Starting to think about Hope Chests

Earlier this week or late last week I had posted about my knit dish clothes that I had completed while recovering from a broken toe (I still wish I had a better story on that one!) Any how, I mentioned that 3 of the dish clothes were going into Miss Pear's hope chest.

Vicki commented asking about this and basically what we were doing, and as this is a topic near and dear to my heart I wanted to comment.

It all started when I started saving special things for Miss Pear.

I saved the outfit my mom had brought down that I was brought home from the hospital in. The sleeper Miss Pear was brought home from the hospital in. My christening gown that Miss Pear wore the weekend of my 30th birthday when she was baptized. A sweater I wore that was saved that she wore. And probably a couple other special things. I realized that I needed a place to keep this, hence began a hope chest of sorts.

Then around came her birthday, and I wanted to do something special, but none of the keepsake ideas were really our style. So the hope chest idea flourished, and we decided to put one thing away for her birthday each year. The grandparents have joined us in this, and occasionally we put something in during the year as well if there is a special occasion or something like that.

Also, as Miss Pear out grew them, I put away some special blankets that were made by special people just for her.

So, as she just turned three, next week there will be three posts (God willing and baby in my tummy cooperating). There will be a post for each year of her life and what went into her box. Plus a few resources and ideas I have liked that have helped me, plus some future plans I have for her hope chest, plus our thought process as we select items. Plus, I refer to it as a box because it is currently stored in a plastic bin. (We are so fancy around here! I hope to one day replace it with a cedar chest, but am in no rush!)

As I am starting this, do you have anything you would like me to include in this miniseries? I would be more than happy to try answer questions!

My Little Nanook of the North

Growing up in Canada we were all familiar with the phrase Nanook of the North. It was most likely used in winter when we were bundled up within an inch of our lives to describe how we looked!

Well, this morning I had no choice but to call Miss Pear my little Nanook of the North.

On the hottest day of the year so far she came in wearing her pajamas, a FLEECE house coat with the hood up (the same one she refused to wear all winter), and her bear slippers.

She was so happy.

So I just smiled, called her my little Nanook of the North, gave her kisses and a snuggle, and then helped her get ready to take Daddy to work.

Eventually I did manage to talk her out of the house coat and then the slippers, but first thing in the morning it was not yet roasting!

Where is she now?

We are in the unenviable position of trying to explain to Miss Pear why she cannot call her grandmother whenever she wants. You see, grandma is not home. She is on a bus tour to Alaska.

So we are playing the "Where is Grandma" game. Also known as I lost her, can you find her?

We posted maps to cover her whole trip, and then got bus stickers, train stickers and boat stickers.

Each day we take her itinerary, and see where she is now. On the map of Canada we mark it with a little angel sticker. On the map of the province or state we use a sticker marking whichever mode of transportation she is taking (except the day she toured Denali park - we used bears that day).

So far it is helping her understand - grandma is still not home.

But it is also giving us a chance to talk about maps, things that are en route (we like to color printed coloring pages), and I think Miss Pear is having fun - and seeing as she just turned 3, what more can you ask for in an early geography project! Plus, she has always been fascinated with maps!

Any way, it really is working for us!

Waffle Batches

For my Kitchen Tip Tuesday, I have to confess a long standing short falling in the kitchen which I have FINALLY managed to overcome!

We love waffles around here, and occasionally even have them for breakfast! But usually as brunch, lunch or supper. And it always requires that I make a few and keep them warm while I finish making enough for our family - or more if it is for company! This has always resulted in the one at the bottom of the pile being a "throw away" as the condensation makes it collapse while keeping warm in the oven.

This is always horribly disappointing to me as it is so wasteful, and I make them from scratch!

But this weekend I finally had an epiphany. I took my cooking rack and placed it on my sheet pan. (I have a large cooling rack so it went right across and I could have two piles of waffles). I put it in the oven and set it to 200F. As the waffles were done I started my piles.

And when I was done, every waffle was a keeper.

Even the bottom ones!

But not being directly on the pan no condensation could develop, so the waffles were crispy top and bottom!

I am SO happy! And it was not just the strawberries and whip cream on the waffles that did it!

Making my home a haven

It is abundantly clear to me that I need to get back on some kind of schedule! If you read this post, you will have no doubt as to why!

Last week I dusted off my housekeeping notebook, and then decided to play along with Crystal's Making Your Home a Haven series.

However, our living room was in good shape as we had just had company for brunch Saturday!

So I looked at our days and realized that with being pregnant and not feeling good we were watching way too much television, and were just not doing well at getting important things done!

This morning I printed our new daily schedule and put it on the fridge, all gung ho.....

