Distract me...please?

My silver penguin struggling to hold up his collection of vintage pins.

I'm avoiding scooping the cat's litter box.

I spend a good deal of my life avoiding that.

Hans calls it "Turd Burgling".

He'll call out to the children, "Look at Mama! Turd Burglar!"

I think we can file this under 'things you never wanted to know about'.

thank goodness Lumplings don't crap.

And thank goodness my munchkins like using the potty. On the day that Ella turned One she asked to sit on the potty. Love that kid!

Miss Ella turned her wee self over to me and my scissors yesterday for a haircut, and now she is sporting the sweetest, shortest bob.

Sheesh, I think the cats are drawing up signs for litter box protest.

okay okay! Duty (dooky?) calls!

7 x the baby boy love

My little boy is 7...SEVEN years old.

Geez louise...Did I blink or something?

We took Finn to his favorite Japanese restaurant where he had the choo choo train onions and his favorite sushi. The Chef discovered that Finn would try any sort of fish and kept stealing sashimi off of Opa's (Hans' Dad) plate to give to Finn.

The whole staff came out to sing to Finn and gave him a pineapple boat, complete with a candle.

Finn squirmed during the singing, but was thrilled with all of the special treatment.

We've been non stop celebrating his birthday since Saturday when we took all of the kids to the movies. The movie party was great and all of the kids had a wonderful time. On Sunday, we took Finn & Ella to the Build a Bear place at the mall where Ella got a Hello Kitty and Finn came home with a fuzzy frog. Monday was the Japanese dinner and today, Finn brought cupcakes for his entire class at school!

See, here is where I blinked... I'm pretty sure that I took this picture of cute little drooling baby boy just the other day.

But no, here is the picture I took the other day...complete with cupcake crumbs.

At this time, seven years ago today, the doctors were just deciding that I should have a c-section. They had been trying to induce labor for three days and my body wouldn't budge. I was at the point where my blood pressure was too high and it was dangerous for both me and Finn.

I'll never forget the nurse getting me ready for the epidural. She told me to sit on the edge of the bed and touch my toes.

Do what?!?

Touch my toes?!?

Are you freaking kidding me, lady? I haven't seen my toes in months! I don't even know if they are still there!!

That nurse ran away.

Everything went so quickly from there, and I was in an operating room with chatty doctors and Hans by my side. The Doctors stopped chatting suddenly and everyone was super quiet. We were told that Finn was breach, or head up, and the cord was wrapped around his neck.

If I would have gone into labor, Finn would have most likely been strangled by the cord.

There are so many times in our lives where we are just on the edge of something huge and awful happening to us. Sometimes we fall in and it is Cancer, but sometimes we turn away suddenly and are holding a beautiful pink baby.

So here's to all the times that we either turn away suddenly, or crawl out of that huge and awful hole by our teeth.

Because, Hell, Hans and I have done both now.

And here's to everyday being as special as a baby boy's birthday!

The Lumplings and the Shoe Lover

Lots of little Lumplings coming into being! I'll be working on them tonight, as I fear what tomorrow will bring me. Somehow, Hans and I agreed to take Finn, Ella and TEN other little kids to the movie theatre for Finn's birthday.

Wait. Pause here. My little boy will turn seven next week.

Holy Crap.

Ok...back to our crazy outing. I think Hans must have agreed to this; I don't think that I'm quite that insane. Maybe? Ok, maybe I am, but I obviously need to be medicated.

Finn is really happy about going and I'm sure I'll have a good time once we get popcorn and drinks for everyone and get them all seated and quiet. Did I say Quiet? Pfft.

Luckily, all of his friends are really good and sweet kids. No popcorn throwing hellions in the bunch.

Except for me, of course.

A quilted pillow that will soon go up on amyrue.com. Just a few bits left to finish.

The cotton has a beautiful feel to it and the quilting only enhanced that. So we are left with a soft, but sturdy, pillow.

mmmm....mustard....mmmhmmm.

New shoes make me pretty happy. Mustard colored shoes make me even happier.

So tomorrow, I'll wear my lovely new yellow shoes and herd small children in public.

Yeah, I feel the envy.

Pfft.

