I Can See!

Technology and modern medicine truly are a miracle!  I had LASIK Eye Surgery yesterday and as of my post-op appointment this morning, I’m seeing right around 20/20 and my eyes should continue to improve over the coming months.  It’s awesome!  I went to bed with blurry/fuzzy vision after my surgery, and after a 4 hour nap (thanks Valium!), I woke up seeing clearly with only a little irritation and dryness. 

Today my eyes have been dry and a little irritated, but mostly just tired.  Most of the time it seems like I’m just wearing my contacts (which I’ve worn for probably 13-14 years) so it’ll be neat to wake up tomorrow morning (or the middle of the night since Abby has been waking up crying lately) and just be able to see without any glasses or contacts.  It’s kind of strange!

I’m really grateful to Dr. Hoopes for blessing me with this surgery.  I didn’t think I’d have it for many years and I feel so lucky and blessed!

I want to post about our Christmas but this is about all the computer time my eyes can handle….maybe tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!!

The Gardner Family’s Christmas Stockings

I am FINALLY finished with making our Christmas stockings!  I was done with all the appliques a while ago but I attempted to hand embroider our names on them and it just didn’t work.  Well, I’m too much of a perfectionist and it was taking too long so I gave up.  I had them machine embroidered instead.

They aren’t perfect.  Why was I expecting them to be?  For instance, why is Nat’s longer than the rest?  Why did the lady who did the embroidery put my name slightly higher than the others and a bigger font than Dad’s?  Why is Abby’s wreath lower than the other appliques?  The answer is….I’m a total novice at sewing!  And I have no answer about the lady who did the embroidery.  All things considered, I am happy with them.  After all, they are homemade so they shouldn’t be perfect right?  :)

We are allowed to have 2 more children…that is it!

”The stockings were hung by the staircase with care”

I just washed and dried them this morning (to make them fray) so I’d say I finished just in the nick of time!

Bring on Santa!!

Our Little Drummer Boy

Adam has loved drums since he was a baby so it’s no surprise that one of his favorite Christmas songs is “The Little Drummer Boy”. 
Every time he hears it, he starts drumming and marching to the beat.  I told him the story of why the boy went to play his drums for Baby Jesus, so now in addition to drumming, he acts out the story.  He’s so cute.

We have a tradition where every year we give the kids an ornament so when they move out and start their own lives and families, they will have a box full of memories and ornaments for their own tree.  I haven’t been able to find one for Adam for this year until tonight.
It plays the classic Bing Crosby version of the song which is the version Adam knows.
It’s perfect.

Too Pretty For Words

While eating lunch the other day, it struck me how pretty Abigail is.  Her eyes aren’t as blue as Adam’s, but the blue/grey color looks kind of mysterious and deep, for lack of a better word.
And she has long, dark eyelashes like her brother, (and mother before getting old).  These pictures don’t do her justice.

On top of being beautiful, this baby girl is growing FAST!  Here she is “walking”!  It wasn’t long after Adam started doing this that he took his first real steps around 11 months old.  Yikes!

Tot School – Christmas Part 2

- Adam is 36 months old -

We started some fun activities and crafts centered around Christmas this week. I don’t know what it is, but things seem to always get in the way of Tot School. We didn’t do as much as I had planned, but we have next week (and maybe the week after!) to get to it all.

Adam sorted pom-poms onto these cute colored candy canes from Confessions of a Homeschoolers’ Christmas Preschool Pack.
He was pretending that the pom-poms were families so if there was one candy cane that only had a tiny pom-pom on it, he would get the 2 big pom-poms, aka Mommy and Daddy and put them with their baby who missed them.

He played with play-doh and Christmas cookie cutters several days this week. He loved making cookies and sharing them with his baby sister and me.

From 1+1+1=1’s Nativity Preschool Pack I put together the mini book “Animals with Baby Jesus” and Adam glued the animals and people onto the “correct” card.
If you look closely, you can see that the sheep and the pig are on the people card. That is because the sheep lives with the shepherd….obviously, Mom. And the pig is friends with the sheep and lives there too.

Adam’s cousins came over one night to play and in an effort to keep them busy, we made a little Santa Claus craft with cotton balls. Too bad it lasted all of 10 minutes! :)

It snowed a little on Saturday so we bundled up and went outside to play. I built a snowman while Adam scooped, filled, and dumped the snow from his sand bucket. I guess he thinks it’s just as good as sand!

Adam got this Discovery Toys “Measure Up! Balance” for his birthday last month and we have pulled it out a couple times to play with but on this day I made sure to use words to describe the state of the cups. We talked about light vs. heavy, up vs. down, full vs. empty and equal.

We also sorted by color…
Stacked….
And put them nicely back in the container (because that’s the only way the lid will fit on)

The cool thing about this “toy” is that the pieces are correctly weighted in grams and the cups have milliliter markings. As he grows, we can learn about how many red pieces equal a blue and how many blue pieces equal a purple or yellow, how to measure liquids, how different objects around the house weigh compared to other objects, etc. I love Discovery Toys because each of their toys comes with a parent guide with ideas on how to teach different things using the same toy. I bought this at a gift show and I was so tempted by several other things but I restrained myself and will just have to wait for later!

Check out the Tot School posts on 1+1+1=1 and also the preschool pages!

Cancer Sucks

As some have heard on the news the past couple of weeks, my Dad has been diagnosed with Stage 3 Appendiceal Cancer (cancer of the appendix). We just got the oncology diagnosis and treatment plan today and he will undergo 6 months of chemotheraphy treatments, every 2 weeks starting in January.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little scared. Still, I have felt at peace since my Grandpa, brother, and Nat gave him a blessing several weeks ago before he had his appendix and tumor removed. I still feel at peace. I feel like he will be ok and although chemo is going to suck, this is not a death sentence and he will be around for a long time still.

