Knitting Zeal

Happy Independence day and night

Andrew celebrated his first Independence day decked out in a hand-me-down patriotic outfit.  The hat did not fit his big head, but we balanced it on him for a photo op.  He didn't really want to pose, though!  We spent the afternoon at my sister-in-law's house for a picnic and his grandma and great aunt got to gab with him.  He lasted longer than expected and enjoyed inspecting a new environment.  My SIL got word today that her adoption from Guatamala may be finalized in two months.  Andrew was happy to point out dangerous objects and locations around her home where child-proofing is needed!

Happy July 4th!

White rabbits

When I was in first grade, my teacher, Miss Barrell, used to have the class make a monthly calendar.  She taught us that on the first day of the month that we should say "white rabbits" on the first of every month for good luck that month.  Every month when I realize it is the first I say it, in my head, just in case.  Who couldn't use a little luck.  Turns out my teacher hadn't made up this little superstition--wikipedia has a listing for it!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_rabbit

growl

I was almost finished writing a really good post and then f-ing internet explorer went wacky and I lost it.  Growl.

It was about my new dryer, a sandbox, a car seat, and gardening.  I'm too tired to re-write it. 

We have a crawler!

Another Sunday night and I still have eight hundred things to do.  Since I got the bills paid, I will procrastinate laundry and blog a bit!

Friday afternoon Andrew was particularly cranky and I decided he needed an outing to either cheer him up, tire him out, or help him fall asleep.  My original plan was to just head over to Trader Joe's for pizza dough.  It was such a beautiful afternoon, that I decided to stop at this park on our way (ok, sort of out of the way, but close enough) and take a walk.  We had been here a few times this year to meet some other mommies and kids, but had only gone as far as the tot playground.  On Friday we headed over to the pond/lake.  On the walk there, I noticed a sign warning that there was a goose gathering technique involving pyrotechnics.  The Canada geese were everywhere, as were their droppings which are ridiculously messy.  I thought the sign was a bit odd, but thankfully I did see it, otherwise I would have probably screamed when the pyrotechnics were released and the geese went seeking cover in the lake.  It was like three loud firecrackers without the pretty colors.  I saw a park worker person with a gun-like device, setting off the booms.  Andrew was enjoying an afternoon bottle of milk on a park bench when the booming began.  It worked and the geese left land and went for a swim.  There had to be over a hundred of them.  Prior to the "fireworks" we saw a beautiful blue heron.  It was standing so still I though at first that it was a statue/decoration.  Once he heard our stroller, he took off.  There were also barn swallows nesting nearby and flying around.  A woman on a hike with her granddaughter explained barn swallows to me--apparently they eat all of the things humans hate, such as slugs, mosquitos, etc.  It was a nice walk and a great park.  (and of course I forgot my camera!)  Apparently one must be a township resident for entry and they actually check id's.  I live in a town that is half in the park's township and half not.  I live in the not half, however, a mom at the park told me that the guards only check on town names, not streets, so I haven't had a problem getting in.  I wish there was a park as nice as it near us, although we do have a cool one with a tot bike area, which Andrew will enjoy in a year or two.

Saturday night Chris and I went out for dinner without Andrew.  It was the first time out (except for one work event when Andrew was 8 weeks old, so it doesn't count) by ourselves.  We ended up going to the Cheesecake Factory and only had a 30 minute wait.  The restaurant had opened about a month before Andrew was born, but the wait to get in then was too long for a preggo to wait, so we never made it there.  It was fun and we almost didn't know what to talk about.  It's been a long time since I had a meal where I could actually eat slowly and not worry about someone not enjoying his high chair.  I had a slice of raspberry lemon cheesecake for dessert--yum!  We had our left over dinners for dinner tonight.  One meal could really seve two or three people there.  They should just bring take out boxes to the table at the beginning of the meal.

