A quick look back at March, April, May & June…

Celebrated Dylan’s birthday. My oldest baby is now 19 years old. I remember marveling at how beautiful Dylan was as I held him for the first time.

Haven started horseback riding lessons at the end of May and she loves it! And I love watching her while she rides, she is just so cute.

Another birthday was celebrated, and I sewed a fun and ruffly outfit for my cute little birthday girl to wear to school. Gracen loved waking up to the surprise and wearing it on her special day.

On my 39th birthday I snapped a quick picture with a nearly 5 month old Jensen.

Finn, Gracen, and Mathes all dressed up for Easter Sunday, 2011. Mathes looks shocked he’s getting his picture taken, even though this is actually one of his “smiles” for pictures. Punk.

For Finn’s birthday this year I made him a Super Hero cape and mask….

….and he is off to save the world!

Mathes got a turn being “Super” too.

Ciel had all four of her wisdom teeth removed and a small crowded tooth in front pulled. Poor kid. But she recovered incredibly fast, and had little to no pain afterwards. Here she is with a mouth full of gauze. Next up for her, braces!

Also…Dylan quit his day job to work full time managing local bands and moved out into his own place, and we turned his bedroom into a guest room. (Wanna visit? We now have somewhere for you to sleep!) Finn is pedaling a two wheel bike with training wheels, Jensen was 25 3/4- inches tall and 17lbs. at her 6 month check-up,  I’m trying to figure out a way to own a horse again, Craig is planting a garden nearly twice the size of last years, we got a pair of zebra finches, and we have peaches growing on all three of our little peach trees.

Ok, all caught up? Good.

I took Jensen in for her 4 month check-up today and she measured 23 inches long and weighed 12 lbs. 13 oz. putting her almost in the 50th percentile for weight. Her Dr. was surprised that she hasn’t been sick yet (yay!), and how strong and physically active she is. Seriously, it was like trying to examine a wild animal. She was in a constant state of motion as she kicked, pushed, bucked, and scooted all over the exam table. She was determined to keep moving, there was no way Jensen was going to stay in one spot, she wasn’t at all interested in holding still. Her Dr. got a good laugh out of it as she almost managed to launch herself right off the scale. He wasn’t expecting her strength and activity level to say the least. Ah yes, one healthy and very active baby.

(photo taken by her cousin Adler)

Jensen is 4 months old today, and after a slow start gaining weight, she has turned into quite the little chub. She weighed only 6 lbs. 10 oz at her 2 week check, so you know we’re thrilled to see that at her 2 month check-up she weighed 9 1/2 lbs. , at 3 months she weighed 11 lbs., and now at 4 months she weighs 12 1/2 lbs. Pretty sure it’s all in her cheeks too, their totally chubby and completely kissable! Here is a rundown of her “baby stats”….

-Sleeps from about 10pm-8am in her own bed (a co-sleeper in our room) without waking in the night (heaven!)

-Refuses to nap in her bed during the day though, only sleeping during daytime hours if she is in someones arm (punk!)

-Loves the pure entertainment her siblings offer her at every waking moment.

-Is a very happy, content, and smiley baby

-Loves to stick out her tongue.

-Is a true “Daddy’s Girl”, is happy to fall asleep in his arms and loves the sound of his deep voice.

-Loves to “talk” with all of her baby sounds.

-Giggled and laughed for the very first time Friday night (3-25-11).

-Currently fits perfectly into 3-6 month size clothing (which means she is close to outgrowing that size very soon)

-Still sporting a mohawk since her hair refuses to lie down. No amount of styling can tame it into submission, it’s been this way since birth.

-She rarely spits up, and rarely has diaper “blowouts” (hooray!)

-She still has her hands up to her face all of the time. Just like she did right after she was born, and even before as seen in her ultrasound pics.

-Still the most popular person at our house.

I had a lot of fun sewing Jensen’s Blessing dress, and I love how it turned out. I apologize for the wrinkled dress and bad lighting/pictures, but I have little to no time these days with most of it taken up in caring for the baby along with the rest of my busy brood. I had to just get them taken ‘as is’ if I ever wanted to get this post done. Oh well, you’ll just have to forgive me.

