It's A Boy!

Announcing the birth of Jonah Paul

7 lbs., 9 oz.

Why I Believe in Canning . . . and Cooking. . . even when 9 months pregnant

From this blog.

We have been considering the fact that God in His kindness feeds His
people. And as He does so, He does this as a pattern for us to emulate and
follow. The Lord offers us His broken body, and this is a figure that we
imitate.

It is not the case that food just appears miraculously at supermarkets.
All food is the fruit of sacrifice, and this is a truth that we should not run
from or seek to evade. Our bodies cannot be broken in just the same way the
Lord's was--obviously--but we are to imitate Him in all that we do. This is
repeatedly urged upon us in the Scriptures.

But we are not just to imitate the Lord generically. Let us imitate how
He feeds us in how we feed one another. A husband and father submits to grueling
or backbreaking work in order to feed his children. A woman with child submits
to the considerable demands placed upon her body so that another might be fed. A
nursing mother does the same. Intensive labor in the kitchen, or at the outdoor
grill, is a "giving up" that another might eat.

So much that is wrong with our culture is the result of trying to evade
this. We want to outsource the sacrifice. The Lord is not like that. Come.

Last of the Projects

I guess this must be "post bad pictures of myself online" month, cause I seem to be doing a lot of that lately. Now with my cold I have swollen eyes besides . . heh heh.

In a valiant attempt to see the top of our kitchen table once again, I sewed my nursing cover this afternoon (I had to get D-rings at Walmart this morning first.) It actually turned out really, really cute. You can buy these from Bebe Au Lait's web page (some French name, I guess) and they are between $35 and $50. But somebody figured out a pattern so I was able to copy that and make my own, with D rings and boning. The idea is that this covers you while you're nursing, but at the same time allows you to still see your baby (without anybody else seeing him, of course). And because of the way the rings are attached, if Baby pulls on the cover, it should not come off. I like it.

Off to put the sewing machine away!!!

Bathroom Curtains

After my great success in the baby's room, I decided to buckle down and make some curtains for our upstairs bathroom. We had an old lacy looking thing up just to keep the neighbors from seeing in and Paul was for some reason especially wanting a cute one in there. A lady from my parents' church had given us a bunch of fabric last week and in there I happened to find two large pieces that were just the colors of our monkey stuff. We both thought they would make great checkered curtains. I'm thinking because of all the seams, they probably should have been lined. I'm not sure. I think that would have made them too dark. I tried trimming some of the seams with a pinking shears and that really helped, so maybe when my hands are in better shape, I'll do the rest of the seams like that. But for now, these are fully functional and much cuter than white lace.

I'm a maniac. I'm 37 1/2 weeks pregnant with a terrible cold and I think I should be sitting on the couch. I also made homemade granola bars this morning. I don't know how to explain it, really. . . normally I have no problem lying down when I need to, but I just keep having these bursts of energy fueled by "a BABY is coming!" and for some reason my subconscious must not want Stretch to be born into a house with lacy bathroom curtains or without granola bars. Ah well. I think I will head down for a nap now.

Burp Cloths

It's not like I really needed another project, but I suddenly realized I only had a couple of old diapers to use for burp cloths and our kid is probably going to spit up more often than I'm going to want to wash 3 diapers. So between last night and this morning I whipped up quite a pile of these, using inspiration from the ones Mom made as well as several places online. I did some flannel on flannel with batting inside, most flannel on terry cloth, and a couple cotton on terry cloth. We'll see which ones end up being the most absorbent and maybe I'll make more in the future. This was a great use for old towels!Flannel on flannel. . . I guess we've got an owl theme going.
Terry cloth backs
Not bad on the cuteness scale, I don't think, considering I had to stay mostly gender-neutral! Allright - NOW it is definitely time for lunch.

Curtains!

I'm so motivated by how easy they were and how much they turned

out looking like curtains that I'm tempted to make some for the bathroom today. And don't they match my dragon and quilt nicely? I think I better bring a copy of this picture over to my neighbor. . . how did she know what a perfect blessing 6 yards of yellow checked goodness would be to my child?

Burp cloth photos should hopefully be ready before lunch. :-)

Of Food and Freezing

We were blessed with a big load of produce this week from Paul's boss, whose husband runs a farm. First they brought us what they say is 3/4 of a bushel of beans, but I think it might be more than that - two BIG boxes. We snapped and blanched all of those and froze them (about 35 meal's worth, I think). Then the next day they brought us a pile of apples, breathtakingly good peaches, zucchini, and yellow squash. I made zucchini muffins and then shredded and froze the rest for later baking. The yellow squash I sliced and blanched and froze in meal-size bags for sauteeing. Finally, I made an apple pie for Paul (Grandma Valine's recipe) and the peaches I am going to just continue eating. I'll puree them for smoothies if I don't get them all eaten before they go bad.

I love summer! I'm so glad I'm still well enough to work on this stuff!

Our Cars, Old and New

Paul was unfortunately in a hit-and-run accident with an uninsured driver this week. Here are a couple of pictures of our car. . . but you can't really see how bad it was. In actuality, it is completely totalled.

So, goodbye Ford Contour and hello to our new 2008 Saturn Vue.
One of the features Paul is especially happy about is the fact that the cupholders actually hold cups and the arm rest is actually under his arm.
We are very happy people.

Announcing!

I'm an aunt again! Here's our cute baby boy, Samuel Todd. I think he is absolutely perfect.

In other news, we bought a car today (pictures to come tomorrow) and, believe it or not, I actually stayed awake long enough to see the torch lit!!! Good for me. I also blanched and froze another 15 bags of beans or so.