10 Good Things About This Week...

1. We camped at Montana de Oro with some friends last weekend. Good times.
2. Rosie joined Tulip and laid some eggs. Yay!
3. I went to work for a regular 24 hours. Regular. Yesssss.
4. The chickens dismembered a lizard and ate it. Ok, maybe this one doesn't qualify as good, but we had a good laugh talking about lizard flavored eggs. Ewwww.
5. Sofia and Maia spent a couple afternoons with their "manny", Justin. All is well.
6. Chris' Swedish cousins arrived in California for a two-week tour. They stayed with us for two nights and will be back at the end of their trip. So nice to visit with them - their girls are 14 and 18, last time we saw them they were 1 and 5. We're hoping to take the girls to Sweden sometime - they've got horses.
7. We are having a heat wave. The good part is that maybe those million tomatoes and tomatillos I bragged about will actually ripen.
8. Chris and I went for a 6 mile hike on Friday in the heat. Good company, good exercise.
9. Sofia is making banana bread this morning, almost by herself. Yum, can't wait to try some.
10. We are having some friends over for wine this evening. More good times.

Hope you're having a good week, too.

What a Week!

Ah, a finished sweater. This one took nine months. Not bad, considering the last one took a year. Yikes. I like this one, alot. Already got my eye on another... but no plans to start it, yet. The details: Pattern by Flint Knits, called "February Lady". I used Louet MerLin yarn, which is a merino-linen blend. I poured through buttons at Michael Levine in Los Angeles and found these, love them. Thank goodness there's still a bit of cool weather left in this winter.
We had a couple appointments for Maia this week. First, a check up at UCLA on Wednesday. They are very pleased with Maia's progress and decided to keep her medicines the same. We had a blood draw on Thursday that was one of the worst yet - and probably had to do with Maia having had a tough week already. She took a bad fall at school on Tuesday - running full blast, she tripped and fell straight onto her face. Poor thing had a huge fat lip and swollen nose. Today, the swelling has improved a lot but the bruise is - wow! - every color of the rainbow and runs from her lip up to her eye. I felt so bad, picture day was Wednesday, the day after this happened. I was there because I was dropping her off after the UCLA appointment and it was hard to watch them try to get her to smile. It will be a memorable picture I'm sure.

Over the weekend I read the "Young Reader's Edition" of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. It is a truly inspiring story and I hope to read the original version soon. I think I will hold off reading this book to the girls for a bit or skip a couple parts, I haven't decided. It talks about him being kidnapped and held at gunpoint and I'm not sure I want to explain all that. I don't know, I'm still thinking about it. Anyway, he's a neat guy and he has a neat family and I want my kids to know about his work, sometime.

Mommy, you know what's interesting about you?

Wouldn't that make your ears perk up? What? What does Sofia think is interesting about me? Wow, somebody thinks there is something interesting about me. I love the way she started the conversation. She's so interesting to me.

So, what she said was, "Well, you know how when I ask you what your favorite animal is...." and she went on to explain that I always say something about how it's hard to choose and I like cats and dogs and birds... "But," she said, "you are always coming home and talking about how you saw an owl or a hawk or something, and I think your favorite animals are birds." So there you go. The world according to Sofia.

Last weekend was pretty productive. I finished the announcements for baby nephew Sawyer. My sister has them now and she likes them. Yay! I love that gocco - have I told you that before? One thing that doesn't show up well in the photos is that I mixed up the green color with quite a bit of silver ink and so there's a hint of metallic sheen to the color. It's really pretty.

I had planned a Valentine present of pajamas for the whole family but hadn't had time to actually sew, so on Valentine's Day, that's what I did. The pajama bottoms were made using a pattern from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing and some organic cotton flannel from NearSea Naturals. Good pattern, very simple. I decided for our pajamas to put elastic in the back only and use a cotton webbing drawstring for the front side. The flannel is nice and heavy and super soft. These are definitely cold weather pajamas. I bought thermals tops from Royal Apparel to go with the bottoms.
Here I am with the girls (Chris missed the photo shoot) and here's where the project would have benefited from a little better planning and research. I wanted to dye the pajamas somehow - I thought white was too boring and would get dirty and stained too easily (you know how messy Chris can be). I sort of copped out, got impatient and we tie dyed them - except Chris'. He didn't want them dyed. Hmmm. So, now the girls and I have tie dyed pajamas. They're fine. They're just tie dyed. It's not what I had in mind but the problem is that I wasn't sure what I had in mind. I'm sort of wishing I had waited a bit. At least they're just pajamas.

