Welcome Little Stranger

Asa Bedford Graham

September 22, 2009

6:28 A.M.

8 lbs 12 oz 21" long

Long looked for, come at last! We decided to get the show on the road a little early this time. We knew he was going to be big (albeit, not that big!) so we opted to have him by my due date as normally I go at least a week and sometimes 2 weeks over my due date. I am so glad that we did as he easily could have topped 10 lbs! He has a 14.5" head which is my biggest ever (no problems though with that, thankfully!) but I wouldn't have wanted him any bigger, as it is he can't wear the smallest baby caps that we made. :-/

And the gowns........... well, instead of wearing them for 3-4 months as I'd hoped, I think I'll be doing well to get 6 weeks use out of them. Oh well, I like to sew, right? :-) They fit perfectly right now.

I came home yesterday afternoon, I hate being away, that's the hardest part. We did manage to keep him with us the entire time and in addition to everything we knew we were going to refuse (antibiotic eye drops, PKU test, Vitamin K shot, Hep B shot) there was a ton of proceedures that we hadn't anticipated. They wanted to heel stick him to blood type him, heel stick him to check his blood sugar levels, heel stick him to check his bilirubin levels, give him a hearing test, give me a rubella shot...... anyway, we escaped unscathed! They were really nice about everything though, I couldn't have asked for better. Still, there's no place like home! We are so thankful to be able to enjoy the blessings of a baby in the house again! :-)
Thanks for all of your well wishes and prayers.
Paris

All finished!

It is with great satisfaction that I can write "my sewing's all done!", great relief as well as I was nervous that I wouldn't have it completed and then what would I do? I finished the final little gown at the end of last week, it is a really beautiful terra cotta color and not pink like the photo seems. I put calico buttons on it, I don't know if that's a no-no or not but white china gets boring.


Following are photos of the baby sacque and bonnet that I finished a while ago. I know a lot of you have already seen it but my family hasn't. The outside is light blue tropical weight wool, the lining is champagne colored silk poplin and the embellishment is peach silk embroidery

Katie has been sewing more little caps and if I feel like it I'd like to make a fancier cap from Batiste. I guess that I just can't knock it off with the sewing!

:-)

The boys gathered about 60# of apples today. We will eat a lot, dry some and make apple butter for the year. Early apples don't make good cider so we'll wait to press until October, I think. This weekend we did another 15-18 dozen ears of corn and we are *hopefully* done with corn now!
I am 39 weeks on Wednesday but since I go late I could actually have close to 3 weeks left. I am so eager to meet our "little stranger"!

Corn and a nightgown

Katie finished the baby's nightgown yesterday. It is flannel on the inside and smooth on the outside (I'm sure there's some technical term for that). We drafted the pattern ourselves and I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. It was Katie's first try at a placket and I think she's really glad that it's over, lol. She did offer to sew another though, so maybe it wasn't a horrible experience after all!

We're big fans of composting and adding manure to the garden in the autumn, it has really increased our soil fertility. Our neighbor who is a conventional farmer has soil that's pretty well dead, his yields are about half of ours. Here are some examples of healthy soil and what it will produce. Below is the first of our corn harvest. We grow open pollinated corn and grind it for cornmeal; this was not by any means the largest ear, merely the first to ripen!

Aleks also trained the pole beans to climb the corn stalks. The problem now is that the corn stalks are 10-12 feet high and the beans dangle high overhead. :-)

Happy Day

I have been eagerly awaiting a package this week and today it came! My dear, sweet friend Sarah Jane had inquired about making a baby gift for us and so I had her make a few baby petticoats, however, she also wanted to sew something for me. That was such a treat! I had her make a wrapper so that I would have something comfortable to wear now and afterward. I put it on and it was *perfect*, she is a very talented seamstress to do such an impressive job on a garment she's never sewn before, for a person she's never made anything else for! So, I endeavored to get some pictures of it for you to see.

We were doing tomatoes today and Katie took this while I was watching the little girls run around.

This is the quintessential "belly shot". I look like I swallowed a medicine ball. :-/

And these are the adorable, tiny little petticoats. They are made with a yoke and snug right up under the baby's arms for added body warmth. The one on the left is cotton and the one on the right is wool. They tie in the back for the greatest possible adjustability, I love to look at them, they're so sweet!