Andrew has been hard at work trying to learn to crawl.  At the end of last week he managed to crawl a foot or so when trying to get the phone--which he just wants to chew.  Today I managed to catch him on video crawling towards a toy and then later he did it for both Chris and I.  We are so in trouble now!  I have most of the house "baby-proofed" but now I need to finish.  I only have one baby gate and it is still in the box.  I need at least one or two more. 

Here is Andrew's eight month birthday photo.  I used this photo to enter him in a baby magazine cover contest.  He is lounging in one of his six bath robes.  (Yes, he got six of them as presents!  I was only able to return one of them because of no receipts!)

Here is another one of his bath robes along with his duck feet slippers that I bought for him on etsy. 

Time to get back to laundry.  Oh joy!  :-) 

random thoughts bouncing in my head...

Do you have an opinion on something?  I have been writing product reviews on Epinons for eight years.  There were a few years I wrote nothing, but since having a baby there seems to be lots of products around my house that need reviewing.  I started doing it way back when because it actually paid well--I was making about $25 a month or so.  Then, after the novelty wore off, the site stopped paying so much and I make pennies a month.  In fact, I do not even understand their current pay scale system, but I am still earning cents on reviews I wrote eight years ago.  Lately, as an incentive, if you write ten reviews in a month you earn an extra ten dollars, so this past week I cranked out ten reviews.  If you want to read them, feel free, as I'm sure you are dying to know what I think of my diaper pail.  I don't think you need to be a member of the site to read, but if you are a member (for free) you can rate the epinons on quality of reviews. 

The end of last week was my birthday and we celebrated with take out pizza from Bertucci's.  Boy does having a baby put a crimp in dining out.  Andrew sent me pretty flowers and a balloon and him and his daddy gave me a gift card to Sephora.  I haven't decided what to buy yet, and am looking forward to a shopping trip soon to the mall to spend my hot little gift card.

Andrew's cold seems to be just about gone, finally.  He was really getting sick of me sucking snot out of his nose with the super snot sucker.  He is trying his hardest to move and is really close to mastering crawling.  He has downward dog position going for him.  I'm not sure that it relaxes him, though, because he seems to want to make his little feet move forward instead of being stuck in place.  If I hold his hands, he walks across the room, but looks absolutely drunk.  He has no balance going for him yet.  It is amusing. 

We spent time with my family this weekend for birthday festivities.  My nephew cracks me up--he is so excited about his twin babies to be that he keeps kissing my sister's belly and talks to the babies.  It is adorable, if not annoying for my sister who doesn't always appreciate being disrobed by her three year old in public.  She looks great, and really tired!  Only ten or so weeks to go...hang in there!!  My niece is "graduating" from pre-school.  She is no longer a little girl!  This is evident from the long phone conversations we have about various things in her life.  She'll be asking for her own cell phone and blue tooth before she is six!  I wonder if there is a Dora the Explorer cell phone out there... :-)

Andrew and I started Christmas shopping today--yes, that is right, Christmas shopping.  I love Marshalls and have learned that if I see it once there, I'll never see it again, so I buy things when I can.  We got three gifts so far, although one of them may turn into a birthday gift.  Maybe if I finish it early this year I won't feel so overwhelmed.  That worked the Christmas before I had the baby, but last year was crazy and doesn't count.  Now if only I had a good place to store the gifts, since I used to use Andrew's room for all of that...hmmm. 

I have to go to bed.  Have fun!

Mother's Day

For Andrew's first Mother's Day he celebrated by taking me to brunch at Justin's in Skippack Village with our in-laws.  Andrew was not overly fond of the high chair there, so he spent most of the time being passed around and amusing his grandma and aunt Donna, while also making silly faces at uncle Lou.  He flirted with the waitress as well. 

Andrew, with the help of his daddy, got me a new Vera bag to hold all of our stuff on outings.  It is very roomy and will hold diapers, toys, and my crap as well! I also got a book about motherhood and a sweet DVD of Andrew and me since he was tiny to now.  He has grown so much! 

