Day 28

The last day of the month! To accomplish all of my monthly goals, I need to write in Joshua's journal and Henry's journal today...sad that I haven't written in them all month! Once that is finished, I'll have completed everything for February - I got everything completed in January also. I'm proud of myself! This year is starting out well in terms of accomplishing goals - usually I'm already failing somewhat by this point :c)

I hope to work on more crafty stuff later today!

:::
Got those journals written in...I'd hoped to work on some craft stuff, but it's too late and I need to finally go to bed at a decent time for once. I hope to be asleep by 11:30 tonight.

Day 27

This was a very busy and fun day! No crafting, but I did go through and do a much needed organizing job of my little craft bin - getting rid of all the short extra pieces of thread and tiny felt scraps...gathering up all the loose needles and pins hiding in the bottom, putting the extra paper templates in the little bag with the rest of them, winding up all the long threads tangled up in my bag of spools of thread...fun stuff.

Oh, I also measured out the dimensions of the table and made scale drawings of them on graph paper so I can map out what stuff I already have, and know how big to make the other stuff! Almost forgot that I did that.

Day 26

I made 4 flat strawberries today, because I liked the little seeds on the third one that I stuffed so much and wanted to do more like it, but I will put them on the playhouse, not detachable.
I will have to take a break from the playhouse at some point before the boys' birthdays to make them the gift that I'm hoping will turn out really cool - I'll post pictures after I give it to them, so after April 3rd (Henry's b-day, and Joshy's is March 30th).

We are going to a "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" activity for church tonight - that will be fun! Hopefully the boys will do well with getting taken care of at the church.

Oh and now Joshua is requesting that there be a kiwi vine in the garden, with kiwis on it!

:::
I finished a cloud...instead of doing the dishes. It's almost midnight...I think I'm going to do the dishes.
:::
I didn't do dishes...I looked up articles and checklists online about possible things we might find out after Henry's evaluations in the next couple of weeks...and continued to be worried about the possibilities I've been worried about. I want to be wrong, but my gut tells me I'm not. This is a much heavier topic than the fluffy little stuffed cloud sitting on the desk waiting to be photographed and added to the box of playhouse treasures...but it's a real thing in our lives. He has an appointment Wednesday (the 3rd) and then one the following Thursday (the 11th). I feel like I'm prepared to hear that something serious is going on...but I guess I won't know if I was truly prepared until the time comes. Hopefully he'll just jump back on track on his own, or we'll be able to help him get there without there being some underlying lifelong issue. But if there is, I know we have friends and family all around us who will be supportive and wonderful. He's such a happy guy, with a sense of humor - very social and interactive - good at figuring things out and playing, but he's got a ways to go to be where it seems like he should be verbally, for sure, and motor-wise as well. Maybe we won't get any definite answers in the next two weeks...but maybe we will.

I should have gone to bed long ago...there is too much information on the internet - so helpful and educational, but such an overload. And then when my mind is cluttered with stressful things, I go and read each blog that has been updated so that I can de-stress...and then it is 1am. Nathan will be getting up for basketball early tomorrow morning, and so will I...not for basketball. I hope it isn't a rough night otherwise.

Day 25

Soon I'm gonna have to decide which table this playhouse is going to go on. I had been thinking it would be the card table...but then I'm feeling like the card table is SOOO small...but the kitchen table would make for a very big playhouse. A lot of felt. But felt isn't that expensive...

Well I don't think we're going to buy another table any time soon, and unless someone jumps in and says they have a table we can have, I think I'll make it the dimensions of our kitchen table. What I want to start doing is measuring the size of things...because there are a lot of things that will be flat on the playhouse - not detachable, as many of the things I've made are (except for Buddy, the owl, and the mailbox).

Nathan's cousin Deb said that she has a bunch of felt I can use, and I'm really excited about that! No matter what color it is, I will definitely be able to use it!

Not sure if I'll get anything finished tonight...I'm not sure what is next on the agenda. We'll see. I just added a bunch of pictures and changed some from the first couple of days so they are more uniform (on the table). I like it that the table I've taken all the pictures on is the one that will be the playhouse (i think!).

::::
Ok, I just spent like half an hour looking for a template or drawing for a brontosaurus that I'd like to use for the playhouse...but I couldn't find one I was happy with. So I drew my own...I mean, I would have had to anyway, to be able to print it out the right size (bigger than a standard piece of printer paper), but mine is kind of a compilation of several. Hopefully I will have the right amount of felt!! Off I go to cutting, tracing, and more cutting!

::::
12:48am - finished my brontosaurus.

