Finally Finished

I've finally finised my needle case. It only took me a week to finish hand-sewing the binding. Did I mention that I HATE hand-sewing?? I really do! But, I'm glad to have it done and I love it!

Seven Months Old

Little Miss Summer is a big seven months old today! She is so close to really being on the move these days. She gets up on to her knees and rocks herself silly, but is only moving herself backwards. She loves to play on the floor but does get frustrated when she moves the opposite way of the toys she wants. I'm sure there will be no stopping her once she figures the crawling business out. She is still known for being very vocal in her social groups and elsewhere. At a recent visit to her pediatrician he even commented on how loud her "talking" is. Speaking of doctors, we saw him a lot this last month. Summer had a bout with RSV earlier this month...it was actually a nice birthday surprise for me:( She was much better after a few days of breathing treatments and pretty well recovered after two weeks. Just yesterday we began introducing Summer to formula. Right now she is getting a mixture of breastmilk and formula until she is used to it. Although I had all intentions of nursing Summer for a year as I did with Brooke, she had other things in mind. If she's noticed a difference in her milk thus far, she doesn't seem to mind it. She's been a little finicky with her solid foods this month and had A LOT of trouble with them while she was so congested with the RSV. She is coming around a bit more, but prefers to have her solids almost right after her bottle feedings. Summer is also really close to cutting her first tooth. We can't feel the ridge yet, but we can feel the gums opening a bit.
Summer took a trip with Bill and Brooke to McAlester last weekend and, from what I hear, rather impressed her great-grandparents. They ate her up and she showed them some of her loving too.
Summer is such a loving baby. Her "loving" is a little rough though. She likes to grab at people's faces and pull them to her and kiss all over you. For some reason, with Bill, she always grabs for and tries to chew on his ears. It doesn't always feel the best, but we adore it. She lights up whenever Brooke comes around to play with her. Summer tries to "follow" Brooke by rolling whenever Brooke moves away from her.


Here are some other pictures and a video from Summer's 7th month of life.....

Getting a breathing treatment from Daddy

Now that Summer can sit up, she and Brooke love to take baths together; saves us some time too.

She's Crafty

I love that show on Ion, but this post has nothing to do with that crafty girl and everything to do with THIS crafty girl...ME:) I'm lucky to have been raised by a mom who was always working on some craft. Mom sews, quilts, knits, and used to cross-stitch quite a bit but hasn't much in the last several years. Although I have tried each one of this hobbies, I have succeeded at few of them. I do NOT quilt or cross-stitch, and my sewing can't really be classified as sewing; it's really only for crafting. But, after seeing a neat, and very expensive, case for knitting needles (which I have recently taken up: see knitting post), I suggested to Mom that we should make our own. So birthed today's day of crafting with Mom and my sisters who have inherited even more of Mom's crafty talent than I. Three of us (me, Mom, and Suzanne) made knitting cases, while April, budding crochet designer, worked on her newest creation. Rachel didn't join us, but she is really talented with paints and charcoals. She's done some really neat, albeit strange, canvases.

Of course, no sewing adventure for me would be complete without many mistakes and mishaps. I could be heard several times shouting my mantra, "This is why I don't sew!" I hate that it only takes seconds to make a mistake, but it takes FOREVER to fix it!! I, as usual, did not finish my project, but I blame that on our waiter at Chili's who turned our lunch break in to a 2hr siesta.

Here are some pics from our day...April had already left when I got the camera out...Sorry April.

Mom and Suzanne at work sewing pockets and flaps.

Mom was further ahead than anybody since she cut out her pieces before the rest of us arrived.

Not a good picture of all of us, as I'm hidden behind Mom's machine at the end. She was trying to fix mine...one of the many mishaps. Can you say "pucker."

Here is mine at an early stage. This is the inside, before the flap that lays over the needles was added.

Here's mine after the top flap and a start on the binding around the edges.

This is Suzanne's finished case

And here's Mom's.

I have quite a bit of work left yet. Just before I left I notice my binding was coming unsewn so I will have to rip out and re-sew part of that and then complete the binding. Fortunately, I have the house to myself until Sunday morning since Bill is off with the girls in McAlester. I can stay up late and sleep as long as myself will let myself;)

Happy Crafting!

The Price of Playing Ball

Bill has been playing basketball on Wednesday nights for a couple of years now without much incident. It's just a group of guys playing for fun at a school gym where one player is principal. This last week his luck ran out and he ended up with a terrible sprain in his left ankle. He's been hobbling around pretty pathetically for a couple of days, but is doing better with an ankle ace wrap (thanks Mom). Here are some pics of the injury...


The night of...I know it looks like his ankle is broken and hanging off and some horrendous angle, but it really is just sprained.

After compression, he turned seriously black and blue...it looks AWFUL, HORRIBLE!

Side-by-side comparison

Hopefully he will be walking normally soon. Even with this, he went ahead with his plans to take the girls to McAlester by himself while I stayed home and hung with my mom and sisters. What a trooper!

I can knit!

I've been wanting to learn to knit for a really long time but it always seemed so hard. My mom tried to teach me several times when I was younger, but I was never successful. I wasn't patient enough to get through the awkward stage and I hated making mistakes. I've been crocheting for several years (again, I was unsuccessful in my younger years when my mom and sisters tried to teach me. I just had to teach myself as an adult) and still enjoy making blankets, hats, and scarves, but I've always liked the look of a knit garment over a crocheted one. While I was rather impatiently waiting for Summer to be born last July, I borrowed a knitting instructional DVD from the library and learned the basics. Other than a dish cloth, I hadn't completed anything else, but I am working on a lacy scarf that takes a lot of time to do so I don't work on it much. Today I completed one side of an adorable little girl's top and I am so excited about it. The thought of making a garment truly intimidated me, but I was determined to try it and it came together really easily. The best thing of all is that it matches the pattern's measurements! The next few weeks are going to be pretty busy for me so I don't know when I'll get the other side done, but I can't wait to get it all together for Brooke. It is a size 4 so it may be a tad big on her now, but it will be perfect in just a few months I'm sure. When I complete hers, I'm going to make a matching one for Summer...they'll be so cute;)

I went ahead and had Brooke "try" it on. The shoulders will actually tie with the other half. Oh, and ignore the clothes underneath. She dressed herself today. Oh, yeah, many of you reading this didn't know that we cut Brooke's hair off...she loves it!

Six Months

I'm a few days late in posting this, but things have been hectic around here. But, our little Summer is now six months old! We just can't believe how fast the time has gone by. Summer is rolling over both ways and is also sitting up now. She is making some scooting movements as well, but that is mostly backwards and in circles. With all that, she can move quite a distance across the floor. She loves to busy playing with toys. Probably her two favorite toys are her Cabbage Patch baby we got her for Christmas and a Pooh Bear that a friend of ours sent her. When she sees them she reaches her hands out, opens her mouth wide, and just shakes with excitement. When she gets her hands on one of them she squeezes with all her might and, of course, brings them to her mouth. She's become quite particular about taking her bottles. She does NOT like to be idle while eating. If she doesn't have something to finger or fiddle with she will NOT finish the bottle. She usually likes her baby food, but has tried a few things she doesn't care for. She really likes things she can hold and chew on, like Mum-mum's and her mesh teether. It's a little mesh bag that you can put food in and as she chews on it, the food mashes up oozes through the bag. Since she's most likely working on the first steps of teething she really likes frozen foods in it. Her favorite snack is frozen bananas and blueberries...yum! We are so lucky to have this sweet little girl in our lives. We wouldn't be the same without her!