It's fall ... back to stitching

I went looking for my last stitching update and found this. I am pleased that my stitching has picked up now that fall is back. Once the baby is born, though, I'm sure it will slow down considerably!

Here are updated progress pics ...

Carousel (Theresa Wentzler)
Started: January 2007 (estimated at 194 hours completed)

At least I can see progress between this picture and the last. I can't wait to be done the horses!

Celtic Summer (Lavender & Lace)
Started: Unknown but later than Feb. 2007 (?? + 24 hours)

I finished the front swirly part of her dress. I still have to fill in the gold but I will do that near the end.

Nativity - Centre Panel (Marbek)
Started: unknown but later than Feb. 2007 (?? + 24 hours)

This piece does not photograph well at all :( This was my second rotation working with a copy of the pattern so I could highlight as I finish sections. I worked on some of the star this rotation and can see that highlighting is going to be a huge help in the sections using blending filament.

Dance of the Roses (Lavender & Lace)
Started: Feb. 2007 (?? + 24 hours)

I felt like I made good progress on this one this rotation. Having the rose ribbon as a delimiter really helps my motivation.

Still here ... still pregnant

After several unproductive months, the past week I have been actually getting things accomplished! My house is presentable, I have a few meals and a dozen apple pies in the freezer, there are no science experiments in my fridge, and we even did a bit of yard work today. Unbelievable!! Some people are saying it's nesting, but I think it's been going on too long to be that. I am attributing it to actually making and using a to do list every morning. It's been almost magical! The only thing I haven't really done off my to do list this week is pack my hospital bag. It makes me laugh.

I am going to the doctor every week and he seems confident I won't go overdue. My next appointment is this coming Tuesday. Tuesday also marks the date in my previous pregnancy where I went into labour with Hannah (Nathan would have been born last Friday). In other words, I've never been pregnant longer than next Tuesday so we'll see what happens. I am not feeling like labour is imminent, but I didn't with Nathan or Hannah either. For some reason I think I might have the baby late next week.

The kids are still having a tough time going to sleep in the same room. More often than not we end up moving Hannah either to the crib in the nursery or to the pack 'n play in our room after fighting with them for an hour. *sigh* Oh well, they'll get it eventually.

Peter's been working steadily on the bathroom ... pictures and post to come soon! I've also been doing more stitching now that fall is here ... again, pictures and post to come soon.

Pregnancy Summary - Week 36

I finally have another real belly pic to post, and what a belly it is! I am definitely ready to have this baby at any point.

As has become customary, I got my final hair cut and colour before the baby today. It's such a 'pick-me-up,' something that is definitely needed at this point in the pregnancy! Unlike when I was pregnant with Nathan, though, I kept a bit of length in my haircut. I realized after I saw the pictures from when I had him that a chin-length haircut only emphasizes how puffy my face is at the end of a pregnancy, so I've kept it long while pregnant every since. Vanity, vanity!

I had my 3-hour glucose test and the results were fine - yay! I don't care so much at this point about what gestational diabetes would mean for the pregnancy / baby, as we are so close to the end, but I know that having it would put me at a higher risk for Type 2 diabetes later in life so I'm glad I've avoided that.

I saw the obstetrician again yesterday and everything looks good. We had a bit of a scare when he went to find the heartbeat with the Doppler and couldn't. That is so unusual at this point in the pregnancy that it had me pretty scared! Thankfully he has an ultrasound machine in his exam room so we just took a quick peak and he used that to measure the heart rate (128 ... definitely supporting my suspicion of boy).

The doctor told me he won't let me go much past 40 weeks. I'm still counting on going early since I haven't made it to 39 weeks with either pregnancy. He also said he doesn't like to have women in labour for too long (he used 50 hours as an example), but since my previous ones were only 9 and 7 hours I don't foresee that being a problem, either.

