silver cup

When my brother was born in...well, we won't say when... my grandparents sent him a silver cup with his monogram on it. As the family grew, they did the same for each of their 11 grandchildren; including me. It was a very special possession to me. Many special occasions were made more special by my fancy cup filled with milk. (Milk was not my favorite thing, but it was much more palatable in my silver cup.) The family stopped growing for a while, while the grandchildren grew up, and then it started growing again. This time, it grew great-grandchildren. Each time a new baby was born, my Grandma went into her local jewelry store to order a special silver cup, engraved with each new baby's monogram; including Trevor & Braden.

Here are a few of us from 2004, showing off our cups at a family Christmas gathering. There are many more great-grandchildren now... a total of 20. Each has a special silver cup; including Fiona.

My grandma passed away in July. I went up for the funeral, as did each one of her grandchildren. At the viewing, a lady stopped to speak with my Aunt and explained that she worked at the local jewelry store. She knew my Grandma from when she used to come in to the shop. She went on to explain that my Grandma had been in to the shop only a few months before. My Grandma proudly told her that she was expecting another great-grandchild, and needed to order another silver cup. That great-grandchild was Fiona. Fiona will never know her Grandma Ring here on earth, but she was loved by her. And I know that Fiona will treasure her cup as an heirloom and as a symbol of a legacy of love.

what to do

What should I do today? Should I...

write thank-you notes or cuddle the baby?

...do dishes or play with my photographs?

feed the baby or relax with my knitting?

Hmmm...if only all my decisions were this obvious.

Smitten

Yup, we all are.

Introducing. . .

for her la famille nomade debut...

Fiona Diane

Expectant Daddy and Joyful Mommy

Newly expanded family

I will post more soon! But for now, I feel very proud to have accomplished this much for today!

Four Plus One

Last night Ev and I headed out for our last night alone...for a while. Not that we were really alone. We were celebrating the Marine Corps' 235th birthday with a few hundred other people. Always a good time, last night's ball was also. And it was interesting to watch people actually stare at me with open mouths. Apparently, they thought it was strange to see a 9-month pregnant woman in a cocktail dress. What?

Today is another birthday! This is our last family picture with only four people in it. By this afternoon it will be five. Wow! FIVE! We're so excited and can't wait to share the news with you all as soon as we have some. We appreciate all your thoughts and prayers for us today!

7 Years Ago

Seven years ago, we were blessed by the arrival of our little Trevor. Sweet and cheerful from the beginning, he has been a constant source of joy in our lives. We wanted to make sure we had a great party, so the day after WTI ended we did just that.



Before Dad left for work, he opened his presents. And tried them all out to make sure that they were okay. Later, after Dad got back home, they played around with the new circuit board. (That's ALL Dad)



Trevor got to pick his special birthday meal and birthday cake. After a short negotiation period, he settled on a tide-pool cake, to remind him of our fun vacation time in Oregon. The lighthouse was a bonus and a complete surprise to Trevor. Let me tell you, it's not easy to surprise kids when they're home all day! Trevor had watched the rest of the work on the cake with keen interest, to make sure it was being done properly. I think he was satisfied!



Happy Birthday, Trevor! We love you!

At the Pumpkin Patch

We went to the pumpkin patch last night. Can you tell that the boys had a little bit of fun? Why is it always more fun to pick a pumpkin from a pile of hay bales, than it is to pick it out of a bin at the grocery store? Who knows? It just is.

And there's always the added bonus that I might get a photo of my boys hamming it up after I tell them to act like they like each other.


All in all, a fun time was had by everyone.

Nursery Reveal

I know you've all been waiting with baited breath, for the big nursery reveal. Drumroll please...

Ta da!!



I'm so pleased with how everything came together! Ev says it has an awful lot of blue to be a gender neutral nursery, but I think that any little girl would be happy to have a restful, aqua nursery like this. I must say, I could not have done it alone. My independent, long-distance consultants on this project were, my sister and my Mom. My dear, long-suffering Mom who heard about every change of plans, every hiccup and every success. (Thank goodness for unlimited long-distance phone!) I am also so thankful for my calm, steady husband who coached me through a dresser-handle-panic, solved my problems and patiently spent his one hour of free time hanging my curtain rod. Thanks, Baby!!



And now, details, details, details. I struggled with how to add color to my caramel colored room with brown carpet and white furniture, and finally settled on wall decals. I don't normally like them much, but something about these appealed to me. Maybe it is the understated, modern simplicity. I found them here, on Etsy. They were not difficult to put up, and seem to be sticking fine to my heavily textured walls. But it is definitely not a one-person job. Many thanks to my dear friend, Brittney for tackling that project with me! After staring at fabric swatches online for many hours, hoping to sew my own crib accessories, I finally fell in love with the Full Circle line from Land of Nod. No surprise, it's by one of my favorite modern quilt designers, Denyse Schmidt. She designed the baby quilt that I made for my niece last year. From there, all I had to do was pull together the details, including this fantastic Anemone fabric for the drapes and adorable Tweets paper for lining the dresser drawers. As an aside, I did splurge on one little thing that is actually for the baby. See that little lamb on the dresser? I found it (where else?) on Etsy. Loving it!! Did I forget anything? I'm not sure, but I'm so excited to have the nursery completed and ready to go. Now we're really ready for Baby Three to come!

