3 Year Old Samantha Singing and Signing to "I Love You Lord."

I know this is not a sewing post, but I wanted to share this 38-second video of Samantha singing and signing to "I Love You Lord." Hope you enjoy!

Making Fabric Crib Wall Art: The Story of Samantha's Flowers

Once upon a time there was born a very special baby girl...  She had a cherry red bumper and a deep pink and orange bedside lamp but as yet, nothing adorned the wall above her crib.

So her fairy grandmother waved her magic wand...and blew some of the bright little flowers off of her dress...and onto the wall....   with a kiss.

Donna holding Samantha when she was only a couple of weeks old.

My special little princess Samantha's Fairy Godmother is my dear friend, Donna of Comin' Home. She shares her tutorial for how she made these beautiful flowers. It was such a wonderful gift. It was this little onesie that inspired her creation. Samantha is 3 now. Forgive me if I've already shared this with you. I can't remember. But if I did, I'm sure those who have not seen it will appreciate seeing it.

A current picture of Samantha with her big sister Emily.

Samantha's First Time on a Carnival Ride

Samantha 2 and Matthew 6 riding on a carnival ride together. This was Samantha's first time. She loved it. Matthew was very protective of her and had his arm around her during the ride.

Mother/Daughter Tea With My Mini-Me's

My mini-me's (2 and 13) and I at a mother/daughter tea. Love these girls.

Long Overdue Update

Hello, Everyone,

I know it's been so long since I've written in this space. I have been busier than I've ever been. I figured that I probably don't have any, or many, readers left; but then a couple of ladies contacted me asking how we've been. That really touched me to know that someone actually cared and was thinking of us. So I thought in case there were others that I would do a little update.

As you many of you will remember, our daughter Kimberly was married. Then they had a baby. Well, our sweet little grandson is almost 1 now. My, how time flies! Her husband joined the Air Force, and they are stationed in Italy for 3 1/2 years. They are loving it! We are enjoying the pictures she posts on Facebook. Such an amazing place. They are very lucky to have this opportunity. They will have beautiful memories that will last a lifetime. We are able to keep in touch through Facebook, Skype and talking on the phone using MagicJack. What a difference it makes. It makes them seem not so far away.

Here is a picture of myself with our oldest daughter who is now 25 and Kimberly as a baby.

Here is Kimberly with her son.

And their family picture.

Going back a little bit, here are a few wedding shots. A couple with Marty and I and one with our son Matthew, Age 4 at the time, as the ring bearer and Samantha as the flower girl. Matthew pulled Samantha in a wagon decorated with tulle down the aisle.

And here are a few pictures of our children still home.

Emily, 13.

Martin, 11.

Matthew, 6 at the end of this month, wearing Daddy's glasses.

And Samantha, 2.

Marty is still doing well and is fully recovered. We are two years out from his heart attack. Emily has started a little blog, Fashionista Emily. Emily and Martin are enjoying scouting with American Heritage Girls and Trail Life. Matthew loves to build with all kinds of building toys and run and play. Samantha is doing very well. She is healthy and has a wonderful bubbly personality. She loves to sing and bounce to the music. She has four therapists that come each week and will until she's 3, developmental, speech, Occupational and physical. She is very bright and picks things up very quickly. Her language is good. She speaks clearly and has over 70 words. She is behind physically, but the therapists say that will come in time. We are working to help her strengthen her core. She is not crawling or walking yet, but we are hoping that in the coming months she will be able to do that.

I think about sewing quite often and keep hoping I'll find the time. And if I do, I will of course share that with you here.

I would love to hear how you are doing as well.

What I've Been Up To

Hello, Everyone. I know you've been wondering what we've been up to and how we are doing. I will try to give you a little update. I appreciate those who have inquired. Before I get into too much, first I would like to let you know that my computer crashed, and I am working on a laptop that I am unfamiliar with and that does not have my pictures; so I can't post any photos at this time. I am trying to decide if I should put photos on Flickr and post them from there. Do you know how to post pics on  your posts from Flickr? I could not figure it out. I am also wondering if I can post pictures from my Facebook page and how I would do that? I did not see that option. If you know how to do these things, I would really appreciate if you could share that information with me.

One of our daughters, Kimberly, second oldest, just got married a couple of weeks ago; so I had been very busy with helping her plan her wedding. Samantha, our 16 month old, was the flower girl; and Matthew, our 4 year old was the ring bearer. He pulled her down the aisle in a wagon. It was just darling. Our 9 year son was one of the ushers, and he escorted me to my seat. I felt very proud walking with him. The boys looked so handsome in their suits. The music for the ceremony was a violin and guitar duet. It was beautiful.

And are you ready for this? I am going to be a grandmother in February. I can hardly believe it. We are excited. Samantha will be 18 months when he is born. Aunt Samantha. How does that sound? They will be more like close cousins.