Never having worked with silk dupioni before, I worried it would be a repeat of my nightmarish first experience with velvet. As it turned out it was a dream to work with and I am planning a few more projects using silk dupioni again. Anyways, back to the blessing dress. I used a simple pattern as a jumping off point, and I just made it over to my liking. I changed the sleeves from short, puffed and gathered to a 3/4 length with a ruffle at the sleeves edge and no gathering at the shoulder.

I then shortened the length of the bodice, lengthened the skirt portion of the dress, and added an underskirt ruffle to the bottom hem of the dress that made it look like there was a second layer underneath, and then added pintucks on the bodice front and on the skirt of the dress. (I wish my pictures did the dress justice, they lighting is bad and the wrinkles are really doing more harm here than needed, but I am just going to have to stop fretting and just let it go. I don’t have time to do any better right now, again, I’m sorry.)

 I kept the bonnet simple by adding a row of pintucks along the crown and added a ruffle all around the edge so that it framed her cute face and tied it off with velvet ribbon.

I love, love, love the end result of the entire outfit, it was perfectly classic, modern, simple, and girly enough to suit little Jensen to a “T”.

And to top it all off, Craig’s Mom crocheted the most beautiful pair of little shoes for Jensen to wear with her Blessing dress on her special day. Here she is after the blessing in the little pink dress I changed her into for the family gathering at my house afterwards. I wanted to make sure her pretty little shoes could be seen, her Grandma’s hard work needed to be shown off on her cute little grandbaby.

I made sure to get a quick shot of Jensen with Craig and I right after church, because I knew I would forget to do it later once I got busy. Jensen was ready to be done but humored me just long enough for this shot.

The next picture we took has her howling. Oh well, we were done anyways.

Jensen had a lovely Blessing day complete with gorgeous weather for those traveling from far away to attend, and lots of family, food and fun at our house afterwards as we celebrated her special day.

(A quick reminder that this blog will soon be moving over to www.stitchybird.blogspot.com)

So, after much testing, it has been determined that my son has ADHD and PDD-NOS. Not sure what that second one means? Basically he isn’t Autistic and he doesn’t quite meet all of the criteria for Aspergers either, but he is somewhere in the spectrum (this link on PDD-NOS explains it better than I can). We are feeling very relieved and happy to finally be getting some sensible answers for him. He is an incredibly smart, sweet, and tenderhearted little boy that has a great sense of fun, a deep imagination, and a lot of love for his family. And while he does great at home and seems to be thriving here, school and church are both a drastically different story, and a constant challenge for him and his teachers. So we are hopeful that we can gain the necessary tools and methods to better help him and to understand him more now that we know what we are dealing with. Although none of this changes the fact that he is still my little boy, as sweet, cute and funny as ever. He is just going to face some extra challenges along the way.

(Don’t forget that this blog will soon change locations to www.stitchybird.blogspot.com!)

I can’t find my camera, so until I do I can’t post any pictures of my own, so in the meantime my writing will just have to do. Lame, I know. Anyways, I’m trying to make a blessing dress for Jensen. Yes, I have two other blessing dresses I made for and used on my other three girls, but they are both far too big for Jensen. What can I say, she’s a smurf. So my plan is to sew one in a smaller size for Jensie.

To start, I bought 3 yards of Silk Dupioni last week, and instead of paying $75, I was able to get it for only $25 for all three yards (yay!). But, I have no intention of cutting into that beautiful bunch of expensive silk until I have the perfect dress pattern to us it with. So, I am in the midst of using some inexpensive cotton fabric to test out several different dresses, to make sure I not only get the sizing for Jesen right, but the overall look and style of the dress. It would kill me to sew up a dress with any old pattern using that gorgeous silk, just to end up with “any old dress”. I want it to be just right for Jesen. Well, “just right” in my mind at least.

So my first test dress turned out allright, but it wasn’t quite right. It’s a good thing that I have three more dresses cut out and ready to try again. I feel good about my chances of getting it right soon. And whatever dresses I have left I will give to the D.I. so that some other little baby will be able to use them since it looks like I will most likely end up with 3 or 4 dresses made from the same purple print fabric once I’m done.

