Care Caps Needs Help

When I was new to Little Rock and before the kiddos nixed my free time, I volunteered with a wonderful group of ladies making care caps.  Once a month I went to the family home across the street from UAMS (where my husband worked and the girls were all born) to volunteer my time and sewing/pinning skills.  Care Caps is a non profit group that sews comfortable head coverings for cancer patients.  Mary started it to honor her sister after she lost her battle with cancer.  She goes to different locations with a trailer full of sewing machines and material.  Volunteers meet for about 4 hours and sew caps that will then be shipped to clinics all across the US and passed out free of charge to cancer patients.

 

It was a rewarding experience for me, both getting to be around such wonderfully sweet ladies that volunteer and helping people who have to fight such a horrible disease.  Mary sacrifices so much of her time (without pay) and keeps things running smoothly.  I continued to volunteer while pregnant with the twins (just moving from the sewing machines to pinning which I could do from a more comfortable seat on the couch).  Mary made two darling baby quilts for the twins which was such a nice surprise when I was half living at the hospital while the girls were in the NICU.  She is so giving.  After the twins arrived, I couldn't help any more.  But I did visit once in awhile (and slowed down production as the ladies oohed and aahed over the twins). 

 

Here are the twins on one of her quilts when they were 4 months old.

 

After nine years however the nonprofit is struggling financially.  There have been years where they dipped under and had cut back but now this is the second year in a row and they have cut back all they can.  The project takes about $28,000 annually to stay afloat, but fundraising efforts the last two years have brought in only $21,000 annually. Unfortunately, with the worst case scenario (“no donations”), Care Caps will end in June. 

 

If you are interested in helping out a wonderful small charity, this is the link for their donation pledge page.  They don't take credit cards unfortunately.  You'll have to mail in a check if you want to help out.  Another way to help if you purchase things from amazon.com is to go to smile.amazon.com and enter Volunteer America—1776 (which is Care Caps official name) under donation charity and then use the smile.amazon page every time you shop there.  Every little bit helps and would be much appreciated.

 

My Lil Owl's Birthday

My sweet little baby turned one last week.  It is hard to believe it though because its gone by so fast.  I've learned a lot about taking photos since her big sisters' first birthday photo shoot.  I still have so much to learn about my camera and maybe some day I will.  For now though I have improved and am happy with that. 

Look how much she has grown.  I took the photos in the same laundry basket.  She is getting to be such a big girl!

Her sisters wanted to help with the photo shoot.  D dressed up her bouncy horse with a tutu and earrings.  They both helped to keep M distracted so she wouldn't pull so much on the paper chain decorations or the blanket (the backdrop is just a blanket over her pack and play).

We celebrated her party on the 4th since daddy had that day off.  She got to wear a fluffy party dress thanks to Leila.  They make such adorable clothes for girls.

It was an owl theme with pale pinks and greens.  I covered a post with brown packing paper and blew up balloons for a tree.  I imagined the top much fuller, but apparently 14 balloons don't go as far as in my imagination. 

I made a couple tissue paper poofs and added eyes, a beak, feet and wings out of scrapbook paper.  I hung the little one from the tree.  The big pink one hung from the living room fan.

 

I made a collage out of baby pictures in the shape of a one.  They move from when she was newborn at the top left to 2 weeks ago on the bottom right.  It is neat seeing how much she has grown.

 



I would have liked to bake the cake.  Baking birthday cakes is something I've always done since I learned to bake.   Since I didn't have much time and my newly married sister-in-law's mother-in-law has a cake business, it seemed like a better idea (and much nicer looking one) to order it instead.  The cake was vanilla with chocolate in it.  It was so rich and delicious.  The gum paste owls that were perched on top of both the big cake and the smash cake are too cute.  I have to find out if they keep.  Maybe I'll save them in M's memory box. 

M liked eating the frosting and the chocolate ribbon on her vanilla cake but didn't smash it too much or get really messy. 

My one year old girl already walks a little by herself although she still prefers crawling for speed. She's a climber.  She's up on stools, step ladders, chairs, the couch and the coffee table every chance she gets.  She says mama, dada, Yeiya (for Leila), more and dog.  She can sign more and all done, she claps and tries to blow kisses.  She is pointing at things now, so I tell her what they are called.  I don't know if she is actually ahead of what her sisters were doing at this age or if I'm just busy with all of them, so not paying as much attention and time is going by so quickly. 

Happy New Year

2014 has come to an end.  It was a year full of change for us.  Starting of course with a new baby girl (who just had her first birthday) and followed by a move cross country back home to California.  It has been so nice living near family again.  We have settled into a rental here in Brea.  The community is nice, the neighborhood has good amenities, and shopping is very close.  I continue to slowly get the house in order but it already feels like home. 

We had a wonderful Christmas.  We rounded out our advent calendar with baking more cookies, seeing some neighborhood lights, trying unsuccessfully to get a picture with Santa, making Christmas cards and watching a couple Christmas movies.  We headed down to my sister's house for an insane Christmas Eve with 5 littles running around and opening presents.  We spent all Christmas Day at my in-laws.  My husband unfortunately was on call and had to head into work twice during the day but at least we were able to spend some of the day with him.

I hadn't planned on doing any New Year's resolutions this year but I did start thinking about goals and things I'd like to change when writing this post so here is my list:
1) to knit more than last year.  That isn't saying much since I only did a handful of small projects last year.  Already this year I have finished a pair of fingerless mitts for Oma and have started testing a pattern for a designer on Ravelry. 
2) to finish Baby M and Little H's growth charts and make M's baby quilt.  I have the applique ironed on the growth charts but need to stitch them down, add the ruler lines and quilt it all together.  For the baby quilt I still haven't decided on a pattern, although I do have most of the material.
3) organize and stick to a weekly cleaning schedule.  It was really nice having someone clean for us in Arkansas while I was pregnant and then trying to keep the house looking good for showings when we were trying to sell it.  I just can't justify having one now though.  If I organize my time and get the twins involved, it should be "easy" to keep this house clean.  Especially since the twins started a Tiny Tots program at the community center today that gets them out of the house for 2 1/2 hours for 3 days a week.  So I have no excuses.
4) have more alone time with my hubby without the kids interrupting.  Between the new baby and not living together for months while he worked in AR and the girls and I came back early to CA, our marriage has definitely taken its hits this past year.  Now that we are settled and M is older we deserve to get some time to ourselves.
5) be more patient with the twins.  I have been losing my temper more than I should and raising my voice too often.  Then they react badly to me yelling at them and it just gets worse.  I need to be a better example for them of how practice patience and self control.

I wish everyone a great adventures and good health in 2015!