Sewing High

It all started with this free t-shirt I have never worn and will never wear. I try not to be a pack rat, but I sure am glad I hung on to this! So I was looking at other people's sewing/crafting blogs and stumbled upon an adorable little white skirt. I was just thinking the other day how Lily needed a white skirt for the summer! So perfect right! And then I read how it was completely made out of a t-shirt and thought "I have a t-shirt!" I love how I can make something without going to the craft store to buy supplies. To make a long story short... I got to work right away and about an hour and a half later I did it and I LOVE it! I'm already planning a red one for the Fourth of July!

Here is my finished product. The original tutorial has great pictures and super easy directions. I highly recommend this sewing project. Seriously! The waistband is a sleeve and the drawstring casing is the hem of the sleeve! How creative is that? Too bad I can't come up with those amazing ideas, I just copy them.
I think she likes it. :)
And now I have a super awesome 80's workout shirt! (Please excuse my laziness for not turning the picture around)

I always feel guilty when I start a new project and don't finish an old one. Since Lily will be ready to eat solids later this month I thought it was time to finish the applique on these bibs. I was pretty happy with how they turned out. Now she will be all ready to eat her vegetables.

Blessing Day Weekend

Finally, at almost five months old Lily received her baby blessing. Grandma Stephenson got this great shot of her a few days before her big day. Our first official family of five pic. Considering the rush before church, I was pretty happy with it.

The Morgan clan minus Uncle Greg and Aunt Linus. We missed you guys!
Grandma Stephenson with Lily and the beautiful blessing dress she made. Thank you again, it was perfect!
On Saturday both my little brother and sister graduated. Chelsea, in the middle, Jeff's new fiance graduated too. We are so excited to have you in our family! It was great being there for them. I just couldn't be more proud of my little sis! I like to think she followed in my footsteps, but really we had some great FCS teachers in high school.
The kids had a blast swimming with Grandpa and Grandma at the pool in their hotel.
Lily's first swim. That baby needs some sunshine!
Thanks for a great weekend. It was worth the wait.

Happy Baby

We have been getting lots of smiley baby pictures lately. She just laughed for the first time the other day and of course it was the best sound in the world. We have truly been blessed with a very happy baby. She is so easy going and mellow and just as sweet as can be.
What's cutter than a baby in a bucket? I wish I had this thing with my other two babies. We are borrowing it from cousin Warren. It's so great because most of her gets covered with water so she's not so cold during her baths like the other fold up thing we had. Also, she can bounce up and down or just sit.
Mom and Lily on a Sunday morning.

I had to include this picture of the kiddos playing Harry Potter. It's the best when they play nicely together.

STAR WARS IS LIFE

Ben turned six! I can't believe how old he's getting. I know...I'm going to be really blown away when he turns 16.We had a family party this year at the local pizza/arcade party place.
Uncle Jeff and Aunt Melissa came.
Uncle Barry, Aunt Sam and Warren were also there.
And our good old friends from college, Tom and Melissa and their two boys came up for the weekend.
We kept it simple this year and just went with Chewbacca cupcakes. I got busy that morning, so Seth took over and frosted them. I think he did a better job than I would have. Ben sure loved them.
Here are a couple of videos of Ben opening his Birthday card from Grandpa and Grandma. (It has to do with his STAR WARS obsession)

Club Foot Fixed!

Lily's little foot is looking good! We are happy to be done with the casting process. Now it is on to the next phase. She wears these cute little boots all the time for three months. (I was bummed they didn't come in pink:) Then it should just be at bed time and nap time until she is about three years old. They don't seam to bother her one bit and they don't bother me too much either. I just love a sweet sleeping baby.
She just had her two month check-up. Like all my babies she has jumped to the 90th percentile. 12 lbs and 11 oz. and 22 3/4 inches. She has also been smiling lots and making cute noises. It's so sad how they get so big so fast, but doing new things sure does make it more bearable.

My Monthly Post

December was a good month, even though it went WAY too fast. I got to spend the month at home making lots of Christmas goodies and a few last minute gifts. The kids enjoyed making these reindeer cupcakes from the Family Fun magazine. I also got to spend lots of time doing my most favorite thing... napping. And napping with this little bundle, life couldn't be any better.

After Christmas Grandma Morgan came up to spend a couple of weeks with us. It's been so wonderful having her here and getting to spend lots of time with the kids.
Lily is on her last cast! She didn't need quite as many as they had originally thought. She had her little surgery the Monday after Christmas and then the last cast has been on for three weeks. They went ahead and put a cast on the other foot because it was turned in a tiny bit and instead of waiting for it to get fixed with the boots they just wanted to correct it with just one cast when her clubbed foot had its last cast. So since we are almost done with the casts, we thought we would let the kids draw on them.
Here is their finished masterpiece.
We are excited to get back down next week to get them off and then move on with the next stage of this process. It will be so nice to give her a real bath again.

Lily's First Trip to the Shriners

We have completed the first out of six to eight trips to the Shriners for Lily's Serial Casting. We were really impressed with the doctors and the hospital. What an amazing organization! I got most of my questions answered and just felt really good about the whole process. It will be neat to see how her foot changes.

Here is Lily with Grandma and Grandpa Heaps. It was wonderful to see them again. We so appreciate their love and hospitality. Here is Lily's cute little club foot. Sometimes she would hook it onto her other foot. It was pretty cute.

Here is her foot after the first cast! It was amazing to see how much it was able to stretch. She wailed (like the doctors said she would) for just a couple of minutes. They said the first stretch is the worst. But after they were done she did just fine and has ever since. The cast seamed a little bothersome at first (to me), but now it's no big deal. She will never know what happened.

So basically, the plan is to get a new cast on every week for 6 to 8 weeks. Then she will have a tiny surgical procedure where they will cut the achilles' tendon to allow it to grow longer and gives the ankle more flexibility. And then she will have some special boots with a bar in between. I think it looks like a mini snowboard. She will wear that 23/7 for a couple of months. No big deal, where is a 3-4 month to go anyway? Then she will just wear it for sleep time until 3 or 4 years old. Apparently a club foot always wants to be a club foot. So this will keep training the foot to stay in the correct position.
I just had to tack on a picture of the other kiddos loving her. I haven't seen one bit of jealously or anger since she came, just fighting over who gets to hold her.
I'm pretty sure the little culprit was Maggie. She can't wait to feed her applesauce. Too bad she will have to wait 6 months. I think that's a long time for a three year old. So when I came to check on Lily I saw this (that's a baby doll bottle, not a real one) I guess it could have been much worse. We are still working on the rule about not going into the baby's room when she is sleeping.