Preview of Teen Years with R!

Last night was one of those nights I really wish my man didn't work at night. I could have used a tag team partner! R went down early and I thought she was down for the night, but nope, up at 9 and she kept waking her sister up until 11:30 when I finally gave up and put on Beauty and the Beast in my bedroom and prayed that would be enough to settle R down and she'd fall asleep to it. For the record she did not, but I did, and the house is now covered in sprinkles for A's birthday cake, toys (as usual) and diapers of every size that had been lined up to be a magical pathway from my bedroom to the laundry room.

She's a night owl

I am not

nor am I a morning person

and I do need a nap

so basically I am a sleeper!

H is more like me that way, she is sleeping through the night, and has been since I went back to work, she takes good naps, she goes down at a decent hour (about 9 and gets up somewhere between 8:30 and 10) she sometimes gets up at 6 something to eat and falls back asleep but that's only if she was too tired to eat her whole bottle before bed.

seriously, wrong child up at night!!

But this all did make me think of the teen years to come. Mine were horrible. Oh man was I moody, heck I still am without enough sleep. Just ask A (who for the record is still asleep at 11am and probably will have to be preyed out of bed at 2 so he makes it to work on time!) what a raving b word I can become if I am overtired/stressed/or have not had any down time. And the drive to work doesn't count buddy! unless I take the scenic route, but that's hard to do with only 12 blocks between here and there! But I am in for a rough ride to come I think.

Why do I believe this?

1) R is a night owl and NOT a morning person. She wakes up and wants to be left alone, so she either reads or watches a "show" and needs you to not bug her but be available when she decides she needs something from food, to water, to cuddles, but don't ask if she wants something or you'll get the wrath of her!

2) Back talking. Lordy she's got it down!!

Exhibit A: "R, do you need to change your diaper?" (because of course she'd rather change her own than go on the potty *eye roll*) "No, you go change your diaper!"

Exhibit B: "R, you need to get dressed" "where we going?" "no where, we just need to wear clothes on our bodies" "I no get dress 'less we go to the park" "its too cold/rainy/snowy to go to the park, but lets get dressed" "go to store?" "no" "then I no get dressed."this is why shes only wearing her pull up in most the pics I have of her

Exhibit C: "R, go put your toys in your room please"/"go clean up your mess" "No! You do it!!"

Exhibit D: (my personal favorite) "You need to change your attitude missy" *little foot stomp, finger pointing at me shaking as she talks* "No, you change your add-it-ude" *hands on hips*

Do you know how hard it is to not just laugh at her?

3) She needs "coffee" or at least thinks she does. At least once a day she tells me "Um, I need my coffee" and when I come home from work "you bring me (or sometimes us if shes in the same room as A) coffee?"

4) She's obsessed with Target

5) when we go shopping it's always "oh, I like Dis!" "oh! I like this one!" (thank goodness we don't have to bring much home with us yet shes just appreciating it all but still!)

I am sure there's a million more ways shes like a mini teen. These are just examples from the past 24 hours. She has a ton of sweetness in her too but I wanted to capture this so when I look back in 10 or so years I can say "yup, saw that one coming!"

I have two. girls. who will be teens. Oh man!

*update, its now 12:05AM! and R just informed me broom in hand that it was time to clean the kitchen. GO TO BED CHILD!*

my sew-in night!!

How many of you participated in the Friday Night Sew In? I did! I kept forgetting to try to find a sitter for R and/or H, so I didn't get nearly as much as I wanted to done, but oh well! Here is what I did do:

I made the borders for H's Dora quilt. It's going to coordinate but not match R's. These are 6" finished squares as random as I could make it, and no two fabrics are touching in the finished project. Her quilt has theoretically no two Dora fabrics touching, and has three fabrics, but there are about 4 spots where two fabrics match next to each other. More random though right?

