Our Jesse Tree

This is a repost from last year when I for some reason came up with rather complicated ornaments and undertook making the Jesse Tree that I had pictured in my head when I read about Jesse Trees for the very first time.

At the moment I'm trying to figure out exactly where to hang mine to keep Mae from ripping both the tree and the ornaments down off the wall every single days (ten times a day I would wager) and making the whole thing rather painful as I rehang the tree and ornaments, over and over again.  

Anyways... here it is.  The Jesse Tree Post:

Finally!  

After one month and around 70 hours of work my Jesse tree is starting to look finished!  I had bigger plans for the tree, with a border and pockets for the ornaments, but I think that will have to wait until next year.  I'd also really love to decorate the blue background with little felt angels, but again, with the beginning of the 24 days of the Jesse tree one day away, I'm going to be happy to get the velcro stuck on in time!   

For those of you who've never heard of a Jesse Tree, it's a fun, centuries old devotion.  The Jesse Tree's name is inspired by Isaiah 11:1, which reads: 

"But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom."

The ornaments on the Jesse Tree represent people in the Bible (mostly Old Testament until you get to the tip top of the tree) and are based on the traditional symbols that represent people in Jesus' family tree (according to the genealogy at the start of Matthew).  Other sites have other symbols, but I used the ones in my copy of The Catholic Home by Meredith Gould.  

Here's our Jesse Tree:

I made the tree itself last night.  As I began to cut it out I realized it had to be big to hold the gigantic ornaments I'd made.  When I made the pattern for the ornaments I traced a roll of duct tape on a piece of cardboard... so that's how big each ornament is (and they're each pretty thick too!).  Which meant that my Jesse Tree ended up being a tiny bit shorter than me (it's around five feet tall).  

Now I just need to find a place for it to hang!

And since I spent the vast majority of those 70 hours making ornaments I just had to give you a closer look!  Here they are, in order:

The World is Created (globe): Genesis 1:24-28

Adam and Eve (snake and apples): Genesis 3:1-34

Noah and the Flood (rainbow): Genesis 6:11-22

Abraham (camel): Genesis 12:1-7, 13:2-18, 18:1

Sarah (baby): Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

Isaac (ram): Genesis 22:1-14

Jacob (ladder): Genesis 27:41-28:22

Joseph (multicolored coat): Genesis 37:1-36

Moses (burning bush): Exodus 3:1-10

Miriam (tambourine): Exodus 15:19-21

Samuel (lamp): 1 Samuel 3:1-21

Jesse (branch): Isaiah 11:1 (shown, apparently out of order, below... it's the green one...)

David (harp): 1 Samuel 16:14-23

Solomon (crown): 1 Kings 3:3-28

Isaiah (throne): Isaiah: 6:1-8 (Paul says the throne looks like an old truck...)

Jeremiah (tablets of law): Jeremiah 31:31-34

Angels (angel): Hebrews 1:1-14 (again, apparently out of order... this is what happens when I put something together at midnight...)

Malachi (trumpet): Malachi 3:1-4)

Zechariah and Elizabeth (dove): Luke 1:39-45

Mary (angel): Luke 1:26-35

John the Baptist (river): Matthew 3:1-6

Joseph (hammer and lily): Matthew 1:18-25

Bethlehem (star): Matthew 2:1-12

Birth of Christ (crib): Luke 2:1-7

And that is my Jesse Tree.  If you're interested in making your own Catholic Icing has a printable coloring set!

Now I'm just really hoping that I put these up out of order and that the felt numbers that I carefully stitched on the back of each ornament aren't out of order! 

Patrick Loses the Title "Easiest Baby"

Patrick, upon entering his second week, lost his title of "easiest baby in the world."  Mae Bae will hold onto that crown for a while longer.

It began when he started deciding that when he was hungry at night he would just roll onto his stomach and try to come find me.  He'd been able to move himself onto his side to eat pretty much since he arrived home from the hospital.  Two nights ago he realized that if he just leaned a little bit more he'd roll right over onto his tummy where he could hysterically realize that he was stuck.

