From My Nest

snow week/slow week

Thirteen inches....

Ice storm....

Branches and trees crumbling....

Power out for almost five days.....

Trapped in the house (our drive way and road)...

.... and in between all that was going on, this little guy turned one. With the help of four wheel drive, we managed to make it to Target to buy gifts and headed Grandma's house who had the electricity to bake a cake.

introducing....

Isaac Alexander

January 21, 2011 at 8:08 am

7 pounds 5 ounces

19 1/4 inches

 

 

 

in loving memory

Noah Ralph

March 26, 2009

6 lbs 12 oz, 18 inches

Most of you have already read this, but we do not have everyone's email address and not everyone we know is on Facebook.  So to make it easier on me, I decided to just post this letter on here instead of having to write something else.   We've had a busy couple of weeks, so I apologize for not doing this sooner.

Friday, March 27, 2009:

For our friends who have not heard yet:

We have been expecting a new baby boy (our third child). We learned on Monday afternoon (March 23) that he had died, only two weeks before his due date. Noah Ralph was delivered by c-section on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 1:12 p.m. He was 6 lbs, 12 oz and 18 inches long. He was born with a full head of dark hair and resembles his older sister, Rebecca. We have already received many well-wishes and we know that your hearts are with us. This is not something we ever thought we would have to deal with. For many reasons it looks like we will not be having a public funeral service, but I want to take this opportunity to express to you some of what we have been feeling and how we are dealing with this loss. Obviously, the news was devastating. It had taken us three years to get pregnant. We were excited and had completed almost all of our preparations for him to arrive. Then his heart stopped beating. No explanation. He was just gone. There is no easy way to deal with that kind of news, but we have found a great source of strength in our faith. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, in His son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. We know God as the father of our spirits—spirits which existed long before we were ever born on this earth. Each of our spirits lived with God and grew and developed until it was time for us to come down and take upon us bodies to live a mortal life. We believe that the foundation of our personalities developed during that premortal life as spirits. Children are born with unique, distinct, personalities. Even in the womb, a mother can tell that each child is different. We believe that the human spirit enters its body before birth—exactly when, nobody knows, but it seems clear that it is present for some time before birth. So we believe that our little boy was with us at least for a little while. We know that Jesus Christ is our Savior; that he suffered for the sins of the entire human family so that we can be forgiven and return to God if we have faith and turn away from sin; that he died on the cross and took up his body again on the third day, making it possible for everyone who has ever lived to similarly be resurrected. When we die, our spirits leave our bodies and continue to live, much like our life as spirits before mortality. At some future day, through the power of Christ, our bodies will be reunited with our spirits in a perfect form, never to be separated again. Our boy had his mortal life, even though he never was able to emerge from the womb. But his spirit still lives, and one day he will once again lay claim to his body and live forever. We believe that family is forever. Our marriage will continue beyond the grave. Our children who we raise in life will rejoin us in the eternal worlds. We believe that this boy is every bit as much a part of our family as our other children, and that we will see him again and embrace him as our son. All of this doesn’t make our situation easy to handle, but it helps. Nothing can soften the blow of learning that your only son has died before you have the chance to hold him in your arms. Nothing can take away the thoughts of all the things you won’t be able to do together; all the things you won’t be able to teach him. But in our moments of deepest despair, we have a light of hope to lift us back up. Here in our little corner of the Hospital, the love of God shines brightly around us, and we can feel Noah’s spirit nearby. Kevin and Andrea

the official tester

Our home is slowly starting to be filled with baby stuff.  It's amazing how something so small can require so much room.  Everything that has come into our home for the baby or has been pulled from storage, has had to pass a series of tests by Becca.  The main test it has to pass is if it's good for her baby dolls, then it will be good for the baby.  This little doll has been the test dummy for many different baby products.  Here are only a few examples: The Swing.  I'm turning this thing off many times during the day and finding it filled with not only baby dolls, but stuffed animals as well. The bouncer (or in other words, the place where I can safely put the baby while I take a shower and will still probably scream the whole time but at least I'll be able to keep track of what's being done to him.)  But mostly, Becca has been the one to test this out since it is the kind that turns into a toddler chair.  She was very thrilled that she was under the weight limit. The carseat and yes, it is buckled in under there. The stroller which has been pushed in many circles around our living room.

the finished product

One more thing to check off my list.  Okay, so it's not the best photo, but it's proof that it's done.