We had our breakfast and Bible reading.

We got our supper in the slow cooker.

And then got horrible low blood pressure - pregnancy related, and much better than the alternative, but I only felt good sitting or lying down.

We had to cancel our park trip with friends, which I felt horrible about. But could not help.

And I refused to turn on the TV to help me.

So I took the water table, put some of the free dish soap I have stockpiled (I have about 10 bottles, so I think I can spare some!), maybe about 1/2 an ounce. And let Miss Pear hold the hose and filled 'er up. She thought it was great, and all the water got in the table.

When the bubbles were no longer earth shatteringly fascinating, I dumped our ice cube bin in - I like to dump it every once in a while so that the ice on the bottom does not get old, and this is also a great way to keep little ones cool on a hot day, which we are having, hence the blood pressure problem. The ice made it all completely fascinating again!

While Miss Pear very happily played, I read to her. We finished off one Beverly Cleary book, and started another. It was clear to me that she was listening while she played, so I was thrilled! This was a land mark occasion because so far doing read aloud with chapter books has not gone well. The book we finished today was the second one....since before Thanksgiving. And getting read aloud going is a huge goal of mine as we see it as one of the keys to starting our homeschooling!

And when it was time to come in Miss Pear helped me make lunch (okay, she played at one counter standing on her stool while I worked at the other), and she set the table - insisting I sit right next to her - and carefully put everything on the table I gave her.

When I was putting Miss Pear down for her nap I realized that even though I had felt so horrible, our morning had gone very well! I had found a great way to handle low blood pressure, and we had figured out a great way to read aloud!

It definitely made me feel like I was in a sweet haven.

Planet of the Left Socks

Socks have been the bane of my laundry existence this past week and a half!

Last week I was folding the laundry and was missing 2 of Mr. Pear's socks and one of mine (and no, none of the ones that were missing were a matched pair). So we looked everywhere, including where Miss Pear stashes stuff, sorted through all the clothing items that eat, I mean hide socks, sorted through the clothes hamper thinking they got left behind (getting to the bottom of the hamper is not my forte right now), and rechecked the washer and dryer. No socks.

So I decided the way to handle this was to do all the laundry the next day and hope it showed up. We found my missing sock, but Mr. Pear's two socks were still missing.

This resulted in an all out search...again.

Mr. Pear looked in Miss Pear's room again, and found his two socks under her bed. Apparently she had absconded with them. But at least they were found and clean!

I figured I had found all the missing socks!

However, after I folded all the laundry, I discovered that 2 of Miss Pear's socks were missing....

After much searching I did find one of her socks stuck in her dance leotard, so I was only missing one sock, and could NOT find it!

Then that night I went to look for a bookmark in my nightstand. And guess what I found. Miss Pear's missing sock plus two more matched sets of hers.....

I think I have finally found all the socks in our house, and if a whole pair is missing, please do not tell me!

Am I the only one with a laundry assistant who makes off with the socks?

What disappears in your house?

Picture from allposters.com

Knit Knit Knitting Part 4

These are the three dish clothes I will be putting in Miss Pear's hope chest for her third birthday (along with a set of measuring cups).

Another Chinese Waves Pattern (I made one in pinks earlier this year)

This is another Snowdrop Lace

And of course, another Grandmother's Favorite

And yes, I did practice the patterns on the other ones before I made hers! I am hoping that there will be a marked improvement on what I am putting in now verses what I am putting in 15 years from now! Oh, and I did sew in all the tails, it is not a finish yourself project! :-)

Of course, now I start thinking about what to put in for next year. I try to find something that kind of defines our year or something new that she does, so I start keeping my eyes open right away, and by the time we roll around to next year I will have lots of ideas!

Happy Wednesday

Good morning all, did you know it was already Wednesday? Yup, surprised me too.

We had a wonderful weekend that included the welcome to our new church as we said our membership vows. Oh, and a lovely ladies lunch on Saturday where I was blessed to win two months of Gymboree classes for Miss Pear (translates into July and August weekly class in air conditioning!)

Once again I am determined that this be the week I get caught up. So Monday was laundry day, and Tuesday was baking day. Actually every day this week will be baking day to get caught up, but it is worth it! Today is cookies and granola bars, hopefully. Yesterday I decided to try making bagels for the first time. I used this recipe, and was very pleased! I actually made a double batch of whole wheat bagels and a double batch of cinnamon raisin bagels. They turned out great! And doing two double batches really made it worth the work! Needless to say, Miss Pear and I were more than ready for nap time!