I also made my blocks for Rachel's modern siggy block swap. Anyone else doing that one too? I thought I had a pen to sign them with but I must have either lost it or used it all up and tossed it. Bummer. I still have my Facebook Friends Signature Block Swap to make, I planned to do both but was so sick of it when I was done with these I decided to set the other one aside for a week or so and do them latter.

I made the bindings for the other/last two Christmas tree quilts that I meant to have done by Christmas. Ooops! Hehe I am just ahead of the game for next year! Now why is it that I was so intimidated by binding that I bought that stuff from Wrights? I still use it when I wasn't convienance, but I seriously wouldn't have thought to make my own a year ago!.

I made three of the nine patch blocks for A's Simpson's quilt. Believe it or not the bottom middle block is light blue and the one on the right side is bright yellow, silly lighting and camera! Oh well! I have something like 36 blocks cut out of the Simpson's fabric and will be alternating those with these nine-patches. I think it will be cool! (or hot since I am making it with flannel that he picked out!)

I got caught up on my Calender Quilt, up through last night, I have some strips cut for the rest of the month but couldn't pick any more out.

And that's where I decided to call it a night at 10:30. I got started at about 4 when R was watching Beauty and the Beast and H was taking a nap! Too bad R kept waking H up all evening and wouldn't go to bed until 9:45!!! The two glasses of wine I had were not helping either!

This is what was left at the end of the night that I didn't get to. At least I didn't run out of things to do with a ton of motivation still.

I ended my night reading New Moon. I checked it out from the library and am enjoying it a touch more than book one, but still not totally sold on it. I am almost half way through. What I am enjoying is how easy the books are to read and how I can quickly check into and out of that world. some books I am spending time problem solving and other books I have to work my way into it and then when I am interrupted I have a hard time pulling myself out.

I think next time I might try to get together with a girlfriend and/or send the kids away! One of my friends wants to get together to sew sometime I just need to get a weekend day off and have A or a friend watch R with or without H (since she's still at an easy portable adaptable age)

I hope you all had a good Friday night and Sat day even if you didn't spend it at the sew in!

three phd now DONE

I did a little blog house keeping today. I think I have everyone from All People Quilt here but correct me if I am wrong. I need to go back and read more than the most recent post on many of them, and make sure I am following those on blogger! I also crossed off (so to speak) a few projects from my 6 month challenge!! Hooray!!

I was headed to the post office with two of my winners goodies, and my block lotto blocks, but it was my last stop after Ash Wednesday Mass, and grocery shopping with the family, but somehow R had a little accident in her pants so we just left the store, A paid for everything and we went home. I don't understand what happened because shes still in pull ups, but whatever! I think she must have had a wedgie or something and leaked out one side. Poor girl! I have tomorrow off!

I don't have pics of what I am sending, I sort of want it to be a surprise, I hope the people who get them show the goodies off, but I will tell you a touch about them! Ruth is getting a table runner pattern and a charm pack to start her off with it. Vanessa, I need to get her two half yards of fabric one dark one light to make a table runner I have a cute patten to (I just can't find anything that is perfect ya know? so let me know if theres something calling your name!). I have some beads, and thread, and a few random swatches of fabric for Therica. And lastly for Ann, I have some floral fat quarters.

So here are my finished projects: My Christmas Tree quilt, Binding DONE! YAHOO!!! Not perfect but whatever!

My cousin's Tree quilt, binding DONE! I have my Rudolph quilt in my car, so you have to live without a pic, just know it's done too and I will post a pic of it when I get it!

I am working on my ABC's quilt, I ran out of binding, so add that to the list for JoAnns tomorrow! I wish A had left me R's car seat before he went to work, but I might as well wait until tomorrow and see if I can go all by myself.

I need to get some solid white for my modern siggy swap with p.s.i quilt, here are the two fabrics I have for it. This first one is vivid and charming and wonderful, but is it modern enough?

This second one, I feel is modern enough, but does it pop enough or is it too muted? I could totally use this for something else, but if that first ones too retro/hippy than I have no problem using this second one.

p.s. there's a giveaway over here!

randomness!

