Luke is RAD!

Mister Luke had his 30 month (2 1/2 year) checkup on Wednesday! Here are his stats:

Weight: 26 lbs. 14 oz. (17th percentile)
Height: 35 3/4 inches (48th percentile)

The doc likes to extrapolate how tall someone will become by doubling their height at two years old, so Luke might end up being around 5' 10 or 5'11. Mark's actually lucky to have reached 6'0. He's the tallest in his family, I'm pretty sure. Those Chinese just don't get very big!

 

 Messing around in daddy's office at the clinic (bad cell phone pics, sorry)

Luke's doing very well with all his milestones--in fact I can't think of any other kid his age who can recite the alphabet and say the phonics of all the letters, ("A makes the aaah sound..."). He also knows all his body parts, colors, shapes, animal sounds, can count to ten and can practically work a computer. Smart boy! Although when I asked him what sound a goose makes the other day, he said, "WE WILL, WE WILL ROCK YOU!!!" and made drum sounds. (???)

In his defense, that is an awesome song (it's his and Madelyn's favorite). They are both desperate to have some real drums. Heaven help me.

He's still up to his usual shenanigans--spraying the furniture and electronics with my squirt bottle...

...pouring water and/or bubble solution into his trike cubby...

...pretending to be a dog...

 

 ...playing dress up with his sister...

Madelyn and her new friend Emma were playing bride

 "Ooo, a chiffon veil...how fabulous!"

  

yoink...

"Look how pretty I am, dad."

He's going to be well rounded, that kid.

 We finally broke down and got him a new stroller--the one we had for him was handed down to us, and of course there was also Madelyn's old stroller we were still using, which I ran over with my car and then we patched back together a few years ago... We are going to California next week (and Disneyland!!) and we needed a lightweight, compact stroller that had more storage than the basic umbrella one we had. 

 We ended up with The First Years Jet stroller in black and green from Amazon.com for $39.99 (the price varies according to which color you choose). It seems to be a great stroller for the price--with tall handles, hallelujah! Most others this style cost twice as much. Luke is super excited about it.

 He was actually extremely sick that day, poor kid.

So of course Luke is rad in a literal sense (children of the 80's, unite!), but RAD is something that Dr. Dowse diagnosed him with during his checkup on Wednesday. It stands for Reactive Airway Disease. It is asthma-like syndrome that is triggered by specific things--in Luke's case viral infections. He got RSV when he was only two months old, and ever since then when he gets colds his body overreacts and he has a lot of difficulty breathing. He wheezes heavily, has retractions, and even with an inhaler, nebulizer treatments with albuterol and oral steroids he can still barely breathe. It's something that he might (hopefully, maybe...) grow out of by the time he's an adult, or it could translate into regular asthma. But the good news is that Dr. Dowse put him on a daily dose of Singulair, which should help prevent these severe symptoms in the future. I'm so grateful for modern medicine!!

 I love that little boy to the moon.

31

Okayyyy. So I have been super busy. Swamped, I tell you! Monday was my birthday, and now that I am old I prefer to celebrate my birthday all month. As in, I go to the store, see all the cute new springy clothes and such while I'm getting groceries, and say, "Hey! It's my birthday this month!" (deposit into cart) or "I feel like eating out!" or "These things have been sitting in my Amazon cart for 3 months--I'd better order them!" etc. (Does anybody else do this??)

So I made sure to get myself some cute things. Such as:

 

I won this tote bag on eBay for $10. It came from an actual Angels and Airwaves concert. Squeee! I do love me a rock n' roll tote bag. (I haul around a Beatles one nearly every day.)

I love the Berry Kiss products from Victoria's Secret, but they discontinued that scent after only about six months! Luckily lots of people hoarded it to resell online, so I found the lotion on Amazon. It smells so divine.

 

A brand new Old Navy was just built in St. George. (!!♥!!) I hadn't been yet, so I talked Mark into watching the kids for me while I drove down to check it out. I told my shopping buddies Monica (there she is walking across the street in the pic) and Maria to meet me there, because hello. It's like Mecca and we needed to make a pilgrimage. 

 Holllllllllyyyy Moses that place is HUGE! The only other Old Navy that I've been to like it is in a fancy shopping center in Las Vegas. I hardly knew where to begin. It was pretty dang awesome. I think their official grand opening is this weekend, with a lot of fun things going on. I wish I could go! Here's some of the things I found there:

By the time March rolls around, I am so sick of wearing long sleeves and pants and jackets that anything bright or summery is a must have. Striped Sundress, Cross Yoke Dress, Control Max Halter Swimsuit and Striped Canvas Tote.

