Tree Peeps

Knit Overalls

2012-01-20T12:21:00.005-08:00

Elliott's new duds.

I finished these knit overalls today (bind off straps, sew on buttons) but I did the actual knitting a year and a half ago on the plane to St. John Virgin island. Good memories :)

I followed this free pattern using old/'vintage' worsted weight wool and size 7 needles; buttons from my stash.

I need to improve my short row shaping, you can see little puckers (above).

This pattern fits babies very well; here is the crotch gusset to accommodate their diapered derrieres.

More snow

2012-01-19T14:49:00.003-08:00

We got more snow in the night!

I drove by our new house to see how it looks in the snow...pretty cute.

SNOW DAYS!

2012-01-18T17:58:00.010-08:00

Today was a real snow day! We got about 4 or 5 inches of snow in the night and the entire town shut down (not many snow plows in the area and the city is limited on the amount of salt they can apply to the roads because of the fresh water lakes).

So, we walked around in the snow:

And then drove our "new" 4 Runner up the hill to Adam's work to eat pizza :)

Elliott's snow angel:

Elliott's wearing the ridiculous, green snow suit I made him at the beginning of December. He looks like an old video game monster, or something. This is actually V2 of the snowsuit design...and there are some obvious improvements still to be made (torso too short). V3 coming soon. I still consider V2 a success because E's body was toasty warm after 6 hours of back country snow shoeing - we were trying to keep up with Adam!

The one thing I didn't consider in the snow suit design is Elliott's cheeks...they got frostbite! Next time I'll wrap a scarf around his face or coat his cheeks in Vaseline, or both? We stayed at Mt Baker Lodge with friends for a weekend of snowboarding, snow shoeing, and other winter revelry. The lodge is so cool; they have bunk beds and a big communal kitchen where everyone helps prep and clean up food (we also stayed there last year and here are those photos). I started a post about our weekend there this year, but didn't have photos to share because I couldn't charge my camera. Fortunately, my dad gave me a new camera for Christmas (and an extra battery) so that wouldn't happen again.

It also snowed two days ago on Sunday and here are some photos:

So pretty! I love snow.

the beginning of the storm...

the middle of the storm (we still haven't seen the end):

A real Christmas wreath!

Video of Elliott spitting out the snow:

Elliott update

2012-01-17T17:49:00.008-08:00

Elliott is growing up before my eyes...I know every parent says that, but I'll join the chorus because it's true.

Elliott.....rolls all over the room looking for things to play with, squeals, plays with his voice and practices sounds, reaches for me when he wants to be held, and has started to copy things I do - mainly when I make buzzing/bubble noises with my mouth. When I do something he really likes, he smiles and gets excited and then I can almost see his little brain trying to get his mouth to follow suit, and lately he as been successful in copying.

Naked as a jaybird:

Getting tickled by Adam:

Hop on Pop:

Side show entertainment at a coffee shop while house hunting (we needed a tea break):

Blowing bubbles:

Nearly mobile:

tricks with dad:

Dad's home!

Cracking himself up:

Video of the new squeal:

New House!!!!

2012-01-11T18:26:00.010-08:00

Hallelujah! We found a new house to rent!

We move at the end of January and are very excited for a new place. We've lived in a tiny (but nice) Mother-In-Law apartment within a house for 3 years. We'll still be in Redmond, but in a darling 1922 house right in downtown Redmond near all the restaurants, shops, yoga, and most importantly, Value Village (it's like The Goodwill). It's the only house from it's era left in the vicinity and we just adore it. It's on .27 acres and we have plans of clearing some of the bramble to make room for ducks. Adam and I had ducks in Utah and fell in love with their happy attitudes. (Read about our first and favorite duck, Martin, here. Other duck adventures - including duck diapers - here, here, and here).

Here's a quick virtual tour:

The porch:

The front room:

The GAME ROOM with wood burning fireplace!

we'll have books, games, D&D stuff, couches, blankets...all you need for a Seattle winter:

The large kitchen with big cupboards. That door leads to an enclosed mud room/storage area:

Looking in from the mud room:

Washer and dryer in the kitchen...a little weird, but it's an old house.

Downstairs bathroom (missing a tub):

This is the downstairs room. I think it will be the sewing and clothes room with our dressers, a big cutting table, and desk for sewing machine.

It's the only room with any kind of closet to speak of:

Then, going upstairs via the stairs in the game room, here is Elliott's new room:

the view from his room to ours:

our room:

and this is one of the best parts about this house - the reading room (between the two bedrooms upstairs). I'm definitely going to make bookshelves on each side of the window:

The upstairs bathroom (unfortunately, the sink has hot and cold are separate):

Cute bathroom window (minus the blinds):

This medicine cabinet:

will soon be changed to this!

Under the stairs, there is a little cubby that would be cute with a tiny desk, chair and lamp for Elliott:

Now we just have to move our things and get to work!

January 3rd

2012-01-03T17:22:00.008-08:00

We had a little IT situation at work and had to call in the lumber jack.

Today feels like a milestone of some kind. I only realized it this morning (I wasn't counting down the days, or anything) but today is the day that we first told people I was pregnant. We went to our first midwife appointment and then bought a Costco pizza and called our families to tell them the news. (It's also coming up on the anniversary of that crappy pedestrian ticket...).

I was 12 weeks along - kind of far along to tell family for the first time - but I'm thankful our families were and have been so supportive. Today also marks the day Bri's personal life changed in some ways, which got me thinking about her and put me in a reminiscent/longing mood. Even though there are still 4 months to April, right now I feel like that time will fly by and I will be facing her 1 year commemoration before I know it. So strange. I'm the type of person who remembers dates and events and notes the 1 month, 6 month, 1 year, etc milestones. I get this from my dad, who is the master reminiscer. For over a year, he would text me and Adam every month on our wedding anniversary day (the 8th) and mention something different that he remembered from that day. Before that, he used to call me every August to give a detailed account of what landmarks we had hiked through on our epic father-daughter JMT (John Muir Trail) backpack trip of 2003. Suffice it to say, between now and May, there will be a million things to commemorate about Bri.

The interesting thing is that it won't be only about Bri, but Elliott, too. It's a happy and sad connection they will have since Elliott was born 3 months after Briana died. Whatever age Elliott is, it will have been that long since Briana died. I'm going to think of it as a gift to have that reminder.

I miss her so much and sometimes still can't believe she is gone. I have mixed feelings about the amount of time that has passed since I last saw her.

On a related topic, I felt like a mom today. A happy mom - a quiet, diligent, fulfilled mom for various reasons. I went to work with Elliott and made some progress on Cortinarius research. When I am there, I hold Elliott the entire time, or briefly set him on the table. It is physically taxing (obviously) but also enjoyable. Today, I remarked at how patient he was to be there for 6 hours. He gets bored with the lab surroundings because his favorite thing is to see new things. He loves new things! Elliott is also a pretty happy boy, most people who meet him comment on his abounding joy. He thrills himself by smiling, giggling and squealing.

Another reason I felt like a happy mom is that I am slowly shifting they way I get Elliott to sleep and he is adapting well. Previously, I would breastfeed him to sleep and then sneak away, but it appeared he thought it was wrong to sleep without me in his mouth and would jolt awake and root around for me even though he was exhausted. Now, he sleeps in his little bed and appears to love it. I get him sleepy with milk, low lights, and a song and then put him in his basket. He looks around, notices it's his bed and then goes back to sleep. I love the freedom this gives me to sleep better and I'm happy he also likes it.

Another reason I felt like a mom is that I made myself an appointment at the Center for Women's health for a pelvic floor exam - time to take care of my body.

I am also eating better. We bought a Champion juicer on craigslist and have been flooding our bodies with veggie vitamins! I feel great. Except for the mysterious itchiness on my chest (sugar hives?) I've had for 2 weeks.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-15T21:09:00.002-08:00

portrait lens

2011-12-04T14:24:00.005-08:00

I've been complaining about not having my little Elph camera, but look at these great photos I took with Adam's camera!

It was easy! Adam has a nice Nikon and a good portrait lens. I'll be 'borrowing' it again soon :)

The photos are much better quality, but the camera is not as portable.

Stevens Pass, WA

2011-12-03T20:23:00.006-08:00

We woke up early for snow sports at Stevens Pass, which is about an hour and a half from Seattle.

There wasn't a TON of snow, or anything, but there was enough. We had new walkie-talkies (fun!) so Adam could snow boarding and I could snow shoe around with Elliott in the front pouch. Unfortunately, but I ended up staying up until 2:30 am trying to finish making E a snow suit that I started earlier that evening. Not surprisingly, I didn't finish - but I did manage to make him a cute fleece bomber hat.

**Due to lack of sleep and warm baby clothes, Elliott and I spent most of the day snoozing and breastfeeding in a sleeping bag on a bench in the lodge like two ski bums! If I had had my camera, you would be looking at dozens of photos because we were so silly camping in the lodge and Elliott was so adorable. I did tell Adam to snap a few of Elliott on his camera before we left in the morning and when we came home, which you see here.

Chromatic Birds

2011-11-28T21:18:00.004-08:00

As mentioned earlier, I been making wool felt birds and wanted to show off one of the final results: I sewed them in order onto ric rac for something to hang in your kitchen window.

Pretty and simple, but also time consuming....

A close-up:

This is only one of the final results... the other, which I hope to begin soon is for our bed :)

birds

2011-11-25T13:13:00.004-08:00

I started with a few birds from an ornament kit we made in Relief Society...

and got a little carried away:

Bonus pic of Adam and Elliott, the mushroom bandit:

Thanksgiving 2010!!!!!

2011-11-24T00:55:00.002-08:00

Since I never got around to posting photos from last Thanksgiving (I can't believe a year has raced by!), we aren't doing much this Thanksgiving, and there are a lot of lovely ones with Briana...may I now present: Thanksgiving 2010!

It started with a few days of Sisterfest at Briana and Candice's house in Salt Lake City.

First off, we walked around Sugarhouse and ate at Omar's Raw Foods

Then we picked up Bri's car at the shop and followed her home:

The next day we also ate at Omar's Raw Foods :)
All 3 of us had bought Living Social Coupons!

Sara came up from Provo to visit

Adam got a sister-in-law backrub

while Bri and I made mac and cheese with Ian's friend Ivy (check out that beautiful black clay baking dish!! Briana always ad the coolest kitchen supplies - actually, the coolest everything.)

It snowed the whole night and we had a 1 am snow fight.

This captures what I love about Bri: up at 1 am baking a complicated treat with organic powdered sugar while wearing a silly hat.

I miss these beautiful Wasatch Front mountains

Here's Adam in front of his Freshman year dorm: Budge Hall

Some YouTube videos and a little sibling preening at Ian's dorm room...

Adam and I ate at the Red Iguana with Zina, Davey, and Pack!!

Whew, that was all pre-Thanksgiving...for real Thanksgiving, we spent the night with family friends, the Hollaways, in Huntsville, north of Salt Lake.

We made delicious food, hiked to a natural outdoor hot spring, ate pie, and then sat in the hot tub! There are even some legendary photos of us (including my mom!) running in the snow in our swimsuits. They're on facebook :)

Then, we played Apples to Apples, massaged each other's backs and had a yoga competition. Nothing like some good ole' family fun!

Here's Adam with the snow blower on the day after Thanksgiving.

A little snow slack-lining

Back at Bri's house, we made gnocci with our cousin Bridgette.

And Briana asked me to help her start knitting some socks (which I recently finished and gave to Thomas)

Serious work!

The holiday lights at Temple Square!

Additionally, I found a street named Tess!!!!!

And saw good friends Vanessa

and Analiesa

*Not many pictures of my parents, but they were there!

**This was also the Thanksgiving when I was secretly pregnant! My family didn't suspect anything, or at least they didn't say so, but Corrie knew! I felt okay, but was tired at night and would get instantly motion sick the moment I sat in a car. I also had a panic attack in Ian's Ford 'Exploder' as we attempted to drive down the steep, snowy, freaky hill of the Avenues to get free bread for Thanksgiving. Absolute terror. We never did make it down the hill.

Oh, I love this Thanksgiving! It was the best. So many memories :)

I guess this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for last Thanksgiving. The one where we were all together being crazy at Briana's house.

Yoga meditations

2011-11-23T00:23:00.004-08:00

I went to Bikram yoga (hot yoga) tonight and it was wonderful. I am so energized...and it's 12:15 am!

