knitarielknit

Herding Cats, 1.17-1.20

2012-01-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

Back in September I started a new "job", and I say this with parentheses because I always feel silly describing something involving parenting my own kids as a job, but anywho... so this new thing brought two extra kids over twice a week. Enter V (2yo) and F (12m.), and before we go any farther V & F's parents consented to me blogging about them. The beginning was TOUGH. Robin was still pretty new at that point, V was very homesick, and between juggling nap times and who gets to play with what toy and then feeding everyone lunch I was ready to pull my hair out. And note that this was just two days a week.

We got into our routine, and it's a strict one, I'll tell you about that later in this post (exciting stuff you know!). V warmed up to the idea of being here all day, Robin became a more efficient nurser and Abe decided to share his toys. So here we are now, doing FIVE days a week.

These are the cats I herd.

So yeah, a little bit crazy, but I've got my reasons. It's that good kind of chaos too, the kind that when you get a minute or two to sit down you melt into the chair. The kind of chaos that makes you sleep better at night, and the kind of chaos that you just have to give into sometimes, join in, start barking like a dog, draw endless pictures of 3 headed monsters, have conversations with dolls about whether or not they want cheese, that kind of stuff. You can't lose it, and really there isn't time to. Back in September I remember one day when V was really, really sad. We were eating lunch and she was sobbing at the table, clutching her blankets like they were the last remnants of her parents, not eating lunch and then her brother began to cry, then Robin started to cry, and then Abe looked at me and said "I just want to cry because everyone else is." I sat there thinking kid you are my rock! don't go out on me now! And there was a little of what the eff am I doing this for!? But we've gotten past all of that, trust me. These kids are dolls, F naps like a champ (knock on wood), he has the funniest way of crawling and eats like a horse. V is an observer at our house for the most part, but if you can get her to open up a bit, which she does, she is a hilarious, giggling little girl.

Our days our super structured...

Drop off 7:30-7:45a

Story time at 8:30a

F goes down for a nap at 8:45a

Put Robin down for a nap at 9-9:30a

Craft/cooking/activity with the older kids 10a

F wakes up around 10:30-11a

Robin wakes up around 11:30a

Lunch 12p

Clean up 12:40p

Story time at 12:45/1p

F, V, and Abe down for a nap at 1:30p

Robin down for a nap 2p

F and V start waking up around 3ish

Pick up between 3:15-4p

Yes, there is lots of playing in between all of this. Lots of playing during, around, on top of all of this, it is good. Once a day V and Abe watch a little TV, 20m-30m of something like Sesame Street, Dinosaur Train, Yo Gabba Gabba, or something along those lines while I nurse and rock Robin to sleep for his morning nap. And sometimes, when all the stars align I have 30m- 1hr of time in the afternoon when everyone is asleep. It's incredible. I sit. I might get on the internets, like today and write this blog, or I might knit, or I might sew, but I typically don't do anything I should be doing, like dishes or laundry. It's a fantastic span of time. Sometimes Declan gets home from work early in there and we sit together, again it's fantastic.

So I thought I might write about this new adventure every once in a while, and call it "Herding Cats", because that's what it feels like, chasing babies, filling cups with milk, handing out snacks with a 20lb. baby on each hip, that sort of thing. So if you don't like babies or kids stay away on these posts, and if you think I'm crazy or wonder "why?" then come by and read these. I'll tell you what we've done this week for activities (this week we... made pasta, did crayon etchings, made cupcakes and pasta necklaces) I might tell you what I've fed these kids, stuff like that.

And here's me, in the midst of being crawled on by babies and attacked by toddlers, probably telling someone "no".

On finishing and starting

2012-01-12T12:28:00.000-08:00

This. sigh.

This was my Christmas present to myself. A gift for working so hard on all of those other gifts. A little thank you note to me. I have been working on it since the minute I finished knitting my last gift. It was finished a couple of days ago and is still needing a bath and to be blocked. I love everything about this project, it's the Holden Shawlette btw, I loved buying the yarn and needles to start it, downloading the pattern to my new Kindle (this has proven to be awesome for knitting) knitting with this yarn was crazy wonderful, the garter stitch eyelets, and even the tedious picot bind off. And what I loved even more about all of those things was selecting/buying/and casting on for a project just for me and then, and this is crazy, but finishing it before I began anything else.

Typically I pick up projects here and there, start a lot, finish few, and finish even fewer just days from starting. Most of them I quickly lose excitement in and if they are finished it's often because I have to (gift or something like that). This was entirely different. I was so excited about this thing that I went on to start and complete two more things! A square for a comfort blanket and a fair isle hat that doesn't fit.

For Christmas, Declan had gotten me enough yarn to knit this sweater I have been coveting. I've been siting here with 1400 yards of wool just waiting to be knit with, but a little fearful of starting after completing all of these quick projects. This sweater, on my best and quickest attempt, will take two or three weeks. It's not a hard pattern, it's just a freaking sweater and I have kids. So I've spent the past couple of days pumping myself up, giving myself little pep talks about how I can start and finish this sweater in hopes of wearing it before the weather changes back to warm, and I was already to do this but then this happened...

Damn fabric store. Damn cute little felt things I've been pinning on Pinterest. Damn cheap little felt squares at the fabric store, wool felt too nonetheless. This picture doesn't even show all of it. Sad face. I may never get this sweater started.

And what trip to the fabric store would be complete without some books on what to do with all of this fabric? Well they came from the library, and I've been jonesing on these books from Soule Mama and I was thrilled to find one.

Besides what's in these books I'm thinking felt garlands, and little gnome-like people and hearts for Valentine's Day and all of the white is planned for little felt letters and envelopes complete with stamps. Better get busy!

Wine Cork Friends

2012-01-12T12:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, while stuck at home without a car we were (I was) in desperate need of something to do that was a little more structured than running in circles and making kitty noises. So I pulled out our jar of yarn scraps, jar of wine corks, markers, glue and pipe cleaners and this is what we got. Wine cork friends. I really tried to come up with a more creative name or one that alluded to drinking A LOT of wine, but all you'll find from these is that we (again it's just an I here) drink a lot of cheap Pinot.

I honestly had as much fun making these as Abe had. He was really excited about the glue, I was really excited about all of the yarn hair possibilities. Meet our friends...

This is Smokey, as in Smoking Loon Pinot.

This is Pepper, he's kind of a crazy eyed monster.

This guy practically wears his name like a badge.
Can you believe that his hair is cashmere?

This lady is French, her name is Champagne,
she's the life of the party and an opera singer

Looking Back on 10 Intentions for the New Year

2012-01-02T18:34:00.000-08:00

Just over a year ago I wrote this post on my intentions for 2011. I've thought about the post on and off throughout the year, wondering what if any I've accomplished. The nice thing about the Intentions is that they seemed to hold a little less pressure than Resolutions. I wish I could say I can check all 10 off, but I can't, so here is a look at them one year later.

1- Clutter free house? I spent a great deal of time, there is a post a few months back, cleaning my craft space, since then it has gotten a little jumbled, and we have definitely gone through some things this year, but there is still clutter. And I would like to say that for 5 people living in 900 sq ft. of space we are doing pretty well.

2- Try to understand my children more. This is tough. I think I've accomplished this, but it seems like there needs to be some sort of clause on it, like understand them and be empathetic. I really, really try. But it's hard, especially when there is whining or screaming involved. I will say that I've been more open to who my children are, not going to go into that too much now, but I am knowing them better, this is good.

3- Publish 6 more patterns. This did not happen, and I will blame the baby for that :) But I did get four out there this year, they were all at Knit and Caboodle, but that still counts, if only I could get them on Ravelry. But here's the list... Quickie Mitts, Two Color Cowl, Christmas on Fair Isle Stocking, and Family Mittens.

4- I did this one! A drug free birth. I'm really proud of this one, because it wasn't just me. If it weren't for Declan, my Dr., my friends I don't know if this would have happened. Thanks to all.

5- I failed horribly at this one. I did get Christmas Cards in the mail and thank you notes for baby things, but no actual letters.

6- Financially we are better, and not just because we are making more money, not by much, but we are smarter with what we are doing with it. This is a big one, and I'm happy to say we've done well with it.

7- Paint rooms. Ha! We did Marley's, but that's it. End of story.

8- Explore a new hobby. Yes! Embroidery, specifically silk ribbon embroidery, and I hope to do much more of it!

9- Vegetable garden? Meh... blaming this too on the baby. But watch out this year might be the year for it.

10- Stop being judgmental. I've had my moments this year on and off. I don't think this is one of those on/off things.

So how about this year? Who knows. Just trying to be a better person. Not just mom or wife or whatever, but a better person in general.

How did everyone else fare?

The Christmas Gift Report

2012-01-01T19:10:00.000-08:00

I find it rather fitting that on the first day of a New Year I finished the last Christmas knitting from last year. Much to my surprise everyone got their gifts, there were a couple I left out, but no one was left with "well, you'll get it when I finish it." Maybe this will be my focus for the year? Finishing things? Yeah, probably not.

Christmas gifts spanned more than just knitting and we stayed away from baking as well. So here are a few pictures, the ones I remembered to take, of gifts. Everyone has received them now, so I won't be ruining anyone's surprise.

Silk Ribbon Embroidered Pillow Cases, pattern via PurlBee.com and ribbon from Dyeabolical.

These went to my aunts and uncles.

Socks for Marley, one skein of Paton's Kroy, #3 needles, personal pattern.

Nancy Marchant's basic brioche scarf pattern, for my cousin Charlie.

Yarn was Cascade 220.

All Bobbled Up Cowl, yarn is Nashua Julia and was for my cousin Madeliene.

The Edie Cowl with Cascade Cash Vero dk for my cousin Anna.

Sewn and embroidered cotton handkerchiefs for my Gaffer. Inspired by Purlbee.com, but a much simpler version. Time was waning.

These are my favorite. Silk ribbon embroidered sachets for my Gram with silk dupioni fabric.

The fabric and ribbon were gifted to me by a very talented woman, and I am smitten with it.

A hat for Robin, that started out for Marley. The pattern is We Call Them Pirates, but I don't know the yarn.

Other gifts included:

-wool helmet liner for Declan

-socks for Dad

-blanket for my Mom and Step Dad made from upcycled wool sweaters

-Dino hat and mitt set, plus a scarf for Abe. I will have to show this one off at some point.

-Wool slippers for my cousin Sam

-little tins of body butter for various people

-jars of vanilla citrus sugar scrub for various people

And what am I working on tonight? A shawl for myself :)

Christmas via Pinterest, Part 3

2011-12-16T08:44:00.000-08:00

Yes, three posts in one day... got to make up for lost time.

The Advent Calender has been a great source of holiday inspiration. And fortunately no one, and when I say that I mean Marley, has been upset if we don't get around to something that day. Past days have said things like Christmas movie with dinner, cocoa and cookies for dessert, invite a friend for dinner, help a family in need, today's is make a popcorn garland, and yesterday's was make a gift for each other.

In my back pocket I had snow globes as a Christmas craft. It had been something I wanted to do for a while and found a simple how to on Pinterest that comes from Martha Stewart, link. Really it was a no brainer, but the glycerin part I wouldn't have thought of.

I had been saving jars for sometime, we have tons of glitter and sequins for snow, and lots of plastic animals and creatures. All of this equals snow globes.

Abe and I made ourselves some hot cocoa, because all Christmas activities need hot cocoa, and set off to make Marley's Christmas gift. We had to stand the animals on little plastic caps we had, and unfortunately some of the toys we wanted to use just wouldn't fit. Sorry, no tiger or Smurf snow globes for us. The moose and giraffe were the only ones we could use. The animals came from a bucket of animals Abe got for Christmas last year. It's from Target and was less than $15, it had a variety of sizes too. The Dollar Store would most likely have some good ones.

The glycerin was hard to find, CVS carried it, and at Target they thought I was asking for Listerine. Umm, no.
We used hot glue instead of what the tutorial called for and it seemed to work just fine. I also hot glued the tops on and the ribbon around the caps. I haven't been able to pull off a great photo of these, but the boy really enjoyed making them. Marley will be getting the giraffe one for Christmas and the moose one is for Abe. I kind of think the giraffe one looks like one of those jars filled with body parts and formaldehyde, maybe we'll remember this come Halloween.

Christmas via Pintrest, Part 2

2011-12-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

I found this a while ago on Pinterest and finally got around to giving it a try. Very easy, we used tangerines instead of clementines.

Link

I'm thinking that a few of these on your table for Christmas could be part of an excellent centrepiece. If definitely smells, but it's very subtle and natural. Our candle lasted about 6 hours before the top started to burn and made everyone run around looking for what was on fire.

Today I'm going to push aside the Christmas stuff I should be doing a give these ribbon birds a try.

Catching up

2011-12-16T08:21:00.000-08:00

Lots of things happening, school things, baby things, life things, holiday traditions, etc. Playing a little catch up...

Someone is standing up. On EVERYTHING.

Cute soakers are even more necessary now.

Advent Calender Day 14, Bake Cookies.

Holiday Concert.
Someone decided to go girlie on us and wear ruffles.

Enlisting the help of this guy to do some cleaning.

Babywearing seems to be the only way I can get things accomplished these days.

Nurse while doing dishes.

And baby on the back while putting away laundry.

Someone was a little hungry this morning and was wondering if the buffet was his Mommy.

Nope.

Not even close.

Advent Day 3, Make a Wreath For the Front Door

2011-12-06T12:37:00.000-08:00

Yes, just like the first two days this was also met with a little bit of "do we really have too?" It was driven more by the idea of doing it together as a team, but eventually we got past the idea of splitting the wreath in half for each child to do a side and it was decided that both children's findings would look good all over.

The kids were instructed to find things to put on the wreath. I gave them each a bowl and pushed them out the back door while the baby and I got out the glue gun, wire, and various findings I've been stashing away for something like this.

I sent affirmations to my inner pack rat after this was finished. How happy it is to see things go to good use. Old clip-on earrings from a Grandma, brooches, and ornaments I would never have had room to add to the tree but couldn't throw away because they came from another side of Grandparents.

Of course there were pine cones as no wreath would be complete with out some. Marley attempted to braid pine needles, but they quickly fell apart. Abe brought his bowl back in with a dozen or so pine cones and handfuls of dead grass. The grass never made it to the wreath and I was instructed not to throw it away, it's special.
The wreath was also a good place to add some of Declan's handmade ornaments from when he was a child. A rather special God's Eye I'm sure. Special enough that his Mom never threw it away and now neither will we.

Our special letter from Day 2 was put in the mail. The children have also been instructed to write a letter to Santa and make snow flakes. We've yet to do either, but I having a feeling there will be some snowflakes on the wall this evening, especially after today brought the first snow of the season.

Christmas via Pintrest, Part One

2011-12-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

I'm not even going to go into what Pinterest is, because by now everyone is in the know and if you aren't well then, I just don't know. Once Halloween has passed I begin to feel the strong draw toward all things Christmas, and this year Pinterest has helped me figure some stuff out. First things first an Advent Calender. We've done the Trader Joe's chocolate one in previous years, but Pinterest has challenged me to become a better mother/wife/human being #sarcasam. I knew I wanted something that was for both kids, Robin's not going to remember anything this year, and I wanted things for them to do, not things for them to eat or have. After searching through the hundred or so links for "DIY Advent Calender" (the nice/funny thing about Pinterest is you can put DIY in front of any word and get a myriad of options, most very clever, lots involve hot glue and pvc pipe and yarn), I found a couple that inspired me. Here they are.

Here is ours...

I'm pretty damn pleased with how it turned out. I thought about putting up a tutorial, but I'm pressed for time today and lazy, so I'll just tell you what I used. Brown craft paper cut into about 7x7" squares, yarn, little pieces of note paper to write what to do each day in the envelopes, gold notary stickers, various Sharpie markers, red jewels to decorate, ribbon and nails to hang it on the wall, and clothespins to hang the envelopes (next time I will use smaller clothespins).

$15 and 2 hours later I kind of rethought not just taking the $1 Trader Joe's chocolate calender, but I'm trying to convince myself that this is worth it. I'm not sold on it yet. It's only been two days and each has been met with adversity from Marley.

Day 1 was "Hot chocolate with breakfast." I was unprepared and out of the cocoa powder I normally use to make "real" hot chocolate, not the instant stuff. Here is the conversation Marley and I had...

Marley, "Is this instant?"

Me, "Yes."

Marley, "Oh, I can see you just didn't have the time" said in a voice that was like "I will always have the time when I am an adult."

Me, "I did have the time, I was out of cocoa powder."

Marley, "Oh.... it's alright."

Just alright? She wouldn't be saying this about a piece of penny chocolate.

Day 2, today, was similar. Open note, it reads "write a letter to send to someone". Our conversation went along the lines of it being "lame!" and "just like homework!" and "worst day ever!" Okay, maybe not that last one, but we were close. There was a reminder about the reason for the season, we went for the family and friends route over the birth of the sweet babby Jeebus, but still she was like "I want my chocolate!" Maybe next year dear, maybe next year.

And how has Abe reacted? He's pumped about this. He doesn't remember the chocolates last year, so this is the norm. We're writing letters this afternoon and you might be getting one! He was pretty definitive about who gets his letters, and surprisingly he didn't say his girlfriend Tuna Fish.

Ten on Tuesday, 10 Things which you are thankful for.

2011-11-22T08:18:00.001-08:00

The choice to do this week's 10 Ten on Tuesday seemed like a no brainer, it being Thanksgiving and all this week. And yes, I'm going to go ahead and say the obvious too.

In no particular order...

-Breastfeeding. There is nothing. nothing like it. There are benefits to the baby to the Mom, both physically and emorionally. And while I could give you some numbers of health data that supports it let me tell you why I do. Looking down on your sweet nursling as they use their warm hands to caress your cheek while nursing. Or snuggling a sleepy baby as they nurse to sleep and you end up dozing with them. When Abe asks me what I'm doing and I say "nursing Robin" he always says "no Mom, he's nursing you." So true son.

-The DH. What a guy. The other day he was wearing a plaid shirt and over it put on a striped, multi color vest I knit him all while wearing blue corduroys and green suede shoes. He asked "does this vest look okay with the rest of this?" "Yes!" And to sum up Declan I'm happy he's the kind of guy that would ask something like that, wearing something like he was wearing.

-Marley. She's knitting Robin a sweater for Christmas. She's determined to get it finished and with bulky yarn and #11 needles, she might. She also noticed that I worked a couple of rows for her last night. These are reasons why I love her.

-Abe. You know when you shake up a can of soda so much that if you open it it might explode? That is Abe. When that soda explodes you think "damn it! soda everywhere!" but at the same time it makes you laugh and smile and wish soda cans exploded everyday.

-Robin. The youngest child in a family is typically the most charismatic. This is our sweet baby Robin. Or Robin Bobbin as Declan refers to him. The kids call him Robby. My sweet squishy, soft and warm baby. Stay young sweet boy, it's going too quickly.

-Our House. Ever changing, bright, warm, too small sometimes, but more often than not just the right size.

-Knitting. Sweet, sweet knitting. Soft wool running between my hands, around my needles and off into something warm. Looking at a Hanes t-shirt and realizing it's stockinette stitch, and that I could knit that shit.

-The plethora of baked goods we will be eating in just a couple of days. I may break out a pair of maternity jeans just to make sure it all fits.

-30 Rock. Declan and I just discovered it's genius via Netflix. Holy crap, how have we not been watching this. I'm also thankful that Netflix has over 100 episodes for us to enjoy. What will we watch after this!? It may be like the great Lost Letdown of 2010.

-Friends. The kind that you can bitch and moan about your husband too, and they do the same and then you both make each other realize that really you've got a pretty great guy. Or the ones that have kids you like. Or those who you can trade clothes with. And especially the ones you tell more to than anyone else.

And because I can, I'm gunna make this 11 on Tuesday.
-Family. My parents, the in-laws, the cousins, the grandparents, extended family, etc. I'm really happy to have them all.

