Little update

Not much has been going on except my complete exhaustion thanks to a cranky baby. She has a cold and its making her the fussiest thing. Ugh!

Tonight J and I are taking a ferry and having dinner in Kingston for our anniversary, which is tomorrow. 6 years! My Mom has the two older kids, but we're still a-totin' Elly around. Just a few more months and with some pumped breastmilk and Elsa can spend the night with Nana!

A few days ago Gwen asked me to make her a baby sling so that we could sling our babies together. Using a rough online pattern, I made her one and she's quite fond of it!



In other exciting news (heh), I wrestled my ginormous tomato plant and brought it indoors. I had already lost two tomatos to the cold (they split) and didn't want to risk the rest. I decided to this at 8pm so its totally dark out and I'm in the front yard trying to shake it out of its pot. Well, it finally came out and it was massively rootbound which explains the problems I had. Not one speck of dirt fell off the root ball, it was all packed in there. Knowing I could not bring this inside, I got a huge knife and started hacking at it, in the dark, in my front yard, in the drizzle. I probably looked rather frightening. Finally I got enough of it off and held it up like a giant snake to bring into the house. Then I realized just how long this stalk was. I was holding it right under the root ball and with my arm raised the stalk touched the ground and then some. WOW! That is a tall tomato vine.

According to some online information, if you hang the tomato plant in a warm spot they will continue to ripen slowly. It may take months, but it should happen. So now the beast of a tomato stalk is residing in my laundry room, perched on a shelf and tied down with bungees. There are only like 5 tomatoes on the plant (they're in the area by the dryer tubey thing), but I'll fight for them. If I have to wait till Christmas to eat a ripe tomato, by golly I will!

Product of sweat and tears

I've been toiling at some pattern modification for almost a week now and finally finished it up. The dress is a little big on Gwen, but no worries. She's still growing!

Its basically the tiered dress I've been making, but with long sleeves. Quite a few people have been asking for this variation and I think I finally figured something out! These are not great pics because they're indoor at night. I'll be doing better ones tomorrow.




I was also experimenting with doing variations on a single color in solids instead of alternating two printed fabrics. What do you think? I like the idea... I'm not so sure I like how it looks in person though. I almost think that doing the color variation in prints would look better. The solidity of each tier throws me off some way. Tell me if I'm just being weird though, because I've been staring at it far too much the past week.

Many pictures, mostly Elly. A video too!

Thank you to those who called and emailed me about my previous post. Your kind and encouraging words mean a lot to me.

I'm going to start off with a video of Elsa that I took a few days ago. It's kinda cute.

Elsa Laughing


The other day I caught Ethan reading a book to Elly (sorry about the creepy doll eyes. Many of my indoor pictures have been doing this of late and I'm not sure how to fix it!)


Gwen gave Elsa her dolly and Elsa thought it was... tasty? Gwen thought she was kissing the doll and we agree that kissing the dolly is a much cuter way of saying teething on the dolly :)

Mmmm... plastic ears.


This fake hair has an interesting texture.

I showed her who's the boss!


That same day, Gwennie was really into playing Mommy. She nursed her dollies when I nursed Elly, and again reminded me that she really needed a sling. I need to make that for her ASAP. Her hints are not so subtle!


Yesterday afternoon I went over to my friend April's house to hang out, help her with her garage sale (closed early due to bad weather) and then later in the evening, go to a birthday party for a friend. It worked out excellently because one of April's neighbors had a huge amount of excellent condition baby clothes and so I was able to pick up a stuffed bag of clothes for Elly and some for Gwen and a toy for $20.

Got some interesting shots of the wee one too.

"What? Why are you excited?"


"Oh this? This sitting thing?"


"Mommies are so easily impressed!"


Yep. She can sit! She's still working on the posture, but she can hold herself up for a good while. I really can't believe she's doing this already.

She really liked Buca Di Beppo. Loud, lots of pictures and colors and people to look at.


While I was gone yesterday, Jason took the kids to pick out costumes for trick-or-treating. Gwen is a butterfly princess and, as you can imagine, LOVES the costume. Ethan is Darth Vader.


