Hello Tooth Fairy

On June 28, 2005, I spotted the signs of the first little pearly white tooth in my sweet little baby's mouth. (And I was blogging then!)
Yesterday, nearly 5 1/2 years later, that very same tooth fell out.

We had our very first visit from the tooth fairy! (She brought aqua sand. My first tooth fairy present was magic sand. Same deal, 28 years later.)

As you can imagine, this was a *very* big deal around here. :-)

In our other child news:
Miss Thing was weighed and measured at my 32 week appt last Monday and she is weighing in at a whopping 5.22 lbs already. I am pretty sure given my waddle this morning that she has doubled that in a week already, LOL.

We are 33 weeks today and barreling towards a new baby. Wooohoooo.

She is still quite stubbornly breech and I am seriously considering just scheduling the c-section*. Given everything we have been through I think I might agree with the OB that this is probably the best way to eliminate all of my anxieties about the "unknowns."

When considering childbirth, my little voice has said to me "someone has to be the statistic" and I CANNOT be that person again. While I know there is no 100% foolproof way to guarantee me a baby at the end of this, I am definitely weighing things in a way I never did with the Jack attack. (And PLEASE, if there is a God in Heaven, do not let me be another statistic.)

Despite all of that, knowing that she is likely 5 lbs already (and watching preemies on DHC that are half that size) has spurred me into motion on the baby prep front. She is certainly a "baby" in there now, and I realized we needed a car seat and diapers and bottles and so forth to be ready for her.

So. It is full on forward march on the baby front around here!

*If she doesn't turn I won't have a choice anyway. But I do have a choice about how far am I willing to go to try and get her to turn.

A Thanksgiving day parade of kindergarten crafts

Jack has been busy making a ton of Thanksgiving crafts at school the past two weeks!They had a pow wow party on Tuesday where they made vests, necklaces and headdresses.
There were lace up canoes.
A pilgrim.
An Indian.
A Pilgrim hat.
A tie dye turkey.
The obligatory hand print turkey.

And a papoose.

On this Thanksgiving I am thankful for:
The comfort of my grandparent's home, which is now 100% our own big home to fill with a growing family.
My crazy but wonderful kid.
My "always on the same page" hard working husband.
This wiggling baby I am carrying around with me.
My brother (a terrific cook) who makes the turkey so I don't have to do every single holiday anymore.
Time spent with my nieces and nephews.
And the reminder that even in this time of need for so many others that we have plenty. It might not be easy, but we certainly have more than enough. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

This weird thing happens

Like many of you, I sit here in my chair and browse blogs every morning. And I find myself crazy jealous when I see the Christmas scores that ladies like Barbara and Linda are making.

And I start to wallow a bit.

Man! I haven't found any good Christmas junk this year, yadda yadda.

And then I decide to put up the Christmas tree, because let's be honest here, I am only getting more and more pregnant by the minute. So I start digging boxes out of the basement and boxes out of the closets...
and I rediscover all the really lovely stuff in those boxes.
At some point I realize that I have hung up 200 ornaments and have only emptied ONE of 6 huge boxes of Christmas ornaments.

And then I start to think that there is no way I could possibly get all of the ornaments up in any given year, no matter how dedicated to the cause I might be.

(I really did think this year I was going to be able to sort through the entire collection. But I am the only person I trust to touch those ornaments and someone is going to have to take them back OFF the tree. Even closer to the time when Miss Thing arrives. Uh huh. Crazy talk that.)

So then I realize that unlike my other collections - the pottery, the quilts, the tablecloths - I don't live with the ornaments in any way every day of the year. Which means that I am really not very "in touch" with how much (or what) that collection includes.

It's a little surprise hidden away in the closets that I get to rediscover every year.

But only partially.

The children will probably be in college before I discover that last prize at the bottom of the cereal box, if you know what I mean.

It's a good reminder to keep that green eyed monster in check.

Because really? She is crazy. She has more ornaments than she even knows hidden away in that closet!

It's also a good reminder to spend more time napping on the couch, basking in the glow of the lights and the sparkle of their wonderful vintage glitteriness.

Kitsch

When I donated all that Christmas stuff last week I got rid of most of my Christmas kitsch. Anything plastic, anything felt, anything 1960's/1970's - out it went. It was fun stuff, but it was never seeing the light of day because my glittery, glass, sparkly vintage stuff is much more my speed.
And then I went to a garage sale and bought more felt! I couldn't resist these though. They are made on wool felt.
And even though the early morning light is not great they are the PERFECT colors - blue and green and pink and silver.
And she hand sewed every single one of those sequins and beads on them.

The problem is despite making great progress with the Christmas decorating this week, they are still sitting on the counter. They are kind of large (10 inches or so tall) and heavy and I have NO clue what to do with them.

I better sort it out soon or back into a donate box they go.

And just because it makes me laugh, a pilgrim Jack brought home from kindergarten yesterday.

Now back to hanging ornaments with me. As soon as I get those Christmas boxes out of the baby's room I can actually start to do something with her room. :-)

aye, aye, aye

Honestly, life is rocketing by me right now.

Here's what we have been up to:
Last Monday I had my 30 week OB appointment where I discovered that Miss Thing is still very breech. She still has some time to move (31 weeks today!), but, given my other complications and her position the OB is thinking a c-section is likely my best option.

