Sweet Little One

Naomi is quickly approaching 3 months old this Sunday, the 25th.  How fast time flies!  I remember the whirlwind delivery I had nearly 4 weeks before her due date.  The other day I thought I'd get the camera out and take a few snaps of her for something more current.  (Yes, that is a Minnie Mouse clippy)

Hope you like 'em!

Full of Fun Emery

Emery has brought so much fun to our family.  He makes us laugh daily with the silliness that he has.  I wish I had my camera attached to me 24/7 so I could catch the most hilarious moments with him.  But it's not a reality to do that so you just have to deal with the ones I am able to get by running to the next room to grab my camera.  We had so much fun at the playground in Riverdale/Washington Terrace.  The weather was perfect for playing in last week.  Here are some fun shots of him lately.

Everytime we put him up in the structure he'd gravitate towards this wheel.  See the concentration?  Wonder what he was racing off too!

He was always all full of smiles!

Chocolate pudding!!  Oh, and a muffin pizza =]  Incidentally, this was right before he decided to dump the rest of the pudding on his tray and smear it all over.  Can you believe he didn't get a speck on the chair?

It's tough being 17 months old.  So tuckered out from all that play and fun.  Sleep well, little fella'.

Some Videos

Okay, so I finally figured out how to post a video on here, so pardon me on all the videos I have, but I have to play catch-up now.  Hope you like all the little shorts!

Naomi's Blessing

Yesterday was a fun-filled day at the Johnson residence.  We had Naomi's blessing.  There were three babies being blessed (all girls).  They, for some reason, chose ours to be first.  Which was too bad because a dear friend of ours missed the circle by nano-seconds!  Had we been second he would have made it :(  I feel super bad for him.  But all in all, it went very well.  Except Naomi was a little ticked off at me for not feeding her right before (which was my plan).  But so many people came to it I got all caught up in chatting.  I hadn't seen some of them for a long time.

I was lucky to have it recorded so I could transcribe it for my mother who is on her mission in Australia.  Afterward we had a feast and so many were able to join us in chatting and having fun!  Here's some pictures from the day... (the little girl in the red dress is a friend)...

Naomi Pics

Here's a couple of more recent pictures of Naomi. =]

Winter Fun with Emery

I had these pictures a while ago, but with the new baby, lots of illnesses 'n' all, it's been a little crazy around here.  So here's a peek at Emery's first real encounter with the snow (once he finally learned how to walk).

Unexpected Surprise!

Well, this is how it all went.  The unexpected arrival of Naomi Carol Johnson.

Her due date was February 16th and the scheduled c-section was for February 9th.  On Friday, January 22nd, I slipped on my office steps and fell right onto my rump.  Thought for sure that would have caused something, but was glad it didn't.  Although I was very sore Saturday and Sunday.  Had church Sunday the 24th from 1-4p.  About 7:00p I was online looking at the hospital's website, checking out stuff, looking to see if they had register forms and whatnot.  Then about 8:00p I was on the phone talking to a good friend telling her how unprepared I was, had nothing packed, didn't think I had registered yet, didn't have camera's ready, etc..  Then it all started...

About 8:10p as I was talking to her, I felt a trickle.  Thought nothing of it and had wondered if I had even imagined it.  Went on talking then about 10 minutes later I felt another trickle.  That's when things got interesting.  I told her that I think my water may have broken and was going to go pee to check it out and make sure that's not what happened.  Told her I'd call her back and let her know.  I was pretty sure that maybe it was all nothing.  So I went pee, and stood back up and immediately felt bigger trickles.  Then I knew my water had indeed broken and I was going to have a little baby in my arms in a matter of hours.  That's when shock and panic began to set in.  I first called Glenn.  The first thing I said on the phone was "My water just broke".  I won't tell you what his first response was! LOL  He was about 4 hours out on a driving job.  So he started to turn around and head back home.  Then as I was walking from my room to the office to get my Relief Society Pres. number it was getting worse.  I was walking like a penguin trying to keep my floors dry!  I hadn't said anything yet to the kids and when Darius saw the way I was standing in the office he said "Is the baby coming?!"  I assured them that yes, it is.  He and Abbie were extactic.  So I told Abbie to go get me a towel.  She came back with the biggest towel in the house!  I quickly explained to the kids why I needed the towel.  Soon after, women showed up at my house.  One, to take me to the hospital, the other to help me gather things to take, and the last to watch the kids until my niece could make it there to take the kids to my sister's house.

