Happy Birthday Lovebug

Here's my "lovebug". This is my nickname for the guy who laughs like Woody from Toy Story, always has a smile, plays with his little sister and brother as if he were their age and will always give me a snuggly, cuddly kiss. It doesn't matter that he's 9. He is not embarrased to show his love with every member of our family!

Happy Birthday Lovebug!!!

Please stop growing now. I'm not sure I'm ready for another year to go by watching you grow up to be such a wonderful young man! Please? Please? Please?

xoxo ~Mom

I have CADD

I promised myself last year that I would make an advent calendar for Christmas this year. It's not finished yet. Not that it's a difficult project. I was inspired by this advent calendar tutorial from allsorts and since I love felt and have so much of it laying around the house, this was what I wanted to do. It's almost finished.

My biggest problem is me! I get so excited to do a project that I have to start it right away. But then I put aside the project I'm working on. But anticipating that I will finish soon (plus, I'm a sucker for tutorials) I start looking for other projects to do. Clear as mud? What I'm saying here is that I think I have CADD (Craft Attention Deficit Disorder). Does anyone know what I can do about this? Is there a special medication? Therapy? Do I simply stay off my computer? Anyone?

My felted wool sweater!

After reading this post over at The Sky is Pink, it reminded me that I had seen this episode of Martha, and always wanted to try and make a sweater. First take a felted wool sweater (mine was $2.50 after the 1/2 off discount on Wednesdays only at my local thrift store), some felting needles, and a foam or bristle brush pad.

I forgot to take a picture, but it was a man's large, before I felted it. So I cut up the felted sweater, sewed it into Kelly size and ordered some roving from my good friend Lindsay at Etsy. I had the felting needles and backing because I have a thing for felt, as some of you may know.

So this is how it turned out. It took some time, but was so much fun to do!! The supplies aren't all that expensive if you want to try it! I bought mine here.

Let me know if you try it!

Physical Trauma

Warning: This episode of my story is not for those who do not want to hear all about “female things”, it’s not pretty…You’ve been warned.

Conveniently, the procedure had happened on a Thursday, so by Sunday I was feeling fine and was able to do my regular routine. Oddly on Monday, in the very early hours I was having some really heavy cramping and the bleeding had increased….hmmmm. I told hubby about it and he said he would go get some pads for me (of course I was out) after I took the kids to school (I figured I could handle the 10 min. roundtrip to get the kids there).

Our usual morning routine for school, was eat, brush teeth and drive 10 mins. down the road to school. I went to the bathroom before leaving…just to check on the bleeding…it was heavier, hmmm strange. BTW, I was totally out of pads, but didn’t think I’d need anymore, since all the bleeding had stopped. By the time I got in the car to drive the kids to school. I could tell I was having a problem after we had driven about a mile. There was this huge pressure in my nether region. You know, when something wants to come out, but you’re desperately trying to hold it in, wink, wink. I get to school and drop the boys off…it’s car to door service, so I don’t ever have to get out of the car.

I call hubby and tell him, I can’t wait until later for him to go get something, I’ll just swing by the grocery store on my way home. I get to the parking lot, park and get out of my car. Standing up was my mistake! Everything comes out. Note to the men: graphic language here, sorry. I figure the store’s empty I can run in, pay self serve and run out. I walk into the store and feeling a big gush I look down to see I’m leaving a trail of blood on the floor behind me. Now let me just state that I am not dizzy, light headed or pale. So I know I’m not hemorrhaging. I’m just completely embarrassed. I turn around quickly and leave the store. I call hubby and catch him up on what’s going on. Now try to understand that I can tell this isn’t just a “flow”, there are clots releasing themselves from me to come out. It only takes me 4 mins. to get home. By this time I have bled through my pants, onto the car seat cover (get ‘em) and need to get in the shower immediately!

Meanwhile, I tell hubby call my Dr.s office to report what is going on, because I have no idea WHY this is happening. As I get undressed I see these large clots and have to dump them. I jump in the shower and can feel more things coming! I have to yell at hubby to bring me a bowl so I have a way to collect and dump all the “chicken innards” coming out of me. That’s what it looks like, and I have to say, I’m getting a little freaked out! What the fuck is going on. Everything was fine. I can tell there’s no baby in this stuff, but seriously WTF!!!

The nurse gets on the phone with me, and I explain what’s been happening for the last hour, now. She says come in right away and they’ll look. Oh great, I get to pick new pants to bleed through. So quickly I get dressed, wrap a beach towel around me, and drive to the office. Oh get over it, of course I could drive. Remember, there are 2 little one’s home still.

To make this long story a little shorter…the clots have stopped at this point, and the bleeding goes back to it’s very minimal amount that it had been prior to this morning.

