Baby Update

This picture was taken about 2:30 PM today. As you can see, the oldest daughter is still smiling.Normally that would be a good thing, but it doesn't make her doctor happy. He was hoping she would be in a lot of pain by now.


The plan for the day has been clearly posted, but the baby isn't cooperating.

I especially like the Goal for today line with the word Pain right underneath.


This is the daughter's poor hand after the IV was successfully inserted. The little yellow tag says change on Friday. She says that when the nurse was hooking everything up she told her she really hoped she wouldn't still be using this IV line come Friday. The daughter is really hoping so now too.

Everyone think warm, happy baby thoughts so he'll want to come out, OK?

There are some positive developments. As long as she is laying down her blood pressure has been good. Also, when I was there, the nurse kept telling her that she was having contractions. She couldn't feel them at all and had to take the nurse's word for it, but that is a step in the right direction.

Today I am thankful that

my stove is clean.
the youngest son had an appointment today to talk to someone about doing his Eagle Scout project.
all four of us ate dinner together.

Ready or Not...

Here he comes?

Well, the son-in-law has announced on Facebook that my oldest daughter has been admitted to the hospital under doctor's orders to be induced and get this little boy on his way into the world. I guess that gives me permission to put in my two cents worth. This evening, at her regularly scheduled appointment, her blood pressure was a little bit high. The doctor said it wasn't a problem at the moment, but could become a problem so he would like to speed things up a little bit. 3 hours later she has an IV and some "miracle gel" that will hopefully convince her body that it is ready to deliver a baby. She will be monitored for 12 hours to see if the gel does the trick and then the medical professionals will decided where to go from there.

While the two of them are enjoying the luxury accommodations for the night perhaps they can decide what to name this little guy. I doubt they'll be doing a whole lot of sleeping.

Today I am grateful for

lds.org. It's unbelieveable how easy it is to find past church talks (and a whole bunch of other stuff).
medical professionals.
clean laundry.
a husband who is smarter than me when it comes to computer printers.

ABC Book of Advice for the New Mother

I decided it would be fun to make an advice book for the oldest daughter for people to write in at her baby shower. I wanted it to have an ABC theme since that was kind of the direction the shower was taking. I spent a while looking for paper and alphabet stickers that I liked for the pages and was really happy to find a book of paper by K and Company that had one sheet with the letters A through Z all with a baby theme. It was also 40% off at Michaels which made it even more attractive.

I cut the paper into letter squares and then my friends and I glued each letter to a pastel paper page that was cut 5 1/2 by 8 1/2. We made two covers using chipboard and paper from the paper stack that I bought. Then we bound it with a metal binding using a Zutter binder (owned by one of the friends). It took all 5 of us to figure out how to make the machine work.

I added a computer generated title and some ribbons on the binding. It was a super easy project (once I decided what paper to use). I think it turned out cute and the advice is really fun to read and hopefully will be helpful.

If any of you have some good advice you would like me to add just put it in a comment and I will write it in. We still have a lot of empty space on some letters.

Today I am grateful that

my husband doesn't stay home from work every day. Even though I like having him around I get more accomplished when he goes to work.

the oldest son was well enough to go to work today.

the oldest daughter came to dinner so the hubby and I didn't have to eat all the food by ourselves.

I have helpful friends with fun toys.

One year ago today - Canyon Colors, Eeewww! Gross!

On the Same Calendar?

I have been catching up on people's blogs and I decided what my recent blogging problem is. I don't have any cute babies to take pictures of, show off and talk about. There is hope though. If all goes according to schedule, in less than a month I will have a grandson to feature in my thus far baby deprived blog. However, I'm not sure if this baby is familiar with the word schedule yet. Today the daughter had one of her now weekly appointments with her doctor. He was kind enough to inform her that there was very little possibility of this not so little boy arriving early. In fact, there was no sign that delivery was anywhere close. His comment to her was "I wonder if this baby is on the same calendar as we are?" That observation was fine until he added "2009 that is.". The good thing is that the daughter wasn't even offended by his statement. I'm glad to know that she's not desperate to be "un-pregnant" yet, especially if this child is planning on taking his own sweet time. I do hope though that he decides to show up before the new year arrives and I'm pretty sure the daughter does too.

