The Sponge

Let's see...where to begin?!

We learned of Sponge's residency on the day before Thanksgiving. I keep track (I guess more loosely than I thought!) of my periods on a nifty little website called mymonthlycycles.com. Usually, they are about 27 days apart and occur towards the end of the month. It was the end of the month. I was going to be travelling. I thought perhaps I ought to find out when my little friend was due to arrive. So, I logged on and was quite surprised to discover that it was day 31. "Hm?!" thought I..."the last time I made it to day 31 was when I was pregnant with Worm. Perhaps I should take a pregnancy test." And so I did...and it was positive. I called Ben at work and blurted out, "I think I'm pregnant!" He said, "What?! Are you sure?!" So I took another pregnancy test...and it was positive. And that was that.

We kept the news from the fam until Christmas-time just as we had when Sofie was conceived and announced it in quite a similar fashion as we did the last time. My side of the family learned the news at our annual Christmas party. We've cut back the gift giving quite drastically to the point that only children receive a gift and the gift is given by their parent. So, I ordered a board book called Waiting for Baby and wrapped it up as part of her present. Nana ended up helping her open the present (quite fortunately!), discovered the title and figured it out right away. Two years earlier Nana had received a book from Santa's toy sack titled Here Comes Grandma! It took her quite awhile to figure out just what that could mean. This time, with that as a reference, it clicked immediately. GranDebbie's Christmas car organizer came complete with a binky in the pocket (we gifted her a pair of booties two years ago) and Grampy Dan, as you all saw, got another "Baby Tree" to plant in his yard.

Our first prenatal appointment, as I mentioned, was this past Monday and I was excited to schedule it with the midwife who delivered Sofie. (She didn't really remember us until she started to read through her report from my labor...which incidentally was very interesting to hear from her perspective...but oh well! I guess I can't expect her to remember every delivery!) She seemed excited to see Sofie and we compared notes a little since her grandson Jackson was born just a few days after Sofie. The appointment went very well. Everything seems to be progressing nicely and we got to hear Sponge's little heart beating strong and steady somewhere in the 160's (166? I don't know...I'm terrible at details!) Our due date is tentatively August 3rd although we will be having an early ultrasound next Wednesday afternoon for dating purposes. Most likely that due date is accurate, but for several reasons (that I will spare you the details of) I have a strange feeling that I might be a month further along, and since my pregnancy went so overdue with Sofie it was felt that we might as well take a peek and confirm. I'm really looking forward to that!

My pregnancy symptoms have been similar to last time with Sofie but different. I've had quite a bit of all day nausea, which has been letting up a bit in the last week or so. I'm very very tired. I keep wondering if I'm more tired this time around or if it's just that I didn't have a toddler to chase around last time! Something new this time is my aversion to some foods. I really couldn't eat sweets for awhile there. The thought of them completely grossed me out. I also had a hard time cooking meat. That seems to be waning also, but we did a lot of prepared foods and eating out for a couple of weeks! I also have a rotten taste in my mouth all the time...pretty gross.

I'm excited but nervous (I've never been part of a family with more than one kid before!) and already planning planning planning. I've been reading up on potty training and weighing my options for big girl beds. I've been browsing the wide variety of double strollers and thanking my lucky stars that we bought a van this summer. And we're off on the roller-coaster of pregnancy and parenthood once more!

FINALLY!!!

Well folks I've finally gotten around to posting this long awaited guide to the fruits of my late nights of Christmas crafting. Perhaps you'd like to get yourself a snack...this is going to be a long one! I'd like to start out by saying that this Christmas season, following the worst Christmas season of my life, has probably been one of my most memorable. I really enjoyed every minute of time I spent dreaming up the perfect crafty gifts and executing their construction. Although I'm not sure I'll ever have the time to construct Christmas to this magnitude again I will definitely be making some heartfelt gifts a part of my Christmas routine in the years to come! Without further ado...

Let's begin with a couple of cheats. This little apron was actually constructed for my second cousin, Marlo's, third birthday which was the first week of December. It totally counts because we all know that Christmas comprises the whole month of December and a week or two of January as well. I was quite proud of how well this turned out considering that I didn't have a pattern for it!

This is the toy box that Daddy made for Sofie this year. Originally I had plans to paint it to match her crib quilt but Daddy was dead set against me covering his nice wood up with icky paint. Just to be sure I wouldn't RUIN it he dragged out the construction over several weeks and didn't bring the completed project home until around 10PM on Christmas Eve! What a stinker!

Now on to the non-cheats! This is a little house that I made out of these great cardboard sheets that arrived along with our order of Sofie's one-year portraits. Unfortunately, I'm not always the brightest bulb in the box and this one has already found a new home in the dumpster :(. This was the last craft I completed and I assembled and painted it late into the night on Christmas Eve in the middle of the living room. After Christmas, when I was working on tidying up the hurricane that is post-Christmas I realized that it was too big to fit through the door to Sofie's bedroom. It had a brief stay in the living room followed by a visit to the kitchen underneath the coat rack where we piled our coats on top of it because we could no longer reach the coat rack. It was a brave little house, but alas, it couldn't stand up to the pressure exerted by the weight of all those coats piled on top of it and the roof finally caved in. Oh well...good thing it was practically free! Next time I'll remember to make my cardboard constructions a bit more flexible!

