Christmas in July (& a shameless brag)

For Christmas for the past few years, my in laws have given us a family pass to the Virginia Living Museum, which is located just a few blocks away from us. I LOVE having this family pass and highly recommend that you look into asking for annual passes to your local zoo or museum the next time grandparents wonder what the kids would like for a gift.

We visit often (although not as often as the short people think we should), and every time, I am able to remind the kids that Grandpa and Grandma gave us our tickets, for which they are very grateful.

Today we went specifically to see "The Giant Dinosaur Puppet Show" that is running in conjunction with the big dino exhibit going on now.

The following are pictures of the kids on some of the dino props and with some of the creatures they brought out before the puppet show. Check out Joy's strangle hold around Jessi's neck. It makes me laugh.
With one of the puppeteers and small puppets (Some of the puppets were VERY large).
Joyana touching a snake.
Joey touching an alligator.
Before the show, Jessi was waiting and sat in this circle of sunshine from a skylight, I thought it looked neat.

Joey touching a blue-tongued skink. A dragonfly I spotted as we walked through the native Virginia garden. He was so nice, let me get up close and take a number of shots before flying away.
This is where the shameless brag starts. Joyana enjoying her chocolate ice cream cone. She is so funny, if you ask her where she got her green eyes, she says, "God", but if you ask her where she got her curly hair, she goes into this long explanation that I only understand about half of, but has to do with "last night she got bonked on the head." Go figure.
This was right after a nice big lick and she still had her eyes closed in ecstasy.

Oh, the above pictures were just bragging on her cuteness, this is where I brag on her smartness. :-)
She is two and a half, look at her draw... she must take after Mom-Mom (my mom), I love to be creative, but drawing certainly isn't my niche.

This is "tiny baby Jesus", of course, she thinks all babies are baby Jesus, this could get interesting when our new baby comes...
This is Daddy. The line on his chin is his beard.
All that, and she can count to 11. Why 11 and not 10? I really don't know. At least she has now learned her odd numbers, there for a while she was counting by 2's. I did figure that one out... when I knit I usually count by 2.

My "piece de resistance"

I've posted before about my dyeing and spinning and of course knitting. I'm sure I've posted pictures of items I've knit out of yarn I dyed, but I do believe this is the first that I've shown of an item that I dyed AND spun AND knit. I spin on a drop spindle and to make enough yarn to actually create something takes a while (probably because of my crafting ADD which makes me change gears every few minutes!).
So, without further ado...
hand dyed, handspun, then Navajo plied, Targhee wool yarn. I did everything but raise the sheep for this! *Ok,everything except raise the sheep, shear the sheep, degrease the wool, comb the wool...but really, this is pretty much "from scratch." The Navajo ply is what makes each strand a different color at any given point in the yarn and gives it the sudden random color changes.

I made brown trim yarn to tone it down a bit, although I love all the jewel colors, I think the brown helps to anchor it a bit.
Another close up of the scrumptious yarn.

This is a wool soaker that I will use for Cloth Diapering BabyJ. Wool, when untreated, has natural waterproof and antibacterial properties that make it a wonderful choice to use as a "moisture barrier" for covering cloth dipes. Here it is in progress, still on the needles.

And now, the finished soaker. I am just so thrilled with how it turned out. I made it a small so I wouldn't run out of yarn, and ended up having a little bit left. I think when baby outgrows this I will rip it out and redo it one size up so he/she can wear it again.

when it rains, it pours

and no, I'm not talking about Morton Salt.

Right off I want to say that my intention in posting the following is to somehow glorify God, not to have a "poor me" thing going on. I don't believe that God causes everything that happens to happen; I do think that as a Christian, my life is in his hands and things are allowed to happen, and he may or may not choose to intervene. What amazes me though is that when things DO happen, when we give them to the Lord, he can redeem things and make all things work together for our good. Not what we may think is good, not our preferences, but what is truly good FOR us. At times... it may be like medicine.

I mentioned several posts ago that Jeff had to go back in for outpatient surgery. Thanks to wonderful friends, I had no shortage of people to watch the kids for me. One little thing that was "neat" (hats off to Mrs. B) was that the one friend who I wanted to watch the kids due to her proximity to the hospital didn't return my phone call in time, so I made arrangements with another friend who lives across town. After the arrangements were made, I found out that the procedure was NOT in the hospital I thought it was... it was in fact, in a location closer to our house and to the home of the friend who had agreed to watch the kids. My plan didn't work... but God knew and the plans that ended up happening were far better.

