A visit with Auntie Jody

We went out yesterday!  For the first time in the car together all by ourselves without Daddy.  Miss Wiggles was fine, Mommy was nervous ;-).  This is a picture from our visit with Auntie Jody.  It was a really nice time out.  And now we’re officially mobile!  That is, until we go down to just one vehicle…..

She smiles...and she's beautiful..

Here's a picture from almost a week ago.  After she hit 4 weeks I started wondering if once in a while that little smile was real....but the DAY she hit 5 weeks it seemed like she exploded into smiles and we knew for sure that they were real.  This is a picture from 5 weeks old. 

A real smile!

 

 

She's Here!

She's here! She's finally here!

Actually she's been here for almost 6 weeks..but things started out pretty rough...so here's my first update!

I thought I'd attempt to post a daily (OK..maybe weekly) picture of Baby R (we didn't want to post her full name online) for friends and family to see how she's growing...
Hopefully later I'll come back and fill in the missing time gap...and some birthday pictures...but for right now..I consider this post a huge accomplishment! Hahaha!

So..here she is this morning hanging out in her bouncy chair by the window...all those toys and she usually prefers to just look at the blinds when the sun is out because they're all nice and bright I guess.

Our little sweetie with sleepy eyes

What's she waiting for...

Hmmm, could it be that she's waiting for her room to be finished? Here are a few pics in case you're interested...
Her chandelier is up..although..there is something funky looking with the top of it, and we're procrastinating on fixing it...
The round mirror and little bubble mirrors on the side are hung up under her shelf, which has some of her gifts on it and a few pretty decorations...like the pom pom flowers that Christa made for her baby shower...
Clothes are hung up in the closet...this stressed me out...deciding how to organize things by size and item type...what to keep in the dresser vs. what to keep in the closet....etc etc... this really shouldn't be stressful...but seriously...Diapers are prepped and ready to take care of business, cloth wipes are made, hand sanitizer is in place...Curtains are hung, chair is in place, bookshelf with some books, some toys, some "other stuff"..there are more baskets for the shelf...but they're currently being "borrowed" for other baby supplies...Awww...the crib area...this could be what she's holding out for....there are projects underfoot...but...they've been shoved to the backburner.... my embroidery hood wall art is not yet finished.....Three done.... 6 more to go...they really don't take long...don't know why I'm putting this off...oh right...my new friend the sewing machine has been demanding all my time ;-)Oh...and the wall flowers have to go up too...I'm not putting them up until everything else is in place...because I'm not sure if they'll be too much... hmmmm... so they're on hold as wellMini rant with nothing to do with the rest of my post:
I have no idea why this picture turned when it got uploaded....some of the others did too and I just had to delete them are redo it...the settings are the same...it's just annoying...actually I find blogger annoying in regards to picture handling in general....it's actually a really big reason that I don't blog more. Uploading pictures is one thing...but handling them on here is a royal pain... just try reorganizing them inside such a tiny editing window...arrrggh! I hates it! So...I was wondering about switching my blog to somewhere else....somewhere that is picture friendly...but still free (free is big with me...that's why I've never considered switching before) but seriously... I'd love to use something that I enjoyed using...rather than something that seems like a chore. Any suggestions?? Or..am I just using blogger all wrong?!?