In knitting, I had a coupon for my favorite yarn shop for mother's day, so Andrew and I went shopping there.  I bought some yarn to knit him some new hats (a bigger pumpkin hat for this fall and an apple hat) and some cascade fixation to knit him some socks.  I wanted just plain blue, but they did not have any solid colors.  Andrew enjoyed chewing/teething on the ball of fixation, since it was wrapped in plastic.  The child has many toys but prefers plastic or paper to chew on instead.

I did knit a small chewing toy for Andrew the other night.  I used some leftover Colinette chenille yarn and basically knit three i-cords and connected them.  I was smart enough to soak it in some wool wash and discovered that the color bled.  I used a bit of vinegar in the final rinse to fix the color.

Happy Mother's Day!

Vote for me

Yesterday was the primaries in Pennsylvania, where I live.  It was all over the news for the past six weeks and it turned out to be a bit of an ugly fight by the end.  I thought it was rather unusual that Obama left the state before the results were even in.  Guess he really didn't believe he had a chance here.  Hillary won with a surprising (to me) ten point lead.  Andrew and I went to vote yesterday morning at our local HS.  He enjoyed participating in his civic duty.  Somehow we lucked out and did not receive a single campaign call.  Others I know received multiple calls daily.  I guess that do not call list really works!

I have not been knitting much lately.  Instead I have finished two novels in the past week. Lady Killer by Lisa Scottoline was a fun to read book, as it is set in Philadelphia and used many local references.  The Philly Inquirer--the newspaper--was plugged a few times in the book.  Funny, the author is also a columnist there.  I once had the opportunity to go to a book reading by Scottoline, but it interfered with my knitting group, so I skipped it.  :-)

I also read James Patterson's 7th Heaven.  It was one of those quick read mysteries.  Both books would be great beach reads.  Lately all I can handle are fast paced, quick reads.  I have been reading while waiting for Andrew to cry it out at night.  He goes through phases where he will go to sleep easily at night for about a week, then fight and cry for up to two hours.  Now he is in a phase where he discovered that he can flip himself over to sleep, but wakes up at 2:30 am to play.  Guess who doesn't feel like playing then??

We found a new park nearby and have been enjoying the fantastic weather of late and going for walks daily.  While my allergies are bothersome, this hasn't been too bad of a year so far. 

Yesterday was Earth Day.  I picked up a few more cloth shopping bags at Whole Foods.  They have the best sized ones there that also have a long enough handle that I can throw the bag over my shoulder.  For a buck, they can't be beat!  I was at another super market the other day buying some groceries and had brought my two cloth bags with me.  I really needed one more bag, so the bagger and cashier used plastic for the remainder of my order.  For a pack of chicken (sealed in plastic, not leaking), two cards, and a box of crackers, they used three plastic bags!  I didn't realize it until I got out of the store. No wonder I have so many plastic bags floating around my house.

Happy Earth Day from Andrew!

Friday, finally

TGIF?  Since leaving work, every day is the same since I don't have a weekend off anymore.  However, I still do love Fridays, there is just something different about them.  When I worked, I almost always only had to work half a day on Fridays, so it gave me a jump on the weekend. Now I don't get off early ever.  Hmmm, what is wrong with this picture??  LOL

Some favorites for today:

Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips:  they are becoming a favorite and more loved than Baked Lays.  I love the multi-grain texture!

Green Works cleaners:  bought some today and will have to see if they work well.  A tiny step to becoming more "green."

Sleep smiles and laughs:  Andrew still smiles while he sleeps and even has a hearty belly laugh at times.  It is so cute.  Last night he woke up at midnight and talked to his room for about 15 minutes before falling back to sleep.  I watched him on the monitor and let him go.  Thankfully he did fall back asleep!

Sitting up: Andrew is getting much better at this each day and only topples over sometimes.  He is enjoying sitting and playing with toys much more now!

The Jumperpoo--that's right, JumperPOO: because guess what he does when he is in it?  Fisher Price ought to market it as a homeopathic constipation remedy.  It works as well as the Exerpooper toy.

Spring Flowers:  we went to Produce Junction yesteday to buy some hyacinths and some baby dafodills.  I love spring bulbs!  We have tulips poking up all over the gardens and I am just hoping some of them make it and survive the squirrels and bunnies.