The procedure went well in the sense that there ended up being nothing wrong, but the downside is that it is taking longer than we expected to heal (perhaps from having two incisions in the same spot within 8 weeks??) so he has spent another week doing part time days at work and is quite sore.

This week was Jeff's actual follow up with the GI for his pathology report (we had previously gotten initial reports by phone from the nurse). I really wanted to go with Jeff so we could talk to the Doctor together. I knew the date was July 2 and had actually mentioned it to a few friends about a week and a half ago (when I was arranging for care for the outpatient procedure) that I would need help again on this date. Well, living in my own little world as I do, I was unaware that July 2 was this soon. I honestly thought I had another week... On Monday, not one, but TWO friends called to make sure that I had someone to watch the kids on Wednesday. I was a little confused, why did I need a sitter on Wednesday? For Jeff's appointment. Oh, is that THIS week? Duh. But seriously, how cool is that? How BLESSED am I that I not only have friends willing to practically raise my kids through all this physical stuff we've been dealing with, but they remember my appointments better than I do and call to make sure someone is watching the kids? Is God good or what?

Wednesday morning Jessi woke up with her left eye swollen shut. I assumed it was allergies or something like that and gave her benedryl. It went down some but did not respond like I would have liked, however, we went to the GI anyway and left the kids with my friends, went on to church that night. I knew it wasn't pinkeye as her eye itself looked fine, it was just the lid and all around it.

The report from the GI doctor was pretty much as expected,but he worded it a little stronger than the nurse had... "you should be thanking whoever it is that you thank that you were sick enough to be sent in and all the pieces came together to make me do the colonoscopy. Your cells were precancerous and you would not have made it to age 50 to begin check-ups" Again, we are struck with the fact that nothing about all the sickness that Jeff went through was good, but GOD has worked it all together for our good. Jeff being so severely ill and in the hospital and having the surgery literally has saved his life. Every so often it hits me, and I get chills. Praise God!

Thursday morning Jessi woke up with the eye still pretty bad, and an addition of having a pretty good fever. Now you must understand that I do not normally run the kids to the doctor (see previous post about procrastinating for MONTHS to transfer to a new pediatrician), however, none of this added up and I felt very strongly, almost compelled, to call and get an appointment. I figured if the new ped wouldn't take us (I hadn't even had the records transferred yet) that I would call the old ped and just drive all the way there. The new Ped did take us "can you be here in 35 minutes?" Uh... gulp. all three kids in PJs still and driving there through morning traffic. SURE we can be there... by the way, where is the office exactly!?!?

We made it, I filled out much paperwork, called the old ped and had them fax over just the shot records, and they took her back. Our appointment was with the NP (nurse practitioner) who was quite shocked at her eye. She did a very complete exam and history then left to go get the Doctor. Hmmm. Interesting. The doctor came in and was shocked at the eye, confirmed that it was cellulitis, and told the NP to proceed as she had planned, and warned us that if it got worse, to go straight to the hospital. The NP told me that they would give her oral and eye drop antibiotics, and to use warm compresses on the eye. She showed me a small slit inside the eyelid where they assume Jessi was developing a sty but instead of forming a head, it "went internal." She also told me that I was going to have to come back on Monday to check her, but in the meantime if anything happened over the long weekend to go straight to the hospital. She walked us up to the checkout desk and AGAIN told me to keep an eye on it, if it got any worse or looked bigger, go straight to the ER. Yikes. I get the message!

Not being familiar with cellulitis, I came home and looked it up online. Note to self: don't DO that! Apparently cellulitis can be treated with antibiotics, but can go bad very quickly if not treated appropriately. Scary stuff.

We dropped the prescriptions off and went home for a little while before it was time to pick up Jeff. Jessi's fever was now up to 102.5 so I gave her tylenol, an hour later it was still there so I gave her motrin as well and started wondering about this whole cellulitis thing...

I was supposed to have gone in to the Chiropractor Thursday morning but due to Jessi, didn't go in. I called and she said that she got off at noon but she would meet me back there in the afternoon. This actually worked out GREAT because she wanted to show Jeff some moves to do to me to keep me functioning in between visits to her. Between me not making it in the morning and needing to go pick up Jeff early from work in the afternoon, it was perfect timing, she wanted to meet me right at the time that I had to go get Jeff anyway.

