PJ's, a tutu, and yarn

Here is my second knitted project (the hat, not the scarf)

Indulge me

Tis' the season

My brother said it's easier to read blogs that are numbered so this is just for him:

1. My to-do list is growing by the second. every time I accomplish a task and joyously cross it off I think of two more items that need to be added to the list.

2. Jackson isn't crazy about the hat I made him.

3. My laundry is piled to the ceiling because Jackson is the king of projectile vomiting. Too much information? Yeah, well you're not here to deal with it, so you can at least read about it and have sympathy for me.

4. Lilly asked me how reindeer fly and I said magic. She said "oh yeah, like the elves." I was really happy that she didn't ask me to expand on the topic.

5. Lilly's favorite thing to do these days is to redecorate the tree.

6. I relinquished a little control today and let Lilly paint her own nails.

7. If you get a card or present from me this year it will be late.

8. My Christmas wish is to watch movies with Jim while drinking hot cocoa and knitting...and if my little ones would let us...a nap.

Totally scattered

My brain is totally scattered, do you have that problem? It's a real problem at my house. Either way children are being fed and semi-clothed and in the end isn't that all that matters?

My longtime/childhood/best friend came to help us a few weekends ago and we had a great time. It's nice to have a friend that you don't have to overly clean for.

Oliver stopped by to visit last week on his way to the wild wild west. He and Lilly really wanted us to name the baby Oliver, so they've formed a bitter club about it.

Jackson is one month old now, he is getting fat, which is cute. I don't have the patience to take cute baby pictures, so I need one of my talented photographer friends to come and take some.

One of my new ways to stay sane is to visit my local yarn shop for about an hour a week. Jim is really great and takes the kids. I completed my first knitting project ever. It's a hat for me, but I thought Lilly was a cuter model. Knitting is seriously hard, but I like the way it looks for some projects. My next project is a sweater for Jackson. I am going to make it in the 1-2 year size so I have plenty of time to be frustrated, give up, restart the project, and possibly finish it without too much pressure.

We were at the grocery store today and every time the cart would bump the baby would stir and Lilly kept telling me that I was waking him up. She was very concerned and finally yelled at me "Mom, you're really freaking him out!" That is my funny moment for the day.

Jack attack

Jackson is three weeks old tomorrow, where did the time go? Mostly it went to sleepless nights and days with a lot of screaming and crying from all of us, but isn't he cute?

Lilly was so excited to leave the house this morning with promises of singing and friends at our library singing time. As I was driving to the library I drove past the health clinic and remembered that we had appointments 20 minutes earlier to have the swine flu vaccine. I had totally forgot and made a hasty u-turn into the clinic lot. Poor Lilly not only had to miss the promised singing time but got tricked into a nasal vaccine and a shot in the arm. There was again a lot of screaming and crying. It kind of seemed like I tricked her into getting into the car with promises of the library, but honestly I forgot. Oh well, we got pizza afterwards and that made it a little better.

Halloween

Pumpkin by Jim

Introductions

Jackson Rex born on 10-28-09

7lbs 9 oz, 20 in.

cutest in the patch

It's time

In the past 30-45 days I crocheted 10 hats, 3 scarves, a headband, baby booties, flowers, and also 4 hats that I made and then undid because I didn't like how they turned out.

I am done crocheting hats for a long time.

I am hoping that this is some cosmic sign that the baby will be coming any minute because I have run out of the desire to make anything.

The baby needs to come soon so that I don't end up in jail. Don't you think there should be a law to not directly address a 9 month pregnant woman? Several helpful strangers told me that the baby isn't coming any time soon because of how I am carrying. Then a woman said "So you're due around Christmas?" she almost got a punch in the face just for thinking that I should be pregnant that much longer. The cable guy came today and asked me twice if I had satelite, he almost got a punch in the face for not listening to my answer the first time, and why would I be calling the cable guy if I had sattelite?? I don't have time to be repeating myself to strangers. When I heard myself telling Jim that I can't be held accountable for my actions I knew it was time for the baby to come.

I don't want to be mean and hateful, but I can't seem to avoid it.

We took a time out to a local preserve yesterday and Jim snapped some cute photos of Lilly, and one of me with a fake smile.