Blast into Fall Knitting

Check out this adorable knitted rocket ship. It turns out that one of my new friends from the swim team, Megan, is a fantastic and inspiring knitter. (It also turns out that when you knit in public you quickly meet fellow knitters.) Her son is about Braden's age and brought a similar rocket ship to practice one day. Braden admired it so much that she very sweetly knitted up this cutie, and he was holding it in his own two hands the next day. Another day, Braden took his stuffed squirrel to practice and a few day later Braden's squirrel had his own roving acorn. (Every time I say that it sounds like an acorn that moves from place to place!) But, no, this clever little thing is an acorn made of wool roving and a real acorn cap. Fantastic! I'm thinking of doing a whole bowl of these little guys for my coffee table!


If you think these are cute, you have to check out her Etsy shop, Sugar Lane, where she sells her own knitting patterns. I just adore the Candy Corn baby hat! She's also doing a giveaway right now over at Yarn On the House. It's for a really cute fall project basket, including a pattern for her Acorn Hat. Just right for some fall knitting!

Soft and Cuddly

Meet my newest finished project. Knitted with love, over a week's worth of swim practices, in a yummy wool/bamboo yarn and stuffed with soft bamboo stuffing, which I found at JoAnn's. In the past I used the bamboo batting and just loved the feel of it, and that it's naturally anti-bacterial, so I was really excited to find this stuffing. So great for babies and children! He doesn't have a name yet, but I'm sure the kids will come up with something really creative, like "Bunny." In the meantime, he's just hanging out in the rocking chair, waiting for a playmate.

From Old to New

When our baby dresser was destroyed in the move out to AZ, I didn't think much about it. After all, we didn't need it right away. And then I started pricing new dressers to match our old crib and found out that I could get a new crib for one third of the price of a new dresser. So that's just what I did. I bought a new crib- this time a white one. We dragged my old, white childhood furniture out of the garage. The desk to act as a changing table and the dresser to act as, well, a dresser. Everything was working out great...until we put them all in the same room, and realized that my old white furniture looked just that. Old. But I was too tired to mess with it. And then my sister came out to visit and brought her designing eye..."maybe you should..." and "what if you just..." Just? It's never "just." But she had put the bee in my bonnet, and now I couldn't get it out. So I waddled out to the paint store and stared at swatches until my eyes crossed. I searched and searched for just the right hardware. I spent three days sanding and painting. And then...I had a beautiful "new" set of furniture that looked like they were made for each other. This is just a peek- you can't see the whole thing until the nursery is complete. I'm so excited to show you, though. Hopefully very soon!

Baby Three

My blog has been quiet recently. Mostly I've been busy preparing for this little guy (or girl). Here is a peek at how well he (or she) is growing. Later this week, I hope to give you some peeks at what I've been up to.

Yuma Heat

It's not just our weather- it's the name of Trevor's swim team. He started with the Heat about a month ago, and he is loving it. It's a year round club team that ranges from 5 years old up through high school. It's fun to watch him interacting with all the other kids of different ages and developing relationships with his coaches. He had his first swim meet on Saturday and he was super excited about it. . . he is already asking about the next one! Meanwhile, Braden and I watch the practice or play at the park, and enjoy just being out of the house for a while.

Toothy Grins

Trevor recently lost his first tooth. He was extremely excited- only I was traumatized by the experience. My baby is getting so big!! The next morning, he discovered a new tooth pillow, hanging on his bedpost, with a crisp one dollar bill tucked inside the pocket. His first words on the subject were, "I'm surprised that the tooth fairy is real, because usually I don't even believe in fairies."

fun in the desert

We had some more visitors this week (Yay! We love visitors!). We met Heather & Eric in San Diego, and then they made the trek out to Y-Town. We pulled out all the stops for their first visit to the desert- complete with a drive out into the desert for some shooting (Heather's first time) and Saguaro spotting. Thanks, again for the bringing the wonderful weather! Please come back- as soon as you left it hit 117!

funniness

In the interest of keeping at least one or two of my readers, I've decided to abbreviate the vacation pics. If you really want to see more, I'll have them posted on my Shutterfly site. The link for that is also in the sidebar. My last few shots of vacation are of some funny things we saw on our trip. We spent a lot of time on the road and covered many miles. So we saw a few things that we don't normally see at home...


wildlife... I asked the raccoons to do our laundry while we slept, but I forgot and locked them out of the truck bed. Ooops.



more wildlife...this time on two legs...and he caught my unsuspecting niece...



Lincoln City, OR: President Abraham Lincoln riding a horse. There's nothing strange about that- oh wait- he's multi-tasking! He's reading a book while he's riding a horse??? Okay...



Braden got his finger caught in a whale's mouth...we're having more trouble with the wildlife on this trip...



just too funny to pass by without stopping. Don't worry. Paul Bunyan was there as well.



no comment.



Okay, so there's nothing truly unusual about this picture. Except the fact that Everett was able to pry my fingers out of a death grip long enough for me to hold my camera and take this picture in the center of the Golden Gate Bridge. Two gold stars for me!



Whew! That was a whirlwind tour. Now that we're all caught up from vacation I can get on with showing you what we've been doing lately!

Blueness

The next stop on our vacation was Crater Lake National Park. Setting up camp takes a lot less time now with two great helpers, even though we were getting swarmed by mosquitoes. Thank goodness for DEET, because the citronella was just not up to the job. Although, the candle did drown 5 or 6 of them. We got to experience Crater Lake from the top of the crater as we drove around, and then we got a totally different perspective from a boat ride on the lake. Take a good look at the side of that crater- we hiked down into that...and back up. I considered just having my mail forwarded to the boat dock, but finally decided that if Braden could make it, so could I. I hope you can get a feel from the pictures just how blue the water really is- I've never seen anything else like it.