just-beginning-maternity clothing
(since, ahem, even though Baby isn't "showing" yet, I'm not quite fitting into my regular clothes right now)
for special meetings (thank you!!!) and a baby outfit on the way,
AND that one of the grandpas-to-be found some mysterious, cute, "something" that is to be
"for the baby's room".

So, this little one is already getting spoiled. :)

As for me, I'm (knock on wood!!!) ever so slowly starting to feel a little better every few days.
I'm hoping that by special meeting time I'm going to be (at least mostly) back to "normal"-
although I have a sneaking suspicion that "normal" is going to become something different than it ever was before.

And, I have to say, we're looking forward to that. :)

Surprise!

We're PREGNANT!

We were going to wait until we were through the 12th week to share our news (we'll be 10 weeks along on Thursday of this week), but I've been feeling really sick so far (it's slowly starting to improve) and I just got to feeling so bad for Pete- he's constantly have to make excuses for my not being somewhere these days.

We had an ultrasound, saw the baby (the little heart was just beating away), and got to hear the heartbeat when our midwife came for our 9 week visit (she was shocked- she said it's extremely rare to be able to hear the heart beating using just the Doppler that early on), and the M.D.s say that the risk of miscarriage drops to a very low rate (something like 3-5%) once the heartbeat has been confirmed. We've also heard that women who experience morning sickness (not an accurate name for the around the clock nausea I've been experiencing) are less likely to miscarry than those who don't get sick. So, there's the silver lining. :)

So, we decided, what the heck, we're telling!

We're due October 23rd, and we're hoping for a healthy pregnancy and baby.

:)

Family Members (Especially Those Who've Traveled to CA Recently) & Very Closest Friends

Your much asked about Baby Notes update is now available.

We return now to our regularly scheduled programming.

Thank You.

Feeling Good

Feelings are much like waves, we can't stop them from coming but we can choose
which one to surf.

Jonatan Martensson


I just thought that was a nice thought to start my day today.

Hope you're feeling well today, and happy.

:)

Breathing Out

Well, the meeting yesterday went well enough that- at least for now- we won't be making any major changes in our adoption plan/proceedings.

(Update here.)

We'll see how things go as the year progresses.

Thanks again for everyone's love and care. :)

For the next little while we're going to try focusing on "breathing out".

The stress leading up to this meeting was incredible, and we are wiped out.

Here We Go

Well, I'm leaving in just a bit to pick up Pete- we have a meeting this afternoon
with our adoption agency to try and iron out the "kinks" we've run into lately.

We're hoping things go well.

We did contact a local adoption attorney (just so we know what we should ask at our meeting today, and so that we have someone to go to should today's meeting not go well),
and I personally feel a lot better after having talked to her.
She knows the adoption laws of our state, whereas Pete and I are just your average "joes" and don't know anything about how things work legally.

So, even if today's meeting with the agency doesn't go well, things are starting to look up and we are feeling a little better about it all.

Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers, and please continue to do so. :)
We'll keep you posted.

Please Help Take Action

Please Help Save Handmade


Much thanks to CoolMomPicks for all the information in one location.

Happy New Year!

I'm back!

Well, technically- I still feel like I'm in the "between holidays fog",
but I am posting, so that's a start.

Hopefully you have a fun New Year's Eve planned- it's sounding like we're going to be ringing in 2009 in a very laid back and quiet style 'round these parts.

But, that's okay too.

Have you made your New Year's Resolutions yet?

We have!
That's become a tradition that I like- even if half the time at least half the items on the list never make it to completion.

In the last couple of years I've tried just picking one or two things
to work on for the year. I think doing that helps me
actually meet my own resolutions better.

Here's what a couple of our main goals are for 2009:

1.) Finish last year's goal of getting the entire house organized.
This got a good start in 2008, and we're hoping to finish up in 2009.
The biggest accomplishment we saw towards this goal in 2008
was that we really pared down our "stuff." I have to admit, I was
the worst culprit when it came to having too much stuff- most of
it was piled in our basement (to the point we couldn't even walk
through it all!), and most of it was preschool/daycare related.
I hadn't used any of it in the five years we'd been married, so
I "bit the bullet" so to speak and did my best to just let it go.
Half of it was thrown out, and the other half was put on the
annual daycare garage sale. A lot of what went on
the sale was bought, so this summer I'll try
getting rid of the rest of it-
if it doesn't go it's getting thrown out.
Anyway, to complete this goal has turned into more work
than we expected. We thought we realized, when we
bought our house, that it didn't offer much for storage.
While working towards this goal in 2008 we realized
that the no storage problem is much worse than we
originally thought. So, in order to finish this one up, we're
going to have to find ways to creatively come up with
better storage from what we already have, or buy/build
better storage solutions. In order to have an organized home
every item needs a place to be kept. We don't have many "places"
at this point. Because of this, our organizational goal
leads into a kind of "sub-goal": finishing the remodeling
that we've started. Our kitchen, for example, has been
unfinished since 2004. And we've been waiting to build
medicine cabinets since, hmm, 2006? I don't know exactly-
it's just been too long.
Ideally this organizational goal will be met by the
time we finally have our first child.