Happy Fall

My model Johnny wearing my new fall hat. (Photo by Jessamyn)



My model Lilly wearing the leaves from our tree.

A little worn out

I have avoided talking about my pregnancy on my blog for many reasons. One of them is that I am just a plain miserable pregnant person, my blog has been a little quiet because I don't have anything nice to say, at all.

Lately my nights are filled with fake labor and my days are filled with my three year old peppering me with "WHY" questions. I love my baby girl and I am grateful (blah, blah) but on no sleep I simply can't handle the why questions.

I have tried answering the questions logically, I have tried answering the questions with a silly response, I have tried responding with questions, I have tried "Because I said so. Now stop talking." I have even referred her to google.

Alas, I remain in why purgatory. My three year old has outsmarted me with her why's.

I wish I had something different to post

Nothing new around here, I continue to psychotically crochet hats and scarves and come up with new yarn projects. I wont show you because then it will only add to the embarrassment of my uncontrolled yarn hobby. Come on though, doesn't this picture make you want to have a yarn hobby too??



picture from www.purlbee.com

A long winter's nap in a super cute cap

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled down for a long winter's nap.....

Yes, I know, it's not even Halloween yet. However, I am apparently destined to spend the rest of my pregnant days making Christmas crafts. In my mind I will never be able to accomplish anything again with a new baby and a toddler. So I have to hurry and get it all done, and then I have this compulsive need to show all of you. Sigh.

p.s. Yes, I think it is super creepy to have dolls model your hats. There are no heads small enough to model my hat and it just doesn't look as cute on the floor.

Check

I can check a few things off my massive to-do list. Unfortunately the things I can check off are on the list of things that aren't necessary. Oh well, I am enjoying my procrastination. I think I am nesting as a few people suggested, but I better turn that nesting into actually getting ready for the baby to arrive this month. (You know like a name for the baby, a bed, clothes, a room...just stuff like that)

To do:

1. Make coordinating hats for Lilly and baby - check!

2. Make hat for Johnny (modeled by Lilly) - Check!

Losing my mind

How to know you're losing it....


Wake up late and decide to make banana bread before breakfast.



Then make pancakes for breakfast.



Then make a grocery list and make phone calls to hire friends to gut your basement.


Go to the store and decide that you will be making all your Christmas gifts this year for all 20 people on your list, and buy all the supplies at the store.


Come home and make a hot lunch, but get distracted by printing out patterns for said Christmas gifts, burn lunch and start over.


Rent a movie to watch before going to work while working on Christmas gifts.


Stop all productivity to check email, surf the internet for patterns, blog, and take pictures of Lilly and Julia pretending to be Rapunzel.



All before 2pm.

Two posts in one day? There's a reason

While I was at work tonight Jim and Lilly picked apples from our neighbors tree and then spent a few hours making their first pie...100% from scratch.

I came home from work to find the most delicious apple pie. Seriously, those tart apples from our neighbor combined with Jim's baking ways were delicious. We might have to start stealing bushels of apples (although these apples were NOT stolen).






I don't know if you can tell, but my shirt says "Get Fit." I thought it was very ironic next to the tub of ice cream and my plate full of pie.

Fall musings.

Are you excited about fall? It's my favorite season. As soon as fall hits I want to eat apples, winter squash, soups, and drink cider. Every single fall I make at least one attempt at a butternut squash soup, and every single year it turns out wretched. I use a different recipe each time and each time it tastes exactly like baby food, not matter what I do. I am starting to think that I don't really like butternut squash. Does anyone have any butternut squash recipes that don't taste like baby food??

On another food note, I come to the topic of pies. I am not a pie maker - at all. Oddly enough this is the only thing Jim has ever asked me to make. He has even lamented over the fact that I don't make him pies. He even used the mom card one time (you know..."My mom makes pies"). You can imagine how that went over. Pastry and pie crusts just don't interest me enough to properly learn the right technique or to practice enough so they don't look horrible.