Waiting for baby

Wednesday June 2nd....Happy Due Date Picture!
Hmmmm, Do babies know how us adults are consumed with schedules and timing....Well, since I'm sure she'll be late...I'd better keep busy. My sweetums bought me a new sewing machine the day before my due date... and I FINALLY finished this simple little baby quilt for our niece, that was started about a year ago.... let's not start talking about the one for my other niece that I started about 10 years ago.... hmmm....maybe that's in the future too. Right now...I'm delighted that little blondie will finally get her blankie.Sweetums and I have been going for nice long walks along the path. We are so lucky with our location. Just pop out the back fence and we're next to the path that runs along the river (well...it's not really a river if you ask me). The path system runs all through the city...we could actually get mostly all the way across the city on the path.It's a little dark to take pictures in this area...but it's so pretty and woodsy...it's my favourite part, the trees cover overhead and you're in a little tree tunnel.... so nice.Then you pop out the other side and you're right next to the river at this little beach like area (no...no swimming...ack...ick...ewww)....there is a family of ducks living there now....lot's o babies!Just have to have a together picture while waiting for baby...and this is the only way to do it!So, I have been keeping busy...lanolinizing some soakers.... Making thank you cards for all the wonderful gifts people have given to our little girl. And even doing a bit of scrapbooking thanks to the new book I got "Cherish" seriously, if you struggle with scrapbooking...you've got to check these out...they have saved me....I've actually finished pages...FINISHED them!Awww, my new friend.... hello friend...I love you....you rock....you are computerized...and you always stop with the needle in the down position which is fantastic for pivoting....you're easy to thread....even easier on the bobbin winding...and you're smart!.....yes....I love you.....but not as much as I love my sweet husband who is so good to me :-)Goodbye old buddy....you suck....but it's not your fault...you've not had a good service in 10 years...and your manual says you were manufactured in 1968. I'm sure with a service you'd serve someone well...but.... I've decided it's time for you to go...With the help of my new friend, I've made this.... it looks soooo much better in the living room than a regular pillow! I want more...it even has a zipper! My new machine has a zipper foot...and explained how to use it!Annnd....I found a pattern online for these.... I love them...the brown one was my "tester"...the red flowered one is a "good one" depending on how late baby is...I was hoping to make these as thank you gifts for my birth team peeps.... we'll see....depends on when she shows up :-)An outdoor pic of my "good one" you can see my neglected gardens in the background...the snowpeas are starting to flower...the spinach and lettuce and onions are doing well.... thanks to the squarefoot gardening method it's pretty much taking care of itself (oh..and we've had tonnes of rain).... it really does need some weeding though,.....Oh..and I bathed a puppy today....just one...the other will have to wait...since after bathing Myah my back was killing me...it's ok...poor Myah has the traditional Yorkie coat and she gets stinkier....like a person who doesn't wash her hair...and her face starts to smell like the beach in the spring when the dead fish wash up on it (or was that just Lake Ontario when I was a kid)....Mindy just doesn't get smelly ...she gets knotted..and matted...but...not stinky....
Here's the dogs ignoring my pleas for them to sit nicely for a picture.

FYI

I haven't posted in ...well...forever!

...but...this is not a post by me...but by a friend that I feel strongly about... So, this one if for the ladies (I'm pretty sure it's only ladies that read my blog anyways...that is when I actually post :-)

Go here, read....and there is also a link at the bottom for this article ...so read this too

Yep... believe it...it's all true.

GIRL!!!

I was so excited I forgot to post ;-) We're having a baby girl

And she has a mighty nice spine
And lovely feet...tee hee

Preggo peppers

I made Fajita's for dinner the other night, I usually make them with one red and one greed pepper, well...check it out...my pepper was preggo too!

Just look at that cute little baby pepper on the inside. Actually the pepper wasn't very good....maybe because of the pregnantness..who knows....hmmm do you think I paid more for this pepper because it weighed more.... hmmmm peppers gain weight when pregnant too I bet.


Here's an igloo shot of Miss Wiggles (that means baby in preggo belly) at 23 weeks
And this is me saying "Look, I still have a waist...honest..it's right here...look"

Boy or Girl? That is the question.

I'm so excited....and the excitement is getting the best of me. We're scheduled for an ultrasound on Wednesday, and I just can't wait! I hope I hope I hope they can tell if we're having a boy or a girl....and I hope I hope I hope they'll tell us at the appointment!
I've got my knitting lists for boy or girl...and lot's of yarn on standby.....

Merry Christmas!

Harold and I had great fun filling our stockings at dollarama this year. The puppies got stockings too, check out the little paw prints from Auntie El. They are so cute! The were hung up above the fireplace but we moved them down for the picture and so the roo roos could have a sniff and play with their new toys.


