On to the Beading

Last evening I put the final stitches in VCE. :) Now I get to do the beading part. I have said before that I am not overly fond of beading but I love the effect it has on the design. The actually beading part isn't so much the problem as I have a tendency to spill the beads. I HATE when I do that!

Allie came home from school with some good news yesterday. She made student of the month at her school....even only being there a month. She deserves it because she is a really good kid. She makes straight A's in all of her classes and seldom misses school. I actually have problems keeping her home when she is sick. She does get in to a little trouble sometimes in class for talking but that is because she always finishes her work before class is over. Congratulations to you, Allie!

I want to thank everyone for their comments on Megan's rolling over. Later when Daddy got home she had to show off by rolling from her back to her tummy and then rolled from her tummy to her back. :) It is amazing how quickly she mastered that skill because yesterday she was ALL over the floor. Her true age is 7 months but her preemie age is 5 months and 1 week so she is actually on target for rolling. When they are born early you have to subtract how premature she was from her real age to get an idea if they are delayed or not. Sometimes it gets confusing and I have been down this road before.

I am off to start the beading on VCE. Hopefully in the next day or two I will have a happy dance to show you. :)

Have a great day!!

She Did It!!!

Bribery works! :) Megan has been so close to rolling over for the past week but today she finally did it today!! At first she was playing with her bottle (she finally can hold it when it is empty so that is her current fascination) until she discovered Mommy bought her a new pair of shoes.



Who wants a bottle when a new pair of shoes are in sight!



So I doubled the temptation with putting the bottle near the shoes. :)

Which one do I choose? Looks are deceiving, she actually did grab the shoes first. Yep, she is all girl....it is all about the shoes....lol.

So Very Close

I am so close to having VCE finished that I am almost willing to go without sleep to finish her! Notice I said almost...lol. Oh, how I yearn for the days when I could survive on just a few hours of sleep. That isn't the case anymore! I admit I tend to be quite crabby when I don't get enough sleep...actually it doesn't bother me, it is the people that I have to be around that it bothers.





Have a great night!

SAL Sunday

My grand plan for today was to sit on my butt and stitch my little heart out while watching season one of NCIS. I didn't get to stitch as much as I wanted because I was interuppted by a call from the in-laws. Let's just say the phone call was less than a minute but that was long enough for them to get under my skin....enough so that I had to set my stitching aside for a bit in order to prevent the frogs from showing up. Anyways here is my progress for today's SAL with Renee.

I worked on VCE yesterday and I am planning to work on her some more tonight. I should have a good progress picture tomorrow. I am hoping to have all the stitching done on her sometime this week. Of course, then there is the beading to tackle. I love the effect beading has on a piece but I'm not too fond of the actually beading itself! This piece only requires 2 different colors of beads so maybe it won't be too painful.

May Goals

I want to thank everyone who left a comment on yesterday's post. It is nice to know that I am not the only over protective parent. :) Krissy felt much better today so she went returned to school today. However around 10:30 AM when the phone rang and I saw it was her school I was a little worried but it turned out that all she needed was her track uniform brought to her. Apparently her track meet was today and not yesterday but her coach went ahead and let her participate in the meet today even though she didn't come to practice for 2 days. She did fine but in her last event she took a tumble but got right up and finished the race. She has a line of bruises from her shoulder down to her knees. I can honestly say I remember those days all too well!

I started working on some crochet yesterday but I quickly lost interest in it. I shouldn't really say I lost interest but it was more my hands started cramping up. The pattern I chose to work requires using 3 strands of yarn at once. I guess this rug might take a bit longer than I had thought!

I worked on VCE today and I am happy to report that I am finished the ribbon and leaves tonight. :) Tomorrow I will start on finishing the girl.




It is hard to believe it is May already!