Thank to all our family and friends who have been praying for him and us. One good thing about living a public life is that many, many more prayers have and will be offered on his behalf and that can only help his recovery that much more.

Tot School – Christmas Part 1

- Adam is 36 months old now! -

It has been a long time since we did Tot School at our house! The last time I did anything structured was the week of Halloween! But, I finally got my act together and have planned a whole bunch of fun activities and crafts for Christmas. I did the planning this week, so we only did a few things. Plus, Daddy was out of town 4 out of 7 days and that just makes everything harder around the house. So….this is what we did:

We made a “Countdown to Christmas” chain with a sweet little poem on the star at the top. The poem is:
One Christmas night, so long ago,
A star shone down so all would know,
That in a manger, on that night,

A savior was born, our guiding light!
Now Christmas time is almost here
A very special time of year.

When everyone anticipates
That night we can celebrate!
As you remove a link each night

Remember the star that shone so bright
And told the world of Jesus' birth
The Son of God, here on earth!

Adam made a mini book called, “What Color is the Present?” Each page said “The present is _____” with the color word printed in that color. He then colored each present accordingly.

He really loved using Do-a-Dot paints to fill in this Christmas tree. This is the first time I’ve had him put the dot in the circle and he did really well. We gave this colorful Christmas tree to his Papa who is recovering from surgery in the hospital to cheer him up.
I made this pattern file folder game a while ago but haven’t used it. It’s a good thing because Adam generally does not get the idea of patterns. At the time, I was feeding the baby so I couldn’t directly work with him so he ended up sticking whatever color he wanted, where ever he wanted it. And then had fun pulling them back off (they stick with Velcro).

He loved doing the shape matching wheel. He easily clips the clothespins on and knows all his shapes.

That’s all that we managed to do this week. Adam was so happy to start “Top School” again. He has been asking nearly every day since we stopped and I’m happy we’re back at it!

Check out 1+1+1=1 for more blogs who do Tot School

Abby is 10 Months Old Today

Little Miss Abigail is already 10 months old!  She is so fun and Adam absolutely loves her and they are constantly making each other laugh.
She is now walking along furniture and getting more and more brave at letting go and slowly sitting herself down rather than falling.

She still has no teeth, which is kind of odd to me.  It makes her seem more babyish than she really is!  I’ve been hesitant to give her real food because she has nothing to chew with, but just the other night she had ravioli, peas, and carrots and loved it!  And today I gave her a little cheese cut up into tiny pieces and she devoured them.  I guess I need to start giving her more food even though she’s toothless!
Sucking and gnawing on an apple

Just like her big brother did, she LOVES to help with the dishes!  As soon as she hears me open the dishwasher she is over in an instant pulling out silverware and banging on pans.  Every time I’m done I say, “All done, thank you!” in a high pitched sing-songey voice and I would gently push her down on her bum.  Well now I just have to say “All done, thank you!” and she sits automatically!  What a good little girl.

She signs “milk” perfectly and seems to understand “diaper change”, “eat”, and “drink”.
She will sometimes repeat us when we say, Da-Da or Ma-Ma or Num-Num and she loves to wave bye-bye.

She sure is a fun baby!

I’m Making Stockings!

Well, I’m attempting to make stockings.  I grew up with coordinating stockings and I’ve been waiting to get ones for our little family since Adam was born.  Unfortunately, the ones I would love to get are really expensive.

I made this rag quilt for Adam out of flannel and cotton and it turned out so cute so I had the idea to do kind of the same thing on stockings. 
I searched around online and came across a cute pattern for ragged cotton stockings with little appliques on the front.  The pattern came with 6 applique designs so I am going to make 6 coordinating stockings (2 to save for future babies hopefully!).  Before I went and bought all the fabric, I did a trial run with some random fabric I had lying around.  I’m so happy I did because I messed up a few times and figured out better ways to do other things.

So here’s my trial stocking.  It was actually really easy to put together.  This is before I snipped the seams and washed it.  After being snipped and washed
I will add batting between the layers on the actual stockings to give them some soft puffiness.  I also discovered that I should follow the pattern’s suggestion and use homespun cotton because apparently it frays better.  This cotton (or whatever it was) hardly frayed at all in the wash.  I’m also going to tweak the shape of the stocking a little.

I want to have our names embroidered on them but I don’t want to do it myself because they won’t be perfect and it’ll forever drive me crazy.  I think I’ll try and find someone that has one of those fancy machines that embroiders for you.  Anyone have one of those? :)

Just Call Me “Four-Eyes”

No, these are not my glasses….they aren’t quite that bad.

I really, really hate wearing my glasses!

I have a Lasik consultation on Monday so I have to be contact-free for 5 long days!

Some people have stylish glasses and look great in them….not me.
I have a cheap pair of glasses that were only ever meant to be worn in the morning before I shower. That’s it.
They are bent from babies pulling on them.
They do not flatter my face whatsoever.
They make my left ear hurt.
I can’t see to do my hair or put on makeup.

I’m not complaining though….I am blessed (possibly….that’s what the consultation is for) to get a great deal on Lasik which I have been dreaming about since I was a teenager.

I just have to make it through The Forgotten Carols tonight and church on Sunday.  Other than that, I don’t care because I’m cooped up in my house.

I’ll end on one positive.  Last night I marveled at how untired and undry my eyes were after a day in glasses!

Disclaimer:  I’d never dream of actually calling someone “Four-Eyes”.  I have nothing against people who wear glasses, I just hate mine!

Let it Snow!

Happy 1st Day of December!


These two kids love to look out the window and Abby especially loves banging on the glass!  Too bad the Christmas tree is now blocking the way!