Day 24

I made three strawberries today! They're awesome. The third one (in the middle) especially.

The 4th season of Lost is starting out crrrrrazy!

Day 23

I finished the other two oranges today and made a "Dada" letter for the mailbox. Now there is one for Dada, one for Joshua, and one for Henry. I'll make one for me at some point, but one piece of felt made three letters. I have to figure out how I want to attach strawberries to the playhouse - then I might finish those up.
This is Joshua and Henry's first night sharing a room. They went to sleep very easily (Henry cried for 10 minutes or so and that was it), and are still sleeping (and it's really 12:20am...but I always make it say 11:00pm when I post after midnight).

We'll see how the rest of the night goes.

Day 22

Sewed velcro onto 3 oranges - finished one orange!

Day 21

Ok it is 11:15 Sunday night. I took an hour-ish nap today, and I want to see if I can finish something for the playhouse tonight. Starting at 11:15pm on anything isn't usually the best plan, but I'll give myself until midnight, 12:15 at the latest, and see if I can finish something. Or just work on something, cuz I miss it!

It is 12:23 - I finished the flowers I've been working on. I'm actually not really happy with how they turned out...I was trying to do something really creative and it didn't quite work how I pictured. Oh well. Goodnight.

Day 20

No crafting again. :c( I haven't lost interest in it...things just keep getting busy. I'll have some more time this week - I'm excited to finish up those flowers, and I have felt cut out for more letters, some oranges, and some strawberries...I just haven't made them cuz I haven't made decisions about velcro.

I haven't talked a lot about Henry - I have all sorts of fun Joshua stories that I tell on the blog, but this little Henry of ours is quite a little character, and deserves stories of his own!
He has got the greatest smile. His little top canine teeth came in before the middle ones, so his smile has a kind of baby vampire quality to it, so when he is laughing a lot, or when he flashes his new "cheese" face (for the camera), you can see his adorable little chompers.

He has definite favorites in what he likes to play with. His favorite things is the xylophone/piano that we have. He loves things that spin, like the spinny thing on the walker/car, or the beads on the twisty wire things. He loves to hold and munch on books and bang everything possible on the ground or the high chair tray.

He's becoming a little more ambitious, not being afraid to dive onto his tummy to get things, and rolling and pivoting places. We're going to talk with someone soon about helping him increase his mobility, but he is slowly increasing the movements he is comfortable with, which is good to see.

Henry is so adorable - his little hair sticks straight up in back, even being like two or more inches long...it's still sticking straight up most days. I call him tweety bird, and I'm sad on the days when it flattens down, cuz I think he probably won't ALWAYS have hair sticking up, and I'll miss it. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if he has an incredibly stubborn cowlick as he grows up. His hair is really curly in the back when it is wet, and a little curly when it's dry...so it's getting to the point where I kind of want to cut it, and yet I really don't.

He is great at roaring and purring and growling and spitting at us, and he's learning some sign language. He can sign "milk" and "more" really well, sometimes it seems like he does "eat" and if you ask him to clap (and he's in the right mood, of course) or wave, he will. He LOVES music, and he's enjoyed getting to come to nursery and watch all the toddlers and be there for music time. Now that Nathan isn't in nursery anymore, he'll get to enjoy hanging out in Sunday school and with the guys. I sing to him all the time. One of his very favorite songs is, "I found a million dollar baby...in the five and ten cent store." Grandma Rozen sang that song to him a LONG time ago...and I didn't know it, but had to learn it quick, cuz at times, it was the only thing that would calm him down.

He is finally sleeping every night, though he still wakes up more often than we'd prefer, and it isn't very consistent when he wakes up, but he sleeps. And he takes naps. Nearly every day, he takes two naps. Usually the opposite of Joshua's - at least in the morning. He'll go down for a nap sometime in the morning for an hour or so, then wake up about 45 minutes before Joshua goes down for his nap. He'll go down for another nap while Joshua is still sleeping, and generally wake up again before Joshua gets up. So I sometimes get a little break in there. His sleeping patterns have controlled our lives (it sometimes seems), for months and months and months...but now, other than the fact that he is in our bedroom (which I really wish wasn't the case), things aren't nearly so difficult at night or during the day in terms of his sleeping. He still cries before nearly every nap and nearly every night when he's put down, but it's more of a ritual or routine than him really being upset. Usually I have to go in once or twice to get him to stay down for his morning nap, but other than that, things go fairly smoothly.

He's very cuddly and his cheeks are nearly impossible not to kiss. Really. If you've ever held him, you know I speak truth.