Almost 5?

My baby is almost 5? How could it be? Maia turns 5 on Monday. We have a birthday party planned for Saturday and a trip to the happiest place on earth on her actual birthday. For the party, I bought some shirts (Royal Apparel, organic cotton) thinking our activity would involve decorating the shirts somehow. I wasn't satisfied with any of the ideas that I tried, so I ended up doing a gocco print on them myself and we will give them as party favors.
Instead of the shirt idea, I'll set up a table so our guests can make Valentine's cards and I asked Sofia if she would treat us to a puppet show. There will be 5 little girls plus my two. Ought to be fun.

A little knitting, a little weather

We have some friends who just welcomed their second little girl so I knit them up a little something. The booties (aren't they sweet?) came from Saartje knits (a free pattern!), and the hat is just a little something I copied and modified from a hat Erin made for Maia.

This week promises to bring lots of rain, they say. So far, 1.3 inches. It annoys me to live in a place that a week of rain requires so much news and preparation but eh, at least I can enjoy some rain for a few days. Today we are celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. by collecting gently used shoes to donate to Soles4Souls. I sent out emails to our local friends asking if they could spare some shoes. Since there is no school today, the girls and I will drive around to collect them from our friends. Sports Chalet is collecting the shoes at all its locations through January 31st. The donated shoes will be sent to Soles4Souls for distribution in Haiti.

In other news, Maia is recovering from another bout with bronchitis. We didn't bother waiting around to see if she could kick it on her own, straight to the antibiotics this time. It was a year ago this week that her scleroderma diagnosis was confirmed and we began treating her. Thankfully her leg has improved a great deal from where we were a year ago. The meds and PT are working, but it won't be a moment too soon when we can get her off these drugs and she can rebuild her immune system.

Lots to report

The latest news...Please welcome my nephew Sawyer Morgan, born yesterday December 28th, after about 36 hours of labor. My sister is a trooper and gave birth to this beautiful boy. He weighed 9 pounds 6 ounces and measured 22 inches long.
I met him briefly at the hospital, he is only a few hours old here. We will travel back up north this weekend so that the girls can meet him too.

Preparations for the holidays...
Here are Sofia and Maia in their ski clothes (well, the new stuff anyway). Neither had a suitable jacket or boots to wear in the snow so I had to go searching and found these at Lands' End at reasonable prices (if I had planned ahead a little better, I would have tried to find something on ebay). They had a great time sledding. Skiing wasn't as big a success this time due to bad weather on the day we went, but more on that later.
The annual xmas card production was so much fun. I did this card using Illustrator and then printed using the gocco printer.
And finally, some Christmas twirly skirts for my favorite little skirt wearers. They loved them. Some minor adjustments need to be made (Maia's is a little big around the waist), but overall they were fun and easy to make.

I'm going to get back to unpacking and laundry for now but hope to post soon about our journey up north to Truckee/Tahoe-Donner and the Bay Area. Happy New Year!

Weekending

Now that we're back from Encinitas and Rocky seems to have recovered from her mysterious ailment (tongue biting with possible bladder infection on the side?), I can laugh about our Thanksgiving trip. You see, Wednesday night Rocky was not well and to be honest I was pretty sure we would wake up Thanksgiving morning to find her passed away. That didn't happen and since we couldn't leave our sick cat home alone and we didn't want to cancel our trip down south to Encinitas, we took her with us. It all seemed too much like a scene from a Vacation movie and I was afraid we were going to have to transport a dead cat back home. *shudder* Rocky spent the whole way down on my lap or at my feet just resting while I pet her and again, since I thought we might lose her, it seemed like the right thing to do. Turns out it was. By Friday morning she was perking up and by Saturday she seemed mostly back to her 14 year old self. She rode home in her carrier and is doing well.
We celebrated Chris' 40th on Friday with the Hillmans and the Helgrens. He did a nice long ride that morning, we ate a nice brunch made by his dad, and then I served his requested quiche dinner and his favorite grasshopper pie, whipped up by his mom and I.
I made this little painting for him using an ink resist technique I learned a few years ago from an illustration class. Other than the masking tape not working out and the ink spilling out onto the frame, I'm pleased with it and Chris enjoyed it, too. The scene is from a mountain biking relay race Chris did in August in Simi Valley.
This is the original photo. I messed with the contrast of the picture to get the basic look, painted the scene with gouache (everything including white areas and excepting black areas), let it dry and then covered the whole thing with India ink. After the ink dried, I rinsed it and magically, the ink on top of the painted areas washes away, leaving the unpainted areas black. Last I went back in with gouache and a black ink pen and retouched some areas. Now we just need to matte it so you won't be able to see the awful ink spillage - et voila, fini.