It turns out fibroids are tricky little suckers. They can bleed on you. So after my DNC the fibroid had bled, pooled because I was lying down for a couple days, and then needed to expel itself.

Next time: The emotional damage.

Deer, Park...that's good pumpkin

The last few years I have taken to chopping up my Jack-o-lanterns, cooking, purreeing and freezing them. I grew up doing this and we always had wonderful pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread anytime we wanted. I cannot tell you the difference between canned pumpkin and fresh. Oh. My. Lord!! Once you have it you'll never go back! Just passing the cans in the grocery aisle make me a little queasy. I feel bad if I see someone buying it. I want to tell them "Hey, it's not too hard, try and do some fresh pumpkin."

If you want to try it and not spend a whole day in the kitchen, try cooking up just a quarter of your pumpkin. They hold a lot of water, so your yield will go down after it's cooked. But try it and see. Make some bread with your fresh pumpkin and tell me how wonderful it really is! One large pumpkin will usually give out about 8 quarts of puree.

This year, after speaking with my dad who informed me he broke a knife just cutting up his pumpkin, I decided not to do it. I checked my freezer and realized I still have enough to make pumpkin bread a number of times throughout the next year. Besides, if I run out I'll know where to go :)

So this year we played bowling with our pumpkins. We back to parkland so it was easy. We just rolled them out back so the deer could enjoy them. And they are!!

Recyclying her clothes

May I present for your pleasure (well, really Kelly's) Ms. Pennypig. As I was spring cleaning and changing out the summer clothes for winter, I came across some of Kelly's old clothes that were just too small for her. I could've gone the old give-away route, but I wanted to do something different. I was just in the mood :)

So I got my scissors, sewing machine and some buttons out. Here is my humble result of Kelly's new "friend". It's nice to see her play with something that I can look at and remember the shirt, jacket and pants that helped create Pennypig. Each part of her is composed from something different. So Kelly and I both got something special.

I want my mummy

How on earth did it get to be the middle of November and I didn't share anything about Halloween? I guess I've been a litle preoccupied with my memories lately. We had a blast at Halloween this year. Kelly was a butterfly, Dunn was Frankenstein, Finn was a mummy and Jack went as Indiana Jones (seriously, what else is a 12 yr. old cool boy gonna do?).

Familyfun.com saved me this year. I always wanted to make some Halloween costumes for my kids, but never got started early enough. So this year I planned ahead. The first week of October, I let the kids peruse the list of costumes at Family Fun and pick out something (within my doable range), and I'd try and make it for them.

Dunn did "monster", Finn did "mummy". Check them out, they really were pretty easy.

Sure, Dunn's green face was a little darker, but at night you couldn't really tell and he looked fantastic! The whole thing was easy to put together. A quick trip to the thrift sore for a $5 blazer, $2 old jeans (fringed the bottom) and $3 big black clunky shoes. Finn's was really a lot of fun to do. After searching for plain white/off white thermal underwear (Walmart) and buying about 4 yards of muslin, we ripped the muslin into 3 in. wide strips and hot glued them to the underwear. White and black face makeup and we were done.

Maybe next year I'll try something a little more challenging :)

Okay not this challenging:

Nordic Bo Peep and Long Lost Sheep Costume GIVEAWAY!!!!

Losing

As I drove home, don’t worry I waited until the hysteria had stopped, all I could think about was that the baby inside me was no longer living! That is about the craziest thing I’ve ever had to wrap my mind around. Let me start by explaining that even though the baby’s heart had stopped beating nearly 10 days prior, I still felt pregnant. I was still having my morning (evening) sickness, had already gained a ton of weight (yeah, weird), major league gas (clear the room) and was extremely tired. Oh yes, the cruel irony is that I had been able to enjoy that morning sickness and not being able to eat for 10 days even though technically, I wasn’t pregnant. Evidently the body still makes all those pregnancy hormones leading you into a false sense of security. My false sense of security! Believe me, I had thought about the possibilities of the pregnancy not going full term. After all, I was 40 years old and no spring chicken. But I didn’t REALLY think that it would happen to me. I was thinking like a foolish teenager who thought they could drive home after having one too many beers…Yeah, it happens, but not to me. Crash!!! Fatality - 1.

The next day was my birthday (Oh Joy!). Since I’d had no cramping or bleeding, my Dr. wanted to do a DNC as soon as possible. I let him know I just couldn’t do it on my birthday, so we scheduled it for 2 days later. I didn’t make a cake.

After I got home, hubby and I had the unpleasant task of telling our children. Yes, we are one of those couples that can’t wait to share our news and pretty much call everyone from the bathroom, after the stick shows us the plus sign. Now I know plenty of you are saying, “See, that’s why you should always wait”. Honestly, I just can’t do it. For one, I’m a terrible liar, I am always just ridiculously happy, I can’t keep something like that from my BFF and after waiting so long to have children and all the troubles we had gone through just to have our first, this is who we are. Don’t be hatin’.

