Projects

So, Emily's been needing some new dresses and skirts to play in, she has a few she's about outgrown. I've been hesitating to put them away because they're her favorite, and then she has a couple that have just had it that are only allowed to be worn around the house. So she needed a few things to wear out and about and to church on Wed. I got ambitious and made her four dresses, two skirts and one pair of shorts. I figured if I'm going to bother cutting one out, I might as well cut out a few more!

 I added the pink ribbon, just to add a little something. I thought it turned out cute!





We went to Jo-Anns and she picked out the purple butterfly material and we bought the jean material. The turquoise I had found on sale for a super good price in the fall and the green was some that I think my mother gave me, as well as the blue for the skirt. The other skirt was a lightweight jean material from a little I had left from another project.

The green dress was a variation. The underarms ended up a little too big, so I had to take them up a little, but the sleeves were cute!

 

For the jean dress, I added some daisy buttons to it, just to brighten it up a little!

 

 

 

While I was at it and had ribbon, I made some hairbows to match some of her dresses and I made little ones for the baby!

 



 

 



The daisy one goes with the jean dress, and the pink one goes with the turquoise dress, (of course they'll go with other outfits, too) the patriotic one was just because I had cute star buttons and red and white ribbon!!

 

 

For the bows I followed the pattern at this blog  http://www.theribbonretreat.com/blog/ribbon-flower-bow.html  .  They were super easy, and I thought they turned out cute. 

Changes

Kids are funny! And it's amazing how fast they grow up and change. Some of Luke's changes started last summer, when he started going to the orthodontist. He had to get an expander to increase the width of the top of his mouth because his teeth were super crowded and they sat a little bit inside the bottom teeth. He didn't get the actual appliance until Nov/Dec and then we turned it twice a week with a little key until a couple weeks ago, when he got a reverse headgear! The reverse headgear is to help slow down the lower jaw growth ( because it grows faster than the top part). Part of me wondered if we were starting all of this too early, but I can see how he definitely needs it. We're in what they call the first phase of creating space and then we won't do anything for a year or two and then start the second phase which would consist of braces and straightening, etc. I can tell when he talks and spells things that his lower jaw juts out too far. It's all very interesting.

with his reverse headgear

 

 

 Before the expander

 

 

After the expander, you can see how there's a little more space between his teeth. He did lose one of his teeth (on his right) which makes it look like more space on that side.

 

 

The other change that he and Emily both had were that they both got glasses!! Luke was VERY excited about glasses, and it turned out Emily actually needed them more than he did!

 

I think they both look cute with them!!


On another note, today was our last day of school!!!!!!!!!!! We went to the library and got everyone library cards for the first time! (except for Timothy) We made pizza and dessert and watched a movie while we ate supper, AND Leigh got to come home early from work because it's a holiday weekend and they sent everyone home! So it turned out to be a very fun last day of school!!







Latest update

It's been awhile since I updated, but that's just because there's nothing much to say! At the last perinatologist visit the placenta had moved up a little more and so the dr. took me off of restriction. (He had put me on a list of restrictions such as no strenuous activity, no heavy exercise, some light walking should be ok, don't go out of town,for example,the Everglades, and a few other things. Well the weekend before the Dr's visit, my family came down and we went to the Everglades and mom and I moved some heavy boxes and such, so we had already done our running around, so the restrictions weren't really very limiting.) The weekend after the Dr.'s visit we went to the Keys for our church workers retreat, which was fun! So I didn't have to worry about going against Dr.'s orders! I do try very hard to do what the Doctor's say! :)

Yesterday we had our Pediatric Cardiologist checkup, which took forever, but that's normal and he said that the heart arrhythmia/2nd degree heart block (type1) seems to be resolving itself!! Which is very good! They only saw it maybe three times the whole hour of scanning, which is a huge improvement because one of the reasons we were referred to him was because of the arrhythmia which was regularly skipping every fourth beat. Everything else looks the same, they didn't see anything different than what they've been seeing so far, so that's good too. The visits take a while because they do the ultrasound of the baby's heart for about an hour and then the Dr. comes in and goes through every single picture looking at the heart, valves, chambers, veins, etc. and watching all the clips of the blood flow and such. He double checks it each time just to make sure it's all the same and they haven't missed anything. He seems very thorough, which I appreciate. He's going to be presenting her case next week to the neonatologist and surgical team at the hospital so that they're aware of us. He doesn't think that they'll want to do a surgical consult since the baby won't require surgery. We are planning to go on the tour of the maternity floor and the NICU, just so we have a clue of where we'll be and where everything is. We have what should be our last checkup with him scheduled before she's born and then he said they would see her within the first month after she's here!