Elsa, I think due to the weird schedule since we were out, slept poorly and I therefore slept poorly and feel rather icky this morning. I actually feel like I have a hangover, which is strange because I had one small drink. It didn't even make me feel tipsy in the slightest. Last time I went out and had a drink I felt the same way the morning after too. I must be getting old if one tiny drink leaves me feeling this way!

Weird mood

Yesterday, thanks to the almost total lack of sleep and some huge hormonal changes, I ended up with a killer migraine. Luckily, by yesterday evening it was ebbing away but that feeling of a whole day lost lingers. I hate losing a day to a headache or illness. It feels like it takes me a week to catch back up.

Today, I woke with that fresh and perky feeling that one has after having a miserable previous day. Kids went off to school and Elly and I hit the dollar store for a few things. Well, it was supposed to be a few things and I walked out of there with 20 things but that's how it goes I suppose :)

Came home and had 45 min to spare, so Elsa and I took a brisk 1 mile walk. It was especially brisk on the way home as it started to rain!

After getting the kids and arriving home I immediately felt kind of down. My house was spotless on Monday. Today its totally trashed. Laundry everywhere. Honestly, there is not one room right now that doesn't have some type of laundry (clean or dirty) cluttering it up. I feel closed in by toys, even though we really don't have that many.

I feel frustrated! It seems like I should be able to find some joy or pleasure in keeping a neat and clean house, but I don't. I abhor cleaning up. I'd rather be doing almost anything else. Especially when everything gets messed up so fast.

And I feel frustrated by my parenting too. I want to enjoy my kids, and yet most of the day I find myself aggravated and worn out by their (totally age appropriate) antics and I rush them off to nap and bedtimes so I can have some peace. That doesn't feel right to me. It doesn't feel right that I count the hours until they go to sleep so I can be alone.

I guess I'm in a bit of a funk right now. I want to do better, but I'm in a weird place where if I try to do better and fail, it makes me feel worse than if I hadn't tried at all. Like, "Gah, even when I'm really trying to enjoy my children I still end up irritated. What is wrong with me?". I long to find contentment and joy, or heck, even just peace, with my day to day duties but I just don't. Sigh.

Well, this blog was random. Guess I'll end here before I go off on another tangent.

Elsa Toes

It appears that my cousin Holly and I had similar nights with our respective babies.

Elsa was up pretty much all night. Fuss fuss fuss, and no relief. She woke up for good around 4:30am and would not go to sleep, nor lay quietly in bed with me, or even nurse. So we got up. And already I can barely keep my eyes open. This does not bode well for my day.

To remind myself why I do not run from the house screaming and pulling my hair out after such evenings and nights like these, I present Elsa and her newly discovered toes.

She was diaperless, which only added to her joy. And as you can see, she's on her side. She's this "" close to rolling over.

The toes are almost in reach. Excitement building!


"Are those it Mom? Do I have them?"


"Yes! Life is good."

A dress done for Monkeytoes, and other assorted pictures

For some reason these two pictures crack me up. Perhaps I'm an evil Mommy, but I've always thought that baby/toddler angry faces are hilarious. I don't let them get frustrated or angry for my own enjoyment, but when they happen and I catch one on film, I do enjoy giggling.

All is fine with the three. This was when everyone was sick and was crashing on the couch watching TV. No, the baby wasn't sitting there for ages watching TV, I'd put her down for a few minutes so I could get some things done.


Not two seconds later... ANGRY BABY. I understand if you don't get my humor. But I'm sorry, her angry face is pretty funny. Ethan's all, "Wow, that's loud" and Gwen is "Whatever".


A few days ago, Gwennie snuggling Elly and putting her to sleep!


At the park today, with April and her boys.


And finally, the dress I sewed up for Monkeytoes (that's her online name, if you couldn't tell). Isn't it cute? I love polka dots.

Fall cleaning

We had an enjoyable, but busy, weekend.