 My friend Annie took me out for lunch at The Pizza Factory at Ancestor Square, also in St. George. It's such a pretty spot--Mark and I had our first date at The Pasta Factory there. We also checked out this cute little candy/ice cream shop called Springdale Candy Company (on the right). The small rock building in the center is the pioneer jail that's been there for I dunno, 150 years...most of the buildings on the square date from the 1860s.

My actual birthday was a lot more low-key...both the kids had come down with colds and Luke had thrashed around in our bed all the night before. So I got to wipe snotty noses, do laundry and clean the house for most of the day (and was tired and cranky...). Madelyn was so sweet and helped with the laundry and dishes!

 

 Mark got me these awesome flowers--I love yellow this time of year. So springy!

 For dinner, we tried out a newish Mexican restaurant here in Cedar called Mi Pueblo. It was really good and authentic. We felt like we were back in New Mexico.

 I got the tacos al pastor, Mark got the chicken mole and Madelyn got cheese enchiladas. The beans and rice and chips and salsa were yummy. And the corn tortillas!!! THE CORN TORTILLAS! Sigh!...

 

(blurry pic by Madelyn) I also made a ginorm homemade cheesecake with raspberry mousse. I think I'll post the recipe again. It is super delish. I think I'm going to have to freeze half of it for later.

  

The kids wanted their turns blowing out the candles. I think Luke did it five times. It was actually his half birthday the day before! More on that in my next post.

A big thank you to everyone who sent me cards or birthday messages. It's great to have friends like you! :)

"The Rematch"

As you may recall, after my abysmal Crafting Fail last month, I promised a rematch with the self binding blanket method.

I started afresh (quite stupidly, I might add) with some adorable owl knit I found as a remnant at Jo-Ann's.*

I then waged WAR with said knit for days. And days. Before long, I was looking for the nearest fork with which to gouge out my eyes. If you think that's a little overly dramatic, then you've probably never tried to sew with knit!

"Knit is wicked! Tricksy! False!!"

Anyway, after hours of turmoil, I finally ended up with this:

And then another one (which went only slightly better than the first):

 

The problem with knit is that it is extremely stretchy, and especially when you're trying to sew it onto a piece of non-stretchy fabric like woven cotton, even if you use forty five pins and just ease it along and try not to stretch anything, you end up with puckers and loads of extra material bunched up somehow. Some people, like Dana from MADE (whom the Crafting Gods never fail to smile upon), sew with knits all the time and say it's "fun and easy to do". HA!! Maybe in my next lifetime.

So then I made these other two with regular old flannel and broadcloth (cotton) and they turned out just fine. Better than the knit, anyway.

No weeping, no wailing, and hardly any gnashing of teeth. That fabric was about one thousand times easier to work with. Lesson learned!

Here is an instruction sheet I've had for a few years on how to make one of these blankets, with helpful notes added by my old neighbor and sewing guru Ruth Jeppson. You can print it out if you want. (I don't know why it looks faded...sorry.)

They are cute little blankets to make--once you figure them out--but they do require extra measuring, cutting, pinning, etc. If you have a piece of fabric that's slightly smaller and narrower than a full yard, it can be used for the center of the blanket. Handy for all those remnants I seem to end up with!

* All fabrics in this post were from Jo-Ann's. I feel like they should be paying me for advertising or something...

And then, since I am apparently a glutton for punishment, I serged the edge of all these flannel receiving blankets:

 

Normally, they are very easy blankets to make (and coincidentally, the only way I've been able to use knit successfully), but my serger is such a DIVA!!!!!!

She (the serger, her name is Lauren) is so finicky. Even after I paid $90 to get her fixed last year, she still isn't perfectly aligned and every once in a while as I'm sewing, the needles hit on something down below and go CHUNGGGG! and scares me half to death. I sew in constant fear of parts breaking off and flying into my eye. And it always takes me about an hour of fiddling with the four different tension dials before everything is stitching as it should. I bet you'll never guess why!

"Hey mom! I'm up from my nap! I see you've been sewing."

 

"Look how I twisted the threads around for you."

"And now just lemme change all the tension dials..."

 

"Looks about right.....okay you can finish your project now. Why is your face turning red like that??..."

 So most of the time I just make do with my regular sewing machine.

Here's some more things I made:

 

Burp cloths are always a nice diversion. I can finish a dozen in an afternoon and they never cause me any trouble. These ones were for my sister-in-law Nikki, who had her baby shower last weekend.

I made her this blanket, too, and tossed in a few of those flannel receiving blankets. I can't wait to meet my new nephew in a month!!

 These simple cotton blankets are my favorite baby gift to make (and I'm already working on more).

There's nothing quite like a custom, homemade blanket. :)