• This might be one of your longest sentences: “I wish the Uncle Daniel and the Uncle Josh were here.”
• You have started saying things that we have said (only days after we first said it) like: When you were feeding Sabra her dog food, you said, “It’s good to share, Momma.”  And when you were playing with something I told you days before that you shouldn’t play with, you said, “It’s dangerous for little girls.”
• Lately, you’ve been taking 1+ hour(s) to fall asleep some nights.  You just lie in bed talking and talking and talking.  Here’s one thing you said that made us laugh, “Abby is trying to get out of the crib.”  Also, after GramB’s birthday party, you yelled in a demonic voice, “Happy Birthday GramB . . .” about 100 times.
• Can count to 10 every time perfectly (which is in the video).  We’re working on 20 now.
• You’re getting so much better with your colors.  You always know orange, yellow, red, and green.  You normally call blue “black.”
• You have conversations with yourself.  You’ll says things like, “I’m going to the living room.  Wanna come?  Oooooookay.” or “This polar bear is white.  That’s right, Sissah (what she calls Sabra).”  or “Abi wants to get the box; I can’t a reach it.  Oh, Abi help.”
• We still love to hear you pray every night.  Here’s part of your prayer from last night, “Dear God, Thank you for the two doors over there.  One, two, three . . . Yeah.  That’s right!”
• You’ve memorized several of your books, like “The Monster at the End of the Book”, “Brown Bear” “Jamberry”, and “Safari Animals.”

Here’s her video below (If you’re reading in RSS, you’ll probably have to go to the site to see the video.  If you don’t have facebook, and you want to see the video, let me know.).

Go here to take the “Is it a Boy or a Girl?” poll.

Audra suggested that I put up a poll to see if you guys think we’re having a boy or a girl.  To help you decide, I copied some “old wives tales,” and marked out the information that is incorrect:

Does Lori have . . .

• Shiny and full bodied hair or thinner and stringer boy
  
• Leg hair growing faster or at the same rate as before   girl
• Nails growing faster or at the same rate boy
  
• Severe or no morning sickness   girl
• Craving for sweet or sour.  [I didn't and haven't craved anything, so we'll throw this one out.]
• Tush growing in size or remains unchanged.  [But maybe Jonathan would tell you differently?]  boy
• Feet colder now or always this way boy
  
• Baby heart rate below 139 or above 140  girl
• Craving or no craving for orange juice  boy
• Baby rests high or low   boy
• Tummy shaped like beach ball or watermelon  girl
• More kicks to the left or right  boy
• More kicks high or low  girl
• Dad is or is not gaining weight in sympathy  girl
• See or do not see the pregnancy on Lori’s face.  [But maybe I'm wrong.]  boy
  Vote below:
  
  
  

PAMPERS Gifts to Grow Codes

Worth 10 Points: FEBTHANKYOUFANS (Expires 2/5/10)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HUGGIES Enjoy the Ride Codes: (here are some codes I’ve posted in the past)

Worth 5 Points Each:

• BFGSKHHXKPFTPGB
• BFNMBKDSPXRCPGB
• BFGMRKBCNNHHPGB

Worth 2 Points Each:

• JQQPMHXRMPGGPGB

Worth 1 Point Each:

• BGTZHNRBBGMCPGB
• BGWJMFJLJNRCPGB
• BGXGPFJLWBQHPGB
• BHCFDQMZWBMHPGB

***BHHDRPWFBLXDPGB is a Bonus code worth 15 pts (expires 2/28/10) that you will receive only if you enter another code from a Huggies product that you purchased.  So, when you enter the code, it will probably say it’s worth 0 points, until you enter another code from your diapers or wipes package before the expiration date!

Well we had another sonogram a couple of days ago.  Here are some things we learned:

• Baby is no longer breech.
• My placenta is no longer low-lying.
• Baby is measuring 13 days ahead of schedule.  [At the last ultrasound, Baby was 4 days ahead.]
• They estimated Baby to weigh 3.5 lbs already.
• Baby’s heartbeat was 147.
• I have another sonogram scheduled in late March.

Here are some of the pictures we got:

Foot & Leg

Arm

Ear & Nose

Face

And here’s what I look like:

Here’s the tutorial for how to make a crinkle square mini blanket with taggies like the one below for a baby.  It’s super easy, quick, and doesn’t cost much.  If you don’t have ribbon on hand, that might be your biggest expense. 