April Goals

1. Stitch page 4 on QS Fairy Tales~Nope, didn't even touch it this month
2. Stitch/Finish 2 Christmas ornaments (need to stitch a total of 13 this year)~I only got one done this month
3. Finish Megan's sampler~YES!
4. Start SAL with Renee~YES!
5. Find a new large piece to start~YES!
6. Find some me time!~Not really

I guess I didn't do so well with meeting my goals this month.:(

May Goals

1. Stitch on QS Fairy Tales
2. Stitch/Finish Christmas ornaments
3. Work on Too Cute with Renee
4. Finish Victorian Christmas Eve
5. Start a new large piece
6. Work on Crochet rug
7. Start sewing Megan summer clothes
8. Prepare myself for the kids Summer Vacation (last day of school is May 22....so not ready for that!)

Here is a cute picture Mike took of Megan and I (well not so much of me) blogging yesterday.....she is definitely a future blogger...lol.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Over Protective Parenting

Just when I say nothing is going on something happens. That is just how my luck runs. To start off yesterday morning Krissy wasn't exactly feeling well when she left for school so it was no big surprise when I got a call shortly after lunch with her telling me to come and get her. What I didn't expect was the school nurse calling a few minutes later screaming at me that SHE decides if a student is sick and not the student. I kept my cool on the phone and told her that someone was already en route to pick her up from school. The nurse then kept on with it saying SHE decides if the student goes home by taking their temperature. My hubby could hear the nurse yelling over the phone so he decided it would be better for him to pick her up. That was okay with me since Megan was napping. Mike handles these situations a little better than me because I will admit I tend to have a very short temper with people, especially if you start off yelling at me. Anyways, once he gets to the school to pick her up he walks into the office and the staff inquired to what was wrong and Mike told them about the nurse not wanting to allow Krissy to go home because she felt ill. Their exact response was "Oh no she (referring to the nurse) didn't do it again!"

Mike was just going to pick Krissy up and leave until he found out from Krissy that the nurse didn't even bother to take her temperature to start off with! That is when he lost his cool...and believe me that isn't a pretty sight! He had to have the nurse called out of a class and she started in on Mike about how Krissy just walked in and said she had already called us and was going home. Problem was Krissy had been in the nurse's office for 45 minutes before she called us and during that time the nurse didn't even bother to take her temperature. The nurse went on about how she see has 1800 kids to oversee at the school so she knows when a kid is sick or not. Mike made it clear that our concern was our one child and we have been around her for 15 years so we know when she is sick and when she isn't and by one look at her face yesterday anyone could tell she was sick. Normally, we probably wouldn't have been so upset but there has been at least one confirmed case of H1N1 flu (swine flu) in the county we live in and we aren't willing to take any risks to our child or the other children at her school. Maybe we are just being over protective but in my opinion I would rather be safe than sorry.

A little bit later when Mac got home from school he hands me a note from the school saying that if your child was showing signs of being ill please do not send them to school and if they show signs of being ill at school they will be sent home from school. Apparently the nurse at Krissy's school didn't get that note!!

Krissy still isn't feeling too well today so she didn't go to school. I know for a fact that she isn't lying about it either because she had a track meet today after school and she was really excited about running in it.

I worked on VCE some more last night but it was too late to take a progress pic. I'm not sure if I will work on it today or not. I was looking through some crochet books that were passed down to me when my grandmother died and I found a cute rug that I think I just might start today and I just happen to have some yarn for it. :)

I hope everyone is having a great week!

More VCE

I still have been working on VCE. I really am enjoying this design!

It has been fairly quiet around here this week so I don't have anything to blog about.

Have a great day!

A New SAL

Today was another lazy day inside because it rained most of the day here. Myself, I like the rain but when it keeps the kids cooped up in the house it gets a little crazy because I keep hearing the same "I'm bored....there isn't anything to do." I threatened my kids with the next one that came up to me and said that to me they were going to change Megan's next dirty diaper....amazingly that quieted them down....LOL.