Last night Jim announced that since I wont make him pies he is going to become a master pie baker. Now, that is the exact reason I married him. He knows it's smarter to do it himself then to try and make me do it. I told him I had a no fail pie crust recipe that I had not tried because I was pretty sure it would fail. He looked right at me and said "I want my pie crust to fail over and over until I get it perfect. I need Martha Stewart's recipe."

That is determination. It's about time someone made some pies around here. Just in time for fall!

I realized that this weekend I am enjoying the benefits of small town life, shhh....don't tell anyone.

Last night we all went to the drive-in movie theater (the only movie theater in town) and while Lilly slept on pillows between us, Jim and I watched Julie and Julia. It was a very enjoyable movie and I loved watching it from my car. The movie totally inspired me, but to do what, I am not sure. It made me wish three things: that my name was Julie; that I had come up with the idea to cook my way through Julia Childs recipes that inspired the film, and that I could cook at all (I mean really cook, not assemble casseroles). Jim and I both agreed that we need to find a passion that both Julie and Julia had. Although, at my current quarter-life crisis I have no idea what that passion is, nor do I have any idea what to do with my life.

After a very late night we woke up and went to a local cafe to eat quiche and scones for breakfast. That made me wish that I owned a fabulous little bakery/eatery in town, or that I could at least make delicious quiche and scones.

Both of these events made me appreciate my small town and inspire me to find a passion.

For today I am going to work on a hat for Lilly, enjoy the sunshine, and make smores in our fire pit tonight. My quest to find my life calling continues, but in the mean time I have plenty to keep me occupied in my small town life.

Sick Week

I've spent most of the past week sick in bed, but I actually spent that sick time quite constructively. Thanks to YouTube I taught myself to knit (only one type of stitch) but it was quite an accomplishment. Knitting boggles my mind a bit. I decided that it would take me a really long time until I could knit well enough to make something to wear, so I found this cute little crochet pattern for a baby hat on etsy from holland designs.


The pattern was this darling unassuming baby hat that looked so sweet. I finished it and can now tell you that it was one of the hardest projects I have completed. I think I could have finished an afghan in the time it took me to make this hat. Here it is in all it's imperfect glory, but trust me when I tell you my little boy will wear this every day until his head stretches it out and breaks it.


I say it was sick time well spent.
Since we have all been sick, I am behind on everything - including blogging. I never put up pictures of our trip to Boston to visit my brother-in-law, his wife, and two adorable children. So here is one photo of Lilly with her cute cousin Abbey from our lunch break at Mark Twains house. They had a great time together.

My day with the swine flu

This past Sunday morning I woke up with a sore throat, which developed into coughing and sneezing, a.k.a. your common (miserable) cold. By Monday I was full on miserable and by the time Tuesday rolled around I was in serious sick mode.

On that very same Tuesday I went to my previously scheduled pregnancy appointment to check on the baby. I told the nurse that I had been feeling sick with a sore throat, coughing, and sneezing with a very low grade fever.

She backed her chair up from me and said "Did they give you a mask at the front desk?" I clearly had no mask on my face, and said, "No." She said, "I'll be right back" and almost ran out of the room. Only to return with a mask for me. She kind of threw the mask at me from a distance and said, "You need to wear this since you have the symptoms of swine flu. I would help you put it on but I don't want to mess up your hair."

What? Really? I saw the swine flu fear in her eyes.

Then my doctor came in to tell me that my primary clinic was totally booked checking people for the swine flu so I needed to go straight to the ER. What? Seriously? No, I just came in to hear the baby's heart beat. I asked her if I really had to go to the ER and she said I did. I asked her again just to make sure she wasn't confused.

Fine. Lilly and I walked over to the ER only to be taken to a special room for suspicious swine flu victims. Then over the next three hours I talked to various medical professionals who all had the same question. "Why are you here? Did someone tell you to come here?" I explained that my OB made me come and that I would NEVER go to the ER in the middle of the day because I had a cold. As I got crankier and hungrier waiting for the stupid swine flu test, Lilly asked more and more questions. "Why is there a bed in here? Why are the outlets red? Why does that man have to come here? Why do you have to wear that mask? Why do you take the mask off every time they shut the door? Why do they have a sink in here? Is this a kitchen?" You get the point.

