'Sparrow' 36" x 48"

Another finished piece. It isn't quite as mono-chromatic as it appears in the image. It has some little zipps of strong color.

Pictures from a few of the projects

Kids' basement bathroom the walls (the part not tiled) and the ceiling still need plastered I think we are going to go with a yellow ("carlton cream" for those in the know).

The beginnings of the boy's room. The beds are up on top of the shelf in the foundation. Our shelf is about 4ft wide on one side (left) but only 3ft on the other side (right). I am installing some built-in shelving under the lip of the overhanging bed. Pretty much all the surfaces in this room are going to be trim, even the ceiling, since the beds are so close to it. It should help prevent all the scratches and other marks on the ceiling in the girls room. Charlotte already knows how the trim is much more durable, then walls. we are doing squares in on the walls and ceilings in this room like upstairs. this is what the upstairs squares look like.

other projects

Still no Baby in my arms yet. I am trying to get a few things done before he arrives. Well, I don't think I will get any of them actually done by then, but they should all be fairly far along.
Most importantly I am trying to get Oliver's room in the basement finished before our newest addition needs to move into the nursery/guest room/library. Eventually he will be in this new room in the basement, too. That's the plan anyway.

We are finally about done with the downstairs bathroom. All we have left there is plastering and installing hardware. Oh, and hopefully the electrician will actually come back at some point...
I am still a long way from having enough finished pieces for the show that is fast approaching. In fact, I don't quite have half of the pieces I need. I do think some of what I am doing have some interesting things going on with them. I do have a couple more finished, I will post them as soon as I get some pictures taken.

The image at the top is the other little project I have going right now. I am expermenting with some embroidery on a sweater from DI, that we shrunk down. The image above is a little drawing of an altered wallpaper pattern. I thought maybe a poppy would be a good image for my first attempt, since I think the texture of poppy plants and flowers would make the, likely, somewhat crazy stitching of this first time not seem quite so odd- I hope anyway. My guess is, much like anything else, well chosen colors will carry it through, even if the stitches do get a little too crazy. The sweater is a warm tan, the leaves I will be doing in several barley green, olive shades and the blossom in slightly warm, very light, pink shades. If the results aren't too embarrassing I will try to put some pictures of the results on.

My Little Guy

I am here at the hospital waiting to be sent home (tonight is not the night - we don't think). I just realized that pretty soon I will not be able to say things like "my little guy" and only be speaking of one person. I have really enjoyed his babyhood and he is still a lot of fun. I enjoyed the girls too, I worry sometimes that maybe I didn't enjoy them as babies as much as I could have... probably just that Ollie was a baby more recently so it is on my mind more. I do think I am enjoying my whole family more as I mature though. I can hardly wait to hold our newest addition in my arms...this excitement level on my part is not something I remember from previous pregnancies.

It seems like we have been anticipating this so long. I am sure it seems even longer to Charlotte. She has mentioned that it takes her a few years to forget how awful the whole pregnancy thing is for her, and this time she was willing to get right back into that condition with just a few week's lull right after some of her worst sickness just before losing the other baby. I know some of the emotional aspects of that were even harder. That whole situation hit me harder than I expected too. Maybe I am paying closer attention this time since this is "the last time we are doing this!" So I have been informed anyway.

Nice of her to say "we", but I think so far "this" has been a lot harder on some of us then others. About the hardest thing I have had to do so far- Thank so much everyone for all the help!- is take the kids to church by myself a few times. Usually, I have even had help getting them ready which would have been the hardest part, I am sure, if I was doing that myself every time. Amazingly Oliver has actually started staying on our bench all through Sacrament Meeting without having to be reminded not to go visiting. He has also been enjoying primary, though he does still mention missing nursery periodically. Usually he claims he just misses the "babies in there" and lists them. I think only one of those "babies" he is listing was ever "in there" at the same time he was. He always identifies all the other babies in interesting ways, usually by the sibling closest to his age. Though there is one little boy he identifies as the "funny looking guy". Unfortunately the first time I heard this was right after picking him up at his class in primary. Walking toward the family, Ollie yells out (that's how loud it sounded anyway) "that baby is funny looking " I tried to save it by saying something like, "He is a lot of fun, isn't he." I hope it didn't hurt their feelings.

Last week on his way to class Ollie decided to pull out another embarrassing moment for me. We were walking behind an older member of the ward and as we start to pass him he says, quite loud again," some people stink". I do find it interesting that the man knew immediately that Ollie was speaking of him...

Requested Video

Mom ask me to put this video of the ward talent show on here. I was quite surprised Oliver was wiling to do this at all. Emmaline felt like she had practiced it soo much, but when we got there, Oliver "didn't know there was going to be all these people." He decided wasn't going up there anymore and Emmaline was really mad. Then Oliver heard some people laughing at one of the performances. He asked if "they will laugh at me?" At first I didn't understand how exciting that prospect was to him. As soon as I did, I assured him that people would probably find it funny (on a few different levels I am sure.) But, I told him, I didn't know if they would laugh because they wouldn't want to hurt his feelings. He just had me commit to at least my own laughter and he was ready to go on up. It is kinda funny to see how the laughter he gets through the performance makes him more confident as they go.