Another outfit, this time for Faith's little "boyfriend"..

I made this outfit yesterday for Faith's little friend, Elijah. I had this airplane fabric in my stash, i don't know what i originally bought it for, who knows. Anyway i made this and I just love love love my new sewing machine, it works like a dream. The applique was so easy with no taggling up of the bobbin thread, no breaking threads, no yelling at my machine. LOVE IT! Hoping to do some more sewing today, i need to try out a shirt pattern i have for Faith to match some knitted items we have in the works.
I had Faith model it for the picture, she makes a good boy don't you think :-) LOL

The Journey to Africa

My good "cyber" friend Sherry and her family are planning an adoption of 3 siblings from Africa. Check out the special blog and follow their journey. I'm so thrilled for them, please join me in praying for speedy paperwork so that they may come home soon! The Journey To Africa

Made a new outfit for Faith...

I have been wanting to get my fabric out and get sewing. Here is my most recent project, first time using this bloomers pattern, which is awesome and I love it. The shirt is a purchased one, just embellished with a patch of the fabric. So tell me what you think -

My funny girl...

Faith is just so funny sometimes. Yesterday she kept climbing up on top of her play kitchen (who knew it was for climbing right?) anyway Daddy told her she had to get down and she kept giving him this sweet little "batting her eyelashes" look at him, and very very SLOWLY getting down. Then she would climb back up, all the time with the sweet and innocent look. So he said "you'd better get down or daddy will have to give you a spank" and he clapped his hands together to emphasize the "spank". So she got down and walked around the room for like 5 minutes, slapping her hands together going "spank" and laughing. TOO funny.

Just a yucky morning...a rant of sorts...

I didn't sleep well at all last night, Faith went to bed at about 8:30 without an issue. I just wasn't tired, i finally tried to go to sleep at 10:45 and just tossed and turned. What little bit i did sleep was all funky dreams, which in my opinion aren't sleep. I got up 3 different times to pee. And at 6 am Faith woke up for the day so that was that. I have big ole bags under my eyes, feel in general like crap. My big ole cup (okay cups) of coffee is helping but not much. So the most annoying part for me was when I called John, and tried to complain about my nights sleep, he immediately went into a "well i had a crappy night...blah blah blah". I am just getting so sick of this attitude, i mean I GET IT your job sometimes sucks. I would be mad too if my truck broke down, and i had a long night with several other issues to go along with the broken truck. BUT would it have been just tragic if for 2 minutes i got to complain? Instead, i just said "well fine" and hung up the phone. I mean is it awful for him to listen to me and really HEAR me? No it's all about him...

I typed out a whole bunch more stuff and then just deleted it because honestly i'm not looking for sympathy, i use this blog to vent but sometimes since it's not private it's better to just leave out all the details.

My dad isn't feeling well...

I'm hoping they do something about it today. He's been feeling very run down, short of breath and sleeping a lot, especially bad yesterday. I don't think i've updated lately but last week he saw the doctor about his bone marrow test. The results basically show his bone marrow just isn't working anymore to make new blood cells. So they are going to try a new drug called Procrit that is supposed to help kick start it again to build new cells. I may or may not work. If it doesn't he will have to continue having blood transfusions probably forever. He also has to be very careful about not coming into contact with germies and getting sick. Anyway he's been feeling progressively worse and my mom called yesterday and asked the nurses to find out why they havn't done another blood transfusion, so far i don't think anythings been done, but hopefully they do something today. I'm pretty sure we'll be able to get up to see him as the weather is cooperating, or so it seems.

A Quiet Morning...

Well yesterday was a great day. We went to church and Faith managed to stay in the nursery without me for maybe 15 minutes, i know it's not much but it's something to grow on. Of course when i did have to go back in, she was so freaked out it took her a long time to calm back down and that made me sad, but it's a start.

