2nd Christmas

This year we spent Christmas up in Idaho with Clark’s family. Due to work schedules we had to drive through the night to make it out there. The best part about that was Lily slept most of the way. When we arrived outside their house we checked our phones and were informed that it was a balmy 3 degrees outside. Lovely. Though that’s not too much different from the 60 degree highs we were experiencing at home, right? Anyway, I was only there for 2 1/2 days due to the fact that I had to be back home to manage the apartments. Even so, we had a nice little trip and got to enjoy Lillian’s second Christmas with lots of family around.

Last Christmas was fun with just the three of us but Lily was still a little unaware of what exactly was going on. This year was such a blast! About a week before Christmas we made the mistake of letting Lil open our gifts from my aunt and uncle and she quickly figured out that the presents under our tree also needed to be opened. With enough distraction, however, we kept our gifts safe. Christmas morning we woke up early to talk via Skype to my brother-in-law Van who is on his mission in Germany. We then went to church for a little bit and came home to commence with opening the presents. I am lucky enough to have a husband who always gets me wonderful gifts, but the best gift I got this year was being able to see my sweet little girl open her presents. She’s not quite to the stage yet where she wants to open every gift she sees or is unhappy that there’s not more. She’s at the perfect spot that she is simply tickled pink that she gets to discover and play with something new.

I was able to catch a few of these precious moments with my camera, the first of which being my favorite. Lily had just watched her cousin open a set with a baby doll and lots of accessories, the most important part being a little stroller, over which the two of them immediately began a tug of war. I let grandpa know that it was absolutely necessary to now open the baby stroller we had gotten for Lily before things got any worse. I grabbed my camera a little too late, so the picture is blurry, but I managed to capture the look of pure joy on Lily’s face as she realized that she too had her own little stroller. I don’t think I have ever seen her open her mouth so wide or for so long :)

 

I love how in this one she looks like she’s sneaking off with her own little treasure

 

Seeing Clark’s joy only added to the fun :)

 

Playing with her Elmo phone

 

Opening the blanket I made for her

 

Clark even took a turn behind the lens

 

Tuckered out after a fun filled morning

                          

And then finding something else to open…

                       

I’m so happy to have such a precious little girl who brings me such great joy.

18,000 ways to say I love you

So I’m not very talented when it comes to crafting. I can’t make a quilt and I can’t sew Lily any clothes. I’m not a painter and I can’t decorate cakes beyond getting the frosting from the jar to the cake. Probably a good thing because I’d waste too much time on that instead of actually spending time with my child. I did, however, find a pattern for a cross stitch blanket a few months ago and I decided I should make an effort to actually make something for my child. I have done enough cross stitching in my life to know that you don’t really need talent to make something, you just need patience and time. Lots of time.Time here, time there. Time when you should be cooking or cleaning or playing with your child or sleeping. I figured I could handle that but I severely underestimated how much time I really would need. Or  how much your fingers can bleed when pricked by a needle, or your toes, for that matter, when they are unintentionally  used to find the needle that has been lost in the carpet… Anyway, I ordered the blanket kit and it arrived in the mail just as we were leaving for my dad’s birthday party on September 24th.  I was very excited and got started on it that night when we got home. This is what it looked like when I just started (after adding all of the eyes, beaks, and other small details)

 

Being a stamped cross stitch blanket, all of the blue markings are there to show me where to go and I can wash them off when I finish. I went to work on this and worked, and worked, and worked. I’d say that on average I spent at least an hour a day, five days a week on this. Though most weeks it was 2-3+ hours, seven days a week. To be fair though, I was definitely distracted by the T.V., my daughter and husband, and duties from our apartment managing job during those long hours of stitching. Though tedious, it was rewarding to see the blanket coming along and the work helped distract me from the fact that Clark was usually working on homework…again. I had to be reminded at times that even though I was making this for Lily, she would probably appreciate me putting down the blanket and playing with her more. Lily even helped a few times. She loved to pull the needle and thread for me, most times pulling way too hard. I can say the best $0.99 I ever spent was on my needle threader! This blanket would have taken me years if I couldn’t have used that! Finally on December 18th- three months after starting my project, I tied off the last piece of thread and declared the blanket finished. A friend will help me sew fabric on the back to cover the backside of the stitching later, but all of my hard work was done :).

Here is a pic of Lily playing with it to give you an idea of the size of the blanket

 

Naturally, when I finished the blanket I had to count (approximately) how many stitches there are on the blanket to know just how many little x’s I stitched. Each of the 12 circles contains 282 squares of 4 x’s each, which came out to 13,536. The border contains about 4220 x’s. Adding in the thread used for the detailing and outlining, that comes to around 18,000 x’s on this blanket.

I hope Lily someday knows that those are 18,000 hugs, 18,000 bits of encouragement, 18,000 “I love you”s.  In a few days I’ll give this to Lily for Christmas, even though it’s not exactly a surprise. She has been watching me and using it to learn some new animals. My favorite of which is the porcupine, or in Lily’s words “cok-u-pime.” I would not be surprised if she opens this present on Christmas and quickly brings it to me and says “ Mommy’s blanket, don’t touch,” as that is probably what she heard most whenever trying to steal it from my working hands. To be honest, though, I’m kind of terrified of giving it to her fully. If she destroys it somehow I will literally cry. Knowing my little tornado of a daughter, that is a very real possibility, but I’m willing to take that risk