We went and got Jeff, picked up Jessi's prescriptions (her fever was down now) and went to the Chiro. They are a husband and wife team and our kids LOVE their kids. Since she was officially off duty, she had the girls with her so all our kids played together. It looked like a daycare and not a doctor's office, LOL. Dr. Kelly showed Jeff some things he could do to help my hip and pelvis issues and also had Dr. Kevin come in and strong arm me some too. By the way, how AWESOME is it to have a Dr. who instead of telling me that I have to come see her every day to stay well, comes in after hours to teach my husband how to help me at home? Is God good? Oh yes!

After a long day we went home and toward evening Jessi was really feeling punky. She had napped a few times through the day but now the fever started climbing and she urped a few times. I gave her tylenol with her temp at 103, an hour later it was 104 and she couldn't keep the motrin down. I put her in the tub and got her calm and a little cooler, tried the motrin again and it stayed down. Then we tried the antibiotic and got an immediate and violent vomiting, her fever was above 104 and she was having chills/shaking. Jeff and I decided after all the warnings that morning, she needed to go straight in to the hospital. He took her in and I stayed with the other kids.

She apparently scored the right numbers on the triage because they took her back immediately upon arrival. The first nurse tried to give her oral meds for the fever... Jeff warned them, but hey, they have to try, right? On cue she gave it right back to the nurse (and of course her and Jeff's clothes). They then moved on to suppositories which she was not liking, and they started an IV for fluid and antibiotic. They couldn't get the fever down either so gave her something else in the IV and finally the combo worked. They also did a CT scan to make sure that the infection was not going in deeper behind the eye into the eye socket. That came back clear, so the big issue was just getting the fever down. Jeff and Jessi made it home from the hospital about 4 am Friday. They did get the fever down to 99/100 range and said that the IV antibiotics would last for about 24 hours and that gave us time to figure out how to get her to keep the oral ones down or contact her ped for more instructions. Oh yes, also a prescription for phenergan (anti nausea). She slept almost the whole day on Friday, waking up for an hour here or there for medicine, drink, and food.

By Friday night the change was AMAZING. Her eye was 80% better and she hasn't had a fever issue since then. The big deal was getting her to take the antibiotic. Not only does it taste NASTY (Augmentin), she had it associated with being what made her SO very sick the day before. By layering drink, food, phenergan, and then the Augmentin, she did keep it down. That and the fact that I appealed to her sense of logic by showing her pictures of germs online and telling her that such ucky gross germs needed a super ucky gross medicine to kill them, worked. She screws up her face and takes it like a champ, confident that she is really giving those gross germs a good beating.

This is the first day, she couldn't open her eyelid for several hours.Second day, it's open, but barely. I missed taking a picture yesterday. It was mostly open, but very bruised and purple looking all around.
You can see how much better it is! If I weren't watching it so closely, I probably wouldn't notice. The eyelid is still tiny bit droopy and there is a purple shadow all around the eye. Otherwise, it's fine.
Today (Saturday) she is acting like she is fine, but she is still tired easily. I am SO Thankful to God for putting that feeling on me that I knew I needed to take her in. I never do that... they have to be half dead and I have exhausted all my potions, herbs, and spices to go in. I certainly didn't want to go in...after all, I wasn't even officially a patient yet!

I have laid down the law. No one, for any reason, is allowed to get sick until at least November. I can not go through what we have gone through in the past two months with a newborn! And, with all my hip and pelvis problems, I am DONE for now too. So that is that. Schedule all sickies for three months post baby. Hmph.

As far as Jessi's sickness goes, this is what I have to share. Jessi is in Rainbow Kids Club at church (precursor to the scouting age classes) and for the month of July, they have a project called a "Praise Calendar", they are supposed to come up with one thing to praise God for each day and we write it down. Tuesday her praise was "daddy went back to work", Wednesday, it was "Got to go to Rainbows and learn about God", Thursday was, "Saw our new doctor and she is nice", Friday was "they took care of me at the hospital and I'm much better." Friday evening as we wrote this down, she wanted to go ahead put Saturday's praise on the calendar. I asked her what it was, and she said, "God healed me and I am all better today."

Talk about conviction. What faith! After years of serving God and experiencing his care and goodness, is my faith strong enough to go ahead and fill out my praise calendar for the next day?

Dear God, when I get too involved with thoughts of doctrine and theology and the ins and outs how God works...take me right back to the basics, the simple and all encompassing faith of a child who fully trusts that God will do what is best.

stuff

There is a reason my blog is called Stuff and Nonsense. Don't get mad at me... you clicked it!