Anyway after church Faith went home with Grandma for the day/night so that mom & dad could enjoy a day alone and have a nice dinner to celebrate my birthday (which is actually today). Anyway we went shopping and had a great dinner, came home and had a really good night and i got some nice sleep. Now i'm up and doing all my normal morning things, without my helper. In some ways it is nice without Faith (shopping is easier, eating out is quieter and easier, i sleep a little better, more peaceful in the morning) but for the most part it stinks, cause a part of me isn't here and i miss her terrible. I think about what she would be doing right now (watching Tiger & Pooh and generally bugging mama while she's doing her online & coffee morning thing). Last night at dinner the next table over had a girl same age as Faith, doing some of the same thing Faith does, made my heart ache missing her.

So yes it was a great day, but i miss my girl and daddy will be picking her up soon (after he visits with dad for a while) and I'll be excited to have her back home following me around and helping :-)

SO chilly...and a new vehicle..

UGH -14 this morning when we got up. I go back and forth all winter as to which is worse, cold or snow? I guess at least you don't have to shovel cold right?
And on to new and exciting things...we are getting a new truck, and we are so excited. It's exactly what we want and then some. It's a Toyota Tundra CrewMax, Check it out here
We totally didn't think we could afford it, as we don't get a discount with Toyota through John's work (Fedex), and we do get one for Ford, GMC, Chevy and since it's a pretty significant discount we just figured there was no way Toyota could compete with that. So after test driving several things Saturday, and feeling that the Toyota was the safest, most comfortable, best truck but also the most expensive - we decided to go back to Ford on monday morning because they could give us an awesome deal on a great truck. So we picked it out, started the process and then came home to return later this week to pick it up. WELL on the way home Toyota did a courtesy call to see if we had given anymore thought to purchasing from them, so we told them that we had but we just couldn't go the extra when we could get a better deal with Ford. So the guy said "well what would you be able to do" so i told JOhn to tell him if he can get our payment under "x" amount and for the terms i want then we will definately purchase from them. So I was 99% sure there was NO WAY they could meet our needs, there was just such a huge gap between their price and our price. Well much to my surprise they called in the afternoon with an option that totally works for us, they really worked super hard to get us what we wanted at the price we wanted. We are beyond THRILLED. So come this weekend we will be driving a new vehicle, yeah! The greatest thing is how SAFE this vehicle is, it has so so so many safety features that are just not on other comparible vehicles. Check them all out here Safety Features

No more bottles...

Faith was down to just 1 bottle at bedtime for quite a while now. I decided out the blue Friday that enough was enough, she was gonna be done with bottles all together. So Friday night i gave her the milk in a sippy cup, she was totally fine with it, didn't throw a fit or anything. Guess she was ready too. She has had sleeping issues again these last three nights but I'm not sure why, i honestly think Friday night was just the newness of no bottle, i brought her back down, rocked some more and got her to sleep almost all night in her own bed, she came in bed with me around 5:30am i think it was, to me that's not bad. However Saturday & Sunday night both she ended up in bed with us in the middle of the night, last night being the earliest at like 1am. I don't like that, we don't sleep as well, including Faith. However, i wonder if that wasn't cause she knew Daddy was home and wanted to be in bed with him?? Not sure, i guess we'll see how it goes tonight when Dad is back at work.

Baby Fever

Okay I admit it, i have it, BAD. Probably cause lots of friends have had babies in the past few months, two recently. The thing is we havn't avoided getting pregnant since Faith was born (with the exception of one month i used the "ring" trying to help a female issue i had). So since Faith is 18 months olds it's really starting to get to me that I just can't get pregnant "on my own". Now granted i know that i have to have John's help LOL, what i mean is every time i've ever gotten pregnant there has been some type of medical intervention, with Faith there was plenty of interventions. Anyway after Faith was born everyone (including my midwife) has said, well you never know, it might happen when you least expect it. Well I felt all along that they were all crazy, but then again I have known a lot of people that did fertility treatments for their first and then went on to have "surprise" pregnancies after. Anyway I always said I would be completely happy with just 1 healthy child and I wouldn't get myself all depressed and insane TTC (trying to conceive) another. And i'm not. I've got a little science experiment going with some natural vitamins/supplements, i'm back on my PCOS medicine, and i'm charting my cycle. So who knows maybe it will happen, but somehow i doubt it. And God, just so you know I am completely happy with Faith but should you decide our family is not complete that would be great too!