This next one is probably the present that I was most excited about creating this year. It is an advent calendar that I made for the Vance family. I was so excited about it because of my intentions to start a little family tradition with it's help...send off the calendar to Auntie Sam sometime in November and get it back by the first of December all full of treats. Doesn't that sound like fun! I'm already collecting goodies to fill up all those little pockets!

This is a car organizer that I made for GranDebbie. She is the proud owner of a brand new car and I thought she might like to have a fun organizer to keep it neat and tidy!

This is an ornament that I constructed for Kyle and DeAnna. It is a replica of the new house that they recently purchased. Maybe if you're lucky I'll go fetch an actual picture of the house for you so you can grade my handiwork! I also made a decorative throw pillow for Kyle and DeAnna out of the fabric from the bridesmaid dress that I wore at their wedding in October. It was made to match their new bedset. Alas, it is the only craft that I failed to take a picture of. Maybe (again if you're lucky) a little fairy will take a picture of it for me and send the picture to my email so I can post it for you!

This next one teaches a valuable lesson...If you're going to try your hand at a few crafts you had better leave lots of room for hiccups. This was my big hiccup this year. I should have known better!!! I wanted to grow a little herb garden for my mom who has often remarked in the past that she would love to have some fresh herbs growing in her kitchen. The problem is that my thumb is decidedly ungreen. I have been working on keeping these dumb herbs alive since way back in October. As you can see, three of them are sort of alive, and the fourth never even bothered to sprout!

These salt dough snowmen were a fun and easy project that was also with my mom in mind. She collects snowmen and Santa figurines which she displays in her curio cabinet each holiday season.

And last but not least...this was our gift to Grampy Dan this year! He received a similar gift two years ago to announce the impending arrival of Miss Sofie Bean Claire Worm. (I really thought I had posted a picture of it on this blog way back when, but it turns out that this blog didn't come about until January of '07...after Christmas!)

This is also the REAL reason that I have been dragging my feet on this post. I wanted to wait until after our first prenatal appointment, and the reassurance that everything is progressing normally, to make the announcement that we are expecting Baby #2, The Sponge! We trekked out this morning, all three of us, to visit the midwife that delivered Sofie sixteen (short!) months ago and had ourselves a little heartbeat party...BA-BUM! I have a LOT more to say on this topic, of course, but for now I think this post is long enough!

Filler

Why is it that Sofie's interpretive dancing always makes me grin like a fool? Observe her latest move, as she stuffs her mouth full of peanut butter sandwich (the rest of which she happily smeared all over our bed sheets...I guess that's what I get for letting her eat PB & J out of her highchair!)



I swear there is a Christmas post on it's way. I'm looking forward to finally sharing what all of my crafty hard work resulted in. It's just that we're still working on cleaning up the detritus that is left over after Christmas (and also daddy is home on vacation so we've been spending lots of time together and also taking lots of unnecessary naps!)

Busy Busy Busy

Hi! I'm still kicking! Although it is 5 PM on Christmas Eve and I still have two crafties to complete. I'm not really worried about it though. Everything else is wrapped and trimmed and baked and cleaned (for the most part). So it will just be a fun evening finishing up my crafts while White Christmas plays in the background!

(and now it's 7 PM and I only have one left!)

Anyway, I wanted to post a little update since I've got a few pictures itching to be shared. Ben, Sofie and I went to have breakfast with Santa on Saturday morning. We saw Frosty and Rudolph there too. Sofie's not too sure she likes the folks who live at the North Pole...they don't quite look like the rest of us!

Then on Monday a little bit of Christmas arrived on our doorstep (except that there isn't really a step in front of our door) from Colorado.

Ishie could not resist the temptation of fresh presents, which I found rather amusing since there have been presents under our tree for a week or two and she hasn't batted an eye at any of them. She went so far as to open a couple of them while I was preoccupied with some house tidying! When daddy came home, and she was still excitedly pulling presents out from under the tree to show us, we decided that we might as well go ahead and open them all up. So we had a little bit of early Christmas! Here is a video that I took before my memory card became inopportunely full. Thanks to GranDebbie and the Vances for an awfully fun Monday evening!



Last but not least (since it is now 8:30ish and this post still isn't published!!) here are a few pictures I took just a bit ago before Sofie went to bed. She and Baby Nona both got new Christmas pajamas!

"Ishie"

...is what Sofie replies in response to the question, "Can you say Sofie?"

And thus, a new nickname is born!

Ishie seems to have decided that having only two teeth is so five months ago. She is working on all four front teeth at once. I feel like I should be teaching her to sing, "All I want for Christmas is my four front teeth..." but alas, she is rather grumpy about the whole tooth growing thing.

Sophisticated Dining

Santa called me today and wondered if Sofie might like some new utensils for Christmas since she is getting to be such a big girl these days. I said, "You know what Santa? That sounds like just the right kind of thing for a little girl's stocking!" In the meantime, we'll keep practicing with the models we've got!

Crafty

Hello! Did you miss me? I'm up to my elbows in Christmas craftiness around here so things might be a little light for awhile...

...but while I'm in the artsy groove I thought I'd throw in a much overdue facelift around here. Enjoy!

Update: What on earth was I thinking? Where did all my "stuff" go? Would you all please please do me a favor? If I used to have a link to your blog over there on the right could you please send me its web address? I don't know any of them...I just click my links. My links that aren't there!!!