(pic of silk dupioni courtesy of google)

Melanie has an incredible natural talent for taking beautiful pictures. So of course I totally exploited the fact that she’s my sister-in-law and asked her to take some pictures of my new little babe Jensen. And boy did Melanie deliver. Seriously, take a look at her handy work…

This one is my absolute favorite, I love that she’s smiling. I know, totally involuntary, but still completely adorable!

 And I love how this one turned out just so simple and sweet.

 These look so good in B&W.

 Cannot get enough of the ruffly bum.

 Ruffly and bummy, so cute!

Mel knew just how to place everything to get the best shots. Love the colors in this one, perfect!

 Of all of the nakie shots, this one is my favorite, it’s so cute and looks just like my Jensen.

 She’s so cute, all curled up and sound alseep.

  Ok, so the fact that Jensen is darling doesn’t hurt, but seriously, Melly is awesome! And she not only took the photos, but she has mad editing skills too. So a very big thank you to Melanie for taking these gorgeous pictures of my sweet new baby Jensen, and giving me some wonderful keepsakes of my little girl as a tiny newborn. Melly has lots more of her awesome camera work posted on her blog, so make sure to stop by!

Our new little one has arrived, safe and sound, and as cute as can be.

I made sure to get at least one belly shot right before we left for the hospital. Talk about procrastination.

I had a very quick labor, only 2 1/2 hours start to finish, with our new little baby arriving in a very big hurry.

Jensen Catherine Anne

November 29, 2010

11:06 am

7 lbs. 6 oz.

19 inches long

 Jensen is absolutely adored by all of her brothers and sisters. In fact, they can’t stay away, with most of their time spent begging to hold her or even just touch her. It’s hard being the most popular girl in town.

Nope. Still no baby. Yet. But it won’t be much longer. So…I am currently preparing as much of our Thanksgiving dinner ahead of time as possible. This way, even if I am still totally pregnant, I can enjoy the day and meal without knocking myself silly getting the food made and onto the table. I want to be able to enjoy the day as much as I can. I made the mashed potatoes using a make-ahead recipe with potatoes, cream cheese, sour cream, and milk. They will keep in the fridge and only need to be re-heated the day of, and they still taste like you made them fresh that day. The yam casserole is a new recipe I am trying out since I can make it ahead of time and store it in the fridge until the day of, where I just have to toss the pecan topping on top and then bake it. I have a turkey breast defrosting in the fridge that I will be cooking in my crock pot so as to free up the oven for the other dishes, as well as make my life, and day, that much easier. I made three pie crusts and tossed them in the freezer, and all I have to do is pull them out to defrost, throw the fillings together and bake them up the day before. I have a bag of Rhodes rolls that will be thawed and baked the day of, and some veggies that are simple to throw together, the recipes take next to no time, and they’re all prepared on the stovetop so the oven will not be overcrowded. And the stuffing is half way prepared and I will only have to wait until the day of to mix together the onion/apple/celery base with the cubed bread, season it, and then heat it all up. I am so ready. This little baby has the green light to arrive anytime she wishes. Like now. Right now. This very minute. Tonight would be perfect. Please? I am so done with the waddling.

For dinner tonight, I decided that fondue sounded like a fun idea. The cheese fondue recipe was simple and fast, and I paired it with steamed veggies and cubed bread from a baguette. Seriously, my kids were crazy for it. You never saw little ones so excited to eat their veggies. I used a bag of frozen broccoli florets, a bag of frozen cauliflower pieces and a bag of baby carrots, which made my prep time even faster. I steamed the veggies to a crisp tender stage so that they were cooked, but not mushy making it easy for the kidlets to dip without everything falling apart. I also bought a 2-quart mini crock pot at Wal-Mart for $9.88 that was the perfect fit for the fondue. Seriously, this little gadget is the BEST for keeping hot dips hot, I love it!

(And I know I have been slacking on my blog, but there have been some issues with posting pics with my posts, so I had to go back to my old format in order to fix it. So here we are.)