And,

2.) Create a much healthier family diet.
Both Pete and I have slowly gained a bit of weight over the
last five years. Well, first I lost a lot, then gained some back, so
I'd like to get back to that weight that I felt the best at. We
found a site that calculates your BMI, and discovered we're
not as bad off as we'd feared- but we are still setting
goal weights. I'll admit, I'll probably end up doing most
of the work on this one- smaller portion sizes, smaller
serving plates, healthier meals will end up being up to
me as the family "cook" for the most part. But we've also
decided to find a way to commit to exercising (anything from
running to walking to an actual work out that will get our
heart rates up) 30- 60 min. a day, five days a week.
We both got miserably sick the day after Christmas and
were couch bound for three days, so what did we do?
Watched "Super Size Me". We made this resolution
immediately after. Need I say more?

Obviously, one of the most important goals we have
(but don't have a lot of control over) is:

3.) To have our first child.

Wish us luck this year. :)

Here's wishing you and yours a wonderful year in 2009.

Happy New Year!

Holiday Daycare Highlights 2008

Since I'm aiming at a much more handmade holiday this year, I decided to make my main presents for my two daycare kids too.

I made my sweet girl a rainbow colored scarf...

And my cute boy two felted balls from wool yarn.

So far we have decorated cookies every year. This year was no exception- except that I made the cookies in advance to give us more time for a new holiday activity
(which you'll see in a minute).

While I made supper the kids watched "Jack Frost"- a classic (since 1979) holiday movie that I hadn't heard of until this year.

For supper we cut cookie cutter shapes out of bread and made french toast! (Thanks for that great idea, mom!) It was fun and so good too. We had french toast, turkey bacon (crispy, thankyouverymuch!), blueberries and blackberries, and milk for supper.

Then we opened our gifts. Always the best part, right? :D

After that was the new activity- one I'd heard of but had never done before.



We made cranberry/popcorn garlands and dried orange slice ornaments to decorate our little outdoor tree for the birds! It was so fun that I'm hoping to make it a holiday tradition.

After the decorating was done, we warmed ourselves up with some homemade hot chocolate. Yum! We each had a left over sugar cookie, and a Christmas decorated doughnut.

Then we kicked back and read stories on the couch till their daddies came to pick them up.

Such a fun night with two of my favorite kids of all time! :D

All Wrapped Up

A few simple things for my two special daycare kids.

We're having our Christmas Party tonight, and we've got a lot of fun stuff planned.
Can't wait to post pictures later of all the fun we had!

Ho ho ho!

Miscellaneous

Okay, today it's back to the happy!

At least, I hope so. ;)

Non-seriousness, anyway.

To start off, here's another sneak peek at something for the holidays.

(Ha, I know, it's not exactly a stumper, but I just love all the pretty colors! :D )

My new shelf for all my fabric-y goodness. Thanks dad for buying it, and thanks Pete for putting it together. I love it.

Me! Looking oh so cute this summer for our backyard play area re-do.

A little something pretty from warmer days.

(Anything from warmer days is welcome right now!)

Please forgive me, Jay, but this is one of my favorite pictures of you.

I tell you (and the world) this in nothing but love.

:D

And, a funny (well, to me) video of our puppy Ceiba.

Keep in mind, it was taken the day after Thanksgiving, we were all "drunk" on Turkey and the tons of food we had stuffed ourselves with. Things were getting goofy.

And, no, I am not sobbing- I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe. One of the reasons I love my husband is that he loves me despite my very horrible laugh. :D

I Just Can't Help It...

Baby Lucas

He's so sweet, I just can't help but share the news that he's here! :D

Some very wonderful people I know just got to welcome this little guy
into their family yesterday.

Congratulations you guys!!! I can't wait to meet him!

Favorites

What Are Your Favorites?