I wasn't exactly excited about this development and began forcing the issue of using the co-sleeper that Nani and Grumpa gave us during their trip to Michigan (I wrote about my thoughts on the whole cosleeping/crib sleeping thing here... and I have to say... it's pretty clear that Patrick isn't following Mae Bae as one who loves being in his own little area from the get go...).

Using the co-sleeper, however, meant actually waking up a bit more to nurse and so I decided, on the first night of our co-sleeper adventure, to glance at my phone each time Patrick woke up to nurse.  And the stats proved that he was up quite a bit more than I would have thought when I was just barely waking up to feed him.  Because our night looked something like this:

8 pm- Patrick eats and goes to sleep while I work downstairs.  He sleeps in a bassinet next to me.
11 pm- Patrick wakes up when we go upstairs and eats again.  I put him down in the co-sleeper and after a week of realizing he likes the bassinet downstairs, he only grumbles about it a bit.
2 am- He's starving and I think 3 hours.... that's pretty good!
3 am-  One hour later we're starving again.  I'm less impressed this time.
5 am- I hurry to feed him before his frantic yells, which seem to translate into "milk!  now!" wake his sisters.
6 am- The girls are awake.  And crying.  I sneak out of the room and go into their room where they both sound raspy and sick.  They both pile into the same bed with me.  Sadie announces that she's freezing despite a fleece footed sleeper and 20 (I'm actually serious... and they feel incredibly heavy... but she keeps saying she's cold...) blankets.  Mae is hot and keeps trying to put the blankets off.  It's a long hour until...
7 am- Patrick wakes up.  It's go time... the day has begun.

So that would be 7 feedings in a 11 hour period.  That makes him a better sleeper than big sister Sadie by quite a bit, but can't really compare with Mae's four hour stretches of sleep from day one.

Still, I'm feeling pretty rested with the way things have worked out (it's four o'clock in the afternoon, when both girls go completely insane, that is exhausting!).  After all, that is roughly seven hours of kind of unbroken sleep.

But then last night arrived and Patrick started to cry.  And cry.  And cry.  He solidly refused to eat.  I walked him and got him to burp five times and he stopped for a while and then... more crying.  Colic?  Reflux?  I know I just read somewhere that babies start crying a lot more at around two weeks and that this phase generally lasts through three months.

I try different baby holds.  He seems happiest laid face down across my forearm while I pat is back... However I can't walk with him in that position for more than five minutes because while he's little those ten lbs add up pretty quickly, and when I sit down he goes back to screaming.  The other holds, he lets me know, are not acceptable.

And did I mention that, earlier this week, at two and a half weeks old, Patrick and I spent our Saturday at the ER, for reasons that will remain undisclosed to protect the not-so-innocent and that he had his first cat-scan, while the pediatric ER nurses assured me that "this sort of thing happens all the time" (and by the way the pediatric ER at that hospital is spectacular... there are huge touch screen computers built into the walls for the kids to play in... if Sadie saw it she'd ask to go back just to visit and play...).

I think I can honestly say that that might have been my worst Mom moment ever.  I can definitely say that it was up there...

Anyways... I digress...

Finally I call Paul and while he can't actually hear my voice over the screaming he gets the idea that he is needed at home and heads back from the library.  It's 11 pm when he arrives.  I hand him Patrick and tell him that I just need to get ready for bed.  "Let me go up to the bathroom and then I'll take him back and you can study..." I say.

And then Patrick... well... Patrick does something that makes me a bit suspicious.  He's in Daddy's arms now and he's suddenly completely quiet.  Paul has done absolutely nothing to earn this quietness.  He's holding him just like I was... but is Patrick screaming?  Nope.  He snuggles into Daddy's chest and closes his eyes.  He may even sigh contently as I head up the stairs.

Paul carries him up five minutes later and places him in the co-sleeper where he dozes peacefully for three hours.  He wakes up and starts to cry at 4... and then settles back in after Daddy burps him.

Daddy is apparently his person.

I think he really, really enjoyed that week off when Paul was home, and he's apparently not all that thrilled that his Dad is back at school with regular classes for one week, one week of crazy studying and then, finally, finals.  And the week before Christmas when the break finally begins?  It still feels pretty far off.