I did find out about their on-call schedule. He said he is on call 24/7 every second week and that he delivers all of his patients who go during regular business hours. It works out to about a 75% chance that he will do the delivery. Since I've never had my own doctor deliver before I'm not too worried.

I can't believe it's almost time to meet this baby!! We've moved Hannah out of the nursery but I still haven't gone through and found my infant clothes. That is definitely something that has to be done this week. Oh, and packing hospital stuff. So much to do ... hopefully so little time ;)

Homemade fun

This has been the scene at our house for several hours over the past week. Nathan's playdough had all been mixed together and much of it had dried out. So ... being the lazy (didn't want to load both kids up and go out) and cheap (didn't want to spend the money) person that I am, I decided to try making them some playdough. Many of the recipes I found online required alum, which I don't have in my cupboards, so I finally settled on this recipe, from here:

Nature's Playdough

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
beet, spinach, and carrot juice

Mix flour, salt and oil, and slowly add the water. Cook over medium heat, stirring until dough becomes stiff. Turn out onto wax paper and let cool. Knead the playdough with your hands until of proper consistency. Use as is, or divide into balls and add a few drops of the vegetable juices to make green, pink, and orange.

I did not have beet, spinach, or carrot juice readily available, so I used some of my icing dyes instead. They made wonderfully vibrant shades of play dough. I was worried the colour might rub off when played with, but it doesn't!

I've played with many sticky batches of homemade play dough over the years but this dough is awesome. It feels very much like the stuff from the store, although it smells a bit worse. Oh well. The kids have had it out pretty much every day for the last week and it's still as good as new. The recipe is definitely a keeper!

Hannah - 17 month summary

Mmmm ... warm chocolate chip cookie!

Hannah continues to understand and follow simple directions. She has also started to point to body parts when asked. The ones I've seen her do consistently are nose, mouth, and toes. I think of her as younger than she is because she is not walking, but I forget that her cognitive development is right on track.

Hannah has added a couple of recognizable words (to Peter and I) this month. One is 'giraffe' (her favourite stuffed animal), 'doggie', and 'soo-soo' for soother. I can't remember off the top of my head if there are any more. She gets frustrated when she can't communicate what she wants. An example of this is when Mom and Dad were here earlier this month they gave her orange juice with her breakfast. Well, she doesn't like juice but couldn't quite communicate that. She was cranky all through breakfast until we managed to figure it out. Then she was happy as a clam. I'm hoping that her volatile moods will calm a bit once she is able to get around better and communicate her wants.

Hannah still has her soother. I'm still not happy about it, but there are other changes that need to happen before I can work on it. Within the next week we will be moving Hannah into Nathan's room. It should be interesting, to say the least. Since she is still not very old we will just put a crib mattress on the floor in his room for her to sleep on. If that doesn't work she will have to use the pack 'n play. I'm cutting this transition very close with the baby's due date less than 6 weeks away, but time sort of slipped away from us!

Hannah has made strides toward pulling herself up this month - finally. Even after Nathan was walking he couldn't really get himself to standing very easily for a few months. I think Hannah is going to be the opposite - I think she is going to learn to stand and then cruise, then walk (like most children, I think). Hopefully this will mean less walking around with her holding our hands - that is tiring at 8 months pregnant!

Hannah is definitely down to one nap now. Some days are longer than others - anywhere from 90 minutes to 3 1/2 hours. Her bedtime has moved a bit earlier as well. She is usually in bed and asleep before 7 now.

Hannah got more teeth this month. I think she is up to 11. She loves meat, unlike her brother, and the extra teeth are really helping her chew.

I almost forgot to add that Hannah is finally doing independent playtime consistently!! She is still in the crib (which is going to be tricky when we move her to Nathan's room), but she will do 45 minutes relatively happy. Hopefully when we move to Nathan's room she will play in there happily and Nathan can play downstairs ... if I can get it cleaned up enough. Ugh.

I think that's it for this month. Other than the room transition we won't be too ambitious with teaching skills until after the baby is here.