What We've Been Doing (Besides Having a Baby)

These last weeks have been both unbelievably busy and amazingly simple and sweet. Of course, the arrival of our newest and wee-est Warren, Lydia Abigail, has been the biggest thing to happen since, well, Hannah.

Before Lydia "came out of Mama's tummy," as Hannah calls it, I was definitely in nesting mode. Want to see what kind of insanity that produced? First and foremost, making over the nursery. Here's a picture of the much-discussed name banner. I felt very clever when so many of you guessed that the baby's name began with an "A." Hee hee...


In classic nesting style, I decided that the linen closet just couldn't stay in it's current shape for one more minute. So I took everything out, put them in labeled baskets, and finally felt like I could sit down and just wait for that baby to come.


Well, almost. First, we had to make some strawberry jam with all those strawberries we'd picked.

After our hospital say, we spend days and days eating all the wonderful casseroles, desserts, and other goodies that friends made for us. Thanks to all of you! I promise I'll give your dishes back...

Last week, finally, I felt like doing something. Or several somethings. Hannah and I followed this tutorial to make a Rapunzel-esque hair bow holder. Then we ate popcorn and watched Tangled.

Our garden is growing, which never ceases to amaze me! We have several tomatoes in the works, and some squash plants kindly donated by my friend Anne, who had too many. (You can read about her side of the story at FlourSackMama.)



Hannah got at new doll from Grandma, which she has been caring for very diligently. I wish I could tell you the doll's name, but she doesn't really have one. For awhile, her name was Baby Libby (which was also Lydia's name, which is also the name of a friend's new baby). Then it was Curly Bear, after the Sesame Street character. I think Jonathan has finally convinced Hannah to call her Dolly, by explaining that it's like Dollywood. So now the doll is called "Dolly like Dollywood."

In any case, Ambiguously-Named-Doll needed some clothes, so with grand plans, I sat at the sewing machine and made a skirt. Then I got tired and stopped. But in my mind, there will soon be a shirt, pants, some dresses...and part of the grand plan is to include a tutorial, since there seems to be a general absence of 15-inch doll clothes tutorials in Blogland.


It being summer, we've done some summer stuff, like running through the sprinkler in the yard. This is Hannah trying to catch water in her mouth.

We also traveled down to the splash pad at the local park.

I know that I should cut myself some slack, but now that I'm not the size of an elephant (and don't walk like a penguin, as Hannah liked to point out), I REALLY want to get back into my sewing room and do something! But like I said, I keep starting things, and then decided it's time to go to bed, or Lydia decides it's time to eat, or Hannah decides it's time to have some fun.

So here's some fabric I cut, that's just sitting on the sewing table waiting to be sewn together.

And there was a sale, so I finally broke down and bought the serger I've been dream of for months. Only problem is, it's still sitting in its box next to the door, right where it got dumped after we returned from the store.


I did sit and write a magnificent to-do list of all the millions of things I'd like to make ASAP. We'll see how that goes...

But in the end, I've been spending lots of time doing the really important stuff. I've been spending lots of time with my girls, who are the sweetest, cutest, dearest things ever to exist. Lydia is a bundle of joy in every sense of the phrase, and Hannah is the most wonderful big sister.

And this morning, we even had time for the most important hobby of all: finger painting.