We hope to get some answers about his development and what we can do to help him as he grows from being a cuddly happy baby to a cuddly happy toddler (or a stubborn wild toddler, perhaps!), and we'll give updates when we do get those answers.

Also, these boys do love each other...their relationship is still a little inconsistent, but Joshua sometimes expresses his feelings for his baby brother by bringing him toys or sharing with Henry when he really doesn't want to share. Tonight Joshua sat down on the floor with me and Henry, and Joshy was holding his "personal penguin." Henry grabbed for it and Joshua yanked it out of Henry's grasp. I told Henry that there are some things that Joshua doesn't need to share unless he wants to share them. Henry wasn't a big fan of that reasoning, but Joshua thought about it for awhile, and then held out his little penguin to Henry, who was distracted and missed his opportunity...but it was a sweet moment. Also, yesterday, Henry was in the crib in the bedroom trying to go down for his nap, and Joshua was sitting on the floor in the kitchen, playing with the magnets on the fridge. He looked up at me and said, "Mama, why is my baby crying?" It was again, such a sweet moment.

And finally - here are a few pictures of this dynamic duo!

This is the happy "cheese" face!

A little conspiring going on, it appears.

There's that vampire baby!

And my two cute little sweetie-pies.

I love them so much.

Day 19

We had a great time at the A.C. Gilbert House today. It is 7:11 - I am feeding Henry to put him to bed, then i need to do a mountain of dishes and then go grocery shopping. I got very little sleep last night, so i doubt i'll get much crafting done tonight. I'll post pictures if I do.

Day 18

Today I did a lot of work on another pair of flowers that I am choosing the most complicated way possible to make...hopefully they will look good when I'm done! Sorry no pictures yet.

Day 17

Ok, I resewed the patch on Nathan's scout uniform, so he can wear it to scouts tonight looking snazzy. I just didn't have the energy to fix it last night, but I'm glad it is centered now.

So far today, I have crossed off 7 things on my to-do lists, and I'm in process with several more. Also been working on laundry, organizing and cleaning up the living room, and a bunch of other work stuff that isn't on "the list" but needs to get done anyway. Joshua, Henry and I have all had lunch. Joshua is sleeping and Henry is just about ready to get down and hopefully go down for a nap.

So that's the update!

I need to post some pictures on facebook of these cute little boys of mine.

Hopefully I'll have some crafty things to post later!

Day 16

No crafting today, but I did spend several hours sewing the patches on to Nathan's new scouting shirt - he's the 11 yr-old scout leader now. I hated nearly every moment of that sewing experience. I broke a needle...but it didn't seem like it bent...but that my fingers snapped it in half. I used the half a needle to finish sewing the patch on...but it didn't have the sharp tip, so that was pretty challenging. I sure love felt.

I have a LOT of things on my to-do list for home/family/church stuff, so I asked Nathan to come up with a number of things from my list that I should challenge myself to do before we could watch Lost tonight. At first he said 10...but then I went back and looked at it again and saw that I could only logistically do 12 of them, so he brought the number down to 6. I did 1. Sewing on the patches took me at least 2 hours. I was so frustrated and exhausted by the end, that we agreed it was ok to watch it anyway.

Unfortunately, the most important patch that I sewed on there is not centered...it's kind of crooked, so at some point soon, I need to take the stitches out and re-sew it. It won't be nearly as difficult as doing all of them, though.

Nathan just went into the bedroom and Henry had a dirty diaper, so we changed him and he slept through it...he cried really hard when I laid him back in his crib, though. But I think he's done now. Nathan is on the couch...I'm not sure which of us will be the one to try to sneak in there first.

I love my boys. All three of them!

Day 15

Ok I'm getting a little tired of the day numbers at the top...but I think I'll stick with them anyway. I finished the owl - he looks GREAT. My kitchen table is so covered that I can't find room to take a picture of him, but I'll do it tomorrow and post the picture for all the world to see! Buddy was more work, but I think I'm most proud of this owl...even more than the corn...though the corn was also more work.

Day 14

Today was a very nice day - Valentine's day...and a good day at church, though I missed my sweetie. He and Henry stayed home cuz Nathan couldn't do much walking (neither could Henry, so they kept each other company). Then family came over and we had dinner and watched more Olympics.


Today I started working on the owl. I didn't like any of the owls on the other playhouses, so I found a different owl, and I'm going to use it.

Day 13

We'll see what I get done today. My poor hubby hurt his knee really bad at basketball this morning, so I'm going to take care of him. Joshy woke up before 5am this morning...so hopefully he won't have too rough of a day, too. Henry's fighting taking a nap - crying in his crib...but nothing's new there. *sigh*

Nope - no work on the playhouse done today.

