I can do this!

Thanks for all the kind words, everyone! Life just keeps getting crazier. Brian leaves for Texas on Monday. Our house is being listed for sale on Friday. Norm seems to maybe be catching on to breastfeeding. John continues to love on Norm, but is acting up some. I'm sleep deprived, but have a LOT of cleaning to do in the house this week. Luckily, my sister is here for the weekend and my mom arrives tomorrow for 10 days. I can do this! If I say it, it must be true. Right? Needless to say, I will not be blogging (or knitting) much (any) in the near future. To everyone whose blog I used to read, I hope to return sometime soon. I miss reading about your daily adventures. Hope you all are well.

Life, Crazy but Good!

Wow, I don't even know how long it's been since I slowed down long enough to blog, but a ton has happened.


B went for an interview in TX and got a job offer 4 days later. He left for a week of training a week after he got the offer. He's home right now (for about a week) and then heads to Texas on Monday to start work. The job is a good one and we're really excited.



Meanwhile, I'm dealing with getting the house ready to put it on the market and dealing with all the relocation people (movers, realtors, etc.). Oh, yeah--and I had my baby!

N M arrived about 2 weeks early at 12:43AM on May 17th (after a nice easy labor and delivery)! He is a healthy little guy and arrived at 7 lb 10 oz and 20 in. N is named after B's grandfather (N) and my dad (M).



J is very excited about "Baby N" and is constantly kissing, petting, and otherwise touching him.


So much to talk about, but for now I have to go do some nursing. Hope you enjoy all the pics of my sweet boys!





Edited 12/3/08

Back in Bed

Thanks for your thoughts and comments on my last post. We seem to be back on track and back in bed. John only had two rough days and then we fixed the getting out of bed problem. On Sunday, after about five minutes of me standing outside his door and catching him each time he slid out of bed, John gave up and took his nap. Ever since then he has stayed in bed when I put him down and not gotten out of bed until Brian or I came to get him. Hopefully this trend will continue. I feel so lucky that our "rough" time didn't last any longer. I'm probably jinxing myself by saying that it's over, but I'm too excited not to share the good news. Naptime and bedtime are returning to their normal happy time for both of us. I think it helped that I let John climb in and out of bed a lot in the getting ready for bed process (to pick out and put away books). It seemed to help him get it out of his system before bedtime. We will see. Keep your fingers crossed.

On the knitting front, I have finally made it to the end of the yoke of John's rainbow-colored cardigan. I haven't been knitting much between trying to get the house ready to put it on the market and just being REALLY tired. Unfortunately, the yoke is about 1 1/2 inches longer than it should be. I'm trying to decide what to do. I'm meeting the stitch gauge for the pattern, but apparently not the row gauge. It didn't list any row gauge so there was no way to know that until now. Hmmm... Any thoughts?

Oh, no!

John's been sleeping in his big boy bed (a twin bed with bed rail) for about a month and a half now. Today, he realized he could get out of bed on his own. He did it at naptime which wasn't a BIG deal as I was on my way to get him up anyway. Unfortunately, he then did it twice at bedtime which was much more distressing. Apparently, my unhappiness was apparent to him and he did not try again after his second return to bed. But who knows what the future will bring. He has a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night and think it's time to get up. He's also been trying to get up at 6AM recently, but I leave him in bed long enough to get in a shower. I'm afraid he's going to be jumping out of bed and wandering around in the middle of the night or early in the morning. Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

Top Ten Tuesday: Talking Edition

First, a quick life update:

I donated all four bags of lovely acrylic/nylon yarn to Warm Up America. There should be some lovely machine washable, colorful, fun afghan squares appearing in the near future. I hope they will be enjoyed.

We're still busy painting and organizing and donating and rearranging and packing things in our house in an attempt to get it ready to put on the market--even though we don't yet know when or where we're moving. We're making progress (despite the fact I only work on it during naptime or after John goes to bed--when I'm not napping myself). Meanwhile, the house is even more of a mess than it was before.

We finally moved some furniture into the nursery (formerly our guest room) today. Since this next little guy is due in 4 weeks, I guess it's about time. It's all very exciting.

