A tour

So this is where we live now. We're on the ground floor, so those are our windows on the bottom level. Those are the bedroom windows, by the way, and I think they pretty much face East. Needless to say, there is a lot of light that comes in those windows in the morning.


The dining room and "pantry." I was going crazy for the first week or so before we got something to hold the pantry items.


The kitchen. Not a ton of storage space, but functional enough.


The living room. I think this is my favorite room; it is a nice big, open space for Henry to crawl around in.


Matt's "office" space in our bedroom. Remember the light I mentioned in the morning? There are five layers of fabric over that window trying to block that light so Matt can sleep after his night shifts. Mostly works.


And of course, Henry's room! We painted it yellow, just because. I think his favorite part of the room so far is the drawer in the table-thing on the right. He LOVES to open that drawer. Notice that he doesn't have 5 layers of fabric blocking his window. But since he has yet to make it til sunrise in his own room, I don't think he really cares. This room is actually bright enough yellow that when it's light outside, the room sort of glows out into the hallway. Matt and I have both gone in there to turn off the light, only to find that there wasn't one on at all.



So there it is! Home sweet home for the next little while. I think I can safely say that we are all settled in. I've even met some of the neighbors. That's definitely one thing that is different living in a condo versus an apartment... the other people are permanent residents, not a constantly changing population of renters. Out of the five other units in our building, I have met Ron in C (who came down to tell me that my trunk was wide open... thanks to Henry playing with my keys), Don in D (who has the same car as me), and Linda in either E or F (I'm not sure, but she brought us muffins, so I like her). I also saw the lady in A who lives next to us, but she didn't really introduce herself so it doesn't count. I think we'll enjoy living here, though. If you ever want to come visit, just let us know!

Something old, something new...

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me if I could make a special blanket for her daughter's upcoming baptism. Out of her wedding dress. What a great idea! (The first idea had been to make a baptismal gown for her out of it, but she couldn't find anyone able to make that happen.) Here's what I ended up making:





I took a large section of the dress with no detailing on it and cut a square out of it, leaving the original seaming from the dress in place. Then I cut a cross out of one of the decorated sections to put in the middle. I ended up hand-appliqueing the cross the larger square (the first time I've ever appliqued anything!). I also removed beads from another section of the dress and used them to outline the cross. To dress up the rest of it, I lifted some sections of the embroidery and transferred them to the blanket in sort of a random pattern (the scattered flowers). Then I took more of the beads from the dress and used them around the outside of the blanket to fill in some gaps, using the same bead pattern that was used elsewhere on the dress. Since I had already put on the backing at this point, I stitched the beading through both layers of fabric to help the back stay in place. Finally, I used a satin blanket binding to finish the edges. (I was going to use my new twin needles for this part so it would look that much cooler, but I managed to break them while testing them out. Sigh.)

For the record: this was one of the better ideas that I've heard of for re-using a wedding dress.

For Dad

To keep you entertained for a couple minutes at work!

It's all over, folks

And in case you were wondering, he is feeling much better.

Just that kind of day

If I could give Henry an award for being a great baby, I would definitely do it today!

Somewhere between the lack of sleep and mommy-brain, I've done several silly things in the last week. Mostly in the kitchen, I guess. It seems I've forgotten how to cook with electric burners rather than gas ones, and have burned just about everything I've tried to cook this week (which hasn't been much). Sigh. This morning, though, I took my silliness outside. After going to Mass, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a couple of things I wanted to have with lunch (I'm making lasagna... and I'm a little worried, considering the lack of success I've had with everything else this week). As I was returning my cart to the cart corral in the parking lot, something didn't feel right. I was holding Henry, so I knew I hadn't forgotten him. Then it hit me: my keys. I had clipped them to the diaper bag while shopping so that I wouldn't lose them. And then it had seemed like a good idea to throw the diaper bag in the trunk with the groceries, so I could pick them all up together when I got home. Oops.

Stranded in the parking lot, locked out of my car (and house), with a sick baby in my arms who hadn't eaten in several hours and was starting to smell poopy, I was glad for two things: 1- I had my phone, and 2- Henry was wearing a jacket. I tried calling Matt (at least 20 times), but he keeps his phone on vibrate and I knew that he would be sound asleep and wouldn't hear it. Not knowing what else to do, I walked home. At least I could wait in the stairwell indoors and keep trying the phone. So that's what I did. When I still had no success (banging on the windows didn't work, either), I finally called a friend to come get us. By the time she got there, I had gotten through to Matt and he let me in so I could get the spare key to my car. Niki drove me to go pick it up, and all was well with the world. Except that of course I took a wrong turn on the way home and it took a lot longer than it should have. And then I found five dollars. Ok, well not really. But I did see a person dressed up as a pig walking around the neighborhood. It's almost as good.