Samantha is doing fantastic. She is 16 months old now. She is saying several words, mama, da da, up, apple, happy and lots of babbling with many different sounds. She is so happy, giggling and smiling most of the day. She is so beautiful, fun, cute and sweet. She is just absolutely amazing. I can't properly convey to you just how awesome she. We are really enjoying her. She is sitting up well now. Playing with her toys. Her core is getting stronger. She is getting up on all fours and could possibly be crawling in the next two to four months. She learns the motions to little songs and rhymes very easily, for example, patty cake and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. She adores music and sings in her own baby language and sways to the music. If she is fussy, all I have to do is sing; and she cheers up. She has an occupational therapist from ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) who comes to our home once a week to work with her and teach us how to work with her and a developmental therapist who also comes once a week who works with her on the cognitive stuff. For those who do not know about Samantha, she was born with Trisomy 21. She was born healthy and did not have any heart issues. Just click on "Samantha" under "topics" in the sidebar to read my posts about her, her birth story, progress, a video of her babbling, etc.

It has been 9 months since my husband's heart attack. He is doing extremely well. He has lost a lot of weight.  He is now back to his high school weight in the low 170s. He is 6 foot tall. His cholesterol is in the 130s and the other numbers are in normal range as well. After his heart attack, his heart was functioning at 30 percent. He had an echocardiogram last week, and it showed that he now has full heart function. His doctor said he could not see any damage on the echo and that he has completely reversed his heart disease. An ultrasound of the arteries also shows that his veins are clear. The doctor was amazed and asked him what he has been doing. The radiologist says that the most he could have hoped for was 50 percent heart function and that he has never seen improvement like this. After his heart attack, he was told that there was a lot of damage because he did not come in for three days due to the fact that he thought it was indigestion and that he would not regain full heart function; so this is so amazing. We are so thankful to God for this. And I am also so proud of my husband for caring enough about himself and his family to work so hard and be so disciplined with his diet and exercise.

I haven't done any sewing lately. I plan to carve out some time to do some projects, hopefully soon. My 12 year old daughter Emily has sewn several things recently, a nightgown and a couple of dresses, one of her own design, which I will try to share with you as soon as I figure out how to load the photos. I am juggling many things in my life right now, as I'm sure you are. I am homeschooling three of our six children and doing therapy with Samantha every day, and scouting keeps us pretty busy as well. I also try to fit in exercise several days a week. And preparing to start my own jewelry business. So I am not able to blog as regularly as I would like right now. I am going to have a goal to try to do a post once a month, more often when I can, and sometimes less often. I would like to stay in touch with you and share with you our creations as well as updates on our family from time to time. Hopefully I can blog more frequently in the future. Would that be enough posting for you to keep visiting, or would you just lose interest? Knowing how you feel will help me determine the future of my blog and if it's worth the effort to keep it going; so I appreciate your feedback. Many of you have been a support and encouragement to me during difficult times, and I have enjoyed the many comments on my sewing projects. So it is hard for me to just let my blog go even though I don't have a lot of time to blog at the moment because I would miss you and the sense of community I feel here with like-minded people. I have also made many meaningful friendships through blogging, which has enriched my life immensely. Even though I have not been posting much lately, I still visit my favorite blogs daily, rarely missing a post, and try to comment when time allows. You are all so inspiring.

I hope I can figure out this whole picture thing because I would really love to show you some shots from the wedding and of our beautiful Samantha and how much she has grown. So please be sure and leave comment if you can help me figure that out. Thanks for visiting and for your input.

Well, take care and have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year. 

Reverse Dyed Jeans, a New Blog Feature: Emily's Corner and Video of Baby Samantha

Hello all! First off, thank you so much for all of your kind comments on my last post. They were so uplifting and encouraging. I am so excited to actually be sharing something creative. And now for the long awaited new feature I promised you in my last post, drum roll please: I bring you Emily Callan, my 11 year old daughter and future fashion designer as well as my new blog partner. As many of you will remember, she had her own blog for a couple of years, Super Stitches; but it was closed down due to her age. She will most likely start up her own blog again when she is 13. But in the meantime, she will post her projects here. We will call this new feature Emily's Corner. I hope you enjoy this new addition. 

We enjoy sewing and refashioning clothing together. She had the idea to take a pair of ankle-length black jeans that were too short and still fit in the waist and remove color by flicking and painting bleach onto them (outside of course), basically reverse dying. She also cut them shorter in an interesting design and left them unhemmed. I asked her how she would describe the hem for me. She said she just cut violently. Great way to release pent up tension and frustration I suppose. She is very pleased with the results and wears them often. In the first picture she is shown with her four year old brother.

She has sewn some things recently as well and will be posting them soon.

At the end of this post, I have included a photo and video of our sweet baby Samantha.

PARTING SHOT:

Our beautiful baby Samantha, now 10 months old. To learn more about Samantha, click on "Samantha" underneath "Topics" in the sidebar. (This photograph was shot by me with my point-and-shoot. The photos of Emily were shot by my husband, Marty Callan.) 