We also found out that a dear friend of ours has enough Kefir grains that she can split off both milk and water grains for us! We are thrilled! The milk grains will be nice smoothies in the morning, and the water grains should provide a nice carbonated beverage to help with the afternoon heartburn (tums and malox just cannot handle it!) I am so excited!

So the big thing to get caught up on this week besides the baking is my ironing. With the washing of all my maternity clothes to start wearing them, I just cannot seem to get caught up, but I am determined!

The one event I am very excited about is that Mr. Pear is invited out for lunch today with a couple men from work who meet for lunch to talk and pray. It encourages us so much. We have been here for a year on Friday, and it seems like we don't have a whole lot of friends - despite doing playgroup (all the women have been friends for so long it is hard to get in) and BSF (there are two families I am trying hard to keep in touch with). But we are starting to meet people at church, so I am very hopeful that we will have some good friends there.

Well, off to baking!

It's A......

Well, thank you to all who played along in our little anniversary game! We had a wonderful anniversary, and supper was fabulous...oh, that is not what you wanted to know?

Okay, fine....moving on.

The winner is: well, nobody. Except Mr. Pear who said that we would have the mystery baby again, but he did not post an answer, so it doesn't technically count. :-)

Mrs. Amy Brigham came close when she said she was thinking blue because we decided to paint the room an ocean bluey/green color.

But as for a boy or a girl, we have the every popular mystery baby - shy and modest. (Does that mean a girl?)

The doctor has a favorite ultrasound tech who does not work on Friday's, so she wants something rechecked at our next appointment, so there is one last chance to find out, but we have agreed that if we don't find out by July 1, it will be a surprise.

And a surprise will be fun too.

Thank you for the wonderful anniversary wishes - they mean a lot! And thanks for humoring me and playing along, after all, we all know we have to humor pregnant women...... :-)

So we will try (and guess) again July 1.....

What do you think????

So today to celebrate our 9th anniversary we are going for our 24/25 week appointment, and they are planning on finishing the ultrasound they started a month ago. They were unable to finish because baby would not cooperate. So we have one more chance to find out if we are having a boy or a girl.

What do you think?

Will I be announcing:
a) a sweet baby boy
b) a darling baby girl
c) a sweet shy baby (we will let you know the details in September)

Keeping in mind that I have a strong history of babies not cooperating with ultrasounds, but last month the sweet tech did get a quick glimpse, not enough to make an announcement, but enough to heavily lean in one direction. Also keeping in mind that we found out Miss Pear was a Miss when she was delivered!

To be honest, I think I knew before we even conceived what we would be having, but I don't really have a preference, except for a healthy baby!

One way or another we will be celebrating by going out for supper to a great steak house that is actually family friendly! (In fact, they are usually so loathe to rush us that we have to actually ask them too because Miss Pear will linger forever if you let her!) What a great way to spend an anniversary!

Knit Knit Knitting Part 3

This is the set of dish clothes I made for my Mom for Christmas - nothing like being a little bit ahead of schedule!

This is the Lacy Knit Dishcloth

This is another Snowdrop Lace

And this is the Chinese Waves Pattern

Oh, and shhhh, it's a secret!

Knit Knit Knitting Part 2

This is the set of dish clothes that I gave to a friend for her birthday!

The Snowdrop Lace

The Garter Stitch Eyelet

And the Grandmother's Favorite

I cannot link directly to the patterns for some reason, just to the site of the link.

Jen - the other two sets will be coming! All but one pattern came from this same site, but I see now that they added it..... They also have crochet patterns if that is more your niche!

Happy Wednesday

Miss Pear's birthday on Saturday went wonderfully! We had so much fun with the three families that came to celebrate with us, and sure enough, Miss Pear was most happy with the fact that there were balloons, cake, and that her friends came to play - but not necessarily in that order! It was great. And I did get everything necessary done before people arrived without losing my mind again. (Except somehow the kitchen floor did not get swept...oh well.)

Saturday night we took Miss Pear out for burgers and shakes, and she had a great time.

Sunday we left home at 9, went to church, left immediately after (missing Sunday School) to drive down to a friend's house because she was hosting a brunch for other friends who moved out of state and were just here for the weekend (we literally arrived right on time). Funny thing is that there was a table of presents for Miss Pear! They totally spoiled her. These are all women who consider themselves aunts and grandmas, so you can just imagine.

We got home just in time for supper exhausted, but happy.

Monday was a VERY quiet day. We did make it to the park for play group, but even that was too much for my little over tired girl. Monday night I watched game 4 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Actually, I just watched the last 5 minutes of regulation time, and then the three over times. They were 5 minutes short of playing 2 full games that night! Although by the end the only way to describe it is to say that it felt like that old song...."This is the song that never ends....it goes on and on and on...." You could tell the players were completely exhausted, but were still playing good hockey! It will be fun to see what happens tonight!

