grandma quilt

My Gma K is incredibly talented. She is especially talented in quilting, sewing, knitting and crocheting. Growing up, we would receive Christmas presents from her and they would most always be something made by her - an ornament, a blanket, a sweater or dress. I loved all the things we got from her and cherish those that I still have to this day, but none are more special than the quilts and blankets we received (and I am sure my brothers and cousins would agree!), which we called grandma quilts. My favorite being my ballerina quilt that was used until it was worn thin! I still have it though, and look forward to giving it to G when she is a little older.

After S and I got married, we lived in married student housing that was poorly built. It was on a northern windy corner too so with the midwestern winters we needed a better blanket on our bed than the super worn one that was on my bed in 8th grade! We found a couple of good flat sheets and asked Gma if she would tie us a quilt with them. She of course was more than happy too and put a double batting in the quilt so it was extra cozy for us! And oh it is such a cozy grandma quilt! On cold days that we would hit the alarm clock for an extra snooze or two and just snuggle in the warmth under the quilt, we would kiddingly blame the grandma quilt for making us late to work or school!

Fast-forward 6 years and 2 kids plus one on the way later. We needed a new bed and were able to purchase a bigger sized one to hold us and kids when necessary, and our gma quilt still worked, but was small for our bigger bed, especially on the nights when the little ones were in the bed with us. I started to look for flat sheets that I liked to ask Gma to make us another tie quilt, but I wasn't able to find anything. Then after talking to Gma, she offered to piece a quilt top for us if we found material that we liked, then tie it! I was so excited! Unfortunately, our local quilt shop was closing. Fortunately they had an extreme sale on their fabric and I was able to get a lot of fabric for the quilt at a great price!

Gma K brought along our finished quilt when she came up to our house for Christmas this year. We have had my family Christmas by our place for the past few years and Gma has been able to come with my folks. It is so much fun to have her with at our place for Christmas, and I hope that we can continue that tradition in upcoming years! Gma likes to name all her quilts and ours is called "Nine by Nine."




I love my Gma K dearly. She is a beautiful, smart, strong, talented lady that loves the Lord and her family and I look up her to in so many ways. We love spending time with her when we can (which isn't often enough!), and enjoy being able to keep in contact through technology - gma being pretty saavy with her computer. Our kids call her "Nanna" and I love how they say it - when they see her or pictures of her and asked who that is, it isn't a calm reply of "Nanna", it is more a happy cheer of "NANNA!" And now Gma K has made each of our kids their own grandma quilt (or nanna quilt =) and they love them just like the rest of us love our grandma quilts.

I think one of the reasons that we love our grandma quilts so much is not just the quality of quilting or how beautiful they are, but because they were made by Gma K or Nanna and we know how much love went into making them and any other thing that she makes for us as well. I love telling people "my grandma made that" when asked about different things that we have that she has made, not only because we are proud of the items, but because we love Gma K so much and thoroughly enjoy having her handiwork around us.

Thank you so much, Gma, for our new grandma quilt. It is not only beautiful, it keeps us warm and cozy, and we think about you every time we look at it or snuggle underneath it. We love you so much!

gotta be pink

You know the problem with making homemade applesauce that is a wonderful shade of hot pink?

W thinks applesauce only comes in pink.

He refused and threw a fit when I gave him a fancy-dancy organic applesauce cup (which I thought was a treat). He kept crying "no applesauce! no applesauce!" and when I took it away thinking he didn't want it, he would cry and ask for applesauce! I thought I was going crazy until I took out the homemade stuff from the fridge and he got a huge smile on his face through his tears and points and shouts "APPLESAUCE!" So he wasn't telling me he didn't want applesauce, he was telling me the fancy white stuff I was trying to feed him was NOT applesauce.

our handful

On Tuesday this past week, we had a particularly crabby morning, and when I was talking with S on his lunchbreak, we figured out it was because the kids and I had not been anywhere but church for the past week and a half. We were stir crazy. So I decided to venture out after naps that afternoon. Auntie C and girls were busy, so I thought we would head for a store just to get out. I was thinking either Costco or Target so as we would stay close to home. Then as I was picturing a breakdown and bailout, Costco seemed like a harder store to make a quick getaway, so we went to Target. It was not a great trip, but it was not an awful trip either, so all in all successful for my first outing to a store with all 3 kids by myself. What annoyed me though, was this comment that we got from at least 15-20 people: "My, you have your hands full!" Yes, I do realize this (as I am swinging Baby C in his carseat to settle him down while holding onto W in the main part of the cart so he doesn't jump out and yelling at G not to move from the kid part of the cart), but after hearing it over a dozen times from strangers I started to get annoyed! So eventually everyone broke down in the checkout line and I managed to get everyone bundled and was making a break for the door when a lady put her hand on my arm to stop me.

