So I’m not usually one to slack off- that Mom that breaks promises, is late for everything, skips the important stuff. But I gave myself a bye on blogging yesterday since we spent the day in the hospital with Gracie getting brain/cochlear scans done. It’s never fun to have your infant need to be fully sedated, but we’re lucky that that is all she needs and we’re not about to complain. It could be so much worse.
The CT scan room was called Pirate Island. The MRI room was outer space. Very cool.
Such a sleepy sweetie. She did great with the whole ordeal. The hardest part was getting the IV as Grace literally has no veins. It is always impossible to get her blood drawn. The NICU IV Team came up to try to locate a vein but even for them it took over an hour and half to find one that would work (in the sole of her foot no less- ouch). They used this special red light to illuminate her limbs from behind, to help show a good vein. Poor kid will probably never give blood, ha. Sorry Mom.
Besides the MRI and CT scans this week, Grace also got her newest accessory.
A plagiocephaly “STARBand” helmet to fix the shape of her little mellon.
This little plastic helmet has become our nemesis but I’ll be damned if I don’t get my little girl used to wearing it like it’s no big thing. I’ll also be damned if it’s not the cutest, most bedazzled, most accessorized helmet you have ever seen.We’ll figure it out. I’ll give it some time. I hate not being able to feel my sweet girls velvety skin, hate that it’s harder for her to hold her head up with it on, and hate smelling plastic when I should be smelling baby, but I’ll live. And besides, it’s not about me anyway, right?
Even with all this hospital/doctor business this week, I managed to sneak in a mini six month photo session with Grace. All I wanted was one picture of her on her belly which is her new big thing this month. Mission accomplished!
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Even though I didn’t post a book yesterday, I still kept to my weekly book and project ritual with Lilly.
This weeks book of choice was not something contemporary or obscure, but an old children’s classic that most of you probably already have (and know by heart).
Enter Goodnight Moon.
Oh how we love Goodnight Moon. Something about the poetic rhythm of the words is a perfect sleep-inducing antidote to a wound up child.
I created what we’re now calling a “goodnight treasure box” (which I think might have just become yet another obsessive bedtime ritual) but Lilly is thrilled so I’ll forgive myself.
You need:
1 small box (kids shoe boxes work great here)
1 goodnight moon coloring page printed to size (just click the following picture)
Crayons
“treasures”
First print out the coloring page. It’s ok if it’s blurry- not a big deal. My goal here was to have Lilly color her goodnight room any way she wanted but she flat out wasn’t interested and wanted ME to color the room while she “did here homework”. Who am I to stop the girl from doing her homework, for heavens sake?
I taped the colored room to the top of the box and voila! Goodnight treasure box was born.
Once your box is made, take a little in house field trip to find special treasures to put inside. We found a special sea shell from Mom Mom, about fifteen pictures of Lilly and Daddy, a wooden bead, and a little plastic frog. Let your child choose what is special enough to go in. Who knew how important a little frog and bead were to my girl?? Conversely, things that I thought were special treasures- cool foreign coins, gem stones, figurines, a bracelet- got big, definite, no-ways from Lilly. It is so important to listen to your kids, people! Their minds, however small and young, work differently from ours.
Before bed, we read Goodnight Moon one more time and said goodnight to everything in the box. It was very sweet. Lilly declared, “I hope all my treasure collection stays in their box or my Mommy gonna be very mad.” What can I say? She knows what she’s talkin’ about.
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Now for a little quilt update. I’ve kind of gotten lost in this new-to-me art of quilting. I’m totally in heaven looking at all kinds of cute fabric online and have covered every horizontal surface of our playroom in fabric scraps and pieces. The girls’ quilts are slow moving and a little bit tedious but they are slowly coming together. Here is where I’m at:
I’ve laid out squares all over the floor.
Then I stitched the squares into rows of three (that would eventually make up 9 square blocks).
It’s so important to iron the hell out of every little seam to get from that ^…
To this ^…
And then eventually to this:
This is half of one quilt top. I have the other half sewn and ready to attach. Unfortunately I have to go back and do the whole process again for the 2nd quilt!
Quilting will certainly teach me a thing or two about patience!
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Let me preface this picture with this:
“I am not a pie-maker.”
Pie eater? Yes. Absolutely. Crust roller outer? Psh! Not in a million years. I think my Mom forgot to teach me that one when I was growing up. It’s such a shame too because I have the best pie recipes of all time in my arsenal, all stemming down from my Mom who’s pies are the best on the planet. She can whip up a few pies in the 10 minutes before the whole family has even gotten out of bed. But I, on the other hand, can barely even fake my way through half an hour of rolling out breaking crust.
We had a dinner party the other night and I thought pies would be the perfect quick and easy dessert. I didn’t want to get “too involved” making a cake or cupcakes- I’m kind of sick of cake to be honest- and fresh fruit pies sounded great for our outdoor soiree.
Here are my filling recipes:
Apple Pie Filling
5 Red Delicious Apples, pealed, cored, and sliced thin
1 cup of Sugar
Cinnamon
-Arrange half of the apple slices into an unbaked pie shell. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of sugar until all apple slices are covered (if the apples are very sweet you may need less sugar). Sprinkle over a good amount of cinnamon (about 1 Tablespoon if you need to measure). Add the second half of apple slices and repeat sugar and cinnamon sprinkling. That’s it!
Peach Blackberry Pie Filling:
5 Ripe Peaches
1 pint of blackberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 flour
Squeeze of lemon juice
1/4 cup of cold butter cut into little pieces
Peal peaches by scoring the bottom (like an X) and dropping them into boiling water for 2 minutes. Take them out and plunge them immediately into ice water. The skins will then loosen and peal right off.
Slice the peaches and add to a large bowl with the blackberries. Add flour, sugar and lemon juice and mix together. Pour filling into unbaked large pie crust and dot with butter pieces.
*These are both two-crust pies. Bake both pies according to your own crust directions. With the peach pie I cannot stress enough the importance of baking it with a tray underneath- it’s juicy and it will leak and make a mess of your oven! I’m not going to share a pie crust recipe until I can actually attest to it working! But I’ll keep trying.*
All I can say is that these pies tasted good. And I’ll leave it at that.
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Many of these pictures are from Instagram. I’m an admitted Instagram junkie. If you care to follow that feed I am @jdudtmulzet. And also don’t forget to “follow” the blog! Click the follow link in the lower right hand corner of your screen. You’ll get an email update every time I post something new and never miss out on the project or stories of the day. Thanks for reading!
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