Crafting and kids.
Here’s another layout I put together last week with Kate’s assistance.
I’m actually quite pleased with the embellishment clusters! I don’t love the title, but it was Kate’s main contribution so I’m keeping it. 🙂
I should be getting a new box of goodies today! Tracking shows it’s out for delivery. 🙂 It’s mainly stuff for December Daily and I’m excited to get it and start playing. Especially after missing last year.
Kate wanted to scrap with me this weekend (be still my heart!) so we made this page of her doing story time for the twins. Usually she wants to make her own pages, but I think she’s discovering that I don’t always share the coolest supplies with her. Whoops. 😉 She decided that we should make this page together.
She was super excited when I let her do some journaling ::gasp:: on the page with one of my pens! She also took her time and used her very best penmanship. I love that I have a snippet of her voice and her handwriting in my scrapbook! I’m going to make a point to have her do some project life cards too. 🙂
The babies are 6 months old! How did that happen?!? We started solids today (actually a week ago, I’ve been slacking a bit on the blog) which was super exciting. We started with avocado because it’s soft and nutritionally dense. With Kate, we did Baby Led Weaning (here’s a book if you’re interested) and we loved it. Basically, you skip purees entirely and just let the kids eat real food. Xander was all for it!
Kate was all about helping. Don’t worry, she didn’t actually shove food in his mouth. lol.
I love his expression in this one. He’s like, “Why did I just put that in my mouth?!?” 3 seconds later, “OMG, give me more!” Do all babies react to solids like this or is it just my kids?
Mia was more of a challenge. We didn’t want to spoon feed her, but she wasn’t quite ready for BLW either. After discussing it ad naseum with her occupational therapist, her speech therapist, and her nutritionist (wow, that was crazy to type out) we decided to do kind of a hybrid approach. Our goals are to explore food and have fun, we’re not bothered about them actually ingesting anything, which makes it easier.
Our speech therapist suggested using her chewy stick (it’s like a therapy teether) sort of like a spoon. We also loosely mashed up her avocado instead of giving her big chunks, but we didn’t puree it. Since it’s not smooth, we’re hoping to avoid texture aversions later.
We’re also following her lead as far as when she wants more and when she wants the chewy in her mouth. It’s a lot more work than straight BLW (which is like the lazy parent version of solids and I love) but we feel like she’s still getting a few of the benefits without being so worried about her choking.
Incidentally, I freaking love our high chairs. They’re pricey, but we were lucky enough to have received both as gifts. One we still have from when Kate was a baby. We didn’t think we’d be able to have more kids, but I just couldn’t bring myself to part with it because I loved it so much! And after seeing daily use for almost 3 years, it still looks almost new.
It’s no secret that pink is my favorite color, but gold? I resisted that trend for a long time. I finally gave in and I’m kicking myself for waiting so long. Pink and Gold 4 Lyfe!
I did some pink stars with a bit of texture medium and then sprayed some hearts using my heart stencil and some Heidi Shine.
It was subtle, but I like the way it turned out. The cardstock is actually teal, not sure what’s up with the color in this pic. That’ll teach me to try to be all fancy and use my real camera!
Also loving the vellum with gold! And the gold washi! And my adorable cousins. 🙂
Let’s see how we did with the September goals, shall we? 🙂
Look at my adorable babies! I took this pic on Friday and I had to scrap it right away.
I used my stencil to make the hearts, and then I did some splatters with my gold Heidi Shine. I matted the pic with what might be my last piece of my favorite paper from the October Afternoon Witch Hazel line. Then I added in a bunch of pieces from the Crate Paper After Dark ephemera pack, a bit of washi from Target and some sequins. I love it! And I just uploaded some more pics from this weekend to play with. I might end up staying caught up with October. lol.
Speaking of staying caught up, I need to set some October goals.
This was an exercise in using up scraps! I haven’t loved a 4th of July line in quite some time and I’m not *generally* in the habit of buying lines that I’m meh about. There’s too much that I love! All this to say, I’m down to a few piddly scraps. Still, I’m happy with how this turned out.