It was my 5th class since I had Elliott (I just started going again about 2 weeks ago) and for some reason, the 5th class is always a turning point. It's been fine since I've been back, but today, it actually felt...delicious.

It was meditative and relaxing to work through all the poses, sweat, and be 'alone.' I know you're not supposed to think of things going on outside the class, but I did. I thought of tons of great things to draw in my sketch book - but alas, I probably will never remember them andrecord them.

I also thought of Elliott (ha!) and how he is in such a cute stage right now. He's 4 months old this week and just adorable. His arms are so soft and squishy; I love squeezing his forearm in my hand. He has grown a lot, filled out, thickened up. He has shoulders now - as opposed to the wrinkly slope connecting neck to arm he was born with. His jaw is more defined and you can fit your fingers under his chin. He loves his "crispy dog" (a stuffed dog with crinkly material inside) and can hold on to it and somewhat bring the crispy ears to his mouth.

When I'm in the kitchen, I put him in the bouncy chair and hand him colorful plastic spoons to keep him occupied. Sometimes I let him lick apple slices or pieces of banana. He LOVES them. He's going to be a big eater (like his parents!). But for now, he still loves his milk. He's a regular milk monster! He is very protective of his milk while he's eating. When I hold him and he wants milk, he now know it comes from my chest and he tries to dive there. So funny!

I remember something I heard in a yoga class a few years ago: the teacher said something about respecting others' yoga time by being quiet because this could be the only hour they have to themselvees. I feel like I have come to understand that concept! I know I only have one baby and will probably think my life was so easy when I think of this in the future, but it is wonderful to get time away from Elliott. When you have a baby, your mind is constantly in two places. I think that's what people are referring to when they say "baby brain" or "nursing brain" - it's that you are thinking about yourself and another person, so you are never fully paying attention to others. Or, if what they say doesn't have to do with what you are taking care of at the moment...you put it out of your mind.

Anyway, it's nice to be back exercising.

Here's a cute photo of Elliott helping me sew:

and a recent video:

California Visit

2011-11-22T09:12:00.009-08:00

Here are some more photos from our trip to California before and after the trip to Mill Valley:

Elliott loved being with my dad, and my dad loved being with Elliott. He would sneak in and hold Elliott while he was sleeping and loved singing the old lullabies from when we were kids.

Elliott took baths, went jogging

sat at the table:

met some lady friends:

received gifts:

And Elliott even met the fabulous JMO!

Mill Valley, CA

2011-11-21T23:27:00.011-08:00

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I fell in love with Mill Valley. It is a beautiful town just North of the Golden Gate Bridge and the rolling coastal hills of Golden Gate State Park - which is full of trails leading to cliff-top views and black rock beaches.

It was interesting to be at Fernwood in the Fall. Since it's a natural burial site, the grounds change with the seasons. In the spring, the grass was taller, but this visit in the fall, we realized there were many more graves near Briana than we had noticed before. There were even about 4 new graves near Bri since April - those plots are going fast! We need to get ours reserved :)

In the photo below, all the large rocks scattered around are grave markers.

I cry thinking about how beautiful Briana's spot is. She's on a hill facing West so she gets beautiful afternoon sunlight. All around are rolling hills. It's near San Francisco, but much more serene/quiet/peaceful.

From her grave, you can see the road, Tennessee Valley Road, that leads to a trail head for horses, walkers, hikers, and bikers to enjoy the beautiful coastline.

At the beach, the rock formations showed many colors and textures.

Elliott's new trick: bubble goatee.

Road Trip!!!

We stayed at a hotel about 0.25 miles from Fernwood! Here is a photo toward her hill. You can see the tall Eucalyptus trees (left of center, background) that shelter her.

I loved being so close to her spot and I kept thinking about how fun it will be to visit Mill Valley year after year. Even though it feels familiar and perfect for Bri now, it's fun to think how familiar and Bri-like it will feel in 20 years! I felt like I was visiting more than my sister's grave, I was visiting her.

A bike trail from the Golden Gate Bridge passed just outside our hotel and our hotel provided complementary bike rentals...so:

We all rode through Sausalito

past the darling houses (a somewhat Laguna Beach feel, but different...)

and beautiful morning view of San Francisco:

to the Golden Gate Bridge!

Back at the hotel, we lounged and relaxed in the sun

Uncle Thom helped Elliott swim

The downtown shopping area of Mill Valley has a beautiful kitchen store and home decoration store...

We even saw Ian's Pumpkin Patch!

P.S. Did you know there is an Arcade Fire song called "Cold Wind" that was on the show 'Six Feet Under' in 2007? I've heard there was an episode of the show featuring a natural burial at Fernwood. I don't know if this song was on that episode (I've never seen the show and don't even know what it's about, beside death, in some way), but it feels like it was. There's a line that says "If you're going to San Francisco, lay some flowers on the gravestone."

Here it is.

San Francisco and Ferry Building

2011-11-16T10:05:00.009-08:00

A few weeks ago (over the October 23rd weekend), we visited Briana's grave to commemorate the 6 months since she died. It was a wonderful weekend with my parents and Thomas. The main outcome of the trip was that I fell in love with Mill Valley, the town where Bri is buried. It's a beautiful town, just minutes North of the Golden Gate Bridge. Photos forthcoming; for now here are some photos of us in San Francisco, mainly at the Ferry Building.

My parents, Thom, Elliott and I all flew from Long Beach, CA to San Francisco early in the morning. We rented a car and drove directly to the fabulous Ferry Building all before 9 am!

First stop: fresh donuts

Second stop: seed bombs for bombin' Bri's spot.

Above is the list of species in the seed bombs

Then we checked out Heath Ceramics, Bri's favorite. She had everything picked out to register there if she ever got married. Of course my photos are silly, but their items were beautiful - I could totally see her house filled with them.

This is the best kitchen storage/display idea. I definitely want something like this in my house - it's fit everything!

I saw these cool leather 'apple' containers somewhere in the Ferry Building.

I loved this giant poster of 'Winter Greens.' These are my favorite vegetables! Buts, alas, they do not sit well with Elliott. Or I should say, breast milk made from these delicious greens make Elliott stink like a doggie with bad toots. Hahahahah! Sad face :(

After eating ourselves silly with fancy chocolates, french pastries from Miette, and who knows what else...we waited in line at the "Rolli Roti" for delicious rotisserie pork sandwiches. These were outstanding! We all recommend eating there. Just look at all that delicious arugula!

After lunch, we strolled through China Town.

And then we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to see Briana....

Sewing Lesson

2011-11-15T12:00:00.003-08:00

Sewing at last!

I tried to put Elliott to bed so I could sew, but he wouldn't sleep.

I ended up playing Christmas music and holding him on my lap as I sewed. He liked it, so I am counting it as his first sewing lesson. Plus, we made such basic things, it really could have been a first sewing lesson: two linen dish towels and a drawstring bag (to help organize bathroom supplies).

batik skirt

2011-11-12T23:34:00.008-08:00

When my friend Annalisa was in town recently, she brought a nice surprise: the batik skirt I started last year in the Virgin Islands!

We ran out of time to finish dyeing and dewaxing before I left, so Annalisa kindly finished that for me (that's the hardest part of batik).

It's always a fun surprise to see the final result of a dye project-especially a batik project-and I love how this turned out!

Some photos of the batik process:

(sew skirt, sketch design in pencil onto fabric, then fill in with wax)

Emerging from the first dyebath:

Adding more wax to increase detail before dyeing again in a darker color

For Summer, this is great with sandals and t-shirts.

For Winter, I'm going to wear this with burgundy or navy tights and colorful sweaters!

See the Batik Tree Skirt with winter branches

See a Batik "lesson"

Elliott's Baby Blessing

2011-11-04T12:07:00.007-07:00

I'm two months behind, I guess, because Elliott's baby blessing was on September 4th.

Nonetheless, it was a glorious, sunny Sunday after a fun week with both Adam's parents and mine in town.

The New Parents:

After the blessing at church, we had a delicious family breakfast and lunch.

Yogurt parfaits and almond Danishes for breakfast.

(need to find the photo)

Salads, fresh tomatoes, salmon for lunch.

Here's the little angel, sleeping away while we partied in his honor:

Elliott's Welcoming Party

2011-11-03T13:56:00.005-07:00

Welcome to the Earth, Elliott!

We bonfired, restauranted, climbed rock, and generally had a grand 'ole time for a week with both Adam's parents and mine in town for the first week of September.

Uncle Thom!:

Elliott, your parents, grandparents, cousins, and uncle loved every minute of your week-long celebration. We can't get enough of you and your darling "vulture face."

I am late posting these photos, so not much description....

rrraaarrr!

2011-11-03T13:43:00.002-07:00

This morning, Elliott was so adorable showing off his new growl:

yoga and chores

2011-11-02T13:54:00.006-07:00

Elliott held this pose for about 5 minutes...He's practicing baby yoga :)

And here he is helping me with the laundry:

I covered him with hot, freshly dried clothes and it kept him happy for a while!

AND....Here are some videos of Elliott laughing:

Blackwelder Reunion 2009

2011-11-01T12:37:00.005-07:00

While clearing up my email inbox, I saw these photos from the Blackwelder Reunion in 2009.
Each of the 8 brothers and sisters in my dad's family had a t-shirt color and a symbolic bird. Ours was the duck because we had some ducks while living in Provo.
It's nice to see photos with Briana. I love my family.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T17:10:00.003-07:00

Elliott is a Bear/Ewok and Adam's team at work dressed up as HTML tags (he's an "anchor tag")

No cheetah suit this year :)

Exotic dye results!

2011-10-30T19:09:00.005-07:00

My friend Annalisa (of tree skirt and Virgin Islands fame) came to visit a few weeks ago. She was in town to see family and attend a natural dye workshop at Earthues. We had a great time catching up and driving around Seattle. We even went on a tour of Theo's Chocolate Factory, which I now totally recommend to everyone.

Beside having a great time with her, Annalisa's visit was made even sweeter because she passed on some leftover dye from the workshop!

(left: coccineal with citric acid. center: coccineal. left: madder)

Coccineal is a scale bug harvested from cactus and dyes wool deep red-purples. This was second-hand dye and I still got great pink-reds! The orange is from the same dyebath but I added citric acid crystals to change the pH.

Madder, of British Red Coat fame, comes from the red roots of the Madder/Rubia tinctorum plant) and dyes wool a deep red-orange. This second-hand dye was somewhat exhausted but still gave a nice orange-yellow.

I love the results!

from left to right:

coccineal+citric acid; madder; coccineal; coccineal, madder overdye on a a previously failed dye attempt)

I still have a few quarts of indigo dye to use! Very excited because I love indigo.

There was a logwood dyebath, but it was exhausted ("used up") and produced a pale grey on wool yarn...I'll probably re-dye it in indigo.

On Productivity...

2011-10-28T13:25:00.004-07:00

I am back from a week trip with my family in California. It was wonderful to be together and visit Briana's grave commemorating 6 months since she died. I will post more details and photos soon. For now, here is a darling one of Elliott and his Uncle Thom:

I feel particularly rejuvenated after this trip. I am ready to renew good, daily habits like waking up early, getting to bed early, reading, exercising, keeping the house clean, and making time for creative hobbies. I guess it takes a trip away from your house to get realistic about how to fix your house.

On the plane home, I drafted a "Potential Daily Schedule."

I have avoided this schedule business because I'm the type of person who would become a hermit -my default personality - if I begin to put the nap and cleaning schedule higher on the priority list than getting out with Adam or seeing friends. However, I feel like some schedule parameters will benefit my productivity so I don't spend hours on end visiting fellow mama friends or looking at things online while "breastfeeding."

I will now carry a sketchbook and notebook at all times so I can keep track not only of things to do, but of project ideas. I'm going to actually draw out projects with detailed descriptions and nice artwork while breastfeeding. I have about 60 projects (yes, that is a realistic number) yet to be started. They are primarily sewing projects: clothes for me, clothes for Elliott, mending clothes for Adam; but there are also many home projects like making a book of our wedding photo (hopefully before our 3rd anniversary).

Well, I best be going; I have things to do and people to see.

So far, I am happy with my efforts from day 1 and 2 of the new me.

(Yesterday, I took a pressure canning class and can now can my own beans and meat! Crazy!)

Cannon Beach, Seaside, and Astoria

2011-10-09T01:02:00.008-07:00

The last trip of Adam's paternity leave was to the Oregon coast.

