So in all my meandering around the blog world, I've discovered some cute sites about card making. Let me tell you...I love it. I've been making some cards for a couple years but these sites are really inspiring me to step it up a notch. Now if they only could tell me HOW they do what they do.....
I don't need another craft...do I?
Hope and I had fun today:
We would have had more fun if we had had some help with the pony ride. It is difficult to walk Lee, hold on to Hope, watch where we are going (very different from "walking Lee"), and keep Lee from getting a little too fast. I wanted to get up there with her but 1) I didn't have help to get Hope up and down and 2) with Lee's back/hips acting up, I didn't want to sit that far back on him. Lee was a perfect gentleman other than the slight attempt to load into the open trailer in front of him. He started dozing off there at the end when we were just standing there. Lee also likes to stick his head in Hope's pack 'n' play for her to pet him when I'm grooming and tacking up. They make a cute pair. Hope was a natural. I told her very firmly and repeatedly before we started that she needed to hold onto the saddle horn. She looked at me with this no nonsense look like, "okay Mom, you're the boss." And she kept her hands on the horn as if she understood every word I had said. She would switch hands but almost constantly had at least one hand on that horn. She would repeatedly reach up and rub his mane and neck like she was telling him he was a good boy. And when I commented on it to the barn owner, Hope did it again right on cue. Oh if only the barn owner, her daughter, and two friends weren't rushing out to a horse show.... Hope also moved with Lee while we were walking like she was born up there. She only got off balance one time and that was when she was reaching back to pat Lee's back (we were standing still). But as much as I hate to say it, she still prefers the cats.....
Today I remembered those that have personally touched my life through friends and family that have given their lives in service. My uncle, for one, and Courtney's brother, for two, were the ones I thought of most of the weekend. I also was very thankful that so many of my family and friends that served did not/have not had to sacrifice their lives.
Grandma Ann and Grandpa Ken (Army) had us over today for steaks off the grill. It was a little slow getting started but was oh so yummy once we sat down to eat. I wish I could live off meat and potatoes!! Hope was getting tired on top of being hungry by the time we ate, as it was about two hours past her usual naptime and she hadn't had lunch yet either. But once that girl was fed....yowsers. She was all over the place. Ken and Ann have a beautiful sunroom that makes a great place to take pictures so I remembered to take my camera. However, neither of my kids will sit still long enough for many decent pics. I got what I could while they were zooming around though. Enjoy.
This is a 35 year old highchair that was it such excellent shape that I was trying to figure out how to sneak it out of their house and fit it in my car.... I LOVED IT!!!!
I really wish I had gotten pictures of the teacher gifts I made...but alas.... They involved paper, ribbons, glue, letters, tags, wires, candy (if only I was good enough to make my own), and a few school supplies. They were fun.
Here are some pictures of the queen size quilt top I've been working on. It is a blooming nine patch.
I am far enough along in one of my other projects (I'll get there in a minute) that I feel I can get back to this one for a couple days. My blocks are all ready and just need to be sewn into my rows and then the rows together. I'm hoping to stipple the quilt together but I've never done stipple and I'm a little nervous. I'm thinking of doing a mini quilt to practice on before tackling the queen size.
And I know I've mentioned my pile 'o projects so I'm not sure what I was thinking in joining a quilt-a-long. I've never joined any kind of internet related project so this is definitely new to me. My problem is that this quilt-a-long is meant to help people reduce their scrap pile. My problem is that I don't have enough of a scrap pile to do this. I've had to go buy fabric just to do this. Oh well, I'll have scraps now for another project. Anyway, this project is to do one nine patch a day. Today is day 24. I have 30 now.
I haven't figured out what I'm going to do with this yet though. I have half girly blocks and half boyish blocks. Am I going to make two quilts, or combine them to make one??? We'll see. Based on that decision will be the decision on the sashing between the blocks. Since this project has a time frame I've put off the queen size quilt to work in this. But now that I'm a little ahead I'm going to put a couple days on the green one.
Now here is the project I've been keeping secret for some time. I saw in a magazine one day that someone embroidered kids' handprints and left them in a sewing hoop and hung it on the wall. I thought that that was a fantastic idea but I didn't like the hoops so much. I came up with this.
This pillow is what I made for my grandmother's birthday in April. Hope is on one side and Gabe on the other. This is only the second time I've embroidered anything (the first time being at Christmas). I think it came out pretty good. I don't like Gabe's name very much, but hey, you can read it... I hope Great Grandma liked it. It was made very special just for her...with every stitch. As of '09 these are the only great grandkids.
This has been a way fun month.
There is some I'm missing but I'm getting sleep deprived and can't remember them at 1 a.m. And really, the month is only half over...
I didn't get a picture of Gabe's gums before yesterday but if you look close you can still see his purple gum where the infection was. (we already have an appointment set up to work on his front teeth)
If Only I'd Known
This is why it got infected.
Half the tooth didn't dissolve like it is suppose to. The dentist said that tooth would never have come out on its own. Just a FYI, where the front part of that curve is on the top of the tooth is where his gum started. So only the two points of the tooth were even visible. All of that tooth was IN his gum.
