Visiting with Grandma Suzy

We did some baking last week while Grandma Suzy was visiting.  We made a lemon meringue pie. Big sister A requested it. Then we ended up with extra crust and made a pumpkin pie too. 

For FHE last Monday we started some of the early seeds.  We planted broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and lavender. I am so excited for them to sprout so I can put them under my new grow light.  These pans are hubby's creative idea for the seed starting medium.

Baby L is growing so fast.  I feel like she looks older every day.

These pics are from the week before last. They made a big snowman in the back yard with daddy.

Here is one of us taking the fish out and putting them in their new home.  Sad to report that as of yesterday, one did not make it.

This is what brother S did last week - He gathered all the "Rs" out of the bananagram game. He knows the letter "R" and its sound from a letter game the kiddos like to play on the tablet.

Family Schooling Summary

This week we had big sister A's first bi-annual home schooling review with the school board. Actually, we had to go to a big auditorium with lots of stations set-up and they assigned us to a teacher who interviewed us and looked at what we have done this year.  I brought all A's workbooks and things, but I thought I would be able to show these blog entries too.  They did not have computers at their stations though, so she just had to take my word for it on a lot of the nature center and art class stuff.  Next time I will print out some pictures so that she can put them in A's file. Overall, it was a good experience. The only thing that we really need to do better on is putting dates on all of her projects, worksheets, etc. 

This week A received a present in the mail. She is getting very interested in cooking and now that she can read pretty well this was a great way to "practice" reading without her feeling that I am forcing her to practice. 

We chose to make the brownies recipe.  True to form, we sort of followed the recipe.  We used mostly carob powder instead of cocoa (trying to cut back on chocolate/caffeine), honey, and whole wheat flour.  It was still very yummy and sweet.

My helpers -- and tasters:

This is what baby L did the whole time.  She was in the bjorn.

Reading the instructions and directing the process:

Happy taste tester, bowl cleaner, and muncher:

At Home

If you are wondering what we have been up to this week, "At home" sums it up. We are still in germ prevention mode -- week 3 of not mingling with other people. Brother M has been skipping preschool and we are only attending the first hour of church on Sundays.  The only excitement has been Grandma Suzy's visit. She came on Monday evening and will be helping us out for a couple more days before she goes home. 

Baby L had her 2 week check-up and Brother S had his annual exam.  Both are doing great even though they had to get a couple of shots.  Big sister A has had daddy and grandma helping her with school stuff. I have been able to take some daytime naps and doing a little sewing.  Baby L is getting the hang of sleeping at night and is mostly eating and then going back to sleep.  3-4 am seems to be my kids' 'witching hour". For some reason all my babies like to be awake at that time. Baby L has had some trouble with gas in her tummy, but that is getting a little better now.  

New Pets

Brother S has this new obsession with fish and so we decided to get a few from the pet shop.  He says, "Fish love me!"  (instead of "I love fish"). It is so cute.  They are named: Charly, Cheerily, and Chips (Big sister A's suggestions).

We are trying to affect the same symbiotic plant/animal rapport that helped our last set of fish live about 4 years in their jar. The plant cuttings are from house plants.  They will root in the water and help oxygenate it for the fish, who will fertilize it for the plants.

Family Schooling Summary

Life is mostly revolving around new baby L and recovering from the delivery.  The big kids are playing with daddy and doing some crafts.  Big sister A has been keeping up with her workbooks pretty well and practicing her reading some. Daddy helped them pick out a ton of books from the library and they are doing a lot of reading aloud too.

Electronic devices can be great for answering kids' questions.  The other day they were asking about the sounds that frogs make and so we looked it up. They also continue to talk a lot about "owling" and when we go camping how we will do some owling and hear the sounds that they make (this is all based on that class that we had in December about owls at the nature center).

They recently found their little plastic ocean creatures and so in a mostly self motivated way, they made this 3D ocean model with things that we had around the house. I am so impressed with them!

