Blessing Beatrix

On Sunday, December 30, 2012, Beatrix was given a name and a blessing at church by her father.  It was a beautiful blessing and Bea didn't make a peep throughout.  She did spit up quite a bit during the rest of the meeting, though.  My mom wrote in shorthand the blessing as it was being said and then transcribed it for us.

l to r: Alton, Aanja, Milaka, Roderic, Ambrose, Hyrum, Sabrina, Leo, Ryan, Me, Beatrix, Grandpa C, Grandma C.

My parents flew up from Texas and the Stringhams (minus Doug) drove over from Portland for the occasion.  Due to a snow storm and the freeway being closed at LeGrande, OR (a charter bus slid and crashed and rolled down an embankment, leaving 9 dead and 30 more injured), Milaka decided to stay overnight.  My kids were happy with that development because it meant they got to play more games with their cousins!  They played several games of Fluxx and Settlers of Catan (Aanja, playing for the first time, won).

The Ludlows were planning to attend, but they had to replace their van battery instead.  Colter was going to ride with the Ludlows, since his only other means of transport is a motorcycle.  Ryan's parents had also planned on attending, but Dorothy was sick with a cold/laryngitis.

We're Expecting! It's a Girl! We're Entering the Weekly appointment phase!

I have not yet officially announced my pregnancy on the blog, which is pretty funny, since we started telling people very early in this pregnancy (we told our children during week 6).  Now I'm 35.5 weeks along.  I took Leo with me to my first appointment and recorded the baby's heartbeat on my digital voice recorder.  He would say, "Baby?  No!  Choo-Choo!" whenever we listened to it.

To do something different this pregnancy, Ryan convinced me that we should have an ultrasound at 20 weeks and find out the sex of our baby.  It took a lot of convincing.  At the ultrasound appointment, the technician was looking all over and took lots of pictures of the baby's parts.  Very unceremoniously she said, "And you're sure you want to find out the sex?"  "Yes," we replied.  "It's a girl," she said and kept moving on.  It was not as exciting as finding out when the baby is born and they put him or her in your arms, for sure.  Ryan, being the engineer, asked, "How often are you right?"  To which she replied, "I've been wrong 3 times and those were all at the beginning of my 11 year career."  So we're pretty confident that we're having a girl.  Sabrina, Roderic and Hyrum are all so very excited to have a little sister.  Leo is still coming to grips that it's a baby and not a train.

With this being my 6th pregnancy, my body remembered very early on what a pregnant woman is supposed to look like and my belly popped out at about week 12, forcing me into maternity clothes.  I was also very tired early on, taking naps daily.  In fact, that was the clue that had me convinced I should take a pregnancy test.  Every day during spring break, I got so tired about 2pm I just had to fall asleep.  I've been sleeping a lot (and yet still not enough!).

So, the anticipated due date is December 7, which is a short 4.5 weeks away.  I can hardly believe it.  Roderic was born on the due date and the rest have come 2 or 3 days before, so we're expecting that again.  Yes, we have a name picked out.  Beatrix Beryl.  No, we don't have a boys name picked out so that ultrasound tech better be right!

Respect

I have a tremendous amount of respect for every woman who has got to spend any length of time at the hospital, hooked up to fetal monitor machines, while not in labor.

Aunt Noelle, I don't know how you did it for months on end!

I was there for 2 hours today and completely bored out of my brain. No book to read, nothing to sew...all I had was TV and I don't enjoy spending hours on end watching that.

It was also weird to walk into the hospital without Ryan. Before leaving, they gave me discharge papers saying that I was leaving the hospital pregnant (as if I couldn't tell;)).

Everything is fine. We just had a little scare at my appt. with the baby's heartbeat. I told the nurses I'd see them again in less than 2 weeks.

Baby Quilts

Soon after I discovered I was pregnant in 2003, I decided that I needed to make my baby a quilt. I bought "The It's Okay if You Sit on my Quilt Book" from Amazon for instructions and ideas. I started working on it - I had enough fabric to make 2, one for me and one for my sister who discovered she was due with her second child around the same time as me. Progress came to a screeching halt when I miscarried in July. The fabric and the book sat untouched in my craft closet (I would burst into tears when I saw it). I even ended up making my sister's baby a completely different quilt.

When I found out I was pregnant again, it took me a while to pull out the supplies, but eventually I did and made this "Triple Rail Fence" quilt for Roderic. The quilt is tied with embroidery floss.

Pregnant again in 2006 and my baby needed a quilt. This time I found inspiration on the Internet and made a "Hugs and Kisses" quilt for Hyrum. The quilt is both machine quilted and hand quilted. The straight lines were quilted by machine and the circles I did by hand.


This time around, I used "The It's Okay if You Sit on my Quilt Book" for a pattern ("Mandevilla"). I started buying the fabric weeks before I was ready to tell people I was pregnant. I made a goal to have the quilt finished and ready to bind before my trip to San Francisco, because binding a quilt is a good on the airplane activity. And the flight was just long enough for me to finish it!


For the back of this quilt, I used flannel (I usually use flannel for backing on baby quilts - it's softer). One problem with flannel is that it shrinks a. lot. when you wash it. Since this pattern is a square quilt, I needed a square back, but all in flannel wasn't going to work unless I put some seams in, which I'm not a huge fan of. I ended up using some of the left over fabric from the front to make it a little more interesting. I like how it turned out.

And for full disclosure, it was Stacy's idea for me to bind the quilt in turquoise. I was hesitant at first, but I really like how it turned out!

Wishin' and Hopin'

Apparently, I'm hoping for a girl baby.

I love online sewing tutorials. The onesie dress was a breeze to create. A few weeks ago at church, we saw a 7 month old girl wearing a bonnet. She was adorable. Ryan leaned over to me and asked if our baby girl would wear bonnets. I said, "YES!" I've made 2 so far and I have plans for more.

Wishin' and Hopin'