And for those of you asking, she doesn't have a name yet. :(  We're working on it. We have two middle names that we like, we just have to find a first name.
Names we've eliminated are :
Emily Jr.
DebbieRay
LeighAnn(a)
Christina

Projects

Well, for a while I've been wanting to post projects that I've done, but I couldn't get the picture thing to work very well, and at the other house they were extremely slow to upload.

My latest project was Emily's Easter dress. My mom would often  make us girls Easter dresses and I always remember them fondly. It's difficult to find little girl dresses that are long enough and reasonably priced, so I occasionally make dresses for Emily, usually for church. She needed a new spring dress, so I figured it was a good excuse! I've never made this neckline before, and I was pleased with how it turned out.

Some previous things I've made

I made this dress in Jan.2012. I wanted an easy, cute casual dress that I didn't have to put a zipper in. I found this pattern and have fallen in love with it. I've made it several times. The latest two I added an extra layer at the bottom just because I used alternating material.

This was the patriotic one with an extra layer, it's not a very good picture of it, but it turned out super cute! I also made the boys matching ties. They were from a pattern online, but I wasn't too pleased with how they turned out, the neck part that goes around the neck needs some tweaking.

Here's a better picture. My inspiration for the patriotic one was a dress they had hanging in Jo-Anns with a sundress pattern. I fell in love with it! The bottom three layers were the ruffles, but the bodice was a sundress type bodice, so I just used my pattern (which I preferred) and added the extra layer.

And the Christmas one.

I wanted to make the Christmas one a little more "fun" with four different "fun" patterned material, but I couldn't find four different ones that went very well together, so we just went with two that coordinated well enough. I'm not very good at coordinating fabrics, I don't do well with colors and such unless it absolutely matches.

 

I've also made Emily some pajamas. She prefers nightgowns and I have a hard time finding them a decent length as well. Mom had made her some nightgowns, a spring one and a super cute strawberry shortcake winter one, so I found her pattern and made Emily some more!

I loved the pant set pajamas, and the material is super cute and very lightweight and comfortable looking. I love the rufflies around the feet and the shirt. She only wears it if her nightgowns are in the hamper!

 

The only other project I think I made this year was a pillowcase cross stitch of Cinderella for Emily's birthday. It was a kit and I thought it turned out cute.

That's all I have pictures of, I've done some other sewing things, but haven't taken pictures of them. I haven't done much this year, due to being too busy. I did some crochet projects and my first embroidery project, but I didn't get any pictures of it. I really enjoyed the embroidery. It was a linen kitchen towel with an embroidered poinsettia at the bottom. It turned out pretty, so I gave it to Mom for Christmas.

 





EASTER!!



Fun, Fun, Fun

What a fun week!! My sisters and brother-in-law got to come down and spend the Friday and Saturday before Easter with us!! We had sooo much fun. My parents had come down earlier in the week, so we were all together. We went to the Everglades and to the Swap Shop and hung out. We also celebrated my oldest sisters birthday! It was a fun and special, although quick, time we had. I've looked at my pictures several times.

 When I took this picture, I didn't realize there two baby gators.

 



 yawn

 

 The water level was low, so there were a lot of alligators!!

 

Pediatric Cardiologist update

Pediatric Cardiologist update: Leigh was supposed to get to go to this appointment to meet the Dr. and hopefully understand more of what's going on with our baby girl, but when he got home, the van wouldn't start. He very quickly pulled the car over and tried to jump it, but to no avail, so I ended up going alone. I greatly dislike going to the doctor's alone. Anyways, everything they saw was the same, the Dr. didn't think that the baby has a VSD. There was one section of the wall on the ultrasound that kept going in and out, but there wasn't any flow between it, so he thinks it was just the angle at which they were looking. He said they studied the pictures for a long time after I left last time and counted different beats and stuff. She has 2nd degree heart block. I'm not quite sure what this means for her, I think it's still a wait and see type thing. Her heart will beat slower than it should, so it still kind of depends on how she is able to adapt to that along with the other things wrong with her heart.

The dr. didn't know exactly what the immediate birth plan and such would be like as far as rushing her off to the NICU, etc. He thought that as long as she handled everything fine, it would be reasonable for them to only keep her about 24 hrs. in the NICU for observation and to run tests and stuff (EKG and heart ultrasounds specifically, not sure what else)  and then transition her back to the nursery. In the third trimester he presents each case to the neonatologists and other drs. at the hospital and they determine a plan of action. With our little girl, it's different because she won't be needing surgery as far as we know, so our Ped. Card. isn't quite sure what they'll recommend, or how aggressive they'll be. He said several times that her biggest transition would be right after she's born and the blood flow changes to just her heart. So, we're praying that she adjusts well and everything regulates properly. Hopefully he'll have a little more of an idea what to expect at our next appointment.

(Leigh charged the van's battery and it has worked fine since then) :)