More Fall

2011-11-06T09:16:00.001-08:00

Into the Fall

2011-11-06T08:31:00.000-08:00

Halloween and everything that goes with it has come and passed (including that whole 5 Things idea- what a bust!). Suddenly it turns to Deep Fall, which here means less cool days than warm ones, it's finally okay to rake as most leaves have fallen, and once again the heat is turned on, at least at night. There will be more meals that stick to our ribs, stews, casseroles, etc. and the occasional hot cocoa. We've already eaten our weight in squash, and soon it will be pumpkin and apple pies.

But before Deep Fall hit here's a few pictures (some snagged from my MIL and cousin Julie, thanks!). By the way I've done a horrible job documenting our lives via photos during the past few months. More often than not I've found myself wanting to play along instead of watching, this is a good thing though.

Picking pumpkins. Grandpa let Robin drive the tractor. He was pretty stoked. I should take photos of our carved pumpkins but the squirrels have gotten to them and eaten their faces off.

Hey a picture of me I don't mind (the only reason I added this one)! Declan is looking pretty good too, and that Abe, ready to jump out of the tractor.

Halloween, posing with some ghosts in town from Scotland. The one on the left is this guy. He knows Belle and Sebastian. Seriously. Declan was Leonard Powers from Ugly Americans, I tried to be a raven but ended up missing the memo about them being all black.

Where was Abe in that last picture? Sleeping in the VW. He woke refusing to put on his robot costume. Marley was pissed. For about an hour all I heard was "all of that hard work for nothing!" Yeah, thanks kid for the reminder. I have to admit I was a little peeved too, but he's three right. He did wear his helmet and really confused people with what he was. Everyone just thought it was a brilliant idea to put lights on his head. It was pretty brilliant, Declan came up with that one. We were always able to tell which kid was Abe when the group was running down or across a street. I'm thinking about posing some Halloween shots, with our mauled pumpkins. By the time I get to that though it will probably be snowing. Oy.

And now look at that, three villains, all with costumes made by their Moms. Fortunately in this pic of Marley you can't see all of the mistakes and we'll leave it at that. She was happy, so much so that she gave me a very heartfelt thank you the night we finished her costume up. Maybe that's why she was so upset about Abe's costume.

And now that Deep Fall is here it is time to get busy working on Christmas Gifts and all things snowy and cold weather related. Today I have a Christmas Stocking class, hard to believe that time is running low for things like this.

5 Things for 10.28.11

2011-10-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

1- Hooray for D's new job that has allowed him home by 2pm most days this week.
2- We have a finished costume, Marley's cat suit was completed two nights ago and was a hit at school. She very sweetly thanked me for spending so much time working on it.
3- Pumpkin picking in just a couple of hours.
4- Classes all weekend long!
5- Realizing I could survive off of soft pretzles.

5 Things for 10.25.11, a day late

2011-10-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

Are you in St. Louis? If you are than you know about the unseasonably warm weather we had yesterday. Highs in the mid 80's and to top it off the best wind ever for taking leaves off of trees. It was pretty magical, listening to leaves fall all day. We spent the day soaking it all up...

1. Collecting seeds. Morning Glories, Rose of Sharon (not like we need any more of this, but the boy enjoyed it). We talked a little about how seeds are spread and he stood on his chair, spread his arms out and shouted "THANK YOU WIND!!!" The wind replied with a great big gust that blew our seeds away.

2. The sweet fall sky. So perfect that I packed the boys in the car, got myself a coffee and went for a drive. They quickly fell asleep so I went extra far in hopes of getting a great deal on some apples at a little farm on the outskirts of St. Charles. $8 for 2lbs. Really? We passed on that.

3. Apple Crisp for knit night. I couldn't wait and had to sneak a bite or two.

4. The weather. Warm enough to keep a baby dressed like this all day.

5. Turkish Lamb Stew. Great way to end the day. Here's the recipe I used.

5 Things for 10.24.11, sleep talk

2011-10-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

1. Super score at Goodwill this morning. For $12 I walked out with two pairs of jeans one of which is from H&M, a Gap kimono style stop, a J. Crew merino wool cropped cardigan that is pale pink with a little ruffle, and here's the best.... a blue/gray 100% cashmere cardigan. That last one completely made up for the fact that Abe screamed through the store.

2. A good friend is in town from Scotland.

3. I'm going to make myself a dress today, or try to.

4. I also need to get busy on Marley's Catwoman costume.

5. Robin's sleep is driving me crazy. At first, when he was sleeping from 7pm-8am with only a wake up around 4 or 5am, I kept saying "oh I'm not stressed about him needing me to fall asleep, and he can stay in our room as long as he wants, etc." Wouldn't you know as soon as he started waking up 3-6 times a night again I've jumped on the sleep training bandwagon. Here's the other thing, he's probably our last, so I kind of want to soak up as much of this baby time as possible, and right now that means he's cuddled up in my arms in the middle of the night.

He is still going to bed around 7pm, and he has been consistently waking up at 11pm. He is hungry then, and I'm happy to nurse him back to sleep, but then he continues to wake up after that because he is tossing so much in his sleep. Last night we tried to move him the boys' room. We don't use a monitor, but I have super Mom ears, even when asleep, so I knew I would hear him, but might not hear the little rolling over grunts. Around 1am, there he was crying, and I've been so tired that I just brought him to bed with me, and nursed him back to sleep. There were about 4-5 times more between then and 6am that he woke, probably just to roll over, but because he was already in my arms I just nursed him back to sleep.

Do I really need to stop doing this? I mean I want sleep, I want him to sleep. I'm not that happy that he is transitioning to a different room, and I laid in bed last night picturing him in there without us, but it does make me feel better knowing Abe is in there. How do you people with kids in separate rooms handle this? I can't imagine the baby being in a room all night alone. He has to come out of the co sleeper though because he is pulling up so much that it won't be long before he "jumps" out of the cosleeper. But, like I said before I don't want to lose any moments of his squishy babyness just because I want sleep. Oy!!!

What did we learn from this....
-Robin used to sleep well.
-I used to sleep well.
-Robin is sleeping badly.
-I am sleeping badly.
-I don't want my baby to grow up.

5 Things for 10.23.11, plus a couple for lost time

2011-10-23T06:55:00.001-07:00

1. Campfires in the backyard, minus the camping part. But with s'mores.

2. Mom knit me a new sweater. I'm so excited about it that I have to flap my arms really fast. I have the idea to write this one down as a pattern, because it is easy, and I kept surprisingly good notes.

3. Living room forts! This one in honor of my Mom's birthday.

4. Some chew rings I just made for Robin. Just a piece of felt and a piece of cotton, stuff with wool and sewn together. One I sewed by hand and the other with the machine, I'm much happier with the hand sewn one. He looooooves them.

5. Pulling up evidence. Refer to the second picture to see how that's going though.

Trying, but can't figure out how to get my giant head up any higher.

6. Pulling out old sweaters and finding that you like them again, this is a good thing.

7. Doing a little home improvement with Declan. Making facings for our front porch steps.

Notice the wine? A little liquid inspiration.

We've got a ways to go, but this is a start, something to do once the kids go to bed. I've decided that I want to cover the entire house in these little colored glass tiles. Everything.

See that, I added a couple more things, because I skipped a could of days. And I brought pictures this time too :)

5 Things for 10.20.11

2011-10-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

Today is going to be a quickie....

1- My BFF came for lunch today, I was planning on PBJs, but she brought sushi for us, the Moms that is.

2- Thursdays are my second favorite day of the week. Why? I get to work at the yarn store and feel a little less Mommy for a whole 4 hours.

3- Friday is my favorite.... playgroup, pay day, and family dinners. If only we could work the yarn store in there too.

4- I'm currently multi tasking, typing while rocking a nursing baby to sleep.

5- Have you watched Breaking Bad? We're watching it on Netflix and are into Season 2. This and Ugly Americans.

5 Things for 10.19.11

2011-10-19T15:07:00.000-07:00

Here is my daily dilemma (almost daily anyway)... I want to write a blog about something I/we've done today. Hmmm... let's see, I need to take a picture or two, crap the lighting is bad because it's 11pm/cloudy/etc. Umm... what do I want to say that seems to be something that is completley mine to say? (I mention this because when you are following various other blogs it can be hard not to write a post inspired by what they've just written about.)

One could say I lack inspiration and time these days. but I hate saying that I lack inspiration, because it is definitley all over my house, outside, in the people I know, etc. But fear not, I've come up with a solution to both of those things. I'm calling it 5 Things for 5 Weeks. So everyday, for five weeks I'm going to write a little post about what we've done, what's for dinner, what I'm thinking, etc. No theme necessary, somedays there might be a picture, other days paragraphs, and somedays when time is so fleeting, just a blurb or two. For me this should inspire something, hopefully it's not blog related stress. And on that note, what's a blog for anyway? Or should I say what is my blog for? I don't think many people read it (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!) so shouldn't it be just for me. My journal, that I just happen to post online for millions (fat chance) of people to read. So if you happen to be searching for "Yew Berries"* you might end up here and find out what we've been up to.

1-Uh, the baby pulled up to standing today. He's also unplugged the record player. We've got to keep a close eye on that one.

2- My newest internet obsession Pintrest has got me in the mood for sewing, so I did some sewing. Really just pants for Abe, that are made from one of Declan's old sweaters. He has worn them for the past 23 hours. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say he likes them. Here is a link to the tutorial.

3- I've been secretly watching Sister Wives on Netflix. I want one.

Yes, I just said that.

4- Speaking of sewing, my Mom lent me her new machine. A-freaking-mazing! I thought I couldn't sew. I thought it was the one (well one of the many things) that I will never be good at, but turns out it's just a shitty machine issue. People that buy me Christmas presents, this could be something we all fo together, wink, wink. Or I can just keep borrowing yours Mom, that's good with me.

5- Declan starts a new job Friday! More teaching, more special ed. That sort of thing.

Well that was easy. See you tommorow for more!

*A couple of years ago I posted something about Abe eating a yew berry and us ending up in the hospital because of it. Well when I looked at my blog traffic flow, it is in the top 10 of ways that people end up on site. Go try it, google yew berry and see if you wind up back here. Hey this might help... yew berry, yew berry, yew berry.

Outgrowing, changes

2011-08-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is outgrowing...
This sweet guy is creeping near 5 months old and it looks as though he is ready for a new bed. In the mornings he rolls from side to side, and quickly sticks his feet in his mouth to help him doze back to sleep for just a few more minutes. Nothing like toes to help you sleep. Stretched out all the way I think he would touch both ends, but we all know that babies prefer to have some part of their body scrunched up next to another so this never seems to be a problem.

And I'm just not ready for him to move out of his little co sleeper. He is still in our room and I don't really have a timeline for him moving out, nor do I want to. He's an excellent room mate. Unlike his brother who would wake upon one of us just breathing in the same room, god forbid you needed to cough or roll over. Robin can handle all of those things, along with turning on the lights, making the bed, etc. Like I said not ready for him to move out yet.

But we all must move out and up, and speaking of that sort of thing, Marley started Second Grade today. Second Grade is almost Third Grade, and in my mind Third Grade is pretty darn grown up. Practically driving. Not only did she start Second Grade, but she has switched schools.

Any of you that know us have probably heard about our struggles with her school. Her school that lacks diversity, parental involvement, etc. The thing is, we live in one of the most diverse communities in St. Louis. Our town is home to not just the best university in St. Louis, but one of the top universities in the country, however our schools are not rated highly at all. Her school has been a constant thought of ours. Do we keep her there, look into private schools, keep her at home for school? This year presented us with the option to transfer to a much more diverse school in the district, not just racially but economically as well... these are both very good things. This school has a large and attentive PTO, a thriving Girl Scout Troop, etc.

We are very excited. But at the same time I think about her leaving her friends behind. She seems happy but last night, as she was going to sleep, she peeked out of her room almost a dozen times with all sorts of issues... a cricket outside her window keeping her awake, an itchy toe, a flipping stomach, etc. I'm thinking these are nerves. Anxiety. In the morning she was out of bed, with a belly full of Cocoa Krispies, and dressed in record time. Shoes were on and tied and teeth brushed before I was out of my pajamas. Her eyes constantly checked the clock. "What time does it start?", was asked more times than needed. We took pictures...

... we made it to school with time to spare. As we walked in she scanned the halls for the possibility of a friendly face. I was happy to see some familiar faces from LLL meetings and school board meetings, but she was left with her brothers and I being the only ones she knew. Meet the teacher, pick a desk, hugs and kisses good-bye. And as the boys and I left with a heavy heart, questioning our decision to switch schools, we stood in the hallway for a minute watching her, and just then a little girl with a bob and a polka dot shirt walked up to her shook her hand and a friend was made.

Here's to a day of changes, whether they are diapers or a new school, best wishes to it all!

his favorite things

2011-07-30T15:14:00.001-07:00

Hmm... what shall I do this afternoon?

Show you mah belly!

Show you mah belly and play with monkey!

Monkey... nom, nom, nom.

{this moment}

2011-07-29T09:16:00.001-07:00

{this moment}- a Friday ritual, a single photo, no words, capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extradordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, and remember. Via SouleMama

Food! Food! Food!

2011-07-28T08:41:00.001-07:00

These days, this is how making dinner looks. And that baby in there is nursing as well. Can I tell you how empowered I feel nursing a baby while making dinner for the rest of my family. It's either that or he is ready to nurse while we sit down for dinner. I think Wonder Woman did this. She is a bad ass woman, and here I am being the same.

It has been a while since my last food post, and that's probably because rather than being bored out my skull inside during this heat wave it has been more along the lines of constant refereeing. I am finished with that nonsense. The pool is filling up and I am slathering sunscreen on everyone. We are moving outside for the day while the baby naps. But first...

Spinach salad, bread, linguine with a spicy sausage sauce.

Garlic rice, spicy herbed pesto veggies, and chick pea burgers.
The recipe for the burger was ingenious, use the burger as the bun and will it up with veggies.

Mussels and clams sauteing with white wine, garlic, and butter.

Turned into a belated birthday Tutto Mare for my Dad.

Green Bean Tagine.

Topped with lots of fresh mint from the garden.

I heard this recipe on the Splendid Table one Saturday, stopped at the store to get ingredients and made it that night. Fantastic.

Fresh herbs and tomatoes from the garden.
Turned into this meal for lunch last week.
Whole wheat noodles, garlic, pepper, olive oil, and some green beans that needed to be eaten.

Where am I getting recipes? I use recipes lightly, except when baking <-- I don't mess with that brilliance. Epicurious.com is one of my favorite because of thier advanced search options. We found a goat cheese spread recipe on there that had lemon zest, oregano, pepper and olive oil that we brought over to a friend's recently, it was amazing. I also found this website 101 Cookbooks, it's where I found the basis forthe chickpea burgers, but it's all vegetarian, and avery good. And of course Smitten Kitchen, there is a side bar link for that one.

Happy Cooking!

A picture heavy catch up post

2011-07-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks Rachel for the reminder that I have a blog, so here is what we've been up to since the last post. Some where in the middle of this Declan and I came down with horrible summer colds/sinus infections that have barely let up, and even resulted in me losing my voice. Losing my voice! How the hell am I supposed to tell anyone around here what to do with out my voice. Fortunately it's back but I was thinking about finding one of those toys I had as a kid where you would punch in letters and it would say the words back to you. Yeah, that would have been perfect.

So here's what we did...

Marley started her career as a world class fencer at Darth Vader Fencing Camp, she'll be taking lessons in August and will be eligible for the Olympics in 2020, she'll be 15 then, I bet she'll make it.

I started and really didn't do much for Tour de Fleece.

We went to the opening of our friend Lee Kratzer's art show. Can you spy our family in this top photo? For some strange reason I'm posting this other photo of Marley, Robin and I. Ugh. Robin and I both looked pissed about how this photo came out. I'm posting it as proof that we do get out of the house from time to time.

I taught a Kool Aid dyeing class. My favorite class to teach in the summer at Knit and Caboodle. Marley was my assistant and as you can see she did an awesome job.

These two kids left for Grandma Camp. We were incredibly excited about it at first, one week with just a baby. But it quickly turned very gloomy as everything reminded us how much we missed them. Grocery shopping went something like this "ohh we can eat chips and dip for every meal, but we don't need milk because Abe isn't here, boo hoo". Declan kept coming up with excuses to go and visit them, but we were told no, more boo hoo. The week did brighten up a bit when we realized that we could do things like go to the antique malls, eat ice cream for lunch, that sort of thing. We also rearranged the basement, cleaned out our storage space, brought a car load to Goodwill, and generally got rid of a lot of stuff. It feels much lighter around here.

I signed up to become a bone marrow donor! You should too!

Go here.

Last but not least we made this little gift for the kids. A little hideaway under the stairs. Cleaning out so much allowed us to empty this space out, paint it, and decorate it a little bit for them. I see many fantastic brother sister moments in here. There is even a secret little note hidden just for them under the steps, so when they lay down they will know how much we love them. Again, boo hoo, they aren't home yet :)

A Birth Day

2011-06-30T08:17:00.001-07:00

11:28am (I'm pretty sure), is the time I was born. 6:28pm, 10:03am, and 3:37am are the times of my children's births.

Last night on the eve of my Birthday I began this rather sentimental thought process of what a birthday actually means. A meaning that has changed very much to me once I experienced the other side of a Birth Day. When our children's birthdays roll around I always feel like Declan and I need to give ourselves a celebratory pat on the back. "Hey, we did it, made it another year." The day of their births is the day we became parents. And the feeling of "can you believe they trust us with one of these?" has never quite gone away. So today, 28 years after my Mom's Birth Day I want to think about her and my Dad. I spent last night remembering the feeling I had when Marley was born. The emotions I had when I first became a Mom and tried to pin that feeling my Mom had 28 years ago today. Having a baby placed on her chest and being told that this is yours. Take her home and care for her. Raise her with the best intentions, and love her always. No one really tells you those things, but that's basically what you are signing up for.

Bringing a baby home and trying to figure out what to do next. Were they just as nervous as we were? My parents did an excellent job getting me to each birthday. They've loved me, cared for me, and raised me with the best intentions. The day I was born was the day they became Mom and Dad, so it isn't just my Birthday it is their Birth Day. Who better to spend this day with but my parents.

So thank you Mom and Dad, because I know you are reading this. Thank you for getting me from one birthday to the next. Here is your pat on the back, your high five for a job well done.

And because post partum hormones are ridiculous sometimes I'm taking full advantage of the whole "it's my party and I'll cry if I want to".

the business of summer

2011-06-28T19:00:00.001-07:00

I find it kind of hard to believe that summer will be over in just about 8 weeks. Maybe that's a bit pessimistic to look at the little time we have left, but it's been a hell of a summer so far. I say that in the best of ways though. I mentioned in a post right before Robin was born about how time is spinning so much faster and the past 4 weeks or so have only been a testament to that. I've never felt so scheduled, planned, and timed than I have this summer. There are lists, calenders, and timers going constantly in our house. None of those things are bad, honestly if they weren't there I probably wouldn't know the day of the week (maybe that isn't a bad thing).

Marley has numerous camps to attend this summer. Gram's Camp and Sewing Camp are coming and we are right in the middle of Fencing Camp. Mornings are hectic as Declan rushes out the door to get to summer school, Abe is needing second or third breakfast, the wee one needs to be nursed, and Marley needs her hair braided to fit under her fencing mask (which mask is a totally different question. Epee? Foil? Standard?). Sigh. Does anyone ever get the hang of all this business or do we all feel a bit drone like amidst all the plans? And when will I ever get the hang of being a Mom who can just casually stroll up to the other fencing camp Moms and chit chat while waiting for the instructors to start? I always feel like they are all staring at me wondering why I'm here. Is it just me, or are we all like that a little bit?

