Grateful

Today, as I sit by Violet's hospital bed and hear the hum of machines, the beeping of alarms, the quiet conversations between nurses, I feel so very grateful...

Grateful for the wonderful medical care that we have been blessed with. I often wonder what would have happened to Violet 100 years ago when they didn't have the technology that we have today.

Grateful that Violet's condition isn't long-term or severe, like so many of the other babies that I'm seeing in the intensive care unit. Even though the past week has been rough, there are many other people going through much, much worse situations.

Grateful for my family who are taking such good care of my other babies at home.

Grateful for friends and family who are taking the time to visit us. It's so nice to see familiar faces in the midst of doctors, nurses, and lots and lots of sick people.

Grateful for the Ronald McDonald House where we can get a good night's sleep. The people who volunteer there are so sweet and helpful. And I don't think I've ever slept as good as I did last night! And that's not an exaggeration! It was heavenly!

Grateful that God has been faithful to give us grace and strength to get through each day. I feel His presence, and He has filled me with peace like only He can do.

Grateful for YOU for reading my little blog and for the many caring comments I've received from the readers. You have been such an encouragement to me over the past few days!

Thank you!

Update on Baby Violet

The past few days have been such a whirlwind - hopefully what I write makes sense! I feel like my brain is on autopilot, and I'm just going through the motions of life. Doing what I need to do to get through these days.

Violet was not improving at the hospital and the doctors were getting concerned. Yesterday, they decided to transfer her to Hershey Medical Center where she would receive more thorough and specialized care. We arrived yesterday afternoon, and they've told us we'll probably be here for three more days.

We spent the night sleeping (or trying!) in the waiting room. Doesn't that sound like a pleasant experience? There was a man sleeping in the room who snored so loudly that I almost smothered him with my pillow. I reeeeally, reeeeally wanted to. Like, really. So needless to say, it wasn't like sleeping at a 5-star hotel. But we are getting used to sleeping in all kinds of circumstances lately.

Thankfully, they have an incredibly nice Ronald McDonald House close by, so we'll be spending the nights there from now on.

I have missed Avery & Jack so terribly much, I can't even tell you. We finally got to see them for a bit this morning, and I hated to leave them. Jack clung to me and didn't want me to go. I cannot wait for the day when we can go home and celebrate Christmas together! It will be special, that's for sure!!

Thank you all for your comments of love and support! It has been such a blessing to read about your stories and to know that people are praying for us. I have a peace in my soul and know that God has everying in His divine control!

"Parenting is not for the faint of heart"

This is what our doctor told me just after he said that we would most likely be spending Christmas in the hospital. And, unfortunately, that's what happened.

Early last week baby Violet had a stuffy nose that progressed to a cough, then on Thursday evening she had a very high fever. Our doctor met me & Violet in the ER at midnight on Thursday while hubs stayed home with Avery & Jack.

She had tests done that night which confirmed our doctor's opinion that she had RSV-bronchiolitis as well as a secondary infection that is causing a high fever. When I took her to the ER I expected that she would be released that night, but her little body is taking longer than normal to recover from this, and we are still in the hospital.


She is getting nebulizer treatments, steroids, antibiotics and is now on an IV because she is losing weight.

Her oxygen levels aren't staying where they should be because she can't get much air into her lungs, so they are giving her oxygen to help. She should make a full recovery - it's just taking her body a while to get over this.


The past few days have been a whirlwind of emotions, disappointments, missing the children, sleepless nights, sadness about missing Christmas, and all that goes with having a child in the hospital. Hubs and I have both been staying with her almost all the time, because she needs to be held in an upright position to be able to breathe well. We take turns holding her and sleeping in the cot in her room. But needless to say, we are pretty worn out.

Accepting the fact that we would be missing Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with our kids and family was hard for me to deal with. Let's just say the holidays did NOT turn out the way we expected! But once I accepted it, I was able to move on and focus on taking care of Violet.


One step at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time...I'm trying not to look too far ahead to the future or I just get totally overwhelmed. It tears my heart out to see her in pain. I think just about the worst feeling a mama can experience is to see her child suffer. For now, we are at the hospital with our sweet girl and will probably be there for a few more days.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!

Pajamas with feet are the best kind

It has been chills-bills around these parts lately, so we've mostly just stayed inside in our pj's all.day.long.

Is that wrong?

I don't think so.

We've coaxed more smiles out of this messy-haired love machine...


I could seriously just munch on her all day long. Avery's been a good helper as you can see. She loves to snuggle with the babes and act like she is mommy.

So stinkin' cute.


It's Christmas week! Are you ready? I just need to get one more gift then I think we are all set.

Stay warm you guys!