--Today I finally called the pediatrician who I've been thinking of switching to. I only got the number from a friend like... 3 months ago or something. Anyway, she is taking new patients and takes our insurance. We've used the same amazing ped practice since I became a civilian when Jessi was a tiny baby but his office is in Va Beach. That was far enough when we lived in Hampton, but now in N.N., it is prohibitively far. The kids are SOOOO behind on well-child checks (although I figure I can tell if they are well or not), but with a new baby coming, I figured I did need to find a local Doctor that I will actually go to, you know? Anyway, this Ped practice is very "natural family" friendly, in fact your first new baby appointment, even before the two week check up with the Dr., is with their lactation consultant. She also has a reputation for not freaking out if you don't vax on schedule, which will be handy. And, she is not 45 minutes away through bridge/tunnel traffic, that is the biggest plus of all. So it took 30 minutes on the phone to get the kids into the system and schedule new patient/well-child checks for them all, but that is done.
--I was planning to call the violin teacher and interview her/ make arrangements for a visit, but am still hoping for a little more feedback in all the places I've posted.
--I sewed on the kids' badges for Rainbows and Rangers.. although I think I may be missing some for Jessi. The teacher told me once that they should have 19 badges when they finish, and I only have 15, unless they are counting the club patch and the Rainbow patch, which is 17, but still, they are on their last badge before graduation, so I would still be missing one. I know Jessi has earned them all, but I was SO behind that I sewed on 5 just today and there could easily be some lost.
--We took Jeff in to work and then went and picked him up (he's working partial days again post surgery) and stopped at a thrift store to check the price on a bookcase they have outside. I was thinking $15-20. Ha. The guy claims it's solid oak and it's $80. Well... if it's solid oak and worth $80, he needs to strip the 23 layers of white paint off of it so it will look like it!
--We played outside for a bit, how lazy am I? I got one of those battery operated bubble blower wands so I can sit my fat pregnant self in the shade and with a push of the button generate 100's of bubbles. Seriously, the other week they wanted bubbles and I got light headed trying to blow that much. There is not much lung room left in there. When they were done with that, I turned on the sprinkler and pretended like I minded that I got wet.
--I cut off a pair of jeans that Joey had completely split the knee on and hemmed them for shorts. They were way too short anyway and made the boy look like he was going crabbing, so they are better as shorts. That child is so big. I can't keep him in clothes. Most of his pants are too short, not only in length but sit low on his waist, and most of his shirts are too short also, so there is frequently a good amount of Joey showing around the middle. Unfortunately, we were given a large quantity of underwear (new) for him and it is a tiny bit large. You are getting the picture, aren't you? the shirt rides high, the pants ride low, and all around the underpants show. Hey, that rhymes. I'm so clever. Anyway, we are just going to have to deal with it until it's time for new fall clothes. I think I'll just pin his shirts to his pants and tell him he can't raise his arms under any circumstances.
--I made a master list of all the half earned badges Joey has for Ranger Kids so he can finish those badges before we get out for the summer.
I made (and explained to him) a family tree for one of the badges. My dad would turn 104 this year. Isn't that crazy? To me it seems normal, but then I grew up with it. It just seemed funny putting all the grandparents' birth years down, 1947, 1946, 1940, 1904... I bet Joey's Ranger Commander will think it's a typo.
--Oh, thanks to my frozen meals, we had dinner tonight. Last night, no lie, and I'm woman enough to admit this out loud, we had pudding for dinner. It was layers of chocolate and vanilla, and made with real milk, but still it was pudding. Don't roll your eyes at me. If I posted that I had a girls night out and Jeff had fed the kids pudding for supper, we would all chuckle indulgently and declare that one night of pudding wouldn't hurt. So chuckle already.

Funny stuff:
Joey wanted to discuss baby names for BabyJ, I told him the boy name and some of the possible girl names. In all seriousness he said, "Mom, actually, I was thinking something more like 'Dinosaur'." I, in all seriousness told him that "dinosaur" was not acceptable because it doesn't start with J and we can't mess up the Christmas cards. He replied, "Well, how about 'Jinosaur'?" Hmmm. I had to think fast to try and get out of THAT one. But Jessi, dear Jessi, she saved the day. She informed him that that was a CRAZY name and we should of course, name the baby "Jelly", you must understand that she doesn't even LIKE jelly (texture issue), but still, somehow this was a much less crazy name than "Jinosaur." With my lightening like mental reflexes, I told them that we would not be naming the baby "Jelly", however, they could CALL the baby Jelly and that would be its nickname.

