Ragtime isn't just great music!

This is a rag quilt. You sew your tops and bottoms(precut square sandwiches of fabric) together with flannel in the middle. It only works with all flannel fabrics. When you're done, all your seams are on one side just like normal, but instead of backing the quilt to hide it, you cut tiny slits in it, and wash and dry it and it frays for decorative interest. You also fray the border to make it consistent. I displayed photos of the tops and bottoms, though I'm not sure which is the top or bottom. This is a small quilt (41in by 41in), perfect for the floor for laying on, but not one for laying over babies, its way too heavy, but in such a nice way for children and adults. Super soft, cushy, squishy and fun! Thank you Angela for helping me cut all these fabrics out!

My sister in law, Dixee and I found this cute pattern for baby quilts at Craft Warehouse in Vancouver. My friend Angela and I helped her put one together, and I'm hoping Dixee has it on her blog to show off because it turned out soooo cute....so cute in fact, that I had to make one. But which to make for my bebe? Well, I found such great deals in the after Thanksgiving sale, that each quilt only cost about 15.00 to make so it was an easy thing to consider. Now, which one will I get to use? Which one will go in storage? Any guesses?

Here are some stats to consider.
Last week, the monkey's heartrate was in the 170s, last night, it was 148. Heart rates are no sure fire way of indication, are they Dixee? but there are some believers that girl bebes have higher than 150 heart rate. Though, I haven't seen in what week that matters, because as the pregnancy progresses, it slows, right?
I'm nineteeen weeks along and haven't ever been nauseous, never threw up. My mom wasn't either with her pregnancies and she had a boy and a girl. The major symptom was tiredness. I had some food aversions, but it swayed me toward salty and sweet stuff and only carbs...I don't think I had much protein until the second trimester started.
Other Old Wives Tales( and books are even written!) indicate that if you have sex..wait let me describe this with what I read...
Male sperm travel fast, but die fast too...not long lived.
Female sperm travel slow and are long lived.
So, we had sex three days before I was to ovulate according to a test and some reasonable mapping, this would indicate a girl.
Jordan's father only reared male offspring.
Of those offspring, so far, they've had one male and no females. I've heard this matters, but we'll see!
I still believe that it's all a fifty fifty shot. I've had no premonitions about what this child is. No dreams, nada. I can't tell you if I'm carrying in the front or low because I think by the time that stuff starts to show, I'll have an ultrasound. Other than that, we don't care what gender this little one is...it just will make it easier to figure some stuff out, like names! If it's a girl, Evelena Rose, if it's a boy, Sage. Jordan said it one day and it's stuck. Evelena is after my Meemaw and my great aunt Lena. My meemaw was named Evelena but later changed it to Evelyn. I always loved her original name. But it's also a tribute to Lena, who was a wonderful support for me during my early twenties and definitely had that awesome gramma feel. I miss them both terribly! For Sage, we've figured out no middle name, but for Evy, well, we just had to have some pretty plant name in there! So, it's either Evy ( or Lena, or Rosie or Eva..or?), or Sage
...
Lets see....what else would help indicate? I know!! An ULTRASOUND!!!
Well, we've got 15 days till we get that, and we're so excited to find out so we can stop playing the he/she game. I can also stop trying to figure out what to knit or sew for both genders and I can finally figure out how to decorate the nursery.
All in all, just to continue with the stats, I've still only gained four pounds...so that's about a pound a month. I'm hoping that it stays low like this but I'll fess up with it all as I go. It's always something I want to ask pregger moms...only because I totally fear gaining fifty pounds! Oh, and the blood pressure and sugars have all been fine and normal, and this week, I've gotten to feel the little bugger move for the first times. Once two days ago, a short little one..and yesterday which lasted about twenty seconds. Now I just wait and wait and wait for more.
Thanks for checking in ya'll. Email or comment what you think this alien might be, or questions to further determine what I'm carrying around. I'm curious how people guess.

Home Improvements Show and Tell!

I told you a while back that we had repainted our bedroom and master bathroom. We also replaced some of the fixtures as well. We took pictures when we moved into the house and got settled originally, but those photos were stolen when our home was broken into. I did not take "before" pics sadly, so you'll have to work from memory or just judge for the first time. Oh, and yeah, we're aware we need some wall art. We're thinking of wedding pics, but we need to consult with Evrim about getting a few of these for our walls.
BTW, Jack loves to play "Where's Waldo" games in these pics. He follows me around everywhere these days and has always loved to be in the pictures. When I'm aiming, I can just say "sit" and he'll do it wherever he is. It only works when I have a camera, otherwise, the "Sit" command means "come here and sit right down in front of me." He's a silly guy!

In the bathroom, we've still got to install moulding at the ceiling, but we'll wait until we're working on the nursery moulding and do that one and what trim work needs to be done in the laundry room. I think we got the lines pretty straight but they'll just be covered up anyway. Jordan did a GREAT job with the trimwork and moulding using his miter saw that he got from his folks. They also got us an air compressor and so that will make all this trim work we still have to do go by so much faster. But the work we did was to install a new faucet, repaint, remove shower door and replace with a spa shower curtain rod and curtain( Thank you Matt for helping Jordan with this part), replaced hardware with a brushed nickel instead of the ever present gold that was in there. We still need to replace the light fixture, but that will come. I actually like the one that's in there, Is there a way to repaint the metal?

When Mom and Dad come to visit, they often complained about the lack of light in the living room. Hell, there's a lack of light in the kitchen too....I think it's the use of the fluorescent lights that our fans use. In any case, I added some track lighting above our fireplace that is set on a dimmer switch. Thank you Gene and Gabbi for your help! We love our new lighting! I can aim the lights wherever I want to and I like how it highlights this watercolor painting my Aunt Pat painted and gave to us for our wedding present. Isn't she good? Such talent in my family I swear!

You can see where there was no light if you go here.

Ever since we moved into this house we've wanted to replace the kitchen and laundry room flooring, but money was tight after we were burglarized and then replacing Jordan's car, so it's taken us 2.5 years to be able to do this work. Thank you MadHammer for all this beautiful work. It's made us really love our kitchen.
I think I'll set up the photos as "Before And After" for each shot. Hopefully this makes it easier for viewing. Let me know.

Before and After Kitchen View 1

Before and After Kitchen View 2, you can see in the old one where we have the laminate I chose sitting there. We chose a pecan wood. So far, so good!

Laundry with new blue paint job to match washer/dryer instead of mint sagey green that is everywhere else in the house.

Laundry View 2 is where we had our carpet removed from the entry way from our garage and had the laminate installed. This makes better sense for an entry way rather than a hard to clean carpet. Now we can sweep up pine needles and mop away the yuck.

okay, okay, enough with the house already!!! What does Lori's womb improvements look like? Well, here I am in all my four months of pregger glory.

Now, lets see...what about Jack?

Thanks everyone for stopping by. Drop me a line sometime and we'll catch up.