Yummiest Thing I've Ever Made

Grandma and Grandad came over for belated birthday celebration, on their way (further) up north. They promised a pizza dinner, and I made the belated chocolate mousse that Sofia had requested for her birthday. The mousse recipe called for Candied Orange Peel as an accompaniment. As has been my habit this week, (ahem) I failed to read the recipe thoroughly, and missed the part about soaking the peel in salted water for 4 hours.

Can't start the candied orange peel at 5 o'clock and expect it to be ready for the mousse at 7, now can you?

So anyway, it was done late, and Maia didn't taste it until this morning. But when she did, she said, "Mommy, this is the yummiest thing you've ever made". It is candy. Pure candy. So what if it's made from real organic orange peels, it's also soaked and cooked in sugar and then rolled in more sugar. I swear it tastes like Trix cereal. Not that I've tasted that for about 20 years but it brought back memories. So here's the recipe, it's from a Williams Sonoma cookbook.

Candied Orange Peel

2 oranges, preferably with thick skin
1 T sea salt
1 c sugar, plus extra for coating
1/2 c water
3 T light corn syrup

• Cut around circumference of each orange cutting only through the peel, then make a second cut perpendicular to the first through the stem and blossom end. Remove the peel in 4 segments (now you have 8 orange peel pieces).

• In a small bowl, soak the peel pieces in the salt and just enough water to cover for 4 hours.

• Drain the peel and place in a small saucepan. Add water to cover and bring to a boil over med-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Drain and repeat the process. (Why? I have no idea... ) Drain and set aside to cool. Cut into 1/4 inch strips.

• In a small saucepan, over med. heat, combine the 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, and 3T corn syrup. Heat, stirring, until the mixture comes to a boil and the sugar is dissolved. Add the peel strips, reduce heat to low, and cook slowly until the peel is translucent and the syrup registers 230 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Do not allow to caramelize.

• Transfer peels to a wire rack to drain (better put something under it), without touching eachother. While still warm, roll the peels in sugar on a plate and then place on a piece of wax paper to finish cooling and drying. Store in a covered container in a cool place for up to several weeks.

Yeah, like it'll last that long around here.

A Very Happy 7th Birthday

Sofia invited a few friends over for her Kings and Queens Brunch. The crowns were lovely but I didn't expect the kids to wear them much. One friend wore hers the entire time and she was an adorable queen. The crowns were made using a process similar to that described at Bitterbetty's blog here.
The kids seemed to enjoy the restaurant-like party. I took their drink orders, brought them drinks, took their food orders and helped Chris briefly in the kitchen. Then we played a few rounds of 20 questions while waiting for their food. They were very polite (mostly) and I had fun being their server. Chris did an excellent job preparing the food. We served it all at once and most of the kids cleared their plates - those who didn't had eyes bigger than their stomachs ;)
After the party, she opened some presents. Part of Sofia's gift from us was her own knitting basket with a starter skein of red wool and size 8 needles. We also gave her three horse books. Her face says it all. She was very happy.
We spent the afternoon working on a puzzle and rounded the day off with a movie and bean and cheese burritos for dinner (Sofia's request).
I've heard 7 is about the right time to learn knitting. She has been asking for a couple years for me to teach her but I have held her off. We started a simple garter stitch scarf. I was a little nervous about teaching her to knit because I'm not the most patient teacher and she's not the most patient apprentice. That and I'm left handed and she is not, so I am learning to knit right handed along with her. She seems to be picking it up pretty well.

Happy Halloween!

We did our Halloween preview photoshoot this afternoon.
I may switch Maia to a long sleeve white shirt and leggings so that she won't be confused for a penguin angel - seriously, a passing neighbor said that (??) Anyway, they both love their costumes, and that is really all that matters.
Oh my goodness, you put a little lipstick on her and she looks 15. Yikes!

Meanwhile, after my last post, Regina gave me a tip to look at these crowns by Bitterbetty. I took one look and knew I had to make them for Sofia's party. I had been planning something less spectacular, like a couple steps up from a 1970s Burger King crown, but her tutorial seemed pretty simple, so I went for it. I ended up deviating from her process because I couldn't find the right gold leafing powder, but I ended up with something very similar. And again, Sofia loves them, so there you go.

