I really should stop procrastinating….it makes for late nights and sleepy days! With two official baby showers in 8 days, I’ve been quite the busy baby quilter of late. Emily Somerville helped me make this strip quilt for Kelli’s shower this past Saturday! It has dozens of different scraps of fabric in it–and I bet you can’t tell which blocks first-time quilter Emily did and which ones were mine…
The rest of this week I’m going to try to make a new ball gown for the Regency Ball in Lansing this weekend. Last year’s gown was my first garment in years, and it was pretty obviously a maternity/nursing gown. I’m hoping to make a nice, normal one this year, but if things continue to go as they have with my practice dress this weekend, I’ll be wearing the old one.=( It’s my fault for waiting til the last minute (again) to try to get this together!
So helpful with the yardwork!
In keeping with tradition, we ate Anna’s great food, talked and talked, and stayed up way too late playing 
All too soon, we had to head north for South Bend, getting to campus just in time for Lauren’s baby shower (the original reason for our trip). I wasn’t planning on surprising Lauren, but apparently neither Lesley-Anne or I had mentioned that I was coming. How fun to accidentally surprise the guest of honor! I haven’t gotten all the pictures back yet, but here we are with the quilt I finished for her on the car ride up. It was wonderful to see all the Sunday School girls again and sit between my dear prayer group girls and pretend I still belonged at Notre Dame! Was it just a year ago that we were all feasting on tea treats at Lauren’s for Tommy’s baby shower?!? How time flies!
The next order of business was visiting the Nielsens and meeting young master Edmund. Just getting together was quite an achievement–with the nap and eating schedules of three young children in the mix, our plans morphed several times before we saw Edmund (oh, and his family). He is such a snuggly little cutie–and Magdalene has become quite the little lady! (And despite being a year and a day younger, my porky young son is a good pound heavier…) Tommy had quite a good time breaking the wheel off of her brand new toy stroller. We would have liked to stay and discuss the relative literary merits of Austen’s best novels, but we decided to beat a hasty retreat before Tommy traumatized Magdalene too much more.
Saturday night we stayed with the Teagues. Since their Indian Lakes apartment is the same size that ours was, this was a very generous and brave act on their part. It’s impossible not to trash a 700 square foot space when you’re coming with a baby for the night, but our gracious hosts welcomed us, anyway. Tommy loves Katie and Christopher (and so do we)! Despite missing a nap and traumatizing his friend earlier that day, he was a bundle of cheerful energy at the Mexican restaurant and back at the apartment. He loved his rice and the friendly waiter, and he felt pretty pleased with the attention of four adults when he was supposed to be in bed. (While he was bouncing off the walls and exploring everything, how could we have the heart to put him down?)
Tommy must like the sounds an Indian Lakes apartment kitchen makes, maybe because he remembers sleeping in one the first six months of his life, but in any case, he slept soundly all night long (a first while traveling!) and woke up cheerful and ready for church! Our first Sunday back at 
While I was doing laundry and packing and figuring out last minute plans, Tommy was acting awfully cute. We got him a new bike helmet so that I won’t have a heart attack when he’s scooting around in the back driveway. He loves it, though it’s not quite properly fitted yet. I couldn’t resist a photo shoot! Sadly, by the time our junky camera got charged up, the first glow of excitement was gone. I did finally capture his new teeth on film, however. 
Doesn’t this look so much better?! We haven’t really had a chance to do much new decorating since we’ve been in this house, but we like the paint well enough to let it go. I did originally have great plans for decorating our office/guest room here in St Louis, but that never panned out. I do plan to frame a bunch of pictures and do this whole map/travel theme for the office/guest room when we move to Chicago. I got some really great maps a couple summers ago when we lived in Chicago and I spent the summer drifting in and out of little boutiques when I wasn’t gagging with morning sickness. Now that Tommy’s a little more predictable, I have great plans for decorating a new house this fall! I even found some great fabrics at Hobby Lobby when I was shopping for church curtain fabric! I am sure we’ll have lots of exciting home decorating pictures to show in a few more months…
Well, Tommy’s been taking a few steps several times over the past few days, so he is officially into the walking stage. Today we walked up to Target to buy him his first bought big boy shoes in honor of the occasion. We had some hand-me-down boots from a friend, but they were a size too big, so whenever I tried to put him in them, his feet looked huge! So we picked these out. Cute, aren’t they! Tommy wanted some blue ones first, but I convinced him that these would be more versatile. He was so pleased to be buying his own shoes!
You can almost see the fourth tooth in this first picture, too. It finally broke through this morning (I believe at about 3 am, to be precise), and he is pleased as punch to be able to chew with all four of his front teeth! I will miss his gummy little smile, though!