John continues to be a great source of entertainment. His vocabulary grows daily although his pronunciation is still not quite there-- and thus this week's Top Ten Tuesday topic:

Top Ten Things I Love to Hear My Two Year Old Say

10. Mommy (The good mommy, not the whiny mommy.)

9. Jelly Beans (He just rediscovered his Easter candy.)

8. Wee Winkie, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo and Noopny (To clarify, the first one is Wee Willie Winkie and the last one is Snoopy.)

7. Amen (We've started saying his prayers at night before bed.)

6. Okey-dokey

5. Please and Thank you (or "pease" and "dank you.")

4. Bless You (There has been a lot of sneezing in our house recently, but now even the dogs get a nice "bless you" from John.)

3. Daddy vacuum (Yes, my son thinks the vacuum is daddy's and I encourage that idea. Yes, my husband does know how to use it and uses it on a regular basis. I am SO lucky!)

2. Stinky pits (Don't ask, but it's really funny.)

1. Love you!

A Little Knitting, A Lot of Little Man

Another finished knitting project! and less than a month late for my sister's birthday. Not too bad if I do say so myself. I finished my sister's Rusted Root. Besides some initial gauge issues, the whole project went pretty smoothly. Hopefully, my sister will find that it fits well and she enjoys wearing it. Hopefully!
I used a new yarn for this one: Berroco Comfort (Worsted Weight, 50% Super Fine Nylon/50% Super Fine Acrylic). I picked the yarn because it is machine washable and dryable and my sister is not one to want to deal with hand-washing her clothes. I hope this yarn will make this something that she will wear often without too much fuss when it comes to wash time. The yarn was okay to work with. It is made up of ten or some tiny strands which is a bit annoying. It is very easy to miss one string and then have a loose loop. Occasionally, there were broken strings as well which was annoying as it left a little "snag." I'm not sure if I would use this yarn again.


Project Details:
Pattern: Rusted Root by Zephyr Style
Yarn: Berroco Comfort (3 skeins, with 1/2-1/3 skein leftover)
Needles: Size 7 circular for body, Size 5 circular for ribbing at neck and waist, size 6 doublepoint for ribbing on sleeves
Size: XS
Modifications: I added some extra rounds in the yoke to accommodate my sister's long torso. This affected the sleeve decreases. To keep the sleeve cuffs from being too tight, I only went down one needle size instead of two. I did the shaping a bit differently too. I did some decreases to the waist and then did a few increases to try to make it a fit my sister would enjoy more. Hope it worked!

In non-knitting news, we've been having some lovely weather again so we've been outside as much as possible. Outside, my camera works since the flash isn't required so I have some new pics of John. Here he is with his latest obsession: bubbles! I splurged on some bubbles from Gymboree (we were there for a birthday party) and they are well worth the extra money. He LOVES them!


I also got John a new sunhat from Target. He immediately pulled it over his eyes and started doing the "hat dance." You have to see this one. It's hilarious! Enjoy this little movie of my little man.



Hope you all are doing well. Got to go get work cleaning my house. Hope you've had a lovely weekend!

Top Ten Tuesday: You Know You Want It Edition, AKA Free to a Good Home

Well, there is still no definite location or time line decided yet, but it is definite that we will be moving. In preparation for what ought to be a really "fun" time (selling a house and moving with a 2 year-old, a newborn and two dogs), I am trying to declutter all areas of my house. This includes my stash. For the non-knitters who read this blog, your "stash" is your collection of yarn. The stash is an almost living creature. It starts small, but slowly (or, in some cases, not so slowly) grows until it becomes so big that you have to part with some of it. As stashes go, I think mine is pretty modest. A lot of it is leftover yarn (leftover from a completed project). There are a few impulse buys in there--yarns I thought I would use, but never did. I'm much better now. I find the project first and THEN buy the yarn. And, well, as most of you know, most of my stash is made up of ... acrylic. Yes, I know it is a dirty word in some knitting circles. But it's machine-washable and usually inexpensive and it comes in so many varieties. But enough of my excuses for my stash--as I mentioned I'm decluttering all parts of my life including my stash. I have 4 grocery bags of yarn that I am getting rid of--all yarns that I loved as a newbie knitter, but no longer see myself using anytime in the foreseeable future. I thought about just dumping it all in one of the donation barrels for Warm Up America. I think it's a great thing and I've always meant to knit some squares, but I've never gotten around to it. Anyway, before I go dump my lovely yarns on the unsuspecting charitable knitters of the world, I thought I would showcase it here in case any of my blog friends want to take a walk on the wild side of crazy acrylic (or polyester) yarn. Maybe you know some children who need some yarn to learn to knit with. Maybe you know some little girls who would love some flashy scarfs or hats. Or maybe you're just feeling wild and crazy and want to make a different kind of knit. Anyway, here we go. This week's Top Ten Tuesday:

Top Ten Reasons You Want My Destash (Free to a Good Home)

10. Lion Brand Homespun: "A richly textured yarn designed for afghans, throws and your favorite fashions." 98% Acrylic/2% Polyester. Bulky weight. Machine washable and dryable. A full skein is 185 yards. All but two of these are partials.

9. Bernat Softee Baby "Lemon Sparkle". 90% "Gentle Soft" Acrylic/10% Acetate. Sport/DK weight. Gauge: 22 stitches x 30 rows = 4 inches on Size 6 needles. Machine washable and dryable. 8. Yummy charcoal gray goodness. Bernat Soft Boucle "Grey Shades." 98% Gentle Soft Acrylic/ 2% Polyester. Machine washable and dryable. Gauge: 15 stitches x 22 rows = 4 inches on size 10 needles.

7. Bernat Matrix is a "Light" ladder yarn. 62% Nylon/ 38% Polyester. Machine washable and dryable. 140 yards. Gauge: 24 stitches x 34 rows = 4 inches on size 6 needles.

Lion Moonlight Mohair (partial skein). 35% Mohair/ 30% Acrylic/ 25% Cotton/ 10% Metallic. Gauge: 12 stitches x 18 rows = 4 inches on size 10.5 needles.

6. Patons Divine (approximately 4 skeins in Good Earth [actually a dark brown, not the gray that it appears in this photo], 1 skein Orangina, 1 skein Floral Fantasy). Bulky weight. 79.5% Acrylic/ 18% Mohair/ 2.5% Polyester. Gauge: 12 stitches x 16 rows = 4 inches on size 8 needles. 142 yards.

5. Lots more Patons Divine (partial skeins) as well as some full skeins (1 skein Shrimp, 1 skein Coconut Ice?, 1 skein Folliage) of it's generic twin: Darice Mo' Hair. 130 yards.

4. Yes, that's Lion Fun Fur! (2 skeins Raspberry, 2 skeins Red, 2 skeins Violet, and lots of partials). "An easy-to-use novelty 'eyelash' yarn. Use for entire projects, for trim or combine with other yarns." 100% Polyester. Machine washable and dryable. Gauge: 16 stitches x 20 rows = 4 inches on size 10.5 needles. 64 yards.

3. More "novelty yarn."

Dessert by Darice in "Lime." 100% Polyester. 57 yards. Gauge: 13 stitches x 14 rows = 4 inches on size 7 needles.

Fringy by Darice in "Rainbow Mix." Eyelash. 100% Polyester. 55 yards. Gauge: 16 stitches x 20 rows = 4 inches on size 7 needles.

Flutter by Darice. 100% Polyester. 56 yards. Gauge: 18 stitches x 26 rows = 4 inches on 4mm needles.

2. Look at all that fun novelty yarn. It's every little girl's dream to have tacky hand-knit goodies that only these yarns could produce!

1. It would really humor me to know that someone was using and, hopefully, loving these poor yarns that I am deeming unworthy of moving. Yet, I'm still a little sad to part with them.

Anyway, I hope my destashing has brought a smile to your face. If it has also brought out a yearning for acrylic, polyester or "novelty," then please let me know via the comments or an e-mail (ehstoneATyahooDOTcom). I will contact you to get your mailing address. I will hold on to the yarn for a week or so and then it goes to the unsuspecting folks who are knitting for Warm Up America.

Hope you are all having a terrific Tuesday!