Things I've Been Up To Lately

During January, due to all that we had going on in our lives, I took a self-imposed hiatus of sorts from blogging, posting very little.

The painting I did shortly after Christmas got my creative juices flowing again, and spawned all kinds of creative endeavors around here.

First, there were the baby pins



Then there was the quilt for the baby shower of the little guy on the pins.



Knowing that another young friend had recently lost all his hair while undergoing chemo, I dug out some chenille and eyelash yarn and made him some funky 'hair' hats which we thought would bring a smile to his face.



Judging by this photo, I'd say it was mission accomplished, lol.

Naturally Judah and Jericho had to model the 'hats' before we sent them to off.





"Hey, mon!"

Also this month, our church Women's Missionary Auxiliary began a weekly craft class to learn/teach new skills for the purpose of making things to brighten the lives of some residents of a local nursing home we visit.

This class meets every Monday evening, and being crafty, I was coerced by my mother-in-law volunteered to demonstrate how to make



and





And then the cards the pins went on for the ladies, and the ones we made special for the gentlemen.







The highlight of the craft class for me so far has been that I learned a new crochet stitch which makes things go much, much faster than the tedious and slow moving single-crocheting I had been doing previously.

Maybe now I will finally finish my boys baby afghans, lol.

This new skill was promptly put to use in making lap robes for the aforementioned nursing home folks.

Other ladies in the group have already churned out two or three of them to my one.



Then again, they don't have this guy keeping them on their toes all the livelong day.





Or maybe I'm just a painstakingly slow crocheter.

Any which way, I blame this new crochet stitch fully for my newly aquired obsession with various yarn blends and colors and planning out future crocheting projects.

Vanna White puts out some GORGEOUS colors of yarn that have opened all sorts of wonderful new possibilities, and have you seen what can be done with felted wool yarns? FAB! I envision a gorgeous laptop bag, mittens and hats for next year, and...

Ahem. Anyway, as if all the craftiness wasn't enough, add to this our recent foray into family board games.



Waaaaay fun!

Then there was Jericho's brief stint in the ER a couple of Sunday's ago...

Our boys are blessed with great immune systems and rarely ever need to go to the doctor for anything besides once yearly wellness checkups.

To make up for this, they like to surprise me with the need for ER visits for freakish things like nickels stuck in throats, scarlet fever, and now this:

Wouldn't you know, Jericho's symptoms were of the "My heart hurts, mom...really bad and I'm having trouble breathing" kind of scary.

When we got to the ER, they ushered us right past the waiting room and directly into triage. Turns out that possible heart issues are the golden key to bypass those looong, germ infested waiting rooms.

After a prompt exam, the ER doc said the symptoms were indicative of any number of things (pulled muscles, heart problems, pneumonia, gastritis...) that couldn't be narrowed down without a peek inside.

That his chest pain was worsening freaked me out enough that we submitted to a CT scan.

Of course, all that that scary chest pain disappeared entirely on the way back from said CT scan, almost as suddenly as it came on.

And then he started complaining that he was hungry.

Turns out, Jericho is just fine and it was nothing serious.

Basically we learned from that whole experience that our teenaged son's recent penchant for inhaling food (practically without even tasting it), even if it's good healthy whole grain food...was responsible for some serious indigestion that manifested as chest pain.

That was a lovely one to have to explain to all the kind, concerned folks that called to check on Jericho after an announcement was made at our evening church service.

Anyway, after a long litany of do's and don'ts diet-wise for the boy from the ER doc, Jericho sheepishly admitted that it was probably he'd been throwing out the veggies and fruits I'd been packing in his lunches as he dashed off to play hang out with his buddies during lunch break at school.

Turns out he wasn't getting the good stuff I thought he'd been getting into him each day. **Marge Simpson Growl**

Ha! SOOoooo busted! That won't be happening again!

Anyway, that's kind of the sum of things for the Frump Family these days.

Now I've got to go finish up some straggling projects to be ready to deliver everything for Valentine's day, and so that I can finally pack up belated Christmas Valentine's packages for my family members.

Oh, and here's a little something from the boys...