Adjusting

Adjusting to having five kids (seven and under) has been a little slower than I expected.  Heh.  I feel like I say this every time I have a new baby.  Seriously, I need to write myself a note and remember to read it the next time (God willing) I'm close to giving birth.  It would say something like: 

Yes, newborns are easier than toddlers, and yes they do sleep most of the day.  But remember that their schedule is totally unpredictable.  They are going to need to nurse, or be changed, or be bounced for twenty minutes at random and unexpected times - usually the moment you were finally about to start a new task or run out the door.  Don't expect to get as much done as you're used to, and definitely don't expect to do everything in the same order or at the same time as you were hoping.  In other words, newborns force you to just be flexible and let go of the things that are less important.

We're doing fine, really, but I think starting the schoolyear almost at exactly the same time as we had a new baby made things extra challenging - because I had only had a week of trying to get into the homeschooling groove before Felix came along and totally threw us off.  And now we're trying to tackle the increased challenge of schooling the two big kids at once for the first time AND juggling a crying baby, super troublesome toddler, and whiney three-year old.  (All while failing to keep up with laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc.  Thank goodness for the meal train the members of my Catholic Mom's group have been so generously participating in!)

This past week, we didn't even have an actual official school day, because we were busy dealing with a potential medical issue with Felix, and had to spend a couple days in the hospital.  Long story short, he does this weird thing where he constantly bends his head all the way back - it seems to be his preferred posture.  He does show signs of reflux, and a similar back-arching posture is common for reflux.  But he does this all the time - even when he's calm or asleep, not just when he's having a reflux episode.  So our pediatrician was "very concerned" and wanted us to check with a neurologist, since peculiar posturing like this sometimes indicates a neurological problem.

His usual posture

The neurologist wasn't sure what was causing it, and decided to admit him to the hospital so they could figure out what was going on.  Felix had a full team of doctors working with him, and none of them had ever seen a baby do this with his head.  My poor little guy (6 weeks old) was subjected to: a head ultrasound, an EEG, an EKG, a neck x-ray, an MRI, blood draws, a bunch of wires that monitored his basic functions, and (totally unnecessary), tubes for supplemental oxygen.  

With 26 probes on his head during his EEG

And....all the tests came back normal.  Which I'm definitely thankful for.  But it's a frustrating non-conclusion to the whole ordeal.  At this point, the working theory is that perhaps it's just a weird response he has to reflux.  So we're going to try him on some stronger medication for that, and see what happens.  If the unusual head positioning continues, we may have to look into physical therapy.

*****

A few things we have managed to find the time for during this busy phase of life:

We had Felix baptized!

We've gone on a few more family nature walks, and are hoping to fit in one or two more before winter sets in.  We all really enjoy doing this together, and have discovered a couple great woods for walking.  Each of the three "big kids" has their own nature journal that they use to keep a record of our interesting finds.

Stella: proving once again that *any* creature can be snuggled

Another worm for the journal

Tom finally took the time to show the kids how to use the Mass kit I made for them to play Mass.  I've seriously dreamed about them doing this since they were born, and it just melts my heart.

Fr. Sly getting vested before Mass

The elevation.  Linus is an altar boy, and is ringing the bell

Fe.Linus baptizing Stella's baby (named "Florabelle" - I wonder where she got that from? :-P ), whom she had been begging to have baptized all morning.

Another mom whose kids are in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd with Stella and Linus heard that I was a big fan of "old-fashioned" baby clothes, and gave me an amazing little collection of old baby boy clothes.  Those are like the holy grail of baby clothes for me.  I've found some adorable smocked and laced baby girl dresses at thrift stores and rummage sales in my day, but I have never ever come across a good old-fashioned baby boy outfit.  Look at some of these!!

And lastly, after almost a year of very slow-going work, I have finally finished Linus' quilt for his bed.  It turned out a lot bigger than a twin size, actually, so it will definitely grow with him.  When he was only two, and I asked him what sort of quilt he wanted, he had answered, "Blue. And Green.  And squares."  I think I pulled it off!

The pattern is called an Irish Chain

I Finished My Baby Blanket Just in Time....

...to find out that we are having another BOY!

haha.  Joke's on all of us, I guess.  So this beautiful but very pink blanket will be going into storage for the time being.  And I'll be beginning as soon as possible on knitting a light green blanket for this new little man.

The pattern is called Sleeping Baby's Castle Blanket, and is for sale on Ravelry

Perhaps the next one (God willing) will be a girl.  It would maintain the pattern we've got going on, at any rate: boy - girl - boy - girl - boy.

