laurelsstitchery’s blog

Yay!  Alison's car seat arrived today!  I ordered it from SmartMomma.com on Monday and it arrived just a few minutes ago.  Excellent service!  Now we have another giant box to secretly stash in the dumpster of some unsuspecting business.  :)

Chicco Keyfit 30 Carseat

Back in May of 2005, I started Mirabilia's Enchanted Mermaid.  A few months earlier, after I had finished Mirabilia's Royal Holiday, I swore I would never stitch anything that had that much metallic thread and all those beads, but Enchanted Mermaid had my name all over it.  I started stitching on May 8, 2005 and put about 95 hours into it before my husband, Nick, died suddenly and unexpectedly on June 16, 2005.  He had been my stitching "cheerleader" so I couldn't face working on it after that.

Fast forward to 2007 when I had started dating a widower (Kurt) I met through a young widow message board online.  He was from Norfolk, VA where the city's "mascot" is a mermaid.  He saw Enchanted Mermaid sitting in the scroll frame and said I should finish it.  I didn't think I would ever finish it, so I pretty much blew off that idea.

Fast forward again to June of 2008.  Kurt and I got married in February and I moved to Norfolk in April.  I dragged Enchanted Mermaid along and started thinking about working on it again.  I had sold all the beads that I bought for it, so I reordered all that stuff and I finally had no excuses left.  I finally finished it today, June 25, 2008.

Mirabilia - Enchanted Mermaid

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Actually I guess I'm becoming more beachball-shaped now!  :D

Whale Shaped - June 21, 2008

Princess Alison's royal carriage has arrived!!  Most of the strollers I've seen are pastel colors which is fine for her room, but I wanted something brighter for the other stuff.  I love this red/tan color scheme.  We'll be getting the matching car seat in a couple of weeks.  Wheee!

Chicco Cortina Stroller

Ho-lee Cow!  No one told me about the whole nesting, must clean the house now, now, NOW thing when you're pregnant.  I brushed Isabelle, cleaned the dogs' room, vacuumed the stairs, scrubbed all the kitchen cabinet doors and cleaned the refrigerator.  All of that in about two hours.  I'm pooped.

This weekend we went to Wilmington, NC to visit Kurt's brother and his family.  Jim, Annette, Matthew, David, Aunt Barb, Cousin Mary and Heidi the Wonder Dachshund were all very welcoming and we had a great time.  We took the dogs with us and I was afraid they would be complete brats the entire time, but they were quite well behaved.  Maggie kept trying to get Heidi to play, but she would just roll over on her back and pray for a quick death.  I wish I had taken pictures because it was pretty funny.  An 11-pound Dachshund vs. a 140-pound Great Dane.  We walked around downtown Wilmington and did a little geocaching.  We had some great Mexican food.  We went to the beach.  It was a great weekend.

Today, Kurt and I went on a trek to find strawberries since they're in season.  We got some in Pungo, VA a few weeks ago and some in Virginia Beach last weekend.  The Virginia Beach ones weren't as good, so we went back to Pungo again this time.  The strawberry festival took place over the weekend, so a lot of the places were sold out, but we ended up with two quarts that are kind of small, but definitely delicious.  We ended up driving all the way down to Knotts Island, NC.  We were going to take the ferry across to Currituck, but we would have had to wait almost an hour so we kept driving.  After we got home, I sat on the beach while Kurt went for a run.  I'm such a dunce that I didn't realize there was a big group of our neighbors sitting just down the beach, so I'm sure they think I'm completely unsocial now.  Oh well.

I just love living here.  There's so much interesting, fun stuff to do!!!  :)

We bought Alison's first piece of furniture this week and it will be here next week!  I can't believe this alien invader already owns furniture!!!  :D

Emily Crib by DaVinci

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I mentioned that I wanted to go to the Gymboree outlet in Williamsburg, so we trekked up there today.  We also went to the Motherhood Maternity outlet and went shoe shopping too.  After that, we went to The Trellis restaurant for their famous Death by Chocolate dessert.  What else could a girl want?  :)

We took Maggie to a dog park on Saturday and to a geocaching event where she met lots of people including a cute baby.  She had a lot of fun and enjoyed the car ride too.  Here's the "before" picture:

Kurt and Maggie

We took her home and put her in the yard with the other girls and went off on some other errands.  When we got home, various neighbors met us in the driveway to let us know that the dogs had somehow gotten out of the yard and Maggie had a big cut on her leg.  I took one look at her and knew we would be spending the evening at the emergency vet.  She didn't enjoy that at all, but the vet and staff were super nice and did a great job stitching her up and getting us out of there relatively quickly.  Here's the "after" shots complete with bark amplifier head accessory and stitches in her leg:

Maggie and the Bark Amplifier

Maggie and the Stitches

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