And me?  I'm just really hoping this screaming isn't a nightly thing.  Because I have some major sewing to do now, both for the shop and to get ready for Christmas.  And three nightly hours of screaming doesn't really fit into that schedule...  So here's hoping it was a one night screaming event.

At least now I know who to call to get him to settle down...

Patrick's First Pictures

After switching to a transverse position after we got to the hospital, and the subsequent labor that followed before the c-section, Patrick looked a little beat up when he made his entrance to the world.

He also wasn't thrilled when the very nice hospital photographer arrived and began instructing us on positioning him for pictures.  He wasn't in a "peacefully get my picture taken" sort of mood.

However, the disk with the photos (and photo rights!) came in the mail and I just had to share them here.  And okay... I do like the black and white ones better than the color ones because he looks slightly less beat up in them.  Poor little guy.  He had a rough couple of days! 

Sadie's Ice Skating Plans

I have a couple of little girls who are incredibly interested in ice skating at the moment.  

Last night after forty five minutes of ice skating and coming home to watch the ice skating competition from Japan that was on NBC, Sadie had Mae join her for three solid hours of pretending to ice skate around the living room (they even put down a blue blanket and pretended it was the ice).  

It was more than a little wild with non stop spinning and quite a few attempts at triple axles. 

There was also a debate when I suggested that the living rooms hardwood floors might be better for pretend ice skating than the blanket they laid out that they kept getting tangled in... but that was firmly overruled by both girls who didn't see how it could be considered ice skating without an appropriate ice skating "rink" that at last looked (vaguely) like ice.

Sadie has her first ice skating recital in two weeks.  Her favorite parts of the routine they've been working on include waving, blowing a kiss and saying "Merry Christmas!" with more waving.  

And I'm impatiently awaiting the time when I'm healed enough to go out and skate with her during the second part of her lesson (there's a family skate time where parents are encouraged to join and get free skate rentals).  

Sadie also announced yesterday, as I put Patrick's little MSU hat over his head, that Patrick is going to need a "hockey outfit" soon.  She had big plans for her little brother.  And for herself.  In her fearlessness she used free skate yesterday to skate out with the hockey players (who are about eight) who were practicing skating techniques.  Every time she skates with them she seems to learn even faster than she normally does, because she really focuses on imitating what they're doing (and they've been really great about helping her and giving her tips).  The fact that many of her classes have been one on one lessons, since the other kids haven't showed up consistently, has certainly helped too.

One thing we have noticed is how rough and tumble our girls are in all of their classes.  I think having each other has contributed heavily in this area.  They're used to running around together and accidentally knocking themselves (or one another) down.  When either of them fall down, and they both take some pretty hard tumbles, they bounce back up and keep running.  That's really helped in their classes where the other kids pretty frequently burst into tears...  Sadie's actually taken to looking over at me seriously each time she falls down and then breaking into a huge grin before bouncing back up and starting to skate again.    

After watching skating yesterday she looked at me seriously and said:  "Mommy, I'm going to have to practice pretty hard if I'm going to be the best in the whole world."  

Five weeks of ice skating and she's coming up with some pretty big plans...  I think they might be heavily influenced by the sparkly ice skating outfits she saw on TV...

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And on a completely unrelated note, today is scheduled to be the last day of my 20% off sale.  So use the coupon code GIVETHANKS20 if you want to save 20% at any of my shops!  And thank you to all of you who shopped this weekend!!!  

Fresh Off the Sewing Machine!

To my great relief things began to pick up yesterday afternoon for Small Business Saturday.  This means I haven't quite met my goal of getting 200 headcoverings up at the same time, but in this case that's a good thing.  And since I still have a bag full of headcoverings to photograph I just might meet my goal of posting five or so more headcoverings sometime this week depending on how crazy things are with my photographer and his classes (as finals approach things are bound to get extra crazy!).  

Here's the latest!  I love the navy blue with polka dots!  

And if you order don't forget to use GIVETHANKS20 or 20% off your entire order at any of my stores!

Polka Dots

Light Blue Cotton Floral Snood

Teal Crepe and Lace Snood

Pink Crepe and Lace

Orange and White Print

Salmon (because I couldn't decide if this was really pink or orange...)

