What I've been making while we were sick

This little scarf was for Ann. She loves to feel on things, so I thought I would whip this up to give her something to rub on while she was down and out. She was so sick in this photo, but she gave me a true smile. 

This is the baby blanket that I made for our friends, Derek and Jeri, that had their baby, Elijah, this weekend. I really love how it turned out. So much I went and picked up 3 different colors to do the same pattern for baby Cam. The yarn I picked out for Cam will not make good tassels though.

Another scarf. My friend Elizabeth has a pasion for purple. I had 1 ball of purple yarn so I turned it into this scarf for her. I thought it would be enough, however I ran out so I added some 2 tone gray and purple to it. I like how it turned out also. My model was less than thrilled to have it around her neck. Can't blame her, she had just come in from outside where it's 90 degrees today. 

Cloth Diapers

My story with cloth diapers began when Nia (now 11) was a newborn. I decided to give them a try. I assumed that you could just go to your local Wal-mart, grab a pack of the cute, printed cloths, and proceed to diaper your baby with them. Since those 'diapers' are really designed to be used as burp clothes, my one day trial was filled with nothing but wet everywhere. Months later I actually met a mom who cloth diapered the real way. I was intrigued, but not enough to relive that first test trial.

Six and a half years later I was blessed with my second child, Ann. By this time the internet was in full swing and my little Ann's sensitive skin was constantly broken out in a diaper rash. We would miss outings just so I could let her go diaper free. After researching what to do about constant diaper rash, I came across the new cloth diaper. The one size pocket diaper. I researched what many felt was the best (of only a few brands) on the market, BumGenius. Then on product 2.0. I proceeded to make about a dozen of my own pocket diapers designed after the pictures on the Cotton Babies web site of the BumGenius. My homemade diapers were not the best, not even close, but it did get rid of Ann's rash and made my husband and I decide to make the switch. At first we used my homemade cloth during the day and a disposable at night. A month later we ordered a couple dozen prefolds, 2 diaper covers, and 2 of the coveted BumGenius one-size 2.0s from cottonbabies.com. We used the BumGenius at night and my homemade and prefolds during the day. I loved my BumGenius and eventually built up enough of a stash of them to last Ann 2 days. Below is an example of a 2.0, not the one-size or a pocket diaper like we used, but you get the idea.

So, what are we doing diaper wise for the new baby? If you guessed BumGenius 4.0, you are right! We will be starting with 6 BumGenius, 18 prefolds, and 3 ecobum covers. Eventually we will get more pocket diapers. I would totally go with only BumGenius, but I have read on several blogs that you should tryout a diaper on a baby's behind for a while before you dish out the dough on a full stash of them. Every bottom is different and different diapers work better on different kids. Below is an pic of a 4.0, now I can get them in prints!

Also in prep for the new baby and his cloth diapers I cut 12 inch by 5 inch rectangles from fleece to use as diaper liners. This is so simple. I bought 2 feet of polar fleece fabric which was on sale, 1 foot of each fabric. Then cut 5 inch sections. No need to sew, fleece doesn't fray. I didn't use liners with Ann, but I like the idea. The cost for the liners was under $3 and it made a total of 22.  They are cheeper and totally cuter than the liners you find for sale also. 

For wipes we use cut up old t-shirts. I asked friends on facebook to give me old t-shirts they no longer wanted. My only tip here is to make them all the same size and make that size one that will fit into the container of you choice. We are using a container that would normally hold disposable wipes.

Insulin

I started insulin today. I was really upset about the whole thing, I mean really upset. I have done absolutely everything I have been told to do, but it just isn't working. Now that I've taken the first couple of doses, it's not so bad. It actually doesn't hurt at all. The needles are so very tiny that if I wasn't giving it to myself I wouldn't feel them.

Our house is still kinda sick. John seems to be all better. A few coughs here and there. I think I am getting better, still a little way to go. Ann, well today she is better than she has been in a week and a half, but still laid on the couch all day. Nia has been fighting it. She is definitely congested, but says she feels fine. However, she has taken a long nap most days for the last week.

sick house

My sick babies sleeping on the living room floor and my littlest one on me.

The house has been sick for over a week now. John seems to be getting better. Ann and I have brochettes, but also seem to be on the up swing of it. Nia hasn't been too sick, but does have a cold. She has been sleeping about twice as much as usual so I think her body is just fighting it off. On the flip side, I am super excited about my baby shower which is 3 days away!!!
Also, our friends Jeri and Derek had their baby on Sunday! We are very excited for them.

Rough Week

The first part of the week the AC was out and the girls found a black widow in their room. Now 3 of us are sick. Head ache, congestion, cough, body aches all over, slight fever, and my heart is going crazy. It's a little after 3 AM and I am up tonight with Ann. She woke up throwing up flem.

A few of things I've made lately

So, I guess the only thing I've worked on lately is crochet. Both of my beautiful girls wanted rainbow blankets. So this is what I made them...

This is Nia's 'rainbow blanket'. Not really a rainbow, just has a lot of colors. The colors are much brighter in person. Nia wanted her blanket to be for the living room and was very specific on it's size.

I took this pic while I was working on Ann's in the park. It looks kind of like a confetti pattern. she really likes it and has slept with it every night since I finished it over a month ago. It is a good size for a twin bed. 

This is the blanket that made my girls demand to have blankets made. This blanket is for little Cameron. I started on it the day I found out he is a boy. I can't wait to see him snuggle up with it. It of course is crib size.

Youth Space

God has called my husband and me to start a youth ministry at Vineyard Reynoldsburg. The church has  been blessed with a space to use for free as long as we renovate it. Here are some before pics. It is in really rough shape.

These first few pics are of the room in the worst shape. It was once the home of a beauty parlor!

Below are hook ups for sinks in the beauty shop.

Another room in bad shape.

This room is good, we probably won't have to do any work in here. Well, maybe paint.

This room also in good shape, I think it needed some dry wall repair and the curtains are all torn up.

Men's restroom. Minimal plumbing needs replaced in toilet and more drywall repair.

Utility closet, just needs a volunteer to clean it out!

Hallway outside women's restroom.

Women's restroom. Just needs the same plumbing repairs as the men's.

hallway

This light is in the hall, I thought is was kinda retro funky cool.

Main worship area. Complete with a stage! This pic doesn't do it justice as far as it's size. It seems much bigger in person.

Off the worship area. Behind John and Richard there is an entrance to a little 'cottage' area. John kept hitting his head on the decorative pieces you see in this pic so it (the decorative pieces) were ripped out this weekend when they started renovations. We want to turn the cottage itself in a little coffee shop area, but we don't know if running water to the space is financially a good idea.

The next two pics show the top of this blue wall. The owners have asked us to restore it in some way. It was once the lane of a bowling alley that was in this space! How cool is that?

Entrance to cottage area that was removed.

The Stage

The plan here is to remove the back and left false walls along with the awning part that is over the stage. That will give us about 3 more feet front to back and more space side to side. The ceiling in this space is wood painted silver. We are going to leave it silver and the wood is great for sound.

Behind the stage. We know we will have to find a way to block the light from window. I am thinking a thick curtain to cover the entire back wall.

One of the rooms inside cottage. 

John and a group of his friends did some renovations this week end and I will ad those pics later. I don't have before pics of the area they worked on though. They worked on the floor in a room next to the stage and removed plaster from a wall that is in a large space next to the worship area. We are planning on using that large space as a rec area with pool and ping pong tables and other game type stuff.

Cute kid things

A few cute things the kids have done lately....

Nia has become a very good cook lately and she really likes doing it. The other night she repeated asked me what I was making for dinner. I wasn't realizing this was her way of say she was really hungry. After a couple of hours of me say I wasn't sure yet she just went into the kitchen and made dinner. Complete with desert of her own recipe. It was a not to sweet chocolate cake made from bisquick and oats and was very yummy.

Nia made a pretend paper phone for her little sister with the cool features of a fancy phone.

me: Ann go pick out 1 toy to take to the doctor's office with you
Ann thinks a minute and runs into the living grabbing my laptop.

Nia enters the the room wearing John's hat and states, "I look totally cute in this! Mom, do I look totally cute in this or what?"
me, "You do look totally cute in dad's hat."
Nia, "I'm totally steeling it for the day!"
This was the day, the hat at this point was actually on the dog on the back of the couch, which she also carried around all day. I think she just wanted to feel closer to daddy that day.

Ann was playing a computer game and picked up my phone and started playing another game on it. They are both educational. My dilemmas 1) am I proud of her for multi tasking or tell her to unplug? 2) She gets 2 hours of tv/game time, does this count as double time since she is doing 2 at once?


Took kids to the park for a picnic
As we are driving through the wooded area of the park Ann says. "Mom, this isn't a play park, it's a tree factory."


Ann, "mom, I don't NEED to learn how to read, you already read everything for me."


Ann. "Why do I need to learn my address? I don't want to."
Me, "So if you get lost someone can help you find your way home."
Ann, "Don't worry mom, if I get lost, you will just come find me."

Black Widow

Today the girls came running down stairs to report they saw a spider in their room. I didn't think much of it, we see little spiders all of the time. Then Nia drew a picture of it. I immediately knew it was a black widow, but I googled some images of different types of spiders to show the girls to make sure I wasn't jumping to conclusions from my 11 year old's drawing.

They picked out the black widow and said that was it. Being pregnant I thought it would probably be bad news to be bitten by a black widow and I know a bite can kill small small children, so I explained to Nia the situation and she wanted to go hunt it down and kill it. My instinct was to leave for the day and wait for my hubby to get home to kill the ferocious beast, but I decided to not to squash the bravery of sweet daughter and explained to her how careful she should be. I have to say I was really nervous while she was upstairs, but it only took her a few minutes to find it and kill it. GO NIA!!!!! You are my hero.

update: Killing the spider has really given Nia a new found bravery. She is now the official spider and bug killer in our family. This is really awesome considering just months ago seeing either generally sent her screaming and sometimes crying out of a room.

A/C

Our A/C unit is out. we thought it just might be frozen. So we left it off for a long while so it could defrost. Now I'm thinking it's just broke. Our office is closed so there is no one to report it to right now. So, I am just pregnant and HOT!

Memorial Day Weekend

Today was a great day. The kids behaved really well all day. John was mostly in a good mood. And I felt well most of the day. I slept in. Nia brought breakfast upstairs to me. We went to the park for a picnic and they were having a special nature exhibit for the holiday. We played a little xbox connect and then we went to Grater's for ice cream. At Greater's they were having a buy one scoop get one free special and after flirting with Nia the teenage boy at the register gave us some kind of additional discount.  John didn't realize exactly what had happened with our bill until I explained it to him later. His face showed a look of confusion, hurt, dismay, and general uneasiness. After coming home, John and I finished up our school work for the quarter and Nia volunteered to make dinner. She did an awesome job and even surprised us with a desert of her own recipe. It was kind of like cake. There wasn't even a slight argument at bath time or bed time and Nia asked me to hold her before she went to bed. Ahhh, if only everyday could go this well, mmm without the teenage boy flirting with daughter.

Grocery Store

I shop at Kroger usually for groceries. Today everything seemed to be just a little more expensive than last week. Many things by about 50 or 75 cents and a few by a dollar or more. I am on a budget so I walk around the store with a calculator. According to my calculations I had spent just under $120, but when I got to the register the totals were not adding up the same. I had only brought $127 with me and I had planned on spending less than $100. It wasn't until I hit total that the 'store card' discount was calculated on some items. I find this very annoying. Why bother allowing me to see a running total if some 'discounts' are not factored in. When I first hit total there were several items in my cart that I had decided not to get because I didn't think I had enough money. After my total went down I ultimately bought them, but I wonder how many sales they loss because of this. My total was $119.36. Thats only 5 days of food. Our grocery bill has just about doubled in the last few weeks due to my newly diagnosed gestational diabetes and the already known wheat allergy. At the very end of our trip I really think I almost had a heart attack when I realized one of our bags was left in the store. So maybe thats a bit of an exaggeration, but  I quickly sent Nia back into the store, grabbed Ann and headed in after her. By the Grace of God it was still there. The stress of it all sent me into a fairly painful contraction, but all is well.

Great Day!

Today was Serve Columbus. My hubby and I helped out a friend with his ministry project for VLI for this by passing out Tim Horton's gifts cards and cookies with invites to a branch of our church downtown. I actually had a lot of fun hanging out downtown with my husband and our friends doing this. After, we picked up our youngest and made a quick trip to North Market to pick up some local raw honey from HoneyRun Farm, we whisked off to a little friends' birthday party. A little later it was Church time then off to dinner with friends. We were busy, I am tired, but it was so much fun. This is by far the most I have done in one day in months, at least since being on, then coming off of bed rest.

little sister

My oldest has never been much of a social butterfly. In fact, since her little sister was born almost 5 years ago, she has often preferred to spend time with her rather than with friends when they ask her to play. The two of them are usually joined at the hip and do everything together. This week however a new family moved in around the corner, and Nia has left little Annie in the dust. I'm thrilled that Nia has a new friend, they have spent every moment possible together the last few days. However, I don't like that it is at the expense of Ann's feelings. What is a mom to do?

leg pain

I have been really bummed the last few days. I am off bedrest. It has been really nice outside. I am supposed to be out getting exercise, which I want to do. However, my leg is killing me! I have had 17 breaks in my left leg and a moray of other incidences that cause that leg to give me grief. Bedrest made it weak and as soon as I got off bedrest I started doing more exercise. So, now it is in fairly bad shape. I would really like to see a doctor that can 'fix' it, but I just don't think there is one out there that can rewind the woes of time and the abuse it's seen.

update: I saw a chiropractor that told me I had a pinched nerve that ran down my leg. He said this is fairly common in pregnancy. I've had a few adjustments, lots of ice on my hips to relax the mussels that pinch the nerves, and have gotten several hip and leg massages from my wonderful John. My leg is feeling much better now and my other leg, which I didn't even realize was hurting, is feeling better also.

gestational diabetes

First with the good news, I am off bed rest!!
However, it turns out that test that I really wasn't worried about, maybe I should have been a little more worried about it. I have gestational diabetes. I really didn't realize how much sugar I was consuming in one day. 2 glasses of juice a day, lots of fruit, a frappe 2 or 3 times a week, fruit smoothies 2 or 3 times a week, and ice cream and yogurt on a regular basis.
I meet with a nutritionalist in the morning, and I'm sure we can get a handle on this. In the mean time, I have cut all the sugar. Well, I still have fruit, but much less of it. My body is NOT liking the adjustment. I feel fuzzy headed and I've been falling asleep about an hour after every meal. I am supposed to check my sugar levels 4 times a day. I started doing this yesterday and so far the levels have been high each time.
Something I'm nervous about is the cost of a gluten free diet combined with the cost of a sugar free diet.

Something sweet that's good for me:
Ann did the sweetest thing the other day, I was having a contraction and she told me she wanted to pray for me. It was so much deeper than I expected from her. I was amazed and blessed by her prayer.

6th day

So, it's the 6th day I am on bedrest, and I just want to go somewhere. Get out of the house. LEAVE. I was bit a afraid this would happen, and really I'm glad I have gotten to stay on my feet this long. So my due date is July 26th, but with this pregnancy I have been given a 'goal date' also. July 5th is the date that we want the baby to stay in until. So, only 9 weeks and 1 1/2 days left.

Good Day

Today was a good day. John and I have decided to consider buying a house and Nia finished up her achievement testing today! It was a long week for Nia and we are very proud of her for all of her hard work this last year. Her testing took place in a conference area of the Concorse Hotel here in Columbus. Ann and I mostly hung out in the lobby with the families of the online schoolers. On Wednesday we did have a nice little mommy-daughter date at McDonald's though.

rest

With this pregnancy, I am at risk for preterm labor. So, I have a nurse that comes to my house weekly to give me a hormone injection. The injection stops me from cramping and having contractions. However, around day 5 or 6 after the injection they come back. Today, my nurse and I decided to move the injections from every 7th day to every 6th day in hopes at keeping them at bay. Today I received my injection, but my cramps and contractions have not gone away yet. Sometimes it takes til the next day before they stop. When they start I have 2 options: 1) lie down or 2) sit with my feet up. At any rate, I am out of commission for the rest of day. I find this very frustrating. With the baby coming, there is so much to get done. With 2 kids home already, there is so much to already do. I get cranky when this happens. My husband gets stressed. Then I start to get sad.

Reactions

Today I am not feeling so hot. Yesterday I had chicken that was marinated in a bbq sauce that is now apparent I should not have eaten. This is what happens when this situation creeps up on me: I'm very tired. My body aches all over. It's hard to think and if what ever I have eaten is really bad for me, the thinking thing gets to the point where it's difficult figure out what I am trying to say. The left side of my face appears as if I am recovering from a stroke or bell's palsy and that side of my face also goes numb. My heart slows down and feels funny. I've gone to ER and to different doctors for the heart when this happens and all test show nothing is wrong. I swell up.
So what do I do when this happens? I drink lemon water, take some tylenol, sometimes I take benadryl, and just wait it out. I should feel beter in 2 or 3 days, but my face may take a couple of weeks to get back to normal. I'm generally really careful about what I eat, so thankfully this doesn't happen very often. However, when it does, I'm not usually certain what has caused the reaction. I'm not sure of everything my body has reactions to. Often I assume it's one thing and am wrong, so the actual culprit may be ingested another time or two before I figure it out. Sometimes, it's a reaction to something else in the environment (like if I were to go to a park that had just sprayed a chemical to kill weeds on their playground). I also have a similar reaction, but usually without the face part, when I am coming down with some kind of sickness.
I can usually tell when the cause is an illness, but it gets a bit tricky. The reaction seems to cause my imune system to be weakened and I often get sick shortly after one. So, then I have to determine if I was just having a reaction to getting sick all along or if I'm getting sick because I had a reaction and became weak.