The Last Hurrah!

I have spent most of this summer excited that my three year old toddler twins are going to go to school this year! I've been planning all the things I haven't been able to do with toddlers underfoot, sewing projects, better photographs for my Etsy jewelry site, lunch with friends, maybe even horseback riding lessons (we sold our horse two years ago),

Now that school time is rapidly approaching, I am beginning to feel a bit sad. They have never been away from me for more than a few hours at at time  These children have never been in daycare, Mother's Day Out - they have been in my care for the past three years 24/7. I do get occasional breaks for doctors appointments, hair treatments, the rare date night and Christmas shopping, but for the most part we have never been separated for more than a few hours.

It dawned on me that I would no longer be able to be spontaneous and take them on field trips to the zoo, the Dallas Arboretum or even the Dallas Farmers Market during the week.  Today is going to be our last hurrah at the Farmers Market. I realize I still will have the ability to do fun activities with them during the summer and on weekends, but it's not quite the same as waking up in the morning and deciding to run up to the family farm near McKinney to chase butterflies,  play in the big white barn and have a picnic on the farm house front porch. or enjoy the zoo without all the crowds during the week.

I am going to go gather my young flock, herd then into the mini van, load our play wagons (to haul our farmers market produce) before it gets unbearably hot on this fine August morning, one week before our lives change forever...

Third Annual Twins Birthday Sale

In honor of the twins 3rd birthday, I'm celebrating with a Baby Birthday Sale. The Third Annual Baby Birthday Sale is running through March 16 at both my Etsy stores: Vowan Gems and myCrafty Wiles Destash and Treasure Shop.  All pink and blue items are 50% off regular retail price. What a steal! Check it out, new items appearing weekly!

Biblical Christmas Wrapping Paper

During art time this morning I let the twins paint using dot dot paint as well as finger paint on kraft paper. We are creating our own Christmas wrapping paper. I had been drawing stars for them to fill in and Christmas trees, then Nathaniel asked me to paint a rainbow, like Noah's Ark. That got me thinking, why not draw a picture representing each book of the Bible.

Emma drew a whale:

Natty chose Exodus (15-40):



After we finish our Christmas wrapping paper, I'll tie the gifts up with simple bows using yarn ribbon or tulle in coordinating colors and give our gifts within a gift to special people in our lives.  This is going to be a fun way to learn the Bible, spread the Good News and express our creativity!

Project: Chrismons

As an adult and a mother of precious boy/girl twins, I want to bring Christ back to Christmas. I want my children to understand their Christian history and God's saving Grace.  Chrismons are symbols used by early Christians as a symbol of faith as well as representing biblical and theological concepts.
Last Christmas, the twins were 22 months, we decided to decorate a small, artificial evergreen tree on top of our bar. This way we could keep the children from pulling the decorations off the tree and we could have some decorations in the house.  We added non-breakable decorations to the tree including a silver star Emma and Nathaniel made in the church nursery.  This silver star was the start of our Chrismon project.
This year we are going to have felt Chrismons on a bigger tree hopefully in our dining room. We might have to hide the wrapped gifts in another part of the house- I suspect twins would rip through the paper as soon as the boxes go under the tree -

Last night, I started cutting out my pieces from a pattern I found at Sunday School Kids.  I'm going to make mine three dimensional, by adding stuffing to the patterns and gold glitter glue where appropriate. The Jerusalem star will be designed using gold glittery felt.

Hoedown at the Farm

Last week, Nana and I took the twins to the family farm for a little outing.  Great timing for us, as the cows had been herded up and in the corral patiently waiting for their annual spring insect control routine. The bull had been separated from his "girls" and paced the corral until one of the cowboys put out some feed for him. The big guy has to have energy to keep up with his cows and all their calves. 
Emma walked to the corral with some help from Nana and I took Nathaniel in my arms to see the cow commotion in the paddock. There was a lot of mooing going on and my mother's dog, Ginger, was not especially helpful. She doesn't know she is a small poodle, not a large herding dog. She tried to herd the already penned cows which just made the cows more antsy. My mother had to take Ginger back to the farm house, leaving me with the antsy twins. 
Emma is my little daredevil, she likes to get closer, she wanted to get in the pen with cows. Nathaniel, on the other hand, is a bit more cautious, and one cow in particular, sent him into tears.  She had a particularly loud, high pitched moo, it startled him. At first, he stuck out his lower lip, pouted and then began to cry. 
It was fun to be at the farm with my mother and have her show my children their roots.  My mother grew up on the farm during the depression and through WWII.  I hope my children get to spend a lot of time with their Nana at the farm. I'd like them to carry some of the history in their hearts.
A couple of days later,  the children and I went to hear story telling at Barnes and Nobles. While we were there, I purchased a Melissa and Doug handmade, wooden with sound farm puzzle and a book, Baby Baa Baa to reinforce their time spent on the farm.   Today, I heard Emma say, "pig, pig, pig" when she was working on the farm puzzle.
Tomorrow, the twins and I are taking Daddy to the Dallas Zoo.  I wonder if I can find a book or a puzzle with zoo animals to reinforce our learning experience. It would be fun to hear Emma say "penguin, penquin, penquin" or perhaps she'll say "tiger, tiger, tiger."
It's off to bed, because tomorrow is Zoo Day!!!