If Only I'd Known
Yesterday we got his glasses in. He looks so good in them...even if they aren't my favorite frames (we had to compromise).
You can definitely see his lazy eye in the last ones. That is what they are going to fix next week, Lord willing. I was amazed to see how poor his vision was. This child had his vision checked just last school year. At the beginning of first grade. You can't tell me his vision got this bad this fast.
His right eye is WAY worse.
If Only I'd Known
The cards in the above photos were what the Tooth Fairy brought Gabe...he is quite proud of them.
I think I'm going to regret not taking off that shirt before dinner...
So I noticed after rereading the previous post that there is a bit I left out. I did that for the sheer time factor of typing. Oh well...
So to recap Thursday: horrible visit with the eye doc followed by my overspending at Tanger. What I mean by overspending was that I literally cut into our emergency fund. Our emergency fund was slim to begin with. Right now, I'm really regretting those purchases (any one say buyer's remorse??) because...
Here comes this story:
So Friday was all good and great until bedtime. We went to game night at church, the kids were relatively good, and we all ate yummy pizza and cookies. We get home late and I'm trying to rush the kids to bed because we need to get up in the morning to go get Gabe's glasses (which again, looking back, I should have done that after his appointment on Thursday) as he HAS to have them for his pre-op appointment on the 11th. I'm trying to listen to Gabe getting ready for bed while Hope and I are doing our thing. I never heard the water come on in the bathroom...um, you can't brush your teeth the right way without water (and Gabe is notorious for not brushing right). So I question him on this. He says he did it right so I beckon him over to do what all moms do by checking him mouth (stinky breath=no brush, dry mouth=no water). As I'm looking at his mouth, I see that there is something wrong with the gum over is left eye-tooth. I lift his lip up only to reveal the biggest, nastiest, make-you-want-to-lose-your-lunch, white abscess on his gum that I've ever seen in my life. My son is eight, his mouth is not big. That thing looked like someone took a pea and shoved it under the flesh of his gum. I'm sorry, he WILL not go to bed with that thing. Did he ever say anything about this....no. Sometimes his communication skills make me want to cry...buckets.... So I make him come with me to the bathroom where the light is best and I try to sneak the needle I'm about to use on this growth on him without him seeing. I mean, come on, the fight over eye drops....and I want to stab this thing...??? Yeah, not gonna win that battle right? Wrong. He catches sight of this needle as I approach his mouth. He backs up fast but I use my most pleading voice to tell him I REALLY need to do this and that it will feel soooo much better. He doesn't like the idea but he lets me do it. I tried to do it fast but the gum was so tight that is took a little more effort. He stood there like a champ. He didn't get too cranky over it until I was almost done getting it as empty as I could. I asked him "how's that?" and he responded with the slight tone of contentment that it was "much better." And he smiled. So before I went to bed I called the dentist so their machine could tell me when they opened and wouldn't you know that you can leave a message!! So I pleaded our case to them on the machine and begged them to call me in the morning. 15 minutes after they opened on Saturday, they called to tell me to come in when I could and they would work us in. After really only an hour of waiting, although with two kids it felt much longer, we were seen. They took a x-ray that showed his baby tooth has a really long root and that they need to pull it so the permanent tooth can come down. I had already informed them of Gabe's autism. They decided that since he needed it pulled and that they didn't want him to become afraid of the dentist, they would refer us to a pediatric dentist where they could knock him out for the procedure. Sweet. So out the door we go with a prescription for antibiotic, a copy of the x-ray, and a referral to another dentist. I don't even want to know how much I'm going to have to pay out of pocket for this but in the long run... So now we are off to buy glasses. We get there, pick out the only frames Gabe and I can compromise on (I'm sorry but no Gabe, you can NOT have pink or purple glasses), and buy them. As the lady brings us our change (of course from our emergency fund because I don't have an envelope for "glasses for Gabe"), she says "they should be in by May 14th." Ummm, reference the beginning of this story where he HAS to have these glasses by Monday the 11th. After very little reassurance from the lady that they could be in by then, I decide to risk it with every intention of calling the doc's office and seeing if we can bump back his pre-op appointment to later in the week. I really can't afford to get glasses anywhere else. Great. If we had gone straight to the store to buy glasses after his first appointment, this might not have been an issue because I asked about the lab for the glasses and they aren't open on the weekends. That means I wasted two perfectly good business days by waiting. Only good news is that apparently the store "has been a little slow" and we have a little bit better chance of getting them by Friday (Gabe's appointment is at 8:00 a.m. on Monday the 11th and with the lab closed on the weekends...) Oh and we filled that prescription for antibiotic only to find that it was for pills and not a liquid... Gabe has never swallowed a pill in his life. I'll save the story of Gabe's first pill experience for another blog. It was fun let me tell you.
So here I sit praying Gabe can be seen by the dentist tomorrow and that the doc can move his pre-op appointment, Lee's vet appointment to get him diagnosed is Tuesday morning, start calling and harassing the eyeglass store starting Wednesday, pray the glasses are in by Friday, next week will be his pre-op appointment, and that Friday will be the surgery. And all of that is without the panic that our emergency fund is now at only $100. Which will most likely have to go 100% to the pediatric dentist tomorrow.
I need a hug.
