What can you get for $5

After several unsuccessful attempts to get Lucy to ride her bike without training wheels, Eric offered her $5 if she could ride 40 feet without help.  Suddenly her fear morphed into determination and she did it!  We are headed to the $ store, per her request. 

School Carnival

I was in charge of the silent auction giftbasket for Ruby's class.  We had so many donations that I ended up using a large storage tub as the basket and had my friend make a vinyl sticker to turn it into a game storage box.  It is HUGE! Ruby was so proud she asked if she could carry it into the office... but I could barely lift it.  

Quilt show/ Art In The Park

Today was our local Historical home tour/ quilt show / art in the park. I really wanted to go and knew that the girls would rather die then go walk around looking at quilts. So when we got up and the girls were watching cartoons, I said:

"Ok it's Saturday morning, time to do your cleaning chores"

Of course this was met with a chorus of "Oh man, do we have to?" to which I replied:

"I guess we can skip our chores if you would like to go to the quilt show downtown" they all suddenly became very excited about going to see quilts!

I think they actually enjoyed it. Haley loved learning how to do traditional rug hooking, she has informed me that she wants to be a hooker. When we got home she went right to the computer to Google information about rug hooking. I told her that she has to finish one of her 2 crochet projects before she can start hooking.

This is a classic portrait of my girls. All girls subconsciously lined up in order of age. Lucy wearing one of her favorite skirts, Ruby wearing platform heals, a mini skirt and purse and Haley wearing softball shorts and tennis shoes. I love that they each beat to their own drum!

At Art In The Park there was one lady that paints all the local historical homes in bright loud colors. Her work is very recognizable. When I saw this painting in her booth I just loved it. It's our mountain! My girls gauge everything by the R on the mountain like how low the snow level is and how bad the smog is. I even made a quilt block of the R on our mountain here.

Even though it was 1,000 degrees today we had a great softball free day at the park and ended with some nuclear colored cotton candy ice cream from Rite Aid.

Eric sat at the hospital library studying for his Board test from 7:30am- 6pm. I am thankful that he is so dedicated and focused but I can't wait for him to rejoin our family after his test is over in June.

The Quilt Police

I recently finished piecing my Civil War quilt top from our quilt exchange and was so excited to finally have it all done.  

When Eric came home and I showed him the quilt top he said "That looks good" ... but then he stood there staring at it for a long time without saying a word.  

Finally I asked him what was wrong and he said "How hard would it be to unpick these two blocks and switch them?" 

What the heck? I just finished it, there was no way I was going to unpick it! 

Eric is less then passionate about most of the quilts I have made, but every now and then there is something he doesn't like and he becomes very outspoken.  He looks at a quilts like a math equation instead of art.  

He kept pleading his case and trying to get me to unpick it, finally I said "You can unpick it if you want to".  

The next morning the quilt was on my sewing table with the bottom row and sashing completely unpicked.  Holy cow he was serious!

I re-sewed it with the two blocks switched.  I will admit that it looks a little better, but not enough to justify unpicking it.

When he saw it re-sewn with the two blocks switched he very sincerely said "Thank you so much for doing that, it looks so much better now".  

****I am THINKING about hand quilting this quilt, does anyone have any suggestions about what kind of batting and thread to use? I have never really hand quilted anything except a very small doll quilt.

 

The House quilt

 I finally completed my house quilt!

Over a year ago I was flying quickly through quilting blogs looking for ideas on a project I was working on.  After a couple of hours I had visited quilting blogs all across America, Australia, England and Norway.  I was just scrolling through looking at photos of quilts and dragging the photos that I liked to my desk top. After I was done wasting all that time, I looked over the photos I had selected and one by one deleted them for one reason or another until I came to this house quilt(photo below). I just LOVED it.  

The more I looked at it, the more I loved it. I decided that I needed to make one exactly like it. I emailed the photo to some friends just to see it and the next thing I knew all 6 of us decided to do it as an exchange.  I am really sick that I have no idea what blog this idea came from. I wish I could email her and tell her how much I love her wonderful original design and ask her forgiveness for completely copying her idea.  If I remember correctly she was American but living outside of the country. 

I think her wording was written with a pen, but I decided to embroider the words on my border. It says "A house divided against itself cannot stand A. Lincoln"

Of course my friend Jackie that did this exchange too, finished her quilt 1st.  She added her own super cool border and did amazing quilting that unfortunately you can't see in this photo. 

One of the other girls in the exchange Kira is living in Philadelphia and sent all of us this super cute label for the back of the liberty bell with all of our names. 

Although this quilt really doesn't go anywhere in our house, it has become one of my favorite quilts of all time.