As I arrived to the hospital, I was told to go change and go to triage bed B.  By the time I had changed my sister was already sitting aside my bed waiting for me.  What a blessing to have some family nearby!  It's down to the wire now and we're anxiously awaiting Glenn to show up.  We put off the c-section until we knew he was there.  Contractions didn't start until well over an hour after my water had broken.  And what contractions there were, were very mild.  Amazing!  Glenn made it there just as the doctor did.  Great timing!  Went into the O.R. about 11:45p.  Naomi was born at 12:09a Monday, January 25th.  She weighed in at 7 lbs. 11 oz. and was 19.5" long.  Her gestational age was 36 weeks 5 days.  Lots of golden brown hair.  She is my smallest baby by FAR!  She's acutally down to about 6 lbs. 12 oz. right now.  I feel like I'm holding a feather weight.  She's so tiny!  She didn't really have any issues except her left lung needed a little extra attention.  She has some jaundice but it's getting better too.

I finally got out of the hospital Thursday, January 28th.  So yes, Glenn spent his birthday (the 27th) in the hospital with me and our new little daughter.  What a great early b-day present for him!  Of course, in retrospect, it would have been nice had I had things packed and ready to go, but then it wouldn't make for an exciting story for the grandkids, now would it?  We are all so glad she's here with us and I can't believe I have FOUR kids...AHHHhhhhh!!!

Here's some pictures:

Naomi's Nursery Set

Okay, there have been a few of you requesting to see the nursery set.  And even moreso, there are a few others of you who are avid sewers out there (I'm only a beginner) that I would LOVE to get tips and pointers on what I can do better next time.  So I'm posting pictures of the nursery set I made for my baby girl that's due to come in the next few weeks.

This is the four-piece crib set I made.  The ties were supposed to be elaborate flowers tabs that velcro but you'll see later why I chose not to do the flowers in the end.  That would have been a total 22 flowers to make and they are a pain in the rear!  You should be able to click on the pictures to make them super large to see details.  The bed skirt has pleats which you can't really see because of the way the slats are positioned...oh well.

Okay, my very first attempt at making a quilt.  It was actually quite fun, except it got really annoying trying to make sure that the fabric on the backside didn't catch as I was making the diamonds.  I think the seam ripper became my best friend!  But it was well worth it.  There were some visible mistakes I made on this one, but that's okay.  Practice for more quilts in the future!

This next project is a simple fleece receiving blanket I made.  Doing this project has made me a believer in one of those machines you see at JoAnn's that you can hold like handles in each hand and it stitches around anything you want in any direction.  Yeah...I tried to do that on a regular desktop seweing machine...NEVER AGAIN! lol   Just don't look too closely at the stitches I tried to do in following the outsides of the flowers ;)  But the beading was a fun addition that I'm glad I did.

Last year when I was pregnant with Emery I received a bobby pillow with a cute boyish design on the cover.  I have used boppies with each of my kids...love 'em!  Anyways, I didn't want to have to buy another cover or boppy for this next one especially since they are so close together and this one still has lots of wear left in it.  So I decided to make my own cover.  I used flannel.  I don't know why they don't sell flannel boppy covers.  Just seems so much more warm and cozy to me for the baby than regular cotton.  I made it two sided with different designs.  I guess I feel like there's more variety in my choices for the day...hmmm, which side shall I use during this feeding?  Dorky, I know!  The zipper is on the back edge of the boppy, which is highly noticeable it's there, I'm not good at zippers!  And I really want to know how to sew on the invisible zippers some day.

