Completed project pictures

Another pair of Amy Butler pants for Hollyse...love those baby feet.



Noelle chose her font as well. I love how classic and feminine it is.



This is the bag I freezer paper stenciled for Carter Man. I allowed him to choose the font. I really like it, doesn't it look like typewriter print?

Homeschool planning...

I am hoping to wrap up my planning this last week. The operative word here is 'hoping'.

In all honesty, it likely won't happen, but I can dream.

I am actually enjoying the planning and taking my sweet time with it. I have all month and I have ordered almost everything except a couple things for Jacob. He is taking some tutorials this year. I am excited for him to get to know some other kids around the country and learn from someone other than dad and I. Actually, I fully plan on sitting through the classes with him and learning something myself.

We are going back to our Classical Education roots! When we moved I slacked off, mostly due to lack of support locally for this particular method. I didn't give it up completely but enough to be somewhat ashamed;)

I am just seeing that Classical works. It really does. It is actually a rather enjoyable approach.

Hollyse had a tough week. It was just, hard for her. Not only was she teething, but she had some pretty severe constipation. Her tummy just kept getting bigger until I had to intervene. Needless to say, she had a day of clearing herself out that left her tush red.

As a mommy, it always feels like you've failed if your baby has a rash. You feel as though everyone knows you 'must never change that kids diaper with a rash like that'...but with Hirschsprungs, a rash is a regular occurence. The surgeon told us to expect it, the other mommies who have children with this disease tell you to expect it. But, I still wince every time her bottom is red. In all honesty, she has been 100% less rashy than we expected and her surgeon is thrilled. But I still feel like a bad mommy. It never fails someone always has to mention how "my children rarely get rashes." Well gee, thanks for the encouragement. I think maybe the teething isn't helping either.

By the way, she has TWO teeth now, and she waves 'hi' and says "hahhh"...I love her so stinking much. She really is brilliant you know. What other baby at four months could grab their pacifier and put it in their mouth? What a genius!

I am digging that Intentional Planner. I am telling you, do your mommy self a favor and get one. I am editing and printing and organizing and planning like a nut. It is just wonderful!!!

I want to do a give away. I would like to make another quilt and give it away. It was such a fun project.

What do you think, should I distract myself with another sewing project for a give away?

I will never get my planning done if I keep this up....

I Won!

I am so excited that I won this helpful planner!

I have been playing around with it the last few days between sewing and school planning. Honestly, this is such a great tool for busy homeschool moms. I cannot encourage you enough to get one. Sheri Graham really did a great job with this planner. I have another planner she wrote here
I use it every year to plan my Thanksgiving and Christmas. Check them out!

I have been working on that quilt I shared in my last post. It is done! I am so pleased with how well it turned out. This was a very simple project that I feel a tremendous amount of satisfaction. In the photos above Hollyse is actually sitting on the blanket.

I also made Hollyse several pairs of little pants using the kimono style pajama bottoms in Amy Butler's Little stitches for Little Ones. These little pants took me literally 30 minutes, start to finish. The instructions were fool proof (trust me I would know). You can see in the above photos how sweet they are. I am making another pair in flannel.

I also did a stenciled book bag using freezer paper. Very cool.

I know that Summer is getting short so I am eager to finish many more projects before the start of school.

We use our crock pot quite a bit in the Fall and Winter months for easy, healthy, hearty meals. One frustrating situation I encounter with crock pot cook books is the use of canned soups. In particular, creamed, canned soups. I have one child who is lactose intolerant and another I suspect may have a dairy allergy. Why all the cheating in cook books? How about meals from scratch. All that to say I have been digging around the internet for how made recipes without the use of pre-made ingredients.

If you have any to share that would be lovely!

Two days in a row....

Are you amazed? I am. I don't know whats going on.

What a day! Some of the littles played in the sprinklers and one of them had many dirty diapers (guess which one). It always amazes me how quickly this child will get a rash if she has more than one dirty diaper a day. I do not have 100% confirmation through her Dr but another HD mom said after the pull through their poop is more acidic. Time and again it seems to be proving the case. Anyhow. Enough of that.

Let's move on to what I want to complain about.

Hmmm.
Let me think....
Uhhhh, well.
Yeah.

I have nothing. I suppose I could dig from other days but I won't.

I have a couple of projects right now that I am really wanting to finish. The first is this

I am actually about fifteen rows in, but I am ripping that baby tonight. I am just not happy with the center. I am knitting it in this using Rosebush.
Now, let me start that I am a yarn snob. I don't care for synthetic yarns but I just thought this would be a fun and quick knitting project. We'll see.

The project I am really jazzed about is this
I love this quilt and having never quilted in my life. I thought this looked simple enough. I'll post a pic when I finish.

Amanda is the computer geek around here and has been helping make some much needed changes to our blog.