1. Favorite book? Ever? Probably "Anne of Green Gables".

2. Food? Hmm, this is a tough one. Maybe pizza?

3. Item of clothing? Sweats! Warm and fuzzy ones.

4. Hairstyle? Out of my face.

5. Beverage? Maybe hot cocoa.

6. Facial tissue? Kleenex brand, or Puffs without the lotion.

7. Place to sit? In a big comfy chair.

8. Person? Pete, my hubby. :D

9. Animal? My two puppies.

10. House? My favorite house ever? Well, this one's probably a tie- there's one just outside of Grimes along the highway, and there's one on the very edge of Pierson. Both of them are big and white, and combined together in certain ways would make up my dream house.

11. Smell? Um, non-food would be my perfume (Ralph), food would be something like steak or pizza cooking. Oh, and I couldn't forget CHOCOLATE. :)

12. Activity? Well, I'm not a big "action" kind of girl, so it'd be something calm like reading or scrapbooking. I know, I'm boring.

13. Color? RED!!!

14. Day of the week? Friday

15. Time of day? Lunch time, or mid-afternoon.

16. Hot thing? Maybe (just to get off the food thing), a nice hot shower?

17. Cold thing? Ice cream!

18. Game? Umm, any fun board game. Preferably one that I'm good at. :D

19. Hobby? Oooh. Scrapbooking or (very amateur) photography. I've also just started knitting and am liking that.

20. Season? Fall.

And, if you've read mine, I tag YOU to go do this one too! :D

Knitting Fever

Nikki and I had our very first knitting class on Saturday, and I have to say, I think I'm hooked!

We're starting off with a "Booga Bag".

(heehee, "Booga, Booga!"- I love saying that.)

I chose red yarn and a gray yarn with multi colored flecks, lots of them a matching red, in it.

We bought our needles and yarn- yikes! I thought when the lady said "$10.00" that meant per class, for a total of $30.00 for the entire class and project.

But, I was mistaken. The needles, metal circular ones that are really nice for beginners, apparently, and are great at holding the yarn in place, were around $22.00, the yarn (4 skeins) was around $30.00, and the class itself was $10.00. For a grand total of $62.00.

Ouch.

But, now our supplies have been purchased, so I'm guessing it will only be $10.00 each time for our next two classes. Still, it would have been nice if that had been mentioned somewhere on the website. Oh well!

It was a lot of fun, and I'm picking up on it a lot faster than I expected!
(Yay, me!)

Here's my class project as of now (sorry for the poor picture quality, the flash was just not agreeing with the yarn- waaay too glary), still on the needles because I don't know how to "cast off" yet. This will be the bottom of my Booga Bag.
(hehe, "Booga, Booga!!!")

Saturday, my first day of knitting EVER!, I made plenty of mistakes.

It's hard to see, but holding up the section I knit you can see several holes on the bottom portion. Oops. :D

I went just a little too far (put in a couple rows too many I think), so I'll need Susan (the Yarn Lady) to show me how to fix that. Since I have to wait until Saturday again to learn more, I decided to practice what I already know, just so I don't lose it all. I might be knitting just a bit too much though, because I find myself playing the stitch over and over in my mind. It's like mental knitting! :D



Here's what I'm working on as a practice piece. Can you guess what it is? :D

My stitches are looking much better now. Yay!

Plus, a sneek peak at something for the holidays! Shhh! Don't tell! :D

And, since I got to see my bestest buddy this weekend for a wedding, she gave me some new reading material. "The Friday Night Knitting Club"- she thought it was fitting, as I've just discovered a new passion. I haven't cracked it open yet (too busy knitting, you know), but it looks like it'll be a good one!

Happy Monday!

She Got Me

Okay, so because I went and read a certain someone's blog, I got TAGGED! ;)

That's okay though, because I LOVE this kinda thing.

So, here it is: The 4 Tag
(I'm giving it a name, because I don't know what the actual name is- or if there is an actual name.)

Directions: Go to your 4th picture folder, post the 4th picture there, and tell us 4 things about it.

1. This picture is of the SOLD sign for my bestest buddy's FIRST house ever!

2. I have this picture in my picture folder because I had just gotten my camera not long before and hadn't learned to delete anything yet.

3. I also have this picture on my camera because it was my "job" to be the picture taker the weekend we helped them move. Then I was supposed to send them the pictures of the move.

4. This tag has now reminded me to send them the pictures from their move.

:D

TAG! You're it!
(unless you've already done this one recently...)

Yay, For Handmade!

(Deep Breath!)

I have taken a pledge!

I am now committed.

(whew...)

What, you may ask, am I pledging my undying loyalty to? (Well, okay, "undying" might be overreaching just a bit.)

