Not Tomorrow

As you can doubtless see, I did not continue my blog post the next day. I am lazy.
Lots of things going on right now. I will finish telling about the 4th of July first.
After we had enough of the Freedom Festival booths, we went home to pick up what we needed for watching the fireworks and headed back down to our chosen spot. I was very worried that Lilly would freak out over the noise, etc, from the fireworks. Not so much. She LOVED them. It was so cute. She sat in Papa's lap, but kept getting up to point at them and shout and squeal. Every once in a while a big one would go off and she would be knocked back down into Papa's lap by the force of the sound. Eilee liked them as well, but instead of squealing, she laid on the blanket and kicked her fat little legs and said oooooh, ohhhhh, ooooooh. That was adorable.
Lilly ran around like a maniac that day and was feeling quite warm. Her face had swelled up earilier and gotten quite red, I assumed she was having a bout of allergies and gave her some benadryl. Well, we woke up Sunday morning to a fever. Not a big deal, watch her, take her temp, keep her hydrated. By that afternoon, however, it got up to 104. Scary. So, off we go to instacare. Doctor looks her over, thinks she likely has some virus and is about to send us home when he decides to do a blood draw. Well, it turns out her white count is almost 3 times the normal, which signifies a pretty bad infection somewhere. What does this mean for us? Oh, yeah, you guessed it. The ER. They couldn't do full bloodwork or urine at the clinic, and of course, since it was a weekend, the regular doctor's office wasn't open. I have found out why some kids are allowed to fight off infections and why Lilly is sent to the hospital. I guess with normal kids, they can lose a pound or two due to not eating. Lilly can't. She is so skinny that to lose a pound would be very bad. So the doctors want to find out immediately what is going on and get it taken care of, get her on an IV so she doesn't lose weight.
We were at the hospital for several hours, they could not find the source of infection for anything, then finally, gave her a big dose of anitbiotics and said we could take her home, just watch her and they would let us know when the cultures came back.
Well, her cultures all came back clean. What does this mean? That is was probably viral and she fought it off herself. She is a very healthy baby, but when she gets sick, she does it with a vengeance. I guess she feels like she has to make up for the fact that she never gets sick otherwise! Ugh, little punk.
In other, amusing news, tonight she painted Sadie, our lab with Vaseline and Dr. Pepper. She was very proud of herself. The dog is a mess.
She has almost learned to jump. She bounces on the beds and the neighbors' trampoline. She continues to be a daredevil, which is a little more trying these days, as she has learned to climb. Urgh. I know I am going to walk into the kitchen one day and find her on top of the fridge. My mom and stepdad's nephew and wife were visiting them over the weekend. They slept on a mattress on the front room floor, which Lilly thought was her own personal trampoline. She would flop on it, climb up and jump off, over and over again. Well, then she got bored, so what did she do? Went and got her little ride on toy, wrestled it up onto the mattress and, being a little Eval Knievalette, tried to ride the dang thing off! Fortunately, I caught her.
Last night we had our first real rain storm this summer. We had a bbq and were all still out on my mom's back porch. The summer rains here usually consist of really big raindrops coming down at a fairly good clip. Lilly had never been in an actual rainstorm before, and apparently, does not have enough sense to come in out of said rain. She wouldn't stay under the porch, but had to be out in it. She stood there with her hands in the air, squealing and getting soaked. It was fabulous. I got a couple if pics, but I can't post them yet, my computer won't cooperate.
We went to California last week to visit my grandparents. They had never seen Lilly and they are getting up there, so mom and I thought it would be a good time. This was Lilly's third major trip and 5th and 6th airplane rides. She does really well on the plane, thank goodness. In fact, several people came up to me in the airport after we disembarked and commented on how well she behaved. Which is funny, because she is a right terror most of the time. Interestingly, SLC Int'l Airport has no provisions for people traveling with small ones. Maybe because we are in baby central? I don't know. Every other airport I have been to has special lines, etc. for those traveling with little ones. That part is very nice. To the front of the line, thank you very much.
Much is going on at the mo' with my designing, etc. but I think I will post later about that as I am sleepy!
I am making a cute sailor sweater for Lilly and it is almost done, yeay!

Independence Day

Yeay, we had a happy 4th of July!

We were going to go to the parade, but we were lazy and did not get up in time. Plus, I had some wedding gowns to finish, so it just didn't happen. Later in the morning, we went on down to the Freedom Festival to see the booths and get some food. It was insanely crowded and ridiculously hot, but we stuck it out. There was a booth selling some lovely, very bendy baby shoes, so I bought Lilly a pair, and lo and behold! They were squeaker shoes. Hysterical. She couldn't figure out at first what was going on, thought some crazy squeaky thing was following her. Then she caught on and goosestepped around the place, since it made a louder sound that way. Drove Mike's friend nuts. Heehee.