On Wednesday Jack had a dental check up where we discovered that he has TWO adult teeth on the bottom in the front. I have been asking if any of his baby teeth were wiggly, but he hadn't reported any changes. Sure enough, two wiggly little teeth and two big teeth right behind them. I was SHOCKED! :-)

On Thursday my Dad and I went to the Veterans Day program at the elementary school, where my Dad was one of the veteran guests of honor. The kindergartners sang the sweetest little song to them, and I wish I had thought to bring a recording device. (There was no notice from the school or Jack that they would be singing. Oy.)
On Friday we FINALLY made the annual birthday trip to the zoo to take the required hippo photo.

On Saturday I started putting up some Christmas stuff. And doing about 9,000 hours of grocery shopping. Plus a Lowe's build and grow. Plus a HUGE thrift store donation (we are still clearing out the basement, and finally unpacking the moving boxes down there). I donated two HUGE U-haul boxes of Christmas stuff. Including ornaments. And you know what? I am totally okay with it.
On Sunday we went to the flea market. (In the cold. I am still a die hard, hugely pregnant and unable to walk or not.)

It was tablecloth day. (Sorry for the setting sun in the corner there.)
I picked up this green one.
And this HUGE one.

And this tiny one.

Then I came home and painted a cabinet for Miss Thing's room. (Which I am feeling way too pregnant to be doing, but this crud has to get done sometime. Hmmmm, I am starting to get the feeling that I am just feeling tired and pregnant. Ha.)

And then today I painted a new office chair.

I still have two pieces of furniture needing paint for her room, but I am afraid I am starting to run out of decent 60 degree days in which to get it done!

Hopefully I will be back sooner rather than later with some of those projects.

But if I am not, you can rest assured you will find me on the couch.

Tired and avoiding projects. Not to mention avoiding the fact that we are only something like 40 days from Christmas. Aye, aye, aye. LOL

Spread the word

With the holidays (and mega crafting time coming), you might need more glass glitter. I have ordered glass glitter from Meyer Imports before and this month they are offering a freebie - Every order gets a Free sample set of Vintage Spun Cotton and Plaster Mushrooms!

You can see the details on the special here .

Pssst, there's a freebie for blogging about it too. :-)

I can't help...

I can't help falling in love with another quilt again.

I swear to you they wait for me. It is a FREEZING cold day here (30 degrees) and I didn't even get to the yard sale until 11 am. And there she was, lying on the driveway, waiting patiently.
How can you not love this?
It's actually a very soft lavendar color.
With green and aqua and pale yellow french knots.

And the sweetest scalloped edge.

I may not be able to buy an ornament to save my life, but man, can I buy quilts the past few years.

(And I think I might have stumbled on the "why". I read an antique selling message board from time to time and this past week a conversation came up about a chair. The consensus was there was no market for the chair, many of them end up in burn piles, etc. which led to someone in Missouri bringing up quilts. He said he used to buy every quilt he could find and turn them around on Ebay for upwards of $400. Now that the market has gone "soft" he feels lucky to get $40 for them, so he passes them all by. For ME the Ebay market is still pretty $$$$ pricey as a buyer compared to what I can buy them for locally, BUT it does make me happy the market there is "soft". I have a love/hate relationship with Ebay anyway. It does drive down the price on some goods and it seems to drive up the price of others. Grumble grumble.)

Let's play

I know that some of you are wondering how Miss Thing's new room is coming along.

And well, it isn't.

We are still finishing the basement playroom (getting ever so close though!).

And I had to take down all the Halloween stuff. That took me 3 long days and now it feels like we are moving again. The house is so empty.
Today I am working on some playroom curtains with this roll of fabric I bought a few months back at Goodwill for 2 bucks. It's been cut on the bias, so there are places where it is joined together instead of one long strip, but I think I can still make it work.

Besides, it is so pretty and it is going to work perfectly with our mix and match paint down there.

Maybe I will also get a few pillows cranked out for the yard sale sofas we *finally* found last weekend.

After that I am going to work on the Christmas stuff. (Yes, it is early, but I am getting more tired by the day hauling her and I around!).

THEN, onto her room.

But more important than her room is the fact that she is still the baby with no name. By this point with Jack we had four really solid contenders.

We are finding girl names REALLY hard.

So maybe you want to throw a name in the hat?

It should be:
Classic, not creative
Strong and feminine but not childish
No "P" names, as our last name starts with a P and we cannot have a PeePee girl (ha!)

Jack has a very "presidential" name and I would really like to find something in the same vein. But for a girl.

Not.so.easy.

What can you come up with?

Halloween: The Final Chapter

I know most people are going to think that the owl costume was harder than this one to make.

But that is so not the case.

Figuring out how to make the wings, actually making them, and then attaching them? Hard work!

Most bat costumes just have wings attached to the undersides of the sleeves, but I thought it would just look like he was wearing a sweatsuit with ears.
In the end, I am happy with the result.
Since Jack declared it "the best costume ever" and spent much time "flapping" his wings in it, I think it was a hit.
Selfishly, I REALLY hope that when he is grown he will remember the mama made costumes fondly, because there was MANY a moment when I was cursing myself for not having just bought the Pottery Barn Bat and being done with it.

:-)

And with that it is November. 29 weeks pregnant today (hooray!) and my eyes are already set on the Christmas prize! I am looking forward to seeing my ornaments (which were all packed away last year), sorting through the Christmas bins and making that collection more manageable and waiting for the snow to come.