I am pledging (until the end of the year at least) to only give handmade items as gifts. Items I buy for gifting purposes will be handmade, or I will make my self.

Oh boy. Can I do it? I don't know.

I hope so.

(I kind of have to now, right? I mean I "pledged" and all, right here in front of y'all in cyber space! Ugh- what have I gotten myself into?! Oh dear.)

Anyway, I've been seeing the cute little "Handmade" icon (now posted to the left of the screen)
on more than one site lately, so I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about.

Basically, the general idea is to pledge, per holiday season, to only give holiday gifts that are handmade. WELL, since we don't exactly throw ourselves whole hog into the gift-giving bit of the holidays around here, I thought I'd tweak my personal pledge just a bit.

For the holidays we do generally give a small gift to those in our immediate families and those we're closest with, so I thought, "Hey, why not?" I can't exactly afford to BUY handmade right now, but I sure could make it by hand myself! (Much, much easier on the budget.)

This is something I've been wanting to learn anyway- how to "do it myself", so why not now, right?

I'd like to carry this little idea into next year with me too (if it goes well!). It sure would be easier to afford, making gifts rather than buying them. Not that I have that many gift-giving occasions coming up in the immediate future- it's the principle of the thing! :D

So, fair warning to you all! If you know me, and there are occasions in which I may give you a gift coming up, either in the near future or next year, be warned!
(And I promise, I'll do my best to tell you from the beginning what "it" is, just so you don't have to ask! Statements of, "Oh, how nice! What is it?" might hurt my feelings.) ;)

Cloth Diapers 101

I'm not sure if anyone else out there is interested in cloth diapers or not, but Louisa
from www.TheStorkWearhouse.com has this great section on her site that got us seriously considering cloth diapering.

Click on "Cloth Diapers 101" to see the info. that really sold Pete and I- make sure to check out her site for all sorts of other great mama and baby stuff too!

My "Must-Haves"

I'm becoming more and more passionate about organic and "natural" products.

Since all I have to do these days, for the most part :) , is wait for our baby-to-be, I've been researching a LOT- and I've found some products that I really, really like.

So, if you're interested, here are some of my top picks:



- Nova Natural Toys and Crafts
My FAVORITE catalog/site to peruse for all things child. Thankfully I'm married to a man that can make a lot of the products they sell, or I'd probably be buying waaay more than I should! :)


-Burt's Bees baby products
So great. I use them for myself all the time too! :)
Plus, I can buy them at Target, so they're easily accessible.



-Bumkins "All-in-One" cloth diapers (& bibs!)
I've been buying these, little by little, for awhile now for our baby-to-come. I want to use cloth diapers for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is our budget. For the second child and on, all your diapering is FREE. For the first child it costs about the same to buy cloth as it would to buy disposables all the time, but if you plan on having more than one kid who could resist the savings? :) Plus you only need to buy about 30 diapers per diaper size (less if you keep up on the laundry better than I do)- they're so incredibly cute, and I love the Bumkins brand especially because it puts together the greatness of a washable, re-usable diaper with the ease of a disposable. No pins, no stuffing liners inside the diaper. No diaper covers needed (although some of them are almost too cute to resist). They're so easy. (The bibs are awesome too.)


Of course, with the desire to cloth diaper comes my next two must-haves...


-the BumGenius Diaper Sprayer
Attaches to the water supply for your toilet and makes a no-mess job of getting dirtier diapers ready to pop in the wash. One of the things that made me think "no way!" to cloth diapering at first was having to get the yuckier "stuff" off the diapers prior to putting them in the wash. This solves the problem! We'll be buying one the minute we get word on our baby.



-and the Diaper Pail
I'm pretty convinced, at this point, that we'll be using the "Wet Pail" method
(great info. here),
but in either case you need a pail to put the diapers in. I'm thinking of getting this one, or something like it.
Plus, there are so many cute pail liners and "wet bags" to choose from!
Louisa has some nice plain colored pail liners and cute, cute wet bags here.


And, last but not least,
-a Baby Sling
There are so many cute ones out there that I just can't decide (yet) on my one MUST have. I've already gotten a couple, that I've tried out in the daycare, that I like for certain things- a cute HotSlings one-
in my opinion, great while the baby is still itsy-bitsy, or after they're big enough to sit on your hip- and a Solarveil Padded Sling
for those hot summer days when baby needs to be held, but you don't want
(either of you) to sweat to death!
I'm also intrigued by the Moby Wrap and have a pattern to make myself a
Maya Sling.