Halloween and Birthday Preparations

Any guesses what Sofia is going to be?

Maia is going to be a white dove. She had originally wanted to be a robin and I'm not sure what changed her mind, but it's pretty much the same costume, different color. I'm hoping to be done this weekend so I can move on to preparations for Sofia's birthday party the day after Halloween.

We are going to have a Kings and Queens Brunch. There will be just a couple friends and Maia. I'm thinking of making crowns, but they're going to have to be pretty simple. Then they will have brunch, restaurant style with a menu, a couple games and we'll call it a party. Sofia has requested chocolate mousse. Oh my. Where does she get these ideas?

After Chris' backpacking weekend extragavanza I was looking at my pictures from my Summer Field trip back in 1994. I decided to scan my favorites in for archiving purposes. It's funny how few pictures there are from those film days. We spent 8 weeks in the Inyo National Forest near Treasure Lakes, and then Saddlerock Lake. Chris came up at least a couple times and we climbed Hurd Peak during a break. We also took a side trip to "Dogtown", the family vacation house that is no longer, near Coulterville. I really enjoyed the scenery while I was up there but I spent a lot of time writing to Chris about how miserable I was. I ran across those letters recently too. Tee hee. So silly. Anyway, here are the pictures.

Baby Shower

And they're off! Phew! I feel like I'm in the land of many unfinished projects. It feels good to get one done. It was a short and sweet print job. Only 30 invitations and only two screens. I'm pleased with the turnout. I did the drawing in Illustrator, separated the color, printed each in black and then burned the screens. The photo is a little goofy because I had to smudge so many things out. You know, privacy issues. This is the internet afterall. So this morning Sofia came to me with this heart and asked me to write down the names of the people I love. I was making lunches and running late (what else is new) and asked her to please put it on my desk so I could do it later. A few minutes later she came back with something written on the back and she read it to me.

Love is beauty
Love is kindness
Wonderful things happen to lovers
Love is kissing and hugging
and happiness
Love is snow and sparkles too
It is two people getting married when grown

I don't have to tell you how neat I think Sofia is and how wonderful an artist she is. Now she's a poet too.

Oooooo, ahhhh, camera stuff

We decided to replace our 50 mm lens that was stolen from our car over a year ago. I had volunteered to take some photos at Sofia's school and realized that it would definitely come in handy. We also took the plunge and bought a nice flash. We're calling them our early birthday presents, to the tune of a couple months early. That's ok, we'll still be enjoying them when our birthdays roll around (Chris and I have birthdays a week apart). So here are my first victims...

Look at this face... don't you want to squeeze it?

And this one... she wasn't cooperating, go figure. These were shot indoors in daylight, no flash.

Here is Miss Cat, with the flash bouncing off the ceiling, nighttime.

Here's another one of Miss Rocky, with flash to the face. I had to include it for obvious reasons.


And here I am with and without flash, daytime. Having fun.

Oh, and here's a funny. The other night in the shower, Maia looks at me longingly and says, "Mama, will I have long boobies when I grow up?" Yes, my dear, I'm afraid you will.

Moving On

We seem to be past the worst of the pneumonia with small improvements every day. Maia is back at school, although I had to bring her home early yesterday because her chest was hurting. Despite that, her breathing has been improving every day (less gurgling) and there has been less coughing at night. I just don't want her to end up in the hospital, so we're taking one day at a time.

This has been my first week with some child-free moments in quite a while and I'm determined not to get bogged down in the depressing under-employed state of things. I took on a small job at Maia's school doing the newsletter and other paperwork. The hours are minimal and the pay low, but there is a generous tuition discount that makes it worthwhile. It will give me some structure to my week and if my other job picks up (can't get any slower for me), I will still have plenty of time to get it all done.

My mom visited last week so that we could work on a top secret project together. It's going to be *great* but I can't share it - yet. While she was here, I was cringing at the state of her room. It is our guest room slash sewing stash slash Chris' cycling gear slash art supplies slash knitting stash slash what ever else doesn't have a place - you get the picture. So after she left I tackled the clutter, organized the closet, and hung a couple pictures. The result is several bags of giveaway, a couple boxes of books to donate, much fabric to give away, a box of cassette tapes to record digitally, and a much. cleaner. room. Now my mom has to come back before it gets cluttery again.