As we wandered around, we ran into another of Mike's friends who owns a Great Dane. So, Mike took Lilly over to see it and she wanted to ride it. I am not sure where she gets this riding dogs thing, because she tries to ride my mom's chow (who hates it) and also tries to ride our Labs (who don't care, but don't hold still very well). Mike lifted her up onto the dog and let her sit there for a bit, it was terribly cute. Then she got down and started giving the dog loves and stuff.

Here are some pics of that.

I will have to continue this tomorrow as my battery is about to die~

Sad, but cool

So, I used to attend church in an OLD building that was the original school in the town in which I live. Not the first school, but the first that was built for that purpose. Anyway, the building is beautiful, with the exception of the modern add-on, but because it has so many stairs and no elevators, it was decided a while ago that we needed a more modern church with one floor. So, the new church was built, we were transferred and they continued to hold activities, etc, at the old one.. This past Sunday, a letter was read in church informing us that the property had been sold back to the school district and that the building would be torn down. The powers that be decided that members of the stake would be able to take things from the building that were desired. So, a drawing was held and when your name was drawn, you could put it on something in the building you wanted. Mike wanted a pew, so when our name came up, we got one. After everyone had been drawn once, they basically said we could get whatever we wanted. So, I was able to get 3 beautiful doors, a gorgeous radiator, a pew, a bannister, and my mom got some cabinets. I wanted some of the molding, but Mike didn't want to deal with it. We are also hoping to be allowed to remove some of the wood flooring, but we aren't sure, yet. It is gorgeous, over a hundred years old.
Anyway, it was very cool that we were allowed to take the things left in the building, I was very excited about it. SOOOOO sad that they are tearing the building down. I know it isn't useful, but it is historic and it is beautiful.

In other news...Mike is back after being out of town for his Grandfather's funeral. He died semi-unexpectedly of heart failure. While he was gone, Lilly missed her daddy very much. The first night, she had a terrible time trying to fall asleep, as Mike usually puts her to bed. The second night, rather than fight with her, I had her call her daddy and he told her a story. Five minutes after getting off the phone, she was out. The third night, I was keeping her up, even though she hadn't had an afternoon nap and was tired, because I really wanted her to sleep through the night. She was incredibly whiny and really wanted to go to bed. Finally she came up to me with her little woolie jammie pants and said "mamma, na-na." I looked at her and she had the saddest little tired face and said again "mamma, na-na" which translated means, "mamma, I want to go nite-nite." I laughed, put her jammies on her and put her to bed. She went right out, yeay! It was so stinkin' cute, though. I love how much she talks.
Also, I am not sure if I already posted this or not, but the other night, I picked her up from my mom's, bathed her and was letting her run around in a diaper for a while (it is sooo hot right now) and I guess she got bored. So, she brought me my shoes (heels), her shoes and a pair of her pants, sat down on the floor and stuck up her little feet. I got her dressed, she went to the back door and yelled for me. She wanted to go to Grandma's! I opened the door, she took my hand and very firmly led me over there. It was hysterical.
She was quite happy to see her daddy when he got home, but not quite sure what to do with him!

Nekkid butt

This is just a short post, but I have to put it in so I don't forget.
Lilly has firebutt right now due to eating way too much fruit and not much else. So, last night, after I changed her, she was crying (the baby wipes burn, poor lass) so I left her diaper off so her little bum could get some air.
Mike was in the kitchen cleaning and Lilly had gone in there. I went to get her because Mike doesn't really appreciate her "help" (she unloads the dishwasher onto the floor as fast as he can load it.) When I went in, I found her sitting on the floor trying to put on her little pink Ugg boots that we just got. She sees me, hands me her boots then lifts up her foot. I laughed and sat down, she scooted into my lap and had me put her boots on. So she ran around for the rest of the evening with her little nekkid butt and tiny pink Uggs. Hysterical.