what i ' ve been up to

Well...sewing of course!  You're surprised, I'm sure.  With, unless he decides to come early, only 6 weeks left until our little guy is here, I'm feeling a bit of pressure to check all my things off my "To Do Before Baby is Born" list.  These are the last of my sewing projects for him (I still have a couple to do for the girls.  Things that I have been meaning to get done for a while now and since I know that no sewing is going to happen for a while after this guy is born, I'm trying to get them done now.) I quilted and started to bind my Sailboat quilt.  I'm still hand sewing the back of the binding, but I should finish that by tonight while I lay on the couch like a slug (but feel more like a beached whale)  while watching TV and avoiding my dishes. Here's my stack of a ridiculous amount of burp clothes (I think there are 18 in all).  I just used up the scraps from the flannel blankets I made and then made some from a few fat quarters that I couldn't resist at the fabric store.  I know it seems like a lot, but they are just two rectangles of fabric sewn right sides together, very simple to do and if he turns out to be anything like my Spit-Up-Queen Becca, we will need them all. Last, but not least is my new project.  I finally found crib bedding fabric that was boyish.  Geez, you have no idea how hard it is to find boy fabric that is not cheesey.  I've already started cutting it out and our crib is supposed to arrive on friday, so hopefully I can get at least the bumper and crib skirt done by the time it arrives.  Then I can move on to a matching quilt with the leftover fabric.

progress

{30 weeks}

Towards the end you feel like you get nothing accomplished.  The house is a mess because A. you are too tired to clean or B. you just can't bend over to pick it up.  So as I laid down on my couch yesterday annoyed that everything around me was only half done - half the laundry washed, half of the basement cleaned, half a night's sleep which led to only a half-hour nap because I had to go to the bathroom - I realized that I needed to be grateful for what I do get done because that's more than what I'll be able to accomplish once the baby is born.  So in honor of my new attitude, or the attempt of, here is some progress that I've made: The top of my sailboat quilt is done.  I only need to decide how I am going to quilt it, so I can finish it. I did finish my Pear Quilt.  Okay, so this is not progress.  It's just Becca who wanted her picture taken with the blanket and is unaware that she is about to be licked in the face by our dog, Buster. So I suppose that I'm only showing you two things.   It's still progress.  But, there are a few more.  Such as I am reorganizing my really small kitchen to make it more functional with, I might add, a positive attitude that it's a goal that's even possible (that should count as two things),  I finally made stuffed animal holders for my girls that hang on the end of their beds, and the problem of the girl's outgrowing their little dresser is sort of solved with some plastic drawers. See, look, progress.  I just need to keep reminding myself that things are getting done.

work in progress

To say that I wasn't at all worried with how this would turn out, would be lying.  It's always a little nerve racking when you imagine how you want something to turn out in your head, but can't quite get there in reality.  When I saw the Pear Quilt in the book Baby Love, I kept imagining it with some dark brown in it.  It took a while to figure out how to translate that image in my head to fabric.  Although I am not quite sure yet if this is what was in my head, I am quite pleased with how this turned out. We are housebound today since it snowed last night and my poor husband has the stomach flu and is unable to shovel the driveway.  So hopefully I will be able to get this quilted and bound then I can start on the Sailboat Quilt that's from the same book.  Have I said yet how much I love the projects in this book? (I had some photography help from Becca today.  She laid it out and then pointed at the pear to make sure you all could see where it was.  So I apologize for the shadows (and the wrinkles, which are my fault), but you can still get the general idea of what it looks like.)

nursing pillow and blankets

So obviously I've been on a little bit of a sewing kick lately.  Only a little.  I even bought more fabric yesterday to make a quilt from this book yesterday.   I think deep down I just keep giving myself projects so I keep up with something productive and can avoid organizing the basement without much guilt. I also blame all those cool tutorials on the internet.  There are just so many things that I can add to my "To Make" list.   To name a few, there's the Teether Toy,  The Dipey Wipey Case, and last but not least, how could I live without these?  See how it's pretty much all their fault? (Oh, and don't forget about that new link I put up with the Top 100 Tutorials of 2008 from The Long Thread.) Okay, so here's the Nursing Pillow that I made earlier this week.  It's from the McCall's Pattern #2824.  Although I did make a few adjustments to it.  I made one just like this when I was pregnant with Becca and was very pleased with it.  I love the pockets to hold all your essentials nursing items like, ahem, the remote control.   Plus it didn't flatten like the store bought ones seem to over time. These are the finished blankets that I promised to show you all last week.  Just very simple, two squares of flannel sewn together.  I'm finding that it's very hard to find any fabric in boy prints without getting cheesey.  I'm getting frustrated with it.  There are so many cute flowery, girly prints, but when it comes to anything without flowers on it, it just doesn't exist.

nursing covers

It never ceases to amaze me how much money you can save when you sew.  Although...I'm beginning to think that all that money I save just goes to fabric anyway, but I sleep better by telling myself that it just goes towards saving more money in the long run. These Nursing Covers run about $25 - $40 each in specialty baby botiques and in stores.  I can honestly say that it didn't even cost me $25 to make two of them (and I even used expensive quilter's fabric that's $9 a yard).  They are pretty easy to make, all I had to do was look at one to figure it out.  Of course I discovered this tutorial after I made mine.  So if you are interested in making your own, here's how.