Now begins the challenging process of deciding on a boy name.  Tom and I are totally deadlocked on this question.  We each have a name we love but the other spouse hates.  And so far, neither of us have wanted to budge :-P

Recent Crafting Output

With all the time I spend doing laundry, preparing meals, wiping other people's bums, washing dishes, doing laundry, running errands, sweeping up messes, doing laundry, picking up toys, sopping up spilled milk - and did I mention doing laundry? -  I don't have much time for crafty pursuits these days.  But it's been a year since I last showed off any of my projects on here, so now I can post pictures of several all at once, and it will seem really impressive!  But trust me - I'm not a super-crafter.  EAch of these took me many many months to complete!

Ship Prototype Pillow

I had an ambitious quilt in mind (see below), and needed to practice making a ship for it.  I found the pattern for this 12x12 block online, and busted one out late one night using some scrap fabric.  It sat around for a few months, and then inspiration struck again.  I spent another late night and some more scrap fabric turning it into a pillow for the couch.  I think it adds a nice touch of color and whimsy.

Sly's Ship Quilt

I made this quilt for Sly's bed.  It's a twin size, which makes it the largest quilt I've made yet.  I wanted something he could grow with.  It matches his blue-colored ship-themed bedroom quite well.  The whole thing took me a little over a year to complete.

I'm so thankful for my weekly quilting group that I'm part of.  It holds me accountable and ensures that I have planned out-of-the-house time to make a tiny bit of progress on my quilting each week.  If I were trying to get any quilting done on my own at home, it would just never happen.  I'd always find something more important, or at least more enticing (I'm looking at you, Facebook) to work on instead.

I took the pattern I'd used for the smaller ship block and did the calculations to enlarge it to fit the larger size of this quilt.  The outer edges are alternating squares and a block called a "friendship star" - each of them is made up of nine separate pieces.  It took a long time to finish them all!

Flora's Blankie
I've always knit a blanket ("blankie" in our family) for each of my kids while I'm pregnant with them.   We start wrapping our babies in their blankets almost as soon as they are born, and they quickly come to develop a rather strong attachment to them - which I'm totally fine with.  In fact....I may still have my own baby blankie(s) stashed away in the linen closet for an occasional covert snuggle :-)

I never bother to block my knitting, which is why the edges are all wonky here

The pattern I used is this one, which you should be able to view if you are a member of Ravelry.  My favorite yarn to use is Knitpicks Comfy Worsted Yarn.  It's inexpensive, washable, and very soft.

I do my knitting almost exclusively in the evenings while watching a movie with my husband or while discussing a book with my Catholic Moms book group (we're reading Kristin Lavrandatter right now!  SO good!).  It's a good multi-tasking activity.  In fact, I don't think I would ever make the time to knit unless I could do it while also being involved in something else....it's kind of boring, to be honest.

And if you happen to have children who also get attached to their blankets - or a daughter named Flora! - this is a pretty cute book to check out.  It's about a baby bunny who's supposed to go to bed, but can't find her blanket.

7 Quick Takes (Vol. 45)

You know how sometimes you don't blog for a really long time, and then it feels like you can't write a post until you have something to say that's really important or profound, but all you have are those usual little bits of everyday life that just aren't as interesting or timely anymore?  You try to say something like, "two months ago, we played in the snow!", but now everyone's already in Spring mode and so ready to be done thinking about winter.  It just doesn't work.

That's kind of what's kept me from writing until these Quick Takes today.

 -1-

 Tom and I are now godparents to another sweet godson, Daniel!  He's the smallest baby I've ever seen in real life :-)

-2-

I've been reading a fascinating book this Lent.  It's The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by (Blessed) Anne Catherine Emmerich.  Anne was a nun in the early 1800s, and a mystic.  She had many supernatural gifts, including the stigmata, and she received innumerable visions.  On many occasions, especially during Lent, she had stunningly detailed visions of the Passion.  This book recounts those visions (as told to a third party).

It's just amazing how many little details she was shown, and the connections and meanings of events that she is able to explain - things a poor uneducated nun like her would never have known.  To be sure, some people are skeptical of the authenticity of these accounts.  Regardless, the book provides an excellent meditation on this most important event in the life of Christ.  Definitely keep it in mind for your spiritual reading.

-3-

I re-painted our dining room a month or two ago.  When we moved in, the walls were a medium green, and the ceilings were light green.  We went to light green walls and white ceiling.  It's so much brighter and happier in there now!

I didn't take as many before and after shots as I usually do.

Here was the room a few days after we bought the house.  Note that these photos was taken during the daytime (during March).  With all the lights on.

Changing that very dark chandelier was one of our first orders of business

It felt like a cave in there

And I wanted to include this photo (from Christmas) - it shows how our decorative tree sort of blended in with the green of the walls.  You can also see where I'd just started painting some white on the ceiling above the window.