Day twelve

Today I went to the fabric store and bought turquoise felt and white felt adhesive letters. I was then able to finish the mailbox that will be sewn on to the playhouse. The green part opens and I'll cut a hole in the playhouse, next to the front door, so they can open the door of the mailbox and put letters in! I think this was Jill's original idea from the playhouse I referenced in my first post about this project. http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/2009/10/felt-playhouse.html
We'll see if I get Buddy finished tonight. Off to put Henry to bed, play a game with Nathan, Tawnia, and Emily, and then watch the Olympics.

Well, Henry went to sleep, I lost miserably at Qwelf, and while we watched the Opening Ceremonies, I worked on Buddy. I was debating about whether or not I'd stuff him at all, or have him be detachable from the playhouse. I've decided he'll be sewed on and stay that way. I sewed a back on him, to hold all the small pieces together even better, but he's just got too tiny of a neck to be played with much at all. I hope Joshua likes him!




You can scroll down to compare the picture with the image I posted before. I don't want to re-post it next to it, cuz then the imperfections would be clearer. A LOT of work, but I'm happy with him, imperfections and all!

Day eleven

I worked on organizing all the scraps and pieces of felt today, but wasn't able to create anything. Hopefully tomorrow!

Day ten

Today I made some red flowers to match the yellowish flowers I made before. They're pretty cute. I also made the mailbox, except for the lettering on it. Buddy the dinosaur just sits there waiting and waiting for his turquoise detailing...

It was hard not working on it yesterday, especially since I wasn't feeling very well. I'm feeling somewhat better today, though, and having Tawnia come over was super helpful. Gotta love my sis.

We got some great news on the grad school front! Nathan got accepted to Portland State - we haven't gotten the letter yet - he called to see if all his application stuff was completed, and they told him he was accepted! I'm very excited that he's accepted, and nervous to figure out the financial part. I'm hoping he'll be able to choose between two (or all three!) of the schools, and that at one of them will work out money-wise. We should hear back from Oregon State and University of Washington by the end of the month, I expect. Once we make that decision, it will be nice to have some certainty for the coming year.

Well, it's 8:20...Henry is asleep, or at least quiet...and Joshua is talking and singing with his animals in bed, so there is still plenty of time for crafting. I'll update this and post pictures either later tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on what else I get done tonight.

Day nine

I am banned from working on the playhouse today - as a self-imposed punishment for staying up way too late last night. I've been avoiding that for the most part since I started this project, but last night I was working on it until after 1am. Not cool. So I'll work on it again tomorrow.

Well, at least I am getting a lot done today. I keep looking at all my craft stuff in the haphazard bags and boxes covering our kitchen table, and I want to work on it, but instead I'm doing laundry, making a bunch of calls, filing paperwork, sending emails, organizing our tax documents for the past 6 years...all sorts of productive boring stuff. Also, looking at craigslist apartment listing in the possible cities we might be moving to depending on where Nathan gets accepted to grad school. Let's just say, I hope we get some good grants and loans.

Day eight

While trying to go to sleep last night (and feeling awful...thank goodness it mostly went away by morning!), I was thinking about different ways to attach things to the playhouse without using velcro...I'm going to try experiment today with what I came up with. Joshua wants oranges and pears on the tree with the apples, and I'll make those velcro since the apples are, but I'm thinking of using a different method for some of the other things. I'm not sure quite how difficult it would be to redo the squirrel, frog, and bird...I'm not excited about trying...so maybe I can make something else with my new idea and then deal with changing those later. We'll see.

Well, I got the 4 Monday reports completed this morning, and a bit of other stuff, got Joshy his lunch and down for a nap, and now I'm hanging out with Henry (who of course just woke up from his nap). I'm working on doing "Buddy" (I posted a picture of him a few posts ago). I decided to just make him the size of a regular sheet of paper, since he is a little T-Rex anyway...but I'm having some major challenges making him. I've got the eyes and mouth figured out...and they look decent...but the claws are going to be a lot of work. Making teeny tiny pieces of stuff with felt is difficult because it all starts to rip apart. Hence, the teeth don't look quite the same. I think it was ambitious to expect them to, though.

I don't like posting partially finished things, but since I don't have any turquoise or light blue to make his diamonds and triangles, I might post him partially finished tonight. We'll see.

Nope - I got Buddy all the way done except for the turquoise shapes, but I don't want to post a picture until he's done. Didn't accomplish any other stuff...but while Buddy looks a bit different from the picture, I'm still proud of how it's going.