As I have said before rainy days (or really cold days) are good stitching days for me which worked out really well because Renee and I started our next SAL today. We are stitching Too Cute to Spook from the August 2008 Stoney Creek magazine. I think she will make a good companion for Harvest Witch.




I am stitching her on 28 count Cashel Linen called Violet Mist. This one uses the glow in the dark Kreinik threads (if you ask me it is more like stitching with fishing lines!).

The other night I was flipping through some of my old cross stitch magazine when I came across this pretty girl. I think she will look good next to VCE when it is finished. It is called Gentle Encounter from the Nov/Dec 1991 issue of Stoney Creek magazine. Guess you can't tell I love the Stoney Creek magazines...lol.

Kim B. asked me how I can get so much stitching done with having a little one around the house and the answer to that is my sweet husband. He knows that stitching helps me relax so he tends to take over taking care of Megan after dinner so I can stitch a few hours before it is time for me to give her a bath (he is scared to give her a bath until she can sit up by herself). She generally sleeps from about 9-9:30 PM until 7 AM. After she falls asleep I can resume stitching for a little while before it is time for me to go to sleep.

That pretty much sums up my day today. :) I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Halfway Done

I enjoyed our nice weather while it lasted. Today it was cold and wet. Oh well, that is Spring in the Midwest for you.

I took advantage of staying inside and stitched. :) I made it to the halfway mark on VCE. Hooray!! She is really coming along now.:)


There isn't much going on around here tonight so I think I will head back to my stitching and see how much more I can get done.:)

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Springtime and Allergies

It was a fairly pleasant day today. The weather was beautiful.....close to 80 degrees and sunshine....well that is until Mike mowed the lawn. I knew he was going to mow but it didn't register in my brain till I got the first whiff of freshly cut grass and I went into a sneezing fit. Allergies really bite! I ran immediately and grabbed some medicine only to have Mike come in the house a few minutes later and asked me to help him with dumping the clippings into a brown bag. I really tried not to breathe but no such luck by the end of the afternoon I was sneezing my head off and had itchy eyes. Oh the joys of Springtime.

That didn't stop me from working on VCE. :) I did have a visit from the frogs so I ripped a good part out only to discover that in fact I didn't make a mistake. Grrr....I ripped out stitches for nothing! I blame it on the Benadryl!


Yesterday Megan had a check up and I am very pleased to announce that she is whopping 17 pounds 4 ounces (in the 60th% for her age) and 25 inches long (in the 25th% for her age). You can not tell that she was preemie at all! She is lagging in some areas like sitting up by herself, rolling from back to tummy, etc but since she was born almost 2 months early she is actually right on schedule for her age. Besides once they start rolling that means crawling will be soon and I am not ready for her to start that!

Have a great night and Happy Stitching!

Beware of Family

I have been steadily stitching away on Victorian Christmas Eve and I am pleased with my progress so far. At this rate maybe I will have a happy dance soon. :)


Now for a little ranting that isn't related to my Dad's upcoming surgery. When we moved back to Omaha it was mainly to be closer to my family. Mike also has some family here (his father and 1 sister) and we decided to try and have a relationship with them. First of all, his sister we haven't really spoken to in over 15 years as she used to live across the country. We had heard from his mom that she was upset with us when we named our son Mackenzie because that was the name she had picked out for her daughter. I would like to point out that my Mac was born in Feb and she didn't have her Mack until May! Anyways apparently after almost 11 years she is still upset about it. I honestly don't see what there is to be upset about but she has a BIG chip on her shoulder about it.



