Sad news

Well this has been a really crappy week for multiple reasons. You know how sometimes it just feels like things pile up unexpectedly? That has been my week, ending with getting up at 5am with a congested baby who is crying because she can't breathe through her nose. Right now she is sleeping on my lap as I type this from our rocking chair. Poor Alma.

The climax of my week, though, was having to rehome my dogs. After we had the baby home for a few weeks we just realized that two boxers, a one bedroom apartment with no yard and a new baby don't mix very well. Nevermind the fact that our littler dog, Wanda, has separation anxiety and housetraining issues. After a lot of discussions with the husband, and a lot of crying (on both of our parts), we realized that we needed to find new homes for Lincoln and Wanda. Fortunately, our good friend Matt and his brother were able to adopt Lincoln and give her tons of attention and a fenced backyard. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find a home for Wanda. We tried Craigslist, mass emails, announcing at church, word of mouth and Petfinder and no one seemed able to take her. Finally on Thursday Alex and I brought her to the humane society and it was just about the hardest thing I have ever done. I cried a lot. I really love those pups.

Crafty things that I have done lately... don't get your hopes up too high

Long ago I posted links to castle peeps fabric and the pattern for a mei tai carrier. Lo and behold, I have finally made said carrier and I love it. I managed to get it done before Alma was born (she's actually snoozing in it as I type!) and I think that so far it has been my favorite and most useful baby item that I have made. She rides in it when we run errands, walk the dogs, while I do the dishes, run laundry down to the laundry room. And the total bonus: it puts her right to sleep!

Sorry for the mirror picture. I'm at home alone so I couldn't cajole Alex into taking pictures of me.

The first sewing project that I've undertaken since Alma has been born was this awesome changing pad. When we embarked on our first outting I realized that I didn't have a changing pad for her but my mom found this great tutorial on HomemadebyJill (posted for last year's Celebrate the Boy... which I am kind of obsessed with despite the fact that I have a girl. Isn't it the coolest idea, though?). I had a fair amount of the Castle Peeps fabric left and since Alma's first real adventure was to the fabric store, I bought some awesome laminated cotton fabric to use as the waterproof inside. The pattern was really easy but I kind of botched up the corners with the bias tape (which, by the way, was made courtesy of my little sister and given to me in my Christmas stocking!) - don't look too closely in the pictures. I think that this changing pad would make an awesome baby gift for someone.

But my most recent (and most favorite) project has been these awesome buttons! My local crafting team went together to buy a shared button maker (hallelujah!) and last week I took my first go at it. Instead of a baby shower for Alma, we had an open house for her at a new local coffee shop - the District Coffee House - and Alex had the genius idea to make "it's a girl!" buttons with little cigars on them. My mom and I made about fifty of them and we passed them out at Alma's party. Along with those pins, I made a bunch of bellefourche pins, plus fun vintage map pins. I'm trying to borrow the button maker again this week so I can go crazy and make a bunch more!

As seen on Alma's diaper bag - she loves sporting the bellefourche pride.

My pile of buttons that I'm not sure of what to do with now. I just like admiring them!

it worked!

After weeks of bed rest and prelabor and false alarms, Valentine's Day brought us a beautiful healthy baby girl!

Here's our gal - Alma Jay Goochey, 6lbs 8oz, 19in!

First trip out of the house was to the fabric store. She is destined to be a crafting baby!

Check out more info and pictures about her at our family blog, The Fox Den.

last day of bed rest!

If a month ago someone had told me that I would need to go on a week and a half of bed rest with this baby, I probably would have been so excited at the thought of laying on the couch for days on end and watching movies. But then I got wicked sick for a week and did that anyway. I spent a week finishing up all of my library books and watching my Netflix movies. Once I was feeling better I was so excited to start all of my anticipatory baby sewing - plus, my back is finally feeling better so I was super game for camping out at my sewing machine.

Not so. Baby G decided to try to come a little early and my midwives prescribed bed rest until February 3, when Baby is officially full-term. So I settled back into my nest on the couch, requested new books from the library and frantically updated my Netflix queue. I have spent the last 10 days watching every and any movie, reading random books, finding crafts that I want to sew but can't yet and beating my husband's butt during some extremely competitive games of UNO.  As of midnight tonight, though, all of that ends and I get to be a regular person again. When I walk the dogs in the morning tomorrow it will be the first time I have set foot outside of our apartment since I went to my midwife appointment on last Friday. My spouse has promised me any kind of takeout PLUS frozen yogurt for dinner tonight as a reward for being successfully inactive for a week and a half (if you know my personality at all, inactivity does not suit me well... I have a bit of high-strung, nervous energy to work off most of the time).

Unplanned for down time has given me a chance to appreciate silly things in my life that I don't normally think about, though, so here is a glimpse of some happy things from my bed rest:

1. My weird dogs, who have been excellent furry companions for days on end.

2. The pdf pattern for these super cute baby sneakers that I bought from sewingwithme and can't wait to sew.

3. My parents, who are super nutty and felt bad that I couldn't go to the McCall winter carnival last weekend so they brought the carnival to me (Lincoln was less than thrilled about this).

4. My spouse, who loves me despite my currently massive dimensions and my ability to obliterate him at UNO MOD.

5. And, of course, the Bambino. Not that I have ever not appreciated this kid, but the last 10 days have made me so excited to meet it!

i can't help but love this.

This is a drawing by my friend Joyce Rice who lives in Chicago. I subscribe to her doodle blog, Teeny Robots, and you should too because a couple of times a week she posts hilarious drawings and paintings such as these. The dear husband and I think this drawing is so funny that it is currently the background on our computer. Go Extreme Brobots! And not only is Joyce a talented artist, but she is an awesome seamstress and has a great Etsy shop. Go Joyce, go!

I am at home and am extremely sick. Not fun. My crafting-to-sell has been put on hold until after the bambino arrives and then I have a whole arsenal of ideas to get cracking on. In the meantime, I have an awesome stack of Michael Miller fabric waiting to be made into crib sheets and changing pad covers and I splurged and ordered two pieces of fabric from Fabric.com which will be sewn into a carseat cover and a baby carrier. 

 

I am the most excited about turning the afore-pictured "Castle Peeps" fabric by Lizzy House into this awesome Mei Tai carrier that I bought the pattern for from Sew Liberated. Three cheers for baby sewing projects!

But until the sewing can begin, I need this head cold from hell to clear up so I can vacate the nest I have created on our couch and start being a real person again. 

Oh and by the way, our holidays out here in Boise were fabulous and I hope all of yours were as well! I really need to get into a better habit of blogging...