Anywho...
It's nice to know that once she is dropped off and shopping is done along with whatever tedious tasks I have for the day, such as washing diapers, organizing toys, and planning the week's meals, and then picking her up a few hours later that it will soon be this:

and this:

look at those teeth! we are so needing braces

and more of squishy baby arms and this:

I swear there isn't much better than a sunny day, freckled noses of your children, and a baby with milky cheeks to make me not care about talking to the other Moms about our plans for second grade, how much so and so sold their house for, or those damned meal plans. The day's tasks seem mundane but beautiful in a way when there are diapers drying on the fence line, muddy hands weeding tomato plants, and a little boy who thanks you for finding all of his special toys.

Ten on Tuesday

2011-06-21T12:47:00.000-07:00

Ten Books You Would Recommend to a Friend

Instead of books that you might want to read, I'm recommending books you might want to read to a child, in no particular order.

1. Mama's Milk by Micheal Elsohn Ross, a great book about breastfeeding that a friend sent to Robin. It's all about different animals that nurse their babies just like mom does for her baby.
2. Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, one of my favorite books as a child, now one of Marley's favorites.
3. Murgatroyd's Garden by Judy Zavos, a little boy that doesn't want to wash his hair, and after weeks of not washing it a garden grows atop his head.
4. The Little Island by Margaret Wise Brown, a story about how all of us are a little island, but still all connected. Our copy was given to us by my Aunt Annie and has since become one of the most worn books in the house, probably Marley's all time favorite.
5. Awake to Nap by Nikki McClure, a board book with beautiful artwork by Nikki McClure. It was written during the first couple months of her baby's life.
6. The Narnia Series by C.S. Lewis, Declan and I both list this as one of our favorite series from when we were kids. Marley has started reading them and seems to be enjoying them just as much.
7. Good Dog, Carl by Alexandra Day, one of Declan's favorite. The story of the family dog taking care of the baby while the parents are out, we can totally picture Nemo doing this.
8. When You Were Small by Sarah O'Leary and Julie Morstad, great illustrations of a father telling his son about when he was little.
9. Forever Young by Bob Dylan and Paul Rogers, his famous song turned into a book, must for a Dylan fan.
10. The Big Question by Wolf Erlbruch, great illustrations about the big question, why we are here, wonderful pictures. Another one gifted to us from Aunt Annie.

Kid for Hire

2011-06-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

Marley is saving up for a laptop. She is also saving up to buy games for her DS, a trip to outer space, and some Air Force 1's <--- seriously. She is a fiscally conscious kid, and is preparing herself for the tax she will have to pay on each of these goods. In her mind the tax rate is always 10%, I suppose this makes it easier for her to figure. She told me that laptops are $500, and she would need an extra $50 for the taxes, way to go kid. She's a scour the ground for change type of kid. Anytime we walk through a parking lot every penny, nickle and dime, no matter how oil covered, goes into her pocket. Enter the allowance.

I have mixed feelings about allowance. Shouldn't my kid do what I ask just because I ask? And then you bring in the whole idea about kids being motivated by money at such an earlier age, this I don't like. I've had to wrap my head around the fact that Marley wants to buy stuff, and big stuff, and she is willing to do the work to save up to buy those things. That can't be bad, can it?

But what is allowance worthy? My MIL suggested putting things on the list that you are typically responsible for but that they can do. Anything to make my load lighter, so I can ultimately spend more time knitting. Right? Maybe I'll take up sunbathing on the patio. She also suggested giving her the option of one big job a week. Maybe it will take the week, but to get the big bucks, you've got to do the dirtier jobs.

Here's her list of chores:
-feed Nemo
-milk cow (yeah, we don't have a cow, but it looks good on the board in the kitchen)
-pick up toys in the yard (M, W, F)
-clean room (T, Th, S)
-clear dinner table

If she follows this list she can make $3.50 a week. I'm a miser and that sounds really steep. But I suppose it's because no one pays me $3.50 a week to toss the dinner napkins in the laundry. If she doesn't do one of these she is deducted $.15. She's down $.30 so far. Not bad for it being Thursday. We've also told her that if she can get Abe to help or do her chores she will still get paid for it. Mark Twain, you give kids everywhere inspiration.

I'm thinking I will give her the option of pulling all of the weeds from the sidewalk and driveway for an extra $2.00. You can also hire her if you need something done. She's doing some cat feeding this summer for my parents. I'm thinking we will add a finder's fee.

Hands free Mama

2011-06-08T12:19:00.000-07:00

I have to say one of the more difficult things with having a newborn and other children is the inability to use my hands, most of the time. I will be sitting down to nurse the baby and someone needs a drink, someone needs to go potty, someone needs a band aid, etc. I typically do this balancing act of continuing to nurse the baby while filling their needs.

Declan and I are baby wearing folk. Some parents are content with baby in the bouncy seat or car seat, but we just like having baby a little closer. Baby wearing does make the whole "I NEED A POPSICLE!" rant a little easier when you are trying to console an inconsolable baby, however baby wearing is warm. And when it's 95 degrees outside a black sling just isn't cutting it. What it is cutting is into Declan shoulder because it isn't adjustable. Today we remedied that problem. Declan got his own sling. I immediately got sling envy and had to show you how cool it is. It is adjustable, so I can wear it, and it's great for nursing, that is one place where my other sling fell short.

Here I am, pre-sling, nursing a baby with both hands. It is such a hands on activity that I had to use the timer on the camera and still got a crappy picture.

And look at us $42 later. Hands free. Nursing a baby! Whoa!

And now for pictures of more than just the back of Robin's head. He's modeling the blanket Grandma (my Mom) knit for him.

The pattern is OpArt from Knitty, and I think the yarn is Berroco Comfort DK. A nice squishy blanket, for a very squishy baby.

Speaking of squishy I weighed this guy last Friday, he's over 13lbs! That means he's almost doubled in weight. Double Whoa!

Food! Food! Food!

2011-06-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit obsessed with food recently and not in the "ohmigodcalories!" sort of way, more in the "ohmigodiwanttocookbecauseit'ssogood!" sort of way. I've got all of this time on my hands now. ahem. And what better to do with it but read cook books, look recipes up online, and scour old magazines for anything that might just we tasty to make. And it doesn't just have to look like it might be tasty.

Enter last nights dinner...
I got the idea from this post at Pamplemousse. I thought, "why not make hot dog spaghetti!?" I'll tell you why not, because your family will think you are crazy. My family did. I picked all of the hot dog pieces out of mine and Abe's, Marley kind of glumly pushed them around, Declan did go back for seconds though. What a guy. I did jazz it up a bit with a tomato, onion, garlic, chili pepper, and cumin sauce and then topped with with shredded cheese (see below).

There was banana bread.

Homemade tortillas, guacamole, fruit salad, and slaw.

Curried chickpeas and veggies. <--- big hit with everyone.

Whole wheat pasta with fresh tomatoes, garlic, parmesan, and a ton of basil from the garden.

I think I may try to make this "Food! Food! Food!" thing a regular post. Especially with summer coming and fresh things growing in the garden.

Dear Elvis, let's have dinner.

2011-05-31T11:26:00.000-07:00

It's back to work soon, so I'm spending lots of time singing this song.

Thanks Elvis, you really know what to say, and for some reason I don't imagine you pictured women everywhere expressing breastmilk to this. Eh, well. Is it little surprise that your real name is Declan?

Did you know that Robin won't even take a bottle? Yeah, that stinks. You know what else stinks? All of the milk I had pumped up until this past week. It wasn't frozen right and it went all sour on me. Nothing more disgusting.

Nothing more disgusting except maybe our dinner tonight. I saw this thing somewhere about hot dog spaghetti. I'm going to try it. My family will either be very impressed or incredibly disgusted. Thank goodness it's knit night.

FO: baby photo shoot

2011-05-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

While I wish these beautiful photos were of Robin, they aren't and while the baby is lovely, check out the knits. A friend that I have known for over 20 years now has a successful photography business and asked me if I was interested in knitting some props for her. Of course! So check out the diaper cover and little cocoon. And be sure to check out her website Alison Duffy Photography
If anyone is interested the cocoon was crocheted with two strands of Cascade Sierra and a P hook (!!), and the pattern is a free one called Simple Baby Cocoon. The only modifications were to add one more increase round. The diaper cover was knit using Classic Elite Sprout, the pattern is available only on Ravelry, but here is the link Very Chunky Diaper Cover.

Our 6 week check up and in

2011-05-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

It has already been six weeks since this little man made his way into our life. And unlike these photos would suggest, he is a dream. Like his rather quick and fairly pain free labor, he's a baby that doesn't like to impose too much. He doesn't demand all of my time and attention, even though I and all of us happily give him much of it. Like his sister he is an excellent sleeper taking two long naps during the day (sometimes 3 hours at a time) and can give me a pretty decent night of sleep for how little he is. And like his brother he is a terrific eater, knowing exactly what to do and how to get down to business.

But Robin is definitely his own person. And I find it amazing how such a little being can explain so much about them self already. Like I said he is pretty low maintenance for a newborn, but there are definitely some things he does and doesn't like. The biggest dislike on his list is a dirty diaper. Don't dare think he will fall back asleep after wetting or pooing in one. Or if he immediately wets a diaper you have just put on him, you need to go back and change it again. He loves his chest being rubbed, and when I say loves I mean it. It is the only time I can illicit smiles from him, and boy are they sweet smiles. Another dislike are onions. I like them, he doesn't, well raw ones anyway. I eat them, he is up all night and gassy. So maybe I don't like them too much. Other likes include fans, a cool breeze, sleeping in just a diaper, laying on his belly, and kisses on his neck (what there is of a neck).

I tried to take a couple of sweet photos of the two of us today to celebrate this 6 week milestone, but I think my mistake was taking them immediately after he woke up, ravenous from a long nap. He basically screamed at me the entire time.

His sister and brother continue to be smitten with him. Marley has just been the biggest help with Robin. She is first in line to wet a wipe for me, grab a diaper, pick out clothes, or babysit, which includes sitting in my room while Robin happily lays in the co-sleeper so I can take a shower. The first time she babysat for me I was presented with a detailed list of everything that happened in the 7 minutes I was away in the shower. It included things like "Robin pushed his blanket off", "Abe gave Robin a toy", or "Robin stared at me". This enthusiasm for taking such regimented care of him is entirely Marley, and if she had the motivation to, she would read all of the baby books and give us advice on how to better care for him week by week. Declan and I were both a little concerned how our other baby, Abe, would handle the transition. Obviously the first week was good, but it was after Abe realized that Robin wasn't leaving that we were really nervous about. One of Declan's uncles even said that Abe was in for a rude awakening, this scared me. Abe has done nothing but proven any of those notions wrong. The first thing Abe does in the morning is come to find "his baby". Robin is then showered with kisses and hugs that are so tender and gentle one can hardly tell they are coming from a three year old. Abe spends the rest of the day telling me that Robin is "way cute".

Our cousin Amy, who also has three children, told me that the move from 2 kids to 3 is much easier than the 1 to 2. I agree completely. When pregnant with Abe, Declan had real concerns about whether or not he and I could love anyone as much as we love Marley, and also whether this next kid would even be as cool of a kid as Marley. I think what really struck me about going from 2 to 3 kids is that your second child has always had a sibling, if you were to take away one it would be so foreign, but adding more is natural, as they see these other housemates and family as playmates.

Maybe that's just my experience which leads me to another thing that I hadn't realized too much before, and that is what I feel about being blessed with a child that is right for you. Does that make sense at all? It sounds as though I am talking about them being picked out of a catalog, but in reality you don't always know what needs to be in your life. And even though we didn't know it, our life needed Robin, and not only did we need Robin, he fit in like the piece of the puzzle we didn't know was missing. We needed this laid back little man. I need to still be able to lay down and cuddle with Abe before he naps, and I need to still sit with Marley while she does her homework, and I need to be able to sit and decompress with my husband in the evening. Not only do I need those things, but Abe, Marley, and Declan need them all too.

Besides all of the lovey dovey, life is good stuff I just spit out, it all hints at a good emotional state at 6 weeks postpartum, and I feel like I'm doing just as well physically. I had my 6 week postpartum visit today and all is well. I'm ready to lose some more baby weight, down 21lbs so far, I hadn't weighed myself yet, so this was a pleasant surprise. I'm feeling as well rested as one can when they are waking up 2-3 times a night with a newborn. I've already jumped back into physical activities with a rough game of dodge ball between my Dad and Marley yesterday.

So Robin, thank you for being along on this ride with us, we love you very much, and can't wait for more of it.

late night progress and a frosting recipe

2011-05-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

I decided not to let the paint dilemma stop me from using the surge of energy and motivation I got around 10pm last night. We also decided for the time being not to hang these cabinets, there is still the question of whether or not these paper thin walls could handle it. These are vintage kitchen cabinets, another in our house find, and I do plan on taking off the flowers. I haven't told Declan yet, because he likes them, a little too kitchy for me though. I've got knitting books on top and inside there are beads and jewelry making supplies.
When I can find some better tubs or bins I will use the cabinets for yarn too. This photo below shows the fit problem with the plastic shoe boxes I've been storing yarn in. They are about .5" too deep to fit in both cabinets I have. They fit sideways, but then only two fit per shelf. I could leave the doors wide open like below and fit 6 per shelf or I could just get something that fits better, I think I will break my spend no money rule to pick up some new containers for storing yarn, as it will be well spent.

All of our family board games are now in the tall, white metal cabinet, I really wish there was a better place for them, but right now this works better than anything. This morning I quickly learned why I need to get better yarn storage containers, therefore getting this cabinet to close... Abe took all the games out and scattered them all over while I was in bed nursing Robin.

Here are some of my "treasure chest" drawers... buttons, bits of yarn, and paper squares :)

Lots of tubes of paint

Sewing things.

Beads, sequins, rocks, marbles, feathers. This totally feeds from my little kid sense of enjoyment for pretty shiny things. Hopefully my kids enjoy this as much as I do.

The hanging baskets have begun to fill up with yarn and wool for spinning. And doesn't everyone need somewhere to store their clothes pins. I'm going back and forth on how to use these baskets. They go far enough back that I am afraid I may not notice all of the yarn in there, but at the same time I don't feel that there is anything that is pretty enough, but the yarn, to be stored out in the open, I'll figure it out in time.

And this is where we are for now. The pile against the wall to the right of the picture is all yarn and fabric that still needs to be organized. And I'm not sure if that darker set of drawers will stay where it is or not. It's a little too dark to be in that corner, and I am still debating on bringing another piece of furniture in, which is a butcher block and stainless steel kitchen cart. It would be another nice work space, but it looks as though I am beginning to run out of space. I'm really happy to have the table in the middle of the room and last night I had to strip 4 layers of contact and vinyl off of it and was very pleased to find that the original top was in excellent shape, and we still have the chairs to match.

Late at night is when I feel the most creative or maybe gutsy when it comes to doing things, so I got this idea to hang almost curtains on either side of the room when you walk in. It would definitely add that separation I mentioned in the last post, I think I will do it. I have more than enough of this fabric, which is a little heavy, but still looks light because of the colors. It was a rather expensive upholstery fabric I got from Hancock Fabrics when they were closing the store near our house. I ended up buying the rest of a bolt of it, so plenty for curtains. And the blue will match, perfect!

Nothing will every match that god awful floor that's down here, but I've given up working with the floor because someday I would love to do something with it. It's asphalt tiling, which was popular around the time our house was built, but who had the bright idea of putting such a dark floor in a place like a basement!? I've tried to convince Declan to let me paint it, but we can't find a paint that is said to work on this type of flooring. I would honestly love to put wall to wall carpet down here, but that's also been turned down. Maybe Pergo or that 70's style laminate flooring a color brighter than black, that's down the line though.

So instead of flooring, here's a recipe for that icing. I meant to post it yesterday so thanks for requesting it Nicole!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cream Frosting

1/3 c. creamy peanut butter

4 c. sifted powdered sugar

1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

1.5 t. vanilla extract

1/4-3/4 c. of milk.

With an electric mixer, cream the peanut butter, if using a natural peanut butter it helps to warm it up a bit so it is easier to mix. Slowly begin adding the powdered sugar and cocoa powder, about halfway through add the vanilla and milk. My frosting was very thick very quickly so I kind of added milk until I got the consistency I wanted. Slowly add the rest of the powdered sugar and cocoa and more milk if needed. Mix until smooth.

This was more than enough to generously frost 24 cupcakes, so I imagine it would do a sheet cake or 9-10" round cake. I'm thinking it might be really great to do a layer cake with this on the top and outside with say strawberry jelly between the cakes. Next birthday.

Rainy day? Make frosting.

2011-05-19T10:55:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the perfect day for this... sitting in the sun, drinking some coffee, watching the kids play, and finishing some birthday knitting for my sister in law.

And while someone finds today's rain to be nothing more than a perk of being outside, I will stay in and do my knitting while he enjoys the morning.

Safe from the rain in his hideout.

May is a birthday month for our family, Abe's on the 3rd, yesterday was an aunt's birthday, today belongs to my Dad and mother in law (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!), and the 21st to my sister in law. And when there is a birthday, there is cake. Before playing in the rain Abe helped me a bit with this frosting, it's chocolate peanut butter, oh dear. Imagine if Oberweis' peanut butter fudge ice cream and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups had a love child, this frosting would be it. I swear it took every ounce of my will power not to start a relationship with this stuff.

My project room is on stand still while I pick from various cans of leftover paint and wait for Declan to hang some cabinets. Unless I find some other cans of paint around here my choices are mint green, magenta (I kind of want to use this, but it's probably too much after having one wall painted such a bold color), and sky blue. I have a question... One of the walls is part of a longer wall that also belongs to the TV/family room. What I'm wondering is if it would be okay to paint just the part of the long wall that belongs to the "craft room"? I feel like it would add some separation, but I don't want it to feel awkward. There is a support beam that runs along the ceiling between the two areas. Maybe having that would help the difference in wall?

Working with what your mama gave you,

2011-05-16T09:09:00.000-07:00

or your Dad, or the lady that used to live in your house but is dead now, that sort of thing. Part of organizing this craft space was to do it without spending any money along with using as much of what we already have as possible. Fortunately for us people like to give us stuff or leave us with stuff or kind of drop it off here for a little bit while they decide what they want to do with it, I find that a bit strange because our little brick bungalow doesn't fit very much. Either way it typically works in our favor and this is one of those times.

I am trying to take your advice (Blogger deleted your comments that had helpful organizing tips, sorry) and while I can't quite do all of it, I'm taking what I can use. First things first, I took the Goodwill stuff to Goodwill, no use in it sitting around. I really wanted to pull everything out and start with a blank slate, but I have some little people in my house who would have seen that as the perfect opportunity to bring this crap to other places in the house, no good. I had to decide what I really wanted to use this space for. I want a place that I can store my wares, along with a work space, and while I would love to bring out the only child in me and not let anyone else in this area, I know it needs to be a place that can store everyone else's arts and craft supplies. Unfortunately that last requirement means there is a significant amount of stuff that still needs to be brought in. When it comes to organizing I am visual, if I can't see what needs a home, I will forget about it, so the next step was pulling out just about everything that needed to live in this room. After looking everything over I went through our house to take inventory on what I might be able to use to accomplish this growing task.

I found a decent amount of stuff. Like this set of drawers that was left here by the previous owners. Not only was it left here, but it was left here full of stuff. Full of goodies I should say, leather working tools, buttons, sewing things, old tools, vintage wrapping paper, etc And everything was about circa 1950-1980, really good stuff in here. We've been using this for a while and it needed to be organized before I could use it to organize. How is it that it always goes there? Ugh.

Then I found these wire baskets that my Dad gave us. Declan helped me hang them and I think we are going to get a few more from my Dad. They are absolutely perfect for what I am doing in here. It will be nice to keep somethings out of reach from the kids and while I love to hide things away, it will be nice to see some of the things I've got. I'm picturing these baskets full of yarn. The white cabinet on the right side of the picture is staying along with the little yellow and white table. I'm not sure where they will go yet, and that has been the hard part. I also am bringing in a dresser that my Mom gave us that was actually the dresser/changing table she used with me and that we used with Marley. The changing table part can be folded up or out and that will create a nice little work space if needed.

