Jefferies baby #5:
Brent has affectionately nicknamed this baby "Baby Bones" because its bones looked so amazing on the ultrasound! We had our ultrasound on February 14th, while the boys were at school...and we followed that up with a lunch date! This baby was so adorable and really putting on a show for us: waving, sticking tongue out, sucking thumb, and yawning!
We had decided not to find out the gender of the baby at the ultrasound for lots of reasons...
although we have a pretty good idea of the gender, as the ultrasound technician dropped a few accidental hints...and we may or may not have found out ;). Still, we're thinking it will be fun to keep everything under wraps until the baby arrives! I've been trying so hard this whole pregnancy to be focused on the baby as a person, and not as a gender. I'm still working on that. It's terribly difficult when you have three boys and your only girl is not with you...to stay focused on the things that really matter: that God is no respecter of persons, male or female...Acts 10:34, 2 Nephi 26:33. I felt God telling me this after I found out Oliver was a boy and I was very surprised about that (to say the least). And I received this message again during this pregnancy from The very intelligent
Women in the Scriptures Lady. So it must be something that God really wants me to think about. I know that God needs girls and boys on this earth, but He loves each of them unconditionally and he needs me to also. I've been doing a lot of deep pondering and spiritual searching this pregnancy, which a lot of it has been very personal, which is why I have been so quiet.
So just for fun, take a look at that ultrasound picture and tell me what your guess is...is Baby Bones a girl or a boy? Not that it matters... :-) We love this baby so much either way!
But if I've mentioned anything to any of you ;) out there, please don't spill the beans!
It seems like I've been doing a lot of sewing lately, which is fun and a much needed creative outlet for me.
I started with a baby blanket for some good friends who had their first baby a couple months back...a sweet little girl!
I love how pretty all the blues, greens and yellows look with brown
all of my blankets pass the Ollie test of approval...he LOVES these blankets and will try to carry them around the house and snuggle them when I'm not looking.
here's Joshy holding up the entire blanket
Next I give you:
My crowning achievement in blanket making thus far:
My first scrappy quilt (with many more to come...it was so much fun to make!):
This is a special quilt that I made for our new nephew Jackson who was born in December to Brent's younger sister and her husband. When I heard that their baby was coming to them with spina bifida I knew that I wanted to make them a special blanket. I asked her what colors she wanted and she told me to make it colorful! How fun! I got some of the squares from my friend
SewSara's etsy shop, and I cut the rest of them myself, added a border, backed it with some cuddly minky (which will probably be too hot for where they live right now :-o), and I used
SewSara's tutorial (this is a great tutorial!) for appliqueing Jackson's name on the bottom. I hope that he'll love this blanket his whole life!
here's a close up of some of the squares and the diagonal quilting I did with my machine
not great pictures...but another example of Ollie loving on the baby blanket!
Here is a sample of fabrics that I've been collecting, which I think will be gorgeous together in a quilt for my living room...for those days where you want to cuddle by the fire (I had a lot of those days this winter because I was SO COLD in my first trimester!)...and I have been needing a cute blanket which matches my living room's colors.
I'm excited about this project...
but first, I'm finishing a special quilt for Elsa...
it's been on my shelf for the past two and a half years and my heart needs me to finish it now.
(Pictures to come.)
Here's a little maternity t-shirt re-do/re-purpose whatever you want to call it:
I wish I had a before picture, but basically the little square graphic came from an itty-bitty maternity t-shirt that I bought online, on sale toward the end of Oliver's pregnancy. The website told me: one size fits most. Ha! Hahahahahahahahaha!! When I got it, it was more like: one size fits a teeny, tiny x-small teen pregnant mama. I'm telling you! There was nothing about it that was one size fits most! It was smaller than my non maternity shirts and was not at all stretchy to accommodate a bigger size! Seriously, I wear a medium or a large...so I consider myself to fit into the "one size fits most" category! Anyway...I had this idea many moons ago to re-purpose my kids most beloved t-shirts that they outgrow by cutting out the graphic and simply sewing it on a bigger shirt. Very easy! I never actually got around to doing it for my kids, but I went and bought a big old white maternity shirt from a re-sale store and I appliqued the graphic from that tiny shirt onto this gap t-shirt. Now it'll actually fit me at the END of my pregnancy, when I'm actually nesting. :)
Here's my last project, for now:
A big, old Eddie Bauer comfy, cotton dress that I bought on clearance at the outlets many moons ago, but never wore because it was extremely large. I just couldn't make myself get rid of it because I like the colors and the fabric is so soft. I always imagined re-purposing it someday into a maternity dress. Well, I finally did that by taking a few inches off the opening of the collar and gathering the bodice above the belly for a more flattering fit.
Before and after
I really wanted this dress to be a long, flowy summer dress...but alas, it is not quite long enough to be maxi-length. I think I'm going to have to hem it to just below my knees, but I haven't decided yet.
this gathering is really, super easy to do with that stretchy, elastic thread in your bobbin and regular thread on the top.
I wish I could say Happy Springtime, but where we are the weather has been so difficult lately! We finally got our first snow last week and we got some more today. Other than that it's been raining all the time. I feel jipped because when we came up here 5 years ago (!) to search for a house in March, it was so warm we were wearing shorts! That's the kind of spring weather I thought I was signing up for! Hopefully the sun will come out next week for spring break!
1/7/12-1/8/12
It has become an annual tradition for us to take a trip to the Oregon coast in January. It started a few years back because it turned out that we could get a condo through our friends the Mansius family for really cheap in January, since it's the off season. And surprisingly we always seem to get the best weather whenever we go in January! So we've kept up the tradition. This year we got a condo at Seaside again and we went at the same time as the Mansius family so we could all hang out together! It's a great little break after the holidays in the middle of boring January, which has nothing really going on anyway!
Well, the first day the weather wasn't so promising...but it got better!
Even though it was cold and blustery, we spent some time playing on the beach, taking pictures, and a few of us got up the guts to go swimming in the heated outdoor pool...no, not the ocean!
But the next day, we got this:
niiiice blue skies, sunshine, and warm temps.
(the view from our condo balcony)
Of course, it had to be a Sunday! Hahaha.
After church we enjoyed walking on the beach, taking pictures, and had dinner and games with our friends.
This is Tara and I with my new (to me) dslr camera. It is Tara's old back up camera and we traded about 50 pounds of free-range, grass fed, organic beef for it.
(I bought the 1/4 cow from a local farmer friend, but then I realized that we hardly EVER eat meat, especially beef...so I was happy to trade, and she was happy to get a bunch of very high quality beef...soooo...PLEASE send your favorite beef recipes my way because I STILL have a lot of beef!)
It was great to be out on the beach with our cameras together so she could teach me more about how to use the thing! (I did take a photography class in high school, so it's coming back pretty quickly).
Here are some pictures we took:
she took these of Ollie and I with her big professional camera.
...and I took these of her with HER big professional camera. Pretty great, huh? ^She's the professional, and I'm glad to say that I have a lot to learn!
Anyway, these are with my camera:
Here is my 15 week pregnant belly, just in case you were wanting to see it!
This camera does need a new lens...I'm excited to see what kind of pictures I can take when I get one! Hopefully I can get that all ready before this baby comes so I can get some great pictures! Yay!
a cute 'lil toddler!
