I'm Back! ...Again. ...I think.

Oh, hey, hi there!  How's it going?  Kids are in college now?  That long? wow!

Ok, so I'm back, I hope!  I actually got the *most* AWESOME comment in my email today, (here) and it was the best kind of random.  So much so that I checked my statcounter out of curiosity to see where it came from.  In doing that, I saw that my tutorial has been posted "all over" the internet.  And by "all over" I mean "like, 3 or 4 places"  which is A LOT if you're me.  And on pinterest!  #nerdyhappydance 

 I also saw there are a lot of comments I never saw.  Apparently, my email only alerts me to the viagra, porn offers, and foreign language jumbles comments.  ::thumbs up::  So THANK you! to anyone who commented and enjoyed that post!  Had I known, I'd have responded! ;)

At any rate, all of that, along with cleaning up all the viagra links, made me realize HOW. LONG. it's been since old bloggy and I have had a chance to sit down and insult America via my crafting.  (That won't make sense if you didn't follow that link and read the crazy.)  So I fully intend to get back to it, post every week or so, hopefully make something here and there, and quite possibly, be presumptuous whilst doing it! woohoo! :)

I say "I hope" because since we talked last, I made another one of THESE:

husband giving her a once over, approves.

<3

Callista Rose 9lbs3oz (I don't mess around. Deliciously chubby babies are my thang.)  She's two weeks old now, and just woke up FURIOUS that no one is feeding her (as happens when you're 10lbs) So I'm off to do that.  More later!

So I'm a Slacker

Seriously. I know. Bad blogger. Wait, can I be called a blogger if I haven't blogged in months? hm.

I'd like to say its because of the baby (partially) but it's mostly intimidation. See, it kept coming out that more and more people I know in real life were reading my blog. (and for unknown reasons seemed to actually enjoy it, go figure) but then I got all overly self-conscious, as I'm prone. And then every time I sat down I felt like 100 eyes were on me. And then I walked away. And then my cousin would "gently" reminded me I hadn't blogged in months. Vicious circle.

So here I am. I'm way behind, and instead of making myself crazy trying to compose a post catching you up on the last 7months (which would be info overload, and would lead to me getting overwhelmed and deleting the whole thing...not that I've done that before) Let's just say: you missed out. It's been pretty awesome, my kids are pretty awesome, I made some awesome stuff, I found some awesome yard sale/thrift finds, and maybe a few of the really good ones will end up mentioned eventually.

I really do miss my blog. But I'm tired of being scared of it, so here I am again. Just like I'm hoping to do a craft show this fall, because I'm tired of being scared of that too. Now if I could just be comfortable in public, I'd be awesome. But let's start with blogging again and see where that gets us.

Oh, and just because every post needs a picture of something pretty cool:

a nintendo DS case that looks like an old school nintendo controller? awesome. a friend made it, and it almost makes me want to buy a DS just to have it. it's here

Mother's Day Gift Guide

these are actual links that popped up when I googled "mother's day gift" let's file these under "don't...oh please, please DONNNNN'T"

• mom's own slot machine! WITH 500 free tokens! show mom you love her with free tokens!
• $25 best buy gift card here mom, get yourself a CD, and maybe a 20oz pepsi, since $25 won't get you much else at best buy.
• a poem on a plate this is the cheap plastic plate that she'll hang proudly while the kids are looking. then slowly -over a span of months- move it from the living room, to the spare room, to the basement.
• "mom" jewelry the ring isn't hideous. I just...I can't....I can't get with "mom" anything. We know she's a mom, those kids that follow her around at the grocery store confirm our suspicions. plus, the whole mass-produced-jewelry-that-every-other-mom-is-wearing thing.
• its a ...cartoon I don't understand.
• a lollipop bouquet ok, its candy, I'll give you that. But its crazy pastel lollipops. This is really a gift for your kids, since they'll raid it and she'll let them.

So what DO I get, you ask? allow me...

• custom silhouettes of the kids traditional and contemporary. and less work than getting them dressed, out the door, and sitting still for a formal photo without one of them hitting each other.
• hairpins they're cute, the kids can each pick out a pair.
• a purse or a cute clutch or wallet
• some nice soap put together a nice soap/lotion/girly skin stuff basket for bonus points.
• tea and cookies yup, cookies. its the internet man, you can get anything. cookies come to your door, and someone else is cleaning flour off their counters. awesome.
• if you're going to go for candy get her something she doesn't have to share.
• kindle I really tried not to like this thing. I like BOOKS, real paper, real ink, BOOKS. Not these dad-gum gizmos. Too many gizmos these days. BUT...then I fiddled with a friends' ...and I do like it (hate when that happens, now I want one) Plus, its nice when she's reading and sets the book down, and a certain 5 year old comes along and closes the book for her. Re-reading 10 pages while you find the place you left off is always fun. Doesn't happen with a kindle.

If you're still going to go for the gift card, at LEAST make sure its to her FAVORITE store. Ya know the one, the store she goes into often, but rarely buys anything. The "I don't understand how anyone could spend that much money on ____" store. Whether its clothes, yarn, hunting gear, a gallery, or the tattoo shop. That's the one.

Just NOT the sweatshirt with "mommy of ___ angels" with each of the kids as a cartoon stick figure with spiky hair. Please no. thankyou.

Blog, Meet Lilly...

Lilly, meet the blog. After all, she is almost 9 weeks old. It's time you got acquainted.

Eliana Sophia (we're calling her Lilly)

9lbs 5oz (yes, I have those numbers in the right order..see below)

4:05am March 1st, 2010

The funny thing is, aside from at birth, she doesn't LOOK as big as she is. Everyone is shocked when they hear how much she weighed. (*I* was shocked when we found out how much she weighed!!)