I also painted one of the walls blue, Dawn dish soap blue, and again I didn't buy it, it was leftover from Marley's room. I wanted to play around with some unusual storage ideas and one of them was hanging some antique wooden chairs on the blue walls to use as shelving for books. After talking to Declan about it some issues were brought up with mounting them, so it looks as though that plan has been foiled. That's where I am now, trying to figure out what to put on the blue wall, along with whether or not to paint the other walls and trying to rummage through our leftover paint to find the right colors. All in all I'm happy with the progress that has been made and looking forward to finishing it up. It also brought out the many more things in our house that need to be gone through: toys, clothes, the laundry room, etc. One thing at a time.

Flashing my trash

2011-05-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

A long 5 months ago I wrote a post about my intentions for 2011, and now that the year is almost halfway over I've started thinking seriously about some of the things on the list. I wasn't even thinking about that list when I recently decided something had to happen to the craptastic mess of a "craft area" I have. This space in our house is such a freakin' disaster. It's full of yarn, fabric, patterns, things to donate to Goodwill, toys to keep, etc. I could save a bundle (intention #6) if I actually knit with some of the yarn I have, but I can't because it's all buried in a clusterf**k down there. I would also like to have some work space for pattern writing (intention #3), but this definitely won't do. And this very obviously falls into the intention #1 category.

I've wanted and thought about cleaning this area out for a while, but there is no time like now, and after showing these pictures it will be much needed motivation.

Okay, deep breathes, here it is...

This table was supposed to be used for sewing.

The tubs and baskets on the shelves were at one time yarn organized by fiber or weight. And most of that pile on the floor could be given to Goodwill along with the clothes hanging.

A pitiful attempt at organizing. The lone sweater hanger and needle organizer that is missing more than half of my needles.

Some promise here... books on one shelf, magazine on another.

Our computer also inhabits this area, it has also fallen victim to my mess.

The big picture. Hangs head in shame.

What do I need to get started? I have no clue. I think though it would be something along the lines of a place to put everything. This isn't all of the yarn, fiber and fabric, there are 2 more large plastic tubs of yarn, 2 more of fabric, and a laundry basket of misc junk that would fall into the same category in our storage room. The next couple of weeks are big trash pick up in our area and I am thinking about doing some rummaging through the trash in hopes of finding some shelving, drawers, etc. I'm not above that at all. Maybe re-purpose something, who knows.

But there it is, it's out there, and it's no longer a dirty little secret.

Mother's Day, Mastitis, and Marriage Proposals

2011-05-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

Maybe because it's my 7th Mother's Day that I really got the short end of the stick this time. Mother's Days have been pretty good to me so far. My first Mother's Day gift involved a sunhat I really wanted and a rather significant piece of jewelry from my then boyfriend, who seconds later turned into my then fiance, and a year later my sweet husband. The engagement story is funny, and it's not what I meant to tell you, but I will. My engagement ring is the Irish Claddagh, you know that hands holding the heart with a crown on it. I didn't realize this at first but the hands mean friendship, the heart love, and the crown loyalty. So I open my gift, which at first was the sunhat, I was extremely excited about it, I really wanted it, and then there was a little box in the bottom of the bag. Declan pulled it out and opened it, I don't remember if he was on one knee or not, and asked me, "Do you promise to always be my friend? Do promise to always love me? Do you promise to always be loyal to me?" Of course I said "yes" to all of these questions, and then he hands me the ring. There we are in his bedroom at his parent's house. We have a 4 month old daughter sleeping next to us in her bassinet, and I am rushing around to get ready for work. I brashly ask "well, what finger does it go on?" He says, "whatever finger you think it goes on." I grab my towel and run to the bathroom to take a shower, ring in hand, and begin to wonder what kind of ring I have, I mean he never asked me to marry him. After the shower I poke a little more at what this ring means, and he continues to answer with me making that decision. I finally, as I am running out of our room to go to work, demand to know if we are engaged, he says what I really wanted to hear, "yes".

We joke a lot about that morning and how he proposed. And I don't think it could have been done in any other fashion for the two of us. The first time we said "I love you" was just as funny, but I will keep that story for myself. This Mother's Day will be spent a bit differently, there isn't that blissful "I'm engaged!!!" look on my face it is more a look of pain. Why? Well this Mother's Day has brought me mastitis! Woohoo!!

So here is what I am getting for Mother's Day to go along with that mastitis....

4-6 cloves of raw garlic a day, a mega dose of vitamin C, echinacea, and some ibuprofen for this headache. You will smell me from a mile away with all of that garlic.

The day will not be completely lost though, Marley, my Mom, Robin, and I will be going out for a bit. For lunch at a soda fountain, maybe some yarn shopping, and shopping for a better bra. Mastitis can be nature's way of telling you to slow down, so yesterday I spent the day in bed, it can also be your bodies way of telling you that your bra is crappy or that the 5.5 hour stretch of sleep your baby gave you the night before shouldn't have happened, etc. Here's to a Happy Mother's Day, garlic and all.

"This time last year..."

2011-05-04T06:09:00.001-07:00

Inspired by my friend Amy.

This year... we have a new baby, and our family is once again adjusting well to a new life style. I've also jumped into the world of being a stay at home mom. Declan is job hunting and preparing to go back to school, something he didn't imagine doing so soon.

This time last year... we were planning a trip across the country and thinking about babies, but not quite trying. Marley was getting ready to finish her first year of school, Declan was in the last weeks as his first year as a teacher, I was enjoying a great job, and Abe was just now learning to sleep through the night at 2 years old.

This time two years ago... I was in the last couple months of nursing Abe and learning to get back to being a human who was more than just milk production. Marley was enjoying preschool at the Ethical Society, and we were preparing to celebrate Declan graduating and even bigger... never having to work at UPS again.

This time three years ago... Abe was 1 day old :) We learned that our hearts were big enough to love two kids. And we would soon be wondering why the hell we decided to have another child in the middle of Declan's student teaching, school, and working at UPS. It was a very rough year.

This time five years ago... Declan and I were getting ready to celebrate our one year anniversary. Enjoying a house that was still pretty new to us, and a daughter that was getting more and more amazing everyday, she was 2 at this point and already showing her wit and wisdom. We also had absolutely no intentions of having more children, my how things change. There were lots of parties on the patio, friends over in the evening, and while we were the only people we knew with kids, we were some how managing to retain a social life while functioning as parents.

Safari trip to the barnyard masacre

2011-05-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

Marley and I were able to slip out of the house for a little bit yesterday for a short trip to the library and while there I picked up this book thinking the kids and I would enjoy making some of the scenes and animals in the book, Paper Construction for Children by Norman Krinsky. It was published in the 60's and has really straightforward instructions, and what I like best about it is that there aren't any templates to cut out. Everything is constructed from freehand drawing, much more my speed. Everything is rated by age range as well, and Abe and I being rule breakers decided to tackle the barnyard scene today even though it was for ages 5-7.
All was going well, I got the barn up, working doors and all. Made a sheep, made a chicken, made a farmer. Getting ready to construct the silo when all of a sudden I saw a smirking little boy "slaughtering" my sheep with red marker. ps- don't mind the scale of everything, my farmer is just really tall and so is my chicken.

Then these guys showed up, Abe is convinced they belonged. So we let them stay. But they didn't have any idea what they were in for.

The zebra and tiger were happily playing with the already bloody sheep when a giant monster came and attacked my chicken. Here's the play by play from Abe, "then it powed the sheep and killed it. And the chicken got powed and died. It was way (this word is actually "really" but it comes out sounding like "way") bloody Mom. Way bloody. There were guns, and it was way bloody Mom!" Note that this is all coming out of his mouth at the top of his lungs and he's screaming it like these are his animals that were killed, and that he's excited about it.

I beginning to get a little worried here.

My guess is that this is normal "boy" play and I'm not quite ready to have him seen by a psychologist.

Declan couldn't contain his excitement for Abe getting his first pets for his birthday, a couple of Hermit crabs named Hermit and Hermie, and took Abe out pet shopping yesterday. So his attack on my farm doesn't bother me too much as he has been incredibly tender with Hermit and Hermie. Well if tender means screaming at your sister so she won't touch them. Yeah, that's Abe.

I did pick up a couple of books at the library which has been helping in the crappy TV department. I brought home Sense and Sensibility, which I have never read. Ducking as you are throwing things at me for not reading this. I won't admit that I've never read any Jane Austen. Ooops. I also brought home some Janet Evanovich, because it would be a shame to have my mind working too hard.

FO: Flight Vest aka Party Vest

2011-04-30T17:22:00.000-07:00

Who's about to turn three? This guy here, This guy here, who spent a good 20 minutes trying to figure out the buttons on the vest I just finished knitting for him. These pictures make me soooo happy. There he is my little boy, just little, as there is now a littlest boy. Maybe there will be more on his birthday later, I'm not promising anything, as time seems to have soaked up into the giant sponge that is my life (funny it is that I just wrote a post about being bored and now I barely have time to write a post about this guy's birthday). We still have a few more days until the actual day of birth, but it was party time today and Abe needed to wear his fancy party vest.
Mom, I like the buttons, but wouldn't round ones have been much easier to use?

Almost finished.

And while there hasn't been a whole lot of time for knitting this has been on the needles since right before Robin was born. I've been working on a few other things too, Mother's Day gifts right now, and I'm so smitten with what I've knit for the Moms in my life that I'm making myself the same thing. But back to this cutie and his buttons. And because I have two of these handsome little men I'm going to make the smaller one a matching romper with coordinating yarn and the same buttons. Maybe we'll take some photos, oh yes, there will be photos. Makes you want to gag just a little bit doesn't it?

B to the Oring

2011-04-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

Dare I say that I am bored? I've got two napping boys, a house to myself, a bed I should be napping in right now and here's what I've been up to...
-Checked my email 12 times in the last 30 minutes. BTW-I'm not waiting on an email, just checking.
-Logged on and off Facebook about 5 times.
-Ate a cup of orange sherbet and a rice krispie treat, I will never lose baby weight this way.
-Watched Laguna Beach on netflix.... wth?
-Checked and rechecked the blogs I read.
-Scoured the webs for Season 2 of Glee to watch, so I would stop watching Laguna Beach, never found it.
-Thought about watching the Tyra Show, just thought, I think Laguna Beach is low enough.
-Wrote a blog about how lame I am.

For any nursing Mamas or Mamas who were nursing when did you start pumping to build up a little back stock? I'm trying to wrap my brain around making a date for sushi with my BFF, but I can't seem to figure out how that will happen any time soon in babyland, which is where I live, it streams crappy TV 24/7.

Learning to swing

2011-04-19T09:07:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the first back to reality day. Declan went back to work, Marley had to be at school, and it was just Abe, Robin, and I by ourselves until late afternoon. I can't tell you the amount of stress and fear I was feeling about Monday. How the hell was that going to work, a toddler, a newborn and I. Well the crazy thing is that it did work. Not only did it work, but it was enjoyable. Both boys napped, part of the naps synced up, everyone ate, I even knit a little bit, Mom visited during lunch, and no one cried too much.

We spent most of the day outside, Robin napped in the pack'n'play, and Abe learned to swing on his own on the teeter totter swing. I've never seen this kid so proud of himself. He couldn't contain his smiles and squeals. Suddenly he grew up. Suddenly his little hands looked a little bit bigger, and the baby fat melted away just a little bit more. His words made more sense, sentences were better structured, and I learned that we can handle this.

Even though napping, Robin savored this proud moment too.

Welcoming a Spring Robin

2011-04-15T10:09:00.000-07:00

Our house once again has the sweet smell of a new baby. Robin Brian was welcomed into the world on Tuesday, April 12th at 3:37 am.

I will spare you all of the details of labor but I will tell you a little. First of all it was very, very fast. I think by the time he was born we were still in shock that labor had even started. I woke up around 12:30 am with contractions that were 7 minutes apart. They quickly went to 4 minutes apart and then to 3 minutes apart, this all happened in less than 2 hours. At first we questioned going to the hospital or calling my Mom to stay with the kids because of the false starts I had, but thankfully we did and I was already 7cm dilated when we got to the hospital at 2:30 am.

The pain was intense. There was something much more primal about this labor without the epidural, I did what my body wanted... moaned, cried, crawled on the floor, etc. I've heard some women say they get zen like and in a spiritual place or something like that. That was not the case for me. I was very withdrawn from those around me including Declan, but I never quite "gave in" to the pain. Thankfully things quickly moved to pushing time about 45 minutes after getting to the hospital. I still hadn't made it on the bed and my water still hadn't broken and after fighting with the nurse for a few minutes about getting onto the bed to be checked my Dr. came in and told me the only way to make the pain stop and get the baby, was to get on the bed. I did. I was 10 cm dilated and ready to push.

My Dr. was wonderful, the nurses were wonderful, and Declan was really wonderful. They all told me to do what I felt, push when I wanted, etc. My Dr. suggested breaking my water, only if I wanted, to make the pushing a little easier. So at 3:35am, while putting the squatting bar on the bed he broke my water. I quickly got up to the bar, and pushed with the first contraction. I wasn't quite aware that my one push had already gotten the head out, and I wasn't aware that my Dr. was telling me to sit back before delivering the rest of the body. I just kept pushing. Out he came, all in one push. Declan saw his head come out but missed the rest of it because he was blinking. The pushing part was very out of body, and so quick that when they laid him on my chest I was in complete shock that only 3 hours ago I started labor. I think everyone in the room was.

While I hate to jinx anything life with him seems to be going as smoothly as his delivery. He nursed immediately after birth for an hour and a half. The kid seriously hasn't stopped since then either. My milk came in before leaving the hospital, and just 3 days after his birth he is only 2 oz. away from his birth weight.

Marley and Abe are doing absolutely wonderful with him. They love him and have welcomed him into our home like he has always been there. He is Abe's baby. Abe would be perfectly happy if we told him he had to hold Robin all day long. Marley loves reading to him, holding him, and warning him about the monster that is Abe, all though Robin hasn't seen that side yet.

It has only been one day since we've gotten home, but so far life seems good.

2011-04-10T19:46:00.001-07:00

Friday was my officially last day of work before my maternity leave, and I hadn't expected the overwhelming feeling of the wait that set in this weekend. The baby wait, the wait that feels long because we've already packed bags, folded and put away baby clothes, gotten haircuts, etc.

Fortunately I have a husband that isn't one to just sit around the house and really needs to be out doing things, wait or not. Saturday was spent in St. Charles at the Tartan Day Festival, there were kilts, lots of kilts. Declan and Abe both wore those and so did a lot of men who shouldn't have been wearing them, especially wearing them topless. The kids had a good time, but it reminded me why I don't like fairs/carnivals/festivals.... hot, sticky, large people with very little clothing on.... oh wait, that may have been me.

Declan got a chance to wear his ridiculously awesome, handknit kilt hose, made my his Mom.

Abe quickly learned that if you wave they throw more candy.

Just a couple of more hours before D Day. I'm celebrating this milestone with more Oberweis and a very long walk around the neighborhood. It's a funny feeling being here, when I never made it this far with the other two, which is why I was certain I once again wouldn't make it this far. But here we are :)

4 days, no toilet paper, and 15 less inches of hair

2011-04-07T18:40:00.000-07:00

This is probably the weirdest thing ever but oh well, I'll tell you anyway. The last time we bought toilet paper was a few weeks ago, and it was a really big thing of toilet paper. As soon as Declan loaded it in to the car I had convinced myself that I would go into labor when that huge pack of toilet paper was gone. I was really, really, really convinced. It was a sign from the universe. BTW, the universe gives me lots of signs about things. Most of them never work out, but I am convinced about the signs. Kind of like how I'm convinced we have snakes and cats living in our basement, not real ones, like ghost ones, or spirit ones. I don't know... I really sound crazy.

Back to the toilet paper.... well it's gone. We ran out tonight. I mean I bought more, but that crazy giant pack is gone, and I'm showing no signs of birthing a baby today. What's even weirder, well weirder to me, because I'm sure the whole toilet paper determining the gestational period of my child is weird to everyone else, what's weirder is that Abe was already born at this point. He was still nameless, but out. I was also convinced we would have this baby by now. so now I am thinking about the 40 week appointment I have on Monday. Oy. And don't get me wrong I know babies come when they come, and more often than not it's after 40 weeks, but seriously... the toilet paper!

To keep my mind off of toilet paper and babies I've been knitting this shawl, The Shetland Triangle, from the Interweave Wrap Style Book. Love the pattern, and the yarn was bought with a gift certificate given to me by a very sweet customer as a baby gift, with the very strict instructions to not by yarn for the baby. So I didn't. Declan and I have been very busy getting ready for this baby, considering the toilet paper is gone, and instead of doing things like cleaning and organizing we've been cutting our hair. Declan decided after almost 2 years to get rid of his beard. He has some potential interviews coming up and because he was going to be cutting it for those we thought he should cut it before the baby comes, as not to scare the baby when Dad goes from grizzly to baby butt smooth in an instant. But before it was all gone he had a little fun with the transition.

He looks soooo much younger to me and that got me thinking that it had been a really long time since I had my hair cut, probably 2-3 years ago. I'm not one to be left out so I ran to Great Clips, and the last time I was there was when my Dad let me get my hair permed back in the 5th grade- that was a baaaaaad perm. I happy to say this time it didn't turn out that bad at all. The stylist need a little coaxing as far as what to do, but oh well, I'm happy. Really happy, as you can see by the stupid grin on my face. A whole 15" was cut. Wow.

Now I sit, waiting on a baby, and for Declan to get back with my chocolate peanut butter ice cream from Oberweis. It was supposed to be pie week, which just means I want to eat lots of pie because I'm really pregnant, but I decided to open my options to other things that are round. Like round scoops of Oberweis ice cream. The "O" in Oberweis is round too... hey I'm on to something.

Good lord this baby needs to come out, I am going crazy!

2011-03-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

We had been waiting on the weather to change back to sunny days and temperatures peaking above 45, but as I'm learning waiting isn't always as much fun as taking the moment and running with it. Or for it, the "it" being more specifically the swings. So after an early morning parent teacher conference, Abe and I braved the cold and went to the park, with the promise of hot chocolate and cookies upon returning home, which we are both enjoying at the moment.

The swings are more fun when pictures aren't being taken.

At the top of the big slide.

Once down with Mom and he could handle on his own after that.

A couple of finished knitting things:

Sock monkey soaker

and belated birthday socks for the Father in Law.

Saying good bye to four

2011-03-26T08:43:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I found myself telling someone how I couldn't wait to have this baby, how I couldn't wait to meet him or her and how excited I was to start this new family of 5. I said I was going to ride up and down a bumpy road, drink raspberry leaf tea, and do just about everything to get this baby out of me. Hey there Ariel, there are still 2 weeks left.

Not only are there 2 weeks left but from where we started, back in February of 2004, with the birth of our now very grown up daughter it's gone by so quickly. We were once just three, and spent a very short time being just two, but the three of us was good. There was nothing that stood between spending time with our girl. Our girl was the center, she still is, but I suppose now there are other heavenly bodies in the center too. Once it became the four of us life spun quicker around the two of them. It's like time split and and we could only live it in half time.

I remember Abe being born, and Marley meeting him and how little he is, and now looking back at pictures I barely recognize the baby he was and that was only a couple of years ago. Do I still remember Marley as a baby? We've gotten so far away from that point in time, that I feel like only if I squint can I see it. I feel like my memories of those first few months with her come only from pictures.

I want to slow down. I want to enjoy these last couple of weeks. I want to relish the time in the mornings where just two children climb in bed with me and snuggle. It's not a question of whether there is enough love for another one, it's the time. It's barely being able to watch it go by at this speed. It doesn't have to do with how will we handle making dinner, nursing, and helping with homework. It's remembering the days as they quickly pass. I want to selfishly spend these last few days sucking everything out of the four of us as possible. I want a child in each arm, I want to kiss four cheeks, and I want to feel four hands tugging at me to go in different directions.