Dollarama just happened to have puppy Santa outfits! These stayed on for about two minutes!Mindy Moo is really not a fan of wearing anything...so we just took her solo picture with the coat draped over her...hahaha....she looks so happy don't you think!Myah is a gentle girl...and always willing to sit for some attention and a photo shoot :-) She probably would have left her coat on... but they're actually a size too big...that's what you get for $1.25...I wasn't being picky! And a side view of Miss MyahMyah and Mindy say "Merry Christmas" and we all hope you had a very merry day :-)

Baby it's cold outside!

I'm not sure why I can't make my text normal and not underlined...grrrrr

¨Did this work...nope
how about this....still nope....I don't know why there isn't an underline toggle button up top on blogger...this has happened to me before...very irritating...
I'll change the font...nope...bold.....hmmm bold AND underlined....

Oh well, underlined it is

OK...so I searched help..and apparently I have to edit the html code...sheesh...like I'm qualified...how the heck did this happen in the first place!?!?!?!

Ok, so hopefully this will work...you can laugh at my mad computer skills later. Aha! It looks like I fixed some of it.... back to my irregularly scheduled blog post.



I was looking around on Ravelry for some simple but cool hat patterns in bulky or worsted weight wool for my Auntie El, and I came across this pattern Twisted (rav link...it doesn't come up in the search for some reason). Not simple...definitely not something I would suggest for someone just learning to knit,..but I had to have it. Harold always mentions how I don't have a hat, but I've knit him two. So I figured...it's bulky weight, it's small, it shouldn't take too long, and I casted on.
Here's my new hat. I love it!




I threw in a belly picture for those who are wondering how chubby I'm getting. 15 weeks and 1 day

So, for about the last three months I've been freezing cold...then over the past two days I've become seriously HOT!!! hot hot hot!
I expected the hot...I never expected the cold.... I gotta say...the cold was easier to deal with...hahaha....
I don't care....I'm just so happy to be pregnant!

I got my first order of diapers in the mail today!!!


I got 4 packs (so 24 total) newborn sized prefold diapers
3 newborn size super brite covers (the little white ones)
3 small size super brite covers (yellow, green, blue)
1 medium size super brite cover (blue)
3 snappi fasteners

I was so excited about the diapers that I forgot that I need some special laundry soap for cloth diapers..... I guess the regular stuff can leave residue or something.

I can't wait to start knitting woolie covers :-) I hope I get some knitting mojo...because I have a whole lot of knitting to do.... (and a pretty big stash of yarn...all except the right wool for diaper covers of course...tee hee)

Woo hoo baby!

Well, it seems I've been away for a very long time. Truth is 3 days after my last post I found out I was pregnant on my hubby's birthday. He said it was the best birthday present he'd ever received! ...but I also then sort of hibernated for the next 3 months just willing it to go by quickly.
We've had some struggles along the way, and so it's been a scary ride so far, but everything looks great now. I'm at that point of "OK to tell" woo hoo.
Here's a picture of our perfect little one. I'm so curious to know if we're having a he or a she!
I'm so crazy. I've already started researching cloth diapers like made and even placed an order for some a week ago...they should arrive on Wednesday and I'm so impatient that I want them now!!!! Even though we won't need them until late May or early June.
So, I've got a couple of projects that I must finish before I can start knitting baby things....and it's driving me crazy..haha...but it's great motivation to actually complete things! Then I'm going to try to make some diaper cover soaker thingies...I've never made any before, so I hope I can do it...then there are blankets and sweaters and baby socks and hats and etc etc etc....tee hee My ravelry queue is going to be ridiculous!

One warm puppy

I finally knit something. It's one of the fastest projects ever...but it still took me forever to knit. I find since we got the puppies there has not been much time for anything else. I do very little knitting, not much stamping, ha...not much laundry or housecleaning either (unless you count cleaning up after puppies).
So, I made sweet Mindy a coat for winter...she hates it! yes...hates it...not much thanks there, but I imagine when she's freezing her little heiny off outside this winter she'll like it a lot more :-)

Poor Myah probably won't get a coat like this. The pattern was nice enough, clear and easy to knit, quick even, but I'm just not very good at repeating patterns. Even making mittens is a struggle for me because I'm so bored by the end of anything. No matter what it is...I'm bored and uninterested by the time I'm 1/2 done. With the exception of the Cross Country Chullo I knit a couple of winters ago. That thing had me humming the whole way...I was shocked...then again, I was listening to Twilight the whole time I knit it, and I spend about 4 hours in a chair everynight doing nothing but listening and knitting. I don't think the puppies would let me do that!