We had wonderful, foggy, soggy Northwest weather making the coastline more dramatic and beautiful in my opinion.

We stayed two nights in the town of Seaside, but drove south to Cannon Beach to explore.

In Cannon Beach, we walked along the main beach to Haystack rock. It was incredibly windy. I could barely walk a straight line and Adam's hat blew off and went whizzing down the beach so fast he almost didn't catch it.

Here is how Elliott enjoyed the wind:

Sand raced across the beach and whipped our ankles:

We saw many jellyfish washed ashore:

The other wonderful thing we did in Cannon Beach is eat. We ate three delicious crepes at Crepe Neptune, a lovely creperie owned by a young couple

and drank an absolutely heavenly Mayan Chocolate Shake at Chocolate Cafe.

If you are ever in the area, you must get one! We asked tons of questions about their recipe (Alpenrose vanilla ice cream, 70% dark chocolate, Saigon cinnamon, Ancho chili pepper, Chipotle chili pepper) so we can experiment at home.

Back home in Seaside, we took Elliott swimming again by wrapping him in a towel and periodically dipping him into the warm water.

Elliott finds swimming relaxing:

He gets so relaxed he falls asleep:

Here's a cute photo of Elliott's bum :)

Leavenworth/Octoberfest

2011-10-08T23:56:00.006-07:00

Two weeks ago, we went to Leavenworth for a camp trip, Octoberfest, 4-wheeling adventure.

We stayed one night in a timeshare (a gift from Adam's aunt - thank you!) and one night camping with Andra and her kids. Unfortunately, I guess I was too busy having fun with them I didn't take any photos from the camping part of the trip :(

Leavenworth is a cute, fake-Bavarian town in the mountains about 2 hours east of Seattle. It is beautiful and close to excellent climbing and hiking/backpacking. Adam and I often think about moving there, but there isn't much for work beside working in restaurants and stores catered toward weekend tourists. In fact, the whole town is kind of a tourist trap in that most if the stores look to inviting and appealing because they are named and decorated to look like a store in a quaint European town, but inside you find typical American tourist junk. It almost feels like you are at Disneyland, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But... we did get tricked into buying a mediocre hotdog and the world's worst pretzel (seriously!) because the storefronts were so 'cute.'

Hahahah, oh, well. It's still a really fun town, and I still wouldn't mind living there!

Adam found a Fla-vor-ice and was happy for the rest of the day.

Here's an example of the cute storefronts all around town. Everything has a hand painted sign, even McDonalds and the 76 gas station.

At the timeshare, we went for an early morning swim in the outdoor pool and spa. It was a beautiful, crisp, mountain morning and Elliott's first swim in a real pool - but I forgot the camera :(

Elliott loved the pool, though! No surprise there, I guess, since he loves baths and showers. You'll have to imagine him content and relaxed with steam rising off his tiny shoulders as he floated about, wrapped in a towel, looking like a Buddah in a pool surrounded by mountains and pine trees.

Here's Elliott pretend-eating a carrot! Now that I finally trimmed his nails, his hands have been out of their mittens and grabbing on to everything.

Elliott loves to breastfeed as much as possible, so I forget that when I ask Adam to 'take a picture of me' I'm usually breastfeeding...so here we are, doin' what we're always doin' :

Good Morning!

2011-10-07T08:14:00.002-07:00

This is what I wake up to every morning:

Elliott loves the morning!

'4 wheeling' camp trip

2011-10-06T23:19:00.008-07:00

We bought a 4 Runner two weeks ago from a stranger on Craigslist and took it camping the next day. We lucked out; I think the car is fine, though it'll need new shocks soon.

We drove north of Seattle to the Mountain Loop Highway, an easy access road with many hikes and camping areas. Our plan was to drive on dirt roads with our new car, and we had seen some good ones in this area last year.

Our first day was nice, but we got a little rained out on the second day (and there were swarms of nocturnal 'daddy-long-legs' spiders all over our camp area, which I found disgusting. They were crawling up our legs and jumping off our shoulders. Horrid, absolutely horrid. If you opened the tent to 'use the bathroom' in the night, spiders would invade before you could even zip the door shut!)

I found Ischnoderma benzoinum for the first time!

It has dark purple-brown, fibery upper surface and a white pore surface. But the character that gives this fungus away is the strong anise odor. It is amazing to walk through the woods and find something growing off a log with this smell!

Twins!

a close-up:

Here is a cute photo of Elliott after he cried himself to sleep while Adam and I were rushing around packing for our trip:

Paternity Leave

2011-10-05T18:47:00.009-07:00

Adam took his paternity leave for the month of September. We recorded every fun thing we did each day so we could look back on the month and remember how much fun we had, as opposed to feeling like the month passed too fast and we didn't get to do anything fun. Notice how many times I said 'fun'? That was the theme of paternity leave.

Here is the summary:

3 camping trips around Washington

1 non-camping trip in Oregon

bought a used Toyota 4 Runner on Craigslist

Adam got a hunting licence

looked at cute houses to rent on Craigslist (West Seattle, mainly)

played D&D at least twice a week

played Magic a couple times

preserved 150 lbs of fruit

Adam became radioactive for a bone scan on his injured ankle

went roller skating

watched season 4, 5, 6, and 7 of 'The Office'

visited friends and family

More detail on camping trips to come...

Here are some cute photos of Elliott:

This is my view when I wear him in the Baby Bjorn carrier...so adorable!

He likes playing with his tongue:

Not much

2011-09-29T00:05:00.002-07:00

It feels like not much gets done around here anymore...

It's hard to clean up the house with a little baby.

Today, I ate several big salads, visited two friends, picked up our CSA veggie box, and finally trimmed and filed Elliott's killer fingernails.

I should have found time to edit and upload mushroom sequences to GenBank...I have to do it before tomorrow, so I guess I'll work on it in the middle of the night while breastfeeding.

I wish I had been sewing and knitting. I need to make more time for my creative hobbies - they make me so happy.

We have been busy having fun around here. Adam is on Paternity leave and we've tried to make the most of his time off. We've camped twice and are leaving for another camping trip tomorrow. We also bought a car! a 1995 Toyota 4 Runner from Craigslist :)

Kicking and marching

2011-09-23T05:43:00.003-07:00

Elliott is constantly kicking and marching - he is rarely still. Here are some cute videos of the wiggle worm:

real canning

2011-09-21T04:29:00.006-07:00

This year, I finally tackled real water bath canning. I had never had enough fruit to merit learning how to properly bottle it, but this year, I joined a home canning email group that orders bulk fruit from local growers. It was very fun (and addicting) to order boxes of fruit, pick them up at farms, and then figure out what to do with it all!

This year, I ordered:

2 flats of blueberries (ate fresh, froze 2 bags, made blueberry jam and syrup)

2 boxes of Rosa and New Haven peaches, 50 lbs (ate fresh, froze 2 bags, canned 6 quarts)

2 boxes of Red Gold nectarines (ate fresh)

1 flat of raspberries (ate within 2 days)

1 box Red Bartlett pears (ate fresh, canned 7 quarts)

2 boxes Ginger Gold apples (ate fresh, dried 5 bags, canned 3 quarts applesauce)

1 box Roma tomatoes (ate fresh, canned 7 quarts)

It has been a productive summer. I am very proud of myself; this is satisfying - and tasty - work.

Baby Jacuzzi

2011-09-20T21:22:00.002-07:00

Elliott's 2nd favorite pass-time. (1st is showering with Adam).

camping with Elliott

2011-09-19T23:47:00.008-07:00

We are back from a successful, spur-of-the-moment, family camping trip.

We went somewhere (Ingall's Lake) where we had been before. Here's our photos from last year.

Here is a quick run-down of events:

-left around 7 pm...in the rain

-Ate about 1/2 pound of Jelly Bellies while delayed in rock blasting traffic at Snoqualmie Pass.

-missed our exit by 25 miles because we were playing a modified version of 2 person D & D :)

-set up tent at midnight

-Elliott peed through his clothes into the sleeping bag on first night.

-Ate fish tacos for breakfast! Delicious!

-Hiked to Ingalls Lake with a beautiful view of Mt. Stuart. (Adam continued further to climb around on Ingalls Peaks)

Here is Elliott laughing during a breastfeeding break in the meadow:

-Elliott's feet pooled with blood from hanging upright in the Baby Bjorn carrier during the hike. It was very sad when we held him sideways to massage his feet to get the blood circulating.He cried - probably from that bad, tingly feeling.

-Made Vietnamese-style noodle salad with beef, vegetables, and lime dressing; definitely one of our best camp meals.

-Made bacon and hash brown potatoes for breakfast before packing up to drive home.

This is our river and wading pool, but it was too cold to swim. I can't believe it's mid-September. The summer disappeared while I was recovering on the couch for 5+ weeks....

We are glad Elliott enjoyed camping. We'll keep him.

Seed Stitch Cable Hat

2011-09-15T08:25:00.004-07:00

My sister, Briana, had this yarn in her stash (which I inherited) so I decided to use it to knit a hat for our sister, Candice. Candice just started Fall semester, so, I think of this hat as a ‘back to school’ hat :)

I followed this free pattern using Manos del Uruguay wool clasica.

It looked like my yarn was thinner than the yarn suggested and the hat looked longer than I wanted, so I made a few changes: -CO 4 extra stitches, 64 total in rib section -2 additional stitches in the cable section, 14 stitch cable. -cables are 13 rows tall instead of 12; only made two actual cross-overs, the third ‘crossover’ is from decreasing rapidly.

Began decreases in seed stitch as follows: -row 39 (k2tog, p2tog, k1,p1,k1,p1 - repeat) -k1, p1 for 2 rows -p1, k2tog, p1, k2tog for 2 rows -pull yarn through remaining stitches and pull tight.

back to work!

2011-09-10T21:59:00.003-07:00

I am back to work...sort of.

I'm not going back to work for any specific number of hours, but I did go into the lab today - with Elliott - to work on revisions of our current manuscript. We ended up being gone for over 10 hours, 8 hours in the lab and the other 2 1/2 commuting by bus. It was Elliott's first of many bus rides!

Here is a cute video of Elliott in the morning. He is always very happy and active in the morning.

Tummy Time

2011-08-30T00:36:00.003-07:00

My friend asked me how "tummy time" was going, and I didn't know what she was talking about.

Now that I know, I put Elliott on his tummy a couple times today and it is so cute, I had to share photos :)

Tired:

one month old

2011-08-29T15:07:00.007-07:00

(drawing by our nephew, George)

Elliott is one month old!

I can't believe this little man has been in my life that long.

I can tell he's feeling better and better about life on Earth - he's sleeping more, eating well, and now has clearer vision.

He showers with Dad:

I am also feeling better about being a mom. I have figured out what to expect from a normal day, how to get a few things done, and how to relax on the couch for hours on end (it's more difficult than it sounds).

(after picking blackberries with Micah)

Of course I loved Elliott right at first, but now that we have bonded more, I can tell that I feel differently. Every time I look at him, my heart melts. I can't imagine anything more adorable or wonderful. I find myself hoping he's having a good day and feeling happy!

Elliott has huge eyes:

In the baby carrier with Dad!

Sunday afternoon in bed with Dad :)

At the mama's lunch group:

Shrub Warning

2011-08-14T09:22:00.006-07:00

About a week ago I heard of shrubs, or drinking vinegars, for the first time and immediately started planning how I would make dozens of interesting drink syrups and have a shrub party in the winter...

Shrubs, popular in Colonial times, are fruit and/or herb flavored vinegars used to flavor drinks (click here for more info)

Some tasty sounding flavor combinations are: blueberry-thyme, ginger, cherry vanilla, basil, anise hyssop, lavender, pineapple-rosemary...

Unfortunately, after making a blueberry shrub, I discovered I don't like shrubs (too vinegary) and I can't imagine how anyone could!

If you want to try making a shrub, it's easy: simmer 2 cups fruit with 2 cups vinegar, let sit 3 days, strain (if necessary) and add 3/4 to 1 cup sugar, simmer until dissolved and slightly reduced. To mix your drink, put a spoonful of shrub in a glass and pour club soda over it.

(recipes and ideas here, here and here)

My new plan is to make a bunch of fruit and herb flavored syrups (skip the vinegar) and have a drink party.

