A SECRET SANTA QUILT.

merry christmas! i'm your secret santa!

i hope you like your quilt! i am not really great at sewing. i don't cut fabric in straight lines and i don't sew straight either. i've named your quilt a "hodge podge" quilt. i don't know if you saw online or not, but i've started an etsy shop. i wanted to keep myself busy with crafting- well, anything really. i've realized that it's something i need to do to stay content. i need to make. so i've made christmas cards and a print.

for december, i decided that i would make this quilt my monthly project. it is the "season of giving", so i'm not listing anything (this quilt) in my shop. now that you know a little bit about the background, i'll let you in on the story of the quilt.

when rorie was just 5 months old in the winter of 2012 i drove to the lincoln square area and picked up two garbage bags full of fabric scraps. i used freecycle and thought i could make something for rorie. well, i didn't. but i held onto the fabric and moved it with us to NH.

some of the fabric i used was from my old kitchen curtains in chicago.

some are scraps from jacobs crib sheets (stars) and my current kitchen curtains (newspaper).

there's a red sweatshirt material from a "camp squanto" sweatshirt whose original owner was my dad (it was falling apart).

other fabric is leftover from the pillowcases i sewed while pregnant with jake. i was nesting (little red flowers & green).

and lastly, there's fabric from the scraps of a dress my mom sewed for rorie when we were waiting for jacob to make his arrival.

the back of the quilt is an old fleece blanket i impulse bought at old navy when i was in high school in VA. both of my kids have spit-up on it (don't worry, i washed it!).

so there you have it...the story behind this epic "hodge podge" quilt that i made specifically for you,

my "secret santa 2014: out-of-towners-edition" (town=chicago-birth place of the burgh babes)

so merry christmas, again!

i love + miss you!

chelsea

p.s. i had my friend britta... if you were wondering who this was sent to.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY.

THE GOOD:

baby boy smiles all the time. and everyday i'm so thankful that he's not sick like rorie was. he only fusses if he has a bubble or needs to eat or sleep. other than that he's smiling at everything. which includes smiling at absolutely nothing (so weird...why do babies do that?) and now he's full blown talking and having conversations. he's also super active and very strong, just like his sister. moving like crazy. almost figured out rolling over onto his back...eating his hands constantly. he gets super smiley and then bashful, which is the cutest thing ever! i'm already proud of the little man we created.

as a family, the summer has been great. lots of family and friends. LOTS. lots of traveling for us. a bit of relaxation at camp and touisset. it was just great. we are slowly getting into the swing of things at home and making new routines and grooves. hoping to make some friends and maybe get out more?

baby girl had a fantastic summer. and it ended with her paci's being taken away from her cold turkey. day one there was screaming and crying at nap and bed. day two and beyond... nada. really glad that it wasn't a big to-do. she will proudly tell you that there are "no pacis in MY bed".

aaron and i are not as tired as we were two months ago. (but we are still tired. see the "ugly" section).

rorie says "arts and craftses".

baby girl has almost 100% potty trained herself. she decided to do this the week we went to camp (so fun! nope not at all)...and we haven't really looked back. she also often sleeps dry at nap and overnight. not sure how that happened, but i'll take it.

baby boy is growing like crazy pants! having our first baby not put on any weight was rough, so every morning when i pick him up i am amazed at how heavy he is! and long! he's not a chunker, but he's very tall and has filled in quite nicely. i think he's around 13 pounds? rorie hit that mark around 7 month... and that's just crazy to me.

my last visitor is here: my bro bro, sam. and i love every minute of his existence in my life.

photo by Kelsey Stevens Photography.

THE BAD:

we've had three bats in our apartment. not cool. i captured one. aaron the next. and the third... i called 911. seriously. i'm home alone at 2:30am with two kids. my two year old wakes up right after i feed and get the two month old back to sleep. i walk to her room and the third bat is swooping in the living room right outside her room. i race through the door and i'm pretty sure i yelled "crap". but i can't really be sure because my adrenaline was pumping at that point. rorie was crying about wanting milk? she never gets milk in her bed... but she has a water bottle, so i gave that to her and left- hoping it would do. i ran to my room to put my figurative big-girl pants on and a hoodie to protect my head. ran back to the living room and balled up a blanket and began swinging. by the third bad i no longer wanted to let it free outside. i wanted to kill it. long story short. i became unbearably exhausted and i didn't know what to do. i just knew the bat needed to go. i called the only people i knew would come to my rescue no matter how silly it was- the police. and the nice policeman saved the day just in time for jacob to wake up again to eat and then not go back to sleep. i was very tired the next day.

jacob is sensitive to caffeine. enough said.

THE UGLY:

i absolutely hated saying goodbye to my mom, dad, and gracie this summer. for some reason i've been ugly crying like my first semester in college. i miss them so much. trying to pull myself together, but also letting myself be sad... because it means i love them so much (:

my children are on opposite schedules. the days and nights i'm alone with both of them are very hard, but it can only get better right? i mean, "going to bed" at 9pm, getting up almost every hour some nights, and always starting the day at 4am doesn't really make for an easy start to the next "day"... lets be real. there are no days. it's one continuous day that hasn't stopped yet. my two have a nice nap together in the afternoon that seems like it's pretty consistent, but after that they are on total opposites and i feel like i'm a chicken with it's head cut off (plus i'm watching game of thrones and now i'm picturing lots of severed heads. people's. not chickens. yuck). so my day usually begins at 4am. that's when #2 wants to eat and become unburpable. literally has unending burps. which means he won't go back to sleep until 5:30am. which is when i can finally change my probably soaked from spit-up pjs, pee, wash my hands, lay down, pull the covers up, and listen to rorie yell to me that she's awake from the monitor. see how it doesn't end? i think they're testing me.

thrush. if you don't know what it is you can read about it here. i'm putting this in the "ugly" section of this post because it was ugly and long lasting and really tested my limits as not only a mother, but a human being. it absolutely sucked. jacob and i battled it together for a whole entire month...and it can and might come back. which sucks again. right now i don't think we have it, so it could go in the "good" section. but i'm still mad about it, so it's staying here.



and there you have it... the good, the bad, & the ugly with two kids during the summer of 2014.

and i just noticed photos of our cats are in the right side bar...yeah... they are still alive.

FAMILY PHOTOS.

right after jake was born, kelsey stevens asked if she could take some newborn shots to add to her portfolio. of course, i was game. i was completely exhausted by the last full day of camp, but we managed to get the kids slightly together, in clean outfits, and to the edge of the lake for kelsey to discover the joys of photographing a two year old and a seven week old.

kelsey has done it again folks. last summer she was able to capture twenty of us beautifully. dare i say that this summer might have been even harder? i mean... there is only four of us in my family... but a two year old and a seven week old- they're no joke. and they're not going to be like, "oh i heard you wanted to take my picture...let me just follow your lead". nope. it's mostly the complete opposite of that.

rorie was sporting a sweet runny nose and was ready to call it a night at 4pm. she was exhausted and really wasn't into sitting for pictures or listening. the slide was calling her name and there were two older kids, who desperately wanted to play with her, hanging around us as we tried to take photos. but you'd never know that... because kelsey worked her magic.

jake was a doll. he fell asleep right before we were supposed to shoot, so i thought we'd be toast. turns out he's the model of the family (after his dad of course). we moved him around, changed positions, took his paci out, and then he woke up and struck more poses and was all around a complete gentleman. rorie...take notes (nah, it's ok... you're two).

a million thanks to kelsey.

p.s. if you are in chicago and need a photographer... grab her up.