But it is really great, in a strange sort of way, that Hans and I are able to do what we do after this past year and a half.

Mama shakes the dreamland tree

Pillows & blankets are a big deal in the Rue household. One big snuggery around here!

I end up making lots of special pillows and blankies for the kids from things we recycle.

Ella's kitty pillow above is a vintage handmade bib on top of matelasse remnants I had from making her bedroom curtains. I found the old queen size matelasse at a local antique store for $5.00...priced so low because it had large rust stains running across it. An overnight soak in Oxyclean took care of that, I use Oxyclean on all of my delicate vintage linens.

The bib was found on Ebay for a couple of dollars with storage stains as well. Ella loves to look at Ebay and picked it out herself, at the time I had no idea what we would actually do with it! I cut off the bib ties and treated it like one large applique with little bitty, hard to see stitches to hold it in place.

A very back-lit photo of Ella's curtains from this morning, the sun says Hello to her room first. Love love love that ball fringe.

Our old pram is there, stuffed with all of her softies. That pram has been used for every baby in our family. I have a picture of my older brother looking like a little peanut in it from 36 years ago. When my son Finn was born, I relined it with a black & white toile. The last time it had been lined was in blue checks when my little brother was born in the early Eighties. It has a top...hiding somewhere in my messy house.

Now Finn wants more modern pillows. When he out grows a favorite t-shirt and is sad to see it go, I'll make a pillow out of it instead, just like the Spiderman one there. These make great soft, bonk someone on the head without guilt, pillows

Not that I usually feel too much guilt when I bonk someone on the head.

Cause, you know, sometimes you just have to.

His skull pillow is super simple all fleece. Fleece can make you feel good again about sewing when you've been frustrated by other fabrics. So soft...so freaking easy to work with. I just cut out the skull and appliqued it on the black background.

My next recycle the munchkin stuff will be a quilt, and maybe a pillow, of Ella's old dresses. She has had so many precious dresses that I just didn't want to give away, but I don't really have the storage room for them, so I've been cutting them up into tiny squares for a simple patchwork quilt.

I need to take a picture of the growing pile of dress squares...this might be a big quilt!

The new sewing machine and I are making progress...maybe even a truce has happened.

I've probably just jinxed myself.

Above is a close up of the pocket on a dress that I just made for Ella. I'm in love with that fancy little scallop stitch.

It's a sweet little dirndl, but still a bit too big for her. The floral corduroy is soft, and I lined it in cotton brown with cream polka dots.

In my home if something stands still long enough I will paint it. It just happens... I get what my Mama calls "a crazy hair up my butt" (wow...when you type that it looks kind of crude, but it never fails to make me laugh!) and I have to paint. Hans has expressed the fear that he will one day wake up to find himself in the perfect shade of chartreuse.

Gads, I love chartreuse. The color...not the liqueur.

The lighting in this picture bites. Our weather is still gorgeous here in Georgia... my windows are open today, but the light is still dim enough that pictures suffer.

This is our dining room that I had made the mistake of painting in a flat sheen. At the time I had no idea that every child who enters this home would find it too hard to resist fondling these walls. What is that? What are they looking for?

But this time they will be thwarted! I'm putting up a fabulous semi gloss in the prettiest blue shade. I actually took in a bag from Restoration Hardware to the home improvement's paint department for a color match. The girl only looked at me like I was crazy for a few seconds.

Then she tried to tell me that if I did it in a flat sheen it would be washable. I looked at her like she was crazy for more than a few seconds and asked nicely if she had any children? No? Then do it in a semi gloss like I asked and I'll stop laughing at you.

Dang! Update this thing already!

A rare egg cup Lumpling.

Odd pudgy Lumplings that do not seem to have any legs...they prefer to be snuggled into an egg cup.

Just don't try to crack his head!

2007

We've been so busy around here with holiday stuff. But the tree is down, the candy canes have been put away and a new year is at hand. Hans went back to work yesterday, Finn will go back to school tomorrow, while Ella and I will hopefully fall back into our daily routine.

Routines are nice. Boring is lovely.

My xmas gift from Hans was a fancy sewing machine! Right now the machine and I are getting to know each other and it has involved much cussing on both parts, but I've almost tamed it!