Painting is a favorite pastime in our house.  I think we probably need to sign the kiddos up for another round of art classes.  They seem to love it.

Baby S is showing off his toast shape.  I can't remember what it was supposed to be that time. I don't know if anyone else's kids do this, but my kids love imagining what shape they bit their toast, pizza, sandwich, cheese slice (anything really) into. Then inevitable they want to take a picture of the truck, rocket, dog etc shape that they made with their food.

Baby L does a lot of sleeping while we do these other projects.

These pics are from a couple weeks ago.  Our driveway is "gravel", which mostly turns into ice or mud at this time of year.  It's awful. Brother M tripped getting out of the car and came out looking like this:

He was covered head to toe in mud or muddy water.  I had to strip him down and put him in the bath tub.  Luckily, it was on our way IN from the car and we did not have to be anywhere.

Sewing Frenzy

In the midst of waiting for the arrival of baby L, I experienced my usual super high anxiety/nesting stress and put a lot of my extra energy into sewing projects. I think in the past I have done more house projects, but since we are still debating about whether/when to move I was not in the mood for much decorating.

I had 1 very large order of 15 grommeted drapery panels that I finished around new years and forgot to take pictures of. It went really well and I was pleased with how everything turned out. Around that same time I got another order for a replica of an antique Madame Alexander Cissy doll dress.

 She gave me some photos of the design and I was going to make a pattern from scratch and then alter it to the doll, but happily I found a 1950s pattern of a similar dress which saved me some time, except that it was for a doll half as large (10.5 inch instead of 20 inch).  I gave myself a little course from online sources of how to enlarge patterns -- and here are the results.  This is just the "muslin" version.  I will cut the real one out of silk after she approves the muslin.

I cut out 4-5 blouses that I had been wanting to make and sewed them up in quick succession.  It was a little tricky, not being able to try them on.  Now that I can,  I realized that will need to add a little give to the short sleeve blouses sleeves, swimmer shoulders and all that. 

This short sleeve blouse is a variation on Collette's free Sorbetto pattern -- with sleeves added.  This is a great pattern. So quick and easy! I made these 2 blouses in one night.  Sleeve pattern from here - though, if you have wide shoulders I recommend broadening it a bit. I lengthened the pattern also, to allow room to tuck it in or just be plenty long. 

Lined dress made with an old sari (ordered from here).  I am trying to make a good 50s shirt dress. This one is my first attempt and is a combination of two patterns. I will have to wait to finish and alter it until I am closer to my normal size.  Using old saris is awesome because the edges are already finished and I love the borders and pallu (fancy edge, which I used for the bodice of the dress).

 One of my favorite patterns - wiksten made Tova top. The same one that I used to make the 2 tunic dresses last year. These are longish blouse length.  I wanted to be able to tuck them in.

Baby L is Here!

Notice: This is the detailed birth story for all those interested.  If not, skip to the bottom for the cute photos.