In progress.  The ceiling is now white.  The old wall color's on the right, the new on the left. 

This is the room in the new lighter color - it really helps the tree "pop"

Notice the walls behind Stella

Like the "dark cave" picture, this one was taken during the daytime in March, with all the lights on.  But it looks like a different room entirely.  I'll post the "before" again for easy comparison...

versus how it looked last year

It really makes a difference!

-4-

In quilting news, I'm still working on the queen-sized block-of-the-month quilt for our bed, but it's going to be a long time until I finish.  Me and the other women in the class were all imagining that once we finished our twelve pieced blocks, we'd just need a few connecting strips, and we'd be done.  But our instructor recently showed us her completed quilt top, and....oh my....there's SO much more to do!

In the meanwhile, I started cutting out fabric pieces to make a a twin-size quilt for Sly's bed.  He's been begging me for a quilt since I joined this group.  Since I've already made *two* quilts for Stella (hey, she's my only girl, and I like to make feminine quilts!), I figured he had a good point.  I let him flip through some quilting books and pick a design he liked.

This little man has been on a nap strike, and let me tell you - it's nerve-racking trying to use a rotary cutter when there's a baby crawling around!

I just need to cut a few more white fabrics and I can start sewing!

Sly insists that I put a ship in the middle of his quilt (I might have influenced this desire, since his room is decorated with ships).  I found a ship quilting pattern I liked, and threw together a test block (using different colors than what will be on Sly's).  I like the look of it, but this 12" block will be too small for Sly's quilt.  I'll have to make some calculations and enlarge all the pieces.

I was hoping to frame this sample ship block and hang it up in my living room, but unfortunately, the color density is way off and I think it might look weird.  The colors are quite bold at the bottom, but the yellow sails almost disappear into the pale sky....

-5-

Since I've been married, my dad has been dropping off box-at-a-time all my old stuff that was still sitting around his house.  I don't blame him at all for wanting to clean out his house, but it's been frustrating to keep being reminded of how much crap I accumulated over my lifetime and then having to deal with it!

I finally thought we'd received everything, but I had let myself totally forget about something stored in the closet in his basement...my entire collection of Breyer model horses.  My dad made us take the whole collection at once - much to Tom's distress.  Ha - he had no idea the would be as large or numerous as they were.  It was fun looking through my Breyers again, and fondly remembering how much I used to love them all.  For several years of my life, every spare cent was saved up to buy horses, and they were the only type of gift I asked for.

I sorted through them, and set some aside (probably too many!) to give my kids when they're a bit older, and able to treat them gently.

Oh shoot.  I just remembered....I think there's also a huge Beanie Baby collection tucked away in another closet, that my dad still hasn't discovered.  haha...Well, I have virtually no sentiment attached to those anymore, so perhaps I can just grab that box before the kids see inside, and send it straight to Goodwill!

-6-

Some friends were over recently, and asked us a question we've been asked many times: "So, how many kids do you guys want to have?".  Tom and I sorta hemmed and hawed for a bit, because it's a strange question with no real answer for us.

I finally just said, "Look.  We both want a big family.  We want a lot of kids - whatever that means.  We don't have a specific number.  We're just letting the babies come."  Our friend nodded and suggested, "However many God wants, huh?"  I thought about it for a few seconds, and answered, "Well, I'll be honest with you.  I should be able to say 'how ever many God wants,' but it wouldn't really be true.  I want a lot of kids.  I hope and pray that I have a lot of kids.  If God made it clear that I would never be able to have another baby.....it would probably take me a really long time to come to terms with that."

I guess judgements on family size can go both ways.  Conceivably, people might look at us and assume we're extra holy for wanting a lot of kids, but it's not necessarily the case.  (but we sure as heck will need a lot of grace to handle it, if the babies keep coming!)

 -7-

My friend Kellie painted us some beautiful custom-made Saint peg dolls. I told her what I wanted each to look like, and she executed those ideas beyond what I could have hoped for.

These are my children's name Saints - St. Sylvester, Mary "star of the sea" (Stella Maris), and St. Linus.  Our kids all have rather obscure patrons, so it's hard to find nice devotional art for them.  These dolls will be in their Easter baskets this year.

Seven Quick Takes is hosted at This Ain't the Lyceum

Recent Quilting Projects

I'm so grateful for the local quilting group I've discovered.  I enjoy having a craft to work on, and I think I'm just burned out from knitting (not that I was ever very good at it).  It's just a great little break for me to be able to to get away one (and sometimes two!) evenings a night to just sit and quilt with other ladies.  I'm the youngest one in the group by far, and I stand out from the other members in various other ways....but in some ways, it's really good to get a glimpse of the world outside of my little bubble.

