Some stitching to share!

Yeah I finally have some stitching worth sharing. It doesn’t look like much, but it really is. You can’t see all the snow that I stitched at the bottom. The tree at the right is from Nicole’s portion of Bine’s RR. Bine set hers up as a neighborhood row, which I really like. I am stitching the house from Forest Snowfall by Country Cottage Needleworks. The two brown sticks are trees and the spot in the middle top is the beginning of the roof.

I think once I finish the roof, I will move on to do a bit of Baby Garden this weekend. I am looking forward to it.

And a few greetings from Nathaniel. He is really developing so fast. He holds his head up really well. The women at day care tell me that he is a happy baby and the main teacher said she was surprised at how much and how loud he is giggling for his age. This was also a surprise to Allen and I as we hadn’t really seen anything in the way of a giggle yet. Tonight though we did hear it…it is way cute!!

Here is his handsome smile.

And a shoulder ride from daddy! He is not so sure about this yet:)

We made it

Nathaniel and I made it through our first day at day care. He went off happy as a clam and I was a bit teary as I expected. Since Allen had woken up late, he decided to join us on the drop off and was surprised at how hard it was to leave Nathaniel behind. I called a couple of times and each time they said he was fine (not that they were going to tell me he was screaming his head off:)) When I picked him up at noon he was sleeping hard and of course grumped at me for taking him out of the comfy swing. The biggest blessing of the first day at daycare was that it seemed to tire him out enough that we didn’t have the night-night fussing that we have had the last few days. Nathaniel has decided that he loves people, especially mommy and daddy. When we have put him down for bed, he just cries until we go in to reassure him. Then of course he gives us the biggest smile. What a stinker! Fortunately he is still sleeping through the night well! Yeah.

As for stitching, I have been stitching a bunch. I am working on Bine’s RR, but haven’t produced anything worth taking a picture of. The house I am doing has a winter theme and the white snow on cream fabric does not show up well when photographed. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have some of the house done and I can share!

Grand Finale!

I did it, I finally did it. I finished German Garden today. Nathaniel took some good naps and went to bed with no fussing, so I got some lovely stitching time in. Here is my finished Garden.

I am so thankful it is finally finished. I thought it would never be done. This weekend I will spend a little time working on Bine’s RR and then on to M9 which is next on my rotation. I need to come up with a reasonable completion type goal for that as I think I am going to be demotivated by a time goal. I have not been at all keen on that piece either. There are other things that are really calling me.

On to some sad news…my maternity leave officially ends next week. Nathaniel will be twelve weeks old next Wednesday and I am back to work on March 3. He is going to be starting day care for half days Monday through Wednesday of next week and Thursday and Friday he will be doing full days. I am very sad:( I really wish I could stay home with him! Over the weekend I will be planning a list of things to do to occupy myself while he is gone. At least once I am at work I will be busy enough to keep from thinking about him every second, but next week will be hard. The up side is I can get a few chores done that are near impossible while he is at home. I also plan on using either Thursday or Friday exclusively for movies and stitching. Yippee!

German Garden progress

So close, yet still so far away. That is how I am feeling about German Garden right now. It looks like there is not much left, but every time I sit down to work on it I realize there is still a ton to do. Today I worked on the outer border and on the laid trellis path up the middle. I really hope to finish this one by the end of the month as I really want to move on to other things, but am determined to finish this piece!

Pictures of Nathaniel

Wow, I haven’t been around in a while. I have been stitching, but have been busier taking pictures of Nathaniel than of my stitching. I am getting closer to a finish on German Garden so I will take a picture to share this afternoon. I am going to stick to that piece until it is finished before moving on to Bine’s RR piece.

In the mean time, here are some cute pics of Nathaniel.

Here he is on daddy’s lap trying to eat the giraffe on his play mat.

Here is the back of his head which is definitely balding from him laying on his back. Otherwise his hair is staying where it is.

