New Year’s Eve 2012 highlights…

This has been a crazy, wonderful year for our family—and full of unexpected blessings.  Here’s some of the great highlights…

• Justin has his first friend birthday party and the Angry Birds’ theme and life-sized catapult turned out to be a big hit!! (read full story here)
• I started this lovely Sew Sweet Cottage blogging adventure in the end of February of this year and have had more than 113,000 pageviews---unbelievable!!  The best part about blogging is the fabulous friends I’ve made and connections with other Autism moms—what a great support network!!  As part of that networking, I was invited to be on a radio show for Autism and Scouting’s blogtalk radio and share my story about introducing Justin into Cub Scouts.  An amazing experience for me personally, and extremely humbling.  Autism and Scouting is doing a great job educating and promoting success with children with Autism in scouting.  You can listen to the taped broadcast here. 

• I opened my Etsy shop and started my life long dream of selling quilt patterns!!  You can click here to see my Etsy shop, and here to see my PB Inspired quilt for Little Miss.  And FatQuarterShop.com started carrying my Eliza Jane Quilt Pattern. You can see it here.

• My Monogram Balloon Wreath had over 20,000 pageviews and became my top post of the year.  Check it out here.  I also had some readers request I make the wreath for them, and so it is now included at my Etsy shop!!

• Knockoffdecor.com featured my PB inspired bookcase which you can see here.

• My husband got a new job that required some extensive training abroad and I became a single mom for 11 weeks of this year—and survived!! Justin started attending school again and is doing great, Little Miss was baptized, my Little Guy started talking finally, and my Baby Girl turned one!!  And to top it all off, we moved into a new home—what a great year!!  Can’t wait to share more patterns next year, and success stories about Justin---and hopefully some decorating of our new home!! 

Change, change, and more change…and nose surgery!

So things in our household got a little bit interesting, okay a whole lot interesting about half way through this year.  I think almost everything that could change DID change in the past four months.  My husband got a new job, our congregation at church changed (it is based on geographic location), and we are trying to sell our house—you know the one, that house that I put my heart and soul in decorating and that is all over my blog.  Sigh….I love that house.  It took us months to decide and we went back and forth a million times, but when it came down to it, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms just wasn’t working for our family of 6.

So we put it on the market and signed on to a new house.  And the stresses have just kept piling on (hence the LACK OF posting on my sweet blog).  I know that changes bring growth, but it also brings growing pains!!

On a fun note, remember when my hubby broke my nose??  I finally got it fixed, yet another fun event to add to the craziness around here.  Is it wrong that my husband and I only get alone time when one of us is having surgery??  We need to get our dating life back in order!!  Real dates would be much less expensive!!

But they probably wouldn’t be as memorable;)  At least we are still laughing.

Besides all that “regular” stuff, my husband has been traveling 50% off each month since August…….THAT has been a challenge.  I’ve learned that I have wonderful family and friends who will always be there to help me through, but I’ve also been reminded that my husband is truly my best friend, and I missed him terribly!!  My life stinks when he is gone!!

And the best new change is….drumroll….our house sold in 5 weeks (must have been all that great home décor that got them *wink wink*) and we bought a new house with a SEWING ROOM for me!!!  And plenty of room for the kids and Justin’s therapies in the summer.  And although I’ve been completely overwhelmed with stress and anxiety, I am looking forward to decorating this new house next year!!  For right now, I’m just going to enjoy the holidays with my family.  I will post some great updates about Justin over the break—he has been doing so well and is now going to school (more details to come later). 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

Never a dull moment…

My husband and I have been planning a trip home to see our families for almost 2 years now, but it still seemed to sneak up on me as far as planning.  Can you ever really be totally prepared for taking 4 kids on the road for over 2000 miles of driving??

About a thousand miles into our journey, we stopped at my brother and sister-in-laws to visit and let the kids play with their cousins.  It was so fun and also gave the kids a nice play-break.

We got back on the road and kept driving.  And this is how exciting most of our trip looked…

Miles, and miles, and miles, and even more miles….of NOTHING!!