As if that isn't bad enough, his dad thinks that we need to be at his beck and call ALL the time now! We hadn't spoken to his Dad since 2002 when we moved to Mississippi. When we told him we were moving he informed us we couldn't come to his house since everyone was sick and he would stop by to see us before we left. Well.....he never did and so we were a little hurt by that so we didn't attempt to stay in touch. So when we moved back we decided to be the bigger people and try to attempt a relationship again. The dinner went okay although they were sure to make comments about an ex-girlfriend Mike had prior to me...they even have pictures of the two of them together still! (And we have been together 17 years as of March!!) I am a bigger person so I didn't make an issue of it but it does strike a nerve with me. Anyways, now that we are back in town his Dad seems to think we need to do all sorts of things for him like have Sunday dinner every Sunday with them....even though he knows my Dad is sick! But what really is irritating me is he needs some posts moved in his backyard and he didn't ask but told Mike he needs to do this for him and is calling everyday to see when Mike will come over and do it. Aggghhhh! I consider myself a pretty nice person and I don't like to say things that will hurt someone else's feeling but I don't know how much longer I will be able to keep my mouth shut!

Ahhh....I feel much better now. Thanks for listening to me. :) Now I can't leave this post on a sour note so here is something to sweeten it up.

Have a wonderful day!

A New Start

Sorry I have been quiet the past few days but if I had blogged the would have been very boring because all it would have contained was rants about the hospital care my dad was receiving. We finally were able to bring him home yesterday from the hospital. Whoo-hoo!! They gave us an estimate of 2-3 weeks before they can fix the heart valve and clogged arteries.

At least now that Dad is home I can actually get some stitching done! Actually I started this piece on Thursday so I have been working on it for a couple of days already. :) It is called Victorian Christmas Eve by Nora Corbett from the Jan. 2008 issue of Cross-Stitch and Needlework Magazine.





It has been a fairly quite evening for us tonight. My brother stopped by today and took Mac and Allie to spend the night at his place. His girlfriend (of 5 years) has a boy that is right at their age so they are having a blast terrorizing my brother....hee hee. :)

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Freebie Finish

What can I say except that it is about time I had a finish! I put the final stitches in this freebie from EMS this afternoon. :)

Merry Christmas 2006

from EMS

The news on my dad is that he will have to wait another 2-3 weeks for his surgery. As it stands he still has to lose about 25 more pounds of water before he will be safe to go under the knife. The doctor told us if he was to do it right now that there is a 99% chance that he would not make it through the surgery. However, if we could get the doctors to actually agree on something that itself would be a miracle but they did agree that he could come home for the next few weeks while he takes the meds to lose the water weight. This of course comes with stipulations like we have to make sure he eats a low sodium diet and does as little as possible. Just call me Nurse Dawn for the next few weeks. Hopefully he will get released tomorrow or Friday. :) (As I type this I am knocking on every piece of wood I see!)

I want to thank everyone for their wonderful comments on Megan. She is growing so fast! It is hard to believe she was a mere 3 pounds when she was born. You definitely can't tell it now!

Have a great evening! :)

Happy Easter

I want to thank everyone for their well wishes on my Dad's upcoming surgery but he had a set back on Saturday. The doctors ran some normal tests on his liver and had to postpone his surgery because the enzyme levels in his liver are elevated. They did an ultrasound on his liver this morning and were able to tell that there were no tumors on his liver so that is a definite plus! After the liver doctor will look at the results tomorrow we will know for sure when the surgery is back on.

My mom spent most of the morning up at the hospital with Dad this morning so I was able to enjoy Easter morning with the kids. The older 3 wouldn't let me get pictures of them this morning but I was able to wrangle Megan into her Easter outfit and take a few pictures.

You aren't getting me to smile until you give me my pacifier!

I hope everyone is enjoying their Easter holiday!

T-Law

Murphy's Law says "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." However, I have adapted to fit our family (aka T-Law) to "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong so get ready for the shit to hit the fan!". That pretty much sums up our luck.