Elliott's Birth Story

2011-08-12T10:29:00.001-07:00

Elliott's birth story begins about a week before he was born. It was almost 1 am on Sunday night; Adam and I had spent the evening organizing the house. We had rearranged the furniture earlier in the week; all the finishing chores of reconnecting the computer, tv, phone and organizing the books on the bookshelf needed to be completed. We felt better prepared for a home birth - though the house didn't actually look that different - as we brushed our teeth and used the bathroom one last time.

Just then I realized I had started spotting - apparently those "different" feeling contractions I had had all afternoon really were doing something different, they were softening my cervix.

Adam and I looked at each other with happy excitement, as, internally, we stepped closer to believing I was indeed having a baby and that it was indeed coming soon. The fact that I was almost 40 weeks pregnant felt surprising. My entire pregnancy had been pretty easy and uneventful - totally lacking any of the drama, vomit, midnight cravings, etc. you typically hear about. My main ills were a sprained groin/pelvic floor muscle that looked like it would only heal postpartum, more severe bouts of RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome, it runs in my family), and that I had slept on the couch the last two months because my bed had suddenly become "too hard." There were many days when I even forgot I was pregnant - for a little while, at least.

Adam quickly finished brushing his teeth and suggested we go to bed right away so we would be rested in case more labor signs appeared. He darted out to the front room to get my couch-bed set up as I waddled after him, but we both froze in our tracks when we heard the hooting of an owl right outside our window! A few days earlier, my Aunt had told me and Adam in a phone conversation to look for signs of Briana in owls or hummingbirds hanging around our house before, during, or after the home birth. Briana is my older sister, and a home birth midwife by profession, who died 3 months earlier in a rollover car accident. Her death, and the new reality that she wouldn't be at my birth, let alone any other event for the rest of my life, was something I struggled with and, though I tried not to think about it, I wanted desperately to feel her or see her at this birth - or have some kind of personal experience that testified to me that she was okay, that I was okay, and that we were still sisters. We have lived in this house for 2 1/2 years and never heard an owl - though they are common here. Adam said he got chills. I felt happy and peaceful. We both felt it was a little sign that Bri was watching, that she was aware we were about to have our baby, and that we were trying to feel like we knew what we were doing! The owl stayed in our yard hooting for about 10 minutes while I fell asleep.

The next day and week were filled with last minute errands, projects and prelabor/early labor contractions. On Monday, we had a midwife appointment, I worked a few hours, had a chiropractic adjustment, picked up my mom from the airport (she would be in town about 2 1/2 weeks), and the three of us saw "The Tree of Life" movie in Capitol Hill (it was beautiful, but a bit slow and too abstract for our liking). On Tuesday, my mom and I drove to Whidbey Island to visit a friend from Iceland. Wednesday was my due date (July 20th), I sewed bedding for the baby's bassinet while my mom scrubbed the house top to bottom. Thursday was like Wednesday. Friday morning, we picked up my younger sister, Candice, from the airport. She would be in town until Wednesday, so we hoped the baby would come soon. That night we went to Mukilteo Lighthose Beach with Adam's sister's family. It was fun; I had a lot of energy and was happy. We ate Ivar's fish and chips and I ordered the largest soft serve ice cream known to man:

Saturday seemed likely, but it passed with no increase in contractions - just the same, all day all night 20 min apart contractions I had had all week with varying degrees of bloody show. Sunday seemed even more likely, but it, too passed. It was a nice morning so I walked around the neighborhood with Candice while my mom and Adam went to church. It turned into a hot day so we took dinner to Idylwood park and ate by Lake Sammamish.

I had hard contractions about 4 minutes apart the entire time and had a very soft bowel movement when we got home. I told Adam to set up the birth pool while my mom and sister went 'home' to where they were staying to freshen up and get supplies in case they were up all night at my house.

Unfortunately, the contractions slowed and though we wanted to stay up partying, we all went to bed to rest while we could.

The next morning I had a midwife appointment, so the four of us - the birth team - all went. After discussing some options, I decided to have the midwife (Tracy) do a cervical sweep to encourage labor if it could be encouraged. I was beginning to feel impatient, nervous, and more run-down from waking with contractions all night long. I didn't know if I could do another week of the same thing plus Candice was leaving Wednesday, so encouraging labor sounded great. Adam went to work, but my mom, Candice and I had a plan to go into Seattle and bakery-hop. It was pouring rain, though, so we decided to wait and while we waited we realized contractions were increasing and I didn't want to leave the house.

We are counting labor as starting at 1 pm Monday. The contractions brought on a lot of back pain, so my sister would press on my tailbone to counter the pressure from the baby. Here's us on the couch:

I called my friend at church for a back massage, which was great, and the contractions continued. Then my mom and sister had me walk around the block. I had to stop with each contraction to sway or squat or lean on someone until it passed.

Adam came home from work around 7. We live very close to Microsoft - where he works - and my mom had been giving him updates as he finished some final emails. By this time, my back was so tender from counter pressure that I changed strategies to lifting up on my stomach with each contraction. I felt like this lessened the pressure on my back. On the walk, I made my mom and sister promise to fill up the birth tub if I ever made it back to the house. I loved laboring in the warm pool. It didn't make contractions painless, but it made them less intense and more fun - I loved being in the water.

As my sister, Candice, said after the birth, "You and that birth pool could have stayed pregnant together forever!"

Around midnight, Adam paged our midwives to give them a heads-up and see if we should be doing anything differently. My contractions were still the same, about 5 min apart, but it had been that way for so many hours. Valerie was on call and didn't sound too happy to hear I had been in the birth pool for 4 hours eating popsicles! She told Adam to get me out and make me change positions every 20 minutes and to keep me moving. I was very annoyed :)

For me, contractions were an intense, dull pain in my lower back and lower stomach (I later learned that was due to baby's head pulling on the cervix) that gave me a splitting headache and made me want to close my eyes at all times. Before labor, I imagined I would have a ravenous appetite and want to eat all kinds of food. However, in labor, I could barely eat or drink and everything sounded terrible. My crew had to force feed me popsicles, yogurt, little bits of turkey, oatmeal, cantelope, and water.

Here's Adam, calling the midwives:

I tried to follow Val's advice of moving around every 20 minutes even though all I wanted was to get back in the water. At one point (probably around 2:30 am), I remember being out in the middle of the road in clogs and a raincoat laboring backward on a pillow covered dining room chair, hahaha! Adam paged Val again and said he was out of ideas and needed more help so Val sent Tracy to our house because she herself was at a birth at the birth center.

Tracy (above) and Sarah, the student midwife, arrived around 3:30 am. I asked Tracy to check me because I felt like pushing - and it felt good to push - but I wanted to make sure my cervix was ready. She said my cervix was soft and stretchy, so pushing would be fine, but we had a quick panic moment when Tracy said she felt something more like a bum than a head. Then, to our relief, she said she felt fuzzy hair and that the head was coming in crooked (causing the back labor), and was not evenly pressed on my cervix (causing the low stomach pain). My water broke on the bed during the exam, which was interesting. I remember feeling satisfied when the warm water rushed out and pooled around me - something had finally happened!

Tracy suggested I labor in asymmetrical positions to try to straighten out the baby's head. I labored lying down, backward on chairs, on the toilet, and even in the birth tub as long as I kept eating. I remember being in the birth pool while Tracy and my mom sat on the couch talking about feeling Briana close by. I heard what they said, but nothing was sinking in at the moment. For me, my main feeling of closeness was when the owl came to our yard to usher in early labor/prelabor.

Here is Sarah taking care of me in the birth pool:

while Adam caught a 30 min early morning nap. Adam was amazing all during the birth and even after with the cleanup. I loved having him to lean on. He never voiced doubts or concerns, though I'm sure he felt them.

At 6:30 am Tracy sent me and Adam out 'walking.' Walking feels like the wrong word because I only got in about two steps between contractions.

At 9 am Tracy had to leave to be with her children and Val had finished with the birth at the birth center, so we had a midwife switch. It ended up being a great time to shake things up.

Val (above) arrived and got everyone's opinion of how the birth was progressing. I remember her declaring it was weather fit for a lovely October day.

I was laboring backward on the toilet and Sarah encouraged me to see if I could feel the baby's head.

I could! It wasn't that far inside, but I could also feel my cervix unevenly positioned around the baby's head. With each contraction, it would stretch as the baby's head descended, but then the head would retreat back after the contraction. I decided to keep my fingers in and hold my cervix out of the way during and between contractions to get more mileage out of my pushing and contractions. Here is Val, watching and waiting:

It worked - the baby's head passed lower, but it was difficult to sustain. After about 45 minutes (10:30 am), I decided to sit on the birth stool and have Val and Sarah take turns holding my cervix out of the way. That worked great, too. After about 3 pushes on the birth stool, the head had quickly moved down in the birth canal (+3 station?) and we all thought the baby would be born soon...but it was about 2 1/2 more hours of pushing until that blessed moment of relief.

Adam sat on the couch behind me and I sat on the birth stool between his legs, leaning back into his arms. I pushed and roared as best I could. Toward the end, there was a moment of both defeat and triumph when I realized that even though I was working as hard as I thought I could, there was nothing else to do but keep pushing until the baby came out or I was no longer able to push. I remember saying, "I'm trying as hard as I can!" "My bones, my bones!" and "Good grief!" Thankfully, the baby maintained a healthy heart rate while it was in the birth canal despite all my pushing. Finally everyone said, "I see the head!" so I put my hand down to feel what they saw and was disappointed because it was a quarter-sized amount of head, but it felt like it was crowning :(

I honestly didn't think the baby was ever coming out, in fact I was surprised when it did! After some debate, I accepted a glucose IV (good thing!) and it gave me the energy to push with and without contractions. I pushed for a solid 10 or 12 min with the whole birth crew roaring alongside me - it was very intense. I felt my flesh split. Then, I heard everyone yell, "The head!" and I looked down to see a HUGE, blue, baby head emerge from my own body followed quickly by a slippery, blue, baby body. "This baby is huge!" I exclaimed! Sarah was in the catching position because Val had been administering the IV, and she passed my baby up into my arms. I leaned back into Adam, who was crying with joy, and felt incredible relief. I was so HAPPY to be finished. I could not believe how wonderful it felt to be done. I held my baby and saw that it was a boy! My intuition had been right!

Adam and our son!

Then, the midwives went into high gear as they noticed I was bleeding a lot. They had Adam cut the cord, take off his shirt, and hold our baby against his skin. With the baby detached from me, they could give me a shot of pitocin in my thigh to stop the bleeding. They helped us into bed and waited for the placenta to come out. I had blue lips, was shaking, and knew I had torn, but I was still incredibly happy. The placenta didn't come out at first, but quickly flowed out when I sat on the birth stool again.

After I was stabilized, Sarah checked on our baby. He was gurgling a bit, but still able to breathe and make healthy noises. She listened to his lungs and sucked out some fluid. His head had been thoroughly squeezed as it came through my pelvis and was misshapen, but I could see that it was going back to normal already. His skin was peeling off in large sheets, indicative of a full term baby. He had huge hands that stayed blue after his body pinked up, making it look like he was wearing oversized zombie Halloween gloves, as Adam said.

Adam carried our baby into the kitchen to look at our name list on the refrigerator and said he felt like the name Elliott was perfect for this little boy. And that was that :)

Val worked with me to get breastfeeding established. I'm so proud of myself for making milk! It's amazing it happens with out even trying!

The little milk monster, just one hour old!

Finally, my appetite returned and I got to eat my celebratory cheese and kombucha I had been saving.

Then, Val stitched me up for about 2 hours...

My mom and sister went 'home' to shower and rest before coming back to finish cleaning up and making dinner. They made a delicious pork tenderloin with asparagus and salad - I had never tasted anything so wonderful!

Sarah and Val did the newborn exam. Elliott was 8 pounds 1 ounce and 21 inches long - much larger than everyone was predicting when I was pregnant! All parts accounted for and in good working order. They left at 6 pm, 5 hours after Elliott was born. We loved having Tracy, Val, and Sarah in our home as our midwives - they did a great job.

As far as Elliott goes, he's adorable and very well behaved (hopefully it'll last longer than the newborn phase!). He loves to be held and look around at the house. On his first night, he squeaked every time we tried to turn off the light for bed, so we finally lit a flashlight for him until he fell asleep between us in bed. He has big eyes from the Barlow side, but a tiny mouth and pointy nose from me! He looks a lot like me and Adam. We love him!

Here is Aunt Candice with her first nephew. What a great labor support, I am so thankful she could come out to help. Elliott and I can't wait to visit her soon!

