Six Days Old

Rachel's Mom was dismissed from the hospital yesterday...took most of the day! The nurses were so nice, but a hospital runs almost like the gov't....slow.

We moved Mom and Dad to the Ronald McDonald House and it's a good feeling to know that they're safe and close to Rachel. If you're ever asked to donate to a RMH don't hesitate to do so..it's such a good place for parents to stay.

Rachel needs to gain a few more grams and she'll be back up to 2lbs. She's like most babies and lost a little, which she doesn't need to do. They've tried milk a few times and sometimes she can digest it and sometimes she can't. The nurses watch her constantly so she's getting the best of care.


We call her little incubator a Terrarium. It's such a controlled environment, it's just the perfect place for her to stay until she gets stronger.


I got home about 9pm last night and was in bed before 10. It feels good to have clean underwear and socks!


Keep praying....she's stable and growing and we want her to grow and get strong!

Rachel Update

-Guest Poster-

An adjustment in Mommy's meds has her bloodpressure back to normal, and will allow her to be dismissed tomorrow. Mommy and Daddy have a room reserved at the Ronald McDonald house...it's about 3 blocks away. I'll be back for a one-day workweek on Friday...unless something else changes! Thanks to everyone for the phone calls and prayers. Keep them coming...we have a long road ahead of us.

Note from Mommy -

Mommy got to change her poopy diaper for the second time!! ( i am sure the excitement over a poopy diaper will wear off over time.) they had stopped feeding her breastmilk because while she was digesting it, she wasn't passing it through her intestines and out. An x-ray showed a a lot of air, so they were going to wait. She also has a little bit of jaundice, so they have her under a photo light "tanning", she has to wear little foam sunglasses that are pretty cute, although they aren't quite her color... that is what she is doing in these newest pics..



Thanks to everyone who has come and see her, called and everything, we really appreciate everything everyone has done for us and our little angel!

Rachel Marie

Update post by a guest for Mama K --

The note sent out by Momma!

Rachel is doing wonderfully! She was born at 11:22 pm on November 29th. She was breathing all on her own the next morning already. They said that she might be on an IV for a while and might start feeding her breast milk in 1-3 days originally, but she was doing so well that they started feeding her breast milk at 8 pm last nite! they check her stomach before they feed her and they can see if she is digesting the milk or not and there is not very much that isn't digested each time! She doesn't like it when people mess with her, changing her diaper and stuff, she gets all ornery and fights the nurse. (it's quite cute!) i got to hold her last nite for the first time, i hadn't gotten to see her except right after delivery for a second and these few pics that Daddy took for me to see, they finally let me out of bed this morning about 2 and moved me to a different room all at the same time, and I made Daddy take me in a wheelchair right to her and we didn't get back to the room til about 3:30 this morning, we were both exhausted but it was worth it.

Here are the pictures:

Early Baby

We made a fast trip to the hospital thanksgiving night and are still shuffling between the birthing center and home. Janice (DIL #2) has developed preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome. The baby is at 28 weeks and they feel will be strong enough to be delivered--she'll weigh around 3 lbs. Unless the doctor's find a fast cure--we'll have a baby this weekend sometime.

Your prayers are much appreciated.

Thanksgiving--a few days early

I ended up with 27 at my table Sunday dinner. There were two families that didn't show up, so we had plenty of food. Other's knew that they weren't coming, but didn't bother to tell me. Planning for 8 less would've helped...but oh well, it's overwith now.

It was the first year I had brined a turkey. I used Alton Brown's recipe (close to it) and it turned out marvelous. Having my oven turned up to 500 degrees for 30 minutes was something I hadn't done before to cook a turkey, but it turned out really good. I also used his method for carving a turkey...I highly recommend it. I cooked two and there's very little left if that tells you anything!

Yesterday was also DH's 29th wedding anniversary. I told him that there was almost as many people at this feast as there was at our wedding.

Deer season (rifle) started Saturday and two managed to jump into my freezer.

Yes, I've got pictures....somewhere, it might just take a few days to get some downloaded.

New Quilting Blog

Please go over and check out Mary at Quilting in Oz. She's starting a new blog and sews circles around most people I know.