More funny stuff:
I'm having a lot of trouble with my pelvis this pregnancy as it has been trying to separate since about 25 weeks or so. Some days it is really bad and not only painful, but I truly can't walk. The other day I was walking through the house and something "went out" and I couldn't put any weight on my left leg. I stood there and experimented for a while, and said outloud, "Oh dear, I can't walk". The only person in hearing distance was Joy, who looked up from her coloring and said, "Mommy can't walk? Oh Mommy...." then very excitedly she thought of a solution and said, "Mommy RUN!". Very sweet and all, but still not too useful. My continued lack of locomotion cemented for her the notion that mommy was indeed in a bad way, so she proceeded to demonstrate. "Like this mommy." ("wike dis mommy") and she got up from her playing, and in slow motion, "ran" across the room and sticking her little hiney out, showed me how to "Sit down" in my chair. It was classic I tell you, just classic. Such caring and problem solving from a 2 year old.
So with that sage advice I'll close for today - if you can't walk, well then, just RUN!

Suzuki Violin

I'm seriously considering this for the two older kids. The cost is going to be a bit to swallow, but I REALLY want to get the kids into music. I always assumed it would be piano lessons, but I've heard such wonderful things about the Suzuki method that I'm willing to give it a whirl.

If you have any experience with this type of music learning, positive or negative, please comment!

So one of those quizzy things is going around, only the catch is you have to answer in one word. I cheated a few times, but hey, it's my blog.


1. Where is your cell phone? nonexistent
2. Your significant other? Jeff
3. Your hair? curly
4. Your mother? amazing
5. Your father? glorified
6. Your favorite thing? creating
7. Your dream last night? weird
8. Your favorite drink? water.
9. Your dream/goal? healthy
10. The room you’re in? Living
11. Your church? homey
12. Your fear? hurt
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? elsewhere
14. Where were you last night? home
15. What you’re not? organized
16. Muffins? blueberry
17. One of your wish list items? spinningwheel
18. Where you grew up? Florida
19. The last thing you did?pizza
20. What are you wearing? pj's
21. Your TV? internet
22. Your pets? old
23. Your computer? argh
24. Your life? waiting
25. Your mood? full
26. Missing someone? Libby
27. Your car? Sienna
28. Something you’re not wearing? shoes
29. Favorite store? CestariFarms
30. Your summer? hot
31. Like (love) someone? hubby
32. Your favorite color? green
33. Last time you laughed? dinner
34. Last time you cried? yesterday
35. Who will repost this? ???

Picture catch up, part four, the end.

I haven't downloaded pictures in ages because the USB port on the front of my computer died and I wasn't in any mood to climb on the floor and crawl around back to plug the cable in. Today the fact that I had 436 pictures on the camera overcame my certainty that if I got down I would never get up, and I did it.

These are pictures of my diaper stash for the new baby. I do of course still have the ones from Joy but they are bigger, I figured I had better make some smaller ones.

This is a stuffable fitted, it has a woven cotton outer and a full suedecloth inner. The diaper is serged.

This is a non-stuffable fitted, flannel inside and out with sewn in layers of flannel inside and a sewn down suede cloth area. (the suedecloth wicks moisture away from the baby and gives a stay-dry feeling.) This diaper is sewn and turned.
This is a stuffable fitted, outer flannel, inner cotton terry/velour with the velour side to the skin. the stuffing is several layers of the same terry.
Stash of ten size two diapers. They are a combination of fitteds, stuffables, flannels and wovens, some sewn and some serged.
Stash of ten size ones, again a combo of styles.

Joey's bear modeling a one pin fitted.
An infant prefold and a regular prefold.

A flat diaper.

Bear modeling the flat, folded origami style and fastened with one pin. Bear modeling the prefold. This one takes two pins.
My size three pattern fits a good range of sizes (they fit Joy from 8 months through 18 months), but I did want to have some smaller ones for newborn stage. On the other hand, that's a lot of work to make diapers that may only fit for 6 weeks. I figured I did need a few more user friendly dipes though for grandparents etc... so many people get freaked out by cloth and a pin that I wouldn't think of adding folding to the picture, LOL.
I am loving the versatility of flat diapers so I think I'll be making up a bunch more of them--that and the fact that they are simply a hemmed square!

when i get all my wool washed and lanolyzed, I'll post pics of that too.