And below is a video I took of our sweet girl. She was so funny and cute, talking up a storm, her personality really shining through. Enjoy!

After the Heart Attack

Hello, Everyone. I'm sorry it's been so long. It has been so hard to write for several reasons. For one, I have been so very busy taking care of my husband and children. Spending much more time in food preparation in order to provide heart healthy meals for my husband and also trying to do what I can to relieve him of some of his duties at home so that he can rest. Another reason, it's been difficult to sort through my feelings with all that has occurred this past year. There have been times of great stress and depression that I have had to work through. I feel like I am coming out on the other side. I am learning to find the beauty in the midst of challenges and the unexpected. I am learning to be grateful for what I do have instead of focusing on what I don't. I want you to know that you have made such a difference and have helped me through this difficult time with your kind words more than you'll ever know. I really appreciate you being there for me.

Marty is doing well. It is slow going. He is going to physical therapy three times a week. He gets dizzy and tires easily. After one session last week, his chest hurt all night; so that was a little scary. They did an EKG and said everything was fine, to just take it easy. We go for a stroll together in the evenings which is very nice. It's nice having that quiet relaxing time together. For those of you who are new here, you can read about the situation here.

Many of you have asked about Samantha, our special baby born with down syndrome. Here is the first post I wrote about her after her birth for those who have not read it. When you read it, realize we were not expecting this diagnosis. We were caught off guard and did not know anything about it. I was very scared and was grieving.

She is now 9 months old. I am so in love with her. She is so perfect in every way and so very beautiful. She is patient, sweet, content and smiles readily. She lights up when any of us pay her attention and/or picks her up. She is so very precious and the essence of her beauty, inside and out, reveals itself more and more to me each day. I kiss on her and hug her all day every chance I get, which is constantly.

She had and EKG and echo done, and her heart is perfect. The two holes that were there have closed on their own. She is very strong. She nurses well, says da da, buh buh and yea while clapping her hands together. She rolls from front to back and back to front and pushes up on her hands while doing tummy time. She can shake her rattle. Her occupational therapist who comes to our home three times a month is thrilled with her progress and says she gets stronger each visit.

I feel very blessed to have her for a daughter. I feel we are going to be fine. When I feel uncertain about the future with her, I just remind myself to enjoy her in the stage she is in now, just enjoy her being a baby. She is just like all of my other babies. I see no difference. When I hold her, all stress melts away. Holding her is therapy in itself.

We have many medical expenses which we are having difficulty meeting. If you find it in your heart and your means to help us, I have placed at end of this post a secure Paypal donation button. Thank you in advance from the bottom of my heart to those of you who wish to do so. I pray that God doubly blesses you.

I am looking forward to bringing you some sewing posts soon. I will be introducing a new feature on my blog that I think you will enjoy. Thanks so much for hanging in there and allowing me to have this time to take care of the extra needs of my family and adjust to new way of life. I'll leave you with some sweet pictures of Samantha.

Until soon and with much love, Trudy.

Linking with Never Growing Old.

 Samantha adores Daddy and reaches out to him to be held.

 All six of our children together at one time which doesn't happen often.

 Matthew adores his baby sister and kisses on her almost as much as I do.

 Emily loves taking care of her little sister.

 She's so pretty in pink.

 Matthew and Samantha cuddling in bed together is a nightly ritual.

The Long and Short of It.

I took this skirt I paid 50 cents for at a thrift store and chopped off the bottom tier and transformed it from frumpy to cute and sassy. I like it so much better. I left it unhemmed so that it can fray naturally. I put in a line of stitching 5/8ths of an inch in so it doesn't fray too far. With the material I cut off, I made a skirt for Emily, Age 11. Basically gathered and attached it to elastic and used the existing hem. Then made a couple more to sell at the Christmas market we have at church every year. This was a quick and easy self-gratification project; but it just felt so good to sit in front of that machine again after having the baby and just sew something, anything, and I really needed a new skirt anyway because I'm still not back in my regular clothes. I'm already dreaming of what I can make next. I would like to get back into the habit of doing a little something most every day so I can have regular creativity going on in my life. In time, in time.

Skirt before: (The following three photos were taken by Martin, Age 8)

And after:

(Closeup of hem taken by Emily, Age 11)

Whoa! Look at all of this fabric from the bottom tier! It would be a shame to throw it away. (Photo taken by Martin.)

Three skirts I was able to make from this fabric, one for Emily and two to sell, and a skirt for Emily's sock doll that she has started. (Photos taken by me.)

And now, for the grand finale, the sweet and adorable Emily Callan, modeling her new little skirt. (Photos taken by the one and only Marty Callan, my husband.)

   

Parting Shots:

Recent photos of our youngest children taken on and around Thanksgiving by my husband, Marty.