My Dad has a job interview on Wednesday and I really really hope he gets it. My mom's knee is hurt bad and I really really hope it is able to be treated and heal. My brother is going to Europe and I really really hope he has a great time there.

Ok, I thought I was done at 11:30 or whenever I posted that, but then I decided to go and do something else. Here are my first flowers. I wasn't happy with any of the flowers I saw with the other playhouses, but I really liked the idea of having them come out of the window box pockets (like on Jill's house). I used pipe cleaners inside the felt stems and thought they would be more sturdy if I bent the long pipe cleaner like this and put a flower on each end. They should fit more snugly in the window box pockets this way. I like how they turned out!

Day seven

Today has been a busy, good day. Enjoyed church, had a good dinner here with friends, watched a few minutes of the Super Bowl here and there, and now the boys are going to bed, and I can work on my two hobbies as of late - crafting this playhouse and watching Lost.

Tonight I finished making two letters for the mailbox (I can't make the mailbox yet because Joshua wants it to be made of dark blue felt and I don't have any yet - also I want to get some felt letters to spell MAIL on it). But anyway, here they are:



Also, I broke my last needle threader. Argggg.

Day six

Ok so Henry is down for a nap...though he isn't actually asleep, so I may need to go in there and check on him...and Nathan and Joshua are at the library. I ate breakfast and put a load of laundry in, so now I really really want to get some more stuff done for the playhouse. We'll be gone much of the day, and the boys' naps are always flip-flopped lately - rarely overlapping much at all. So this may be my best little chunk of time.

Two more apples today, and my apples are complete!

And yes, the bottom one has a little green and yellow worm coming out of it!

Day five

Another day with very little time for crafting, so my only accomplishment for the playhouse was to fix the apple stem from my first apple so that it looks less like a pumpkin stem, and will match the other apple stems I made, though they haven't been put into apples yet.

Joshua also decided that on the side of the playhouse with dinosaurs, he wants there to be Buddy from Dinosaur Train, so this is what I'll need to make:

Day four

A very busy day...so just one carrot completed! That completes my carrot trio.

Day three

Today I have been doing a lot of tracing and cutting, but no sewing yet.

Both the boys are down for their naps, so it's a good time to do some work on this, but I had to make myself get a bunch of the apartment work done first: make 6 phone calls, sort out our online accounting challenge, schedule a plumber to replace a garbage disposal, schedule the turnover vendors for an apartment coming available, make new flyers and brochures and put them outside, respond to and file various emails, and get a mailing for a resident ready to go. There is more that could be done, but nothing else that MUST be done for work today, so now I feel free to do some crafting.

Off I go...

:::BIG time lapse:::

As of 11:35pm, I had completed 3 lettuce leaves and a green frog. One of the lettuce leaves will be sewn to the playhouse, and the other two will velcro on, so Joshy and Henry can pick the lettuce. They are bright green on one side and dark green on the other, with some wax paper in between to make them a bit crackly. I'm sure it's been done before, but I was proud to think of it ("it" meaning the wax paper...not the lettuce - that was from Jill's playhouse) on my own tonight. The frog will also velcro to the playhouse. I like him a lot. When I did a Google image search for green frog, Joshua really wanted to use this frog umbrella picture, rather than what I chose for the frog template.
Sometimes I overrule his ideas. It's for the greater good - I hope he'll appreciate it later.

I have a bunch of stuff (two apples with stems and one carrot with greens) cut out and ready to be sewn together...I just despise sewing the velcro rectangles on things...I need a better thimble and to make sure I use a strong needle. I bent one yesterday. It took me until velcro piece number 5 to think to pin the velcro on before starting to sew. *sigh* These are the kinds of things I would think of...if I already knew anything about sewing. Oh well. So I didn't pin 4 of them...there are a LOT more to go.

Day two

Today I finished two more items...a second corn cob and a yellow bird to perch on the "My Garden" sign that Joshua requested for one side of the playhouse.

Oh...did I mention I don't have a sewing machine? I'm fairly certain that TWO corn cobs is plenty for this garden I'm creating.

Day one

Today I went and bought a bunch of 9x12" pieces of felt in various colors, polyester fiberfill, some green pipe cleaners, big and small "good" scissors, some velcro, and a good supply of googly eyes. I came home and proceeded to get to work. Here is a picture of my first creation - a carrot.

By the end of the night, I'd made much more than a carrot! Here are all of my creations.
The corn took about an hour...my favorite was the squirrel!