Well, I'm going to wrap up this boring no pictures post and run off to work on my kitchen wall chalk board. I spray painted chalkboard paint directly on the wall yesterday (bad idea, too messy, don't do it, use the brush-on paint) and now I'm figuring out some sort of border.

2nd Grader

Wow, who could imagine having a second grader. She looks so grown up. She's wearing her new uniform, which is basically khaki bottoms and several different colored shirts for the tops. We were not proponents of going to uniforms for many reasons that I won't go into because, well, it doesn't matter at this point.

This is Peace Montessori's 3rd year and as expected each new year brings changes and hopefully improvements. They've hired 3 new teachers who already seem to be working well as a team and making some positive additions. I'm most excited about the Peace curriculum, which will include conflict resolution, community building, and non-violent communication. Imagine that, teaching Peace. I love it. I have to admit I pretty much wanted to sign up for the school when I heard it was going to be called Peace Montessori, but of course there's more to it than a name and these teachers seem to be committed to providing an education befitting a school called Peace.

In a strange scheduling mismatch, Maia doesn't start school until the 9th of September, which means she will be missing her sister and looking for things to do. Chris is going to take her camping for a night, a promise he made to her last winter when he took Sofia skiing. Right now though, she isn't feeling well. She's had a nasty cough for over a week and last night she started to have some stomach issues (i.e. no one got enough sleep). Could be a virus I guess, but I can't help worry a little. Some. Ok, a lot. Is her medicine making her stomach upset? Is her cough related to scleroderma? I know it's unlikely from what I've read, but still. Then there's all the talk about H1N1. Now we have to get another vaccine? Of course, right? What if she gets swine flu? Turns out I have a lot on my mind regarding Maia. The pokes aren't going so well lately either. Four weeks in a row, she has protested quite dramatically, which makes things difficult. Chris has to restrain her and she's so tense. I suppose these phases are to be expected but it's not fun. Edited to say: Ok, so I talked to the ped rheumy fellow today and he didn't seem too concerned about the cough. Amazing what I can conjure up in my mind. Probably should have kept it to myself.

Work? What work? I'm trying to stay positive, but geez, this is ridiculous. So, I have been working on this (from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing):I meant to have two slippers ready for Sofia's first day of school (they are allowed to bring slippers to school to wear in the classroom). But I had to fiddle with the pattern, which is sized for adults, and unfortunately, I didn't fiddle enough. I finished one and it is too big. Argh. But, the good news is, I have plenty of fabric and now that I've done the pattern once, doing it again won't be hard. Famous. Last. Words.

Little Artists

Just popping in to share the latest bulletin board offerings from Sofia and Maia. We try to keep their artwork limited to this space (believe me though it is hard). They are very prolific artists, knocking out at least several offerings per day. Their abilities seem to change daily. Maia especially has taken some great leaps lately, and has been drawing lots of people, hearts, and flowers. Her people are really starting to come to life. Sofia draws lots of family portraits, horses, and princesses. I just looked over there this morning and thought a picture was in order. Please go to flickr to get the full effect with notes and everything.

I am working on another skirt (the curtain skirt) I was almost finished when I pulled a couple dingbat maneuvers. The zipper I bought was a little too long so I trimmed it from the top (first mistake). No big deal, right? I hand sewed it into place (hand sewed!!) because I don't have the right presser foot for an invisible zipper. Well, I failed to sew stops at the top of the zipper and while fiddling with the waistband, I accidentally pulled the slider off the top of the zipper. Ack. Couldn't get it back on. So I'm off to Joanne's for a new zipper, which I will trim properly from the bottom, SEW A STOPPER, and re-handsew back into the skirt, which is turning out very cute and I can't wait to wear it. :)

We Survived

Other possible titles for this post: Not My Favorite Week, "You're in the Right Place" - Really?, and How to Traumatize a 4-Year Old.

But first, the fun stuff! Maia's birthday party was great. We had a big crowd of family - all the grandparents! - an aunt and cousin, a couple of our best friends, and our neighbors. Sofia led the scavenger hunt for the fairy pieces of clothing, and the little fairy guests were just precious.

We brought the fairy clothes, wings, and hats inside to complete our fairy clothespin dolls, and here is how they turned out...

Then we had cream cheese and jam bagels, strawberries, and of course woodland fairy mushroom cupcakes.

