Month: September 2015

This was an exercise in using up scraps!  I haven’t loved a 4th of July line in quite some time and I’m not *generally* in the habit of buying lines that I’m meh about.  There’s too much that I love!  All this to say, I’m down to a few piddly scraps.  Still, I’m happy with how this turned out.

I didn’t have any big pieces of paper left so I matted the pics individually.  The heart paper is two separate strips so I just put that little target where they joined.  And of course, I started off with some texture medium and a stencil!  i finished it with some Thickers (I cut the TH down) and a few sequins.  Only 4 more layouts and I’m done with June!  Still need to go back and do December – March though.  lol.

Y’all.  I freaking love Halloween.  In fact, I *may* have pulled out all of my Halloween decorations on September 1st.  lol.  Imagine how excited I was when this arrived:

Why yes, that is pretty much the entire Crate Paper Halloween line.  I haven’t been this excited about a collection since The Pier!  I don’t usually devote a whole layout to our pumpkins, but this particular year we announced our twin pregnancy this way so I had to include it.  🙂

Sorry, you’re getting it as an iPhone pic.  Xander has stopped sleeping.  Again.  Good thing he’s cute!  First up, the bat stencil!  OMG I love it so much.  Then I used up some of my old October Afternoon Witch Hazel.  I wish I had bought more of it years ago!  I added some of my new doilies and a few stickers.

I was loving all of the glitter so I decided to edge the wood veneer bats and pumpkin with some stickles and I love how it turned out.  Then I thought it just needed a little something more so I added the ric rack with my handy dandy tiny attacher.

I only had a few layouts to do for October 2014 because I was so sick last year which was a bummer because I’m having so much fun with these supplies!  No worries.  I plan to take a ton of pics this year.  🙂

We’re in the clear for at least 3 more months!  Mia’s Dr said he wasn’t going to base his decision only on the numbers on the scan and that clinically she looked great.  What a huge relief!  Now we just need to get through her ENT appointment (which I’m fu-reaking out about) and we’ll be good for at least a few months.  I hope.

Xander is doing great too!  He’s quite the little roly poly!  He actually rolled over in his swing last night so it looks like we’ll me transitioning him to his crib.  Excuse me while I go cry in the corner.  The past 2 days where he only woke up once in the middle of the night have been a blissful interlude that I will cherish forever. lol.

Xander had a great time at the Children’s Museum with Kate while Mia snoozed.  🙂

Enjoying his mom-sickle!  We just freeze some expressed milk in some little silicon trays from Ikea and then pop them into these mesh feeders.  They’re a huge hit around here and we love that the babies can participate in dinner.  🙂

Wow.  Looking at these makes me realize that I need to be better about using my big camera!  I love my iPhone, but these leave a little something to be desired.

I’ve actually been scrapping a bit lately!  In fact I’m now caught up through the end of November 2014!  I can’t wait to finish 2014 all together.  🙂  I’ve also been powering through 2015 Project Life.  I did 3 spreads today.  🙂  Never mind that I’m still in June.  That’s some serious progress.  Is that something y’all would like to see?

Here’s a recent layout; the companion to the one I posted last week.  It was super hot at the park, but Kate had fun and the babies tolerated it.  More stenciling and doilies.  And I’ve been hoarding the flair badges, but I couldn’t resist using them on this page.  🙂

 

Oh, my sweet Mia.  We’ve had lots of appointments in the last few weeks so lots of updates!  Mia went to see the eye dr and the results were mixed.  Structurally her eyes are fine which is fantastic news, but she is borderline for needing glasses.  Since she’s making great eye contact (girl friend will make eye contact for days) her dr wants to hold off on glasses for now.  We’ll revisit that next year at her next appointment.  I’m already shopping for cute frames.  Rest assured, Mia will be absolutely adorable in glasses.

Mia says, “Why did you let them dilate my eyes!” ::shakes tiny fist::

We also had a repeat visit to the cardiologist and everything is looking fantastic.  She does sill have a partially fused aortic valve, but it doesn’t seem to be negatively impacting her at this time.  Most likely she’ll need a valve replacement, but not until she’s like 40 years old.  I’m officially not worrying about things that are 40 years in the future.  Y’all, I have bigger fish to fry.  😉  You should have seen us trying to get the heart ultrasound done.  Little miss wiggle worm didn’t want to keep still so the ultrasound tech finally suggested that I get up on the table and nurse her during the scan.  I had to channel my inner contortionist, but we got it done.  lol.  Thankfully my dad was there to help wrangle Xander.  I don’t know what I would do if we didn’t have family close by!  Probably lose my mind.