LOST:  it's getting weirder and much more interesting.  I'm disappointed that I have to wait over a month for new episodes, though!

It's egg dying time again.  I don't have any natural colored/undyed yarn in my stash, so I won't be dying any yarn this year, just eggs.  I did pick up an extra box of PAAS dye, though to maybe do some dyeing over the summer.  Easter egg dye is much brighter than kool aid dye, in my experience.  If you want to try it, wait until Monday morning and hit the half price sales.

Happy Spring!!

Friday favorites

• Andrew has been sporting a new hat this week.  Details here on Ravelry. He seems to like this one a lot!  It was a very easy and quick knit.  I enjoyed the K3P1 ribbing.  It made a nice stretchy fabric that should still fit next year.
• Story time at the library was fun this week.  Afterwards we borrowed a new book, Llama Llama, Mad at Mamma.  It is a great little rhyme that makes me laugh, even if it is over Andrew's head.
• Cupcakes!  I have been searching for some good cupcake recipes to make for Easter day.  I think I've settled on chocolate peanut butter and coconut ones. I bought this book a while ago, and am anxious to try it out.  The recipes make just 12 cupcakes, so there won't be too many leftovers.
• Giant Supermarket: a new market opened up in my neighborhood this week and is apparently the largest market in the area.  It is huge!  It looked all pretty and clean, with everything in perfect order.  There is a cafe there with a fireplace.  My knitting group is meeting there now, since we were sort of booted out of Barnes and Noble.  (Bad and mean book managers, they are!)
• Socks!  I started a new pair of socks this week using Socks that Rock yarn from a kit from last years club.  I didn't like the pattern that came with this yarn, so I am using the Monkey pattern from Knitty.  I haven't gotten far, but so far I am enjoying the pattern.
• In my quest to try a new recipe each week, I used Good Morning America's mac and cheese winning recipe yesterday.  It is not healthy at all, but was tasty! I made a few changes, but nothing significant.  If I make it again, I will be making a lower fat version!!  This one had way too much butter in it!

The baby is awake and kicking/screaming.  Happy weekend!

Friday Favorites

This week flew by fast!  I guess having Chris home on Monday helped make it seem shorter.  We always like having Daddy around to help entertain baby Andrew. 

Things I am into this week:

PomPoms!  I found this cool pom pom maker at AC Moore this week and used my 40% off coupon to buy it.  I recall seeing it on Julie's blog a while back and thought it would be fun.  I always loved making pom poms as a kid, but then I wrapped the yarn around my hand.  I was always trying to make the perfectly groomed pom pom.  So with my new tool, I whipped together 25 pom poms in pink and white and created the pom pom boa from One Skein.  This will be gifted to a certain little girl who is turning five soon. 

Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep:  This is such a cute book about how yarn is made.  I read it to Andrew last night, although he is clueless.  I am surprised to see it is unavailable on Amazon!

Oatmeal:  I've been on an oatmeal kick lately.  I love the homemade kind with lots of raisins and brown sugar.  It takes too long to make most days with an inpatient infant, so the instant kind works too.  I just found a new type at Wegmans: Quaker Simple Harvest.  It has much more texture to it than the regular mushy instant.  If you click the link, there is a place to request a sample. 

Kraft Food and Family Magazine:  It is really a big ad for their products, but this free quarterly magazine has some great easy recipes.  Tonight we are having slow cooker BBQ and orange pulled pork.  Hopefully it will be tasty, even if I didn't use their brand of BBQ sauce!

Slow Cooker plastic liners: My friend Teresa turned me on to these and what a time saver they are!  They really make clean up easy, especially with sticky sauces.

I am almost finished Andrew's Baby Surprise Jacket.  I have about three rows left.  I need to find good buttons for it.  I found some leather covered ones that I loved, but they cannot be washed easily, which sort of puts a damper on my goal of having a simple, easy to care for, baby sweater.  The search will continue!  

Happy Friday!