And if you think I was bored, you can only imagine how bored the kids were.  Justin was doing well, but every once in a while he would undo his seat belt and move to the empty seat next to him.  Then and hour or two later he would undo it again and move back.  Little Miss would yell, “Mom! Dad!  Justin’s out of his seat belt again!”  And we would turn around and tell him to put it back on.  And usually he would.

My husband does most of the driving on our road trips and lets me sleep—what a nice guy!!  But I did take a few turns at the wheel.  It was during one of these turns where I was driving that Little Miss started yelling about Justin not wearing his seat belt.  My husband turned around to tell him to put it back on—and he wouldn’t.  My husband looked a little closer and realized it had somehow gotten wrapped around his neck!  Justin was really getting upset at this point and rocking back and forth in his seat a bit and the seat belt started to tighten.  My husband undid his seat belt and jumped to the back to try and untangle the belt from Justin’s neck.  The only thing I knew was that Justin wouldn’t put his seat belt back on, and I could hear him screaming.  Next thing I heard was my husband’s voice which got very serious all of a sudden as he told me to pull over immediately.  There was actually traffic on the freeway at that point and almost no shoulder to pull over and I told him I couldn’t and asked him what was going on.  He said he’d explain it all after I pulled over!!  We hadn’t seen an exit sign for probably 20-30 minutes at that point and then I wondered if I should just pull over on the side of the freeway.  I just had a feeling that I shouldn’t pull over on the freeway.  Then I saw a sign that said the next exit was 1 mile away.  I yelled to my husband that it was just one mile away and drove as reasonably fast I could to get off the freeway.  Justin was sobbing at this point and my sweet husband was visibly distraught.  I pulled off the exit ramp and immediately turned into a large gas station.  Right as I was pulling in, I saw a fire department truck pull in the other entrance of the gas station out of the corner of my eye.  My husband told me to stop the car and open the tailgate and try to help him.  I knew I had a pair of scissors in my suitcase, but I didn’t know if they would actually cut the seat belt but my mind was starting to think of all those “worst case scenarios.”  I opened the back of the car and tried to help unwind the seat belt and quickly realized as I saw the red marks on Justin’s neck that this was a more grave situation than I thought.  I told my husband I had seen the fire department truck and his only word was, “RUN!”  I ran to the other side of the gas station and I don’t remember exactly how I described the situation to the three firemen, but I remember somehow quickly spouting out the details and then just turning around and running back to the car with them following me.  As soon as they got there my husband yelled at them to just “cut the seat belt!”  And one of the firemen whipped out a big knife and cut it.  I looked at my Little Miss who was sitting just inches from the whole scary scene and she had tears streaming down her face then I saw the tears in my husband’s eyes as we all sighed a big relief—and we just looked at each other like, “what just happened??”  It was all so fast, and so surreal.  And Justin kept screaming for the next 10 minutes.  The paramedics came to check him out but he didn’t want to be touched or restrained—especially after being restrained by the seat belt for the past 10 minutes!!  These firemen and paramedics were so kind to Justin, and to me and my husband.  They asked us, as Justin continued scream while they were trying to figure out if he was in pain somewhere, “So…is this pretty typical behavior for Justin??”  My husband and I looked at each other and smiled, and I had to say, “Unfortunately, yes, this is pretty normal for us;)”

I signed some papers while my husband took Justin to get a drink to see if it would help calm him down.  And then I turned around to say thank you to the firemen who had helped us, and they were gone already!  I looked at the paramedic and said, “Oh no, I wanted to tell them thank you and they’re gone!”  He waved his hand and with a big smile said, “Oh, they know!”  And then the tears started coming.  I had held it together up until that point, but the gravity of the situation was beginning to settle in.  I jumped in the car and turned around to look at my sweet Little Miss and just said, “It’s okay to cry, mommy is going to cry now too—that was so scary!”  As I sat there bawling, I realized how blessed we were to have the fire department there at the exact moment we needed them.  I felt this enormous amount of peace and I told my daughter through my tears how blessed we were that day and that our Father in Heaven had listened to the prayers of safety our family had continually been offering during this trip.  Even though it was scary, we were blessed by others to continue to be safe.  We had to go buy a toddler booster seat for Justin at the Wal-Mart (which just happened to be next door to the gas station—in the middle of nowhere!!) and we got Justin secured and started driving again.  I have to say that I cried off and on for the next 10 hours of our drive.   Every time I looked at the red marks on Justin’s neck I would start to cry.  But most of those tears were from feeling so blessed to have made it through the ordeal.  It reaffirmed to me how much God loves each of his children individually—that he would align our path with those that could help us made me feel so loved!

