6 week birthday

I came up with a nickname for my little guy that we'd be calling him if he was still here: Nolie-polie-raviolli. I think by now that I would have changed about a million diapers. I got to change his diaper in the hospital once. That's what I'm doing here:


I'm glad I had the presence of mind to ask the nurse if I could do it when she said he needed his diaper changed. It is something so familiar that a mom does for her baby so often.

He never really got a bath, but I did get to wash his hair after they took off the stickers on his head.
Sorry if this bums people out, that's not my intention. I just think a lot about what kinds of things I'd be doing for him if he were still here with me. Yesterday I received the copy of his medical records from Primary Children's that I had requested, and it's gotten me really down.

And to think.....

that I was dreading the thought of VACUUMING the carpet today. Oh, how naive I can sometimes be!
I suppose that, in his defense, he's only 3. And all of this WAS to go in and wash the mud off his hands.

How I funkified my jacket

This is a sort of before picture of my jacket, only mine's green.

I wish I had taken an actual before picture, but I forgot.

Here is the after picture after I learned how to make fabric-covered buttons and made my jacket "more cooler" as E would say. I tried to get an attractive picture of it ON, but let's be honest, if I'm putting it right under the one with a model wearing it, no.
PS- I love how it somehow matches everything else in my kitchen- hmmm.... maybe I like this color?

Happy Birthday Baby Bro!

I have to post a big Happy Birthday to my youngest sibling, who finally ended his reign as a teenager and turned 20 today. Not that he'll see this (at least I hope he's not reading blogs on his mission) He is in North Carolina living it up as an Elder for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. No better place for him to be.
Tonight we got a link to some youtube videos of him at his birthday party some members threw for him. Here is the least weird of the three

Speaking of missions, whenever missions are discussed lately, M proudly announces that he knows someone who is a missionary in heaven. He really is proud of Nolan who he says is teaching people who died about Jesus Christ. So I hope both my missionaries are doing great!

"Come see my basement!"

If you've ever been to my house (the current one) the boys drag you downstairs first thing after walking in the door. For some reason, they think this is the must-see part of the house. Our basement is 1/2 of our square footage, but is unfinished. We still use it anyway but it is not by any means the first thing I would choose to show off.
The other day our friends gave us a large piece of carpet from their soon-to-be-finished basement and the DH put it down. (thanks guys!) Yesterday I re-organized the "family room" and stapled some fabric to the wall over the insulation I'd been worried some kid might decide to eat.
So, here I am dragging you down to look at my basement.

The "TV" area and our food storage room (stay away from the buckets of wheat)
The play area, with the dress-ups moved to a much better location than they were before
The fabric I stapled up to shield from the insulation.
I didn't do much new with our schoolroom besides put bigger rugs in and clean the floor. Can you believe that it costs nothing to go to this school? You may NOT believe it, it looks so fancy!

This is my sewing area- the thing I am grateful for today. I love having this much workspace! I just hope it isn't too cold in the winter. We'll see.

2 things im grateful for lately:

AND

Some things are just ridiculous

I was checking out a craft site this morning, and forgive me if you have been the recent crafter of one of these beautiful vacuum hose cleaners, but I think it is kind of a silly thing to make!

Halloween Festivities Continued

Our Halloween was pretty good. We had Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Whitney over for a Spaghetti dinner, then suited up for the candy begging. Grandpa and the DH stayed home and handed out candy with a few of the neighbors. They sat around a propane fire pit to stay warm. After we'd hit quite a few houses (the boys thought it was pretty cool to go to our old house) we joined them at the fire to drink hot cider and eat candy. A fun time was had.




On Wednesday we visited the library with some friends for a parade and fun songs and stories. They even had trick-or-treating (because we need more of that!) It was fun.


I forgot to include in our halloween festivities our trip to Gardner Village to see the Witches. This year it was only me, the boys, and Grandma. We went on the 6th when I was 3 days overdue trying to get labor to keep going. It didn't really work that day, but I got really tired!



The next day (7th) for school we talked about castles and knights and we made one out of some of our moving boxes. The coats of arms were based on actual families' coats from medieval times.


And lastly, a few days ago E pulled a bucket of wheat down on himself and it got him in the face. He took the worst of it in his chin, and got 5 stitches at the ER. His eye was pretty swollen for a few days, but he is doing pretty good now.