Walkabout

Yurgh, it has been forever since I posted on this. Shame on me. Not because I feel obligated to blog, but because this is also sort of my journal of Lilly. And I haven't updated it in more than a month.
So, let's see. I posted last time that she was really starting to walk. Well, she walks now. About a week after that post she was walking everywhere, hardly crawling at all. It is so cute. She has slightly bowed legs and turns her toes out when she walks, so she waddles. She looks like a little duck. Plus the crotch of her diapers are so bulky, it holds her legs out. She is the funniest little stinker.
She is starting to talk more and more and I love her little voice. It is so cute and cartoony. She says a few words, but they change. She has only hung onto a few words, but she keeps changing them. For a while, she said berry and back, because she ate strawberries all the time, and I yelled at the dogs all the time to get back. She doesn't say those much any more. She says more, in sign language, which is adorable. Let's see, what else...Oh, she says, kitty and meow, although kitty is not particularly recognizable to anyone but me. ;) She says mama, dad and memaw for grandma. I can't think of anything else off hand. She shouts a lot. Mostly yelling for me or Mike.
She know what it means when I ask her if she wants to go to Memaw's house (she lives next door). She will go get her shoes if she doesn't have them on yet, and bring them to me. If she does have them on, she goes to the back door and yells for me. If I don't come right away she toddles back in to find me and gives me the come here hand. She gets a little impatient if I don't hurry fast enough.
I took her in for a blood draw on the 9th of June for her Meningitis study and she weighed 17 lbs, which was awesome. She gained a pound in a month, I was very pleased. She is still beensy and skinny as ever, but she is growing.
We took her to the petting zoo and farm country a couple of weeks ago. That was so cute. She loved looking at all the animals. They had sheep, peacocks, chickens, goats, donkeys, cows and horses. She fed the lambs and a very large cow and giggled hysterically while doing it. There was a dad there with his son who was about 3 and he had gotten him some corn and was trying to get the boy to feed the cow and it was a no go. Lilly picked up some corn from the ground and wanted me to take her to the cow, so I did, and she just fed it. So the dad gave her the rest of the corn. It was pretty funny. The tickets into farm country came with a pony ride, so Lilly got to have her first ride. Mike was pretty proud that she did so well. I put her on the smallest pony
and she grabbed the saddle horn and gripped tight with her knees like a born horsewoman. Every once in a while she would let go with one hand to pet the pony's mane. Loved it. She yelled her version of Yahooo! a couple of times, which made everyone laugh. Mike was so proud because there was an older kid there who cried the entire ride. We need to take her and get her riding more, so that she doesn't develop any kind of fear of horses, etc. I think she is going to be like her daddy, an outside girl who likes outside activities. Not a indoor city girl like her mamma.
Her hair is getting so long and thick. It curls at the back, too. It is long enough to put into pigtails, which is too cute for words.
I need to go look at the baby book and see what her milestones are so I can see where she should be. He pediatrician says she is well ahead developmentally, just behind physically, she is so wee!
She has a lot of attitude, throws some pretty good fits and gives a great stinkeye.;) She is my joy.
In other news, sadly, Mike's grandfather passed away today. It was semi-unexpected. They knew his health was deteriorating, but didn't expect things to happen this fast. He went into the hospital a couple of days ago, he had had a heart attack, and just didn't recover. They said he had had several heart attacks, unknown, and that he was running on about 19% of his heart. They gave him about a month, but he only lasted a couple of days. Mike will likely head out there this weekend.
And in crafty news, I got a spinning wheel!!!! Yeay! I am so excited. It is a used one, but it works. Has a few problems, but nothing Mike can' t fix. I have already spun a decent amount of yarn on it. I can't spin as fine a yarn or as smooth as I can on my spindle, but I will get there. I can only do it when Lilly isn't around or is distracted because she likes to grab the wheel or the spindle and it makes it very hard to work.
What else...oh, I did a swap with a girl on Ravelry, she is making a big shawl and I made her six pair of shorties for her boy. Pretty cool. I made parts of them on my knitting machine and then finished them by hand. Some of them turned out incredibly cute. They aren't all as cute as I would like, but I was experimenting with patterns, as there aren't any for the USM.
I also did a stitch marker swap with some girls on a Ravelry group I belong to, called CESOB. I had never made stitch markers before, so that was kind of fun. I got some lovely ones in trade. Very nice.
Right now I am knitting a lightweight shrug for Lilly out of a lovely pink mohair laceweight. It is so pretty and I am so excited. I also am about to start a new cardi for me. I found a fabulous pattern for a very cool one on Rav and it is free and very easy. I love it.
Also, Interweave Crochet just came out with the CUTEST crocheted baby dress. I have been wanting to make Lilly a dress, and this one is perfect, so I am excited to start on that one, I want to have it done for her to wear in the fall.
Well, I guess that's it! I will be a more frequent poster from here on out.