Supplies

• thread
• 2 squares of flannel (I used 9×9 inches)
• ribbons cut to about 4 inches long and folded in half (I used 4 big pieces, 4 medium pieces, and 4 skinny pieces)
• crinkly sheet/package, the same size as your flannel (I used a wrapper from a sample diaper I got in the mail).  Some other options: wipes package, microwave popcorn wrappers, chips bag, clear gift wrap . . . Just make sure that you cut your flannel pieces to whatever size your crinkle sheet ends up being
  

Directions

1. Put one piece of flannel right side up and pin ribbons along the edges with the cut sides off of the flannel.  between the two pieces of material (wrong sides together).
2. Put the second flannel sheet on top of the ribbons right side down.
3. Put the crinkle sheet on top of the flannel and pin all layers together.
4. Sew along all the edges– except, make sure to leave a big enough section not sewn so that you can turn the blanket right side out.  Take the pins out.
5. After sewing, turn the blanket right side out.
6. Then, sew all the way around the square, and you’re done!

   

So I don’t want to make this long and drawn out, and I really don’t even want to write about it tonight because I wanna get in bed (but can’t cause I’m waiting on Jonathan to call to tell me he got to Seattle safely) . . . but I don’t want to write it tomorrow because I wanna be done with the bad feelings.  Here are only some of the rough things that happened:

• Didn’t hear my alarm or didn’t set it this morning, so I was running late for my sonogram appt.  Went to get Abi at 9:10, and she was still asleep, so I had to wake her up, and she was fussy.
• Had to call around to get a tow truck to take our car to a mechanic.  Spent $50.  Mechanic called and said, “Nothing’s wrong with your car; it started right up.”  WHAT!  $50 wasted and our car’s not fixed!  I start crying cause our car has been breaking down off and on for the last 6 months.  Jonathan goes into rescue mode (God bless him) and calls another mechanic and tries to troubleshoot over the phone.
• Minutes later, we have to get Abi awake from her nap to take Jonathan to the airport.  This is the 4th night I’ll be apart from him in almost 6 years of marriage and Abigail’s 1st night .  He’ll be gone until late Wednesday night.
• It took me about 40 minutes to get to my Dad’s office after I took Jonathan to the airport, due to our city’s construction.  It should’ve only taken 10.  Then, we had to drive to pick up our “working” car from the mechanic, drop it off at Dad’s house, go back to Dad’s work to get his truck, go to my house to pack up Abigail’s stuff, take her back to my parents’ house, drive back to my house to be there by 7:00 when I had plans with Tiffany.  I spent 3 hours in the car.  Came home to a house w/ hardly any food (we were supposed to go grocery shopping on Saturday, but we were busy all weekend working on the car and trying to find Jonathan some khakis for his business trip).  Didn’t have time to grab something.  Ate canned soup.  All this on top of feeling crappy in pregnancy is zero fun.

Anyway, that’s a short recap of the rough day.  Tomorrow, hopefully, I’ll have time to do a positive post about Baby and maybe get in a tutorial for Tipster Tuesday.  We’ll see.

I had big plans today to squeeze in a post about the sonogram we had this morning.  But instead, I’ve spent the last 15 minutes or so crying about our stupid car situation.  Ugh.  And Jonathan’s leaving town today for overnight business, which makes me extra bummed.  Anyway, I’ve gotta get him to the airport soon and have several other things needing to be done today, so I might not be able to do a post about our day until tomorrow.

Back in November, we decided to grow my daughters hair out, but her hair kept getting in her eyes.  Bows come in and out easily, so I decided I’d try to make her some headbands.  You could make some for yourself, too, and your daughter might be extra excited about wearing headbands, just like Mommy.

Materials Needed:

• material
• an elastic hair band/ponytail holder without the metal
• coordinating thread

Instructions

1. Measure around your toddler’s head to the nape of her neck.
2. Cut your material to the appropriate size and iron flat.  [Cut a rectangle that is double the width of what you want your headband to end up, plus about 1/2 in for seam allowance and 3 inches less than measurement you got from step 1.  I think I cut mine 3.5 x 15.5inches.  If you want it to be reversible with two different patterns, cut accordingly.]
3. Measure in on the bottom ends in about 1/2 “  on each side and mark, draw a line up to the top corners and you will have a tapered rectangle.
4. Fold right sides together “hot dog style” and iron flat.
5. Then pin together and sew around, but leave a “U shape” opening in the bottom, as if you were sewing a pillow.
6. Turn tube of fabric inside out and iron flat.  Also, fold a 1/4 inch or so on each end and iron down.
7. Put elastic pony tail on one end inside the flap created in step 6.  Fold the 1/4 over the pony tail, and sew straight down.
8. Do the same with the other side.
9. And you’re all done.

I made the headband in the pictures and a pink one.  I also made a reversible one: one side black and one side red.  Abi loves them.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Just a little note to say that I have done a few crafty projects that I thought I’d share with you . . . sometime.  I just need to write up some tutorials.  So, you can look forward to learning how to make:

• Baby Square Crinkle Mini Blanket

• Fabric Headbands

• Baby Legwarmers (I’m still working on these, so I haven’t uploaded the pictures, yet.