Today I am thankful

for a relatively enjoyable telephone repair experience. This morning our house phone kept ringing but it would either disconnect when we picked it up or stop ringing after the first ring. I tried calling it with my cell phone and even though the screen on the home phone said it was ringing there was no sound. On the cell phone it just rang and rang. I picked the cordless up and it had a dial tone, but when I tried to dial out it would immediately connect with some ongoing conversation in Spanish. I called Qwest, answered the automated questions and then pushed option 3 to speak to a representative. In less than 60 seconds I was connected to "Howard out of Salt Lake" who kindly, courteously, quickly (and in perfect Utah English) determined what was causing my problem and scheduled me for a repair for later this very same day. Howard and I also had a bonding moment when it came to light that his wife and I have the exact same first and last name, even spelled the way I spell it. It wasn't until the end of our conversation that I realized I had been speaking with Howard Johnson. Apparently the motel business isn't doing too well and he has picked up a second job with the phone company. I am happy to say that the telephone is once again functioning properly!
that my daughter is the one who is pregnant in Arizona in September.
for hand sanitizer. I have a little hospital germ phobia after our enrichment class on the Swine Flu last night.

One year ago today - Cemetery Thoughts, The Fruits of Fall

Boy oh Boy!

Today was the big day!
The oldest daughter
and the son-in-law
went to the doctor
and found out the sex
of their baby.
Even though I voted
for a girl on her blog
I am excited to add
a little boy to our family.

The daughter brought this bib
in a yellow bag to announce
the big news.

I'm sure he'll be a very charming child.

I've already been informed
that we need to start working on
a little boy quilt.

Today I am thankful for

a friend who motivated me to clean out my freezer and a working air conditioner while I did it. (This needs a little explanation. My friend called me today to say that she was cleaning out her freezer and found two, unopened packages of cream puffs left over from my oldest daughter's wedding. She wanted them out of her freezer so she brought them to me. I didn't have room for them in my freezer and couldn't just throw them away, even though they have been around for a while, so I cleaned my refridgerator freezer to fit them in. This was a project that has needed done for a while now, so I was glad to get it completed. The reason my friend was cleaning her freezer was because her AC hasn't worked for 3 days and she was looking for a way to cool off. I personally would have just gone and checked into an air conditioned motel.)
new scout pants for the youngest son that I didn't have to pay for.
an ultrasound with only good things to show.

One year ago today - Summer Reading Program

My Mother's Daughter

Every once in a while I see my mother in me.
I hear her voice in my head when I bake
and when I sew.
"All it needs now is a bow."
"Everything tastes better with a few nuts."
I see her influence in my finished projects.
Although I have no where near the skill
that she has for making quilts
when it was time to bind our Spring Break Quilt
I couldn't bring myself
to just fold the fabric over and sew it.
"It would look so much cuter with a nice binding."
That's how I ended up folding and sewing
lots of little white, pink and green points
around the edge.


In my defense, I already had most of the squares cut.
I do think it turned out cute.
Now we just have to wait
and see if the baby-to-be is a girl
or if the quilt gets put away again for a while
even though it's finally truly and completely DONE!

Today I am thankful for

sons (one leader, one participant) who happily go to their young men activities.
a daughter who gave her brother a ride home from school for me.
only one 100+ degree day this week.

Tying it Together

The oldest daughter and I decided to continue to be ambitious during her Spring Break so we borrowed some quilting frames and tied the quilt that we finished Tuesday.

We didn't want to just work during her "vacation" however, so the other daughter and the roommate-girlfriend came over and we went to lunch together.


I chose to take them to Iguana Mack's.