But regardless... through all of this, Henry was great. No crying, fussing, or even a runny nose. He just snuggled up when it was time to walk, and slept while I was making phone calls. And then when I was having a little meltdown in the stairwell, he woke up and started smiling and laughing. He's my favorite.

Sleepless Nights and a Sick Baby

...and surprisingly, they aren't connected!

Yesterday, Matt's current satellite was launched. We've been waiting for this since August, when he was supposed to have his first one go up. That one got broken by the Russians. Then he got switched to this project, but it got delayed. So finally we have a satellite in space (er, he does anyway). This is great, but it means some big changes around here for the next month. Matt's company has to monitor their satellites (from the control room) for the first month they are in space. That's what Matt does. So for the next four weeks, he'll be working 3 or 4 days a week in 12 hour shifts. From 7pm-7am.

This means that he comes home in the morning, crashes for 6 hours or so, and then hangs out with us for the afternoon before heading back to work. I've been trying to adjust my own schedule to be able to stay up a little later so that when he isn't working, we aren't totally out of sync. Unfortunately, Henry has been moving his bedtime the wrong direction. He's been going to bed earlier, and therefore wanting to get up earlier. The end result is that I have lots of free time to myself in the evening, but then get very little sleep before I have to be up with Henry in the morning. Sigh.

Did I mention that he's sick, too? Maybe that accounts for the early bedtime for him. Poor kid. What started as a cold about two weeks ago took a turn for the worse sometime around when he got the flu shot last week at his doctor's appointment. I figured it was from the vaccine and was waiting for it to clear up. Instead, it got worse. This morning he woke up wheezing, pulling on his ear, and had a couple of nasty diapers. Eww. So for the first time, I took him in to the doctor's office for a sick visit. Turns out he not only has the beginnings of an ear infection (which we hopefully caught early enough that it won't get too bad), but he also has RSV. I'm not terribly familiar with this, but apparently it's a virus that looks like a cold in everyone except babies, whose little bronchioles can't handle the inflammation it causes. Hence the wheezing. They sent me home with antibiotics (Henry is not a fan) and a nebulizer. He did really well with this when I let him watch Veggie Tales during the treatment... just sat still on my lap and watched Larry the Cucumber sing and dance while I held the mask in his face. He's a little trooper. Now if only the aspirator (or booger-puller, as Matt calls it) went over so well with Henry.

Anyway, keep Henry in your prayers- hopefully he'll get over this quickly. Thankfully, he has not been too grouchy or miserable through all of this. In fact, he's doing his best to get himself mobile right now. He's starting to get the hang of balancing on his hands and knees, and I've even caught him pulling himself up on the edge of the couch to stand (briefly... before he falls down again).

Moving Day

God is good!

I'm writing this from our new (rented) condo in Leesburg. It's been a busy few days, but I can only see two carboard boxes from where I'm sitting, and they contain pictures that need to be hung on the wall. Pretty much everything else is unpacked and put away. Praise the Lord! I feel like there is much to say, but I'll try to keep it brief. Here are the highlights:

• Gazelle-Intense: our new place is going to save us a bundle on rent, allowing us to save money for a house (or whatever's next for us) that much more quickly. And it's a pretty nice place, too!

• Boxes: we got all of our packing supplies (except for tape) for free, via Freecycle (look it up, if you don't know what that is) and a friend who just moved.

• Organization: despite Henry's best efforts at distracting us, we managed to get all our stuff ready to move before the moving day. Next time I'll do one better and try to label the boxes more clearly.

• Doughnuts: I've never purchased doughnuts before. Who knew you could just ask for two dozen assorted doughnuts and they would just pick randomly for you?! That being said, I think that some of the doughnuts they make over at the Dunkin' are not worth the effort to make or the calories to eat.

• Help: we put out a call for help to nearly everyone we know down here, realizing that our circle of acquaintances ranges from the unpredictable (couples with young babies during cold/flu season) to the even less predictable (teens from church). Come Saturday morning, we weren't sure if we'd have more than 1 or 2 helpers. We had 15!

• What's next?: Ten minutes after the truck-loading began, ALL the furniture was out of the apartment and we were down to boxes. An hour after we started, every last thing that needed to be moved was in a vehicle and we were hanging out eating doughnuts. An hour after that, people were going home... because everything was in our new place! Two hours to pack, drive, and unload. Amazing.

• Pizza, anyone?: It went so fast, that even though I called to get pizza as soon as we arrived with the truck at the new place, the delivery guy didn't arrive until 20 minutes after the unloading was finished. Most people had gone home by then.

• Adjusting: That's what we're doing now. When I find the camera cord, I'll try to get some pictures of the new place. I'm particularly excited about a certain little boy having his own room!

Patience...

Lots of exciting things have happened or are happening... but I'm having a hard time finding the time and the camera cord in order to share this with you. We'll be back in business soon, I promise. :-)