I didn’t have any big pieces of paper left so I matted the pics individually. The heart paper is two separate strips so I just put that little target where they joined. And of course, I started off with some texture medium and a stencil! i finished it with some Thickers (I cut the TH down) and a few sequins. Only 4 more layouts and I’m done with June! Still need to go back and do December – March though. lol.
Y’all. I freaking love Halloween. In fact, I *may* have pulled out all of my Halloween decorations on September 1st. lol. Imagine how excited I was when this arrived:
Why yes, that is pretty much the entire Crate Paper Halloween line. I haven’t been this excited about a collection since The Pier! I don’t usually devote a whole layout to our pumpkins, but this particular year we announced our twin pregnancy this way so I had to include it. 🙂
Sorry, you’re getting it as an iPhone pic. Xander has stopped sleeping. Again. Good thing he’s cute! First up, the bat stencil! OMG I love it so much. Then I used up some of my old October Afternoon Witch Hazel. I wish I had bought more of it years ago! I added some of my new doilies and a few stickers.
I was loving all of the glitter so I decided to edge the wood veneer bats and pumpkin with some stickles and I love how it turned out. Then I thought it just needed a little something more so I added the ric rack with my handy dandy tiny attacher.
I only had a few layouts to do for October 2014 because I was so sick last year which was a bummer because I’m having so much fun with these supplies! No worries. I plan to take a ton of pics this year. 🙂
We’re in the clear for at least 3 more months! Mia’s Dr said he wasn’t going to base his decision only on the numbers on the scan and that clinically she looked great. What a huge relief! Now we just need to get through her ENT appointment (which I’m fu-reaking out about) and we’ll be good for at least a few months. I hope.
Xander is doing great too! He’s quite the little roly poly! He actually rolled over in his swing last night so it looks like we’ll me transitioning him to his crib. Excuse me while I go cry in the corner. The past 2 days where he only woke up once in the middle of the night have been a blissful interlude that I will cherish forever. lol.
Xander had a great time at the Children’s Museum with Kate while Mia snoozed. 🙂
Enjoying his mom-sickle! We just freeze some expressed milk in some little silicon trays from Ikea and then pop them into these mesh feeders. They’re a huge hit around here and we love that the babies can participate in dinner. 🙂
Wow. Looking at these makes me realize that I need to be better about using my big camera! I love my iPhone, but these leave a little something to be desired.
I’ve actually been scrapping a bit lately! In fact I’m now caught up through the end of November 2014! I can’t wait to finish 2014 all together. 🙂 I’ve also been powering through 2015 Project Life. I did 3 spreads today. 🙂 Never mind that I’m still in June. That’s some serious progress. Is that something y’all would like to see?
Here’s a recent layout; the companion to the one I posted last week. It was super hot at the park, but Kate had fun and the babies tolerated it. More stenciling and doilies. And I’ve been hoarding the flair badges, but I couldn’t resist using them on this page. 🙂
Oh, my sweet Mia. We’ve had lots of appointments in the last few weeks so lots of updates! Mia went to see the eye dr and the results were mixed. Structurally her eyes are fine which is fantastic news, but she is borderline for needing glasses. Since she’s making great eye contact (girl friend will make eye contact for days) her dr wants to hold off on glasses for now. We’ll revisit that next year at her next appointment. I’m already shopping for cute frames. Rest assured, Mia will be absolutely adorable in glasses.
Mia says, “Why did you let them dilate my eyes!” ::shakes tiny fist::
We also had a repeat visit to the cardiologist and everything is looking fantastic. She does sill have a partially fused aortic valve, but it doesn’t seem to be negatively impacting her at this time. Most likely she’ll need a valve replacement, but not until she’s like 40 years old. I’m officially not worrying about things that are 40 years in the future. Y’all, I have bigger fish to fry. 😉 You should have seen us trying to get the heart ultrasound done. Little miss wiggle worm didn’t want to keep still so the ultrasound tech finally suggested that I get up on the table and nurse her during the scan. I had to channel my inner contortionist, but we got it done. lol. Thankfully my dad was there to help wrangle Xander. I don’t know what I would do if we didn’t have family close by! Probably lose my mind.