She bakes cinnamon rolls and quilts...now, don't we have something in common?!!

Gobble-Gobble

I like Thanksgiving just about like the rest of the world. We all get together with family and have a good meal and are all thankfull for a good harvest.


This year somebody(and we're not mentioning names) decided that the normal family get together wasn't big enough. I have 37 (thirty-seven) coming for dinner next Sunday. Seems like many are going out of town to see their own families, so they're all coming to MY house beforehand.

Yes, I volunteered to host Thanksgiving this year, but the "normal" group includes roughly 20+ people---depending on if several have dates. I don't mind having a few extra...but HOLY COW!

AND...since I have the coziest home, they all want to come. Oh, I forgot to mention...I'm going to be gone most of Saturday to a baby shower for my newest grandaughter.

Okay...Giz...When can I start my nervous breakdown? Thank goodness for DIL's and SIL's who are great cooks. Can I sent out an invitation that states "bring your own chair"?

AND...I still don't have a credit card to go buy groceries. I've got to go pull some cash...like the good-old-days!

Black Monday

Whoever stole my purse at wallyshop yesterday, I hope you're real proud of yourself. Spend my cash and just try to use the credit cards.


I'm trying real hard not to cry.

Seasonal

They're playing Christmas music in Walmart. No, we don't have a supercenter so I was in the fabric department buying pink flannel. A song registered in my brain and I asked the girl if I was hearing Christmas music...she looked at me and said "Since November 1'st they've been playing it".

What happened to Thanksgiving? Not that I'm going to enjoy the 37 people coming to my house for (the Sunday before) dinner, but do we always skip Thanksgiving? Guessed the relatives missed that memo.

Fast Vacation

If you are every in East Texas, go take a visit to Canton, Texas. It's acres and acres and miles and miles of STUFF! It had been 20 years since we'd been there and there's no way to even describe how much bigger it has gotten.

Here's a few of my treasures :

I should've opened this one up to take a picture, but it's the prettiest blue and the oddest gold combination. Hate to admit it, but I paid $12 for this quilt.
How many Sunbonnet Sue's can a person collect? This is just my second one--first one is purple. The girls are a different pattern than the other one too. Oh, both quilts are hand quilted and this one is hand pieced. It's twin sized, and yes I paid a little more for this one.

These two girls just spoke to me. I'm having TWO granddaughters and these two will be wonderful companions for them. Raggy needs an apron, but that surely won't be hard to make. Holly Hobby....would love to know how old she is and she's spotless, well, they both are.

I also bought two crochted items. one is a tablecloth and the other is a twin-sized bedspread. --both were $10 each. Okay...I've crocheted a lot of things in my lifetime, but to make that big of something for $10?..nope.

I also bought two antique rolling pins and several (many, many, many) other things.

Troy skipped school to go with us...drove us down there (4 hrs) and back. It was a good experience for him, but he said he wasn't ready to go back. It's 12 miles of trails if you go thru it all....and we did it in two days. He got a new pair of boots and jacket(at the western wear outlet), so he was happy. He's also a good carry-person. When you park at Canton, it's at least a mile to go back to the car and Troy gladly carried stuff for me....better than his Dad!

How we spent most of October

This is the farm version of "sewing". It's planting wheat, and it took almost a month to get 1500 acres planted.
Most of this wheat has came up and I'll try to get some new pictures soon.

Most of the time we only have one tractor running, because the driver has a "real" job. He worked evenings and weekends helping.

The neighbor's wheat--that's already green--is only about two weeks ahead of ours.

Keeping eating bread and wheat-products!!

Hello? Anybody home?

If anybody is still listening, I'm going to try to come back. Will have a newsy post soon.... I promise.

Tulsa Stock Show

This is our last Tulsa State Fair. (can you hear me say Halelujah?!) It's 183 miles from my house to the show.
Thirteen (13) classes of pigs with about 40-50 per class. LOTS of pork chops!

Troy was in class 5 (about noon-time) and won 4th in his class. AND...won a showmanship ribbon.

We still have another spring show season to go thru, but our finale will be in OKCity which will be a tad-bit closer to home!




And Traci was suppose to show up...and I never got to see her!

All smiles after the show. First time we have been to Tulsa and neither one of us is sick! The hayfever usually hits bit-time this time of year.