Lunch with babies

2011-08-11T04:20:00.005-07:00

Yesterday, I had lunch with some friends. Most of us had had babies recently, and we all wanted to get together. We thought it necessary to take this cute photo of all the kids on the couch in age order. Elliott was the youngest at 2 weeks!

I asked Teri, who has twins, a lot of questions. She seemed like a zen master!

lentil frogs

2011-08-09T13:37:00.003-07:00

Elliott's lentil frogs!

(This was a Saturday morning project instead of working on E's birth announcement or writing E's birth story...oops.)

Frog idea from The Purl Bee and free pattern available here.

The Placenta

2011-08-04T12:14:00.005-07:00

Since I've been in no state to walk or dig with a shovel, Adam took on the serious task of burying Elliott's placenta alone. First, he found the perfect bag in the stash under the sink which allowed for a good photo opp.

Then, he hiked out to a mountain/hill overlooking Seattle and buried the thang!

First Outing

2011-08-03T18:30:00.005-07:00

Today, I left the house for the first time! Yahoo! It felt great to get outside and feel the wind in my face! hahaha!

It was a big event, we went to the midwives for a check up and weigh-in.

At 8 days, Elliott is up to his birth weight plus a 1/2 ounce :)

Here is E, video chatting from his new rocket launcher/car seat.

pillow throne

2011-08-02T02:33:00.003-07:00

My mom snapped these funny photos of Elliott one morning when she came over.

Elliott's Bed

2011-08-01T07:50:00.009-07:00

I wanted to make a bassinet like this one...and I did!

I intended on crocheting the basket (using raffia and rope) but serendipitously received a free one that a client donated to the birth center. Everyone was glad that "labor project" was out of the picture!

I intended on having a friend at church cut the base out of plywood, but he took the design and improved it as a gift!

He made a beautiful stand out of cherry that is collapsible for easy storage. So kind!

It also rocks smoothly.

I did make the bedding, though! From the foam of a hand-me-down crib bumper and used flannel sheets (these were my early labor/prelabor projects!).

I sewed some of my new fabrics into "sheets" for the mattress.

Snow white and the dwarves:

Russian dolls:

I like how it all turned out and so does Elliott!

First grandchild!

2011-07-30T14:10:00.007-07:00

Elliott is my mom and dad's first grandchild!

Elliott and my mom love each other :)

More baby Elliott

2011-07-29T13:06:00.002-07:00

Adam's sister, Andra, came to visit us on Day 1 and made a cute photo collage I wanted to share.

Thanks Andra!

Two days old!

2011-07-28T12:58:00.006-07:00

Our baby is exactly two days old!

He was born at home, Tuesday July 26th at 1 pm.

He was 8 pounds 1 ounce and 21 inches long...way bigger than a lot of folks predicted :)

We're all doing great, he is so cute and it looks like he'll have a pointy nose!

More photos from the birth and all the home birth details coming soon...

40 weeks!

2011-07-20T18:49:00.004-07:00

I'm 40 weeks today!

My mom is in town and we are having a good time getting my house ready for the baby. We've cleaned and sewed and visited friends.

Here is my mom on the Deception Pass Bridge on the way to Whidbey Island.

We also had a picnic at the park and Adam convinced my mom to climb at the outdoor climbing wall.

She did really well!

Now we wait for the baby to come out...I have had some contractions and spotting since Sunday, so things are getting going, but it could take a while before it's full on labor.

Baby showers

2011-07-17T14:46:00.005-07:00

I had a couple baby showers that I should have posted photos from...but looking back, I guess I didn't take very many photos.

First, above, is a photo of me and Micah at our combined shower hosted by Cydney. She made tasty sliders (mini burgers) and we had corn and watermelon - a true summer feast!

Cydney told each of the guests to bring some fabric scraps to piece together a baby quilt. It turned out so darling. I don't have any photos of us all working on the quilt squares, but we had a good time.

Here is a photo of me at the baby shower held by my ward family. It was a children's book party, where most of the gifts were books that each lady remembered her kids enjoying.

A lady in our ward made these lovely meringue mushrooms - she said she got the idea from my wedding cake! How sweet :)

Thanks for the celebrations...now I just have to have the baby :)

Fabric order!

2011-07-15T15:51:00.004-07:00

I ordered myself some splashy new fabrics with my hoard of "personal money."

It came today!

I ordered from Superbuzzy.com a Japanese fabric supplier. My order came perfectly folded and with two candies :)

I have some house and baby projects planned with each of these pieces.

free motion quilting

2011-06-16T13:07:00.002-07:00

Oh my goodness, I never knew quilting could be so awesome...

You must check out these free motion quilting designs - I love them!

Especially "Shoo-fly"

Beautiful!!!!

This is also a great sewing website: modern domestic

Visit with Candice

2011-06-14T11:30:00.009-07:00

I am back from a weekend in Utah visiting Candice. It was great, we both had a lot of fun together even though it was strange for it to be just the two of us. It was our first sisterfest (of many more to come) without Briana. Candice has set up her new house very cute (see above) and we ate fresh veggies!

Our main objectives were to be together, to sort through some of Briana's boxes in storage, and to visit with friends and have a birth party for me!

Here we are at the first SLC farmer's market of the season.

Candice was dog-sitting a dog, so we took her to the market. I love Candice's train pants!

Salt Lake was having beautiful summer weather (something novel for me)

Here are some photos from the Birth Party:

Sara and Candice in the kitchen

The quilt top I made and brought for everyone to embroider-quilt.

Rachel, working on embroidering a cute design.

Analiesa and Candice, sewing away....

Gritty Pretty, and her cherub-son, Ezra

The mushroom garland Gritty Pretty made last year that I fell in love with. Sewn mushrooms in rainbow order...? Too wonderful!

Ian in Seattle

2011-06-09T13:43:00.006-07:00

My brother, Ian, came to visit me and Adam about a month ago - in May.
It was wonderful to see him, even though we had just spent 2 weeks together after Briana died.

We found out April 7th that Ian will be serving a 2 year proselyting mission for our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) in Quito, Ecuador!
We are very excited for him and the learning, growing, exploring, serving, and teaching he will do - but of course we will miss him terribly.

Ian leaves July 13th for the Provo MTC (Missionary Training Center). This visit will be the last time I see Ian until he comes back in July of 2013! He won't get to see our baby (except in photos) since we're expecting it at the end of July, but Ian said he's glad he'll be home for it's 2nd birthday - when things get really cute (and feisty).

We had wonderful, sunny weather for Ian's visit and squeezed in as much as we could into 3 days.
Ian arrived by train from Portland after visiting his friend, Ben.

We walked around Seattle together, went to one of our birth classes, climbed at Marymoor Park and the Redmond Vertical World, went to the Seattle temple, and ate quinoa salad at the Kirkland Waterfront:

Here is our last photo together:

I love you, Ian! I'm going to miss you so much. Good luck in Ecuador.

Here is a funny video we made of pregnant me, dancing:

(hang on, I have to go find it on another computer...)

Lopez Island

2011-06-08T11:30:00.007-07:00

Last month, following advice from Adam's sister, we went to Lopez Island for one night to celebrate our 2nd Anniversary. It was a wonderful overnight trip not far from home. Lopez is one of the San Juan Islands and can be accessed by ferry from Anacortes, Wa.

(We ate french fries on the ferry!)

The day before we went, we made a reservation with Lopez Farm Cottages. It turned out perfectly - we got a tiny, one room house with a hot tub outside.

Here is the inside:

I was a little bummed to miss the annual Seattle Cheese Festival, but we serendipitously arrived on Lopez Island for their first ever Lopez Lamb and Wool Festival - even better than cheese!

We saw fleeces and wool for sale, spinning wheels,

weaving looms,

dye demonstrations,

a butchering and lamb roasting demo,

and baby lambs to hold in the parking lot.

We walked a block to eat at Vita's Wildly Delicious deli.

I liked their idea or serving homemade mac and cheese cut like pieces of cake...I thought it was carrot cake at first.

I also loved their patio with creative seating arrangements like this antique ironing board for a table:

After our wildly delicious food we were still hungry...so we ate lamb and Lopez Island beef burgers at the "Pharmacy." Lucky we were at the pharmacy because we also ordered a cookie dough shake and then needed lactaid:

After eating ourselves silly, we checked ourselves in at the Lopez Farm Cottages and didn't see anyone on the grounds the entire time (only about 20 hours).

It was a lovely and relaxing rainy weekend together - a wonderful 2nd Anniverary :)

pregnant side-shot and breakfast in the jacuzzi!

Then we packed up and ate sandwiches on the ferry ride home:

cloth storage buckets

2011-06-07T16:07:00.006-07:00

Anyone interested in some home sewn cloth storage buckets? I have a surplus leftover from the Punk Rock Flea Market and even though they are great for storing items...it turns out they are hard to store themselves.

They have either denim or canvas outsides and a variety of cotton prints inside.

I was selling the small (4" cube) for $10 and the large (5.8" cube) for $12 - but I'd be happy to work out a special deal.

Flea Market report

2011-06-05T21:20:00.009-07:00

Oh, my goodness...look what I bought for $5 at the Punk Rock Flea Market!!

It's a bundle of antique scraps from a kimono store!

A lot of these are handwoven silk and a lot of these are shibori dyed in indigo! I love indigo and I love shibori - I flipped when I saw these scraps.

I see an indigo sampler quilt in my future....wouldn't that look great? Then I can showcase each of the prints emphasizing the variation in texture and results from just one dye. I think it would look awesome with red-orange stitching/ties and binding. I can't wait to make it. More photos to come - each scrap is absolutely beautiful and deserves documentation.

Here's me at our Tree Peeps booth.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day - the first day we've had temperatures over 70 degrees since last August...and the whole city almost died of heat stroke (including me)! Hilarious.

A sampling of our wares (above) and the rock star seller beans and rice (below) I love how well this goes over every year :)

Punk Rock Flea Market, Seattle

2011-06-03T12:28:00.005-07:00

Hello! It's the summer Punk Rock Flea Market tomorrow in downtown Seattle.
I'll be selling handmade goods and gifts as well as beans and rice!
Photos from: June 2010 Market and December 2010 Market.

the second trimester in review

2011-06-02T11:59:00.005-07:00

(25 weeks or 5 1/2 months pregnant)
The second Trimester was from mid-January to mid-April, but I hadn't gotten around to writing about it before Briana died.
In summary, it was uneventful - I have had a really easy pregnancy.
In detail:
-I continued to get larger everywhere, but finally more on my stomach than my legs.
-I started going to the bathroom more than 2 times a night.
-I tried to go walking every Monday morning with my pregnant friend, Micah. I also walk most mornings about a mile uphill to the bus for work, so that helped keep me in shape.
-I went rock climbing (mostly at the gym since it was the winter) a few times a month. I was able to climb reasonably well at 3 months, but by 5 and 6 months, I switched to easier routes because it was uncomfortable to strain and push myself because my ab muscles were out of commission and I had gotten out of shape in general.
-It became more difficult to get in and out of bed (loss of stomach muscles), so we rearranged our bedroom furniture to facilitate. One thing we haven't done, but sounds nice, is to put a step-stool on my side of the bed :)
-No ankle swelling - a big surprise because I typically have swollen ankles when I'm not pregnant.
-Baby started moving around 18 weeks (end of February). It was very small "bubble" feelings but has grown to full somersaults and twists (or so if feels)!

(23 weeks or 5 months pregnant)

(25 weeks or 5 1/2 months pregnant)

Leavenworth

2011-05-31T11:56:00.011-07:00

Yesterday, Adam and I went to Leavenworth, Wa - a town just on the other side of the Cascade Mountains. We were hoping to catch dry weather and climb a few routes, but we got rained on a few times.

Yes, I still climb a little...but don't get too excited, because I climb very easy things that aren't vertical. It's amazing how hard it is to climb without ab muscles. Plus, the climbing harness is starting to hurt my stomach.

The day went like this:
I climbed one route called "Baby's Bottom" at an area called "The Playground."
Then we hid from the rain:

Then we drove to "Castle Rock" in another canyon that looked dry but the rain caught up with us.

We decided to stay out in the rain rather than go home early. Adam likes to practice "setting pro" and quiz me about building anchors and removing protection - so we did that for a while. We were right next to several well known and well loved climbs that Adam really wanted to try, but everything was too wet.