The 2 oldest, Jack and Finn took it especially hard. They remember what it's like having babies and look forward to it every time. Dunn and Kelly really didn’t get it and were pretty much like “ok”. I didn't make a cake.

So we get to the day of “the procedure”. I’m nervous and don’t want to talk, even in the car when it’s just me and hubby. We arrive and everything goes “smoothly”. I get home and stay in bed for the rest of the day, and half of the next. No real pain, and some very slight, I mean slight bleeding. At this point I’m thankful that it didn’t have to be a big physical and painful reminder. Until the next day... which changed me forever!

To be continued.

Not a Celebratory Anniversary

I’m coming up on an Anniversary. It isn’t one I’ll celebrate, but it is one that I’ll always hold in my heart. November 26th is the one year Anniversary of my one and only lost (as in no longer pregnant) baby.

I was 12 weeks along and was going in for a diagnostic sonogram because I was measuring 4 wks. larger than my gestational period. This was normal for me ever since I became pregnant with baby #2 when I developed a fibroid. Fibroids will enlarge due to hormones during pregnancy, and shrink back down after birth. For me, it never caused any problems except the oh-look-she’s-4 months-pregnant (when in reality I was only 3) stares, and necessary early maternity clothes. To top it all off I carry big anyway. Go ahead, laugh.

So to me this was just another sonogram to see how large the fibroid was, and make sure everything was fine. I had had a previous sonogram the month before, just to date the pregnancy officially, and due to my AMA (advanced maternal age), see how everything looked.

Yes, just 4 weeks prior, the baby’s heartbeat was “strong” and we looked good to go!! But, on November 26th after I hop up on the table, and she turned the machine on – with sound- I saw and heard a flat-line, under the picture of the baby. I can’t explain it but even though I knew what it meant, I instantaneously pushed that thought away and rationalized that she was checking the blood flow in the cord, or something like that. I didn’t say anything. She didn’t say anything. I didn’t look at her. She quickly turned the sound off. But I knew. I waited. I waited for her to tell me everything was fine. I waited for her to start taking measurements. I waited for something, anything.

After about 3 minutes I just looked at her and said “There’s no heartbeat is there?” She said “No Sweetie, there isn’t.”

I laid there quietly. Still. Hardly breathing. I still thought the baby would suddenly move around…like it had been holding it’s breath. Not dead. It couldn’t be. I’ve never lost a baby. 4 pregnancies…4 babies. This was number 5, why would it be any different? But it was.

I managed to hold it together, throught the measuring and chronicling of the baby. All I really wanted to do was run out of there screaming No, No, No.

Luckily my preferred Dr. was in that office on that day. I got to see him, which was some comfort since we have a history. We talked about the options of what to do, why it happened and how to proceed.

Mind you, I’m still holding it together. My Dr. handles everything, and I am free to go. Until I see him in another 2 days for the DNC. I get in the parking lot, pull out my cell and call hubby. Instantly, this is when I lose it. Completely. I’m amazed he understood anything I said. Although, when your wife is calling you after a sonogram appt. and she’s hysterical, you pretty much know it’s not good.

Come back as I share more of the details on what went wrong…so very wrong.

Mean Nasty Antivirus 2009

Warning, Warning, Warning...Antivirus is NOT a real spyware from Microsoft. In fact it is just the opposite. I'm telling you this so you will not get into the computer trouble that I got into a few weeks ago.

Innocently it will pop up on your computer telling you that there are dangerous items on your computer and to run Antivirus 2009. Do not click on it. DO NOT CLICK ON IT!!! I clicked on it and followed the prompt, but when it asked me for $49.95 to download I thought skip it.

Well, the next thing I know...Everytime I go to Google, there's a box telling me I have unregistered Antivirus 2009, and I should register it. I realized this was a virus when I couldn't access my email site, much less account. It was constantly redirecting me on many sites I had previously gone to with no trouble.

So don't be like me. Naive. Stupid. Dumb. Blind. Follower. BUT, if you are like me, and are looking for a solution to get rid of Antivirus 2009 follow these easy steps.

1.Click on your control panel
2. Click on Performance and Maintenance icon. If you don't see performance and maintenance switch to "category view" in your control panel...look for it on the top left.
3. Click on System Restore
4. A calendar will present itself to you. Go back and pick a date that you know you didn't have Antivirus 2009 on your computer. And restore to that date.
5. Relax. Breathe. Tape your hair back onto your head. Problem solved.

Now, wasn't that easy?!

xoxo ~L