I finished my baby quilt, which was the first project we all did in the group.  Right now, it's hanging on a quilt rack in Stella's room, adding a pretty pop of color to the corner.  At some point - when I figure out what the heck I want to do with Stella's bedroom - I hope to hang it on her wall.

I mentioned before how our instructor was having us slowly make a queen-size quilt via "mystery blocks of the month."  The idea is that she tells you ahead of time how much to buy of various fabrics (of your choosing), and each month, hands you the pattern to assemble one square.  By the end of a year, you can join the blocks all together to create a quilt.

Well, instead of moving on to a second project like most of the other quilters, I've just been working on my blocks-of-the-month (which my instructor was nice enough to give me all the patterns for at once).  Fabric isn't cheap, so I want to use what I have, and wait awhile before I spend a bunch of money to start a new quilt.

I have 7 out of 12 blocks finished so far... (colors chosen to match our now-purple bedroom)

Our Projects of Late

We've had many projects going on recently, which has been taking up much of my time.  As way of explanation for my almost-absence from the internet, here's a look at some things I've been doing in my "free time."


Crafting
I'm still working on the baby quilt at my quilting group.  I finished piecing the top.  I still need to get some batting so I can sandwich it all together, quilt it, and bind it.
 

This was my first time doing appliqué work, and it looks pretty rough up close.  Sewing right along the edges was not as easy as I expected, and I hit that point where I stopped caring, and just said "good enough!"  As long as it doesn't all pull out in the wash, I'm happy with it.

Another thing I'm doing with my quilting group is "block of the month."  Our instructor gave us a guide indicating how much to get of different types of fabric ("1/2 yard of fabric #1", "1/3 yard of fabric #2", etc.).  We get to pick all our colors, but we have no clue what shape it will all take in the end.  Every month, she'll give us a new pattern, showing us how to put together one block.  At the end of a year - supposedly - we will be able to join them together into a queen-sized quilt.

Here's my first block.

 

I'm making the quilt for my bedroom.....which is now finally re-painted!  

Master Bedroom
When we moved in, the master bedroom had peach walls with matching peach trim, done in dull flat paint.   Very unhappy looking place.

before

before

"before", but after we had already scraped a lot of the old caked paint off the window moldings

And here's the room after painting the moldings white and the walls in a purple-gray satin paint.

after

after

 

after - I'm loving the contrast between the walls and the trim

This was a big step, but our bedroom is still not done.  We need to hang pictures, refinish the free-from-Craigslist headboard (I'm thinking white, with some antiquing paint to pull out all the nice carved flower details), and - the big one - build some bookcases in the alcoves beside the bed.

Which is why the alcove area still looks terrible, with the original wall color and stacks of books, waiting....

Kitchen Backsplash
Ever since we had our kitchen cabinets and counters re-done, we've been hoping to attempt installing a tile backsplash ourselves.  It's taken so long to get started - mostly because we were intimidated by it.  But after reading many online tutorials and watching a handful of Youtube videos about tiling, I felt confident enough to try it.  So far, we've just done the small piece of wall above the side counter.  This was our "practice" wall - Tom did most of the cutting, I did most of the tile-laying.  We're hoping to start on the rest of the backsplash a little after Thanksgiving.

wall before

after laying the tile, but before grouting

ta-da!!

I know the aqua and white is not to everyone's taste, but I think it's beautiful.  I can't wait until we have the rest of the backsplash done :-)


Moldings in the Playroom
When we moved in, the playroom had pale blue-green walls and white trim.  It was clearly in need of a new paint job at some point, but we decided not to even deal with it for a year or so.  We have too many other projects we'd like to do first.

But we noticed a few areas on the window frames and doors where there was some paint starting to chip off.  Worried that it might contain lead, Tom started pulling these little chips off with his fingers so he could throw them away before the kids got them.  It was soon discovered that 1. the paint is no longer well-adhered to the wood, and can pull off very easily, and 2. the stained trim underneath is still in great shape.

We did not need this as a project now, but Tom is so excited to restore the room to its former stained-wood glory that he's taken this on as a little side job when he has nothing else to work on.

I am going to miss the fresh and bright white trim in that room.  I'm so torn between wanting to restore the house to its historically-correct look, and claiming a few rooms for a more-modern white-trimmed look.  (Luckily, the trim in our bedroom was discovered to have always been painted, so Tom didn't fight me on that one).

This shows the white trim on the window and the baseboards (taken shortly after moving in)

This was a few weeks ago, after Tom started to chip the paint away

I don't have a clear vision yet for this room's future look (or function), but it's definitely going to be a big change in feel.  To me, white trim seems light and feminine, while dark trim seems heavy and masculine.