Then it looked like the rain was over so we drove back to Icicle Creek to find another certain well known and well loved crack climb called " Old Dog New Tricks." We didn't realize before we started, but it involved a mile of bushwhacking through wet plants and over huge fallen logs - partially through private property - to get to there.
On the way, we stopped at "The Pound" to climb a crack. It turned out to be the only climb Adam got to try the entire day and he said it wasn't very exciting.

***The good news is that while bushwhacking, we found: mushrooms!
Helvella corium!

and a morel!

Joy :)

Other things we accomplished over Memorial Day weekend:
Friday-climbed at Marymore Park
Saturday - went to the Seattle Folklife Festival, Adam decided to spend a few hours getting signatures to support the legalization of marijuana for adults.

and then watched a wonderful, beautiful animated film called "The Secret of Kells." (Both Adam and I totally recommend it - the art is beautiful and the story is universal).
Sunday - went to church and watched "Ponyo," a Japanese Anime that we thought we would love, but didn't. It was okay, but when it was over, the movie seemed a little pointless.
Monday - Leavenworth

It was a good weekend together, we can't wait for Adam's paternity leave!

Briana's Burial

2011-05-29T13:12:00.013-07:00

Our whole family pulled together to make Briana's burial beautiful and personal. We are all fierce do-it-yourselfers, as you will see.
Here is an educational show and tell / how-to about Briana's burial. This was the first time we had to think about funeral and burial plans in our immediate family given how young Bri was and how suddenly she died. I think we are all happy with how it turned out, and even proud of ourselves for figuring out what to do and navigating our way through the system to a burial that was involved, meaningful, and even healing for us.
I want to share our process, hoping what we learned my be useful to you and your family someday.

Green Burial "How-to:"
1. Don't embalm. Embalming is the norm, so you have to specifically request not to have it done. Luckily, Candice remembered to request this when Briana was transported from the hospital to the funeral home. Arrange to see your deceased loved one as soon as possible (if you are going to) because an un-embalmed body decomposes rapidly. Briana was in a car accident, so I was nervous to see her body. I am very glad I did, though, because it brought closure to her life and gave me memories of her I can recall when I wonder where she is. She didn't disappear, she died.
2. Dress your deceased loved one in decomposable clothes. This means natural fibers like undyed cotton, wool, silk. In our faith, we dress our dead in symbolic clothing. *For other LDS folks: the commonly available clothing items are all polyester but you can order decomposable clothes from the Salt Lake Distribution Center.
3. Find locations for green burial sites. We were surprised at how few we could find. We ended up choosing Fernwood Cemetery in Mill Valley, CA - 5 min North of the Golden Gate Bridge. It isn't close to any of our family members, but the beauty of the location, the symbolism of the fern (her midwifery practice was called Fern Midwifery), and the meaning San Francisco had for Briana (she often talked about living there, and was even on her way to visit friends there when she died) made Fernwood an easy choice.

4. Find or begin making a wood casket. Other options are to use a burial shroud (thick, natural fiber fabric covering) and a woven basket as a support beneath the body. Our cousin, Ben Blackwelder, is a carpenter and volunteered to make Briana's casket. He only had two days to design and build the entire thing - and it turned out beautiful, perfect. It is made from maple and uses no nails to hold it together, just interlocking joints and wood pins.

A stencil for the fern design was made by my cousin Hiedi (who also designed the memorial service program).

The design was sandblasted and then painted with 'green drink' (my Uncle Donny's breakfast specialty of juiced kale, collard greens, parsley, etc. I heard they also added alfalfa powder to increase the green-ness).

Everyone helped!

Since we decided to transport Briana to California ourselves (instead of pay to transport her by plane), I made a burial shroud for her privacy and our protection.
Here is Candice trying it on - she had thought it looked too small.

(We bought 9 yards of undyed cotton canvas. 7 yards were used to make a simple, rectangular, double-layer 'bag' and the remaining yardage was cut into 4 strips, one to tie the shroud closed and three to tie around her body - head, hips, feet - to lift her while transporting).
The end result:

Here are some casket and burial shroud links: Kinkaraco, Oregon Wood Caskets,
5. Choose site at cemetery. Fernwood required 2 days digging time (the graves are all hand dug) from the time the burial site was chosen. In our case, we were driving from Utah and would not have time to wait around for 2 days of digging (and, No, we couldn't dig it ourselves - we asked! - legislation and liability indicated it had to be dug by their own employees). Fortunately, Briana's close friends lived in San Francisco and picked out a beautiful hillside location for her.
Briana's new neighborhood:

Briana's grave (you can see the dirt at the base of the center tree):

6. Transport body to cemetery. Blackwelders love road trips and we turned the task of transporting Briana to California into a memorable family road trip. A 3-car caravan drove from Salt LAke to San Francisco. The funeral home provided us with a Zeigler case - a special sealing case for transporting bodies - packed with dry ice
The minivan with Briana's Zeigler case (grey) below her wood casket:

Gas station rest stops:

picnic lunch:

Delicious vegan food:

7. Plan graveside service. After carrying Briana in her casket to her grave, we had a simple graveside service of a few memories, some hymns, and a prayer to dedicate the grave. Then we lowered her into the earth and closed her grave.
Waiting for everyone to arrive:

Carrying her body:

Lowering Briana into the earth:

Closing her grave:

My parents:

8. Post Burial plans. After devouring Tartine pastries on the cemetery grounds, we arranged to be serenaded by Sonya Cotton and Gabe Dominguez of Tiny Home (thank you!) and then ate a delicious meal at Farina, in San Francisco (thanks Bridgette and Brit).

9. Make future trips to visit your deceased loved one.

We love and miss you, Bri.

More thoughts about Bri

2011-05-27T14:13:00.004-07:00

A few things never fail to make me cry:
-The "Hold On" song sung by Tiny Home, especially the line:
"with charcoal eyes and Monroe hips, she went and took that California trip"
Briana grew up in California, it's where she was going when she died in the car accident, and that's where we drove her body to be buried.
-The "Hilltop Hymn" song by Sonya Cotton, especially the line at the end:
"under hovering hawk, under shooting star"
I picture Briana's new home (for her body, at least) on the hill at Fernwood. She is there all day and night, basically alone - under hovering hawk and under shooting star.
-The video by David Perry of his son's birth. As soon as it starts, the song and photos make me cry. Then at the end, I love how the older brother reaches over to touch his new baby brother on the head and hand...and the baby looks at him and opens his fingers so he can touch him back. It is so sweet; it is a testament to how wonderful home birth can be for the whole family. It makes me think of the birth of my upcoming baby. I am excited and nervous. I feel as prepared as I can be, but I know nothing can fully prepare me for what labor and being a mom will actually feel like. I am also curious and interested to see what I feel from Briana while I'm in labor - but I'm trying not to expect too much.
I miss Briana more and more everyday, it seems.

thoughts about my sister

2011-05-24T12:37:00.016-07:00

I have so many photos and thoughts and events I could share from the two weeks my family spent celebrating Briana - yes, celebrating - but I guess I have come to the conclusion that they are all pretty sacred to me so I might not post as much as I thought I would. I love talking about Briana - her life, her midwifery practice, her death, her memorial and burial...all of it - and I even love sharing the pictures, but I think it may be best on a one - to - one basis.

It definitely sounds weird to celebrate your sister's or daughter's tragic death, but in a way, it's about the only thing you can do. I can't change the fact that she died, reverse time, or remove the pain so I might as well get together with my family and friends, share memories of her, commemorate her life, and celebrate her passing. In the end, it's those of us left behind that are most sad and have to muddle through the hard change.

As I mentioned before, the two week celebrating and commemorating also ended up being the best way to process the sad news and begin to heal and move on. I'm glad my family made new memories of Briana through planning and speaking at her memorial services and being very involved in her burial. These physical acts make her death more real and memorable for me. I'm glad I saw her broken body and the smashed car as opposed to feeling like she disappeared or shouldn't have died from such a "small" accident. It wasn't a small accident; I saw her and I saw the car and I know that what happened would kill anyone. I'm glad she died instantly and isn't half-dead or severely injured in a way that would alter her lovely life. Briana really had a wonderful life and I'm glad she could cut ties with the physical world in an instant and be free to rise "trailing clouds of glory." I'm also glad she could be the first from our family to experience life after death. I have many ideas about what she might be doing, but I'll have to wait to see if I'm right...

Some ways we celebrated Bri:

-Sat on her bed to smell her pillows (she was in the middle of moving houses, so pardon her packing)

-Met all her friends and clients in Salt Lake City. Their love and admiration for Bri seemed to almost rival ours :)

-Sorted through her belongings picking things each of us wanted to remember her. I've worn something of hers almost every day since I came home...

-Wrote our talks for her memorial. The whole family spoke and it felt good to have an active role in the service.

(the front and inside of the Salt Lake memorial service program)
-Planned her memorial service - the paper program, the photos, the songs, and even the food (tea and shortbread).

(the inside and back of the Salt Lake memorial service program)
-Dressed her body for burial. We used all decomposable materials so she could have a "green" burial.

-Built her casket. My cousin, Ben Blackwelder, is a professional woodworker and was the mastermind behind the beautiful design.

-Drove her body to its new home at Fernwood Cemetery near the Golden Gate Bridge.

After Briana's burial, we were serenaded by Sonya Cotton and Gabe Dominguez with their beautiful duet band called 'Tiny Home.' Hold on and Hilltop Hymn were my favorite songs.

We miss you, Bri :)

One month ago....

2011-05-23T11:45:00.007-07:00

One month ago, on April 23rd, my sister died in a car accident. Her name is Briana and she is three years older than me. She died two weeks before her 29th Birthday, which would have been on May 6th.

Ian, our brother, and Bri were driving to California when the steering wheel was bumped and they swerved off the road into the median between the North- and South-bound lanes of I-15 just 20 minutes south of Provo, Utah. It was 2 pm on a Saturday. Ian's Ford Explorer flipped 15-20 times while bouncing 3-4 times. Ian was thrown far, far from the car but Briana fell out under the car and was crushed as it bounced. She was killed instantly. Drivers behind them called 911 and stopped to help. They were taken to Mountain View Hospital in Payson, Utah. Around 4 pm Ian called our sister, Candice, who was the first of our family to hear the news. She wrote here about that call and the next few hours.

I didn't hear the news until about 8:30 pm because Adam and I were out rock climbing with some friends and didn't have cell reception. After coming down from the last route as it became dark, I was cleaning up our rope and gear when I heard my phone ring - which surprised me because I hadn't had reception all day. I missed the call because I had too many things in my hands, but when I looked at my phone a couple minutes later I saw I had several voice messages and a text from my mom that said "Call me ASAP." I said read the text out loud to Adam and immediately my mind was racing trying to think what kind of event deserved an "ASAP." There's always the chance it could mean an urgent funny joke or other harmless piece of info, but I couldn't help saying out loud that I hoped it didn't have to do with Ian and Briana since I knew they were driving to California that day. We called my mom right away and she asked where I was because she had been trying to get a hold of me for hours. I said we were out climbing with little cell reception. She told me to put it on speaker phone so Adam could hear and then said, "There has been an accident. Ian broke a few bones and is in the hospital. But, Baby Girl...Briana...she didn't make it."

We all cried as our minds raced through memories of her and tried to piece the story together, as we tried to find peace in the horrible news. Our friends gave us some space and then came over to cry with us. I was glad to be with friends and that we had had a nice day outside in the sun. We finished packing up our gear and started to walk out toward the car and dinner and the 3 hour drive home.

Though nothing really makes Briana's death okay, or better, or easier to acknowledge, I have been surprised at how quickly my family and I have found peace on many levels. I know that this is because we are a close family, we kept in touch with each other, talked on the phone, wrote letters, visited, video chatted. This is also because we have a strong belief that our spirits existed before this life on Earth and that we - and our familial relations, too - continue to exist after we die. We also have found peace through the love, support, cards, and thoughts of friends and family. And, we have found peace in the many memories we made as a family the two weeks after Briana's death as we mourned, prepared our talks, held memorial services, visited with friends, packed up Briana's belongings, cleaned her house, and prepared her body and casket for burial.

What a life this is!

There are so many things I have learned over the last few weeks. I'll slowly pull them out to process in the coming months.

I love my dear sister and miss her every day. I'm glad we were such great friends and that I have many memories and photos (don't miss these!) to get me through the rest of my life. I wish I had more time with her.

I can't believe it has been a month since I heard the news - it seems much shorter than that. The last few weeks have passed quickly; for two weeks I was back and forth between Utah and California, and I guess I have been back at my own house for two over weeks now, though that surprises me.