A fun restaurant that my visiting teachee introduced me to that has a reasonably priced lunch menu and some really funky interior decor.


We had a lot of fun. The youngest daughter enjoyed taking lots of random photos and the oldest daughter got to drink rootbeer "shot right out of the gun".

It's nice to have a quiet day and take time to smell the "roses".


Today, while we still had the quilting frames we put together some other fabric I had lying around and tied another baby quilt.


This one was to appease the baby if he's a boy. Plus it has little airplanes on it in honor of the son-in-law.




Now we just have to get them bound and they are done!

The Evolution of a Quilt

Way back a long time ago
when the eldest daughter
was still living in Flagstaff
and attending NAU
she was in the JoAnn's Fabric store one day,
saw a quilt book full of baby quilts
and decided she wanted to make one.
She chose her favorite quilt
called Rainbow Sherbet

and purchased the book,
a variety of colored fat quarters,
a fabric cutter,
a ruler and a cutting mat.
Then she wasn't quite sure
what to do next
so she put all her purchases
away for a while.

Still a long time ago
the daughter moved back home
and one boring summer day
she decided to get out her quilt making supplies
and see if she and I could figure out how to proceed.
We cut all the colored fat quarters
into little squares


with the help of the fabric cutter,
the ruler and the cutting mat.

Then following the pattern in the book
we put all the little squares
into their proper positions
on the floor and stepped back.
We both really hated what we saw.
The squares didn't seem to blend together nicely
like they did in the picture in the book.
They all seemed to be fighting with each other.
We decided perhaps if we found a nice fabric
to go around the edge
it would tie all the blocks together
and we would like it better
so off we went to the JoAnn's Fabric store
to purchase a rainbow print for the border.
We looked and looked and looked
and couldn't find anything that we liked
to finish the ugly quilt.
We came home with this instead.


We took the green squares from the original quilt
and added them to some new pink squares
and white print squares
and some larger frog squares.
We really liked this quilt a lot better!
We sewed and sewed and sewed
little squares together to make bigger squares
and then sewed and sewed and sewed
the squares together to make rows.
As we added squares to rows
we discovered that we were short
one dark green square
that we needed to finish the quilt.
One silly little square.
So we put the quilt away again for awhile.
For weeks and months and years
we searched every JoAnn's Fabric store we visited
in Arizona,
in California,
in Utah,
for a green fat quarter that matched
the missing piece.

Fast forward to today.
The daughter is actually expecting a baby,
is on Spring Break,
and feeling crafty.
We pull the quilt out of the closet
once again.
We look at it and decide if we rearrange
a few squares here and there
we don't need that one little square of green fabric.
We unpick,
we rearrange,
we sew,


we unpick,
we rearrange,
we sew.


We even do some ironing in there
and TA-DAH...


We have a quilt top all sewn together
and it only took 5 years.

Roadrunner Folklore

A couple of months ago the oldest daughter and the son-in-law were hiking on South Mountain and they saw a roadrunner.

During Second Grade O'odham (Pima)culture class the next week the teacher told the children that in the O'odham culture it is believed that if you see a roadrunner it means that you are going to receive a great blessing or good fortune. The daughter was curious to see what blessing might be coming to them. Tonight they told us what their blessing was.
When they shared their news my hubby said, "I should have known. I saw a baby roadrunner the other day when I was driving back to work."

I was wondering if I should feel bad that I hadn't seen any roadrunners. Maybe I need to get out more. But then again, I don't need to see a roadrunner to know that a new baby is a blessing. Plus, at this point in my life I'd rather be the Grandma than the one expecting so, just to be on the safe side, I'm glad I didn't see the roadrunners. The daughter and her hubby can have the blessing and I'll just enjoy it, spoil it, and send it home.

Today I'm thankful that

I get to be a grandma.
they make dry socket paste. It smells so bad that the girls won't want to come close to the boy for a while.
I got to go to breakfast with my girls who are on Spring Break this week.