Geez thanks for the reminder...

Yesterday someone said to me "oh you're gonna have a birthday"...yup geez thanks...I'm gonna be *gulp* 31 ... and i thought 30 was hard ...
Anyway it got me to thinking, why is it that this bothers me so much? It shouldn't, 30 or 31 for that matter certainly isn't "OLD". I guess it bothers me cause birthdays just aren't really anything to celebrate anymore, they are just another day that means you are another year older.
I never did have great birthdays anyway, i always thought of myself as some kind of birthday jinx. I'd have great plans to do something fun, or something great and then for one reason or another they'd get ruined.
Although I do remember one birthday that was pretty special, actually it was the birthday "eve" that was special. I was feeling particularly blue, i was turning 22 the next day and was single and just feeling like my life wasn't where i wanted it to be. I was supposed to be meeting this guy i was seeing on/off at a local bar, he played in a band (what a cliche huh). Anyway I got all dressed up, stopped at the place I was currently working to chat with a friend and went ahead to the bar. While i was there (at my workplace) this guy came in (someone i knew but not well) and thought i looked great and asked someone where i was going. He went home, got dressed up himself and showed up at the bar i was at.
Well my date never did show up that night, nothing like getting stood up on the night before your birthday and by a guy in a "band" no less. Anyway this other guy sat down next to me at the bar, pretending it was a total coincidence he was there, chatted with this other guy sitting there. Offered to buy me a drink, which i of course declined. So we finally started chatting, i told him i was supposed to be meeting someone etc. We talked for a long time and once it was painfully obvious that i was stood up, he suggested going for a coffee....
Well anyway that guy was John, my husband. And that's the night we started dating. And since we stayed out all night, technically I did get something really special that year for my birthday. That was 9 years ago come Feb 17/18. I knew that night he was the man i was going to marry, it took him a lot longer to figure that out. We got engaged around Valentine's day 2 years later (2001), got married in Aug. 2002 and of course added little Faith to our clan in July 2006.

General Rambling...

Well Faith's cold is definately better. She's back to sleeping in her own bed for the most part. She's keeping herself pretty busy during the day and i'm able to get a bit more done, especially when i put on a Wiggles video (thanks Diana!). I was able to sell a bunch of her extra diapers and clothing, that helped not only get her some stuff in the next size up, but also help out with our budget a bit, makes me feel like i'm helping, ya know? Sometimes even though he doesn't mean to, John makes me feel really guilty about spending money. We had dinner out with John's family on Saturday, it was nice. We saw an older couple that used to go to our church, they commented on how well behaved Faith is, makes you glow when people say stuff like that. She is starting to show a little bit of attitude at times, sometimes it's cause she wants to do things herself and doesn't want help, as usual that makes her mama a little sad. The potty thing has seemed to wear off, she'll still go in and sit on it but after the first 2 nights of going pee before her bath, she no longer seems interested really, it's just a novelty to her i think. Which that's totally fine, i wasn't really ready for that stage right now. Dad is doing very well with his therapy, still struggling with the depression but that's to be expected, he knows now when he starts feeling more down to ask for his medicine, not wait. I honestly think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for him coming home, he's gonna need to work on being able to do some steps, but once he gets that i think he'll be good. We still have no idea what's causing the low blood count, his white blood count just keeps creeping back down, so we all have to be super careful to not take him germs, which is hard with a toddler, but i try my best. Well i really should be devoting some time to dishes this morning. Rambling over...for now...

Faith has a cold...

Poor girl. She very rarely gets sick so the poor girl is just miserable. Started yesterday morning, horribly runny yucky nose. Fever. General miserableness. She slept better last night than I expected but she's miserable still this morning. So i spent yesterday giving her tylenol and wiping her nose, and of course holding her most of the day, looks like today will be the same. I'm thankful she doesn't get sick too often, this just stinks.