Tuesday was another crazy day with meeting two families at the park who we met at BSF and want to keep in touch with. But to be honest, I think all three of us woke up yesterday morning, looked at each other wondering why in the world we were awake! Even Miss Pear seemed bewildered to be awake! Usually having one car is no sacrifice, but yesterday it was hard to get out the door to take Mr. Pear to work so we could have the car. One of the errands we were to run was to get cards, and I love Miss Pear to pieces, but I hate taking her to card stores as they are always filled with fascinating breakable stuff! So I dug through my stash and found enough cards that will work that I can wait, plus I found the anniversary card I bought for Mr. Pear about 2 months ago which was the key reason I was going! So we delayed our quick trip to CVS, and counted our errands complete! We were that tired. But it was a good tired from having great things to celebrate, friends who love us, and a baby on the way!

Although this reminds me that in August I should make a list of all the cards I need until the end of the year and go shopping so that is one BIG thing taken care of!

We do have dance today, and a few groceries to pick up (unless I can rework our menu until the weekend, which I would prefer), and that delayed trip to CVS so I am hoping for a nice quiet day.....

Knit Knit Knitting away the time...

Do you remember two months ago when I missed a few stairs and broke my toe? Well, did you ever wonder how I passed the time with my foot up to at least hip level (making working on my afghan, sewing and quilting out of the question)?

I spent some time knitting dish clothes:


There are three bundles of three for a total of 9 completed dish clothes - well, in the pictures they still needed the tails sewn in, but that has since been completed. One set of three is a birthday present for a friend. One set of three will be put aside for Christmas to be a present for my mom. And the final set will be put in Miss Pear's hope chest (we put something away each birthday, and started with her first birthday).

More detailed pictures to come with pattern links. If you would like to learn to knit, these little projects are great - they are not too big, and are very useful! After all, how many things are there that allow you to safely scrub glass?

May Baby Preparations

I was thinking about all the things we had accomplished in May that will help us be ready for Baby's arrival in September. We are planning on following our plan for Miss Pear which is to have everything but laundry done a month early. When Miss Pear was born not one of our friends had a routine pregnancy, with almost half going into early labor or being put on bedrest. It was kind of scary, so we got ready early! (I am a hope for the best, prepare for the worst kind of girl).

Plus I was crazy and decided to finish studying Greek for seminary, finishing about 3 weeks before Miss Pear arrived.

Add to that the discomfort of the last month, and it turned out to be a great plan! So we are going with that again! Plus it let me really enjoy the preparations and excitement and fuss with the little things at the end!

Goal: Finish everything for baby's arrival by August 19 (except laundry so that it is all fresh!)

May's Accomplishments:

• Painted Miss Pear's room while she slept in the guest room that will be converted to baby's room, now we can get rid of the futon in there. (We opted not to share rooms because Miss Pear came home talking in her sleep - I kid you not!)
  
• Ordered baby's furniture - it should be here by the end of June (we obviously already have the crib!) We ordered a chest of drawers, change table / dresser, and night stand
  
• Ordered the Ergo baby carrier as all parts were finally in stock
• Picked up 2 jumbo packs of size 1 diapers on a super sale (there is usually one good sale a month, so I am trying to slowly start picking these up when I can, leaving the smaller sizes for the last minute so I can exchange them if need be.)
  
• Miss Pear picked out a plush rattle and face cloths for baby
• Picked up color samples for baby's walls and posted them to try make a selection - I am thinking a turquoise leaning towards the blue - would that be aqua then? If it is a boy the color will be lovely, and if it is a girl I can accent in pink and it will be lovely.
  
• Picked up one newborn outfit because it was too marked down to ignore! It is sweet and green.
  
• Figured out how to get a book case in Miss Pear's closet so we can move the half storage shelf to baby's closet (Plus have more of her books in her room!)
  
• Figured out how to get more storage in our closet and where to find the shelving for a second row of shelves. (Integral to clearing out baby's closet of all my crafting stuff - clearly not safe to leave in there!)
  
• Determined color scheme of thank you notes I would like to make and have begun slowly assembling the materials at the card class I am taking for fun.
  
• Picked date of church baby shower (August)
• Determined first name for both boy and girl
• Found safety measure for nursery window (which is lower that we would like), and made a careful note of it for when we need it.
  
• Completed list of baby needs
• Found a couple options of how to pass on the furniture currently in baby's room.
• Finalized the furniture layout for baby's room

I am really happy that I made this list - it made me feel very accomplished!