Here is a collection of articles, videos, and blog posts inspired by Briana:

A short tribute video from a home birth

Briana, speaking about the midwifery model of care

A poem about midwives and Bri

News article and video interview with the President of Midwives College of Utah

Fern Midwifery - Briana's midwifery practice

Post from a client's blog

Post from a childhood friend's blog

Post from our cousin's blog

Post from a friend's blog

Post from a client's blog

1st birth class and Ina May Gaskin

2011-04-22T07:41:00.007-07:00

Last night was our first birth class and we loved it. Adam and I drove to our teacher's home in a beautiful, rural part of Redmond to meet our teacher, Liz Chalmers of Birth Zone, and 10 other expecting couples.

Liz is a Midwifery student, mother of 4, and she loves Ina May Gaskin,*** I can tell it is going to be a great class and that I will already recommend it to all expecting couples. We are the only ones of the 11 planning a home birth, but about 6 others are planning birth center births, and about 4 or 5 are planning hospital births.

The first class was mostly introduction and general overview, of course, but we learned a lot and watched one of my favorite birth videos - Birth Day - about a Mexican midwife having her 3rd baby at home with her husband and two kids. I love this video and was hoping to find it online so I could watch it with Adam. It shows how beautiful and normal having a baby can be. It makes it look appealing, inspiring, empowering, and positive but does not lead you to think it will be easy or painless.

I am lucky to be a midwife's sister. My main childbirth educator has been Briana as I have learned from her on her journey to become a home birth midwife. It's like I have been taking childbirth education classes for 7 years! I have seen dozens of home birth videos, had access to her library of books, helped build home birth kits, and even attended a home birth all because my sister is a midwife. The exposure and education is a blessing and a gift she has given me over the years without necessarily intending to. Few women in modern society witness births or even hear much about them and I am glad I've had the opportunity to prepare long before I met Adam and we decided to have kids.

Art by Nikki McClure as shown on BuyOlympia.com

***Speaking of Ina May, I just found out she will be in Seattle from May 4-8th. May 5th she is leading a walk in Alki, West Seattle on International Day of Midwives to raise awareness for safe birth choices and on May 8th she will be speaking in Town Hall about her new book Birth Works and visiting with people at the Birth Fair following her lecture. Check this website for the details. Unfortunately, Adam and I will be out of town in Chicago visiting family and celebrating our second Anniversary!! I recommend anyone in the Seattle area to go see her and support birth. You can even order a wonderful shirt with Nikki McClure's art (shown above) as a donation.

Ina May Gaskin wrote "Spiritual Midwifery," among other books, and is considered the mother of modern midwifery as she was the leader of the home birth movement in the 70's after inadvertently becoming a midwife to dozens of couples in her hippie love train as they moved from San Francisco to Tennessee to start a commune in the 1960's.

baby hedgehog

2011-04-20T22:49:00.004-07:00

I just found out my friend had her baby - a baby girl. I am excited to meet her.

It reminded me of the bib I sewed for her and I wanted to share it.

She said her baby "theme" was baby forest animals, and this is what I came up with: a velvet baby hedgehog. I don't think they live in the forest, but they are cute.

Grandma's Shawl

2011-04-19T09:56:00.004-07:00

Over the last few weeks, I have dedicated some time each day to finish lingering projects. It feels great to make progress on things I should have done 2 years ago :)
One of the projects I recently finished is this knit shawl. Last summer, my grandma started knitting a shawl and when she got stuck on the lace border, she mailed it to me to finish. I was excited she thought of me to help her since she was the first person to teach me how to knit (then I forgot, then I relearned from her knitting books). Unfortunately, it took me forever to work on her project because I had other more exciting projects I wanted to do. Once I took out a few rows and actually started knitting, I finished the shawl pretty quickly (2 weeks), considering I had had it for 8 months.

The pattern is Aestlight Shawl by The Shetland Trader

The pattern was simple and easy to follow; I had no problem with the "Bird's Eye Lace" portion. I would not knit this shawl pattern again (too much garter stitch) but I will DEFINITELY knit the Bird's Eye Lace again. It was easy to knit and I love how it looks - I think it would make an interesting throw blanket for a couch if made from a soft, worsted weight yarn (instead of this fingering weight).

I am not a fan of varigated/handpaint yarns - like this one - because I think they make a knit piece look "busy" and you loose track of the knit details. The yarn in general was nice, though. It is Malabrigo sock, which is a little pricey.

All in all, I'm happy with how the shawl turned out, I learned some good stitches for future use, and I finished a lingering project! YAY!

old baby blankie

2011-04-18T00:00:00.001-07:00

About a month ago I found a cute, old baby blankie at the Goodwill.

It's pretty small (3'x2') and made of various flannel scraps. It reminds me of the flannel nightgowns I used to wear as a kid.

I bought it (for $1, hahahaha!) because I liked how it was already broken in.

Now our first baby can come out with a hand-me-down blankie as if it were the 6th baby :)

One of the flannel prints didn't wear well over the years, so I replaced 4 of the squares yesterday, washed it, and now it's ready to go!

Spring Cleaning

2011-04-17T23:15:00.004-07:00

Today and yesterday were devoted to Spring cleaning - deep, spring, cleaning.

After hours rearranging furniture, scrubbing the floors, and hunting down every last dust bunny, I have a spotless kitchen and bedroom...and a messy - though clean - living room (a bunch of things ended up without a home).

Here is our new bedroom arrangement. Nothing amazing, but a big step up from how it was previously. I'm excited to finish the black and white quilt I started - it will look nice in our "new" room. I am also going to finally make or buy a bed skirt.

In this space above our dressers, we are going to hang some photos from our wedding (finally!).

The newest addition to our house is the baby dresser/baby shrine where we can store all the little things we've been collecting and making for our coming baby. It's a really cute wooden dresser Adam saw at the Goodwill, thought I would love, and emailed me a photo to see if he should buy it - I said YES! It needs to be repainted, but it's fine for now.

It has been a productive and tiring weekend.

25 weeks

2011-04-11T22:34:00.004-07:00

It has been a month since I've posted anything - though I have several half finished entries I intend to post in the next few days.

There are many things I want to document from the last month including a few pics from our 21 week ultrasound, family visits, finished knitting projects, etc. Stay tuned...

For now, here are some pictures of me in the 25th week of pregnancy:

Iceland's Geography

2011-03-10T10:45:00.016-08:00

Iceland is a relatively new land mass, created by volcanic activity at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

where the North American and European tectonic plates are separating (here is an actual crack of separation).

The effects of this volcanic activity is one of the reasons Iceland is so oddly beautiful and incredibly picturesque.

The entire island is made of recent lava so nearly all rock is black (some are red from mineral deposits).

This means (almost) all the beaches have black sand, the country side is vast stretches of broken up black lava chunks, and even the urban sidewalks are black (well, grey) because they were made from ground up black lava. Many coastal areas are cliffs of hexagonal basalt columns formed by fissures when lava was rapidly cooled as it hit ocean water.

Here are some pictures near Snaefellsjökull peninsula (W. Iceland)

Me standing on a bridge created by water eroding some of the basalt columns.

Basalt fissures on the beach in a curved pattern.

As lava floes cooled over rivers and air vents, horizontal caves were formed

and subsequently Iceland has many spelunking tours.

Not much grows right off lava.

Primary organisms like lichens and moss must first grow, decompose, collect in the cracks and crevices, break up the rock and eventually make soil for larger plants to grow in. There is a lot of green in Iceland, and it's mainly from moss and lichen.

The time is takes for soil to build and trees to grow is part of the reason (combined with grazing sheep, wind and weather patterns) there are few forested areas.

One old forested area called Thórsmörk (Þórsmörk) in S. Iceland is situated in a warm, protected canyon and has small conifer and birch trees, ferns, and hundreds of mushrooms (at least on the day I was there). It has somehow avoided being covered in lava at different times and was thought to be a sacred place (deserving to be named after Þór/Thór).

(house/garage on Vestmannaeyjar/The Westman Islands off SW coast of Iceland destroyed by lava)

There is still considerable volcanic activity causing numerous (small) earthquakes on a daily basis not to mention the smoke plumes and threats of eruption by various volcanoes - remember Eyjafjallajökull (sounds like "A-yah-fyat-la-yuh-kult") last year whose smoke plumes closed European travel for a few weeks?

The geologic activity of the North American and European plates manifests itself in many ways beside volcanoes; thermal pools and geysers dot the island. The first geyser recorded is the one pictured below: Geysir or The Great Geysir, named after Geysir, a prominent Goði in early Iceland.

In Iceland, hot water from thermal water vents is collected and pumped into towns for domestic use. From the smallest villages to the largest city, Reykjavik, all hot water coming from the tap is untreated, straight out of the ground and smells like sulfur (something you get used and come to love to when taking a shower). All cold water coming from the tap is also straight out of the ground, but from a non-heated, non-sulfury source. If you want to make tea, for example, you let the cold water run for minute then fill the kettle to boil the cold water - if you use warm or hot water it will taste bad.

(Hot water pumping plant. The pipeline on the right goes directly to Reykjavik)

All the houses and building in Iceland are heated with hot water radiators powered by the naturally boiling-hot water pumped from the ground. I loved this (no hot, dry air blowing through your house) and it also makes heating a house nearly year-round quite inexpensive since all you pay is the cost of transporting the water.

Another use for the abundant hot water is as public pools; every town has a public bath, and large towns have several. Here, the natural, untreated hot springs water is cycled through tile or cement pools so the water never cools too much or becomes dirty because there is a constant flow of fresh water in and used water out. What is so awesome about this is you never have to think of wasting water - not to mention wasting hot water - because there is an endless source down the street

(The Blue Lagoon, not a typical bath house, but a fancy touristy one near the airport)

Laugardagur is the Icelandic word for Saturday, but it comes from "laugar" meaning to wash. Laugavegur is a street in downtown Reykjavik that used to be the women's trail to laugardalur (washing dale/valley) where they took their laundry to wash in the local hot springs.

As I mentioned above, there is also an abundance of cold fresh water for drinking and some of it is naturally carbonated, such as this Perrier/club soda spring:

This is my favorite picture of the Icelandic landscape because it captures all the aspects that were unique to me (coming from S California) and the "essence" of Iceland in my mind: dark sky from northern latitude, flat lava floes, small hills/mountains, green moss and lichen, and light dusting of snow.

Icelandic Literature

2011-03-09T23:10:00.006-08:00

(A great compilation of translated Icelandic Sagas)
Iceland has an incredible literary history.

The consensus is that most of the history of events, genealogy, stories (sagas), and legends from about 900 -1000 AD were orally recorded and passed down before they were physically written in the 13th Century.

Record keeping and genealogy was an important aspect of the Norse - and consequentially Icelandic - society as evidenced by it's strong presence in the manuscripts available today. Early Icelandic writings are a variety of both poem and prose.

Songs/poems/chants were composed for celebrations or to commemorate events and those who were skillful at recording events in beautiful verse were highly respected. The collection of poems we have called The Eddas are the main source for our knowledge of Norse Mythology (since paganism was driven from mainland Scandinavia by force and the manuscripts there were destroyed. There will be more about this in the "Religion" post coming soon).

Sagas are prose stories interspersed with poetic verse typically about the family affairs of farmers and their occasional family feuds.

The Icelandic Sagas, or Íslendinga sögur, are acclaimed for their realistic portrayal of human frailties and their glimpses into Icelandic life of the time period. They are about 3rd and 4th generation Icelandic settlers living in goðorð. Usually, the sagas are about the goði or someone in their household. Often someone is insulted and a domino effect of honor retaliation brings clans into feuds. Women have a large presence in Icelandic Sagas; they have strong, confident characteristics and run the domestic affairs of the household. They play political roles by convincing the men into pursuing retaliation or offering forgiveness for insults depending on the character of the woman - or by starting feuds outright themselves.

Unfortunately, it's been a while since I've read through some sagas - and my book is out on loan - so I can't remember any to summarize here. Dramatic events like someone stealing cheese and then giving it out as gifts to visitors who happen to mention to each other that they all got the same kind of cheese that was reported missing and they realized their host is the thief. OR, someone being strung up by their Achilles tendons after instigating a feud and they survive the ordeal. Njall's Saga is one of the most famous sagas; it is pretty long, about the length of a medium sized novel. One of the main characters, Njall, is a good, honest man but is insulted for his inability to grow facial hair. A family feud ensues and he is eventually burned in his house.