Marley's Room

2011-03-23T13:29:00.001-07:00

I've waited for her room to be clean, for a sunny day, for a toddler not to be hanging on my leg or a 7 year old trying to pose for shots and finally I have at least a few of those on my side today. My Dad took the day off of work to watch Abe for me and they are still at the Zoo, so I figured it was no time like the present to just snap some quick photos. And of course my camera kept dying on me and we are out of camera batteries, so long story short I quickly took a few.

The "book nook".

The fabric is all from Hancock Fabrics, and my MIL graciously made the pillow to match the banners and curtains. We're already missing one, as you can see, but the drawer pulls are all vintage, Etsy finds.

This chair is one of two we found at NCJW thrift store about 5 years ago. It was only $20 for the pair and they made their home in our living room for quite some time, but have spent the past year in storage. We pulled this one back out as it seemed like a perfect match for her room.

The lamp is from Home Depot, and something Marley desperately wanted, thanks Grandma Maggie and Papa Don :)

Horrible picture, camera dying, but the rug that my Dad gifted Marley from Target. One of the ideas for her room was that any large purchases would be for things we could see somewhere else in our house down the line. You know those kids like to change their minds, and grow out of everything so quickly, even rugs and their rooms.

The one thing left to do. Put up the new light switch cover. Also found on Etsy.

Her desk area.

She seems to like having a non traditional desk, and can often be found sitting on a floor pillow drawing or creating or reading here. The red lanterns are from Hobby Lobby, and the other lantern is Chococat from the Hello Kitty store.

A gratuitous preggo shot.

2.5 weeks left.

Come on baby.

A room for a baby and a prince

2011-03-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I began to make this mental list of all of the things that needed to be accomplished before the baby can make it's arrival. Things that don't have anything to do with gestation itself, more like mental blocks that I've had to get past. In the past couple of days I have been able to cross some of these things off of the list..

-Turn in Girl Scout cookie money to the big Girl Scout Council (March 17th).
-Have one last she-bang for St. Pat's (March 17th).
-Get through my last big Girl Scout activity, PajamaRama (March 18th).
-Finish my last Beginning Knitting Class, we've had 4 or 5 running at the same time, and while I love teaching these I am sooo happy to be finished with them, for now anyway (March 19th).

I still have two sock classes that I am teaching, and while I know they will be over with plenty of time for baby to make it before the due date I hope that baby does not have "Mom finishes sock class" on it's to do before coming out list. Thinking about all of this reminds me of feeling this same way while waiting for Abe's birth. While I know that baby should and most likely will go as close to 40 weeks as possible I keep hoping for an early arrival and a Dr. that says, "well this baby looks full term, we must have been off on your due date!" And with that said, both children came a couple of days early, so there is nothing I should complain about. And I'm not complaining, I'm just anxious.

With all of that anxiety, curiosity, and excitement I need something to put my brain to work on, and that brings me to another thing on the list, finish the baby and Abe's room. Birds will be the theme in their room and I want to make it very whimsical, funky, bright, eclectic, with no pastels allowed.

I scoured Etsy for fabric and came across this great Alexander Henry print for curtains.
This orange print was another one I found and I may make it part of the curtains or maybe crib skirt or some other accent.

I would love to paint in their room, but time is limited and really I am pretty content with the color it is, kind of pale green (I guess this would be the only pastel allowed). When we moved in we painted some large polka dots on one wall in a salmon color, they are staying but we will be painting silhouettes of birds in some of them. My Mom found this clip art of bird silhouettes that we've been picking birds from to paint in the polka dots.

So along with curtains and birds I wanted to make some more of the banners that I made for Marley's new room (pictures to come soon). This is where I got the idea for the very easy no sew banners. The tutorial is here. We did it a little bit differently, and used ribbon and a hot glue gun. The fabric for the banner is all vintage cotton stuff that was gifted from a friend in yellows, oranges, greens, and then some left over blue linen from curtains. My MIL Suzanne made us a wonderful bird mobile to go over baby's crib and I also have a vintage wicker bird cage to hang by one of the windows in their room.

I have been having a lot of fun planning all of this out, but I am sure that Abe would be much happier with dinosaurs or trains in there. Oh well.

One of the websites I've found with great baby/kid room inspirations is Ohdeedoh. They call it "apartment therapy" and while we don't have an apartment, we don't have a lot of space, so it fits with what we have to work with.

And while I cross things off of my list, I realize that Declan may also have a list that the universe is waiting to be completed before we are able to have the baby. Surely it's a list filled with the way men nest over women, and I'm guessing there are things on it like "put the VW's new engine in" or "mulch the yard" or "build a new pigeon coop", as these are the only things he seems to be interested in doing right now. With that said I am sure the baby is just as interested in new curtains as a freshly mulched yard.

waffles, daffodils, baththubs, and bellies

2011-03-19T07:09:00.001-07:00

Today is the first Saturday in a very long time that I haven't had to get ready for work as soon as I have gotten up. Classes are wrapping up for me, and today I only have one Beginning Knitting Class to teach the in the afternoon (the last session!). The weather is nice so my little friend and I decided we needed to make some Hello Kitty waffles to celebrate this wonderful Saturday. You know there won't be many more of these Saturdays like this, we go full term on Monday.

Abe and I devoured almost all of the waffles before Declan got out of bed, and Marley is still sleeping. We couldn't even wait to get to the dining room table, and just had our breakfast on the kitchen counter.

Look what I found this morning, the first bloom of the season.

Welcome daffodil.

Our beautiful weekend has followed a good past few days even though March has been pretty rough in general. There was a St. Patrick's Day feast, complete with almost 30lbs of corned beef, 6 heads of cabbage, and just as many pounds of potatoes. We were joined by family and good friends and beautiful weather. Our backyard had turned into a mudpit by the recent snow and rain, but that didn't bother anyone.

My Leprechaun

Our smaller guests.

I hadn't realized how many blonds we knew.

The aftermath of the mudpit.

Abe and Lillian.

BFFs,

just like their Moms.

Some new belly shots.

I have this thing for overhead shots, I guess because that's what I always see.

The top one is torpedo belly.

Like my new slippers?

Ten on Tuesday

2011-03-15T13:50:00.001-07:00

Nothing like pie to make you feel better :)
And of course this Ten on Tuesday appropriately follows Pi Day.

So here are my 10 Favorite Pies....

1. Grandma Wolfe's Apple Pie, my Dad holds the recipe and makes this notoriously delicious pie every Thanksgiving. My Dad now joins us for Thanksgiving at the in-laws and always brings one of these pies, I don't think they would let him in if he didn't have that pie in hand.

2. Pumpkin Pie, with whipped cream on top. Real pumpkin pie, with lots of whipped cream on top. The fall seems to be pie season, and I can't complain about that at all.

3. Cherry Pie, with nice tart cherries, and a crispy top, with sprinkles of sugar on it. This has been one of the things I've craved throughout this pregnancy and we've never successfully found a "real cherry pie", Schnuck's just doesn't cut it.

4. Fruit Tart, pretty close to a pie in my opinion.

5. Mrs. Ledbetter's Chocolate Pie, I have no idea who that woman is but her recipe is fantastic. My Mom will make this maybe on Christmas? Or is it Thanksgiving? Not sure, but it's rich and delicious.

6. Pizza! Pizza is a pie right? I feel like a teenager saying this but I could eat pizza for every meal. Greasy pizza with sausage and mushrooms, homemade pizza with fresh mozzarella and basil, Chicago style pizza, I'm even pretty happy with a cheap frozen pizza.

7. Cranberry Apple Pie, maybe this should be higher on the list, but here it is. Tart apples, tart cranberries, this is another one my Mom makes. She typically makes it with a crust that is made with cut out leaves and other shapes. Maybe there is even a little scoop of Graeter's vanilla ice cream on top, now that would be heavenly.

8. Key lime pie, some day I want a key lime tree, and make my own.

9. Mother In-Law House Coconut Cream Pie, it's always tall, and decadent. Try a slice if you are ever on Main St. in St. Charles. There was once a time where I would have a slice of that and an order of onion rings for lunch.

10. Lemon Meringue pie, I've never had one that has blown me away, but I feel like a homemade one would send me through the roof.

reminders

2011-03-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

a punch to the cervix
a head bouncing off of your bladder
insomnia
achey back
a foot to the ribs

All of these things, while uncomfortable are reminders of this life being carried, this life that is thriving, this life that has so few days left until met by the world. I've known quite a few women to suffer the loss of that life at different points during their pregnancies, and I've never known what to say. I still don't know what to say. There has once again been a loss from a family member, the second loss for their family, the loss of a life that was supposed to be here the same time our little one will make it's way out. Once again there are no words or emotions that I could provide that will doing anything for anyone. They will be held close in prayers, and love will be sent, and tears will fall, but how does one ever grieve a loss like that.

A surprise Knit Night Shower

2011-03-09T05:45:00.001-08:00

I feel like I typically have pretty good intuition when it comes to surprises, that or no one hides them that well from me, but last night I was left completely surprised when our usual Tuesday night knit night turned into a baby shower for me. Declan had come home from work and went straight to tidying up and even cleaned the bathroom (that's what he does to relax when he gets home from work, so it wasn't a huge deal). Then he took the kids out of the house for the evening so, as he put it, "you can completely relax at knit night tonight." Seriously? What a guy. I was left home alone for a full hour before knit night even showed up, that was a surprise in itself.

Then someone knocked on the door and there were my Mom and MIL, Suzanne, and Declan's little sister Wendy. I didn't even notice the presents being brought in with them and the cheesecake Suzanne made didn't tip me off either, I just went about my business, boiling water for coffee, that sort of thing. Before I knew it there was a pile of presents on the coffee table, a few more people than usual at knit night, and quite a spread of food on the dining room table.

I gave the camera to the kids in hopes of getting some good shots of the evening and there were a few, but most of them were of the two girls trying to get a picture of Gabe, the one boy. I guess that's what happens at 10 and 11 years old.

Besides my Mom and Suzanne, Declan's aunts (and I think I can go ahead and call them my aunts as well) Bridey and Ellen showed up, along with my BFF Sarah, and cousins Amy and Julie.

The girls, Wendy and Race, taking a break from chasing Gabe to play us some party music, Justin Beiber. Never thought I would have a baby shower with Justin Beiber music.

There were so many wonderful gifts! If I weren't in so much shock I think I probably would have cried a little bit, and had a horrible time falling asleep last night thinking about what a wonderful and generous family we have. My Mom knit this blanket for the babe, and that was only one of the beautiful things we can now stash away in the babies room. Suzanne made a bird mobile and overalls, Amy knit some pants, Ellen sewed some pants from vintage fabric, gift certificates and clothes from Julie, Bridey and Joye, and Sarah gave us a gift certificate for sushi for after baby comes.

Sarah and her daughter Lillian, enjoying some of Suzanne's homemade cheesecake. This baby and Lillian will have pretty close birthdays, Lillian's is April 8th. And just 2 years ago we were having a shower at our house for Sarah and her husband Jake.

It was such a wonderful evening. When Declan got home with the kids I gave him the biggest thank you, because he had some part of the planning too. If it were me, I would have given the surprise away days ago.

1 on Tuesday plus a spring hoodie and ice cream!

2011-03-08T09:17:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling a bit all over the place today. It's supposed to be Ten on Tuesday but I can't think of 10 things for it (favorite smells), I can only think of one, the way our house smells when the windows are open. And speaking of that, I want to open the windows. Didn't we have temps in the 60's and 70's like two weeks ago? Oh, to have that again would be wonderful! My daffodils are sticking their necks out wondering when it will be safe to bloom. Everyone in the house is stir crazy, and there are things that need to be done outside, but this soggy weather is no good for yard work. And speaking of yard work, you may know we had a roof dropped in our yard a couple of weeks ago and is still in our yard. We've been waiting for all of the appropriate people to come look at it and tell us when we can clean it up.

And on the subject of soggy weather and yard work... it's almost spring! NPR recently reported a new spring trend for all of the super trendy, and wealthy men in our lives, it's called the Hoodarf. I was going to buy one for Declan and my Dad, who called me about it (of course that means he wants one, right?), but then PurlBee published a pattern for one. They are calling it the Spring Hoodie, I'm wondering if the ones mentioned on NPR had the colorful pompon. I added it up and if you ordered everything you needed to make the one on the PurlBee it would be just under $90, much better, now we can make even more hoodies!

And I'm feeling all over the place because Marley is home sick today for day #2. I don't even really think she is sick, she has just had a low fever for the past couple of days and her throat hurts, but today she has been bouncing off the walls. I don't like sick days, especially on my days off... I'm just that selfish. Fortunately she also napped when Abe did, just fell asleep on the sofa, who would have thought, this way I was still able to watch Lost reruns and knit for a couple of hours. I've made it up to Season 4, or maybe 5 and now that I think about it, I really like Sawyer, kind of dreamy. I can't stand Kate, and I love the love story between Desmond and Penny. Jack drives me crazy, and that Eloise Hawkins freaks me out.

5 weeks left until D-Day. Still not completely prepared, but getting more anxious for the big day, just because my body is so sore. Yesterday I did lots of laundry, folding it and putting it away, and changed the sheets on all of the beds, and I really feel like I should have done some stretching before hand. But I have a sweet husband who made me feel better by going out and getting me a double scoop of Oberweis' chocolate peanut butter ice cream.

Ten on Tuesday

2011-03-01T07:18:00.000-08:00

10 Things to Like About The Month of March

1. Daffodils, ours started peaking out of the ground about a week or two ago.
2. We can finally start to send the kids back outside to play, as long as we are okay with them tracking mud all over the house.
3. Because of holiday and birthdays and what not, it's really the first month since September where life seems to slow back down. Now I'm not sure if we'll feel that way this year.
4. St. Patrick's Day! I've never cared too much for the parade (not a parade person), but I love the corned beef and cabbage. Strangely I'm not really a corned beef and cabbage person either, but this one time of year I will happily stuff myself on it.
5. Green things. By this I mean little pieces of life start coming out of the ground and the trees.
6. Chirping birds.
7. Opening the windows. I love the way our house smells with the windows open.
8. The light of day lasting past 5pm.
9. Spring storms.
10. This year, for us anyway, we will be very close to having a new family member, I'm pretty stoked about that.

7 years old

2011-02-27T06:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my sweet girl tured 7. Declan and I still can't believe we have a 7 year old, much less an almost 3 year old and baby on the way, but this post is about Marley.

On her birthday Marley wants us to tell her about the day she was born, she likes hearing about it more than just on her birthday, but always makes sure we tell her about how Dad broke his arm running up the stairs just a couple of days beforehand, about the closet Grandpa Brian worked so hard on finishing just before she came, about all of the pink dresses that filled the closet, about how we spent almost a week with Grandma afterwards (when I learned to knit socks), about how she slept on my chest for naps, about Wendy Mae seeing her in hospital for the first time and then immediately throwing up in the hospital room, about her first blanket that we still have, all of those wonderful things we'll never forget. But seven years have passed and here she is now, a clever, witty, beautiful girl.

It was a very long couple of days leading up to her birthday. We had to pick up our Girl Scout cookie order, I ended up locking Abe my MIL's van, and myself out in the rain for nearly 45 minutes while picking up the cookies. We had to put the finishing touches on her room, which I can't wait to show you, but there are still a few more finishing touches to be finished. There was a school performance, Beck spent the night, Abe was up all night crying, then a trip to the Omnimax, and a party to follow. Marley is sooooooo happy to have her own room, finally, and has now spent most of her time trying to keep her brother out of it. I've never really gotten to "do a room" like you hear some people talking about, so this was pretty exciting for Marley and I and we did spent a lot of time picking things out together. One of the really big perks of having her own room is being able to stay up late to read. The first night she slept in there, which was a school night, she lost track of time and stayed up to 11pm reading an atlas. Thankfully she got a clock for her birthday and now maybe will only stay up until 9pm.

Having her move into her own room felt very much like Wendy leaving the nursery. We asked Marley to please not stay long if Peter Pan came and asked her to fly away with him to Neverland. Now it is time to get working on Abe and the baby's room, we're thinking a bird theme might be perfect in there.

Pictures to come soon of Marley's room, it's very mod, and we can't wait to show it off.

Ten on Tuesday

2011-02-22T12:59:00.000-08:00

I'm on this forum with a bunch of other women who are all due in April, and someone recently started this thread of what we can't wait to have back. Things started with sushi, hot baths, laying on one's stomach, and quickly moved to a lot of us saying we couldn't wait to have a few drinks. I like the social part of drinking and right now I really do miss a drink now and then. Maybe even two drinks, or three.

So appropriately this weeks 10 on Tuesday is your 10 favorite cocktails. Let's see if I can come up with 10 I like, I'm not much of a cocktail drinker, and if I do I have ones that I stick to. My comfort zone is limited.

In no particular order...
1. Gin and tonic, with lime.
2. Vodka and tonic, with lemon. A couple of summers ago the grocery store had Svedka on sale, super cheap, and I bought 5 bottle and we spent the evenings, after Marley was asleep, on the patio having a large vodka tonic with lots and lots of lemon, not much vodka, but lots of lemon. So good.
3. Cape Cods, vodka and cranberry.
4. Mojitos
5. Sangria
6. Margaritas, with good tequila, must be good tequila. My Dad dated this lady who was able to get the secret recipe from this really good Mexican place in Dogtown, and it went something like this: limeaid, tequila, and a Budlight, maybe there was one more ingredient, but that was about it, those ones are great.
7. The Rum Punch that Easton makes at De Palm Tree. He makes a homemade fruit juice and then adds either RedRum or white Appleton's.
8, 9, 10... well I'm finished, that's about it.

7 weeks left, with 15 weeks worth of things to do.

2011-02-20T09:57:00.000-08:00

This is me, feelin' all smug that the end is in sight.

7 weeks left. That's right 7 weeks. Declan and I were explaining to Marley today how we decided to have another child and when she mentioned something about being able to love all of the kids the same, Declan said he just decided to spread it thinner. Umm... we quickly let her know we were joking, but it made me start to wonder more of how we will handle all of this. I'm thinking we'll start by getting a leash for Abe and Marley already has her DSi, which seems to keep her occupied for long periods of time. I think we'll be okay.

I just need to get my butt in gear on everything else. Marley is getting a new room this week (part of her 7th birthday present) which means that as soon as we are finished with her room we need to work on Abe and the baby's room. Our list of what we will be doing in that room has thinned down quite a bit, out with white washing the floors and I think we will just stick to painting the trim, a new bed for Abe, and setting up a pink crib. Yes, pink crib, which means this baby will be a boy, a boy that won't mind a pink crib. There is still a co-sleeper to purchase, clothes to get, diapers to finish sewing, and somehow I have convinced myself that I will also be able to finish knitting one baby blanket, crocheting another, and finish sewing a quilt all in time for April.

Time to go, Abe is upstairs finishing off an iced Americano, it's a good think I have to work today.

Mary Poppins save me

2011-02-16T05:35:00.001-08:00

I think Abe has it out for me. I don't believe in the terrible two's, but maybe I should. We had this great thing going on for a few weeks or so, he would wake up at 7am, get his sister up and then watch some cartoons for about an hour before they had to come and get me up at 8am. I got past the bad Mom feeling of letting my kids watch an hour of TV in the morning pretty quickly. Most of the time I wasn't even asleep, pregnancy makes me a very light sleeper. But there is something about laying in a bed that I have all to myself, no husband to constantly push to his side of the bed, or stinky armpit to move off of my head. Things were good last week. Then this week, Abe needs me out of bed at 6:35am, 5 minutes after Declan leaves the house. He needs me to switch movies 10 times before finding the right dino movie, damn you Netflix we never had this problem before there were so many choices. I can't go back to bed at this point.

But surely he is going to bed well if he has so much energy and gusto in the morning!? Uh, no. Bedtime has always been about 7:30pm, but for almost a month we've fought with that too. I don't care if he and Marley talk in their room, but they have yelling matches. Or Abe is out of his room. He's been out of his bed 3-5 times every night since last week. Reasons are... getting the chocolate covered strawberries out of the fridge, getting the box of chocolate and scissors off of the top shelf on the bookshelf, getting out Marley's DSI, playing his saxoflute, one of those or something along those lines. I've tried so many different things to get him to stay in bed. I've tried the "you'll be in big trouble" method, the sitting outside his door waiting for him to come out just to tell him to go back to bed, the screaming at the top of my lungs for him to go back to bed, the ignoring it method (that's when he got the scissors out), the extra books at bedtime idea, the keep him up late watching a movie plan, the let him burn extra energy off outside method, but none of it is working.