And as traumatic as all of that was….we made it “home” to see both of our families.  I just kept this peaceful picture in my head and knew we just had to keep driving…

Yep, this is the view I have right now on my vacation!!  Amazing!!  And for now, I’m not even going to think of the other 2000 miles we have to drive to get back home…

My husband takes a sewing needle for the team…literally!!!

My sweet husband and I met 20 years ago last month—yes, we were five.  Okay, we weren’t five, but 20 just makes me sound like I’ve logged a few more years than I care to admit—so let’s just leave it at that!!

I had a three criteria when dating someone (above the underlying *must love the  Lord and respect me* criteria), and I would mentally check off these items in my head when I was dating and wondering if I could consider someone to marry…

1. How would this guy react while we are sitting on the bench at church with a few kids in tow and they start misbehaving??
2. How much fun would he be to talk to on long road trips, would we laugh the whole time??
3. Would he hold my hand and dote on me when I am sick, or in labor??

I really did fall in love with my husband the first time I met him(wish I could say the same for him-HA!)—I have all the lovesick teenager journal entries to prove it!!  He cares for me when I am sick, he makes me laugh all the time and is so easy going, and if you know us AT ALL—you would laugh at my #1, because he wrestles Justin at church every week!!  He is a great dad (and husband!)—

Happy Father’s Day!!!

One of the things I love about him is that he supports me in having a break whenever I need it.  He knows me well enough to know my limits.  One of my limits is cleaning up kid throw up—try as I might, I just can’t do it without throwing up myself!!  He always takes care of the kids, or me for that matter, when we are throwing up!!

At the end of last year we had a nasty bug going around and Justin got it and was throwing up everywhere!!  It was SO sad.  Little Miss had rehearsals for the Nutcracker and in an effort to protect her from getting sick—we banished her to her room with her sewing kit and told her to create whatever she wanted to and keep herself busy.

Justin was sick all night, and my hubby stayed up and took care of him as he always does and the next day he stopped by home during lunch and tried to help me sterilize the house and clean up all the mess.  In the rush to grab the laundry from Little Miss’ room, he felt a stabbing pain in his foot, between his big toe and second toe.  He yelled for me to come help him, and when I got in the room with Little Miss, we found him sitting on her bed holding his foot and biting his lip.  He held up his foot and said, “I think I may have stepped on a needle, can you see it??”  I looked and didn’t see anything and so we all got down on our hands and knees to search the carpet.  We couldn’t find it.  We went back and forth thinking it was just lost in the carpet and he must have stepped on it—until he took his fingers and gave a squeeze on his foot.  He looked at me with sheer panic on his face and said, “It is in my foot!!”  Yep, I’ve said it before, but you just can’t make this kind of stuff up!!

After he drove himself—yes, DROVE HIMSELF—to the doctor’s office, they did an x-ray and this is what they saw…

 

OUCH!!  Doesn’t that make your foot hurt just looking at it?? He ended up having to be put out and have surgery!!  I couldn’t go with him because of the barfing kids and nursing baby—so one of his good friends took him to surgery.  To make things worse, it had “traveled” by the time they got in there through the bottom of his foot so they had to cut him open on the top of his foot to get it out!  CRAZY!!  He ended up being on crutches and everything—it was insane. 

That’s true love, I tell ya!! The man took a sewing needle for the team!!  I love him so much--not just because of the needle thing;)

We have new rules about sewing needles and where they need to be kept at all times now…

A snake, and a broken nose…

One of my favorite phrases is, “You can’t make this stuff up!”  And we’ve used that phrase a lot in our house when everything falls apart at the same time as it so often does!

My husband met me at Little Miss’ school this week so we could attend an art show open house.  Right before I pulled in my tire pressure light went on—and I didn’t think much of it.  But by the time I got out of the car at her school—we were down to the rim, yep!!  Flat tire!  My husband changed the tire, and over an hour later we finally got back home.