"How old is the little one?"

"6 weeks"

"My, you have your hands full!"

I was about ready to breakdown and cry myself - did she think I couldn't handle it? 'Just mind your own business!' I was ready to yell. And then she said this and completely redeemed herself from getting popped one:

"You have a beautiful family. You are a very lucky mom!"

We sure do have a beautiful family. Here are a few pictures and a couple videos of our handful.


W & C checking each other out - C is concerned...=)

Big sis G with baby C
I caught a smile on camera from baby C yesterday! He is getting so big! He is already wearing 3-6 month clothes as his legs and arms are way too long for 0-3 now.

baby C is also moving around a lot more! This may be a somewhat boring video, but we thought the grandparents might like to see his wiggles as of late. =)




and this one is of G&W singing one of their favorite songs...

"I want a hippopotamus..."

...for Christmas. Only a hippopotamus will do!" The song that has been in my head for the past week thanks to W's love of Uncle M's 2007 Christmas CD with that song on it. W has to listen to it every night to go to bed and we keep the CD running on repeat as well. There are more songs on the CD, but the hippo song is by far his favorite right now. When G was his age, she was huge fan of listening to Uncle M's 2006(?) Christmas CD in the car (even in July!) and her favorite song of his to listen to over and over was their impression of the 3 chipmunks singing "Silver Bells."

BUT that was not what I was going to blog about today. Remember me saying that I was going to try to remember 5 things that the kids did to make me smile to tell S when he comes home? Well, had a good one yesterday but apparently was too tired because I didn't remember to tell S until this morning. We have moved W to a mattress on the floor to sleep rather than his crib and it seems to be working better. Yesterday he took a 3 hour nap (wonderful!) and then proceeded to get up on his own and come downstairs (quietly enough I didn't hear it in the monitor). He ran full steam into the sunroom where G and baby C and I were and throws his arms out and yells "TA-DA!!!!!" I died laughing!!!

Now W has been getting up and coming downstairs on his own after naps for a couple days now, but has never gotten up during the night or in the morning until today. W was the first one of us to wake up at 7:30 this morning and he came downstairs and when he didn't find us, he stood at the bottom of the steps and yelled for "MOMMA!" I did not hear him! Then G came in bed with us last night which I also have no recollection of, and she also climbed out this morning when she woke up at 8 without me knowing. Luckily, I am not in this parenting thing alone! S heard W this morning and got up with him, was there when G came downstairs, and left me to sleep an extra hour with the baby while he changed, dressed and fed the other 2. I apparently needed the extra sleep, but still freaks me not to have heard those things. I know that S and I share responsibilities with taking care of the kids especially when he is home, but I am the MOM!

I think I might sleep in the hallway outside their doors tonight...

are you nuts?

Happy Valentine's Day! Yes, that is G&W with their heart pancakes for breakfast on Valentine's Day! Ah yes, the commercial holiday that most everyone either dreads, embraces fully, or ignores based on their views. We hit all three depending on our moods and the year. Yes, we love each other every day in our family, but we did talk about how it is fun to have a special day to say and show it with G and did a few special things to celebrate! Now G LOVES holidays and goes nuts talking about them and playing pretend and wanting to do everything related to the holiday. We first experienced that last year with Halloween. And you can't ignore these holidays because they are everywhere! If not the stores and even PBS kids shows, they will hear about them from their friends at church! So we talk about how Halloween and Valentine's Day are SILLY holidays and we can have fun with them, but they are not important. Christmas and Easter are IMPORTANT holidays and we hit that importance hard with her. So last week we talked about silly Valentine's Day, and I showed G how to cut hearts out of paper. She had great fun doing that, and then I found a heart cookie cutter in my drawer and let her trace it and color hearts on paper. I did not mention that it was a cookie cutter to her, but when I was telling S about it when he got home that evening, I said cookie cutter. G heard that but didn't say anything. The next day at lunch she asks me about it. "Momma, you said that heart thing is a cookie cutter? Does it really CUT COOKIES? CAN WE DO THAT?!!!!" I don't know whether I was having a weak moment or whether the excitement and joy in her face got to me, but I said "Sure, honey!" Where the "Are you nuts?" comes in is that S had to work all day Saturday, so I was going to try to attempt this while being home with all 3 kids by myself. Luckily Baby C did a lot of sleeping that day, but it still took forever and the process was interrupted multiple times! But it was a lot of fun for the most part, and no major melt-downs happened. =)

mixing the batter - G was thrilled to spill flour on her new apron from Aahma B!

look at my big helpers!