Wild Beads

Springtime has come to North Texas a little bit earlier this year and boy, are the twins and I ready to bust out of this joint. It's become a lot easier getting organized to go on little trips and they are eager to get in their car seats for a jaunt somewhere.  Yesterday, we jumped into the car and drove over to Arlington, a 30 minute trip from home, just to visit a bead store.  And what a bead store it is, absolutely huge, a corner store in a strip shopping area across from the old Six Flags mall. It's  just a hop, skip and a jump away from Six Flags Over Texas. Three walls filled with Czech glass and crystal beads. Rounders full of Czech glass and crystal beads. Gemstones galore, pearls, seed beads, delicas, plated findings, wire, precious metal clay, etc. They carry torches, metal working kits and the aforementioned precious metal clay kits.  They have a workroom for beaders to use. The staff was wonderful!  They fawned over my babies and answered my beading questions. Next time I'm going to bring some beads I've been unable to coordinate - I'm sure they will have something to go with them.
It was worth the trip and I plan on making monthly pilgrimages with or without the twins.
2833

http://www.wildbeads.biz/

Speech and Frenulum

Emma accompanied  her brother, Nathaniel, to speech therapy today. She had a consultation with his speech therapist. Her father and I have been wondering why she wasn't talking like her brother. We thought it was odd that a child who has good hearing wasn't talking as much as our hearing impaired child. We had her hearing tested, even so far as getting a sedated ABR, which showed her hearing was perfect for  a child of 7 months.  She has perfect hearing so the audiologist suggested we get her speech evaluated. I've heard that babies are either mobile or they talk, so maybe it's a case of her being a mover and him a talker.

So today we have news, her lingual and labial (upper lip) frenulum are restricted, aka tongue-tied. The frenulum is a small fold of tissue that secures or restricts the motion of a mobile organ of the body. In this case, the tongue and the upper lip, which are used in speaking.  Also, the labial frenulum can cause a gap between the two front upper teeth.  It can also increase the incidence of choking on food, something I've noticed Emma having some problems with now that the twins are eating coarser foods. A restrictive frenulum can even cause a bad latch while breastfeeding.  I thought her GERD was the problem associated with her reluctance to breastfeed, perhaps the restricted frenulum was another factor.

So we can thank her hearing impaired brother for her getting help. If it wasn't for his hearing loss, we wouldn't have gone to the Developmental Pediatrician who suggested that Emma get a hearing evaluation.  If it wasn't for his speech therapist's interest in Emma's lack of speech, we wouldn't have gotten an answer for the problem so quickly.  We're going to see their ENT on Monday and Emma will start speech therapy in December. She needs help catching up her speech development - more than just cooing, squeaking and crying. I'm sure in no time she'll be babbling up a storm. Perhaps, the twins will develop their own language like many twins do.  I'm looking forward to that.

Surviving as a mother of twins

I am a mother of 9 month old boy/girl fraternal twins, adjusted age 7 months.  My life is simple. I feed babies, watch and play  with babies, comfort them, put them down for naps, take them to doctors, feed them, diaper them, feed them, dress them...and so on.

My son has been diagnosed with auditory neuropathy syndrome. He is mildly deaf in his right ear, and moderately to profoundly deaf in his left ear. For a deaf child, he hears remarkably well. He also suffers from wimpy white boy syndrome. When his NICU doctor told us he was a wimpy white boy, I thought reverse discrimination.  But I have since found out, it's a real thing, baby white boys have a hard time their first year of life, they lag behind girls in many ways. His sister beats him in trunk control. She's been standing on her own for a month, and he just flops around.  After 5 weeks of occupational therapy and developmental skill through ECI we are seeing remarkable improvement. He can sit up on his own, and he rolls from front to back and back to front and kneels. He doesn't crawl, but rolls to places he wants to go and he sort of slithers on his belly. His sister hasn't figured out crawling either, she scoots on her back and screams the whole time.

I no longer where nice clothes. I feel dressed up when I wear jeans! I spend most of my time in yoga pants and whatever semi-clean shirt I can find.  Spit up doesn't seem to come out of clothes. I've tried Shout and Oxi-Clean, I'm thinking of just burning the clothes instead. On a good day, I've brushed my hair and teeth at least once, am wearing a little make up, found reasonably clean clothes to wear and had a decent night sleep.  When will my clothes stop being stained by babies? Will it ever end?

Almost every room in my house has something baby related in it, except for the master bedroom and the tack room. Did I mention my husband and I own a horse?  Royal Krew was our baby before I became pregnant.  She is now pasture art. She enjoys treats, the company of her stable mates and not being ridden. We introduced the babies to her after Easter.  She sniffed at the babies while I held them in my arms. I think she understood as she has been a mother to three foals prior to her life with us.

I find time to design jewelry. Working with beads, stones, wire, etc really helps me relax and gets the creative juices flowing. I've made a lot of earrings this year. Earrings don't take as long to design, and assemble as a necklace does.  Chaplets are easier to create than rosaries, so I've made some of those, too. I've got lots of ideas, but not a lot of time to actually sit down and make it so.

This fall, I decided to do some marketing with Out of the Box Samples. I've made a lot of pendants and more earrings the past few months.  I have to package my December samples and get the package out the door for my November 20th deadline.  I decided I needed some time off from making jewelry samples, so I'm taking January off, but will be participating in OOTBS February, March, April and May 2011. Then I'm taking the summer off from OOTBS  but will be sending in samples for October, November and December.

This is pretty much me in a nut shell:  babies, horse, jewelry designer, cooking, church choir,  bible study, my family's farm, gardening (semi-organic), mother, daughter, sister, wife, child of God, native Texan. Prior to my twins, I worked in Residential Real Estate for 14 years. Some days I really miss it and would give my coffee money if I could show houses for an afternoon, talk to an adult, negotiate an offer. Most days, I would kill for a Starbucks Grande Mocha but I'll settle for a home brewed freshly ground Sumatra coffee with vanilla syrup.