FYI- The pattern we used for the foundation pieced houses we found here.

Moving on

I really appreciate everyone that has called or written and shared their experience(s) when they had a miscarriage.  It was not only comforting to realize that I am not alone but it has been incredibly therapeutic to talk to people that relate to what I have been going through. Hearing these experiences made me realize that although miscarages are never a plesent thing, what I went through was abnormal and should never have happened.  

I truly believe that because my Doctor was post call and tired she did not want to do a D&C and sent me home to deal with it.  Also when I went in for the ultrasound to see if I passed all the products she assured me that I had and sent me home.... five days later without warning or pain I passed all the products without the painful medication.  Although I was emotionally unprepared when it happened, and angry at my Doctor for being incompetent, I feel sooo much better now and can tell that my hormones are going back to normal. I am still sad and quick to cry, but I don't want to kill anyone now. I am however switching to a new Doctor.

Not only did we receive a lot of help and dinners from friends that live nearby but I had dear friends from all over the country helping me and sending their love:

 

Thank you to all my Green Wave girlfriends (Translations- friends I met while at Tulane) for the beautiful boquet of tulips. Tulips are my favorite!  I admit receiving it made me cry, but in a good way, Thank you!

Amanda L. sent me that a very heartfelt letter with a copy of Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin's talk-Sunday Will Come, you can read it here.  She also decopauged a special box for me and sent little art canvases for each of the girls. Thank you Amanda!

Shawna B. not only endured several phone calls from me but also sent me an awesome care package. Thank you Shawna! 

Kristi gave me a gift via voice mail that made me laugh and smile. Thank you Kristi!

Tasha helped to reassure me that I was not insane and that what I was feeling was normal and would pass. Thank you Tasha!

Liz sent me a very thoughtful card to uplift me. Thank you Liz!

Thank you to everyone for all your kind comments and prayers, I have felt so loved and comforted.

One last thing that everyone has surreptitiously tried to ask me... 

This pregnancy was planned and not a surprise.  

Trials

I realize that there are some things that you just shouldn't blog about and that is probably the case with this post.  But this is my journal and I want to document what I have been going through and hopefully help someone that may go through something like this in the future.  So if you are uncomfortable with too much information... you have been warned.

This last week has been one of the most difficult weeks of my life.  Last Monday I went in for my 10 week ultrasound at the OB. No you didn't know I was pregnant because we had not told ANYONE.  As soon as the Dr. started the ultrasound she immediately said "I don't like what I see here".  Long story short she told me that after 10 weeks of being really sick I was going to have a miscarriage.  

Although I was really sad and trying desperately not to cry in the office, I had a feeling of comfort and I knew that this was the Lord's will.  That didn't mean I was happy about it, I just accepted it while I spent the rest of the day crying.

  

I have never had a miscarriage so I assumed that I would just have a lot of bleeding for a couple of days, possibly a D&C and it would be over.  I thought the worst part was the sadness over loosing the baby.  I had no idea what was about to happen. I will omit the gory details but by Wednesday she gave me a prescription to help my cervix dilate and told me that I should not be left alone for the next two days. FYI-I have had 3 C sections because my cervix just will not dilate.   Eric took 2 days off and stayed home with me. I have never been in so much pain in my life. It just kept getting stronger and stronger until I could not breath. I went into what I can only assume was labor and there was nothing I could do about it. If I was in the hospital having a baby I could have asked for an epideral, but laying in my bed the only option I had was Tylenol with codeine. It did not help at all.  Eric stayed with me as I laid in bed sweating and trying to breath.  I realize that there are lots of people that deliver full term babies naturally and so I sound like a big wimp, I guess I am.

The doctor called on Friday morning to have me come in for another ultrasound to make sure I had passed all the "products" as she called it and I had.  Again I thought I was through the worst. Then Saturday the hormones started. I feel constantly like I need to cry, I am angry at everyone for no reason and I really just want to be left alone.  After each of my kids I had this type of baby blues, but never expected it with a miscarriage. 

I know that we have trials to help us learn and grow and this has been a whopper of a trial for me. I have learned and am still learning a lot from this. I feel so sympathetic now for people that have had fertility problems and multiple miscarriages.  I was so overwhelmed by the service we received from our Ward and wonderful friends that were willing to watch our kids and bring over dinners ect. 

I think I am a relatively strong person with a high pain tolerance and this completely pushed me to my limit emotionally and physically. I know that I am still not over it but I am able to talk and blog about it, so I know I am getting there.  

Thankfully we never told our kids... Ruby still prays for her guinea pig that died two years ago.