We’ve been working on trying to get Christmas gifts done around here. Several of them will need to be mailed, so I’m trying to get them done right away so there’s plenty of time to mail them.

Here’s one that took a while. This one isn’t actually a Christmas gift, but it will be mailed with the Christmas gifts, and it’s a project I’ve been working on, so I figured I’d post pics of them anyway. It’s a set of four place mats. I really enjoyed making them – especially the piecing. I think that’s my favorite part about quilting. I really like how they turned out – I told Stephen it’s too bad that I’m not keeping them for myself, lol! The wouldn’t match my plates, though. . .

I didn’t actually quilt the mats – I just topstitched them so that they would wear better after a washing.

They were an adventure to make since I had never made any before and didn’t use a pattern. The lack of a pattern wasn’t a problem, but when I finished them up and topstiched them, my machine really didn’t like stitching through all those layers. It made me glad that I hadn’t planned on quilting them too.

Another Christmas gift I finished yesterday was a fleece hat for a new nephew that’s due to arrive in the next week or so. They live where it’s cold, so I made a hat for when they take him out.

I made S a hat like this last winter, and just loved it. This one is has an extra layer since the fleece was thin, but I think it turned out nicer too without having any seam edges showing. My favorite part about it is the little fringe on top. You can’t see it as well in the picture here, because I moved it out of the way so you could see the cute little frog on the hat. I love this fleece, but this hat took pretty much the rest of the little bit that I had left (I made S diaper covers out of this fleece, so there were actually several projects that got made out of it).

It was a little bit of a challenge too, to figure out sizing without having the baby right here to measure. It turned out a little smaller than I planned though, so I really hope it fits!

Tonight Stephen and I were eating turkey sandwiches when S decided he wanted a sandwich.

He pronounces sandwich “fwand-gitch.” (say that one out loud!)

Stephen decided to try and teach him how to say it correctly.

It came out “sand-ge-gitch”

We laughed SO hard! He really is trying, but some words come out so funny.

Another of my favorites is the way he says music: “tsu-git” I have no idea where he got it, though!

I’m in trouble. The three-year-old has just discovered that Mommy’s feet are ticklish and is having a BALL with it.

I am so in for it!

Sometimes I’d like to know where S comes up with the things he says.

Stephen was leaving to go somewhere, and S wanted to go with him. I told him he had to stay home with me.

“But Jesus said I could go with Daddy!”

Oh my goodness. . .I had the hardest time keeping a straight face!

I just realized this morning that I never blogged about Stephen’s new job. He started today!

We’ve been praying for months that he would get a better job. Not that his previous job was horrible – but quite honestly, it didn’t pay enough. We weren’t being greedy – and I’m not going to go into detail here on the internet – but it wasn’t sufficient. It didn’t help that the plant was cutting down hours so that people were only working three and four days a week. So we prayed that God would provide a new job for him.

A few weeks ago, a friend of ours approached Stephen to see if he was interested in working in the computer industry. Someone he knew was looking to hire someone, and it seemed like Stephen fit what they were looking for.

To make that long story much shorter, Stephen was hired on and started his new job today. The company is a Christian computer consulting firm. It’s a field Stephen has been wanting to get into for a while, but has not found an opening to until now.

His commute will be a bit longer now, but his days start later, so no more hearing the alarm clock at 4:15 each morning! It was so weird to have Stephen leave so “late” this morning, even though it was a much more normal time to leave for work. Of course, that means he’ll get home a bit later too, but that’s okay. I’m thankful he has a new job!

Last night, I got home from teaching lessons and Stephen asked me if I had noticed that S was running a low-grade fever. I told him I hadn’t noticed. He felt so warm that I took his temperature and found that it was already 101.6. Hmm.

This morning he was burning up again, and had a few other symptoms, so I called the doctor and made an appointment.

I then called Stephen at work to ask him to come home right away so we could take S to the doctor. He rushed home and we left the house as soon as he pulled the van into the driveway.

The good news is that he doesn’t have strep throat. I get it so easily that I was worried that’s what he had. Unfortunately, what he has is viral (not really a surprise, though) but is highly contagious.

Good thing we didn’t have any plans made for the next several days – I’m supposed to keep him home until Saturday.

We have a fireplace, and in the winter we use it in the evenings to help heat the house. We built a fire last night, even though it wasn’t super cold.

This morning, I was in the shower, when suddenly I smelled smoke. That scared me – my bathroom is the farthest room away from the fireplace. The other thing that scared me is S’s room is on the other side of the house, with the fireplace in the living room, between his room and our bedroom.

Most mornings I try to get up early enough so that I can get through the shower and have time to sit down and have my quiet time before S wakes up. Today, I was pretty happy about how I was doing time-wise.

I don’t think I’ve ever showered so quickly though! I got out of there, tried to throw some clothes on, and practically ran to the living room. I was afraid that S had gotten up early and was playing with the ashes or something and had started a fire, or that a fire had somehow started and he was in bed asleep, but near the fire.

There was nothing in the living room, and S was still in bed sleeping. What a relief! I did see that there were still red coals in the fireplace. . .which is pretty rare after the fire has been out all night. The only thing I could figure out was that the flue was still open and the maybe the wind had blown down the chimney and had pushed some of the smoky smell out into the house.

I am very thankful that it turned out to be nothing, but it was quite the way to jump-start my morning!

This morning, S decided that he would rather throw his cereal all over the floor instead of eating it. As a result, he learned how to vacuum the floor.

I had him get the vacuum out and showed him how to vacuum the area under the table. It was almost funny to watch since the vacuum is almost as big as he is, but it is really heavy so I ended up helping him a bit.

Afterward, he told me he enjoyed it. Here I was, thinking I had stumbled upon a brilliant solution to his willful mess-making. I’m starting to think maybe it didn’t work as well as I thought it would.

Either way, S can start doing the vacuuming now, right?

We spent the evening over at Stephen’s parents’ house. Tonight’s dinner was pizza (it usually is on Friday nights – they work at a local Christian school and often bring home pizza from the school’s pizza lunch).

We got in the van to go home, and S shouted out, “PawPaw, thanks for the free pizza!”

I don’t know how he knew it was free, or where he got that particular saying, but it sure made us laugh! What a silly boy!

I passed my glucose tolerance test! I am so thankful. With my insulin as high as it was last fall, I wasn’t sure how much it had come down after I lost all the weight. That made me really nervous about the GTT – I was really worried about having gestational diabetes.

My doctor called me back on Wednesday (the test was Monday) to tell me that my levels were right in the normal limits. No gestational diabetes diet for me! Yay!