Keep a look out!

This is sad, really pathetic excuse for a blog....

I say I am going to be 'better' about blogging. I actually DO mean it when I say it, but then the laundry takes over, or sewing, or reading, or grocery shopping, checking the mail, trying to figure out what my child is wearing, thinking or doing, wondering when my house will be clean, wishing I had a garden...I am really going off on a rabbit trail here. But, you get what I mean, no less than a million other things take over my life, completely. I know, I know, it really is no excuse. I only have a few children. Many moms accomplish much more than I do with a much larger family, so really what is my excuse.

Since you've cornered me, I will admit I have no excuse.

Okay, I can do better than that. Let me share a couple things. For one, I am not all about the sharing of every personal thought I have with the world. That is all good and well for many people and I see nothing wrong with those that blog all their daily thoughts, concerns, activities. But I am just not there. It makes me...uncomfortable. So, that is one hang up.

The other 'hang-up' is that this is a 'family' blog to share family things. I suppose it has been mostly a 'Hollyse' blog but she is a part of the family. So, I always feel odd about posting about the mundane things. For example, I am extremely irritated with Hanes. I am sick and tired of buying undershirts for my sons only to have them shrink in length but not a millimeter in width. The end result is something that looks terrible under a fitted dress shirt. No, actually the end result is a bunch of new rags for my rag bin. I discovered JCPenny undershirts and I am thrilled! They are nice, soft, and all seem to have gone through quality control.

But really, who wants to read about that. I could go on and on....my list of frustrations with baby products is astounding.

So, I just don't blog. I stuff all my frustrations (if you know me, then you know this is a total and complete lie) and think about how I would like to warn all the other mommies about terrible products. But I do nothing.

I could blog about my sewing, knitting, and more recently quilting projects. I could have shared the before and after of my organizing binge in the kitchen. I even took pictures at the Home School Convention we went to a few weeks ago and the delicious boxty's we have when we go to Long Beach.
An old poem says:

Boxty on the griddle,
boxty in the pan,
if you can't make boxty,
you'll never get a man.

I had it all planned out in my head. But, then I figured 'who would care'. To be sure I have plenty of complaints about the Hyatt Regency Long Beach, what a glorified motel that turned out to be. I took pictures of that too I fear. I should delete them, because who cares!

I often find myself folding clothes thinking about what I could blog about.

The idea of starting a personal blog has crossed my mind, but then what if I don't keep that up either?

For those of you still reading, I will share Hollyse is doing well. She has a new tooth. A lovely, pearly white one on the bottom. She is a crawler now, and what a tiny little doll she is! She is just pure sunshine and rainbows. Really, she is. I cannot believe she is almost 9 months. I have the cutest pictures to share and will as soon as I remember to ask my photographer to email a couple of the recent ones.

The one above is a funny one from yesterday...I love her laugh!

Happy 7 month birthday my buttercup

I never though she would make it, I didn't. I trusted God, but I just didn't think he would let us keep her. He did!

Thank you God!

I really need to improve in the blogging area...

I know it must be frustrating to not get updates. But to be honest we didn't have an update to give until last week. So here goes...

In a nut shell Hollyse's surgeon doesn't know how much more aganglionosis she has. He consulted with three other surgeons who had varying degrees of recommendations. One suggested the watch and see approach, another suggested he re-do the surgery using a different method instead of a pull through, and the last suggested a colostomy bag. Yes, I nearly fell over with the colostomy...you could have knocked me over with a feather. I am so, so grateful we have a surgeon who isn't like what you typically hear surgeons are like, scalpel happy.

He did mention something that really threw me for a loop because he has never said it before. The possibility she has Hirschsprungs through out her small intestines. Because she has this rare skip segment he believes it is possible she could have skip throughout, although unlikely. I think he shared this because she has thrown him for a loop everytime....he thought it was full colonic-but it was short segment...he thought he was being extremely thourough by removing more-biopsy showed nothing healthy. Then the whole skip segment. So, I think he just doesn't trust she is falling inside the normal perimeters of this disease.

Her growth will be monitored as slow growth is one indicator of her small intestines being affected. He also warned us to be diligent in watching for any signs of enterocolitis as that is major concern for at least another six months. But, overall he is very pleased, even with all the lack of answers and strangeness of her medical case.

We will be watching many things in the coming years as he assured us we have a long relationship to come. I knew that but it is hard naturally to not know where she is going to go. But I am thrilled that she is a growing baby who has really been healthy (outside of a major disease).

I really want to get the word out there about this disease. It is so rare and people need to know so that they can react quickly. No child should be lost for lack of response. It really bugs me that every time I type Hirschsprungs it isn't recognized in the spell check.

I will get some more pics up soon. I might even blog about something other than Hirschsprungs;)

Blessings,
Michelle