As I pulled into my driveway and walked up to my keypad on my garage, what was waiting for me??  A snake—yes folks, a snake.  And not an ordinary snake, but a sweet little COPPERHEAD!!  Isn’t that a heartwarming thing to come home to??  I froze while watching Justin, oblivious to the snake, walk towards it.  I told the kids to get back in the car and waited for my husband to pull in, who was coming right behind me.  He went up to it to take a closer look (note to readers: don’t actually approach the snake unless you have a good weapon in hand…) and it slithered away under my front bushes!!  Gross.  And after 30 minutes of looking for it, now with the shovel as a weapon in hand (we’re quick learners!), we couldn’t find that thing anywhere.  Little Miss says, “I hope it didn't find a crack in our house to slide into.”  Um, I am at the high end of hysteria at this point.

I wouldn’t let my husband go inside, and kept telling him we should dig up the flower bed completely and rid ourselves of this demon snake—but alas, my rational husband won this debate and went out and bought some “snake-be-gone” product and came home and spread it along the perimeter of the house.

I COULD NOT go to sleep that night thinking about that gross little snake getting the best of us and slithering away into the abyss of my flower beds!!  I would be lying if I said I didn’t sleep with the light on that night.

But it just reminded me of a great story of one of those series of unfortunate events of when my husband broke my nose last year—and as odd as it sounds, it was because of a snake!!

Last year we had a rash of illness that had hit everyone but me, all within two weeks time frame.  My husband had been so sick, that they had to put him on a steroid so he could clear up his lungs.  The kids were all pitifully sick, and I was 9 weeks pregnant and trying to avoid all the sickness from everyone else.  I was feeling so exhausted one night, and had just learned that Little Miss had strep throat.  I look at my husband before I fell asleep and said, “We’re going to make it through, right??  Everyone will be on antibiotics now, and it’s going to get better now, right?”  He reassured me it would, just like he always does and I fell asleep.

I woke up at 2:30am to what felt like a 2 x 4 hitting me in the face.  I am not over dramatizing this one.  I screamed out and as I did, I heard my husband say, “Oh no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”  I originally thought Justin had jumped in our bed and kicked me or something, but when the husband started apologizing, I though, “What in the world just happened.”  I was grabbing my face and bawling and then I felt all the blood running down my face and screamed for my husband to get me an ice pack and towel.”  I bawled for about an hour, and I can’t tell you how bad it hurt—and again, I was pregnant and limited on any kind of good pain relief. 

As I’m sobbing on the edge of the bed, my husband keeps saying how sorry he is and that he was having a bad dream.  I knew that was the case—but didn’t care at the moment!!  Then he says, “I think it’s the steroids I’m taking, I’ve had these crazy dreams the last few nights.”  Steroids?  You mean the punch to my face was a steroid-packed-punch??  Not making the situation better…

He kept begging me to let him tell me what the dream was about.  And I kept telling him I didn’t care what it was about because he broke my nose!!  It was awful.  He felt so bad he said he was going to sleep on the floor so he wouldn’t hit me again.  And as I tried to fall asleep an hour later, sitting up with ice packed on my face, I hear my husband’s plea from the darkness, “Can I please tell you about the dream?”  I finally give in, and he tells me he was hiking in the mountains with Justin, and that a giant snake came out of nowhere to get Justin.  He said he looked around in his dream and found a giant rock and knew he had to hit that snake as hard as he could on its head to kill it…

I had at that point stopped crying, but when he explained what he was dreaming about, I knew he really had hit me that hard and my nose was probably broken.  I asked him through my tears, “Why would telling me you were protecting Justin make me feel better??  It just makes me realize how hard you were swinging for me!”  Poor guy, he felt sooooo bad…

Went to the doctor the next day and they couldn’t do surgery because I was pregnant, and I did recover from the blow to my face quite well—and will someday get my slanty nose fixed…but who had time for that with all the fun things I could be making!!

Here’s a pic of me and my husband a couple days after he broke my nose and we were joking about how I needed to get him back…with the sock monkey mittens!!

But seriously, it’s all good and makes for some great story telling and laughs now…I love this guy…

See, it’s like I said,”You really can’t make this stuff up!!”