 

We let them have some mom-sickles (frozen milk in a mesh feeder).  Minds=blown

Then the biggie, Mia had a repeat MRI of her brain last Wednesday.  We were supposed to see the neurosurgeon immediately after the MRI, but the had to reschedule because he was stuck in surgery.  We went ahead and got the MRI done and scheduled the dr appointment for this Wednesday (tomorrow.)  I wasn’t even worried about it.  Mistake number 1.  Always worry about everything.

Well, my mom and I were waiting at the pediatrician’s office for the babies to get their shots when the neurosurgery office called.  Uh oh.  Apparently the MRI showed that her ventricles had grown which is not good.  They wanted to know if she was showing any symptoms  that would indicate that we needed to be seen sooner than out appointment the following week.  Cur panicking.  Especially when we consider that they symptoms are throwing up (um…  she’s not having Xander level exorcism pukes, but she does spit up.  And it has gotten worse, but her occupational therapist attributes this to her working her abs more.)  and being fussy (first off, she’s the most chill baby ever so I’m not sure that waiting for her to fuss is the answer.  Second, she is fussing a wee bit more, but it seems like she fussing because she’s demanding more attention, not because she has a headache.  Wanting attention seems like a good thing neurologically.) To recap, she had her first MRI in April and they were on the large side but ok.  Then her second MRI in June showed that they were larger, but still ok.  It would have been better for there to have been no growth, but this wasn’t alarming.  I don’t know what this MRI is showing exactly, but I can’t help but think we might be back in the range of needing a shunt.

Since we were already at the pediatrician’s office, I may have demanded that a dr or nurse practitioner come look at her before she got her shots.  The consensus was that her fontanelle (soft spot) was “full but not bulging” so we should be good to wait a week.  While I didn’t love hearing that it was full, at least it wasn’t bulging.  The nurse practitioner also really pushed the shots so we went ahead and got them.  Now I’m kind of wishing we hadn’t only because she was fussier than usual this weekend, but that’s most likely due to the shots.  Of course, we’re supposed to be on the lookout for fussiness.  ::sigh::  If it’s not one thing it’s another.

 

She and Xander loved the Thinkery!

In other news, she’s doing great in therapy.  We just put some kinesiology tape on her this week to help stimulate her to activate her core.  I was resistant to this for a while and couldn’t pin point why.  Her occupational therapist helped me to work through it.  (Apparently she doubles as a shrink.  Which is awesome.  🙂  )  I was having a hard time admitting that she needed the extra help, but I’m over it now and going full steam ahead with anything that will help her.

To long; didn’t read?

No glasses yet, but they will be coming sooner rather than later.  Heart is awesome.  She might need a brain shunt, but we don’t really know anything just yet.  That appointment is tomorrow.  Next up, ENT in a few weeks.

And now for the scrappy goodness:

I’m going to pretend like I intended that frame in the top right corner to be crocked.  lol.  (Side note.  Is that how you spell that?  It looks weird.  Crooked?  Crooced?  cadiwompus?  Tilted.  Let’s go with tilted.)

 

I haven’t gotten any new goodies in a while (I’m waiting for some of the new releases to come out) so I’ve been digging into my stash a bit.  I found some old Echo Park paper that I still love!  In fact, I’m torn between wishing I had more of it and being excited that I might actually kill off a collection.

Those trees!  I still love them.  And those tiny babies!  They were only 3 weeks old here.  Look how huge that rattle looks!  I still think of them as pretty tiny, but man.  They were REALLY tiny for a while there.

I had mixed results with the rub ons.  The title worked really well.  These smaller ones not so much.  To be fair, the rub on sheet is several years old and I could have done a better job sticking that heart paper down.

Here you can see some subtle stenciling.  That heart one is totally my fav.  I mixed in some newer embellies- wood veneer, flair badge, and the doilies.

Mia has an eye appointment this afternoon.  No biggie, just a routine check up.  But y’all, they said it was going to be 2 hours long.  ::sigh::  Should be interesting!  Then Kate starts Girl Scouts tonight.  I’m not sure who’s more excited, me or her.  🙂