Canvas Wall Art

New discovery: Getting 6 straight hours of sleep actually makes me a pleasant person to be around! Wow, I feel like a new woman thanks to the hubs getting up during the night to feed the baby a bottle! Yay for helpful husbands!!

Someone requested an art piece similar to the canvas art on Red Letter Words (which I LOVE, by the way!).

I haven't used canvas a lot, so it was fun trying something new. Now I want to make some of these for my house!






I also made another canvas art piece similar to the one I made for my bedroom and have put it in my Etsy shop. **Edited: This sign has sold and I've received several requests from people, so I will make a few more to put in the shop in the next few weeks.

It has the lyrics for the song "O How He Loves Us", which is one of my favorites.




It's almost the weekend! It's amazing how much I look forward to Saturdays and Sundays right now! Having the hubs home for two whole days is priceless!!

Have a great one!

Painted Toy Chest

In between diaper changes, feeding the baby every 3 hours, mopping up the bathroom floor that got covered with poopy toilet water thanks to a certain little boy who threw a wad of wipes into the toilet and another certain little girl who flushed when she shouldn't have, breaking up sibling squabbles every 10 minutes, constantly picking up toys, laundry, and.....I think you get the idea, in between all that mommy-stuff, I've managed to find time to do some fun, creative things.

Like this cute toy chest. A friend wanted me to do some decorative painting on it (she was giving it as a gift to her niece), so this is what I came up with.



I used the same general bird/branch design that I used for the laundry chute.

How cute would this be in a little girl's nursery?!



Ok, time to get dinner ready. And another baby that needs a diaper change. Such is my life right now.

More projects to come!

Holiday Fireplace

I wasn't sure how much Christmas decorating I would be able to do this year, but the bug hit and I couldn't resist!

Things that used to take me a day to do now take me a week, and I've gotten used to the idea that having an almost-two year old boy in the house means that the decorations can get destroyed in no time flat.



This sign I painted is available in my Etsy shop, in case you are interested:


For the mantle I kept it pretty simple - used sequined trees that I got several years ago on clearance at Target, a red berry garland, some paper-mache snow balls that I made a couple years ago, and my violin.

I was hoping to make some stockings this year, but it just didn't happen. There's always next year!



Have a great weekend!

Simple Doormat Project

First of all, I can't take credit for coming up with this project. I totally stole the idea from Lisa Leonard's blog.

I bought this doormat for $6.97 from Walmart:



I printed out lettering for the word "joy" using the font American Typewriter and I printed it onto thicker coverstock paper. Then I used a craft knife to cut out the letters, making a stencil.


Here is the homemade stencil:


I used a foam stencil brush to paint the lettering onto the doormat. I used black acrylic craft paint that I had on hand.


And it's as simple as that! You could do all kinds of things with this. Use your last name, snowflakes, or any words you want. Totally easy! And cute, right?

One Month

So Miss Violet is now one month old. How time flies! Honestly, it's been a very challenging month. She still is a very good, content baby, but the older two kiddos wear me out at times!

Jack has decided that he is now a two-year-old and loves to tear the house apart. And Avery has decided that she needs to take care of disciplining him, which he obviously just loves (yeah, right).

Remember that laundry chute I told you about in the last post? Well, last week Jack emptied out his entire dresser of clothes, socks, pjs, you name it, and threw it all down the chute. Nice. I guess he thought I looked bored and needed something to do.

Three little kiddos = not much free time for this tired mama!

Anyway, enough complaining!! Violet gave us her first real smile for the first time this weekend! It's so fun to see some interaction from her! Makes me look forward to all the "firsts" that we'll see in the coming months.

She is such a little sweetie and so far has kept all of her beautiful black hair that I just can't get enough of. We love her to pieces!!

Laundry Chute Cabinet

When we decided to renovate a storage room in our house that looked like this:



and turn it into a nursery that now looks like this:


we discovered that the room was directly above our laundry room. Hubs came up with the fantastic idea to install a laundry chute so that I don't need to drag the dirty wash from the upstairs to the laundry room which is downstairs and at the back of the house.

So he built a cabinet from scratch and installed it in the nursery as a place to throw the laundry down the chute.


It was a tedious process to make a hole through the concrete floor, but the hubster is very capable and can do just about anything, in my opinion!

I made some labels and used glass knobs that I bought at Hobby Lobby. There's a slot for light colors, dark colors, and cloth diapers, so it's already sorted when I need to do the laundry. I feel totally spoiled now when it's laundry day!



And, of course, I had to do some kind of decorative painting on the cabinet! I was inspired by a design from Uppercase Living and painted it on freehand.

The green color I used to paint the cabinet is called Ivy League by Benjamin Moore.



It was finished just before baby Violet was born, which was perfect timing! And I just love it!

Happy Friday!