I have another post about memories I want to keep from this past long weekend at Nana's funeral and with my family, memories about Nana herself, things I want to treasure but the words just don't seem to do it justice. I am going to leave that post unedited, unpublished, and ready for me to come back to at some point. I want to share more for myself and to tell the girls about her but I am going to have to sit on it and come back to it a few times before it's ready to share. Let me just say she was a wonderful woman!

I took the girls to Mass today. Oh man was that a challenge. R was getting tired, H was fussy and I couldn't figure out why, I was fighting off the beginnings of a migraine, but this was the first time in ages I've been free to go be it because I was at work or A was at work when we only had one running car (YAY FOR HAVING BOTH CARS BACK IN WORKING ORDER!) and I usually came up with enough excuses in the event that I could make it that I figured I'd go today or I'd keep putting it off. There has been a huge part of myself that's been missing-my spiritual side has been lacking and ignored. It was nice to go again.

When we got home, I figured out why H was fussing so much! I had changed her right before leaving for mass and usually she doesn't need a change often. About half way through the services I heard her grunting working on a poop. No biggie, except R had been trying to run in the church so I decided to wait until either after Mass or when we got home to change her. Ended up being when we got home, and when I did, I wiped her poopie bottom and found lots of little irritated bleeding spots. Poor girl!! She didn't have a twinkle of diaper rash before we left or I would not have let her sit in that for a while, but she had a fairly loose poop so owwie. Right now she's diaper less and of course she went tinkle just when I set her down to get a towel for her to play on! oh well! We were going to have pros come in and clean our carpets when we got our tax refund anyways!

R did something that every child I have heard of has done, and scared me to death! Yesterday we were cuddling in my bed watching Cinderella, and I dozed off a touch right before the "Cinderelly Cinderelly night and day it's Cinderelly" song and woke up shortly after it. She wasn't in bed with me! I went to check on her and make sure she was OK, there was very little noise in the house, just H's sweet snoring. R wasn't in her room, she wasn't in the bathroom, she wasn't in the living room, she wasn't in the kitchen, or the laundry room, or on the stairs to the neighbors floor, she wasn't in the front nor the backyard, the garage, the church parking lot with her bike, the park two blocks away! I called A in near hysterics! He had just gotten to work so he came back home and he and I were looking everywhere for her, calling her name as loud as we could without going into panicked voices... He got the idea to double check the girls room, H was still sleeping, and he looked into R's bed, and started laughing! "She's in her bed" "No she's not! I looked there! I am not stupid!" "yes she is! look under her pillow." She was in her bed, under the covers, with the pillow over her head, and about 5 r 6 of her stuffed animals and a few books in bed with her. All you could see was her knee! She NEVER sleeps in her own bed, and she NEVER puts herself down! If every parent I know hadn't been through something similar I'd feel like a fool!

I just read the first book in the Twilight series. My brothers girlfriend (I secretly hope that she becomes more) gave it to me for Christmas saying I HAD to read it! I did, and "eh" is all I have to say. now before you jump to tell me how wrong I am I have heard each book is better than the next and they are meant to build on each otter so the first is full of development and background. I get it and will keep reading, I am just saying without being told that and if I didn't appreciate that information I'd throw in the towel on the saga. I will read it all with an open mind.

Last night I finished the binding on one of the projects I had on my list to finish in the next few months! I finished the quilt for my friend's boys with Rudolph! Hooray! I also started the binding to my ABC quilt and am 1/2 done with the second side of the binding of my cousins Christmas tree quilt. I think once I get the house clean (at least the living room) I will take pictures and rock out the next few!

Speaking of finishing projects,don't forget next Friday is the Friday night Sew-In!

Lastly (since I've rambled enough!) there's an awesome give away over at crazy old ladies blog, I LOVE their patterns! I have one right now and keep looking at like 6 more that I want! check out their blog here http://crazyoldladiesquilts.blogspot.com/ and then see if you want to participate in their give away.

pics will be coming soon, I have to clean and vacuum before I show anything to you!

