The Handmade Dress

Tomorrow is Tim's seventh birthday. I still don't really know how he got to be seven, he's supposed to be three, but I won't dwell on that now. We told our little man that this year will be pretty low-key because mama can't do much and all of that. He agreed that it will be worth it to have a brother or sister be born near his birthday. Since the girl's birthdays in December Tim has had one request for his birthday, hot wings and cheese fries. Yep, the boy wants to eat hot wings and cheese fries until he is sick on his Birthday, and since we have a doctors appointment for mama and baby tomorrow that's cool with us. Ben and I planned to get the man some wings and cheese fries, go to the doctor, and head back home. Of course there would be a simple cake (by Betty Crocker) and the opening of gifts, but no banners or balloons or any of that stuff that mama usually does. Well those were our plans. I think there are other plans being made though....W

Yesterday, Friday, my Mom called and said that they wanted to take the kids to the rodeo. Let's stop right here for a minute. First I didn't even know that we had a rodeo, and second how did Mom and Dad find out about it? Crazy. Anything is possible with those two. They are like a couple of teenagers who are always trying to steal my kids. But I guess that's cool, even if I don't like sharing I know that the kids have a blast and they are WELL taken care of...ahem...spoiled. ;) So Ben took the kids and dropped them off with my parents, then he came back home and surprised me with take-out, a movie, and chocolate....*insert hallelujah chorus here*.......Do you know what take-out means to someone who hasn't left the house in weeks? Oh, it's heavenly. And a grown up movie that you haven't seen fifty times? And chocolate? These, my friends, are the makings of the BEST date-night- in ever! It's the little things, it really is. This morning Ben calle

It has been over a week since I have posted here on the old abandoned blog, I miss you guys! As you can imagine, this last week has been FULL of adjustments for our family. On my end I've been trying to get adjusted to total bed rest and my new medicines. The first week on the brethine is always the worst as far as side effects go, so it should begin to get better from here on out. I've mainly just been really shaky (Ben says that he's going to put me in charge of the jiffy pop! Silly boy), it's been really hard to concentrate (which is why I haven't been able to even throw together a blog post, believe me, I tried, it wasn't pretty), and I only manage to get about four hours of sleep a night. I may be going a little crazy with nothing to work on, but I'm determined to try to crochet soon and maybe since my hands know the motions so well (after 15 years!) it will work out. This not crafting stuff is for the birds! I NEED some handmade therapy! :) Baby and

....they had room service and good ice.... ....pull out beds.... ....things that go "ding" and "bing" in the night (and day come to think of it)... ...and a few other extras. Funny thing is, with all of the laying around that you do in this place, I only seemed to get a few minutes sleep in the whole night and day that I was there! I think that sleep may be forbidden at this particular place (and other places like it). By now you've probably guessed that it wasn't exactly a vacation. :) We made our first preterm-labor-trip to the hospital on Monday night. The procardia just wasn't helping with the contractions that were coming steadily at 3-4 minutes apart, so we bit the bullet and drove in. We officially have about 8 1/2 weeks left before this baby is due, so it's not quite time yet. Thank God for good doctors that don't mind working with high risk trouble-makers like me! After a few shots, sticks, IV fluids, lots

I got to see our little Violet again yesterday! I was kicking myself (again) for leaving my camera at home but Ben got these two pictures with his phone. Isn't she lovely? She likes me already, in fact I think she may have cried when I left. ;} One night when Molly was a couple of months old Ben and I went out to eat at a nice restaurant. I was holding her while I ate and an old minister stopped by our table to see her. He looked at her for a minute and his eyes filled with tears and he told me something that I will never forget..."This is the closest to heaven you will ever be here on earth." That's how it feels to me now too. Every Time I get to hold one of God's little gifts I think about those words. I think they mean something different to me now than they did then. Back then, as a very young mama, it seemed like having babies was just the most natural thing in the world, it was just a choice you made and then everything always just came out the w

Bylet (that's how Lily and Iris say it) made her appearance yesterday evening! She weighed 7lbs, 14oz and is just the most perfect little angel in the world! I was so excited that I didn't sleep a wink last night thinking of her. She already has us all wrapped up! My sis, Rae, is doing great- just starving to death, but you know how that goes. Ben and I are going to stop by and get her a HUGE bag of take-out from her favorite place tonight and while she's eating we're going to love up on Violet. Being an aunt just gets better everyday!

Yep, we got us a little winter storm this weekend and we still haven't quite recovered. Schools, roads and businesses have been closed this week and we've just been as happy as pigs here at home. Alabama isn't really equipped to handle ice and/or snow (since this sort of thing only happens once every few years), we don't have snow plows or road crews so it completely shuts us down. I couldn't be happier! We mostly got ice in our area, it's sort of like a giant snow cone has been dumped out over our house. The kids have had a blast! Here are my girls looking like little snow angels. Boy am I glad that we hunted down those snow suits last year! The only thing the kids have had to make do with are gloves. They have used their work gloves and that seems to work well for the amount of time they stay out. You know southerners can't handle the cold for too long!  The first thing I thought when the weather man started predicting snow and ice was "

She is still wearing the hat....I think that she loves it almost as much as her guitar, which also rarely leaves her side these days. This morning, as we were all waking up, I called from the bed "Molly, will you make a pot of coffee?" and she called back "Yes, because you made me a hat!" My sweet girl.  After some testing yesterday I started on Madeline's leg warmers. Since they are basically just a long tube, all I had to figure out was how many stitches to cast on to make the ribbing fit over her foot and onto her calf. The number also had to be divisible by 4 so that the 2x2 ribbing would work out. Her magic number was 32. I made a little tester cuff first by casting on 28 stitches and working about 5 rows of ribbing and then binding off. The tester was a little snug so I decided to size up and it worked out great. Oh, and now Maddie is wearing the test cuff as a bracelet and she thinks I'm awesome for thinking of such a cool thing. Who Knew?

Before I tell you all about this knitting project, I should probably introduce the pup first. I realised after the last post that I haven't introduced her yet! How could I? Let's just blame it on baby brain and move on. This is "Dorothy Gail from Kansas". We call her Dot. Isn't she a sweetie? She has been living here for a few months now and she has taken to farm life like a pig to slop. She quickly made friends with all of the other animals and it feels like she has always been here. She's also my kid's new favorite picture prop! When I take pictures of the kids I always let them choose where they want to be and what they want to be doing, and they think Dot makes the perfect little cuddle bug for picture taking. So sweet. Shall we talk about knitting now? Yes! Just as I was finishing Ben's hat the other night (I'll show ya that one as soon as he can model it for me- that's the rule) Molly peeked over the arm of the couch and whisp