Light Green with Pink Roses

Grey and Black Cotton Print

7 Quick Takes Friday

--- 1 ---

I'm not sure that this picture quite conveys the level of crazy that Sadie and Mae achieved today.  They were on a roll.  The photo might convey what the day was like a bit better if you could see that she was also wearing a pink tutu over her pjs and was walking around with my pink boppy nursing pillow on, as a skirt, above that.  And we can't forget about the half smashed pink cowboy hat she's wearing.

It was like the Thanksgiving meal gave them super amounts of energy that they expended doing every possible naughty thing that they could think of (I think the high point might have been when Mae climbed up on the dining room table and began to jump up and down as high as she could).

--- 2 ---

Here's dinner minus the turkey, since I just didn't quite have the energy to carry the turkey all the way into the dining room simply for a photo... and I also realized that putting the turkey on the table would put it within Mae's "let's throw everything I can get to on the ground" reach.

--- 3 ---

Patrick is downstairs watching football with Daddy right now.

Actually, Patrick is downstairs in his bassinet sound asleep while Daddy watches football.  Which means that when I finish this post I will be going to sleep by myself until Patrick wakes up and is hungry (or until the game is over, which should be several solid hours away).

This, combined with Paul's earlier admission that he's enjoying watching Doctor Who with me, makes this evening pretty great... making up for the incredibly long day that preceded dinner time.

--- 4 ---

The girls and I all started coughing again yesterday.  I'm having a rather difficult time accepting that it looks like we're all sick again... or still sick.  I mean really... how long can this last?

On another note, if my blogging has suffered these past two months I think I can blame the fact that my oxygen level at the hospital when I was there last was solidly below 94 every time they took it.  And right now I'm just thankful for my inhaler.  This cold is insane.

We are so ready to be better for at least a solid month!

--- 5 ---

It snowed all afternoon here, with varying amounts coming down, without ever really sticking (at one point things started to turn white but then it melted very quickly).  It was quite a change from yesterday when the 6 o'clock news said that the current temperature was 64 degrees.

Sadie was ready to head out in her princess dress and bare feet to play in the snow... but after poking her head outside while I was getting the mail she came back in demanding hot chocolate.

--- 6 ---

In case you missed it, the sale in my store is still on.  And I'm still posting new items as I make them and photograph them (like this one!):

 

--- 7 ---

Now to get some sleep!  Hopefully Patrick will snooze through the game Paul's watching!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

The Once a Year Thanksgiving Sale

It's here!  My Big Yearly Weekend After Thanksgiving Sale (which will actually run from today through Monday!).  This years sale is going to be paying for fun things like the gas bill, which I'm afraid to receive after a month of actually using the heater on a daily basis.  I've been keeping the temperature down in the 60s for the most part but still, I hear it clicking on far too often to make me think that the amount is not going to be frightening!

Anyways, this week I've been hurriedly finishing a pile of new snoods while Patrick finally learned to like his bassinet, which I believe is a result of realizing that his sister can't touch and cuddle and kiss him when he's in it.  He now stays quietly in his little haven gazing out at us happily.  This development is making sewing and cooking quite a bit easier!

The coupon for this years big sale gives you 20% off at any of my stores.  Just head over, pick out what you like and add the 20% off coupon code GIVETHANKS20 at checkout and you'll save 20% on your entire order!

Now on to the latest creations I have up!  In the past two days I posted nineteen new headcoverings!  I found some great fabrics at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago (although there was only enough for one snood of each fabric since they came from the fat quarter section) and I think they're perfect for the holidays.  Here are the five one of a kind snoods!

Shimmering Burgundy

Gold with Faint Purple Undertones

Lovely Bright Gold

Gold

Red

I also found a few shimmering fabrics that reminded me of fall!  I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the orange when it was finished.  It's one of my favorites:

There's also a matching gold fabric...

The convertible gold headcovering:

and as a snood:

There's also this fun gold lace (along with a lot of other new laces, both in snood and convertible headcoverings!):

There are even some beautiful lightweight cotton snoods up (like this one!):

And the coupon code works at my other shops, so if your looking for jewelry or chaplets:

or Saint Dolls:

the 20% of coupon works at my other shops too!

I hope you're all having a great holiday weekend!