Goodbye Nana

Nana gave up the fight for breath last night with all her seven children around (most of whom thought she was on the mend and were there to cheer her on/up) last night. Here's a wonderful picture of her with R when she was 2 months old. I have a framed copy on our picture shelves but the glass is broken, I better go fix that soon!

She was concerned about making Hazel a new Night Before Christmas recorded book because I somehow got hers to go threw the washer! Mom reassured her the girls could share and maybe my dads parents, just pop-pop or my parents can do the recording. I know she loved the girls and it was her good friend is who H's name was inspired by (not exactly named after her). Remind me to tell you that story!

Two of my aunts, me, R and Nana, mom

I really hope I can make it to the wake and can celebrate and remember her with my family next week.

pictures of projects

I got my camera, no not the diapers. If dad had been in charge of mailing the stuff it would have been very likely, fortunately for all involved mom was the one who did it. We DID get Simon from McDonald's and he sings "da da da da da I'm lovin' it" and is rather annoying. Mom offered to take it out of the package but we have Alvan here saying "Hello Gorgeous" already, now to see if we can get Theodore! We also got a few clean diapers!

Before I get to pictures and fun stuff, my Nana is in the hospital again, I think this makes it two full weeks now. I am waiting on the latest word on her condition but last I heard they were talking about a ventilator but she was not on it as if an hour after the conversation. She went in last week for a pain pump and they think she aspirated something and that turned into full blown pneumonia. She had a bad bought with it about 5 years ago and hasn't been the same since. She is back and forth better and worse, almost every day. I know this sounds bad but I wish she would just stay bad so they can totally treat her and then get better slowly instead of trying to rush everything. This back and forth is so hard! Mom will call me tomorrow when she's with them. I am getting together a little care package with a card, candy, maybe a game, and hopefully I make it to Costco to send some pics of the girls too to cheer her and everyone around up.

Here is a cute pic of H playing with my old ferry boat toy. I can't believe Fisher Price or PlaySkool made ferry's but here's proof. R was playing with it a lot too, she'd drive my brothers old cars into it, pull them all over the house, and unload them. Poor Grandma and Grandpa (formerly known as MeMa and PePa) are probably still finding cars!

I joined a little one-one Valentines Day swap, and here's my cute little heart quiltlette. It's eh about 14X14 inches, but that's just a rough estimate. This is the project I squared up my HST's for for the first time. I am glad I did! This project had a lot of firsts for me! This was the first time I did a swap, so much fun, I might have to do more. I was able to use just things from my stash so that was really nice. I only spent money on a few FQ's to go with it and some candy from a local candy shop. Then A ate some of the box of chocolates I brought home, thankfully I had bought some Jordan Almonds there too so I sent those and HIS Resses peanut butter hearts heheh! I can get him more latter but I really wanted to show off our cute little candy shop! This was the first time I used normal fabric for the binding, I had previously used Wrights Double Fold Bias for my binding. It's what my mom taught me for my first quilt because she didn't want me to run away from the project (I made and over sized twin for my first one, the post about it is back a little ways). Lastly this was the first time I made a label! Hooray! Finally! I just appliqued it on the back and then did the quilting and stuff, so nothing too impressive. I think it's cool though. How do you guys do labels? And someday I will need to figure out those sleves to hang things.

Before I leave you for the night, here's the month of January for my Calender Quilt. It's missing three days because I don't have enough white on white or cream on cream but I left myself a little note about that so when I do get more I can sew them in. I am doing two at once to see what I like best in the end, one is 1 1/2 by 10 1/2 strips and the other is 1 1/2 by 2 1/2 (finished 1X2) The blue strip is Seattle/Washington themed fabric from a shop hop a few years back and was the day we left for Seattle, the snowmen below it, we opened presents with my parents, the tea cups from the day I went back to work after vacation, the hearts all over are the days I worked on my swap thing (OK I did it a few more days but those I did it more than other days) everything else is just random and what called to me that day.