Another birth adventure begins!  My official due date based on last menses was January 5th and my ultrasound due date was January 1st.  I was hopeful that this baby girl, being the 4th child, might come a little early.  Alas, January 5th came and went and the 6th and the 7th... I swam my mile at the pool that night, and then walked a couple miles at the mall the next day, and again the next day.  On Saturday the 10th after my walk, we decided that spicy food might push me over the edge.  Hubby went to pick up some delicious Thai food.  I gave the kids their baths.
I should explain that I had group B strep for the first time this pregnancy.  To protect the baby they wanted to give me 2 doses of antibiotics, the first to be administered 4 hours before delivery. Since my last 2 labors were each less than 2 hours start to finish, the midwives were anxious that I come to the hospital the minute that I felt it might be the start of real labor. I was constantly praying to know when was the right time to go into the hospital.
For several days, I had been having contractions about 10-20 minutes apart, but nothing serious or regular.  While I was bathing the kids, I had 3 hard contractions about 5 minutes apart and walked out to call hubby, but he was already back.  So much for my yummy dinner!  I was not having tons of contractions, but I felt like we should go to the hospital.  We called in our helpers to watch the kiddos and they arrived within about 15 minutes. We got out stuff together and texted my sister-in-law who happily was working that night as was my favorite of the midwives.
The contractions continued about every 7 minutes or so, but not super strong.  We checked into Labor and Delivery at around 8:30pm.  They unofficially "admitted" me while we tried to see if things were going to pick up.  I got my antibiotics and started walking the hall. Things were still slow and I was not super dialated, so the midwife did a membrane sweep, and contractions got a little harder after that, but I was still only about 5 cm dialated at 12:30pm.  We had a little pow-wow about whether I should just go home or let the midwife break my water.  The midwife advised that it was our choice, but that she would lean toward going ahead with water breaking, just because of the group B strep and my tendency for speedy deliveries when things get going.  Hubby was okay with either choice. My sister-in-law nurse was super helpful, since she had just had a similar experience with her most recent delivery.  She had opted to wait in the hospital to see if things picked up overnight and then finally broke her water in the morning.  She thought in hindsight, that she should have just let them go ahead and break her water earlier and get it over with.  There were also the factors of being a week overdue already, and the placenta starting to get tired out as time passed as well as the baby gaining another pound.  I decided to go ahead with breaking my water.
The midwife broke my water at 1am and I made myself walk through the much harder contractions - to try to keep things going as quick as possible. By 2am I was not able to walk anymore and did my laboring on all fours or leaning on hubby or the bed. At 3:06am our beautiful baby girl was born.
She was about to come out brow first, SIL and midwife said they saw her eyes for a second and then at the last minute she twisted around in the birth canal to the right position (all this is a painful blur and I had to ask about it later). Then she was out! Sweet relief.  She only laid on my tummy for a few seconds though because she was a little blue- had not cried loudly yet.  My SIL told me that she had to flick her foot to get her to make a loud cry and clear her lungs out.  That seems typical of this baby girl. She is a peaceful little spirit.
We had to stay 2 nights in the hospital since she was a little jaundiced (this has been a problem for all of our babies, some more than others). Hubby had to stay with the older kids mostly since the flu is epidemic this year and they were not allowing any children under 12 to visit the hospital.  The pediatrician gave me a strong warning not to take Baby L out or let her have any visitors for the first 6 weeks.  She said that if she gets anything serious before 6 weeks that she would likely be hospitalized.  Baby L has all my immunities from nursing, but neither of us are immune to this year's flu, RSV, or croup.  Hubby has been doing all the shopping and ladies from church and our neighbors have brought us dinner for about 10 nights now. I have only left the house to go to the chiropractor, get a massage, and visit the pediatrician. It has been nice and cozy, with a special "new baby" peaceful spirit in our house.

One of the first big yells

 Weighing in at 8 lbs 9 oz.

 After first nursing, she was all wrapped up for the ride over to the Mother Baby section of the hospital.

 Cute little munchkin - you can tell that she was used to being pretty tight in utero.  It is always fun to see how the baby moves when they come out and compare that to what I was feeling inside.  This little girl loves raising and stretching out her legs.

 When baby came home -- we all looked at her little parts.  Here are the older kids comparing their feet with her little feet. Brother S was busy ignoring the new baby sis.

 Brother M's first time holding the baby

 The first of MANY times big sister A has held Baby L.  She is my little helper and is always excited to run and wash her hands so that she can take a turn holding the baby.

Daddy is growing his traditional baby beard while he is at home with us.

Baby L had her first bottle (breast milk) while I was having my 60 minute massage. I know, I am so spoiled. My back and hips are finally starting to feel normal again.  Right after the birth they were more sore than ever (bruised from the birth I think). AND then there were all the painful afterbirth contractions. Ugh.  But all that is better now and I think by the time I get the okay to swim again (6 week check) my hips/back will have recovered from this painful pregnancy.  Of course it is all worth it!   Baby L is a little angel and we are so happy to have her in our family.