They finally did the horrible swine flu culture tube-down-the-nose and released me home with a discharge summary for the common cold and a promise of lab results in 24 hours. Even they knew it wasn't swine flu. Although they could have had the decency to print out information on the swine flu since I had just wasted the last three hours of my life wearing a mask to keep my filthy swine germs to myself.

We had to wait all day today for the test results to come in. All of us had to stay home so we didn't infect anyone with our possible swine flu virus.

In the end, shocking to all, I tested negative for any flu virus whatsoever (even swine). I am still sick with my common cold, Jim and Lilly are sick, and we are a house full of germs. However, we no longer need to worry that we infected our entire church congregation and the shoppers at Babies R Us with our swine flu last weekend.

After all was said and done, I would have preferred to have the swine flu. Would have made for a much better ending to my story.

Knit

Jim told me I had to take down his birthday post; so I will just put a new post up that pushes the birthday post down the page.

When I was 12 I learned how to crochet, and ever since then I have dabbled with it here and there. I have made blankets and some hats, and even some teddy bear clothes (when I was 13). The truth is I have never been that crazy about crocheted items (I love baby blankets and baby accessories, but that is kind of it). What I really want to do is knit. Why you ask? Because, from my view, all the cool patterns involve knitting. You know, the patterns that don't involve a granny square afghan, or a tea cozie, or a hot pad.

Then a few weeks ago a friend loaned me "The Friday Night Knitting Club."

I am really enjoying this book and it made me want to knit even more. I have asked a lot of friends and neighbors near by to teach me, but no luck. So today I took the plunge and bought a pair of knitting needles. I am determined to learn via the library and youtube.

I just thought it would be the perfect new project/procrastination tool to avoid housework, house maintenance, responsibilities, etc. I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy 30th Birthday Jim

It's Jim's birthday today! He's a great dad and husband, I love you Jim!

Hurry and check out this picture of him doing his last sporting event in his 20's

(before he makes me take it down).

House update by Jessamyn

Ok here are a few photos I snapped really fast this morning before the batteries in my camera died. This is just so you can all see Jessamyn's handi-work. This first picture is in our living room. You can see the pillows she made and the lamp shade she made. She also hung our family pictures, which you can't really see from the glare.

This next picture is the other side of the living room, or the music room/library. Jessamyn also made that lamp shade and the curtains, and organized my books by color.

This is the other side of the music room/library/fancy corner.

This is the wall along the entry way, we put up a shelf since we're short on a console table.

That's all the pictures for now.

Update

It always seems like we're trying to get back to normal around here; maybe that's our normal. Johnny and Jessamyn left last week and now we have to get on with life and get back to normal. Pretty soon a new baby will come into the picture and then it will take a really long time to get back to normal. Maybe we don't have a normal anymore.

Jessamyn did wonders to our house and as soon as I remember I am going to take fabulous pictures to post here so you can see what she did. I might even start extending invitations for visitors sometime soon.

I left my stroller on the screened in porch, thinking that the porch worked like a garage, but it doesn't. The stroller has been taken over by mold and I now sadly have to replace it. On another note, I am now to the point in my pregnancy where anemia takes over and I just want to eat ice all day long. There are very specific types of ice that I crave and ice from my freezer simply wont do. I know other women who go through this, so I am not totally crazy.

Summer is winding down, at least that's the way the weather looks around here. The kids go back to school tomorrow and I want to buy some new shoes and school clothes (even though none of us are in school).

I'll still be searching for my normal this week, hope you found yours.

One more quick post

Amusement Park Fun

Dress up

My mom is very distressed that my sister and I are neglecting our blogs during her stay here. What can I say? One slightly crazy pregnant woman and her sister, two children, and one poor husband make for an insane house. For the first time in a few weeks J and the kids are sleeping and I am awake, so I thought I would steal a few minutes for a blog update.

Johnny has discovered that girls like to dress up, and he kind of likes it too. We came home with some free giant candy cane decorations for Christmas from an antique shop and Lilly knew just what to do. She would be Mary and Johnny would be Joseph.

Although I don't think Mary and Joseph fought over the shepherds hook.

Taking some time off

Johnny and Jessamyn are here for a few weeks...I'm taking a little break from the internet.

6 Years