Toddles

Lilly is walking for real! yeay! She has been walking on her own all evening and I am very excited. It is so cute because she is so tiny.
She also found her nostril, which is hysterical. She sticks her finger up her nose and just looks intently at my mom, who howls with laughter. She never smiles, just looks. When my mom stops laughing she pulls her finger out of her nose and then sticks it back in to make my mom laugh more. When she saw how funny that was she thought sticking her finger in her eye would be equally funny. It wasn't.

I can't think of a title

Well, let's see, what is the dirt for the day...

Lilly went in for her real 12 month checkup today. She is in a vaccine study for meningitis, which has been interesting. Her doctor recommended it since she was hospitalized for it in October. So far, she has been doing very well on it. She is done with the vaccinations now and they will draw her blood in 30 days to see if she has built up antibodies. I hope she has, I don't like the threat of meningitis hanging over us, such a scary sickness.

They give the vaccine in the arm, instead of the leg, which she did not appreciate, plus the study nurse is not as fast as baby's usual nurses, so it was more painful than usual. Lil does not have ANY fat on her arms, so it was not nice. She was very angry. Fortunately, shots don't bother her too much and she usually only cries for about 30 seconds, then she forgets about it.

I worry constantly about her weight, but her doctor isn't worried. He says that the growth of her head is a good indicator that she is doing well. If it slows down, then he will worry, but so far, she still has an enormous noggin. Sign of intelligence and whatnot. ;) Seriously, though, she is quite advanced for a 1 yr old, I am pleased with that. Well, advanced as far as cognitive development goes. She still doesn't walk well. I had her doctor check on that, because she has an odd gait. I was worried that she might have one leg shorter than the other (I do) or mild hip dysplasia (again, I do) but nope, she just walks like a drunk! She will get better at it. She has quite a few words, which is funny. Her newest are "I did it!" and "Cool" Very funny when she says them, as she grasps the meaning.

Also, apparently, her "selective" understanding is a sign of intelligence. Fabulous.

Let's see...in other news, the housing market still sucks, so the company is not doing as well as I would like. I have debated getting a full time job, but have decided that that is not the right answer. I feel very strongly about staying home with Lil (who'd o' thought) and I already work part time. I didn't think that I would want to stay home with her, but the idea of handing her off to someone else full time is not a happy one for me. I certainly don't judge those who do, I had my wonderful nephew for 3 years while his mama worked and I wish I still had him. He has a nanny now, as I didn't think I could handle him, Lil and his baby brother. If it were just him, I would not have hesitated. I had him in my care from the time he was born and grew very attached to him. He is the sweetest little boy. Sigh. I miss him.

In crafty news, I got an insane amount of raw wool fleece from a friend of my dads. It was free. They are not from wool sheep, and they guy doesn't sell the wool or anything, so the shearing job was not fabulous for spinning and they are filthy, but there is so much of it, that I can pick through the fleeces and pull out the best parts.

Originally, I was going to wash the fleece, then comb or card it, then spin it, but I kept matting up the fleeces pretty good when I would wash them, and only getting a little bit of combable locks, plus, they were so dry that it was hard to draft them. So, I looked up some more info on the web, and I found a website that gave instructions for spinning "in the grease" It is much easier to comb the unwashed fleece, draft and spin it. Of course, you wouldn't want to do this with the excessively dirty bits, but the parts that just have lanolin and VM aren't a big deal. Most of the dirt and VM combs out, then you wash the yarn when it is done.

So, last night, I combed. drafted and spun some yarn. It turned out pretty well. I made it thicker than I wanted and not as even as I would have liked, but not bad. It is a shorter staple than I have heretofor spun with, so not as easy. I also put waaaayyyyy too much twist in the yarn, so it is a little bit cordlike. I will try to include some pics in this post. I am sure the next spinny will be much better, now that I have an idea how this behaves.

So, first pic is the raw, dirty fleece.

Second pic is the combed locks from the raw dirty fleece.

Third pic is the combed locks drafted into roving and

fourth is the spun yarn (dyed blue, obviously. I forgot to take a pic predyed).

Mike is getting me some hand carders for Mothers' Day. I am pretty excited, that should make things go a little faster. He was going to get me a spinning wheel, but we decided to wait, due to tight finances. I will get that later, in the meantime, my spindle works great.

I haven't done much else lately, craftiwise. I have been messing around with the fleece is all.

I am planning this week to get my front room switched over to my spring decor. I am a little late on that, the job cuts into my free time in a big way. I just got some pics printed today of all of us to redo the mantle with, that is my first task. Second will be to make the new chair cover. I need to get crackin'!

Well, that is all for now!