Mama thinks he needs a bigger Showmanship award than just the ribbon!

Quilted and Sold

(Yes, I'm slow...but I'm getting tired and old!)

This project turned out cuter than I ever expected it would. Here are some close-ups of the quilting. Janice (DIL) did the quilting on her Mom's longarm. I couldn't of asked for a better job.

Here is the prize-winner (actually the son, but we know who's gonna claim it). I asked him if I could take a picture with his new quilt and he agreed. He was instructed to hang on tight to the quilt.

If you want to know (and remember that the quilt was auctioned) , it brought $350. Would've loved for it to bring twice that, but it actually brought 3x's what I had invested in it, so it was a success.

Ready for the Quilter

If you're from Oklahoma, you'll get the ORANGE in this. The pattern is called Milky Way and it's ready to be quilted. Hopefully by next week because it's going to be auctioned off at an FFA event for Troy. I have a price in my head that it needs to bring...or it's coming home with me (or I should say Troy, so I don't have to make another one!)

It's approximately 70x80", so it'll make a nice sized lap quilt for somebody.

I was asked "Orange-ya-glad this one is finished?"...and...if anybody finds a star going the wrong way...don't tell me, okay?

Crossroads quilt is on the Bed!

Just got the binding put on this and put it on the bed. So nice to have it finished instead of laying out on my living room floor. It fits perfect on my KSize bed.

The quilting didn't show on the first pictures, so I flipped it over to show what all the gal did. I'm so pleased with this quilt. She even bragged that my 9-patches were square....imagine that?!

I call these lazy-daisies...I'm sure there's a technical name for them, but don't they look good in the 9-patches?!
Cross-hatching and stippling on the outer two borders finished it off. It lays flat and not a pucker one in it....first time for sure! My quilter wrote "ELEPHANT QUILT" on my ticket. Glad I don't have to feed that elephant!

Showing

This is our last County Fair to show at. I've said that we're a Senior this year and I think it finally hit him yesterday that this was "the LAST" county fair.
He won showmanship and placed 2nd in his class....so life is good. Who can resist those dimples!

An Award

I was honored to receive this award from Lori at Mountain Woman at Heart Blog. I'm sure her idea of Mountains and my idea of the hills we have here on the prairie are a little different. You can count the number of trees I see each day on one hand.

She's a busy woman with all of her travels and camping, but there's no way you're gonna get me to love a motorcycle. She always posts the prettiest pictures..so go check her out!

The rules of the award are as follows:

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog

2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you

3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs (this is the hard part as I read so many - it's hard to pick just seven to recommend)

4) Add links to those blogs on your blog (this may take me a day or two to do)

5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs,

Go visit these great sites:

Tracey at OzCountryQuilting: She's a farmgirl in the opposite season as me. Love her pictures.

Linda sewing with her Cat in Alabama. This gal sews and quilts circles around me! She always has something neat to show that her and the Belles has done...and has the cutiest kitty!

Gail at Quite Quilted. I've known her for years....literally. Probably the sweetest person I know in Canada!

Jo and I actually live in the same town. She also gets to hit the antique mall more than me...

Jeanne and I think so much alike I think we were sisters in another life.

Giz is my Wonder-Woman friend. She can stockshow, cook, sew and keep her sanity (more than I can do!)

Kristie is another cowgirl quilter who is fun. Her Dear Jane quilt project is wonderful! Go check out her cat named Donkey.

Last but certainly not Least is AMY at the CalicoCat. Us Gov't employees gotta stay together. Her CalicoKitten is due in December and she still has time to sew and keep up with everything.

I have probably over 500 blogs on my Bloglines list. I'm a scanner...so don't be offended if I don't always comment. Bloggers have become very inspiration to me. ...and there's always something "new to me" out there. Thanks to everyone who reads.

Let me introduce...

My FIRST grandchild is going to be a GIRL! We are tickled PINK! This sweet one is going to arrive at the Koch-household in late January.



AND...more news?!

There's going to be ANOTHER Grandchild coming mid February! (we don't know if it's pink/blue tho--but you know I'll take either!)

Life changes fast around here! and...yes, I've already started sewing.