Anyways...I suppose I'd better find another pattern to make for Myah...but I think I'll wait awhile...I'm done with puppy coats for a while....see....as I write this...I'm not even actually done..I have one leg opening to pick up stitches on and knit a garter stitch border, and then ends to weave in...but I'm writing this post anyways as if I'm already finished (so bored...ha!)

Anyways, I've given myself permission to not worry about it when I don't blog for months....I've come to terms with being a periodic blogger....I probably always will be....why stress about it. I think about blogging quite a bit..but just never seem to get around to writing the posts...
I'm still reading though...and love to see what everyone else is up to :-)

Oh My Puppies!

We got puppies! I can't believe it, after years of wanting a puppy Harold actually agreed. So we went puppy shopping...and guess what we came home with. Not just one puppy but two puppies! Harold the big softy just couldn't leave one of these little girls behind.

This first picture is Mindy. She's a quiet girl, so very sweet, and a bit timid.
This is Myah, she is a firecracker....nuff said!
Well, I have much more to update you on....mostly puppy stuff...but right now...I've got to go help hubby set up our new tent in the back yard to check it out!

It's been a pretty good...tiring but good...day :-)

Glad to read you had a great time Jennifer :-) We'll chat soon! I was so glad to see you posted...I had to write one myself ;p

Debbie

Walk for MS

Every year a number of people in my family to the Walk for Multiple Sclerosis. A number of people in my family HAVE multiple sclerosis (MS). When I was in grad school my project was related to MS.
This year my 11 year old niece Brooklynn is going to do the walk for the first time with my sister Kim.

If anyone would like to sponsor Brooklynn and Kim here is a link to their sponsor page.

Every little bit counts and I know how much it would encourage them to be able to raise a little bit more money than they expected. (Plus, I made my sister...who's not all that "into" computers go onto the website and figure out how to set herself up so I could sponsor her online.... I think she had trouble...so ummmm please...help me reward her a little bit... LOL)

My sweetums got me flowers!

My sweetums brought home daffodils for me the other day. I managed to snap a picture (or 20 :-)
He's brought me flowers once before...and I was so darned shocked I forgot to take a picture...I've been pretty sad about that ever since....I'm not much for drying flowers, I don't like how the end up dying twice, once in the vase because I dry them, then again because they get so covered in dust that you eventually have to toss them anyways....I prefer to just enjoy them fully while they're here, and completely beautiful...I like to take a picture, because to me drying just doesn't keep all the beauty....but then again...I'm a weird one sometimes so maybe that's just me.

I finally have a finished object to show. I've been floating around between multiple WIPs one of them is even crochet! Gasp! I know...I haven't felt like crocheting in years...but now I'm crocheting a wee bit, and even taught a friend who I thought might take to that better than knitting....she did...and now she is totally excited about amigurumi! Excellent!
It's this little guy that I finished up. He's been knit for a couple of months, it was just the sewing that I had to finish, honestly it took about 20 minutes this morning...how lazy am I!
He's cute though, I'm happy with him. The pattern is available on Ravelry it's called "Flower Power Elephants" I too lazy to link it....but I'm sure you'll find it in a search. It's well written IMO and simple to follow, quick to knit, but a little fiddly.... This guy is pretty tiny (which I wanted) 7 1/2 inched from snout to rump and about 3 1/2 inches tall.
This little guy needs a name, he's currently just called "neon elephant for baby Jared"Jared is the 4 month old baby boy of a friend of mine who I hold dear to my heart (both parents and baby Jared)..hmmmm should that have been "whom I hold" great....I don't even have a good grasp on my own native language...what can ya do!