Marley will be in her own room in less than two weeks, and I'm hoping that will do something. And the problem is that Abe is so damn cute. He's standing next saying, "Smile Mom, so I can give you a biggggggg hug!" I need Nanny McPhee or Super Nanny or Mary Poppins.

Ten on Tuesday

2011-02-15T06:06:00.000-08:00

10 Favorite Non Knitting Blogs

These are in no particular order.
1. The Bloggess, you need to read this shit.
2. Pioneer Woman, complete opposite of #1, no cussing, no wine slushies, no fights with William Shatner, but good recipes, great photos, etc.
3. Resurrection Fern, a peaceful, inspirational blog, with beautiful photos, and the occasional crocheted thing (surely that doesn't count).
4. Tart, I just think the chick that writes this and her husband and baby are hot. Look for their maternity photo shoot on here, it's ridiculous.
5. Enjoying the Small Things, this is one I found recently and she takes beautiful photos and again, has a beautiful family with a really sweet story, so read the "Start here if you're new" tab at the top of the page. You'll cry.
6. IROCKSOWHAT, another blog with a cute kid, I've got a thing for blogs with cute kids.
7. Smitten Kitchen, good food, nuff said.
8. Offbeat Mama, "parenting against the grain". Plus one of their writers is named Ariel, who also took a cross country journey in her VW.
9. Passive Aggressive Notes, pretty self explanatory.
10. Regretsy, where DIY meets WTF.

One Sweet Day

2011-02-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

For a couple that said we weren't going to do anything special for Valentine's Day we sure did a lot. It started yesterday when Declan went and got new tires for my car, that's love :)

Abe and I made cookies.

I made Abe a Luvbot.
The heart garland I crocheted for Marley has already been misplaced, but she liked it.

My Dad brought over 2lbs of Merb's Chocolate covered strawberries, it's a tradition. That belly is full of chocolate covered strawberries.

My Mom brought over gifts for the kids earlier and we sat and knit while Abe napped.

And for Declan I made him white chocolate covered strawberries, another tradition.

And then, that sweet guy surprised me with a bouquet of tulips and Chinese takeout.

I was pleased with the tires.

Happy Valentine's Day to you!

Boy? Girl? Leo? Ezra?

2011-02-09T06:06:00.000-08:00

When I was pregnant with Abe I had a little poll up on my blog with a few of the names we were thinking of, and a friend just asked me if we were going to do the same with this little one. Because we have one more surprise with this kiddo, boy or girl, I figured I would put that one up too.

We have a girl's name picked out, set in stone, and are currently monogramming things for her, but if it's a boy we'll have to send everything to underprivileged children in Romania just like all of that Steelers as Superbowl Champion stuff. Want to hear some of the names we liked for a girl, but just weren't cutting it? We liked Laurel, Eloise, Astrid, and Aster. But we've known the girl name for months, and now attempting to keep part of it a secret.

Boys are more difficult for me. I'm not sure where Declan stands on the difficulty level of naming a boy or girl, but he hasn't seemed to run across "the name" for a boy either. We have a sticky on our computer with a list of names, and it grows and then shortens, and grows, and shortens. If it's a boy we have the middle name (another secret from some), but the first name is making both of us draw blanks. So I give you part of the list of boy names to vote on. There are a couple we both really like, and everything else is still on the list.

So go vote, or think for a while and then vote, we've got a few weeks.

Feeling confused on boy or girl?
I am too, so here is what the universe is telling me....
-Lady at Home Depot asked if I was having a boy.
-Another lady also asked if I was having a boy.
-Chinese gender calender says boy, it was right for Marley and Abe.
-Based on how I'm carrying, low, most would say boy.
-Based on heart rate, 150's, it's a girl.
-Declan has gained a couple of pounds of sympathy weight, and old wives tales says that means it's a girl.
-My face is getting rounder and fuller, those same old wives would once again say girl.

Oh happy days!

2011-02-08T13:40:00.000-08:00

It's been a good few days....

There was a yarn sale, and I bought a lot of yarn

There was a trip to the fabric store and I made a lot of diapers.
I have a baby that I am certain loves ice cream, and I'm okay with making my baby happy, everyday.

I have a daughter that is almost 7. Almost 7! She is leaving the nest soon to her own nest, well her own room. She's also leaving her first grade class everyday to join the second grade class. So she's smart too. Watch out world!

I have a son that uses his finger to have a conversation with you. He helps sew diapers and is obsessed with alligator gar.

I have a husband that goes and gets ice cream for baby and I.

I have an adopted family (in-laws, close to 20 of them) whom we dine with every Friday night.

I have a Mom coming over for dinner and knitting tonight.

I have a Dad who is taking good care of my ailing Grandpa, and he's doing a great job.

I have a new sweater! Hot of the needles. It's still in need of buttons and having it's ends woven in but is still photo worthy.

And we have 9 weeks left until we get to meet the new babe.

Snowpocalypse 2011

2011-02-01T12:42:00.001-08:00

Snowpocalypse has officially hit and we are already a bit stir crazy. Here's the view of the backyard, notice the icicles hanging from the playset? And for anyone not in St. Louis, all of the white stuff is ice, and soon the snow will come and I've heard anywhere from 6-20". You would think they could nail down that number a bit.
So what does my family do when it's 20 degrees outside and pelting ice on everything? They go outside. Somedays I feel like the smartest one in the house, especially on days like today, when I decided to make some hot chocolate, watch Law and Order and knit while the rest of the bunch decided to go for a walk on the near by trail.

And now for something really exciting... Here is the new engine for our VW Vanagon. Our bus that we haven't been able to drive since July, when it went kaput on vacation. Declan and his Dad spent most of the day Sunday picking up this beautiful piece of German engineering. Isn't it wonderful? I've never felt so much love towards a piece of metal.

And because today's blog is just a pile of random stuff here are a couple of newly finished projects...

Mitts for Marley, they were supposed to be a Valentine's Day gift, but were needed for layering in today's snow exploration mission. She's pretty smitten with them.

A couple of newborn soakers. I really want to make some more but I want to know if the baby is a boy or girl before casting on. I'm really holding out to find out if the baby is a girl so I can knit some soakers with ruffles on the butt.

In other soaker/diaper news... the one good thing that may come out of this ice and snowstorm is that Abe may come out of it potty trained. Woo hoo! He has spent the day in real underwear and only had one accident after using the toilet 4+ times.

Ten on Tuesday

2011-02-01T07:56:00.000-08:00

10 Things on Your Nightstand

1. Water glass
2. Prenatal vitamins
3. Vick's vapor rub, I can not sleep without it.
4. Lamp
5. Bowl of shells collected on vacation
6. Baby name book
7. Ponytail holder
8. Stitch marker
9. Notebook to write down names from the baby name book.
10. Chelsea Handler's book Are you There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

Ten on Tuesday

2011-01-25T05:45:00.000-08:00

Ten Favorite Health and Beauty Products

1. Black Mascara. I don't do make up very often, but you had better believe that I put mascara on daily.
2. Kiss My Face Peaceful Patchouli Lotion, so I can smell like a hippy without the dirty part.
3. Red or pink nail polish, makes me feel girly and happy, no matter what.
4. Water
5. Eucalyptus and mint pressure point lotion. I don't know where this is from, but it definitely falls in the health category as it is a miracle worker on headaches and stressful days.
6. Chapstick, preferably Burt's Bees Pomegranate.
7. Neutrogena Intense Moisture Handcream, a must this time of year.
8. Pumice Stone
9. Lavender oil... in the bath, mixed with water and sprayed on the sheets, wherever, it's good.
10. Blush. Somedays I just need a little color on my cheeks.

If I were 2, what would I do with a key?

2011-01-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

I was supposed to teach a class today, I was supposed to go to the store today, I wasn't supposed to spend 4+ hours looking for a car key, but that's what I did. I tore apart every drawer in our house looking for the spare, Declan was on his hands and knees in the snow looking outside for the missing key, and I was seconds away from digging through a bag of trash. My 7 month pregnant self moved the washer, dryer, and deep freezer thinking it fell beneath those, and we almost spent nearly $300 to have a new key made.

Then I thought if someone took the key who would have taken it.... Abe. If I were Abe and I took a key what would I do with it. I looked in the tub of vehicle toys, I looked in every toy bin, and then I thought that maybe if I were Abe I would try to start my Plasma Car with it. I snuck into his room, while he slept, and just barely moved the Plasma Car an inch to the left. THERE WAS THE KEY!!! Thank goodness for the simple mind of my 2 year old. Thank goodness he didn't flush it down the toilet, or toss it in the litter box, he just tried to start his car.

Dear Child, please listen. Dear Mom, my turtle needs a blankie.

2011-01-20T05:21:00.000-08:00

I would like to think that my children will know what to say at appropriate times, that they will know how to behave when good behavior is expected, that they will fall asleep as soon as the lights are out and their head hits the pillow, and that they will listen to what I say, everytime. Reality sets in and I am left with a 6 year old that grunts and moans the minute I tell her to turn the Wii off. A two year old that says that everything looks like poop. And two children that make bed time a game, a game that lasts an hour, a game that involves many, many, many elements. Maybe a dinosaur is needed and a turtle too, and then the turtle and dinosaur are cold, so Mom says she'll knit them blankets, but the blankets are needed now, you get the picture.

There was a short interview on NPR the other day about negotiating with your child and it really made me think of our present situation, poop, bedtime, whines for dino movies and cuppies, etc. The point of the interview was negotiating with your child, especially young ones like ours, was more negotiating with yourself. Or getting to the point where you are ready to give in. Surely I didn't do this. I'm not much for analyses of parenting styles or manuals on how to parent, but that show really got me thinking and paying attention to how I speak to our kids and handle their demands, I mean requests.

Example
Abe screams, "I WANT TO WATCH FISHIE MOVIE!!!!"
I respond with, "not now sweetie."
Abe, "I WANT TO WATCH FISHIE MOVIE!!!!"
Me, "in a minute."
Abe, "I WANT TO WATCH FISHIE MOVIE NOW!!!"
Me, "just a second."
Abe, "FISHIE MOVIE NOW! NOW! NOW!"
Me, well I'm not saying anything now, I am carrying him down stairs to turn on Adventures of the Coral Reef.

Could that even be called negotiating? I really didn't want him to watch TV then, maybe later, but I finally broke down and gave in. I think in the interview there was something about you getting what you would like out of the negotiations as well. You mean that I might get something out of this? Like what? A child that eats a bite or two at dinner? Or a kid that picks up their toys? Or a kid that listens when I say "not now" to fishie movie?

Here is how the conversation goes now...
Abe, "I WANT TO WATCH FISHIE MOVIE!"
Me, "Abe, you can watch the fishie movie after we pick up the toys and read a book."
Abe, "I want to watch the movie."
Me, "We will, but I need you to help me first. You are such a big help and I really need your help right now with these toys."
Abe, "Okay."

Abe helps we with the toys, we read a book, and by the end of it he has forgotten what even got him there. This doesn't always work, but I'm trying. I'm also learning which battles are worth fighting. If they only want to eat apple slices with ginger sprinkled on top, instead of the delicious pasta I made, I will be thankful that they want something healthy like apples. Or if his dino needs a freakin' blanket, I will stay up all night knitting one.

PS- These kids really are pretty damned cool. We're spending the morning of our snow day watching Little Monsters, and I'm sure the Labyrinth will be on later, maybe followed by a little dance party with the Clash : )

More Adventures in Crochet

2011-01-16T16:18:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while I decide that I might like crocheting. I like the kitchy look of it, and there are just some things in crochet that you can't do in knitting.

I needed a last minute Christmas gift for a family friend and after thinking of many different options I settled on some potholder or dishcloth things, they seem a little too thin to only be potholders, so I'm calling them dishcloths as well. The pattern is from the 200 Crochet Blocks book and the yarn is Mission Falls 1824 Cotton. Did you know that yarn line is being discontinued? I'm kind of bummed about it, the cotton is great and so is their wool. Boo on that!
After enjoying those so much I thought "I'll crochet an afghan!" So here is the start of it, almost 2 weeks later and this is the only block so far. It is also from the 200 Crochet Blocks book, and I have a feeling that it may never make it's way into and afghan, but we'll see. The yarn is Cascade 220 and that plan was to use bits of 220 from other projects for the afghan.

Another reason I like crochet, it goes soooo fast. We had a birthday party for a two year old this afternoon and after many attempts at finding something to knit for her I decided to make another one of these hats. The problem was that I needed something fast, and washable, this fit the bill on both. The pattern is Peek A Boo Flower Hat, and the yarn is Plymouth Jeanie (green), I'm not sure what I used for the flower, but it was scrap stuff. The best part was this hat only took me an hour this morning and I heard the hat was a success and the little girl wouldn't take it off.

I also have a question for any Moms out there about birthplans. Any helpful books, websites, other resources, or even advice for writing one? We drafted one for Abe, but it never made it to the hospital, and I am determined this time to have one in my Dr.'s hands as well as hospital staff.

3rd Trimester Check In, Beginning of the End or End of the Beginning, or something like that...

2011-01-15T13:32:00.000-08:00

I figured it would be a good time to give you a little glimpse into my pregnancy at 28 weeks.

Weight

Up 14lbs. I'm good with that. I gained 60 lbs with Marley, and I'm thinking that I will be able to hold off gaining 46 more between now and April.

Symptoms

-Lots of peeing.

-My sciatica has been crazy bad, and I feel like an old woman most days. In the evenings it has gotten so bad that I can't bend over to give the kids good night kisses without falling into their beds. There have also been some occasions of needing to crawl to the bathroom because I simply cannot stand up. Like my pregnancy with Abe, it has been on my left side, and hopefully like with Abe it will disappear the minute he is born.

-Sleep has been interesting... bizarre dreams, lots of waking up from dream sleep and falling back into dream sleep immediately, it has all felt very restless.

-My stretch marks have reappeared.

-Braxton-hicks contractions are daily. It's a reminder to drink lots of water.

Baby

Lots of movement these days. Sometimes I can feel a hard little lump pushing on my stomach that I am sure is a foot. The baby is still able to toss and turn and those acrobatics are easily seen from the outside. At our last check up baby's heart rate was 155, good. We are measuring right on track too, and it is estimated that baby is over 2lbs now.

Cravings

Not so much anymore. The other night I really wanted Kraft mac-n-cheese with tuna, but that has really been it for a couple of months.

This is me if you were 7 feet tall. Besides the belly you might notice that I need to straighten the rug.

How are the other kids doing?
Really well! Marley likes to feel the baby move around, and will patiently sit with her hand on my stomach in hopes of feeling more movement. She is also hoping for a girl. Abe seems to be doing well. Carrying him has gotten more and more difficult, and we are also experiencing difficulty in our hopes of having him potty trained by the time baby arrives. Abe will ask to see the baby, which means I must lift up my shirt wherever we are and he just stares at my belly. He also likes to lift up my shirt so he can lay his head on the baby.

How is Declan doing?
Good also. We are both having moments of feeling overwhelmed, but more excited than anything. Declan has been so helpful with this nasty sciatica stuff and once we have settled down for the evening he will fill my water glass and let me sit with my feet up. He got to meet my new doctor for the first time last week and was really happy with him. He is also pretty excited about the idea of a natural birth and the two of us will be taking a class in a week or so. We've both begun doing research on how he can help during labor and delivery and what we want/expect out of it.

Worries/fears/concerns?
All of these braxton hicks contractions along with some intense lower back pain and pelvic pain had me worried that I would be going into labor earlier than needed. I guess I feel like we've had two great pregnancies/deliveries and that we are pushing our luck with a third, but after talking to the Dr. last week he reassured me that all of this is normal and even checked to make sure I wasn't in labor. Everything looks good and no preterm labor.

And if we are at the beach together and I were wearing a bikini, here is the belly you would see. There is something strange happening with my belly button (it scares Declan). If we were at the beach together we also might be wondering what in the world I am doing in a bikini, but hell it's the beach.

Things to do/get/make?
We've been more relaxed this time on what we need or have to do before baby comes, but there still seems like a lot. Marley is getting her own room and while we already have begun setting it up, we need to paint her bed and walls, figure out something for her floor, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detector, etc. This has meant lots of going through and rearranging the rest of our house and we are hoping to possibly paint Abe's room. We also want to get new furniture in our room. The last two things are on the very, very bottom of the list, but on our minds. Abe will move into a toddler bed, and the baby into Abe's crib, which means we do need a new crib mattress, and I also want to get my hands on another co sleeper or at least a bassinet. Here is what I like for that so far.... (Options not listed in order of want) Option 1, Option 2 or something modern and simple like it, Options 3- just kidding on this one.

I need baby clothes too! Well I should first go through what has been saved from Marley and Abe, not much I know, but there are some special things that I kept. I'm not one to save baby clothes just in case, and we like to pass on our clothes to family, so I am sure we will have some passed to us. My plan is to go to Once Upon a Child sometime soon and pick up some newborn basics, gender neutral stuff and then see where we are at after baby comes.

Diapers... I really want this baby to have some nice new diapers. Abe's are getting pretty worn out and there is no way what we have could keep a newborn and toddler diapered for more than 24hours. I've been looking at fabric and will make some more this time. Once again I will use the Rita's Rump Pocket pattern, it's just so simple, and Abe still wears the ones I made for him when he was 4 months old or so. I'm thinking I will stick to cotton flannel for both the inside and outside of the diaper or possibly cotton jersey, which I want to use t-shirts for (much less expensive, and it could get us some fun diapers). We will also be purchasing some more prefolds, and stick to those and the pocket diapers for a while and maybe not even worry about the Bum Genius diapers. That doesn't mean we don't love the Bum Genius we have, they are just pricey and little babies do so well in the prefolds and pocket diapers (in my experience). We will also make some more wipes, cotton terry on one side and flannel on the other, that seems to be the best combo. Suzanne made some for us with Abe and they have been the best, better than the microfiber store bought ones.

For me, I would like to get some new pajamas and I need to knit myself some slippers and socks for the hospital. I should rephrase that... I would like to knit myself some slippers and socks for the hospital. One of these days I will make a trip to Target to pick up some postpartum supplies as well.

The baby has a few knitted things already, I recently finished a newborn sized sweater, there are a couple pairs of socks, a pair of booties, and a soaker. I need, need, need to knit some more soakers. I also want to get a couple of hats finished. This is another reason why I need to go through Abe and Marley's baby stuff soon. Last night I began working again on the baby's blanket after taking some time off to get Christmas knitting finished.

This post has become ridiculously long, and it's time to stop. Here's to a happy and healthy 12 more weeks!

No tattoo for you!

2011-01-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

I sooooo want to soak in a hot tub, or at least a hot bath for the rest of the day, however both of these are "no, no's" while knocked up. I suppose I will settle for hot chocolate and a warm blanket on the sofa with my knitting. Why so cold? We just spent 3 hours walking up and down the Delmar Loop collecting temporary tattoos and ice cubes that were filled with chocolate coins and in some cases gold $1 coins or even a coin that is good for one free burrito at Chipotle. There was an ice slide, free games, and s'mores. There was a Mexican restaurant with a table outside selling shots of tequila, those looked really good. Again, I will stick with my chocolate.

The kids had a great time, even with the freezing temps. Abe was so pooped that he fell asleep while carrying him to receive his prize for collecting all of the 11 temporary tattoos. The guy didn't even check, and these kids worked hard, and Marley really wanted to show off her stomach covered in tattoos.

Most of the businesses giving out tattoos put them on for you, a couple just had them sitting on the counter, but at this place they requested you wait in line and let them apply the tattoo. No problem, it was a tattoo shop, and the guy doing the tattoos was a friend's brother. But while we are waiting in line a middle aged couple comes in, no kids, and butts in line and grabs tattoos and begins to walk away. The guy doing the tattoos tells him he needs to wait in line like everyone else and have his tattoo put on. The middle age guy says, "I don't need to wait, I can take these if I want." Okay buddy, real nice. I imagine you don't have children, especially ones who can't understand why a grown up would demand getting in front of them when they have been told to wait patiently. The saving grace in all of this was the dinky stuffed penguin that was the prize for getting all of the tattoos. I'm sure Mr. Middle Aged A-hole really got a kick out of his stuffed penguin.

Abe thought tattoo parlors weren't too bad. He's a little young, but we're thinking about getting sleeves done for him while he's young. I bet the small amount of space the tattoos would need to cover would really save money in the long run.

Ten on Tuesday

2011-01-11T05:42:00.001-08:00

Let me start by telling you that I am the last person in the world to be making this list, and there are many people who can vouch for me on that.

Ten Ways to be More Organized
1. Put things back where you got them from.

2. Remember where the things belong in the first place.

3. Make notes, but again remember where the note is.

4. Get rid of the things you don't/won't use as often as possible.

5. Put all of your activities/schedules on one calender, and make sure everyone knows that this is the THE CALENDER.

6. If you start a project and don't finish it immediately do one of two things... if you are going to finish it sometime soon keep all of your materials together or if you aren't going to finish it put everything back where it belongs.

7. Fold and put laundry away as soon as it comes out of the dryer.

8. Teach your children/significant other to put things back where they belong as soon as possible. The less time you spend putting their things away the better.

9. When adding something new to your house or making a new spot for something announce it to everyone. Ex: "Here is our new dishtowel! It goes in the second from the bottom drawer with the other dishtowels!"

10. Respect others organizational skills. Maybe this isn't a way to stay organized yourself, but I firmly believe that if my or someone else's way of organizing is by piles, then RESPECT THE PILE.

Yes, there are some redundancies here.
But oh my, that was like pulling teeth. I am sitting, typing this at a desk that has a jar with batteries, rogue knitting needles, inkless pens, and safety pins next to a printer that has a few stacks of cds, a ball of yarn and a telephone. Like I said in the beginning I am the last one who should tell anyone how to be organized.

Ten on Tuesday

2011-01-03T07:41:00.000-08:00

Ten Things You Wouldn't Want to Live Without

1- Cotton sheets, I have no idea why this makes the top of my list, but it was the first things to come to mind.

2- yarn

3- knitting needles

4- Coffee, I still haven't given it up in this pregnancy, but I definitley have cut back

5- The internet, I hate putting this on my list, but it's not "couldn't live without" it's "wouldn't want to"

This is the point where I wish I could insert the names of my children, my husband, and family, but people are off limits as they are not things.

6- my camera

7- A good book

8- houseplants

9- indoor plumbing

10- sunny days

Pulling the good out from the fat

2010-12-30T06:28:00.000-08:00

I have always been very concerned with my size, as I think most women are. I am short, so when I gain a pound or two I feel like it is very visible, to everyone. I don't diet or exercise, but I am active and eat healthful foods. Pregnancy makes it especially hard. You have, on one hand people telling you to indulge a little bit more because what greater excuse to eat than using the old "the baby wants it" phrase. But in the same respect everything you eat goes to the baby and you have to be careful not to over indulge. Here's the other thing, I love food. I love salty food, I love sweet food, I love carbs, I love fruit, I love ice cream, candy, cake, snack food, you name it.

This pregnancy, up until recently has been good to me weight wise, at my 24 week appointment I had only gained 7lbs. 7lbs!!! Oh happy day, I can work with 7lbs! With Marley I gained a total of 60lbs and Abe brought about 40lbs. I remember everyone being so sweet to me when very pregnant with Marley, they said "you're all baby" or "you don't even look pregnant from behind". When I look back at the pictures they were all lying, but that's what this is all about right? Back to this pregnancy... up until this damned holiday season things have been good. Then comes Thanksgiving and then cookie exchanges and then goodies at work and making cookies at home and then the 3 Christmas' we make our way to. Here we are, days later and I feel like my prego weight has at least doubled, and it's all in my face and ass. Now when looking in the mirror while getting dressed I feel like a blown up version of myself. I stare at the stretch marks that never completely went away when pregnant with Marley, the little dimples on my behind and those awful mom arms.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well I read this blog yesterday and it really got me thinking about my body. My amazing body that is growing a person at the moment. My body that will push this little life out in 14 weeks and then be able to nourish it afterwards. My body that is some how managing to continue to take care of two other little people (with much help from D). I don't know anyone that doesn't feel like crap about some part of their body, even my husband feels it at times, and I kind of think that he is a stone cold fox. So as she says let me tell you what I love about my body....

-My hands. I don't even care that they are dry at the moment. I have longish, strong fingers. They have amazing muscle memory, and can knit, write, sew, create, etc. They are good.

-My boobs. I'm just sayin' they are good, and that's what we are doing, finding the good.

-The fact that I have curves. I like that my waist (under normal circumstances) pulls in between my lovely lady lumps and my hips.

-And to finish, I want to give it up for my uterus. It's going a great job right now.

Whew, I feel better. It's your turn. Somewhere today, let someone know what you love about your body.

Ten on Tuesday

2010-12-28T07:12:00.000-08:00

10 Intentions for the New Year

1. Keep our house clutter free, if this means getting rid of things almost daily by donating, selling, throwing away, so be it.
2. Try to understand my children more.
3. Publish at least 6 more patterns. Hopefully some of these can be published somewhere other than on my blog.
4. Have a drug free birth in April.
5. Write more letters.
6. Continue to keep our finances in check.
7. Paint Marley's new room, Abe and the babies room, living room and dining room. Hopefully this will all happen pre-baby.
8. Explore a new hobby... maybe paper making, wood carving, weaving, or some other type of textile art.
9. To have a vegetable garden that is enough to sustain us during the summer and part of the fall.
10. To stop being so judgmental of things/people I don't understand.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T14:46:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas,

from all of us to all of you!

Ten on Tuesday on Thursday

2010-12-23T13:15:00.000-08:00

I follow a couple of blogs that do "Ten on Tuesday" and I've always wanted to play along. I decided that today, a Thursday none the less, would be the perfect day to join in. After this week I do plan on posting on Tuesdays though :)

So here we go!

1. What's the best gift you've ever received? How about the worst?
The best was a beautiful pair of pearl earrings Declan gave me a couple of years ago. Well Santa, they were in my stocking. The worst also came from Declan, it was an earring/necklace set the first Christmas we were going out. I think I had been drinking when he gave them to me, and I think I made it apparent that I didn't like them.

2. What is your favorite Christmas movie moment?
I'm not big on Christmas movies, I'm also not big on remembering certain moments in movies, so this is going to be left unanswered

3. When do you open gifts?
I always push to open a present on Christmas Eve, but that's only because I am impatient. When I was younger my Dad and I always exchanged a gift on Christmas Eve because we are both impatient. With my Mom it was on Christmas morning, I could open my stocking as soon as I got up and then had to wait for the rest after everyone was awake, this is the tradition in our house today.

4. Do you believe in Santa? If not, who convinced you he's not real?
No, that went out a few years ago, and I really had a hard time letting go. I like the idea of Santa, but I honestly hate lying about him to my kids and since Marley was little I've tried to convince Declan that we should just fill her in already. I don't remember who told me he wasn't real, but I do remember being in gym class and sitting against the wall waiting to play when everyone started talking about it and I remember how disappointed I was.

5. What is your happiest Christmas memory?
I don't remember how old I was, but my Dad was dating this woman named Margaret, and she, my Dad, and I were on the way home from some Christmas Eve dinner and when I got out of the car I remember seeing Santa flying over my house. This is my happiest memory, because if reminds me how real make believe can be when you are little.

6. Describe an ornament that has special significance to you.
I only have two of them left, but they are Hummel glass balls from my Grandma Joan. She gave me one every year since I was born. She died when I was 20, and most of them were destroyed when my Dad's basement flooded. We put the two that are left up every year, and every time I think about her.

7. What famous person would you most like to encounter under the mistletoe?
Currently, James Franco.

8. When it comes to decorations, are you more of a Griswald or Grinch?
I won't go as far as a Griswald, while I love having our tree up I don't go crazy and decorate every inch of the house. I put up less decorations every year and we've only had lights on the house once.

9. What is your favorite version of a Christmas song?
I don't know about a specific version, and but I do really like "O Holy Night"

10. Have you had any traumatic Christmas-related experiences?
I don't know if this is traumatic, but rather stupid and embarrassing and I will probably make my Mom mad once I tell you. One year, probably the year before I was pregnant with Marley I had gone out after work on Christmas Eve and drank way too much. I was supposed to go to her house for Christmas morning and I woke up painfully hungover and called and said that I shouldn't come over because the roads were bad (it had snowed a bunch the night before). She said okay, and then minutes later, just as I was going back to sleep the phone rang and it was her saying that they didn't want me to miss Christmas morning with them and that Don (my step-dad) was on his way to get me. Ugh... I had to come up with some story for being hungover so I told her that at work the night before I drank too much of "Smokey's Holiday Punch", which I didn't know was full of rum, really I had drank a bunch of whiskey, chased with Coke. Don picks me up I tell him about the punch and we stop for a Sprite to help ease my stomach. The roads were bad, but my stomach was worse and all Don wanted to do was talk, but every time I spoke I felt vomit making it's way up my throat. Finally I couldn't hold it in any longer and I threw up in my Sprite. I felt awful the rest of the day, from the alcohol and more from the guilt I felt about lying to my parents and not eating any of my Mom's French Toast. Sorry Mom.

Don't worry I don't make getting drunk on Christmas Eve a regular occurence, I think that Christmas and the Christmas mentioned in Question 1 may have been the same night.

Still in pajamas with a house full of sugar

2010-12-21T12:34:00.000-08:00

Oh, the spoils of Christmas break... so far it has included a play by play of Sims Racing by Marley while I write this blog and lots of baking. I'm not quite sure why I put my Cook hat on today, but I did. Let me also start by telling you that most of these things were made while our entire house was taken over by children and not just ours, Declan's little brother and sister spent the night and if it weren't for the Wii, we might have had to take care of them or something. Either way I haven't made it out of my pajamas and that is fine by me. Coconut Macaroons were made.

I had planned on making "real" truffles but chickened out and made Oreo ones instead.

Then these giant peanut butter sandwich cookies. There would be about 6 more cookies worth if I hadn't trusted Declan in taking them out of the oven when the timer went off. Oh well...

Get a side view of these monsters! I would seriously roll around in the filling if I could, it is so incredible.

And now for a pregnant me, a 24 week pregnant me. Well me trying to get a good pregnant me picture. You know there is always something to blame bad pictures on... lighting, Abe, being incredibly tired, those sorts of things. Off to bake a flourless chocolate cake for Knit Night!

2+6= a whole bunch of silly

2010-12-17T06:03:00.000-08:00

Two year olds are funny. Sometimes they like to pretend they are cats and crawl around on all fours and meow. Sometimes they like to pretend they are dinosaurs and growl at everything. Sometimes they like to pretend you are a popsicle and lick your arm. Sometimes they like to eat everyone else's breakfast leftovers, but never touch their own. Sometimes they like to put everything on the Christmas tree as decoration. Sometimes they tell you how good baby dolphins taste and ask you to get some for them. Sometimes they don't like to sleep in their bed. Sometimes they like to make their bed on the floor in front of their door. And sometimes they like to sleep in the dog's bed, which is where Abe has spent the first part of the past two nights.

And those 6 year olds.... Sometimes they like to turn the whole day into a song. Sometimes they like to climb in bed with you very early in the morning. Sometimes they know everything. Sometimes they feed the dog and the cat. Sometimes polka dots, stripes, neon green, and brown go together. Sometimes they tell you they think they are going to lose a leg because it has a tiny little scrape on it. Sometimes they get their feelings hurt by school friends. Sometimes they tell you they are allergic to something, just so they don't have to eat it. Sometimes they bribe their little brother's with the idea that Santa is soon on his way, bringing a huge bag of presents.

Updated Christmas Knitting

2010-12-14T07:18:00.000-08:00

Updating the Christmas Lists

Finished
Cowl
hat
hat
pair of socks
cabled scarf
gloves
hand puppet
Dad's present

Cast on and a priority
worsted weight socks
Mom's gift
Fair Isle mittens
the halfway finished pair of Elf Slippers

Not cast on and a priority
mittens for Abe (this doesn't need to be a gift, the kid just needs some mittens, and I will probably do this today)

Here are the worsted weight socks. Since I took the photo yesterday I've grafted these toe stitches and am ready to start the heel on the second. I love worsted weight socks! They knit up so quickly, I started these Sunday afternoon and they should be finished today. It's Cascade 200 Superwash wool knit on #5s. I will try to post a pattern for these at some point because it's such a simple pattern that I've knit a few times.

The gloves! I've never done fingers before, and I suppose one could say I still haven't really done fingers, but I'm going to say they are fingers. More 220 Superwash wool, on #5s again, and it's a MagKnits pattern called Urban Necessity.

This hat will go along with the gloves, a basic, basic hat. 2x2 ribbing on #8s. Simple. It's really tall too, and when not folded over it gives one the appearance of having a cone head. Abe says it's his and Declan is laying claim to it as well, both will be disappointed.

This little guy just kept wanting his picture taken. I didn't mind since he is so darn cute.

Elizabeth Zimmermann's Ganomy Hat from her Knitter's Almanac for Marley. I really love this hat. The yarn is some I spun last year, and like most handspun yarn that I've knit with it really picks the project. It definitely picked this hat and the yarn and hat are happy together. The little purple bit is leftover Manos Del Uruguay.

Today I will finish those socks and knit Abe some mittens. We walked Marley to the bus stop this morning and it was just too damned cold to be with out mittens. I must right the wrong I have done to my child with him not already having mittens. Handknit ones should do the trick.

Holiday Sweet Tooth

2010-12-14T07:01:00.000-08:00

This year we (I say we, but we all know that means me) are really trying hard to make as many Christmas gifts as possible. Knitting only gets you so far, because a small gift can take more than just a couple of hours, or days in most cases. Sewing seems like another good idea, slightly less time consuming, but just as effective, however if you are like me you do stupid things when it comes to sewing, see previous post. In the end, at the last minute you are left with cooking. Baked goods, or things with lots of sugar and carbs are typically a good way to win over a loved one's heart. During the past few days our house has been a little factory, churning out sweets like those Keebler Elves, but with a smaller risk of catching the house on fire.

There have been bonbons, butter mints, shortbread, today it's these, and at some point I think I am going to attempt a Panettone. The thing about me is that I'm not one to go out and purchase all of the necessary tools. For example, the Panettone may end up baked in a coffee tin. So when it came to the butter mints I wasn't worried about the fact that I didn't have a pastry tube thingy, I'll just make one. Here's a tip... don't use dollar store bought plastic baggies. Mine wound up taped up with packing tape only 10 mints in. It's ghetto gourmet.

In the end I think the baggie worked and we were left with these little, lovely treats.

Yesterday, Abe and I baked some Orange Shortbread. We added a little extra zest, good call, and I think I will take it upon myself to eat all of the pieces with too browned edges. I just wouldn't want anyone to have a bad shortbread experience.

When it rains, it's bird parts.

2010-12-09T18:48:00.000-08:00

FML...

I spent a day cutting out those damn bird pieces. Tonight I had the sewing machine all set up, pieces out, ready to sew. What did I do? I didn't cut pieces out doubled, therefore when I put two pieces together to sew, they don't match. Seriously!? Seriously!!!???

I'm now going to spend the next few hours wiping my tears with tiny, birdie body parts.

Christmas, I've got a beef with you.

The good news is that I finished the other mitten, started Mom's gift, and the cabled scarf.

Lists are for shmucks, and I am a shmuck.

2010-12-05T06:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I need to make lists, and sometimes after reading through the lists I cry, because the chances of getting all of it finished are very, very slim.

The Great Big Christmas Gift Checklist

Finished
cowl
hat
pair of socks
one glove
hand puppet

Cast on and a priority
the second glove (I'm on the cuff)
cabled scarf (1/3 of the way finished)
fair isle mittens (ready for the shaping on the first)
Elf Slippers (one slipper is complete)

Not cast on, and a priority
Mom's present
Dad's present, yarn is halfway spun
Socks (worsted weight)
Socks (sock weight)
Another cowl
Another pair of mittens

Non-Priority Gifts that will most likely get cast on and finished before anything else.
3 Pairs of Elf Slippers

Now the funny thing is that I do this every year. Every year people! Christmas is only 20 days away, and I still think all of these things can be finished. I am crazy!

Today I don't have to work and I will spend most of it not knitting, however I do think I can get the second glove finished. Today Marley and I will be making soap, and I will be these. I'm going to see if Declan will help with the cutting, and then while Abe naps I can sew. I would like to get a Christmas tree today and get some of the decorations up. Did you know my days are 30 hours long, not the typical 24. Oh, and then there is dinner at my Dad's and then Lacey and Matt are coming over to watch The Walking Dead. Maybe 30 hours isn't enough.

As far as how everything else is being prioritized... I will finish the cabled scarf this week, and probably start some of the socks, also Mom's gift will be cast on. The good thing is that I have all of the yarn purchased and set aside in a very visible place that way I do not forget about it.

It's 9am and nothing has been accomplished except for breakfast, time to get moving if we're going to get everything on today's list crossed off.

Day.... who gives a crap!

2010-12-01T05:51:00.001-08:00

NaBloPoMo is finally over, and I finally don't feel pressured to post a blog! Sorry guys, this is a big deal. Also, those damned stockings took over my life. I think I've mentioned that before. I turned them over yesterday and my life is now much more peaceful. I spent the day working on Christmas knitting that I actually want to get finished and enjoy. I started and finished a hand puppet for Abe, cast on something for my SIL, and did a few rows on the gift for my Gaffer. I'm not entirely sure who reads this blog, so I have to be careful not to reveal too much in the way of Christmas gifts, so I will try to remember to take pictures and have a big reveal after the fact.

My two goal in having another baby were to have Abe no longer using a pacifier and potty trained by the time the baby comes. A couple of months ago we got rid of "Paci" and now we've moved on to potty training. The Paci thing was easier than I thought, Abe was ready, it was Declan and I who weren't quite ready. You know the whole "our baby is growing up" thing. One day I just took it away, and when he asked for it I told him it was gone. In his sweetest baby voice he asked, "Paci go bye-bye?" I answered with with a simple "yes" and that was that. No looking back.

Potty training isn't going to be as simple as diapers going bye-bye. Around the same time that I took away Paci I started telling him about the potty, who uses the potty, etc. He didn't really give a crap. Ahahahaha! Get it? Crap? Potty training? Okay, sorry. Fast forward to Monday. he spent the day running around bottomless and enjoyed it very much. Think of all the things you could do with out any pants on. That's how Abe felt. He went #1 every time on the toilet, and #2 happened on the kitchen floor. He has continued to tell me when he has to go peepee and it's hilarious hearing him because he runs to wherever you are and screams "Peepee on the potty, I have to go on the potty!!!!" So we run to the bathroom and he goes, wipes, flushes, and washes his hands.

While I'm very excited about this break through I'm not quite ready to make the switch to underwear. I had also forgotten about the need to use the potty while out of the house. I remember when Marley was making the switch she would tell us she had to go, and there was an immediate panic to find a bathroom. I would leave my cart in the middle of the grocery store, the gas pump in the car and the car door open at the gas station in order to make sure that kid didn't have an accident. Public bathrooms were terrifying for her, and after rushing to get into one she would freeze up and not go because of the thunderous flush that would follow. We found that promising not to flush worked, so if you ever run into a bathroom that has not been flushed, chances are that it was because a kid was afraid of the flush. Oh, and I completely forgot about the wiping thing. We had to wipe her bottom until she was 4! She was a little paranoid about not getting it clean enough on own. It's things like this that make me hesitant to potty train Abe, even though I know it has to be done. Here's looking forward to another day using the toilet!

In baby news, we had a check up yesterday. All is good, baby had the hiccups, way cute.

NaBloPoMo Day 23 & 24

2010-11-25T05:45:00.000-08:00

Day 23
Buried under a pile of Christmas Stockings. Can't get out.

Day 24
A parenting lesson:
Have you ever heard of the comedian Katt Williams? One evening, a couple of years ago, we were flipping through channels and stumbled across Katt Williams doing stand up on the the Comedy Central, we watched for a few minutes and were immediately enlightened. He explained a simple technique that he used in parenting his son. I had never thought of this before, but it works, I'll show you.

The technique is to just say "yes" or "okay" to all of the obscure requests your children present you with. Here's the key, it is limited to certain ages only. Marley is too old, she will remember that you said yes and hold you to it. Abe is at the perfect age.

Here's how it works:
Your watching National Geographic and Abe or someone like him asks, "Can I have tiger too?"
You say, "Yes".
He says, "Okay Mommy".

Your watching Fraggle Rock and he asks, "Can I have Uncle Traveling Matt too?"
You say, "Yes".

Simple right?

Other things Abe things he is getting: truck, bulldozer, zebras, 5 bikes, a talking mouse, and an airplane. This completley takes away the child's desire to cry, scream, and demand that you get them ______ (fill in blank here). They think they are going to get it! And because their attention span is so short they forget two second later.

A couple of notes on using this technique, it really only works while watching TV or movies. it doesn't work well in real life, like don't walk through the toy aisle at Target and expect that he will be okay with you saying, "yes, you can have all of those trains" while you simply walk away from them. Not cool Mom. It does work when you drive by people on the street and he asks if they can come over and play. You can say "yes" as long as the window is rolled up, because a piece of glass and a TV screen are the same thing.

After using this you will have so many things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. A happy child, who thinks you are going to give him everything in the world. Little do they know. But it's okay, they're just kids.

Warning: Over use of this parenting technique will result in children who are predisposed to petty theft, the constant wearing of yellow boots, lying, and distrust in authority figures. Use with caution.

NaBloPoMo Day 22

2010-11-22T19:32:00.000-08:00

Did you open all of your windows today? We did, along with the back door and listened to the wind and rain all evening long. It was wonderful. Do you want to know what else is wonderful? I just found this out, but you can stain hardwood floors in colors other than actual wood colors! Look at these colors. I'm thinking I am finally ready to redo our wood floors.

Oh that's right, there was an ultrasound today :)

We were almost late after stopping for celebratory gyros. There was definitely a baby in there, arms, legs, hands, and feet. It took a full hour because this child appears to be uncooperative, she kept trying to get the baby moving and it wasn't going to happen. Speaking of the ultrasound tech, I have never met a more disgruntled healthcare worker. Declan even said she was grumpy and he never says those types of things. I also caught him wathcing Skating With the Stars a little bit ago, and that is also out of character. But seriously, aren't you supposed to put on a happy face when dealing with pregnant people? Even though I was excited to see the baby I was a little nervous, a happy face would have helped. She did not smile once. She said a pitiful, "here are your photos and congrats," at the very end, but that was it.

She did happen to warn us when the bottom, legs, and possibly boy/girl parts were about to be in view. We did our best to hide our eyes, but we both admitted to peaking (I think we mostly saw legs). We have our suspicions and they conflict, so I suppose it is still a surprise. What's killing me is that the tech documented gender. So somewhere someone knows what we are having. Can it really be a surprise if someone already knows? Ahhh!!!!

When I asked Abe what he saw, he said it was a girl.

NaBloPoMo Day 21

2010-11-21T17:07:00.000-08:00

I have two more full days until those dreaded stockings have to be finished and I don't know if I would consider myself even halfway finished. Crap. These things are eating my life. I will never knit a stocking again! My poor children will not have hand knit stockings because of the torture I am putting myself through finishing these ones. The problem is knitting the same thing more than once. Heck, I can barely finish knitting a pair of socks because it involves making two of something. The same goes for mittens, gloves, etc. Which is really bad because mittens are what I've picked out to make for Declan's Christmas present. These mittens actually. I've already downloaded, cast on and nearly finished the first one. This is probably why I am not nearly as close to finishing my stockings as I would like to be.

I am trying to motivate myself in stocking knitting by telling myself I will be greatly rewarded when finished. Here's what I'm thinking reward wise:
-First of all, this is not a list of the good feelings felt from finishing either. It is about how I will spend the cold, hard cash that will come from it.
-These boots
-FIBER CLUB! from Dyeabolical Yarn
-A good hair cut
-A large amount of yarn that is not intended to be for anyone but me.
-Not Christmas presents
-Enough of this fabric or this fabric to cover my armchair along with a small Finnish woman who will do all of the measuring and sewing.
-Someone to potty train Abe.
-All of the above

The facts: I'm not making that much to afford a few of those and it will most likely be spent on Christmas presents or baby stuff. Ugh reality, why do you always win?

Tomorrow is the big ultrasound. Kind of excited, okay.... really excited. Declan even has the day off for the big event. We may find out if my chicken wing theory is right. Or, it could just be hot fudge in there, either one would be fine.

NaBloPoMo Day 18, 19, 20

2010-11-20T05:43:00.000-08:00

Day 18, visited Mom, knit all day on those horrible stockings. Started feeling sick, went to bed at 6pm

Day 19, went to work, felt really crappy, went to bed at 4pm. I think it must be some sort of stomach bug with a bit of dehydration on top. My super sweet husband spent the evening making me drink Gatorade and water.

Day 20, well it's only 7:45am. Watching the kids play music, Abe is on the banjo and Marley on the guitar. Still feeling a bit crappy, deciding what today will be like.

NaBloPoMo Day 17

2010-11-17T18:21:00.000-08:00

I will save the panties story for another day. Today I'll tell you about pants though, boy aren't you in for a treat.

I've been in great need for maternity clothes since the minute I got pregnant. My body knew exactly what to do, belly go out, hips expand, ass widen. My baby body may even be so smart that it's possible that I'm already fully dilated. On the topic of dilation, did you know that if you have your babies back to back like maybe only a year or so apart that you cervix will stay between 1 and 2 cm dilated? Crazy! Back to expanding midsections. My jeans were the first to go and I love jeans. I'm terribly picky when it comes to clothes and most of the time have a poor body image (I'm just putting it out there, and I don't want any of these "oh you're perfect" comments, that's just the way I feel). So pregnancy is tough for me. I'm constantly watching the scale, counting calories, and I swear this is the only time I ever do that. Didn't I recently mention eating a pile of wings and loads of ice cream? So maybe I give in to the pregnancy craving thing on occasion. But still, clothes shopping is really hard for me and that much more difficult while pregnant. I would love to live in sweat pants or loose dresses with leggings underneath, but I've never been a legging person. I have some pajamas with leggings and Marley and Declan both laughed at me when I put them on.

Back to my need for jeans. With Abe, I found this perfect pair of jeans, they fit like jeans should fit, and non maternity ones at that. I bet I wore those jeans almost everyday. I went to find my maternity box, filled with the perfect jeans, plus a load of other tolerable maternity wear. And when I say tolerable I say that meaning bow free. I do not like bows on maternity clothes, or ties or anything of the sort. My box was gone! Declan took it to Goodwill. He claims that he thought that was where it was supposed to go, but I think it was so we wouldn't have more kids. Ha! I got him on that one! Here I was, jeanless, with a bag of clothes from a friend, with lots of bows and ties, many cute items too. I went out and bought one of these. That has gotten me this far. The idea is you completely unbutton and unzip your jeans and put this on top of said jeans. It's a great idea, for more than just maternity wear. Thanksgiving is coming up and I think I will wear mine that time next year. The bad part with the BeBand is that as your belly expands, it wants to push down your jeans, most of mine are already lowrise and this just spells disaster.

In comes Declan to save the day. He collected on some credit card points and received $70 in gift cards to Old Navy and Gap for me to buy maternity clothes with. Woohoo! Then I printed off a coupon for $10 off my purchase, double woohoo! And now, here I am back from Old Navy feeling slightly more satisfied. I have a pair of jeans, jeans that fit, as my Dad says "fat people jeans". A couple of sweaters and tops later and I still have $10 left. But please let me complain for a minute about the selection of maternity clothes at Old Navy... their clearance rack contained only shirts with stains (not uncommon for pregnant women to stain shirts, but these are supposed to be new clothes), most of the jean sizes went 0-4 Tall to 12-18 Short and I fall in neither of those size groups, and most everything else was just so picked through. They also hide the maternity section away and it shares an area with the baby clothes, I guess appropriate, but can't we have more space?

Tomorrow I will show off some of my new finds to my Mom, with whom I get to spend the day with. I wasn't sure whether to share this or not, but I'm going to anyway... the other day I wrote a very short post about feeling like I had the wind knocked out of me, I was referencing just finding out that my Mom was going to have to go through the whole "do I have cancer again process?" She just had her biopsy yesterday (she's home recovering, because they had to go in through her neck) and she doesn't. She doesn't have cancer! She doesn't have cancer! She doesn't have cancer! Anxiety was a bit high the past couple of weeks, especially after watching her go through chemo and crap about 6 years ago for breast cancer. I'm giving this one up as a miracle, an answered prayer and many thanks to those of you who knew about this and had been keeping her in your thoughts.

NaBloPoMo Day 16

2010-11-16T11:29:00.000-08:00

NoBloPoMo is half way over and I've learned a few things about this blog as we've gone through this month. I've learned that a lot of you think it's hilarious when I give insight into my crazy family. The conversations we have, what we do, who we are etc. On that note, remind me to tell you sometime about Declan wearing women's underwear around the neighborhood while helping the neighbor find his dog.

You also like food. I like food, you like food, we will be great friends. You will appreciate dinner last night then. It started with bean soup, onions were sauteing, carrots and celery ready to hit the pan, ham hock already in. I then began thinking what will go well with ham? Beer! Beer goes well with ham. Open beer, pour in soup. Oh sweet hoppy, yeasty smell and ham! Wait! What goes well with ham and beer? Cheese! Cheese goes well with ham and beer! Drop in a load of sharp cheddar. Add some freshly baked bread. Perfection! This my friends is how I cook these days. Who knows what tonight dinner will bring. Brussel sprouts, bacon and apples? Sounds like it could work!

You also like babies, or reading about babies or other people's babies or something like that. Again, I like babies too. I want to have a houseful of babies! All at the same time! 10, 20, 30 babies! Wait, wait, wait... what am I saying?

So thanks for staying with me this month so far. The comments help me continue on with this month of constant blogging. Even the phone call from my Dad this morning about yesterday's poop post was good. You guys are great, at the end of this month let's celebrate with cake and yarn!

NaBloPoMo Day 15

2010-11-15T08:35:00.000-08:00

Parenthood, pregnancy, and blogs all go hand in hand with TMI from time to time, and this is one of those times.

I will now begin to tell you about a conversation between Abe and I this morning.

I'm in the bathroom minding my own business and Abe bursts in, as always, and he yells, "MOMMY YOU POOPY!"

I say, in my most motherly voice, "no, no sweetie I just made a tinkle."

Then he's all like, "NO, YOU POOPY MOMMY!"

Me, a little defensive, "No, it's just pee, Mommy went pee."

"YOU POOPY IN THE POTTY!"

Marley comes up, laughs and says, "You went poop Mom! That's gross!"

Back to the sweet voice, "No, no my sweetest little flowers of blooming love and joy, I just went peepee."

Then Abe, again, is all like, "POOPY, POOPY, POOPY, POOPY!"

Then, because I'm kind of loosing my cool over this whole poopy or not, scream, "LOOK IN THE TOILET, THERE IS NO POOP IN THE TOILET! PREGNANT WOMEN ONLY POOP ONCE A WEEK!"

Abe looks at me terrified and says, "I want cuppy milky."

And Marley, being the smartest one in the house most of the time, looks at me all grown up like and says, "Mom, you just argued with a two year old about poop."

And me, feeling a little beat down by my 6 year old counterpart, but still proud says, "Yes I did sweetie, and I think I won."

NaBloPoMo Day 14

2010-11-14T18:51:00.000-08:00

Everytime I think of the phrase "baby bump" I think of that Fergie song that goes something like my lumps, my humps, my lovely lady bumps.

Here is my suddenly very large, lovely, lady bump.

I have to keep telling myself that it's bigger sooner because it's #3, but geez! I didn't look like this until I was like 7 months along with Marley. This may also have something to do with all of those wings.

NaBloPoMo Day 13

2010-11-13T17:10:00.000-08:00

I'm not a hot wing person. I might eat one or two, and really it's the idea of tiny little chicken wings that scares me. Yesterday I developed the overwhelming urge for hot wings, so we went out for hot wings. Tonight, I made dinner, didn't eat much of it because I was dreaming of a pile of hot wings, not just 4 like I had last night (4 is a lot for me), but a giant, orangey-red pile of goodness. Have I mentioned what a great husband I have? He went and got me that giant pile of wings. I even had blue cheese dressing with them, and I hate blue cheese dressing. This baby is growing into a giant hot wing and I'm a bit scared of how to care for a giant, baby hot wing.

In not so messy news, Christmas knitting is still going well. I've finished half a pair of mittens, the sock for my Gaffer has tuned into a scarf, and I have picked up yarn for the Elf Slippers. All of this has to be put aside until Thanksgiving, because I totally forgot about the Christmas stocking someone is paying me to knit. Um yeah, and it's actually three, and there is no pattern so I have to figure it out from one she already had made, and it's huge, like my giant hot wing baby would disappear in this thing. So. much. to. knit.

And something fun... the lady I'm teaching the private sock class to is going to bring me a tea mushroom. She says it looks like a rotten placenta, but is very healthful. It also tastes rank, but grows in or on your tea, and then it grows another one. I'm really curious, not sure though how much rank, placenta like, mushroom tea I will actually be drinking but I'll take pictures when she brings it to me for her last lesson next week.

NaBloPoMo Day 12

2010-11-12T05:37:00.000-08:00

Ten Things

1- Happy Meals really make a kid happy. Case in point: Abe and the Happy Meal my MIL gave him yesterday. He spent the rest of the afternoon giving us hugs and proclaiming his love for everyone. He even shouted out the window to someone on the street and asked if they wanted to come to our house. They did.
2- My kids will eat three breakfasts. It usually goes: cereal, then yogurt, then toast.
3- My husband is an enabler. Twice this week he has brought home ice cream for us after the kids went to bed.
4- All the pregnant people I know are finding out what they are having and I'm getting a little frustrated that we aren't going to find out. I have two ultrasounds in the next two weeks, and I want to know!!!
5- I have a friend coming in town from Austin, TX in a week or so and I can't wait to see her.
6- Pregnancy food of the moment, English muffins with cream cheese and peanut butter.
7- At the moment we are watching Charlotte's Web before we get ready for school. We've seen in 20 times or more this month. It's the new version with Dakota Fanning, and after seeing her in that Joan Jett movie I just keep thinking she's going to sneak off to do drugs in the barn with Wilbur.
8- "Whatcha got goin' on in there?" is the newest way I've been asked if I'm pregnant. I'm not sure how to answer this question.
9- Declan and I have a date night tonight, I think we may just take a nap but tell everyone we went to dinner and saw a movie.
10- I am not naming my baby after you, people think this is a funny suggestion, I don't.

NaBloPoMo Day 9

2010-11-09T05:50:00.001-08:00

It's early, and for some reason I decided to play around with Design feature on Blogger. A preview wasn't showing up when I made changes, so I hit the "apply to blog" button and BAM, it's now permanent. I couldn't make it go back to the way it was, so I played around more, and now I'm left with this. I think I'm mostly unhappy with the fact that my header isn't centered. What a strange thing to be unhappy with.

I also just realized that I past my free account limit on Flickr, so a lot of the pictures I posted here a while ago, like a year or so have all been taken off of my blog. Time to start paying for photo sharing so I can get them back. Double ugh.

There may be fishing in the cards for Abe and I today. This St. Louis fall has been fantastic so far and you can't beat 74 Degrees in mid November.

NaBloPoMo Day 8

2010-11-08T16:11:00.000-08:00

My very honest child turned into a very helpful child today. She helped me make fajitas for dinner, fed the dog, picked up the outside toys without being asked, picked up the over turned bucket of Legos, even suggests we do a chore chart because she "really likes helping out". Gasp! We decided we needed to spend the rest of the evening watching Fraggle Rock and discussing why Doozers are around. I did a little research and Wikipedia has a lot to say about Fraggle Rock, just in case you too were interested.

Also, Abe fell asleep at 4pm. He's still sleeping, it's 6:20pm, and I have no intention of waking him up. I'm guessing we're in for a long night, or very early morning.

While Marley and I discuss the symbiotic relationship of Fraggles and Doozers I'll be working on this.....
I've been searching for the perfect baby blanket, something bright, funky, not gender specific, and this fit the bill on all of those. It's knit with sock yarn on #7s. Here's a link to the pattern. Since taking this picture I've added 3 more colors to it, and I'm kind of in love. I've given all of my attention to it, and I'm guessing there is very little chance of me getting anymore Christmas knitting finished.

NaBloPoMo Day 7

2010-11-07T17:22:00.000-08:00

NaBloPoMo Day 6, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

Declan and I are getting ready to eat strawberry ice cream topped with hot fudge and whipped cream, to reward ourselves for another wonderful day with our kids. We have great kids, but they can be way too honest at times, well mostly Marley, and honesty is a good thing, but this is getting tough. My Mom makes this green bean and tomato salad dish, it's soooo good, lemon zest, olive oil, etc. We had it a month or so ago and after listening to Marley rave about it all night long I thought I would make some the following week. I ask, "So Marley, how are the green beans." Marley answers back with, "they're not that good, not like Grandma's." Okay, this is my life right not. Declan is smart enough not to ask, but I always do.

This past Friday I made lemon bars, Marley is very excited about eating one and when she finally gets one she spits it out. Today she asked for one and I asked her about her extreme protest to the first one and she simply said, "I'm just really hungry, and this is food." Seriously?

Or there was Friday night, we were going to the visitation for my friend's grandpa and while getting ready I ask out loud, to whoever is listening, "what do you think about this?" Marley begins studying me, I know this means trouble, because this kid will tell you about anything that might be out of place. She tilts her head and rests it on her hand, she begins to open her mouth and before she can say anything I tell her, "remember, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." She nods acknowledging this request and walks out of our room. That was nearly as bad.

I'm learning that we teach our children to be honest, and that's a good quality, but at the same time I need to teach myself that if I don't want the criticism I shouldn't ask for it. There is nothing better than hearing them say that your pants look small, or that your Mother-in-Law makes better potatoes than you. It's times like this where I wonder WHY ARE WE DOING THIS AGAIN!!!??? Babies are cute, we'll go with that.

On a Christmas knitting update, things are going well. I finished the socks for my Gram, and started on a sock for my Gaffer. The baby sweater is only in need of a ribbon and blocking, and I've also started on a very special pair of socks, that I don't' want to talk about yet. And now for the ice cream!

NaBloPoMo Day 5

2010-11-05T13:36:00.000-07:00

What does almost 18 weeks pregnant look like? This is my view.

I have to say that I look officially pregnant. It's beyond the "she must have put on some weight" or the "she looks bloated" stage. I like it here. It feels good, no one is staring at my belly wondering, they look and me and say "wow! you are pregnant!" That is much better than the comment yesterday about me looking poochy.

It will be a bust weekend, and busy is what I need. I have two classes to teach and a private sock knitting lesson. Declan and I are trying to steal away one weekend soon with the kids to go out to his grandparent's house in a beautiful valley, next to a creek. I'm afraid we've lost the time where the leaves are changing colors, but this cool air makes me want to be out there so bad.

NaBloPoMo Day 4

2010-11-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those days that knocked the wind out of me. I ended it by giving my kids great big hugs and kisses, feeling little baby kicks, curling up on the sofa with my husband, and letting people know I love them. Those things work wonders.