Some new sofa bling

I decided that the living room needed a little refresher and a few throw pillows were the perfect (cheap) answer. I bought a couple of yards for the backing and a couple of fat quarters to fill out my color scheme, but everything else came from my stash!

I have another star pillow cut and ready to go, plus I have 2 smaller pillows that I have planned, but not started yet. It has been really nice to play with some patterns and not commit to a full size blanket right now. The rail fence pattern is from the book The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman - a wonderful resource I got from my hubby for Christmas. The wonky stars pillow I saw here - along with the awesome tutorial. I am thinking about doing it as a full blanket one day. (We'll see if and when that happens)

Knitting is coming along...I am mostly working on it when we are in the car. Not much else is happening because Timothy is waking up in the middle of the night (ugh), and sometimes only takes one nap that lasts an hour. What happened to my good sleeper?!?! I am hoping that he returns to his better sleeping habits soon! Other distractions in my life: 67 degree weather.

In January.

Timothy and I escaped the house and went for a walk. It was amazing!

Projects on deck (after the other 3 pillows are done):

Boppy covers (for myself and my sister)

Catching up on my blocks of the month for the local quilters' guild

Knit dishrags to replenish my own stash and for my mom (she gave me a load of the yarn!)

Maybe make a throw?

Research the possibility of making a summer queen quilt for our bed (the pregnancy is getting to my head!!)

Taming the Beast

Timothy got his first haircut today! Strangers were starting to refer to our daughter (even when he is dressed in obvious boy clothes, but whatever) and it was getting caught in his bib in the back.

Before:

After:

(with a quick outfit change to get all of the itchy hair off)

He is looking more and more like a little boy!

It's here!

I am really excited today for my new piano! I have been looking for one the last couple of weeks and have seen several in the area. I had just about resigned myself to a 1926 BEAST of an upright when this lady called about her 2 pianos, one of which she wanted to get rid of. Saturday I went over to see it and was shocked to find a 5 year old Samick piano that was in great shape! After coming home and talking to Jared about it, we called her back yesterday saying that we wanted to go ahead and purchase it. She called me back this morning and said they could bring it over this afternoon! I was so excited! It needs a good tuning, but should be ready here in a week or two for concerts and teaching lessons. Now I just need to put an ad in the paper for a couple of students... :)

Quite the month

Did you know that there are coin operated trains in the mall? Maybe I just never noticed them before. But now that I have a little boy who loves to watch anything in motion, I notice things like this and we stopped to watch. And he loved it! :)

Unfortunately, this past weekend, Timothy also picked up a stomach bug. It started Saturday morning and by Sunday afternoon, we were visiting the local hospital and getting fluids. We went in thinking we were going to be there for just a few hours getting fluids and we ended up spending 2 nights. Timothy didn't seem to mind, other than having the IV put in and taken out. All of the nurses came by to say hi and he happily gave smiles to everyone who came in except the nurse that held him down while they were doing the IV.

I am happy to report that we are back home, sleeping in our own beds and not spitting up everything. We are checking in with his doctor tomorrow, just to make sure.

More good news!

Jared doesn't need surgery on his shoulder! After his appointment with the surgeon, it sounded pretty definite that there was some sort of tear in a tendon, but the MRI came back with no sign of any tears or abnormalities. The surgeon is recommending 8 weeks of physical therapy to help his should muscles regain the correct balance of usage. Yay!

New Direction

Well, we had a really good trip to Sioux Falls yesterday. Timothy is being switched to 30 cal/ounce formula so he can continue to grow and we get reduced to 18 hours on the pump. After he adjusts to that, we can increase the rate on the pump so he gets 8 hours off! This is really encouraging because he isn't interested in eating lots of food because he isn't hungry. Hopefully, this will be a smooth and happy transition for both Timothy and parents. The doctor is pleased with his weight gain and the amount of spit-up is decreasing, so we are looking at a check-up in 4 months!

The second half of our appointment was with the cardiologist and checking out the hole Timothy has in his heart and the bicuspid valve. After the echocardiogram (which including trying to keep him still for half an hour while watching a baby signing video), we met with the doctor and were told that he doesn't have a bicuspid valve after all! Sometimes when they are so small and beating fast, it is hard to see the valve clearly, but he clearly has three little flaps moving and no clicking sounds in his heartbeat. This means he doesn't need to worry about the valve eventually failing and needing to be replaced. :) His VSD (hole between the lower chambers of the heart) has been downgraded to small. He also has ASD (hole between the upper 2 chambers) that is also small. We didn't even know he had one there, but he does and it is nothing major. We are going to continue to monitor these two places to make sure that they get smaller over time - no other action needed. We go back in 8 months.

A very happy mommy and daddy were going to go out for dinner, but someone hadn't had an afternoon nap and not wanting to risk a total meltdown in a restaurant (because who wants to deal with that?), we grabbed dinner and headed home. I don't know many people who make a 12 hour day to visit 2 doctors, but we did, survived, and are crashing at home for the rest of the week. :) Hopefully this means that we can work on the crawling and see some improvements in this area...like not smacking our forehead into the floor when trying to move forward. Hope you have a happy week!

Sunday afternoon nap

There is nothing like coming home from church and taking a nap. Poor little man woke up this morning with a stuffy nose, so we curled up together on the couch after he whined and sneezed for 30 minutes in his crib. I got my snuggles and he feel asleep, breathing through his mouth and snoring. :) By the way, he is now 13 months! More on this in a later post...

I have been able to get a good length done the past few evenings and in the car to Spearfish and back. I am hoping to get another good chunk done tomorrow on the way to Sioux Falls and back.

This was taken about 3 seconds after the above picture. I guess she knows how to pick out a comfortable spot...

Jared had a good appointment with the surgeon about his shoulder and was able to get in for an MRI right away. I'll post more details when we hear the results from the MRI, but it looks like he will need surgery to repair some kind of tear.

Tomorrow we head to Sioux Falls for Timothy's appointments with the pediatric specialists. We are hoping that we can get the go ahead to start weaning him off of the feeding pump. Keep us in your prayers!

Oh yeah, and I am still pregnant. :) We are at 15 weeks now and everything is looking good!

New Project

I got to splurge on some new yarn for my birthday and have a new project on the needles. It is a new baby blanket for our summer baby. I chose Bernat Softee Baby in aqua on size 7 needles. I am loving this yarn because it is sooo soft, is a lightweight size 3 (appropriate for a baby born in the summer), and is 100% acrylic. I know there are some wonderful natural fibers out there, but this thing will be washed a lot and we have a beautiful blanket of Timothy's that was washed in hot water and I felted it on accident. oops :) We still use it because it was larger in size to start, but it is definitely smaller and thicker than intended. So I am sticking to acrylic.

I am using the summer waves baby blanket pattern on ravelry. (I love ravelry!) This is such a nice pattern that features shells and a thin cable - and it only has a pattern repeat of 4 rows and was free! The only thing I did to alter the pattern was increase the width by one pattern and decrease the needle size from 9 to 7 so I could make up for using the lightweight yarn.

I am looking forward to updating you with the status of my project (hence this posting - I figured it would motivate me to get it done quicker). I am expecting it to go pretty fast - we are headed to Rapid on Friday for an appointment and then to Sioux Falls on Monday for more appointments. 3 hours each way, each city in the opposite direction. I am looking forward to Tuesday and not having to get in the car with a 13 month old!

lack of projects

So, I had every intention to take pictures of projects that I made for gifts and then make a big post after Christmas and show off some of my handiwork. Unfortunately, they all got wrapped without the picture, so I have nothing to show for my work. :) Oh well. I think everyone liked what I made, and that is the most important thing.