Then came Monday. Luckily Grandma (my mom) had offered to stay and help out with the whole treatment thing and we gladly accepted, not knowing what to expect. I suppose Monday was the hardest. They tried putting the IV in Maia's right arm (she's a leftie) and got it in, but while they were wrapping, taping, etc. it slipped out of the vein. Meanwhile Maia had completely lost it and was trying to crawl up my face to get away from the nurses. So we did it again on the other side. This time, Grandma held her and I put my head against Maia's and sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in her ear, over and over, until they were done. I couldn't think of anything else. After that, she was pretty calm. She had expended most of her energy. We held her, watched a video, and finally got to go home.

Thankfully, we managed to keep the IV in and functional for the three days so Tuesday and Wednesday were mainly mellow. At this stage Maia is traumatized by any sort of poke and she needed one more on Wednesday. This will be a weekly shot and they suggested that we give it to her at home. Um, really? Because that wasn't on my list of things to do before I turn 38.

When we first met the rheumatologist a few weeks ago, she spent a lot of time with us, listening to our whole story of how Maia's condition had progressed over the last year, including some of my commentary about all the missteps (in my opinion) by our former doctors. She said to me, "You're in the right place now." At the time it was comforting because I knew that she felt confident that they would be able to help Maia. But this week, I couldn't help but feel like, "What the hell am I doing here?" All the sick kids, all the supporting family, the toy cabinet for the kids when their treatment was done, the nurses coming in to check blood pressure, temperature, etc. - these things were not part of my life. But they are now.

I have a good friend from work who's daughter has an ongoing medical condition that has required similar drugs and various treatments and hospital stays since she was 7 months old. She knew exactly what I meant, which made me feel better. All those people who seem so comfortable there, or seem like they are supposed to be there, feel just like me, they don't feel like they should be there either. And they are going along, just like us, fumbling through, feeling sad and sometimes crappy that their kid has to go through this. I'm sure I'll eventually get over this, and Maia will hopefully get better at all the pokes, but for now we are going to whine and complain about it, just a little.

Here's the little trooper after the first day. Thank goodness for Hello Kitty bandaids.

When It Rains It...

is pouring... I'm up to my eyeballs in life going on. The good news is that it is raining. Finally.

I've got Maia's birthday party mostly under control, but I did have to scale back a little. I'm fine with it. We're still going to make fairy clothespin dolls, and they are coming along nicely. Here's a preview:

More bad news from work. Ugh. Less work will be coming my way due to v-e-r-y slow economy. I guess it's the risk you take being a casual part time employee.

Maia's treatment starts Monday. She'll get IV steroids for two hours, 3 days in a row. I really don't know what to expect. She's already resisting physical therapy a bit - it's just not fun. Sitting with an IV stuck in your arm, three days in a row - not fun either. But I'm working on a doctor/appointment bag that will contain special fun things she can do while at our not-so-fun appointments.

Mama Bear, Birds, Bathrooms and Books

Over a year ago, we noticed some red splotchy marks on Maia's left leg. And if I had several hours, I'd explain all the stuff we've been doing to figure this problem out... but suffice it to say that I have at least four doctors on my $#!*list of people to send a thanks-for-nothing letter (which I'm pretty sure will never actually happen but anyway...) On Wednesday, after taking her to a new set of doctors, we got confirmation that she has scleroderma, an autoimmune disease that causes excess collagen production in the affected tissues. For Maia, the affected area is her entire leg, and she is experiencing loss of range of motion in her knee, ankle, and foot, skin tightening and discoloration. The treatment involves a couple drugs and physical therapy, and I guess this could go on for a few years. This terrifies me, but at this point I feel like any moment not treating it, is potentially more permanent damage to her leg.

So, I've had my crying day, my angry day, my fearful day. Eventually, I'll settle into focusing all that Mama Bear energy into helping Maia get better. She's such a sweet little trooper and I love her to pieces.

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Birds, birds, birds... After several test birds, I think I finally have my pattern for Regina's swap. Pictures and progress coming soon.

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Um, the bathroom got torn up - I don't know how this happened, but here we are with a stripped down 5 x 8 room with a tub and a couple holes in the floor. We've got some new tile coming and Chris is planning a new cabinet with a sink and some wall units we already bought at Ikea. It'll be nice but like I said, it wasn't exactly on our list of priorities, so I'm not really sure why we're doing it now, but it was possibly the ugliest bathroom on the planet, so I am not complaining.

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Look at this cute book Sofia wrote for us. She's pretty neat.