That brings me to the events of yesterday. We were supposed to have heard from the heart doctor Wednesday night on the status of my dad's surgery but by yesterday morning we still hadn't heard from the doctor. This slightly upset my mom so she let the nurses know that as soon as he came into see Daddy that we wanted to be called. Apparently the doctor showed up shortly after I left from visiting last night but the doctor DID NOT call us. We found this out about 9:30 PM when we went up for the last visit of the night. Mom went out to speak with the nurses to have them call the doctor and they REFUSED to call him for us and then they (the nurses) told my mom that she couldn't get that info because she (my mom) was only his sister. My Mom exploded right then and there and straightened her out by telling her that she wasn't his sister but his wife. My mom doesn't need that kind of stress because she also has heart problems.

As if that wasn't stressful enough last night on our way home from the hospital (at 11 PM) my Mom's car died in the middle of a very busy road! AGGHHH!!! Luckily I had my cell phone (lately I have been forgetting it!) on me so I was able to call my hubby and have him "rescue" us. As for the car we don't know what is wrong with it other than it seems to be dead right now. Good thing is we still have my van and Mike's car running so we still have transportation. Needless to say when we got home I fixed myself a nice stiff drink...LOL. Which I was way overdue for one since my last drink I had was almost 2 years ago with Renee when she came to visit me in AR.


To make a long story short we finally got things somewhat straightened out this morning and found out that he will be going in for open heart surgery on Monday. Although he isn't exactly the best candidate for it right now it is at the point where we can not wait too much longer without his heart giving out but as of right now we still don't know what time he will be going in for it.

Enough with the stressful things let's talk about relaxing things. :) Like I said in the last post I haven't had much time to stitch but here is a picture of what I am currently attempting to stitch. It is a freebie from EMS. I decided to stitch it over 1 on 25 count fabric. I have decided that I much prefer stitching over 1 on 25 count instead of 28 or 32 count fabric. :) I put my needle beside it to give you an idea of the size of it so far.

We don't have any real big plans for this Easter weekend. We might go over to in-laws (Mike's dad) for a little while but no definite plans on that yet. It all depends on how things at the hospital go.

I want to wish everyone a Happy Easter!

Little Stitching for Me

It has been a long day for me today. My dad had an angiogram done today so we had to be up at the hospital at 7 am. Which meant I had to be up early so I could go pick his mom up and take her up to the hospital so we all could be there because the dr's weren't exactly sure what was going to happen. Originally, we were told if needed they would place a stent if needed but it turns out that didn't happen. However, his right artery is 95% clogged so they have decided to fix it when they go in and fix the left heart valve. We are waiting to hear from the doctor about when he will have that surgery to fix everything. We were told it could be as early as tomorrow but we were also told (from another doctor) that it could be another week or so and as we all know patience isn't exactly my best virtue.

I had planned on taking my stitching with to the hospital today but silly me forgot to bring the pattern with me. Uggh!! I am working on a small freebie from EMS and I swear this will be the longest it has ever taken me to stitch up an ornament.

I did go stash diving the other day and I have come up with 3 patterns to choose from. They are Millennium Angel from Mirabillia, Christmas Fairy from Cross Stitch and Needlework Jan 2008, or restart Tour des Marques from Silver Lining. Hmmm....which one do I choose?!

I hope everyone is having a great week. :)

Care Bear Sharing

I want to thank everyone that has kept my dad in their thoughts for us. What we have found out that he has a bad heart valve that requires open heart surgery to fix. However, due to the water that he has retained he can not have the surgery until that is lost. They have him on medicine to reduce it and so far he has lost 10 pounds out of the 60 pounds he needs to lose before they will proceed with the surgery. Doc seems to think he will be in the hospital for another 2 weeks at least. My dad is in good spirits (at least at this point he still is!) about the situation but he misses not being able to see Megan. We could bring her up for a visit but he won't allow us to because he doesn't want her to come down with anything and neither do we.

As for stitching......there hasn't been any time for me to do that. :( However, I am going to make a point of doing some stitching sometime tonight even if it is only a couple of stitches.

