Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

Three years ago right now, I was sitting in my hospital room, recovering from my first c-section, wondering what the future held in store for our little girl. Instead of in my arms, she was in the Special Care Nursery, hooked up to wires and tubes and monitors. We had delivered in the middle of the night as she wasn't doing well inside. I was put out for surgery because the spinal didn't take right and I woke up asking where my baby was. The nurse wouldn't tell me, she said she didn't know. I'd delivered my previous 5 children there, the hospital is small, I knew she had to know and I thought the baby had died and she was waiting for the doctor to come tell me.

My husband came in and said "It's a girl and she has Down Syndrome." I said "ok" and was my mind was racing. "Down Syndrome isn't dead, we'll deal with it," I thought.

"dealing" has been a pleasure. I thank God every day for bringing this special little girl into our lives. We've always been a close family, but we're even closer with the addition of Ruthie, she's captured everyone's heart and I can't imagine life without her.

She had the misfortune of being born during hunting season in a house full of hunters. Since my husband and two older sons were leaving very early this morning for a long weekend up north, we celebrated her birthday a day early. Here she is with her new dolly, it hasn't left her side since she got it yesterday afternoon. She also got a little shopping cart, which is wearing a path from our front door to our kitchen and some refrigerator magnets that have a special holder that will tell her the letter names and sounds. Every time she passes by it, she has to stop and play a couple of letters.

Here she is enjoying her birthday cake. I made 3 cakes, one to cut last night, one to send with my husband (they have a group of 9 guys who are hunting together this weekend) for the men to enjoy on Ruthie's birthday and a third just to have treats around. With our guys gone, I told our girls that they could have people over as much as they wanted this weekend and one can't have a stream of teens in and out without some goodies around!

And here she is all tuckered out from her day. I peeked in on her to find she had slid off the side of her bed...whether in her sleep or having woke up and decided she was too tired to walk, I don't know but this is so characteristic of her. Once she's tired, she's out and there's not a thing to be done about it!

I LOVE hunting weekend. For me, hunting weekend is QUILTING weekend. I usually put aside some special projects and spend as much time as I can muster quilting. With Ruthie more independent and happily playing a lot of the time, I should have more time than I've had the last few years. I've already started the movie marathon and my only real distration will be the computer. With our older girls also busy for much of the weekend, I won't have to share it so much! Still, I hope to do far more quilting than playing on the internet.

My big goal is to finish my Brother-in-law's quilt this weekend. I have just the final border to go, so I'll work on that and get the binding on the front. My quilting bee meets Tuesday night, so I hope to bring it there and hand sew to the back. I also hope to knit a few more dishcloths, applique a block or two and plan out a couple of table runners for ME that I plan to make and quilt as soon as my Christmas work is finished.

Even our meals are easy on hunting weekend. I got some fried chicken from a local deli for dinner, tomorrow night we're making homemade pizza with pre-made crusts and Sunday after church we'll head out to the local Chinese buffet (Lucas has been SO wanting to go there.) Sunday night we'll just have appetizers for supper since we'll have a big lunch and Monday will be cheeseburgers. I have a stack of paper plates so there will be minimal dishes. I can stay up late and sleep late and streatch out in the bed. This is as close as I get to a vacation and I'm going to enjoy every minute!

So off I go, to finish up a few things on here and then to get going on that last border. Once I see how much I can finish today, I'll have a better idea if I can actually finish it this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed!