Journal: Real Spring

NB: I started this on Monday. So much for efficient blogging.

Out my window: 52, overcast, but it is supposed to get into the mid-seventies today. Hooray! The last couple of weeks have been beautiful, except for some cold rain a couple of days last week. I know I am a weather whiner, but man, this was the longest winter ever.

Clothing myself in: Jeans, old teal Old Navy T-shirt and a tan cardigan.

Around the house: The Spring cleaning by room has been going well, but not quite at as quick of a pace as I would like.  Our room took about two weekends. The laundry room took several days but I worked on it during the week. It is awesome. Everything is easily accessible, easy to put back in the right place, not cluttered.  I still need to go through the old bills and file or destroy, but other than that, it is pretty great.

The toddler: We have been back and forth on the sleeping since last post. Which, I should be very grateful that there has been any "forth". I am still pretty stumped as to why. I started keeping a food and poo diary (gross, I know, but you do what you gotta do) and there were some things that seemed correlated. Cutting out peanut butter seemed to improve his sour poo issue almost all the way. Well, until this weekend. sigh.

And, perhaps by coincidence, or not, the four times I have skipped giving him a probiotic in yogurt, he has woken up at 4:15. Other than that, we have seen a the 4:00 hour a whole lot less, and even a few days in a row of after 6. I am still obsessing about the difference in those days because I WANT MORE OF THEM. If I could replicate those days precisely, including activity, clothes and food so that he would sleep better, I totally would.  I sometimes wonder if this is all making me a little bit on the crazy side.

The kiddos: Most exciting: Isaac's First Holy Communion was yesterday. It was a really beautiful, wonderful weekend.  Joe's parents were able to make it, the weather on Saturday and Sunday was fantastically gorgeous and my boy was happy. He looked so handsome. And grace. So much grace.

Two more weeks of school! So exciting :)

Crafting: Got my deadline project done. It was a scarf for our sweet babysitter/ housesitter who entered a convent on April 27th.  Plain black scarf. I am so glad we got a chance to meet her and have her get to know our family and to get to know her. She will be very much missed but I look forward to her prayers for us.

In the kitchen: Grilled bratwurst and pasta salad tonight. Homemade pizza tomorrow with turkey sausage, sauteed onion, sweet peppers and mushrooms. Yuuuum.

Bringing me joy: The sunshine on my face, warm breeze that smells like pine. Organized laundry room, Kolbe pup's memorial garden, kneeling next to my boy as he received his first Communion. Linens on the clothesline, and sleeping in them the first night.  Spending time with Joe's parents and seeing how much my children love them and they love the children.  I could go on.  Spring brings many things that bring me joy- it might have to be it's own post.

Picture to share: Sweet Celine came to have breakfast with us a few days before her entrance to the convent.  She is wearing the scarf I knit her :)

Little G's hat

 I have had this yarn for years and as I mentioned in my last post, I have some pants I made Liam out of it.  It is a pretty sturdy yarn, great for baby wear if you don't mind handwashing.  I love how this hat turned out.

A wee bit of crafting

I actually started this blanket in January.  I have had partial skeins of yarn that I love from soakers I have knit over the years and I wanted to do something really special and beautiful with them.  So I started knitting this pinwheel blanket, not actually knowing who to give it to.  I picked it back up this summer and realized I had the perfect person to give it to :)  A good friend (and fellow knitter) is having a baby in November and I thought she would really like it.  Can't wait to see her bundle of preciousness all wrapped up in it. 

 Issy's pinwheel sweater.  It turned out pretty generously sized for her, but that is okay with me.  That just makes the knitting more worth my while.

 One of my godsons just had his first birthday so I knit him a winter hat.  Hopefully he isn't as hat-averse as George is.  Need to mail this. Today, perhaps.

Another good friend had a baby a month ago and I thought this sweet little owl print was just too adorable not to be made into a blanket.  And I had some blanket binding from George's Curious George blanket that I made last year that I knew would match just perfectly.  

Back log of knitting goodness

I finished this one in time for Christmas.  So soft and it fits really well.  Can't wait to wear it again this winter!

Adelle's Pinwheel: 

Button detail:

I knit this for one of my godsons.  I finished it in October and it waited for buttons until January.  

Issy's hat, four years in the making.  Modeled by Adelle.

A hat that will match my light blue coat.  Same pattern as Issy's.  Mine is also being modeled by Adelle.

I actually knit these slippers for Isabelle, but 1) My gauge was too tight and 2) I am pretty sure they would have been too small, even if my gauge was correct.  Just not quite as small.  Good thing I have Adelle to wear them instead.  

As I look at the calendar, I am wondering where 2011 went. It seems that the older I get, the faster time goes. I remember being a little kid, sitting in school and thinking how slowly time went and wanting it to go faster so I could get to be grown up and do all sorts of things. Not sure it is as glamorous as I thought it was :)

The first ten months of 2011 are a blur of nausea, fatigue, doctor's appointments and newborn days. So exhausting.

Totally worth it.

George is pretty awesome. He was sooooo intense at first, I was a little concerned that I couldn't keep up that kind of pace and not go crazy. But he is kind of pure joy now, for the most part. When he is awake, he is pretty easygoing. He likes to be held, but he also really likes to sit across from you and talk and coo and make eye contact. He has this really goofy little laugh if you tickle his cheek or rub your fingers on his belly. He likes his siblings over the top crazy attempts to make him laugh. He usually ends up taking a pretty good nap in the swing most days, which has been really nice.

He's still a big boy. Every so often, I pick him up and it seems like he gained weight from the last time I put him down (which is never more a couple of hours). We will have to do a weigh in soon- I would be interested to see where he is at at almost three months. He is now filling out 6-9 month clothes. After having my little peanut Adelle, it is nice not to have to worry about weight gain.

I have no idea if he will continue to be easygoing or how things will progress over the next few months. It has been my experience that you just never can tell with babies. Easy babies can be challenging toddlers. High maintenance babies can be easy toddlers. And they are all kind of tricky when they are three ;) I will just be thankful for this mellow time right now.

In crafting news- instead of trying to find tapers that will inevitably not fit in my Advent wreath, I decided to make another Advent wreath. In fairness, many of the baubles were falling off my wreath since I have had it a number of years and the kids tend to mess with things. I used this idea from Catholic Icing: Making your own pink and purple Advent candles. Per the suggestion, I got all my materials from the Dollar Tree and was able to do it super cheap. Which makes the frugal part of me very happy.

I even got the ribbon at Dollar Tree. Who knew you could get ribbon so cheap? Since I could only find purple little decorations, I used some spray adhesive to glue loose pink colored glitter onto the silver ribbon to incorporate the rose color.

George took an excellent nap on Saturday afternoon, so I was able to make his Curious George blanket. I ended up cutting it down to the flannel size, for a very warm blanket. Then I put blanket binding around the edges and I loooooove it. So much. I want to look at it all the time. My corners are not perfect (to say the least) but they are passable.

Even he likes it

I knit this hat last spring, my sister Michelle knit the earflaps on for me a month ago and I finished the pom pon the other day. Like.

The sweater is coming along. I finished the first sleeve yesterday and it is on the needle with the body. Knitting second sleeve. I might actually get it finished (assuming it ends up fitting well, also)

Picot edge. This pattern actually calls for a straight edge at the bottom, neck and sleeves. But I like the picot edgy for a slightly "dressier" look, so I am just doing the straight edge at the bottom and the picot on the sleeves and neck.

A post four years in the making

In October 2007, I taught Issy to knit. She has slowly, every few months since then, worked on knitting a rectangle, which would eventually become this purse:

Last week I was going through my yarn basket and I found her knitting and she set to it and finally finished it. To say she was excited about finishing it would be an understatement. She was elated. It needed a few finishing touches though. We sewed up the sides.

Bought a pretty button,

Sewed in a liner and added a little clasp for the button,

And she has a purse that she knit herself!

Hats and pants and messed up soakers, oh my!

A hat knit for Isaac in December. Clementine ate his hat last year. Simple and handsome.

I actually knit two identical ones for my friend and my sister-in-law who had baby girls in October and January, respectively. Some handsome little longies knit up for a friend who just had a baby last month. Some Manos I bought at the yarn store in Jackson when we first moved a couple years ago. The yarn is so beautiful!

Stupid soaker, lol. I knit it in August, in one day working at the yarn store. Took me forever to do one cuff. Forever and a day to do the second cuff. Right after I finished the second cuff, I realized that I did it in the wrong needle size (about 4 sizes too big, to be precise) and I just haven't ripped it out and did it all over again. Seriously, it would take me about 45 minutes tops. Sometimes my ridiculousness about things astounds even me.

Some knitting

Mr. Bear. Made him for as a baby shower gift for a friend who is having a boy in March/ April. My first knitted toy!!

Swiffer cover. I haven't actually used it yet, but i am nerdily excited about this. Now I won't have to pay out the nose for the disposable ones!

I know. I know.

Yup. Over a month.

I don't know what is wrong with me, I just haven't much felt like blogging. I mean, I guess I have. I compose some great blogposts in the shower or when I am laying in bed at night falling asleep. Sometime between the shower (and bed) and the computer, it usually gets lost though.

Life is fine. Christmas was busy. Homeschooling is going well, even Liam has been very participatory lately. Adelle grows and grows, though no teeth yet.

Bah, I don't know what to say. I'll post pictures:I love this little sleeper on her, it is one of my faves.

She is finally outgrowing her newborn/small soakers so I needed to make her a new one! This one actually has the circumference of a small but the rise of a medium. My sis gifted me the yarn which is three ply purewoolMy sweater is (and has been for a couple of months!) finished. I have yet to get a satisfactory picture so this one will have to do.

How did I miss posting this?

In May I started this sweater for Adelle to wear this fall. I was going to use it as a "labor project" but I didn't really feel like knitting while I was in labor. (I could have, I just wasn't in a knitting mood). So I finished it sometime in July. This past week I decided to crochet the edge and add buttons and ta da! here it is. I like how it turned out, but it will probably fit her more like next spring, the arms are quite long even though I did the 6 month size and I got gauge.
After I crocheted the edge in the black yarn, I took it to the yarn store to find buttons and these were just perfect! A little bit of color on the black. It is kind of a fun and funky sweater :)

Some knitting

I took a break from knitting my sweater to work on a few things for Adelle that needed some working on. I started this sweater in um, like... March? February? I know I was working on it when I went to Wichita in March, it has been a while. Such a cute pattern, but then I put it down and didn't feel motivated to finish it, but I picked it back up this weekend and ta da! The pattern is here: The Seamless Kimono Sweater

She has started to outgrow her newborn sized soakers (um, actually, so *started* outgrowing them a while ago, but I have been yanking them on anyways) so I have started to knit some bigger ones for her. She is appreciative.

Michelle gave me some longies that she had knit for Annika, but she doesn't quite fit in them yet. And since it will soon be longies weather, I needed to make some for the interim- and here is my first pair. Love the color!

Here she is modeling them. I was taking too long to get ready for our hike, so she fell asleep on the bed waiting for me.

Craftiness!

I still have a couple of posts to finish up my Kansas pictures, but I am now getting behind on blogging current things, so here are some things we have been up to lately.

The nesting is in full force! Starting in my second trimester, I began to knit a wool diaper cover stash for the baby. And here it is! I can't promise that I won't knit anything else (in fact, as I was going through her dresses, I realized I really don't have a blue or green one, so I might need to do make those) but this is a good start I think :) She has two Sheepy sacks in the top corner for easy nighttime diaper changes. The four covers next to those are size small. And the ones on the bottom row are all newborn size. My sister Michelle knit three of them and gave them to me when she found out she was having a boy- lucky us :)
I have also been working on sewing some cloth diapers for the babe. Here are six newborn size fitted diapers (absorbent but not waterproof- used with a cover, for those who aren't familiar with diaper lingo) I have four size small diapers completed, and I am aiming for twelve of those. I am going to get some prefolds and contours and viola! diaper stash complete!
Here is my trusty little sewing buddy. He likes to sit by my sewing machine on a stool and watch me as I sew, and on occasion "help". He must be growing up because up until recently I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that he would sit next to me for what amounts to 30 or 45 minutes at a time and just chat and behave himself. *sniff* My baby is getting so big!

He really likes the cloth diapers for "Baby Dell" He is holding a whole stack of them here.

While I was in Kansas, Joann Fabrics was having a sale on their snuggle flannel, in all sorts of cute prints . Who can pass up a bargain? So I bought some that I hemmed and made into receiving blankets for when the wee one is born. When she outgrows the need for receiving blankets, they can easily be recycled into material for larger cloth diapers.

Here is a blanket that trimmed with ribbon, similar to one I made for a friend a couple of months ago.

All my little helpers. They were enjoying tea and trail mix while I cut out some fabric.