And here he is playing “guitar” with daddy. He is learning some Beatles tunes.

In other baby news, he is really becoming a little man now. He smiles pretty regularly when you make faces at him and likes to play with his stuffies on his play mat. The best thing is that for the last two weeks he has been sleeping through the night. By sleeping through the night, I don’t just mean five or six hours, I mean we put him to sleep with only minimal fuss at 8pm and he sleeps until at least 6. There have even been a few mornings when I have had to go in at 8 am and wake him up. Now that I have written that, I am going to go knock on every piece of wood I can find in my home:) I do think that the fact that he has found his thumb is playing a big part in his ability to soothe himself back to sleep at night without crying.

Insert title here!

Finally a few minutes to sit down and blog while Nathaniel is napping. I guess I will start with an update on my little sweetie! We went for his two month doctor’s appointment yesterday. He is growing well and now weighs 14 pounds 2 ounces and is 23 and a half inches long. It is hard to believe how big he is. This was the appointment was also the one where he got his first round of vaccines. He was such a big boy and only cried for a minute after the shots. It was a bit sad though as he was definitely off color(I have never heard him cry so much) for about ten hours after the vaccines, but he seems better now. Developmentally, Nathaniel’s neck is pretty darn strong and he likes to be propped sitting up or carried around by dad so he can see things. He also has a killer grip as my poor hair has discovered. Here are some cute pics.

Now you see me.

Now you don’t.

Big man!

In the world of stitching, I have surprisingly been having fun stitching on Butterfly Rest. Usually that would be a strange statement, but lately I have been working on the big blue triangle of doom.

It is a pretty boring section to stitch on. I guess that due to my limited stitching time with the baby, any I can get in is exciting!! I am pleased that I have gotten it done and now I think I may make Butterfly Rest my next focus piece when I finish German Garden. Now I am back to German Garden for a while. I really hope to finish it soon and move on to starting the next round of my Neighborhood RR. I have picked a piece for Bine’s RR, I just need to pull out the threads.

Alright, off to pull together dinner and make a list for a costco run in the morning:)

Goals

Apparently I forgot to set goals for January, so I will make a very early reflection on the goals I set for the entire year. I have already made progress on a few of them.

1. Finish Mystery 9
2. Finish Bordeaux Mystery
3. Finish Baby Sampler
4. Finish 17th Century German Garden
5. Finish Butterfly Rest
6. Finish half of Olde World Map
7. Continue Neighborhood RR
8. Stitch 2 LHN coffee or tea pieces-Stitched one
9. Start Alchemical Romance-Complete

And now for February Goals:
1. Stitch on Butterfly Rest
2. Finish German Garden
3. Start a LHN tea or coffee piece
4. Start Bine’s neighborhood RR
5. Stitch on Alchemical Romance

It has been a long time…

since I last posted. But of course I have been really busy. Nathaniel and the process of reorganizing our home have been taking up much of my time lately. I am still stitching, but every time I have thought of posting, I seem to run out of time. Things are going really well with Nathaniel. He is now eight weeks old and as of ten days ago weighs 13 pounds. We will see how much he weighs at his two month appointment on Tuesday. He is beginning to seem more like a little person now. He smiles more often and “plays” on his activity mat. He even gave us four blissful nights when he slept ten hours straight. The last few nights he has reverted to waking up to eat around 2 or three, but seems okay with a smaller bottle than at the rest of his feedings. Hopefully the fact that he had a few longer nights means that we are on our way to some more consistent long nights. Here he is a few days ago in the camo my dad gave him for Christmas. I am not sure who he is trying to hide from:)

On the stitching front, I made my way through rotations on Baby Garden by Just Nan and LTDs German Garden. I also moved on to page two of Alchemical Romance.
Here is most of bands 5-10 on Baby Garden

And the bottom right corner of German Garden

And my start on the top right corner of Alchemical Romance.

Now I am off to work on Butterfly Rest for a few days.