New Mattress Pad

I've never really been a 'list' person. But last week I had a lot of stuff I wanted to get done--cleaning, organizing, baking, etc--so I made myself a list for the week and I was able to do and cross off almost everything! It was actually helpful to have it written down so I wouldn't forget anything. And then there are the mental 'to do' lists, the things that you know you have to do but you don't bother to write down because they're always there, just waiting until you have the time. Parker's mattress pad is one of those things.
Parker doesn't sleep well away from home. At least, that's what we thought the problem was. Until one day, on our last vacation, we were talking about how we could help him. After checking out his pack 'n play, we realized that the "mattress" in the bottom is really hard. It feels like a light layer of batting on top of a board. Poor kid, no wonder he kept waking up! I wouldn't want to sleep on that, either! So that night we folded up a couple baby quilts on top of the mattress and then put the sheet back on, and he slept so much better! We decided that once we got home we would need find some kind of padding for his pack 'n play so the next time we traveled he would be able to sleep. I couldn't find one to buy, and I wasn't really sure how to make one that would be thick enough. So I decided to put it on hold for a while. But a few weeks ago Kyle and I got a new mattress and the problem was solved--I could use the mattress pad from our old bed and cut it down to make a pad for Parker's bed (Although after we figured that out, it sat folded up in our bedroom until now)!

But I didn't have anything planned for today so once Parker had been fed and was happily playing, I pulled out our queen-sized mattress pad.
I had measured Parker's little mattress earlier, so I got out a measuring tape and a sharpie and started marking.

And cutting.

I cut the smaller one out from the corner of the original pad--that way I'd only have to sew two seams rather than all four. And I decided to rip off the binding so I could re-use it around the smaller mat and keep the same look. It came off pretty easy once the first few stitches were out.

Since the corners of the original one were rounded, I traced around a cereal bowl to round the corners of the one I was making as well. Once I had the right size and shape, I sewed a zigzag stitch around the raw edges. I figured it would be easier to put the binding on if the edges were already secured and flat. And finally, I added the binding.

I didn't do the binding the proper way of sewing one side on first. I just held it in place on both sides and started sewing....SO I had to go back and touch up a few places where the stitches didn't catch on the back. :)

Not my prettiest sewing job, but it was quick and it worked! And once it's in the pack 'n play and covered with a sheet, nobody's going to see it anyway. :)

New Sewing Machine

Kyle totally surprised me this Christmas by getting me a new sewing machine! He had given me my old one about 7 years ago (also for Christmas!) and it still works okay. But I've done so much sewing on it that I've been having a little trouble with the tension lately, and I've never had it professionally cleaned so the parts underneath were getting pretty dirty and full of fuzz from all that flannel and quilt batting I've been putting through it. It was also a more compact size which, in some ways was great but in other ways it was a little too small. But I've made 6 1/2 quilts, a quiet book and countless other clothing/baby items on it, so I've definitely gotten a lot of use from it. But it's time to put it aside and start using this instead...

I turned it on to play with it a little, although I was a bit intimidated at first! Unlike my first machine, this one is all automatic and comes with over 170 stitches. Aside from the basic straight/zigzag stitches, it has all kinds of decorative stitches and three alphabets. I tried out a few (the pics are a little fuzzy)....

SO fun!! When Kyle bought the machine it came with a class session to teach the machine basics. I took the class yesterday and was surprised at how much it can do--it can even sew buttons onto the fabric! Now the only hard thing is deciding what I want to make first! :)

Speaking of buttons, I've been organizing some of my sewing stuff last week. Some of the baby shoes I make use buttons and I was telling Mom that I hate paying $3 for a card of buttons when I only need two of them. So she sent me some! She has a couple buckets right full of all kinds and sizes of buttons, so she filled a big ziploc bag and mailed it to me! I was so excited to get them! But since they're all mixed together, I thought it might get a little frustrating to dig through them all the time to find two that match. So one night when we were watching tv, I dumped them out and started sorting!

I cut out up a big piece of cardstock into small squares and once I had the buttons sorted, I used a needle and thread to put them on the cardstock, tying them on the back.
Now when I need a pair, they'll be easy to find. I had a lot without a match, so I put those in a separate container to use for scrapbooking or other random projects.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2012!! Okay, so I'm a few days late... :)
Our holidays were pretty uneventful this year! Our Christmas traditions normally consist of opening our stockings (each of us gets a new movie or two in our stocking, along with other goodies) and getting each other new pj's on Christmas Eve. So that night, we put on our new pajamas and curl up on the couch to watch a new movie. Then, on Christmas morning, we get up and open the other gifts. But since Christmas was on a Sunday this year we changed our plans a little. Our Sunday church service was an hour earlier than usual, so we thought that rather than get up super early and rush through our morning, we'd open everything on Christmas Eve so we could take our time. It was fun, but I have to say it felt a little weird, too...totally breaking tradition!
Sunday was nice, though. We picked up a pizza on the way home from church so I had the day off from cooking, which is always great! We stayed home, watched a movie, played with Parker and enjoyed our family time. Kyle's family got together that day but they met at his sister's home, which is about 2 hours from here. Most of them were staying there overnight, though, so we drove over on Monday morning to see them then.
New Years was kind of the same for us. Kyle and I were sick on Saturday--somehow we had both picked up a bad cold, so we didn't go out anywhere. Instead, we put Parker to bed then we watched a couple old movies. Oddly, they were both about married women who were plotting to kill their husbands so they could be with someone else. Kyle said he went to bed that night feeling a little uneasy... :)
I guess that sums up the past couple of weeks for us! Nothing too exciting, although we were okay with that, given that the weeks before Christmas had been a little stressful with Parker's seizure and being in the hospital. I'm sure everyone knows by now what happened, but we had the unhappy experience of finding out what a fibrole seizure is. Parker was walking around playing one minute, then laying on the floor having a seizure the next. I had no idea what was happening so I called 911. An ambulance brought us to the ER and it took a couple hours for Parker to come out of it completely and respond to any kind of movement or sound--it had the doctors pretty concerned. We were told that the seizures themselves are common but that the severity of his and the temporary paralysis it caused was not typical. Apparently a seizure normally lasts a few minutes, then the child is up moving around again and is fine. Because this wasn't the case with Parker, they did a CAT scan and x-rays to make sure there was nothing wrong. Thankfully, they all came back clear. Later they transferred us to the children's hospital where they kept him overnight to make sure he was okay. After a neurologist came to check Parker the next morning we were discharged, and he's been totally fine since.

And the fun part? It can happen again, at any time, until he's 6 years old. And there's no warning sign or way to prevent it. Scary! So we've been getting him back on a normal routine while trying to not be overly worried or protective...kind of a strange balance.
Anyway, the story does have a nice little ending... The week after it happened, we were sitting here at home and someone knocked on the door. Kyle answered it and I heard him saying something about Parker being home. I was curious as to who would be asking for Parker, so I walked out to see who it was. It was a guy and a woman from the fire department! They were two of the four paramedics who had responded to my 911 call. They had driven over, in their fire truck, to see if Parker was doing okay! They asked how he was and chatted for a few minutes, then they gave him a toy fire truck. How cool is that?! :)

SO thankful for our local fire dept. and paramedics! :)