Just a quick post for now, she's upstairs doing this:

right now. And I'm not sure for how long.

I'll post more pictures and some version of her birth story in the next few days. I want to get it down before I start forgetting.

She's a very good baby, she's absolutely amazing, and we love her to bits. Zach's been a fantastic big brother, and taken the whole transition rather well. :)

Treasury Love

Treasury!





And in case you miss it (and quite honestly, so I can come back and dork-out anytime I want)

The Christmas letters in the upper left, those would be mine! Its sickening how much this excites me...really.

As an aside, I totally love this treasury, even if I wasn't in it. I'm kind of in love with that yellow lately.

I lost November

I swear it was just November 1st. Right? Am I crazy? And now its the end of November. Tomorrow I'll be 28 weeks pregnant (for those not fresh on their pregnancy info, its 40 weeks total - give or take - which leaves me with 12 weeks left) And as much as I was hoping November and December would go quickly, this is a bit faster than I had in mind.

This last week I'm cycling between

"TWELVE WEEKS???? 12 more weeks?" and

"TWELVE WEEKS??? what do you mean only 12 weeks?"

It depends on what pants I'm wearing (where am I going to put 12 more weeks of baby??) and how many baby related sewing projects I add to my list (pregnancy does something to your ability to judge time required for these things. I have about 2 years of sewing planned that I seem to think I can do in 8 weeks?)

I'm going to try to take a 'belly shot' tomorrow. I originally planned to do the week by week documentation of this pregnancy. Then I thought month by month. Annnnd now I'm 2/3 of the way through and I'm hoping to take the FIRST picture tomorrow. So that plan was a big FAIL. Ah well.

Moving on to what I *have* accomplished in the last few weeks: (keeping in mind the pictures are terrible. Lighting has been junk lately, and I got tired of waiting. I was also too lazy to edit them to try to help the situation.)

My first example of "I don't knit nearly as fast as I apparently think myself able"

I won't post any other info on this until after Christmas. Let's just say I planned to have it done by now, its a gift, and it needs to be finished, washed/blocked, and shipped all in the next 3 weeks. Which...is totally do-able. But since my PLAN was to be done already, its making me panic about 37%.

This is just a random picture because if I get the camera out, I *have* to take a picture of him, and show him the back of the camera to see. Plus....he's freakin' adorable. So there. (he's smiling funny because he kept insisting I take a picture of the inside of his mouth, when I wouldn't, he gave me this goofy smile instead)

I actually hate this card. BUT...I made it. And it was one of those days where I had to *make* something, anything, even if it was fugly. I felt better.

This has no picture yet. (Which, would seem obvious without me pointing it out...duh Sarah) This is another "don't like it" but I've been trying to force myself to just make something without spending days over-analyzing, re-doing, and driving myself crazy trying to make it 'perfect'. Kind of a 'just sit down and do it' challenge for myself.


Play-mat/quilt top #1

Play mat/quilt-top #2

Play mat/quilt-top #3 - this one is basted, and partly quilted. But then I realized my machine quilting was T.E.R.R.I.B.L.E. so I'm ripping it all out (that's not true, I'm PROCRASTINATING ripping it all out, because ripping it all out is tedious and maddening).

Doll quilt that will be in the etsy shop. Hopefully with quite a few other items by this weekend. Love etsy. HATE writing descriptions. Bah.

Another random page I made a few weeks back. Inspired by a sketch from
sketchy thursdays. I never used to use sketches, but I've found them helpful getting me jump-started back into scrapbooking. (I didn't do much with it for about 2 years) Most of the time I start with a sketch, but end up tweaking and moving things that in the end you'd never recognize the two were related. This one was pretty straightforward.

This was a pillow I made for some friends that just had a baby. I screwed up on it (when don't I?) and its a little 'snug' top to bottom, but I was actually pretty happy with how it turned out. The color is lighter in real life...

'baby robin' as their last name is robin. a little corny maybe, but embroidery makes corny ok.



Another baby gift. Play mat/quilt. It was supposed to be gender neutral, and came out a little heavy on the boy side...oops. Since then, said baby has made HER entrance. Hopefully she likes blue!

There's also a baby sweater I COMPLETELY forgot to get a picture of, and a sweater I made for myself that needs buttons. Then I can start on that ambitious baby list =P

5 years

Yesterday marked 5 years since my mom died. The picture above was the night Zach was born, he was about 12 weeks old when she passed. I hesitated to post about it here, because it makes people feel awkward and like they have to say something comforting. So don't. :) Its just weird to think its been FIVE years. Sometimes it feels like it was forever ago, and other times I can't believe its been that long. Thanksgiving was always HER holiday. (Literally, I think she'd have drawn blood if anyone else tried to host!) So thanksgiving is its own reminder.

But this year it really occurred to me that she's not there. I do ok - I loved my mom, but we never exactly saw eye to eye - but seeing Zach grow up, and knowing he's missing 3 grandparents (Eddie's parents both passed away about a year and a half before my mom) is weird. And not that he's lacking. His papou and yaya pretty much adore him, and we're fortunate that even though they live 2,000 miles away, he's very aware of who they are and that they love him. We also are blessed to have aunties - both mine an Eddie's - who've taken on a 'grandma' role. They have his pictures on their fridge, and feed him junk food just because he asked, and have a stash of toys for him to play with. He does ok :)

Its just weird to think its been that long. And in case you're wondering, she had a form of cancer called glioblastoma multiforme. If you think "wow, that's a shi**y disease" (and it is) and want to throw a couple bucks into research you can do that here: donate. And if you don't, that's cool too. I know there are about 400 charities, groups and foundations I'd love to support if I had the funding and we can't do them all.

(A few off the top of my head: charity: water, Mother's Milk Bank of Iowa, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital)

I really have no end to this post...so I'm done. :)