Why do we do it?

Children: The pain of pregnancy, labor, delivery, and recovery, the sleepless nights, the crying, the "will you please stop touching him!"s, the painful nursing, the emotional roller coaster.

And then the smile.

Priceless.

VOTE FOR ME!

Vote for me!  My friend Christy started a monthly craft challenge on her website christynelson.net. I was one of the lucky ones that got to do it this month. The challenge: she sends some materials, and you have to make something of them. So I was sent some fabric, cardstock, rubber bands, brads, embroidery string. Hmmm, I was stumped. But inspiration hit, when it usually does. At 3:00am, feeding Zachary, with nothing else to do but sit. That's where all my projects came to me when Eldon was a baby. Since then, I haven't had time to do any projects that come to mind at 3am, but I knew I had to finish this one.

So, here it is:

I must say that it was the fabric that inspired me. I wish I'd had more of it so that I could have a picture of each state. But I didn't, so there.

I started at 8:00 one night when the kids got to bed. I was going to see how long it took me to put together, but Erica kept getting out of bed, so it took longer than it should have. But I finished by 10:00, so it still didn't take too long.

First, I got some cardstock, cut it in quarters, and hot-glued some fabric around 2 pieces.

Then I cut the green cardstock (that came in the package) a bit smaller and hot-glued it on the backside of the fabric card I had just made.

Then I made the title plaque.

Poked holes for the brads.

Then came the rubber bands. In all my contemplating I couldn't figure out what to do with the rubber bands. After staring at it for a while, it hit me. I cut the rubber bands, then glued them around the title plaque. No one said the rubber bands had to be used like a rubber band.

I tried hot-glueing them, but they wouldn't stay in place, and the glue dried too fast to place them well. And my fingers got burned. And the glue oozed out the edges. So I peeled off the rubber bands and all the hot glue and tried a glue stick. I put generous amounts of glue on the fabric and on the rubber band. To my amazement, it worked.

I quartered some paper and punched holes at the top.

Then I threaded the embroidery thread through the covers and put it all together.

Ta Da!

So, now that you're so impressed, go and vote for me at http://christynelson.net/challenge.php! Or even if you're not impressed, go and vote for me! Tell your friends to vote for me. Tell strangers on the street to vote for me. Put fliers in local businesses. Whatever it takes. :)

A conversation

I swear, this could be a conversation between me and my son.

Erica's 6th Birthday

This is the cake that Erica wanted. I'm still not very good at centering the writing yet.


Erica wanted loops around the side. So I went online and had her pick out what exactly "loops" meant. This is what she picked - rosettes. Next time I might just pick something myself. They're not hard to do, but they're hard to do a lot of!


It was chocolate cake with chocolate icing, which is what Erica would want no matter how the cake was decorated. :)

Zachary

Just a few pictures to post of Zachary at 2 weeks old. We took him to the doctor today. He's still 20.5", but now he weighs 7# 13 oz, so he's grown about 1/2# since birth. As young as he is, he does smile occasionally. And not the gassy smile - although he does that too. But when he's looking at you, sometimes if you smile really big at him, he'll smile back. I was lucky to get this shot because I had just turned on the camera when he smiled. I clicked the button as fast as I could, so I'm glad it was on him and in focus. The smile was bigger than that, but the camera caught him as the smile was fading. The battery died before I could even take one more picture.

Introducing....

Zachary Zaugg Perkins
Born 12/26/08
7#, 3.5 oz
20.5 inches

For those who care about the details of the birth, it's after the pictures. For those who don't want to know that much, just look at the pictures. :) The blogs about Christmas and such will simply have to come later.








The Details:
I woke up about 1:30am on the 26th (after going to bed at midnight) with contractions. After about an hour, I woke up James and told him it was time to go. I wanted to do the classic TV "It's TIME!", but I couldn't roll over to grab him. It took him a bit to get out of his stupor. When I told him it was time to go, he said, "Are you sure?" Yes, I was sure. So I called the doctor while he took a shower. Then he got to scrape the frost off the car and off we went. Checked in about 3:30, got an IV, then got ready for the epidural. That was the WORST epidural I have ever had. Epidurals are never comfortable, but this one had me screaming in pain. Yikes! But, it was done, and then we settled down for a bit. About 6:30, I felt like I should push, so I called the nurse, who checked and said I was ready. Then she called the doctor and everything got set up. I wasn't pushing right, so they turned down the epidural so I could feel more pressure. That worked! After 3 series of pushes, there he was! A healthy, screaming baby boy, born at 7:30ish in the morning. Not too bad. He's a pretty good baby, but he's starting to sleep less and eat more, which is good for him but bad for us. But Grandma is here to save the day and take care of the house and kids. I'm most excited about the dimples he has! When he has his gassy smiles I can see two small dimples. My favorite features about James are his curly hair, blue eyes, and dimples. I have 4 kids with blue eyes, one with curly hair, but I've never gotten dimples. I'm so excited, I hope that I'm not just seeing things, because they are so cute! The kids love him, hopefully not to death! Eldon is great with him and wants to help and Jessie and Erica love holding him. All the noise in the house doesn't seem to bother him, so that's great.

It's beginning to look a lot like winter

Well, it finally snowed. And it's still snowing. I'm glad that I have nowhere to go! We got a snowblower from some friends that moved to California, so James is outside using it now. I asked him how he liked it, and he said it was worth every penny we spent (which was 0). But it's faster and shouldn't break his back as much, which is good.


James got to wear his original Chilean hat that his brother bought him on his mission. He looked so funny as a conehead that I had to take a picture.


The kids loved playing in the snow, and built a snowman named...Frosty! How original!


Eldon even volunteered to shovel the snow. He did a pretty good job on the deck and ramp.

And since I'm blogging, I thought I'd finally post a picture of the kids decorating the tree. It is that time of year, you know.