Saturday, I dashed off in the morning to hit two fabric stores to replace my botched work and then did grocery shopping (note to self: avoid grocery shopping on weekends in the future!). I got home and just an hour later we left to go to my Mom and Dad's house for the afternoon. We had a great time! The kids picked a ginormous bowl of blackberries (around 6 cups!) which we made into a pie. Jenni, Jason and I played rummy (I won, boo-ya!) and then Scrabble, which Jason won only because he cheated and I wasn't certain enough to challenge the word. Good times. We had grilled rib-eye steaks, coleslaw and potatoes for dinner, followed by our blackberry pie and ice cream. Good eating, that is for sure!

Sunday, we skipped church (I know. I KNOW.) and I devoted myself to cleaning. April is coming over today and I just couldn't be exposed as the poor housekeeper that I truly am. So I scrubbed, swept, folded, sorted, and tidied all day. Jason helped too! Now, lest you feel bad about us working so hard April, its a good thing it got done. We NEED to be forced into this type of cleaning every now and then. Honestly, we should have monthly get-togethers at our house just to keep us on top of the ball.

The weather has been, and is going to be, so nice for the next couple of days. When was the last time we had a 5 day string of 70+ temps at the end of September? Any and all sunny days are welcome, as my tomatoes need every drop of warmth and sunlight they can get. Still green, but slowly getting more and more yellow. Go tomatoes, your time is running short!

Yesterday, amongst the cleaning frenzy, I was able to almost complete the dress I've been working on for an online friend. I just need to put on the ruffle. Its a darling brown flower/polka dot dress. Pictures will be forthcoming once its finished.

Crazy week

What a long week this has been. With school, doctor appointments and MOPS today, the only day home we weren't out and about was Monday. Over the summer we generally would only go out one or maybe two days a week, so this was an exhausting change. I'm sure once I get into the swing it won't be so tiring.

MOPS started today and I was placed at a table, once again, with no one that I really knew! I always hope that I'll be placed with someone I know, but because our group is pretty large its just so happened that every year its a whole new table. My table mates seem nice though, and I think we'll have a fun year.

Nearly everyone is cold free now, but Ethan is still struggling. He just does not rebound as fast as everyone else. His face is chapped and red and his nose doesn't stop running. I'm wondering if part of it is allergies because with a stuffy nose the prescription nose spray can't get into the sinuses.

An order came in for a dress from my new site and I was on track to have it all finished up this weekend. Until things started going wrong. My measurements were wonky in some way (2 hours of working on it and I'm still not sure why things weren't matching up) and so now I have to go buy more fabric to redo the whole skirt section. I was SO frustrated, especially since I wasted so much time on trying to fix the problem with a creative workaround. Mistakes happen and generally I'm pretty relaxed about them, but some problems are more frustrating than others!

Here's a piece of random trivia about Gwendolyn. She calls her light up tennis shoes her "purple running snaps". Now, they are purple, but the snaps thing really doesn't make any sense.

Elly-baby is 4 months!

Or, she was on the 19th! I can't believe she's growing up so fast.

Today we took her in for her 4 month checkup. My Mom, bless her heart, came over early this morning and took the kids to school and picked them up while I was at the appointment.

Elsa dropped a bit in the percentages... she weighs 12lbs, 5oz (10-25%) and is 23 3/4 inches long (25%). She was in 50% last time. No worries though. My babies have always been very slow gainers.

Everything checked out well for her. Our pediatrician is so great. She remembers all the kids and their histories and is easy going. I know I sing her praises every time we see her, but she is that good! Elly got her pokes and I always hate that part. I'm so torn on vaccines.

Anyway, Gwen is zonked out on the couch and Ethan has played a one too many levels of Lego Star Wars and its time for me to get moving and make some lunch.

Just to spice up this dull blog post, here's one of my favorite recipes that we had for dinner last night, Chicken Veronique.

A Pinafore

Yet another item that I churned out... finished this one yesterday. It was a bit more complicated than I had first imagined. I like this patchwork print simply because it will match any and every color in Gwen's closet!



Now in my minds eye, pinafores are not closed in the back. So I may try this again but leaving the back seam undone. I think I will also skip the hook & eye and do a button loop and button.


And because she was such a good model, I told her I'd post a picture of silly face as a reward :)