On another note, Icelandic Sagas are full of kennings - short, descriptive phrases for objects used to add detail to stories. I'm sure you've heard of these...things like "man-slayer" (for a sword) or "sea-steed" (for a ship), etc. These were used not for lack of vocabulary, but for love of descriptive language.

Due to the nature of Old Norse (and modern Icelandic) word order is less important in sentences because each word is conjugated and declined (more to come in a post on the Icelandic language) giving contextual information to each word and more freedom for rhyme and artistic expression.

Fast forward to the modern era and Iceland is one of the most literate countries with the highest number of authors per capita. The most well known Icelandic author is Halldor Laxness; he won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1955). One of his books I have read is Paradísarheimt, or Paradise Reclaimed; it's about a family in Iceland in the mid-1800's who converts to Mormonism and moves to Utah to live with Brigham Young. I'm serious. (More in a future post on Religion in Iceland).

Icelandic Settlement

2011-03-08T12:58:00.017-08:00

In brief:

Iceland was settled by rough, independent personalities primarily from Norway/Sweden, but there are records of people from other parts of Scandinavia, the British Isles, Faroe Islands, and Russia. They left their home country to settle Iceland from 874 AD - 930 AD for a variety of reasons:

1. Arable land was becoming scarce. Traditionally, the oldest son inherited part of the parents' farm and the other sons had to move away and buy their own land or become a professional blacksmith, cobbler, clergyman, etc. If that didn't suit them, I guess some moved to Iceland. After a few generations, the farm portions weren't large enough to sustain the oldest son's family and some of them moved to Iceland.

2. Outlaw types and people who were banished from their hometowns as punishment went to Iceland to escape ridicule and find a fresh start.

3. Escape the current king, Harald Fair-hair.

These Norsemen were excellent boat builders and sea farers. Families moving to Iceland forged across raging oceans in small, shallow boats with their tools, provisions, and domestic animals.

(a replica of a very nice, large, Norse ship)

If they made it, they then set about exploring, claiming land, building homes, sowing seed and raising livestock. There were no large native land animals to hunt, but there was an abundance of fish and migrating fowl to catch and preserve for the winter. Though the northern side of the island is within the arctic circle, the southern side of the island has areas of fertile farm land and is relatively warm and mild due to the Gulf current bringing warm air and water north from the Caribbean area.

(an example of some early settlers)

An amazing aspect about the new colony on Iceland was that despite the inhabitants' varied backgrounds, they created their own democratic parliament and maintained an orderly, non-centralized society. Within about 50 years from the first record of voyages to Iceland, the Icelandic Parliament (Alþingi, or Althingi) was established (in year 930 AD). It is claimed to be the longest standing democratic parliament - from 930 AD to present day - because even after Iceland accepted Norwegian rule in 1262 and Danish rule from 1814-1944, their geographic distance allowed the Althingi to more or less continue.

The island was divided into 4 regional quarters (eventually a 5th was added to make 5 "quarters") made of clans called goðorð (sounds like"go-thorth"). The clan leaders were called goði (sounds like "go-thee") and they provided protection and appointed judges to settle disputes within the goðorð.

There was a single, elected lawspeaker, or lögsögumaður, who memorized the lawbook and would recite it orally once a year to the gathered goði at the Alþingi. Occasionally, a conflict would arise crossing regional borders, and the representatives would seek the lawspeaker's advice. The current lawspeaker is Ásta Ragnheiður Jóhannesdóttir.

The Alþingi/Althing met near present day Reykjavik at Þingvellir, or the Parliamentary plains (sounds like "thing-vet-leer"), an area large and flat enough (see photo above) to make camping and tending animals convenient for the attending goði and their household for the duration of the Alþingi session (up to a few weeks).

The lawspeaker stood on a large rocky area called the Lögberg, or Law Rock, in front of a natural amphitheater created by the separating North American and European tectonic plates.

The Alþingi moved from Þingvellir to Reykjavik in 1844.

(below photo from Wikipedia)

Here are some poor quality photos I took of the building:

Denmark officially owned Iceland from 1814-1944. However, in 1940, when Denmark was occupied by Germany, Iceland became unofficially an independent state. In 1944, the Republic of Iceland was officially formed. The President of Iceland is the head of state and appoints the Prime Minister of Iceland, who is the head of government. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the 4th President of Iceland (from 1980-1996) was the World's first democratically elected female head of state. The current president is Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson (photo below in Springville, UT, 2005)

and the current Prime Minister is Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir

Iceland Revival

2011-03-07T19:42:00.004-08:00

I got my suitcase filled with Iceland memorabilia down from the attic and I'm having an Iceland revival. Since I didn't have this blog when I went to Iceland in 2005, I think I'll share a few posts now on it's history and things to see, do and learn about in Iceland.
This revival was initiated by an announcement in church that our Kirkland Stake would be having a Family Heritage night in 2 weeks. Anyone with genealogical ties to another country was invited to host a booth displaying photographs, cultural and historical artifacts, the flag, traditional music, food samples, etc. to teach others about their family heritage.
I signed up right away for a booth on Iceland because even though my family moved from there 4 generations back and no one speaks Icelandic anymore, I've had the unique opportunity to study the language, travel to Iceland, research and visit areas where my ancestors lived, and immerse myself in Icelandic culture and history - especially with regards to traditional handicrafts.

Here are some topics I'm going to share:
Settlement
Literature/the Sagas
Geography
Religion
Language
Genealogy
Folklore
Food
Architecture
Handicraft

bathing suit bottoms

2011-03-06T15:42:00.008-08:00

Before I went to California last week, I made some bathing suit bottoms. I didn't end up needing them, but you never know....

I used a free underwear pattern I found on BurdaStyle.com uploaded by "emilykate."

Here is a link:

I like the pattern a lot. The bottoms are cut as one piece with a single seam in the back. An (in my opinion) optional waistband can be made from a second piece. I used some bathing suit lining fabric from a previous project, but you could also line with the same or another bathing suit material to make them reversible.

The pattern came in only one size, so I added in about 2 inches (to each side) since I have a big bootie and I'm pregnant. I plan to make these again soon and add another inch or 3/4 inch. The pattern was also intended to be "cheeky" underwear, but the rear could be easily adapted to your desired degree of coverage. Here, I extended the coverage about 1/2 inch on each side.

I bought my fabric at the Patagonia Outlet in Salt Lake City. They were selling some kind of bag with a tie (above) as a way to use up their bathing suit fabric scraps (I guess) but at $3 each they are a steal for the home sewer. I loved the elephant print and it went well with plain brown.

Cloth diaper trial pattern #1

2011-03-05T19:35:00.006-08:00

One of my pregnant friends notified me of a free cloth diaper pattern available online from Finnish sewing magazine Ottobre. Here's the link to the pattern.

It sewed up pretty easily and I like the design.

I used white flannel inherited from my mother-in-law's fabric collection. There are about 7 yards, so I should have plenty to make a sizable diaper inventory. I even used the flannel for all the layers of the soaker pad - but next time I'll mix in some old towels and old t-shirts for a few of the layers to recycle our rags and extend the flannel. Anything absorbent will work.

Here is a cool feature - pockets to fold over the loop side of the velcro to prevent snags while washing.

I didn't follow the directions, so my diapers are a little different than the pattern intended. The main difference is I sewed the outer and inner sides of the body of the diaper together and then turned it right-side-out so the seams were hidden inside instead of serging the outer edges. Serging would have been faster, but I don't have my machine up and running.

I also made a casing for the elastic instead of zig-zag sewing it directly onto the inner side of the diaper.

Another difference is that I made the soaker pad independent of the diaper and tacked only the top and bottom edges to the diaper body to facilitate drying. It would be ideal to make the soaker pad completely removable (with snaps or a pocket, etc) but I'll try that out on future versions.

I'm pretty happy with how these first versions turned out. I think they are definitely worth it to make myself. Unfortunately, I haven't tried it out on a real baby yet - hopefully it works well.

black and white quilt

2011-03-04T14:51:00.006-08:00

I've been planning how to best use my new black and white quilt squares I bought at an antique store in Orange, Ca.

Here is my plan:

Using the 8 antique squares and 4 new squares I will make, I'm going to make a queen size quilt for our bed.

There will be 12 b&w quilt squares with a 3" white border between each square, 12" white overhanging panels on all 4 sides, and white backing.

Here are the additional black prints I found at ReproductionFabrics.com I'll use for the 4 new squares. It's going to be hard to find the right white fabric since the antique one is aged and tinted.

I'm going to use a bright yellow binding to add some pop to this almost Amish looking black and white quilt. I might use the yellow flower print (below).

These three prints I fell in love with while looking for the right black prints. The green one in the middle was on sale (yay!) and I think it would make a beautiful blouse or dress for me...or a cute baby bib and baby pants for Pea!

Well, I guess I have another quilt project to keep me busy...

California Visit

2011-03-04T12:45:00.009-08:00

I just got back from a quick visit to my family in Southern California. It was wonderful; the weather was nice and sunny, we went walking everyday, and we did some garden and attic organizing projects.

Here are some photos:

sunny weather

going for walks by the beach

Tess and Briana

my mom

A wonderful, all produce grocery store called Growers Direct!

Me and my Dad filling up the IKEA bag with fruits and veggies :)

My mom, Briana, and I went exploring in the old town area of Orange. We oohed and ahhed over items in antique stores and ate Belgian waffle sandwiches at Bruxie's (but ate them before we could take a photo).

If I lived nearer, I would have wanted to buy this dresser chest. It was beautiful and in excellent condition, and way less expensive than I've seen in other stores. It would have been perfect for clothes, diapers, and blankies in a baby room :)

pretty idea for folk painting

pretty idea for old-timey lettering

An old dye cabinet!

with packets of dye still inside!

And a list of recipes to obtain various colors:

My purchases: set of 8 black and white quilt squares, two bobbins of handspun wool (I've started a collection), cute apron.

At the outdoor Bruxie's Belgian Waffle joint:

Then we made some fruit crepes at home (bad photo, but delicious!)

Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of Thom! He came down with the flu the day I arrived; so sad. He has grown up to be very tall and handsome and will be the best uncle!

I miss everyone alredy! It was wonderful to be with family for no specific reason - no holiday or family event, just regular everyday life.

Alabama stitching

2011-02-24T12:58:00.004-08:00

I made my first Alabama Chanin - inspired project!

After posting last week about how much I love that layered, reverse appliquéd stitching, I found myself daydreaming about projects frequently at work.

In oogling at the DIY Studio Style page, I realized white and yellow (2 of the colors I had on hand) were a great color combination and I decided to make this over-arm pin cushion!

I know, of all the things to make...why a pin cushion?

I guess because it's small and simple like a sampler project to get a feel for this technique. And it's pretty and will make me want to camp out on the couch with my new pin cushion draped over the couch arm making more reverse appliquéd clothes :)

Here are my project specs:

7"x18.5" main body (2 white, 1 yellow)

7"x5" pocket (4 white, 2 yellow)

7"x 8" pin cushion (2 white, 1 yellow).

I cut everything and then stenciled the design with black ball point pen (not the best idea to use pen because it smears when handling while sewing. Usually, you use a spray paint, but the example pin cushion I was copying looked a lot like pen. The overall look is nice, but it'll probably get ruined if I ever wash (?) it.)

I cut my stencil out of synthetic felt for durability/longevity.

I sewed the pieces like so (above). In hindsight, it would have been smarter to stencil two large white rectangles to resemble the above pieces and eliminating extra seams. Unfortunately, I never plan my projects thoroughly enough to prevent oversights like this...

Now, sew the large rectangles together with right sides facing in, leave a small hole, turn right side out. Should look like this now: (with corners folded up)

Now for the stitching!

Use button/carpet thread (it's very thick) doubled and a long, but sturdy needle.

I started on the pin cushion using white thread, but found that it masked the pen outline. I switched to grey and found that it reinforced the pen marks giving a strong feel that I liked better.

The stitched and partially snipped pin cushion pieces. I like it!

After trimming all the white spaces (above). You can see the slight difference between the grey (main body) and white (pin cushion) thread stitching.

Then, sew across the short edges of the main rectangle for stability, fold the pockets in place, and stitch them along the side edges.

Last, fill the pin cushion with rice and stitch in place.

Taa Daa!

This really is a beautiful way to recycle old shirts, thanks Natalie Chanin!