Money Tree

Recently we celebrated Husband's 37th birthday. I asked him if he wanted gifts or just money towards a guitar pedal and he, obviously, said money. I felt like I wasn't really giving him anything to open if I just put the money in a card so I looked up cartoon trees and made him this. :)
Btw, I don't think he would've cared either way but this gave him something to do since I taped the money to the tree with scotch tape. hehe

Crocheted Baby Blanket

I finished the baby blanket a couple of days before the baby shower. Ok, maybe the day before the shower. :)


I added the wavy border around all four sides of this blanket. On my mom's blanket I only added it to the two ends. And, it's a lot smaller than the one I made for my mom. lol. Of course, because babies are small! I used my own baby as a measuring tool and thought that it would be a nice size for little baby boy. Hope he likes it. ;)

Baby Shower Favors

I'm a hoarder. Ok, maybe not in the sense of the TLC show. OK, maybe more like a pack rat. But, for the past year I've really tried to reform. You may be asking, what is she talking about? I love containers. If I ever walk into the Container Store, I may pass out. :) I have tried really hard to go through and minimize the amount of gift bags I have and I don't save boxes anymore. whew. lol. But, when I switched to stage 2 baby food, ya know, in the cute little glass jars, I was smitten. I wondered what I could store in them. Then I thought that I could make baby shower favors with them! Hooray!
Thankfully I have a friend who saved some jars for me and I ended up with 40!!!

Husband bought me some goo be gone and it conveniently came with a plastic scraper. I got all the labels off and re-washed the jars.

Husband then got me some "direct to metal" paint that would actually stick to the lids. Hannah helped me paint them because, she said, "You have so much work to do. I have to help you." :)


After two coats of the paint and my addition of blue hearts painted on the lids and ribbon tied around the jars, I added the sweetheart candy (since it's almost Valentine's Day) and I was done. What do you think?


I'm happy to report that I am now over the "novelty" of these jars. I'll be glad to just throw them in the recycling bin!!!

Crocheted Blanket

A long, long time ago (hehe) I thought I would crochet a blanket for my mom as her Christmas gift. It's too hot to crochet in the summer and when October quickly arrived I almost gave up on making the blanket. I didn't think I had enough time. And then there was this post by my friend Kristen that I remembered, and I decided to try and crochet one row (or 100 stiches) a day. I figured that would give me a reasonable goal to follow and I would finish in time. Thankfully both were true and I finished in the week before Christmas.


Do you think she liked it? :)


After things settled down and Christmas was put away, I really wanted to start another project. A friend of mine is due to have her 2nd baby on March 11th so I thought I'd make a little blanket for her baby boy. I found a huge skeen of yarn at the craft store and since it was 1/2 off, I bought two--just in case I don't have enough. And, , , I can't remember if I gave momma-to-be this blog address so if I did, she can just act surprised at her baby shower. I'll be surprised too if I can get it finished in time. ;)

My goal for getting this done: 5 rows (or 355 stiches)a day. Because, really, I need to get a move on for this to be done!
Here's what I have so far:


Isn't this the cutest yarn?

It's Been 13 Years

Today is Olivia's birthday. She is 13. Can you believe it? I can't.

They say time heals all wounds. Some wounds I'm afraid, never heal. They just can't. And I think losing a child is one of those.

It was 8 years between the time I gave Olivia up for adoption and when my daughter Hannah was born. You know how good it feels when you hold your baby close to you, so their head is on your shoulder and your hand is on their back? It's the best feeling in the world. For 8 years I had the insatiable desire to hold my baby like that and care for her. Sooo frustrating. And Mother's Day was hard. And Christmas.

And, her birthdays.

But the pain has eased, especially since I have another sweet baby (now 7 months old) to love on and snuggle with. The Lord has really, really, really, really, really, really BLESSED us with TWO sweet little girls to love and I am SOOOO thankful.

I have a lot of other thoughts to share, like what my relationship is like now with Olivia, how I wasn't included in the "family" birthday party they had for Olivia yesterday and how we have to visit her this coming weekend, etc. but I want to end the post here.

I'm doing fine today. I may hug & kiss my own little girls a little harder today (if that's even possible!) but I just felt that I wanted to write something on this special day.

Happy Birthday, Olivia. I love you so much.

Girls' Room, Part II

Here, finally, are more pictures of the girls' room. I spent at least a hour & 1/2 on it the other day re-arranging Hannah's bed and making that corner more usable for her dress up things, barbies and doll house.





The two bins under the crib are for Hannah's stuffed animals. That gets them out of the way.


I finally cleared out the crib for Kayla so it will be ready when she outgrows the bassinet (that is conveniently located in our room)...


... looks like that will be real soon!!!


The other side of the room... closet with labeled toy bins and Hannah's 9000 books.




Going to try and get the wooden letters for the girls' names hung up today. Maybe Husband will do it for me! ;)

Happy organizing!

Facebook

These days you can find most anyone thru facebook. Olivia is on there and so is her older brother (we'll call him Alan). The other day her older brother shared what someone had written on his page. Or maybe it was someone else's page but Alan was clearly the one being written to. This other kid said something like, "... you adopted piece of s*** ni**a. You're gonna pick cotton on my farm." ouch. Makes you wonder what kind of family he comes from.

I think I have mentioned before that Olivia is bi-racial. Well, so is her older brother. I have to admit though that the part that bothered me the most is the "adopted" part. Like Alan is less than anyone else b/c he was adopted. And it makes me wonder if Olivia will face ppl like that--or if she has already.

Kids are mean. And facebook is just another avenue for kids to bully one another. If they were my kids they wouldn't be on at all. Is it really worth it? I'm soooo glad that FB wasn't around when I was their age. Or especially in college when I was at my dumbest. :/

What do you think?