G wiping the counter off getting ready to roll out the dough (done unprompted too!)

G cutting out hearts in the section of dough she rolled out

this was G's favorite part by far

There are no pictures of the cooked or frosted cookies because as the day wore on, so did my patience and G's mood and we also had more interruptions. But we had them all baked and enough frosted by bedtime for her to hand out to her Sunday school class and teacher the next day.

The other part of "Are you nuts?" which I heard from a number of people when I told them how we spent the day, was that I also got "Christmas" cards and Baby C's birth announcement pictures ready and printed. We did not do anything for Christmas cards or pictures because we were going to wait until Baby C joined us! And now that he is here and we are incredibly busy, you would think that I would tell myself that I have a good enough excuse to just skip it this year, but no! I had in my head a Valentine's day deadline, and being the good procrastinator that I am, I wrote a letter on Thursday, had auntie C come and take pics of the kids on Friday, (turned out awesome!) and tried to get them all ready and printed on Saturday so that we could put most of them in the church mailboxes on Sunday and get the rest ready to mail out Monday! Ok, the church mailboxes thing happened, but the rest of the letters and pics are still sitting here waiting to hopefully go out today or tomorrow. I could post what the "Christmas" card and announcement look like here, but I will wait and let you be surprised by snail mail! =)

So part of my adjustment to life with 3 kids and S back at work is figuring out a balance of what I can accomplish during the day. There have been a few days this week where I haven't done anything as I kept waiting for the next crisis or kid break-down to happen. There have been a few days when I have gotten a few things done and felt really good about it, and there have been a few days where I have wanted to get things done but didn't get anything accomplished due to dealing with kids all day. That is the nature of my job as a mom. =) I read a good piece of advice a couple months ago. When you stay at home with kids all day, the tendency is to just unload when your hubby comes home with all the bad things that happened that frustrated you! This article said to make sure you remember 5 things that made you laugh or smile to tell your hubby first before unloading the rest. With 3 little ones to take care of now and life being crazy, I really have been trying to remember this as it is easy for the frustrating things to overshadow the little good things. For example, G wanting a drink of milk while I was putting W down for a nap downstairs the other day and knowing that she can't pour it, she brought the cup and the milk carton all the way down the steps to me so I could do it! This wasn't a huge thing that I would write down in a baby book, but it was cute to see her lugging it my way and although it interrupted getting W down, I appreciated G's thought process and her not pouring it by herself all over the kitchen floor and needed to remember to tell S about it since he is not around to see all of those now. I love being a mom, but there are days when I feel like this too:

Just as long as there are not too many times during the day when all 4 of us are crying, I think we will make it. =)

Picasa photo update

We have updated our Picasa photo website with some new photo albums - check it out if you would like!

good things...

• seeing baby C become more alert in watching the world around him (mainly us!)
• s.i.l. C taking baby C and me out for a wonderful supper and dessert at Truffles and Tortes and then coming along to hold baby C while I got a haircut
• dads who were willing to feed and watch all the other kids so we could do that!
• enjoying S's last week at home
• surviving S's first week back at work
• baby carriers: the maya wrap and mei tai being favorites right now for our newborn
  
• G & W playing so well together
• shrieks of joy from them at simple things like chasing each other
• not dealing with hours of screaming from W every night anymore (only minutes =)
• chocolate and ice cream
  
• G "reading" W books
• W learning how to and loving coloring on paper
• C being such a good baby
• sleeping baby C snuggles, soft baby skin, baby C stretches and squirms and the resulting squeaks and groans, soft fuzz on baby C's head
• the feel of baby C's hand wrapped around my finger
• hearing G & W talk to baby C and hearing the love!
• what a good dad S is
• baby C's baptism last Sunday - a sign and seal of God's covenant with us and knowing that God's promises are true for baby C, God's covenant child

worth a thousand words...

"Hurray!"