Last night we had dinner with Mike's dad and his sister so it was late when we got home but Megan still wanted "story time" so I gave in and read a couple of stories out of her Care Bear book. As you can see it really doesn't bother me at all to read to her but normally we do it in the rocking chair but last night we cuddled in bed and read. :)

I loved the Care Bears when I was little so I am quite pleased that I am able to share the "Care Bear Experience" with her. :)

Happy Stitching!

Sampler Finished

It was a crazy day for us yesterday. My step dad had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning as he has been feeling extremely bad lately. He quit smoking about 8 months ago and since then he has been gaining weight. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that he started having some swelling in his legs and feet. He also is the type of guy who HATES to go to the doctor so when Mom made him an appointment to see the doctor we knew he was feeling bad when he didn't object it. So when I got the call from my mom telling me to meet her at the hospital because he was being admitted to the hospital I was freaked out. Let me tell you that was the longest mile and a half trip I have ever taken!

As of right now what we do know for sure is he has an enlarged heart and enlarged liver. He also is retaining water everywhere. Until more tests are done that is all we know for sure. My mom is a strong woman but he is her world and she is very scared (as we all are!). I hate to ask this because ya'll were wonderful when I was pregnant with Megan but please keep him in your thoughts for us.

What do I do when I am stressed? Stitching of course! In between visits to the hospital yesterday I worked on finishing Megan's sampler. I still have some finishing touches to do like cutting the dowel down to fit it and paint it to match the sampler.

Ladybug Birth Sampler

by Donna Vermillion Giampa

from April 2008 JCS

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

April Goals

Whoo-hoo....I actually snuck in some time to stitch today! I finished page 3 on QS Fairy Tales. :)

Since Megan's arrival I have pretty much been stitching on one large design at a time but I am starting to feel restless just working one design. The only problem is what do I want to stitch. Hmmm.....maybe some stash diving is what I need to do. :) I guess what also would help me is actually planning some stitching goals for this month.

April Goals:

1. Stitch page 4 on QS Fairy Tales
2. Stitch/Finish 2 Christmas ornaments (need to stitch a total of 13 this year)
3. Finish Megan's sampler
4. Start SAL with Renee
5. Find a new large piece to start
6. Find some me time!

Thank you for the comments on the fabric I picked for Megan's sampler. I plan to make it into a wall hanging so I can hang it over her crib.

Megan is still napping so I am going to go and do some catching up on blogs.:) Have a great evening!

This and That

Hello everyone! :) I promise I didn't disappear again. I managed to come down with a nice little cold over the weekend which makes me so mad because I had done so great and managed to not get sick since before Megan was born. I finally broke down and took some cold medicine yesterday and pulled out QS Fairy Tales and only stitched about 50 stitches (if that!) before I literally passed out with needle in one hand and hoop/fabric in the other hand.

I did feel a little better in the afternoon so I made my way to Hobby Lobby and picked out this fabric to finish Megan's birth sampler. Problem is when I went to get everything assembled I realized I didn't have any batting. Grrr!!




Megan seems to be doing lots better. Turns out it was allergies bothering her. We got her some medicine and she seems to be lots happier now. At least she isn't rubbing her nose and eyes as much now.

Krissy is slowly getting adjusted to her new high school. She has joined the track and softball team. She is really excited about that but she still says there is only 4 cute guys in the school. Typical teenage girl...lol.

Allie's coach has been trying to convince her to go out for track next year but she isn't interested in it....unless one of the Jonas boys is at the finish line.

Mac is still his ornery self. He isn't happy unless he is getting one of his sisters mad at him. Typical boy....lol. Knock on wood.....so far no signs of any ear infections. Whoo-hoo!!

It is getting close to time for me to head out the door and start the daily routine of picking the kids up from school(s). 3 kids equals 3 different schools which mean I spend about 3 hours getting them all picked up. Good thing is I don't have to drag Megan out and around in the cold as Grandpa John loves his little girl.:)

Have a wonderful day!