We let them have some mom-sickles (frozen milk in a mesh feeder). Minds=blown
Then the biggie, Mia had a repeat MRI of her brain last Wednesday. We were supposed to see the neurosurgeon immediately after the MRI, but the had to reschedule because he was stuck in surgery. We went ahead and got the MRI done and scheduled the dr appointment for this Wednesday (tomorrow.) I wasn’t even worried about it. Mistake number 1. Always worry about everything.
Well, my mom and I were waiting at the pediatrician’s office for the babies to get their shots when the neurosurgery office called. Uh oh. Apparently the MRI showed that her ventricles had grown which is not good. They wanted to know if she was showing any symptoms that would indicate that we needed to be seen sooner than out appointment the following week. Cur panicking. Especially when we consider that they symptoms are throwing up (um… she’s not having Xander level exorcism pukes, but she does spit up. And it has gotten worse, but her occupational therapist attributes this to her working her abs more.) and being fussy (first off, she’s the most chill baby ever so I’m not sure that waiting for her to fuss is the answer. Second, she is fussing a wee bit more, but it seems like she fussing because she’s demanding more attention, not because she has a headache. Wanting attention seems like a good thing neurologically.) To recap, she had her first MRI in April and they were on the large side but ok. Then her second MRI in June showed that they were larger, but still ok. It would have been better for there to have been no growth, but this wasn’t alarming. I don’t know what this MRI is showing exactly, but I can’t help but think we might be back in the range of needing a shunt.
Since we were already at the pediatrician’s office, I may have demanded that a dr or nurse practitioner come look at her before she got her shots. The consensus was that her fontanelle (soft spot) was “full but not bulging” so we should be good to wait a week. While I didn’t love hearing that it was full, at least it wasn’t bulging. The nurse practitioner also really pushed the shots so we went ahead and got them. Now I’m kind of wishing we hadn’t only because she was fussier than usual this weekend, but that’s most likely due to the shots. Of course, we’re supposed to be on the lookout for fussiness. ::sigh:: If it’s not one thing it’s another.
She and Xander loved the Thinkery!
In other news, she’s doing great in therapy. We just put some kinesiology tape on her this week to help stimulate her to activate her core. I was resistant to this for a while and couldn’t pin point why. Her occupational therapist helped me to work through it. (Apparently she doubles as a shrink. Which is awesome. 🙂 ) I was having a hard time admitting that she needed the extra help, but I’m over it now and going full steam ahead with anything that will help her.
To long; didn’t read?
No glasses yet, but they will be coming sooner rather than later. Heart is awesome. She might need a brain shunt, but we don’t really know anything just yet. That appointment is tomorrow. Next up, ENT in a few weeks.
And now for the scrappy goodness:
I’m going to pretend like I intended that frame in the top right corner to be crocked. lol. (Side note. Is that how you spell that? It looks weird. Crooked? Crooced? cadiwompus? Tilted. Let’s go with tilted.)
I haven’t gotten any new goodies in a while (I’m waiting for some of the new releases to come out) so I’ve been digging into my stash a bit. I found some old Echo Park paper that I still love! In fact, I’m torn between wishing I had more of it and being excited that I might actually kill off a collection.
Those trees! I still love them. And those tiny babies! They were only 3 weeks old here. Look how huge that rattle looks! I still think of them as pretty tiny, but man. They were REALLY tiny for a while there.
I had mixed results with the rub ons. The title worked really well. These smaller ones not so much. To be fair, the rub on sheet is several years old and I could have done a better job sticking that heart paper down.
Here you can see some subtle stenciling. That heart one is totally my fav. I mixed in some newer embellies- wood veneer, flair badge, and the doilies.
Mia has an eye appointment this afternoon. No biggie, just a routine check up. But y’all, they said it was going to be 2 hours long. ::sigh:: Should be interesting! Then Kate starts Girl Scouts tonight. I’m not sure who’s more excited, me or her. 🙂