I made four burp cloths in much the same way I did the boppy cover, two sided.  They are also fringed on the edges.  Looks super cute, however the stupid threads keep coming off and seems like it will never end!  I have little tiny threads all over the place, and you should have seen the washer when my wash was done.  I hand picked all of those stupid little threads off of all the projects that I put in the wash.  Any suggestions on how to cure this?  I'm afraid to wash them again!

Can I just say, I LOVE PATCHWORK QUILTS!  This was a very tedious project but sooooo much fun!  And yes, it is double sided.  I patchworked both sides and fringed both sides and they are opposite of the first side square by square.  This too is a big culprit in wreaking havoc in my washer because of the fringe!  And this is flannel like the boppy cover and burp cloths.  Soooo soft =]

This last project I did is actually the second time I've made a carseat canopy.  I made my first one last spring for a friend of mine that was having a baby.  They are very easy to make and fun too.  We see them all over the place here in Utah...can't imagine why ;)  They sell for around $30-40.  I was able to make this for a fraction of the cost.  These flower tabs are what was supposed to go on my crib bumpers, but I had to make 20 of them for that and just doing them for this canopy nearly sent me to the asylum!  My neighbor was gracious to help me out with the flowers.  I also added some fun trim around the edges.  I love trim!

Okay, so that's it.  Those were my projects that I worked on a couple of months ago.  I thought it would take me much longer to do it but I got them done in about two weeks!  I really love to sew.  Just wish I had more time to do it.  I'm going to be joining a sewers guild soon so I can advance from a beginner someday.  My past projects I've always done were costumes and curtains, but I really enjoyed doing something new and might venture out even more =]

Lemme' know what you think and PLEASE, if you have any tips or pointers...I'm all ears!!!

(Remember, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them to see more details)

Christmas Morning

Memories start flooding back of childhood Christmas' waiting in your bedroom (or in some cases your siblings bedrooms) for Santa's arrival in the wee hours of the morning.  Your brother and sister accompany you, having a lengthy and all too important discussion about what is yet to be Christmas morning.  Then reality hits you only to realize that it's not you anymore, it's now your children following suit without any coaxing.

This is what it was like this last Christmas morning as the Ramirez family joined us for the holiday week.  There were 11 stockings and 7 children in all.  Four of which got up at...I kid you not...3:00a all plotting and planning with great excitement what, if anything yet, laid under the tree for them.  They were scolded and told not to do anything until at least 5:30a.  Well, gotta' give them credit, at least they waited until 5:00a!  The pandemonium that followed was just as expected.

 

  

It was nice to have two rounds of Christmas morning.  There were still 3 little ones that weren't quite ready for the glee until around 8:30a.

When all was said and done, all the parents felt satisfied that their children were happy.  And the laziness, relaxation, and try-outs of new toys began for the remainder of the day.  Oh, how fleeting the Christmas season is.  Why does it have to come and go so fast?

Baking Cookie Fun

This year Glenn decided he wanted to play the role of a baker.  He baked for about 4-5 days straight.  Some of the things included were two cakes, about 10 dozen sugar cookies, 6 dozen peanut butter cookies, homemade butter cream frosting, and more!  (Apron compliments of my sister, he looks dashing in it, does he not?)

This is a small example of some sugar cookies he made...they turned out great!

The kids all got in on the fun decorating some cookies for themselves and for santa too!

The finished product of the day's adventure in baking to be divied out amongst friends and family...yum!

I think we've had our fill of sweets this season for sure!  And Glenn told me the other day..."I think I'm done baking for the rest of the year."  Yeah...which ends in a week, so does that mean he starts all over again come next week? =]

Merry Christmas!